RemoWilliams
Warlord
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2006
- Messages
- 183
Version 0.9
History will be kept after this revision
0.91
Added World War to Starting the Game
0.92
Added update to Summary
---------------------------------------------
Hi, and welcome to my first strategy guide! This guide is to help you intrepid space travellers pass me on the road (errr... space superhighway?) to Alpha Centauri. I'm going to explain my method for getting the space ship as fast as possible, for glory in the Hall of Fame.
Many players see space as their fall-back option, or as the easiest win condition when all else fails. This guide is not for you. We want an excellent space win, before 1800, on Noble difficulty.
I've had the urge to write this guide for a long time now, but when patch 1.61 came out, it ruined everything. Because of 1.61, this guide is bound to be controversial. I've finally learned to abandon hope of using my old tricks, and learned to enjoy the greater challenge I face. I think you will too. It was too easy to get the ship out before 1700 in 1.52. Here's what changed:
Your tree chopping axes are made of nerf
Not only do you get less hammers for chopping now, it takes you longer to do it! We're going to clear-cut the forests, eventually, but now we can take our sweet time to do it. So be it, this strategy was overpowered and overused before.
The Hall of Fame requires more AI opponents now
More opponents + less chainsaws = less land = war is not optional. Peaceful building was a phrase you'd often hear in conjunction with the space race before 1.61. Post patch, it is my contention that you must war with the AI in the beginning to get enough cities to win a fast race. They just expand too fast for any other strategy to work. I've never been able to diplomatically convince an AI to give me some of his/her cities. I feel foolish for trying. If anyone here can tell me how I can get 9-10 cities out on standard map size (that's where the competition in the HoF is) without going to war, I am all ears, baby.
So, let's get started.
Difficulty: Noble
Win Conditions: All enabled
New Random Seed... Off
Game Speed Marathon
Why? Because early war is a lot easier, and we'll be able to take over a civ entirely before 1AD. The guys at Firaxis have better balanced the game speeds now, so if it weren't for the early war, whatever game speed you prefer would probably be okay.
Map Size Standard
This guide works fine for other map sizes, but as I mentioned earlier, for now all the competition is at standard map size, so that's what I play. I want you to play it too, because so far the competition is kinda weak. POrtiz has a 1590 win on patch 1.52. I'd like to see him pull that off in 1.61. Yes, P, if you're reading, that IS a challenge.
Barbarians: None
Look, the Hall of Fame allows us to play without these annoying little buggers. So we're going to! Okay?
Map Type: Continents
Continents stands out in my mind as the best map-type for our purposes.
For one, we don't want to make everyone angry when we kill their friend. The AI is friends with whoever you attack, it seems like. This is minor, because warring on a friend is only a -1 penalty, but it is a factor. This strategy depends on no one attacking you, because your defenses are going to be very minimal.
Which brings us to point number two: the farther away the other civs are, the less likely they are to attack you. In fact, this is going to come up later in the guide.
Point three: you can adopt the dominant religion on your continent without worrying about making the other civs angry, because they haven't met you yet, and by the time they do, you'll be able to switch to free religion.
Pick your Civ
We have two options here. We can be risky and pick a civ that was good at the space race in 1.52, like Ghandi, Catherine, Lizzie, or the all time King, Qin. Or, we can go the safe route and pick Julius, because we just know that we will dominate whoever is unfortunate enough to be around when we get our Praetorians.
There are many threads out there about axe-rushing to early war, I won't waste your time repeating them here. Suffice it to say, if you go with Qin, you'd better get those axes out fast, and when you're done you'll need to chop some settlers because the AI won't have time to build as many juicy cities for you to steal. However, I am quite sure this strategy will still work with that method, it will just be a little harder.
Caesar's unique unit, the praetorian, is nearly guaranteed success when it comes to early conquest, and so I'm going to focus on him. Plus, I'm pretty sure someone's gonna come along and whup me (us?) with Qin sooner or later, so we'll have a challenge when that happens.
Pick your opponents
Yes, it's a big hunka burnin' cheese, but once again, the HoF rules allow it, so it's best to take advantage of it.
We don't want any industrious AIs, especially if we're gonna play Caesar. They have too much of an advantage over us for getting those early wonders out. Other than that, I don't much care for Monty or Toku, although as long as they're not on your continent they can actually be a help to you.
Now, I know what you're about to say... "Well, as long as I'm picking my opponents, I can dump Izzie and Cathy like the worthless little religion founding, theocracy switching, blaming you for not having Buddhism PMS harlots they are. Not so fast, bucko. At least put in one of them, because they both like to found early religions, which makes them a good target if they're on your continent, or a convenient scapegoat if they're on the other side of the world. Either way, you will finally get your revenge, I Promise You.
History will be kept after this revision
0.91
Added World War to Starting the Game
0.92
Added update to Summary
---------------------------------------------
Hi, and welcome to my first strategy guide! This guide is to help you intrepid space travellers pass me on the road (errr... space superhighway?) to Alpha Centauri. I'm going to explain my method for getting the space ship as fast as possible, for glory in the Hall of Fame.
Many players see space as their fall-back option, or as the easiest win condition when all else fails. This guide is not for you. We want an excellent space win, before 1800, on Noble difficulty.
I've had the urge to write this guide for a long time now, but when patch 1.61 came out, it ruined everything. Because of 1.61, this guide is bound to be controversial. I've finally learned to abandon hope of using my old tricks, and learned to enjoy the greater challenge I face. I think you will too. It was too easy to get the ship out before 1700 in 1.52. Here's what changed:
Your tree chopping axes are made of nerf
Not only do you get less hammers for chopping now, it takes you longer to do it! We're going to clear-cut the forests, eventually, but now we can take our sweet time to do it. So be it, this strategy was overpowered and overused before.
The Hall of Fame requires more AI opponents now
More opponents + less chainsaws = less land = war is not optional. Peaceful building was a phrase you'd often hear in conjunction with the space race before 1.61. Post patch, it is my contention that you must war with the AI in the beginning to get enough cities to win a fast race. They just expand too fast for any other strategy to work. I've never been able to diplomatically convince an AI to give me some of his/her cities. I feel foolish for trying. If anyone here can tell me how I can get 9-10 cities out on standard map size (that's where the competition in the HoF is) without going to war, I am all ears, baby.
So, let's get started.
Difficulty: Noble
Win Conditions: All enabled
New Random Seed... Off
Game Speed Marathon
Why? Because early war is a lot easier, and we'll be able to take over a civ entirely before 1AD. The guys at Firaxis have better balanced the game speeds now, so if it weren't for the early war, whatever game speed you prefer would probably be okay.
Map Size Standard
This guide works fine for other map sizes, but as I mentioned earlier, for now all the competition is at standard map size, so that's what I play. I want you to play it too, because so far the competition is kinda weak. POrtiz has a 1590 win on patch 1.52. I'd like to see him pull that off in 1.61. Yes, P, if you're reading, that IS a challenge.
Barbarians: None
Look, the Hall of Fame allows us to play without these annoying little buggers. So we're going to! Okay?
Map Type: Continents
Continents stands out in my mind as the best map-type for our purposes.
For one, we don't want to make everyone angry when we kill their friend. The AI is friends with whoever you attack, it seems like. This is minor, because warring on a friend is only a -1 penalty, but it is a factor. This strategy depends on no one attacking you, because your defenses are going to be very minimal.
Which brings us to point number two: the farther away the other civs are, the less likely they are to attack you. In fact, this is going to come up later in the guide.
Point three: you can adopt the dominant religion on your continent without worrying about making the other civs angry, because they haven't met you yet, and by the time they do, you'll be able to switch to free religion.
Pick your Civ
We have two options here. We can be risky and pick a civ that was good at the space race in 1.52, like Ghandi, Catherine, Lizzie, or the all time King, Qin. Or, we can go the safe route and pick Julius, because we just know that we will dominate whoever is unfortunate enough to be around when we get our Praetorians.
There are many threads out there about axe-rushing to early war, I won't waste your time repeating them here. Suffice it to say, if you go with Qin, you'd better get those axes out fast, and when you're done you'll need to chop some settlers because the AI won't have time to build as many juicy cities for you to steal. However, I am quite sure this strategy will still work with that method, it will just be a little harder.
Caesar's unique unit, the praetorian, is nearly guaranteed success when it comes to early conquest, and so I'm going to focus on him. Plus, I'm pretty sure someone's gonna come along and whup me (us?) with Qin sooner or later, so we'll have a challenge when that happens.
Pick your opponents
Yes, it's a big hunka burnin' cheese, but once again, the HoF rules allow it, so it's best to take advantage of it.
We don't want any industrious AIs, especially if we're gonna play Caesar. They have too much of an advantage over us for getting those early wonders out. Other than that, I don't much care for Monty or Toku, although as long as they're not on your continent they can actually be a help to you.
Now, I know what you're about to say... "Well, as long as I'm picking my opponents, I can dump Izzie and Cathy like the worthless little religion founding, theocracy switching, blaming you for not having Buddhism PMS harlots they are. Not so fast, bucko. At least put in one of them, because they both like to found early religions, which makes them a good target if they're on your continent, or a convenient scapegoat if they're on the other side of the world. Either way, you will finally get your revenge, I Promise You.