Luck in the first 80 turns

[Svar]

In playing my fastest 20K culture HOF games I realized just how important luck is in the first 80 turns. I have already submitted two games on tiny maps at the chieftain level. In the first game I played, I wasn't too picky about the starting position. I just wanted to get a quick game submitted. The second chieftain game I submitted was started after about 12 small map warlord games were played out to 1000 BC to see which one I wanted to finish. In doing that I realized what I should be looking for in this type of game for a starting position and decided to submit another tiny chieftain game.

I only started 2 tiny chieftain games when I got a SGL very early and built the Pyramid in my 20K city. The Pyramid really accelerated my start and I got a great finish time. I got 2 more SGLs in that game.

Now that I see the power of SGLs I decided to switch from the Mayans to the Persians to increase my chances for a SGL from 3% to 5%. Of course that required generating more maps for the Persians and playing a few to get the change in strategy worked out. During this time I discovered how important it is to get an early settler from a goody hut. I had a start that had to be abandoned because the expanding cultural border popped a goody hut that yielded barbarians. The barbarians destroyed two population points from my only city. OK, from now on I pop those goody huts with my worker when there is no chance of barabrians.

The very next time this happened the goody hut yielded a settler. This gave another good start so I went through all my MapFinder generated worlds that hadn't been classified by me to see if there were any with goody huts that I could practice on to see how often they yielded settlers. There were only about three and none of them yielded settlers but they didn't yield barbarians either. The very last world that I checked was actually a keeper since it had 1 cow and 1 game in the starting position. When I settled on the spot it revealed 2 goody huts that needed to be popped before my first warrior.

Don't get ahead of me here, all I got out of those 2 huts were gold and a warrior. But that warrior found another goody hut a few turns later and he popped a settler. OK, this should be a pretty good start, all I need to do is quickly find the location for my 20K city. A selection was made 4 tiles from the capital and I was off and running. At this point I have 1000 BC saved games with just as good a start as this one but just before my 20K city finished its temple I got a SGL. It felt like Christmas, I got an early settler and a SGL. Too bad my selection for the 20K city isn't the best or I made several mistakes by having cities go into anarchy. On the other hand my 20K city has a temple, library and Pyramid all before 1000 BC and is 10 turns away from the FP. Once the FP is built I will do a free palace jump to put the palace in the same city as the FP. I did this by accident once in a GOTM so know it is possible.

I will probably finish this game because I haven't done a 20K culture game with both the FP and palace in the same city before. I'm still looking for a better start though so it will be couple of days.

 

[superslug]

Originally posted by Svar
I will probably finish this game because I haven't done a 20K culture game with both the FP and palace in the same city before.

I'd love to know how this is accomplished...

 

[Svar]

It is done with a simple free palace jump as illustrated below.

Before

After

This is the city view.

This is the Cultural Advisor, notice that the palace was built 1 turn after the FP. That was because there was a warrior in the way for the before and after shots.

 

[boogaboo]

very nice!
Now I see you try to get every culture point possible..

 

[superslug]

Okay, now I understand what you mean by Palace/FP in the same town!

 

[Svar]

I finished and submitted a small warlord 20 K culture game as the Persians but not the one described at the start of this thread (it has been deleted). The finish time was 1705 AD.

After submitting the Persian game I reviewed all of the saved 1000 BC games and deleted most of them but started two new games, the first as the Mayans again and my first as the Greeks.

In both games I got SGLs shortly after 3000 BC (luck in the first 80 turns), now I know why I stopped playing as the Mayans in these games, I couldn't rush the Pyramid as the Mayans because it would trip my GA so I rushed the Temple of Artemis instead. With the Greeks I did rush the Pyramid but this was just a practice game to learn the new starting sequence needed for the Greeks and doesn't really have a 4 turn settler factory. Again it just points out how important luck in the first 80 turns can be for this type game.

I now have a specific criteria for playing beyond 1000 BC for these type games. I evaluate the shield potential for the 20 K city and want Ivory relatively close so I can build the Statue of Zeus. The ancient cavalry are the only fast units you really need at this level and the statue gives the most bang for the buck of any great wonder (cost 200 shields for 4 CPT). For my 1640 AD tiny chieftain win the 20 K city had an unmodified shield potential of 57 while my 1705 AD small warlord win had only 54, hence the slower finish time even though I got 4 SGL in the small warlord win versus 3 SGL in the tiny chieftain win. I also got the Heroic Epic in the small warlord game which I haven't gotten in either of the 2 tiny chieftain games. Finally the ending CPT for the warlord game was 164 while for the 1640 AD chieftain game it was 158 so the potential for a faster finish should be in the small warlord game.