sedna17
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2008
- Messages
- 1,091
The Mayan UHV is impossible at Emperor level, but it's tantalizing because the truly impossible part is such a short, simple, well-constrained maximization problem. Getting the Temple of Kukulkan obviously just requires that you get completely lucky and none of the AI build it, but this can happen. The impossible task, as Pacifist notes on the wiki, is getting Calendar by 600 AD. It's clear that either the task is truly impossible, or a radical approach is required.
First, the math. Sailing costs 205, Math costs 514, and Calendar costs 514. Because it might be relevant, Bronze Working is 246. For the three required techs, this means 1233 research points are needed. I consider a basic strategy to be founding either Tikal/Tenotichitlan or Olxmiche/Oaxaca. In both these cases, your maximum research might look like:
Capitol (max size 5)
+ 8 Palace
+ 1 city square
+ 1 from a big food square
+ 6 from scientists
+ 5 Silver
+ 2 from working ocean/cottage square with other person
+ 1 from trade route
Other city (max size 4)
+ 1 city square
+ 6 from scientists
+ 1 from big food square
+ 2 from working ocean/cottage
+ 1 trade route
This assumes you have libraries in both cities. Obviously the details on the small numbers vary (working a fish as your "big food square" is better), and you can starve your cities a little bit too, but this estimate is reasonable I think. Including the 25% bonus from libraries this gives you roughly 44 research per turn. You have 33 total turns from Turn 118 to Turn 151), so it's not completely insane -- you could get 1452 research done if you started with big cities and libraries. Of course you do not.
As an example, if you do something crazy like Oaxaca+Tikal you can start on turn 1 with 8+1+2 moving to 8(capitol)+2(city squares)+2(trade)+2(working) on turn 2 . Assume (unrealistically) that your research scales up linearly you arrive at something like 960 total research points. Now the silver can come online pretty fast, but the libraries come late, so the devil is in the details, but it's still quite hard to see how you get to 1233.
So, what else crazy can you do? I was excited initially with a plan to go to Bronze Working, chop to get a library quick in Oaxaca and run two scientists. It takes 17 turns to generate a great scientist, I got the library done just in time and researched Sailing and Math and finished that on Turn 150 JUST as I got my great scientist. Aha! I thought, Rhye is genius! This is how he meant us to do it. And then I realized that my great scientist couldn't be used for Calendar, only useless Alphabet (which wouldn't be a useless tech if you started with it so you could build research, but it's useless to have 1 turn away from the end).
Another thought was founding a third city. There are so many possible permutations on this that I haven't tried all the spots, but is it a promising route? After those libraries and perhaps a workboat depending on your spot you don't really need anything else out of your cities (well, not if you're myopically focusing on Calendar). The trouble is it's not easy to build a library and do a settler and run scientists, so the extra you gain from a new city (faster initial people growth, a "free" gold from the city square and +1 from another trade route) isn't a lot. Maybe if you found up north of Tenochitlan by the other silver? Or in Columbia by the gold? But time is tight to reach/mine those squares in time to make a difference.
Of course you can also go a hut-popping expedition. I think there are 5 huts within reach if you just focus on this and build scouts/boats (two in North America, one in Cuba, and the northern two in South America). Perhaps you could get lucky and pop Calendar. This would not be a satisfying approach, but what the heck. Sadly, I've yet to pop a technology hut anywhere on the New World -- I'm probably just unlucky.
Has anyone else come up with any different radical suggestions? How close can you get?
First, the math. Sailing costs 205, Math costs 514, and Calendar costs 514. Because it might be relevant, Bronze Working is 246. For the three required techs, this means 1233 research points are needed. I consider a basic strategy to be founding either Tikal/Tenotichitlan or Olxmiche/Oaxaca. In both these cases, your maximum research might look like:
Capitol (max size 5)
+ 8 Palace
+ 1 city square
+ 1 from a big food square
+ 6 from scientists
+ 5 Silver
+ 2 from working ocean/cottage square with other person
+ 1 from trade route
Other city (max size 4)
+ 1 city square
+ 6 from scientists
+ 1 from big food square
+ 2 from working ocean/cottage
+ 1 trade route
This assumes you have libraries in both cities. Obviously the details on the small numbers vary (working a fish as your "big food square" is better), and you can starve your cities a little bit too, but this estimate is reasonable I think. Including the 25% bonus from libraries this gives you roughly 44 research per turn. You have 33 total turns from Turn 118 to Turn 151), so it's not completely insane -- you could get 1452 research done if you started with big cities and libraries. Of course you do not.
As an example, if you do something crazy like Oaxaca+Tikal you can start on turn 1 with 8+1+2 moving to 8(capitol)+2(city squares)+2(trade)+2(working) on turn 2 . Assume (unrealistically) that your research scales up linearly you arrive at something like 960 total research points. Now the silver can come online pretty fast, but the libraries come late, so the devil is in the details, but it's still quite hard to see how you get to 1233.
So, what else crazy can you do? I was excited initially with a plan to go to Bronze Working, chop to get a library quick in Oaxaca and run two scientists. It takes 17 turns to generate a great scientist, I got the library done just in time and researched Sailing and Math and finished that on Turn 150 JUST as I got my great scientist. Aha! I thought, Rhye is genius! This is how he meant us to do it. And then I realized that my great scientist couldn't be used for Calendar, only useless Alphabet (which wouldn't be a useless tech if you started with it so you could build research, but it's useless to have 1 turn away from the end).
Another thought was founding a third city. There are so many possible permutations on this that I haven't tried all the spots, but is it a promising route? After those libraries and perhaps a workboat depending on your spot you don't really need anything else out of your cities (well, not if you're myopically focusing on Calendar). The trouble is it's not easy to build a library and do a settler and run scientists, so the extra you gain from a new city (faster initial people growth, a "free" gold from the city square and +1 from another trade route) isn't a lot. Maybe if you found up north of Tenochitlan by the other silver? Or in Columbia by the gold? But time is tight to reach/mine those squares in time to make a difference.
Of course you can also go a hut-popping expedition. I think there are 5 huts within reach if you just focus on this and build scouts/boats (two in North America, one in Cuba, and the northern two in South America). Perhaps you could get lucky and pop Calendar. This would not be a satisfying approach, but what the heck. Sadly, I've yet to pop a technology hut anywhere on the New World -- I'm probably just unlucky.
Has anyone else come up with any different radical suggestions? How close can you get?
