Mazarin-Deity level

[Mazarin]

After seing the outstanding games from SirPleb and Moonsinger, I decided to try a milking game at deity level using the Palace Rank exploit and the Ottomans. After several reloads and a couple of abandoned games (not enough expansion space, pangeas that were continents), I finally found a start that I think I'm going to continue.
The settings are warm/wet/5bill/pangea/60%.

I had several food bonuses close to my starting position, so I was able to make two settler and a worker factory, most of the other civs are pretty close together, so I hope I'll be able to outexpand them, although I seem to be extremely slow with expansion compared to other games I've seen. I'm doing ok in tech although my maths gambit did not work the way I'd have liked it. You can see my cities' layout at this screenshot...right now I'm building some galleys to transport a settler+some workers to the unclaimed land south of the egyptians -that's where I'm planning to move my palace to after the FP is finished. Score is slightly over 700pts.

 

[superslug]

I only saw one luxury in the screenshot. Do you have others?

 

[Moonsinger]

The unclaimed meadow to the west looks very attractive. And yes, the Palace Rank exploit is quite powerful and the Ottomans is a very good choice. Good luck!

 

[Mazarin]

superslug:

only saw one luxury in the screenshot. Do you have others?

Yes, there is an Ivory ressource close to my capital, two silks in the northern tundra and a furs on the eastern coast.

I additionaly have good acces to three more luxuries which are not nearby, but could be reached with settlers sent out early enough.

Moonsinger, thanks a lot. with the examples I had, I just could not resist and try it myself.

little Update:
I just played up to 10ad, that's the year I made my palace jump in. The results are amazing
here's the 10bc income report:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/10bc(income).jpg
and here's the one from 10ad:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/10ad(income).jpg

with corruption down 60%, future conquest should be easier. There is still some more land to claim, I should go into infrastructure mod now, however. I'll need many markets to pay for all the sipahi upgrades I'm going to need. About 25-30 more cities should be enough to start building.

my empire's layout: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/10ad.jpg
the FP is in richelieu (not an ottoman name, but I tend to always take the same name for fp city, so I can find it easier), the Palace ist far away.

 

[Darkness]

Looking very good

 

[Mazarin]

I played to 700ad now, the game went pretty much as It could be predicted. With the low corruption I could buy all the necessary techs easily, once I acquired Mil.Tradition, wars stared

with GA and an income of over 2.5k gpt, I built many horses and upgraded them to sipahi, within 20 turns India, France, Rome and Mongols were eliminated. I just started the war against germany, Carthage will be next. I'm also building a small fleet to get a new capital on the Greek island: this should allow me to conquer Egypt without having to worry about new cities in my capital's radius -and give me the eight luxury that Greece has a monopoly on.

Here's the minimap:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/minimap(700ad).jpg
and here's the income report:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/f1(700ad).jpg

My GA has just finished and I've started building banks, because I think the 200 sipahi I currently have should be enough to handle Germany/Carthage. I really hope Egypt cannot acquire Rep.Parts soon -that's the reason I do not put any research into it.

 

[Moonsinger]

Very good, Mazarin! Look like you are right on schedule and should reach the domination limit before 1000 AD.

 

[Mazarin]

900ad update:

conquest of Germany, Carthage and Egypt has been more difficult that I thought: Their settlers on ships were really causing problems through war weariness I couldn't get rid of. Carthage and Egypt are gone by now, I left Germany with two little tundra cities after raizing all of their original core to avoid culture flips. My palace has finally been moved to the greek Island ensuring the possession of the last Luxury. I could kill them off every turn, but I will wait till the modern age -so I can eventually get their free tech. Repositioning the cities and improving the land with over 600 own and some foreign workers surely increases the tedium atm, this will become faster soon, since there's only very few land left to improve now. My score now is at ca. 8000 pts, gaining 200 per turn. According to SirPleb's calculator, I should end up with over 30k, my prediction would be at about 40-45k

 

[superslug]

Originally posted by Mazarin
I could kill them off every turn, but I will wait till the modern age -so I can eventually get their free tech.

You are hard core!

 

[Darkness]

Originally posted by Mazarin
I could kill them off every turn, but I will wait till the modern age -so I can eventually get their free tech.

That's the spirit!

 

[Mazarin]

the foolish Greeks declared war on me, that's why they had to goo earlier than expected (I didn't leave them with a tundra city because war weariness started to kick in).
I'm up to 1300ad now, spent the last turns with rushing infrastructure and moving the FP a bit south so it would cover even more land. Current score is at18k, SirPleb's calculator is predicting 50k...It is not likely to be significantly above that, however: all ducts/markets/hospitals have been rushed by now and the per-turn gains are already starting to deflate (had about 245pts per turn as the maximum, it is now at only 239ppt). I'm not going to try for a big treasury -put luxury slider higher instead to reduce micromanagement of larger cities.

 

[superslug]

Sounds like you're proving to be one of the truly elite players here, my friend!

 

[Mazarin]

thanks, superslug. I've just walked down the path Moonsinger and SirPleb showed with their truly amazing games. Looking at their abilities and merging their strategies to my toolbox has helped a lot.

I'm really wondering how Moonsinger has been able to increase her per-turn score so constantly for a long time: mine has almost been exploding between 1000ad and 1300ad and then simply remained at the same level. I've been trying to increase it a bit during the last turns, razed core cities to settle little islands that need 60-70% lux to be happy, put several new cities to the gras around my capital which resulted in a bigger overall corruption, but my predicted score is constantly about 700-1000 points from Moonsinger's (the difference is changing every turn due to different ampunts of pollution popping up). I think that the continuous increase in points is what makes Moonsinger's milking skills so impressive.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Mazarin
I've just walked down the path Moonsinger and SirPleb showed with their truly amazing games.

Thanks! I was just simply copying SirPleb style.

I'm really wondering how Moonsinger has been able to increase her per-turn score so constantly for a long time:

That would be my little secret. But I'm going to tell you anyway. The secret is really in the Longvity which double the population grow (would explain why I was in a hurry getting to it). Basically, most of the time, the majority of my cities are housing 1 citizen over the maxinum population limit. Take that and multiply by over 300 cities and we are looking at an extra of at least 100 specialists per turn.

For example, a city may have enough food to house a maxinum of 17 or 17 and 1/2 people. Now, if you time them correctly with the Longvity and with a little bit of micromanagement, they will grow to size 18 instead. Of course, that one extra citizen will be starving after that, but it will take at least another 10 turns (20 turns on the average, I think) before the food bin is totally empty. In the meantime, I'm feeding that extra citizen from the food in reserve. Eventually, the reserve food will run out and that citizen will starve to dead and a new cycle begin. Does that help?

PS: Please note that it's impossible to join worker to a starving city (not in PTW); therefore, this isn't an exploit in anyway and I'm growing my city in the normal way. Therefore, it's perfectly legal to do so (IMO).

 

[Mazarin]

thank you for the tip I usually stop research once I had sanitation and rep.parts until all hosptals have been hurried. This should explain the advantage I gained at this time...going for longvity ASAP might be something I'll try next game.
I have noticed this effect in my current game, however: some time after longvity was completed my estimated score climbed to 53.9k which I was thinking was due to newly constructed mass transits.

 

[Mazarin]

Longvity has definately boosted my score, so it will be a higher priority for me in future games. Right now, I'm just cleaning up pollution and transfering pop from one city to another (especially from the ones that grow by two with a food surplus of 1). As I already mentioned, I'm running a high luxury tax to make sure some of the corrupt cites remain happy -additionnally there isn't much usefull stuff to rush left.

Here is the location of my palace: I built some cities close to it, so I didn't waste all the nice land.

The histograph: actual predictions are in the 54k range; I don't know how it is going to develop, since several cities will be starving/regrowing during the last 200 turns.

 

[Darkness]

That looks very good... Good luck on your milking run!

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Mazarin
The histograph: actual predictions are in the 54k range; I don't know how it is going to develop, since several cities will be starving/regrowing during the last 200 turns.

Sound like you are going to beat my 54k. Well, your score is safe because I don't have time to play another one.

 

[Mazarin]

Happy new year to all civfanatics!

Just came back home and played the last 10 turns, so I could submit this game before being away for another three weeks. Final score was 55.3k

Thanks to all the posters here for their valuable advice -and especially to Moonsinger and SirPleb for showing how effective the Longvity and PalaceRank exploit can be

 

[SirPleb]

Awesome Mazarin! You've raised the bar another notch