Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter XLI : Peter

[Earthling]

Well, I for one didn't have a lot of folks to talk to with similar settings on my write-up this time. But I agree LHC seems to have a new game very often - after all, rolo's been through a ton of leaders. Anyway I have a post that's not quite at the end of the game here though - I've got a bunch of clicking end turn ahead tomorrow.

Summary/Screenshots

Spoiler :

Short Version:

The plan for cultural victory is going to work out well enough, despite some minor mistakes. (didn't get SoL because every AI seemed to beeline Democracy...later on I went about 5 turns with workers asleep before I realized I had traded for railroad!). The general story on the AI side is continued warring and vassalization - each island has been united (and I'm all on my lonesome). I honestly don't think any AI is even close to victory but I have to keep an eye out on Rams culture - he didn't lose major cities to Charly and in fact his cap hit legendary a long time ago (with 11 wonders now I think, he got the SoL). I'm making ~600 culture a turn in major cities, will have 4-6 more artists, got Sushi/Creative/Jewels, and the AI are just around rocketry so space is not a concern.

The story in Screenshots:

Renaissance Tech saw me heading straight for Democracy. Here's the tech screen

Despite having the lead into both Constitution and Democracy, the AI all went for those techs right after me. I didn't have gold reserves to rush the Statue of Liberty and failed to get it - I was quite angry at Rams for that one. I also lost the communism spy (would have been a golden age) to Justinian by one turn.

The civics I adopted and have kept since are US, Free Market, Caste (plenty of happy for cultural vic - no stupid emancipation here), Free Religion and Speech (obvious). For a while in the Renaissance era I was worried about diplo, especially Charly - here I gave into an evil demand (but was gonna trade lib around soon anyway)

Scientific Method revealed oil all over the place, both on land and at sea... not really important in my game though

While I missed the SoL, I made sure to pay rush the Kremlin - the first and only world wonder I got this game I mean really, we are the Russians...It's been useful ever since on finishing up temples/cathedrals and other stuff.

I was Earthling the Fine in land area

After Bio > Medicine I founded the world's first corporation, Sid's Sushi. Along with spreading the religions of buddhism, taoism, confucianism, and judaism I have the pieces for cultural victory in place.

I traded electricty/radio around for other stuff - picked up assembly, artillery and more than enough goodies to ensure that war will never bother me. Here's where I realized I already had railroad and had to wake up my workers

A little later I fill out with decent techs. Unfortunately Churchill went straight down the line for Broadway, Rock, UN so I didn't get these modern wonders. UN won't be a problem of course - the AI are different religion and hate each other. Most are at pleased with me now though from open borders, resources, etc...

At least while I'm sitting around for the victory now I have one more thing to do - I got a corporate expansion quest with one of the newer ones. I'd saved an artist for jewelers but was very lucky to get the engineer (30% or so odds from just one specialist that had been there like 100 turns, along with an artist+Maoi points) for Creative Constructions.

And in the latest historical work I'm back to Earthling the Hopeless

Here's the pre-final shots - when I've basically committed to my victory condition. I'll have an endgame write up tomorrow hopefully

Spoiler :

No more teching for me

Diplo Situation (little earlier, Ram vassalized now)

Overview (cities are still picking up cathedrals + the last two corps)

For the curious:

Forbidden Palace has been at the far Western city, Vladivostok, a while now. Hermitage is at Novgorod (2nd culture city). Maoi is at St. Petersburg, along with Kremlin - it also got NE cause it supports the most specialists all said it done. I payrushed National Park at the oil city Smolensk (all of two tundra forests) just for the heck of it. Wall Street/Oxford are both at Yekaterinburg, my third culture city and corporation seat. (it's very close to the cap overall - trade routes gave it more raw commerce). Never got the HE (don't have an experienced unit

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Checkpoints 1-4 in a YOUTUBE Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WFaGaOxf2Y&feature=PlayList&p=CE91D8E8D693BED6&index=0&playnext=1

Obviously they're spoilers.

19 segments.

Edit: Parts 1-7 are ok for checkpoint 1. I start meeting AIs in part 8. Checkpoint III comes after meeting all AIs, and IV comes when I feel like ending the video.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, I can assure that the first segment of 10 minutes does not pass checkpoint 1 So if you passed that there is no problem

 

[sophie]

Checkpoint 3, to 1700 AD.

Spoiler :

Alright, I've been chugging away on my little island, and now I have a definitive tech lead, and I have decided to shoot for my first space victory ever! (I changed my mind from Conquest after a botched invasion of Ramesses, so reloaded.)

So here's a run-down of what happened:

1320 AD: Education finished, start Liberalism

1375 AD: Liberalism done (first), took astronomy as free tech, start Printing Press in a Democracy beeline.

1420 AD: PP done, start Nationalism

1445 AD: Nationalism done, start Constitution.

1485 AD: Constitution done, start Democracy

1535 AD: Democracy done, start Gunpowder, shooting for Railroad

1550 AD Gunpowder done, start chemistry

1560 AD: I got a GE which I burned for the Taj Mahal in Moscow

1580 AD: Chemistry done, start Banking

1590 AD: Banking done, start Replacable Parts

1605 AD: Replacable Parts done, start Steam Power.

1640 AD: Moscow popped a Great Spy which I burned for another GA.

1645 AD: Finished Steam Power, Start Steel

1675 AD: Finished steel, start Railroad.

1700 AD: Finish round.

That's about as far as I got, once I get through there, I'm shooting down the rocketry path to start picking up my SS parts. I also really need to build more military. Mehmed is WHEOORN, and, although he doesn't have Astronomy, it is really scary. Right now I am dominating in the tech field. Assuming there are no invasions, I should breeze through to an easy Space win.

 

[Lansky]

Ai -

Spoiler :

Normalized score was 63,411. Prior to normalization it was 9,699. Done in 1952

From your screenshots:
Normalized score was 45,390. Prior to normalization it was 6,683. Done in 1943.

The relative weights are fairly similar it seems. My score was bumped by a factor of roughly 6.5 while yours was bumped by a factor of roughly 6.8. Seems about right relatively as you won a few turns earlier. At least this is how I've always assumed the scoring worked - that is take the final score and "normalize" it by some predetermined number depending on the year/turn the game ended.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ai -

Spoiler :

Normalized score was 63,411. Prior to normalization it was 9,699. Done in 1952

From your screenshots:
Normalized score was 45,390. Prior to normalization it was 6,683. Done in 1943.

The relative weights are fairly similar it seems. My score was bumped by a factor of roughly 6.5 while yours was bumped by a factor of roughly 6.8. Seems about right relatively as you won a few turns earlier. At least this is how I've always assumed the scoring worked - that is take the final score and "normalize" it by some predetermined number depending on the year/turn the game ended.

Spoiler :

It normalizes based on difficulty too. We were all emperor so that should be constant. I finished sooner for about 90k .

 

[Earthling]

@ above

Spoiler :

Jealous of those scores - cultural vic deprives you of the land/pop/tech. Mine went from about 3,200 to 47k though I think

Deity/Normal to finish - 1896 cultural victory - spoilers broken into two chunks of screenshots.

Spoiler :

Really nothing to exciting gameplay-wise, a bunch of ending turn, building wealth at the end to bump up the slider. UN was pesky, I twice defied emancipation but only a couple cities at the end still felt it (building broadcast towers anyway). All in all emancipation was like 19 unhappiness though. Churchill was actually getting space techs very, very fast (guess I'm also used to playing epic) so if I'd gone for that I might have had to work. Also I find it funny that I never explored the interior of his continent - indeed, I don't think Churchill got to pleased with anyone of the outside world, so no one got his world map

I complete that corp quest...the reward is really worthless though if you're not doing it anyway (a lot of quests are quite lame imo)

Last great work puts me as Earthling the Fine...not bad

My last great person was actually a spy...cost about 4 turns on the vic for Moscow. I don't even know what the chance was - I think the only spy points were the Kremlin!

Here's the victory screen right before victory - notice Thebes is almost double legendary

And an 1896 Finish

Here are endgame city and demo screens

Spoiler :

Cultural cities (I was in golden age at end so everything looks really pretty )

Artist farms

Demo and final score

Good game all

 

[dalamb]

Pre-game thoughts.
Checkpoint 1: 4000 - 2240 BC (with dotmap)

Checkpoint 1a: 1170 AD. I haven't met all the AIs yet but I've accomplished a lot and reached what seems to me to be a good place to pause and take stock.

Spoiler :

I setted my first two cities as planned:

• St Petersburg (cyan), NW of Moscow to get 2 seafood and sheep, which became my GP farm and has been producing lots of Great Scientists. The first went to an Academy in St. Pete's, which I knew would be getting high beakers from running as many scientists as possible. I intended to use a second to build an academy in Moscow, post-Bureaucracy, but forgot until writing this note. Another went to (most of) Education and I think another to Liberalism. At this point I need to research several cheap techs before I get to another that it's worth burning a GS on.
• Novogorod (yellow), on the coast by the stone, which built the Colossos and has become a production city.

I wound up following helemaalnicks's advice and moving the white city SE to the coast, to leave room for an iron-working city to the northwest, which needed the sheep.

Spoiler current map :

I've built the Pyramids and Hanging Gardens in Moscow, and the Great Library and National Epic in St. Petersburg. I used a GE to rush the University of Sankore in St. Petersburg, also. I bulbed Liberalism with a GS but am postponing it until I get Machinery (4 turns) so I can take Printing Press as my free technology.

I am currently running Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste System, Decentralization, and Pacifism (the latter to generate as many GPP as possible). St. Petersburg is running 5 scientists plus the 2 free from the Great Library.

After Machinery I may research Optics and send caravels to find the AIs, but I have an idea it might be better to tech Gunpowder and build some defensive muskets before they find out how weak I am.

Some people talked about having city expansion pop a hut; does that do better or worse than using a scout?

 

[Sleepless]

If you let the city pop the hut you get the same results as from a scout except you cannot get experience so slightly more chance of getting a tech.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Nice game Earthling...

Spoiler :

corp culture output is insane... when did you stop teching?

Cheers

 

[Earthling]

Raskolnikov (and anyone who's curious)

Spoiler :

My tech was basically Sci Method>Communism+Bio> Medicine > Electricity>Radio>Mass Media and done. I backtraded for Railroad,Combustion,Steam Power, Assembly Line and towards the end Industrialism. AI shot way ahead by the end of course. (Churchill had everything but Genetics for his ship IIRC; interestingly Justinian had the Internet.

About corporations - I'd actually like to point out that in this game they were definitely not the major factor. In fact, I don't find that they're often all that important in cultural victories - because you won't acquire a crazy amount of resources unless you already have a large empire (in which case domination probably just easier). But in this game, the breakdown for my cities was something like:

Corps - 46
Specialists - 20
Buildings - 20
Commerce Slider 100+ (golden age in the screenshot meant everything was higher than most of the time, but this was still the major chunk).
Bonus was ~300% so about 800 culture was the norm (1000 for novgorod with Hermitage)

So in this game as in others I find that corps aren't that essential to getting a culture win fast. Sushi was nice but with the later corps especially I certainly could have saved tech/money/great people. And also remember that I didn't really get any wonders in my cities at all, whereas in many games these also account for a large amount of raw culture (obvious with Ramesses 88k in Thebes ) What corps are great for, though, is keeping your culture high when you otherwise have to tech/build military. And of course you can work to wreck AI economies/profit off of them but not as a Lonely Heart.

As for use of the corporations, Sushi and Jewelers were by far the most useful, Creative just spammed cause I could for that quest - Jewelers because it actually makes a significant amount of money, and Sushi for the food (other games Mining Inc is usually the other big one).

One interesting question that I hadn't noticed before, though, was that Mehmed gave a "Surely you must be joking" response to selling me gold. Note that I had no gold source of my own, we were at Cautious - my only possible explanation is that he somehow was bribed to stop trading but we didn't lose OB. Don't know what was up with that.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Raskolnikov (and anyone who's curious)

Spoiler :

One interesting question that I hadn't noticed before, though, was that Mehmed gave a "Surely you must be joking" response to selling me gold. Note that I had no gold source of my own, we were at Cautious - my only possible explanation is that he somehow was bribed to stop trading but we didn't lose OB. Don't know what was up with that.

Spoiler :

I am under the impression that AI trading behavior changes when corps come in play. They seem relunctant to trade away resources that would feed your corp. It would make sense, but I 've never checked the code

 

[Earthling]

Maybe I just didn't remember right then - I just didn't think the AI used the "Surely you must be joking" response for that. Don't think this is necessary to spoil either...

 

[dalamb]

Pre-game thoughts.
Checkpoint 1: 4000 - 2240 BC (with dotmap)
Checkpoint 1a: 2240 BC - 1170 AD

This is Checkpoints 2&3, 1600 AD (Noble, normal, no barbarians): I've met all the AIs, and decided on my victory condition long, long ago. ISTM there's a very long gap between #1 and #2 for people like me who turtle for a long time; in fact I can't imagine even if someone beelines Optics they'll still have a lot accomplished between #1 and #2. And since lots of people say we should pick victory conditions before we start the game... maybe we should define a different set of checkpoints?

Spoiler reminder of checkpoint definitions :

Checkpoint 1 - when we have explored the island and are aware of what resources it has. Its not so important when this is, but this is a time to discuss city sites etc. Don't look into a checkpoint 1 spoiler until you have reached this point yourself.

Checkpoint 2 - first contact - when we have met all the other AIs. At this point we can discuss our strategy to get to this point and our plans for dealing with them.

Checkpoint 3 - when we are committed to a victory condition (or at least think we are).

Checkpoint 4 - Victory (or defeat).

Spoiler my status :

I kept teching towards space technologies, bulbing with Great Scientists. I decided to go meet the AIs when all that was left for my GS to bulb was Astronomy, and managed to circumnavigate while doing so. Here's the map:

Spoiler world map :

Ragnar and Churchill accepted my Confucian missionaries, but all the others already had either Buddhism or Hinduism. Not long ago Churchill capitulated to Ragnar. I imagine if I'd gone for Optics sooner and sent them some missionaries they'd have quit warring long ago, so maybe turtling had its downside.

I'm ahead in score as expected, and was at the top of the "most advanced" list a short while ago.

Spoiler score :

I'm quite a bit weaker than some of the AIs

Spoiler power :

That's typical for me in an LHC. I'm currently building musketmen and tech'ing towards Rifling -- which will also give me Cossacks. It's an annoying diversion from the space race, but totally necessary at this point. I may have to go for destroyers soon to protect my seacoast, but I think the AIs still have a little way to go before they get Astronomy themselves -- I certainly haven't seen any galleons.

I have a spare GA from Moscow (small chance -- I'd hoped for a GE) that I plan on using for a Golden Age soon, and am about to start the Taj to get another just after that. By the end maybe I'll have a decent army built up.

 

[sophie]

Checkpoint 4, Space Victory July, 1981

Spoiler :

Well, what a long round, however I did it. I finally played a game to its end on noble. Score wasn't spectacular, but, a win's a win eh? Looking forward to the next LHC (and NC, coincidentally.) So let's see what I actually bothered to record (Warning, there's about a 102 year period where I stopped checking off techs. Needless to say, I got throught he whole tree, and researched up to FT2 before my Space Ship touched down.

1714 AD, Railroad done, start Economics. I traded for Economics, and started Sci Method

1732 AD: Scientific Method done, start Physics

1752 AD: Physics done, start Electricity

1760 AD: Build the SoL in Moscow

1772 AD Electricity done, start Radio

1794 AD: Radio done, start rifling

1800 AD: Rifling done, start Artillery

1816 AD: Artillery done, start Rocketry

1835 AD Rocketry done, start Corporations

1838 AD: Corporations done, start Assembly Line

1846 AD: Broadway build in Moscow

1848 AD: Assembly Line done, start Industrialism

1857 Industrialism done, thank goodness I have Aluminum

1860 AD: Rock and Roll build in Yaroslavl

1863 AD: Eiffel Tower built in Rostov

1868 AD: Sattelites done

1872 AD: Biology done, start Combustion (stopped paying attention to techs. I basically beelined for the techs that allowed SS construction.)

January, 1974 AD: Spaceship Launched

July, 1981 AD:

Some screens. Meant to get the Demographics and top cities too, but forgot to. (Anyone that wants to know, I was #1 only in Life Expectancy, and I think Moscow was 3 and Rostov was 5)

So here's my analysis of what happened.

What Went Poorly:

My city specialization was very poor. I think I could have won a lot sooner if I had spent more time doing that.

My Tech path was very scattered: Beginning it was, and End it was. The end was very strange because I was unsure of what techs were needed for SS parts.

What Went Well:

My diplomatic game was pretty good. I managed to keep everyone at pleased or higher throughout the course of the game (Save for Mehmed who was a groucho) In fact, I almost won a U.N. victory in the 1800s.

While my tech paths were scattered, I maintained a definitive tech lead throughout the game.

The Research center was just awesome, it saved a ton of turns off of construction. I don't think I would have won without them.

I spent a lot of time tinkering with my three core cities of Moscow, Rostov, and Novgorod. Moscow and Novgorod were equally good in the hammers and beakers department, and once Rostov got a Levee it was able to keep up in terms of hammers while at the same time contributing the majority of my beakers and commerce.

My Golden Ages save my life, and ensured that I kept ahead of everyone enough for me to succeed.

Well that's it for now. Now that I'm all done, I can finally take a peek at TMIT's LPC. Thank you to r_rollo for providing us with this excellent series, and I await the next segment with eager anticipation!

Oh yeah, and first Space Victory Ever. Also my first victory without ever declaring war *pats self on back*

 

[cripp7]

Spoiler :

Finally Space 1967. I had a DP between Ramesses & Justinian then Rangar decides to delcare. Well at the launch I decided to finish off Rangar. Built Sushi & Civilized
Launch

Win

Leaderhead

Stats

Power

Moscow, did a WE in this. Built mega wonders galor

Holy Corp city

All in all it was fun. can't wait for the next LHC!

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Prince, Marathon, Choose Religions, 1794 AD, checkpoint 3 (yes I moved up a level so you all can stop nagging now hehe )

Spoiler :

Yeah I know I skipped a cpl of checkpoints but I wanted to make sure I at least had chance of getting win or at least NOT getting totally whomped b4 I started posting reports

Anyways in this game I sttled in place and explored around. Stone is nearby AND we get masonry from a hut so we build GW and later on 'mid's. We TRIED for glh but got beat to it .

Oracle gets built and instead of usualy mc we pick col for the religion and couthouses. And even tho mc gets teched out the hard way we still get Collosus to help make up for missing glh. We lose out on HG but get that plus 2 health event and later on get Uni of sankore and notre dame built.

Tech rate not THAT great but thanks to philo trait we get some great sci pretty often enough to bulb paper, and philo for another religion and to bulb down edu from 22 to 6 turns. So lib race get won and astronomy is picked.

We seem to be in decent shape at this pont. LOTS of calandar happy resources and wine, and then gold and silver pop on some mines and then notre dame is built, we running rep and we had the health boost event so happy health caps is pretty decent even before we start looking to trade resources.

Caravlas win the globe and race and all the ai's get met. 3 other continets with 2 ai's each so it looks like divide and conquer SHOULD work for a dom win.

I work on building a navy and a stack then it time to decide who to go after. Now SMART move would prolly be go after rags, he was kinda backwards, he can be a PITA if you dont squash him when you get a chance and he was already in wheooh mode and other AI's pretty easy to get along with, even the zealots at this point didnt hate me TOO much cuz I was running FR.

But everybody knows I hardely EVER do the smart thing hehe . Problem was Ram's land was SOOOOOOO much better. Yeah he easy to get along with and can be nice tech partner BUT when I first started looking for trades it was like his land had EVERY resource I wa smissing or pretty much all. He doesnt have dyes but he has things like spices and deer and squirrels and gems and just TONS of stuff. SO Rams drew short straw and I DOW On him and start to try and take his cities.

I guess BK saw an opporunity and he DoW's on ram too. ANd since I am pretty sure for some reason it been coding into AI's by someone to make em do things SPECIFICALLY to annoy me Ram caps to BK grrrr. But I still figure I can take over the coninient so I dow on BK and his new vassal and keep going.

Biggest hitch was soon after BK gets mil sci teched and all of sudden HIGLY promoted SoL's start sailing all over sinking my frigates grrr. Now this not THAT big a hitch since I have ironclads sitting on top of all my seafood but it does pretty much stop me shuttling reinforcements over to BK/ram's contient for awhile and makes me have to send my stack by land instead of moving along the coast by sea. But before the seas got shut down I did managed to shuttle over enough units for a second stack.

So I keep up attack taking cities. Soon Ram is all dead, and BK is on ropes. Meanwhile I keep teching and get to AL and all my grenadiers now infantry which makes it even tuffer on BK. Soon he gets pushed off the contient. After I take his cap I see it has THREE settled GG's a mil academy AND drydock so NO wonder he been popping out combat 3 SoL's like they were babies and he was octomom.

He down to just two cities on two tiny islands. One is crowding MY coast and a cpl of MY new cities so I get BK to agree to cease fire JUST long enough to sail my navy out of port over to where stack now is so they can load up redeclare and attack the closest island city before any left over SoL's can cause trbl. That city gets taken and now he down to ONE city left. Now I TRIED to be generous and offered BK chance to be my lackey but:

He being stubborn. So:

I send then boys over and he goes from stubborn to:

Dead and saves me headache of having we yearn to join motherland sad faces.

Ok with that continent all taken care of it just matter of getting border pops and land and cities all redeveloped and going. MIning INC is founded and with seas cleared of annoying SoL I ship some execs over and hopefully my new cont will start being productive soon.

Meanwhile there still other AI's to sort. AP got founded but only Justy and Mehmed seem to care, winnie and rags arent running the ap religion so it looks like it wont be causing problems much.

After BK is killed off vic conditions look like this:

Still bit of ways to go for dom win but looks like taking over Rags and winnies continent should do the trick so that is plan for now. I send my guys over to city closer to Rag's empire while I set slider to 0 to get cash to upgrade my navy just cuz having enemy SoL's get sunk by your destroyers is more fun than having them sink your frigates .

Now for longest while rags been in wheooh mode. Even though I managed to get him to pleased he still in attack mode and sure enough while I am busy sorting out ram and bk I see a HUGE stack of frigates and galleons off my coast BUT since I AM playing at harder level now I decide to use some diplo cheese .

He is at pleased so I call up diplo screen ask for 5 gold and he is "happy to help" not only do I ghet 5 gold but also get 10 turns of mandatory peace so his ships turn back

Now this happens like 3 times in a row. His stack shows up just off my borders, I ask for 5 gold gift he agree and his ships turn back until 10 turns pass then repeat. The 4th time however:

He aint going for it. Old rags my be a tad slow but knock his head on same wall a few times and eventually he start to notice hehe. SO I figure I am gonna need to repeal a viking invasion but this happens:

Ol winnie gentleman that he is decides to give rags something better to do and I didnt even have to ask him he did it all on his own. So with winnie sending troops at his cities rags stack turns back and I get off the hook. Like my dad says it sometimes better to be lucky than good

So thats kinda of where I am at this point. Winnie and rags are at war, meh and Jusy all by themselves being ignored by everybody and I am trying to build up some cash to upgrade my navy before going after rags and if necessary winnie next for a dom win.

Here is my main empire:

Health starting to become issue now that factories and coal plants starting to go up but hopefully once I get beakers back on track I can fix that.

The graphs:

starting to pull away a little in some categories but still behind in lots of others.

Close up of power:

The two AI's with the two biggest armies and they killing each others stacks for me. Thats very nice of em I think hehe

Demos:

Not exactly blowing anybody out yet but I still think I have decent chance at this point.

Tech sitch:

All that arring REALLY put me behind. I am down Democracy, DR, commie and physics and maybe even electricty if winnie keep teching like been to the AI's.

So thats my game so far. I got LOTS of use out of cossacks taking out Ram and BK and I used the gp boost of philo to bulb my way to most of the lib techs to when that race so I guess I got pretty good use out of petey and his civ's traits and UU.

My economy still in kind of a mess. I think I need to make some MAJOR ciciv changes and go to FS and FM and maybe even switch back to OR. I have Uni of Sank and one of Ram's cities have Spiral so running a religion would help more than diplo bonus of FR since I am waaay bigger than Meh and Justy and I am gonna be going to war with rags and and my state religion will be Judaism which Winnie is running also so going back will mean getting more than I lose. It just that all those switches at once mean like 5 or 6 turns of anarchy. It gonna be loooong time before next gp comes and even THEN Im gonna need one more for a GA so it look anarchy at some point gonna be unavaoidable. Not to mention ppl already whining with sad faces for emancipation so probably gonna have to switch to that too at some point.

But hopefully i can work through all that and get economy back on track and then get Rags empire and get dom win or be close to it so I will just have to take a few of winnies cities and I will get my first prince win on LHC so wish me luck

Kaytie

 

[TheMeInTeam]

(yes I moved up a level so you all can stop nagging now hehe )

. I feel the need to point out two facts:

1. I blew this game out at emperor
2. Your tech position at the year you stopped is ahead of mine at the same year

You might not have confidence, but you can easily beat monarch/emp after a little adjustment .

Nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag nag.

 

[Tempesta13]

^^ very true. You are COMPLETELY blowing out the AI's. 4x their average pop, 5x their average production, already way ahead on power and ahead in tech.

You need to start sandbagging games if you don't want to be nagged to keep moving up in difficulty.

It takes much less for me to be confident that i'll win. If i'm close to even with #1 in pop, close in tech and .6 or higher the power of my next target before i start building up to attack i consider the game won. Unless there is a runaway AI, once you are on pretty even terms with most the AI's you can win.

Not saying you have to keep moving up until you start losing most your games, but have more confidence! I always move up in skill long before i ever can completely dominate - once i can win like 75+% of games i turn it up a notch, even if most of my wins i just scrape by. That's just my preference since i don't mind losing a lot of games, seems to help me improve faster. Not the only way though of course.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Yes, It took that many.

anyway for those interested, a brief write up

Spoiler :

Blah blah blah, settle in place, 4 cities, difference was tech writing/currency/col's Missed founding confucianism by 2 turns Ran Scientists. Waited till they found me, in end was getting to 1200 and only Ragnar and his eventual master Churchill had come by, went out met rest, was surprisingly ahead in tech. Won Circumnavigation race, with some help from my barb Galley's

Took Astronomy from Liberialism, could have pushed it for Steel, possibly rifling, but only takes one idiot to beeline and I missing it.

Ended up in 3 blocks, Justinian/Mehmed, Ramesses/Charlie boy, Churchill/Ragnar. Main two were Ramesses and Churchill who attacked each other or just beat up on Ragnar when he freed self.

Churchill actually launched an attack against a freed Mehmed, vassaled him and I thought would take on Justinian who was falling behind badly.

Teched to Superconductors, built Research labs in my 11 cities, all of which were running 160+ Beakers /turn while building parts.

Science peaked at 3K /turn, easily won a trip to space finishing in 1975 or so.

I may just go back, spam Military after space ship and kill Ramesses, just because he hung like a sword of Damocles in his Capital, off my west coast for 2nd half of game.

On first 2 tries,

No 1. ) I was jumped by Ragnar, who eliminated Churchill in 565 AD and who was planning war for 600+ Yr's since I met him, and had no way to reach me. That's just wrong.

No 2. ) Mehmed, sailed on by in 550 AD ON EMPEROR!! no less. Thumbed his nose at me, sailed off, built the Taj etc and I was really struggling on science, so I gave up and worked on my starting research.

No 3 ) Finally got the Starting research fixed, though I fell into a slump through 200 BC 100 beakers till about 1000 AD Where my Science seemed to stagnate at around 350 Beakers.

Now to Premise, I played a cottage bureaucracy capital only game, food rest, Choice of capital, never really hit full stream, and I ended up building Wall Street along with Sids Sushi/Mining Corp in the SE near the stone, where I founded Taoism. Built space ship in a TRIPLE GOLDEN AGE. Still seemed rather slow?

Built all 3 Media wonders, Eiffel tower, Christo Redentor (Great wonder).

Spoiler :

Last Note, I also founded Cereal Mills and spammed it to the AI's in Environmentalism , Who just happened to be Ramesses and Churchill. That one event CRUSHED there economies, and I was able to FLY PAST RAMESSES in tech. Starting the Fusion Run for the Great Engineer behind Fission and Fiber Optics, I won the race handily.

Very little tech trading by me, I have an innate fear of being left out of loop, and I like to self research. Kept head down, mobile defense force to face off against AI land masses in red fist mode, and being generally less hated then the victim.

Ramesses was in red fist mode for last 50 turns or so, but against whom I've no idea, but I think Churchill/Ragnar, Maybe Justinian.

Sucked in badly, BRIEF WRITE UP, I know no such thing.

I'll use this game to work on my starts, and got to love the research institute.

Oh yes, lastly, the U.N. Built by Ramesses, won by Churchill, who NEVER put up 1 single resolution at all NOT ONE!!! , numerous elections for Secretary General, but NEVER 1 RESOLUTION PUT FORWARD. I was waiting for the Environmentalism/ Emancipation garbage to come forward but never/nothing/nada.