My 100k HOF target

[RFHolloway]

<STATUS REPORT>

Submitted

Tiny Monarch - 1090 AD
Tiny Emperor - 1140 AD
Small Emperor - 1220 AD
Huge Monarch - 1345 AD
Large chieftain - 1140 AD
Standard Warlord - 820 AD
Tiny Regent - 990 AD
Tiny DG - 1250AD
Tiny cheiftain - 790AD
Small regent - 800AD

In Progress

Small regent

Next targets

TBA

<END STATUS REPORT>

OK started back up on this HOF thing again. I'm a builder, and the 100k victory is my preferred route (too little patience for milk run, too little skill at war for conquest or domination)

I am relatively comfortable on emperor, and really ought to have a go at demigod, so I should have half the quartermasters available to me (map size and difficulty).

My aim is to complete my half of the quartermaster with number one positions. and then extend that to the 30 tables in my range.

Preferred civs are obviously

Sumeria, Babylon and the Celts

each has their own advantages.

the usual plan is to grow while getting the republic slingshot revolt into that, aim to build Pyramids and TOA, trigger a GA by war before or after switching briefly into Feudalism to whip or part whip libraries and cathedrals. Then back to republic to cash rush everything else we can. Avoid collseums while you have space left to settle - the maintainance is not worth the culture. Research to mil trad if you need to, but shut down after feudalism if you don't need the military. keep building cities right to the end, ICS them so you don't trigger domination. Build enough military to keep the AI from attacking.

For Sumeria don't bother with republic just whip everything in sight. (with this civ you can more easily afford the colluseums as you have no use for the cash apart from maintainance)

For small maps it may be worth skipping the ToA and burning through to replacable parts for the civil engineers, but I think this situation is rare.

Map is pangea, 60% water, 5bn years (min mountains), min agression, usually no barbs.

what I am debating around is

a) what world settings give most food? (and least jungle/marsh!) (some of you milk runners should be able to help me here)

b) what opponents would you suggest? I normally go with England India portugal (i.e. seafaring, expansionist, passive) on higher difficulties, I stack the deck so that no one starts with alphabet

 

[Bartleby]

a) what world settings give most food? (and least jungle/marsh!) (some of you milk runners should be able to help me here)

Warm/Wet is generally the climate of choice for milkruns; but this will give a lot of jungle...thing is, in a milkrun you have time to clear it.

 

[sanabas]

TOA is good if you get an SGL for it, but it's not really worth handbuilding, as you'll probably want to research education, and whip unis as well. Definitely beeline for a republic slingshot, and use that to research to education, and crank out the settlers, but I've found it better not to cash rush stuff, as once you're in feudalism and with 4 buildings per city to pay for, your economy will be in all sorts of trouble. Markets in your core cities will help hugely, don't forget to sneak them in.

I'm not sure why you want to only switch briefly to Feudalism, once you're in it, you'll constantly be spamming out settlers and buildings, and the whip is much, much more efficient than cash rushing. I can't see any reason to dwitch out of feudalism once you're in a position to switch into it.

More jungle/marsh = more food, because it clears away to grassland.

I have no idea who I went with as opponents in my 100k games, most likely it was nobody with alphabet if I was worried about missing the sling, or everybody with alphabet if I was someone who doesn't start with it, such as Babylon, in order to maximise the chance of being able to trade for it quickly.

 

[RFHolloway]

The switch in and out of feudalism is something that I am experimenting with. The rationale is that republic generates more cash, and you concentrate your whipping into a few turns of really heavy whipping (like down to 1 or 2 population points) and then switch back to republic while the population grows back to 5 or 6 cash rushing in the mean time.

I don't really miss the uni's as settlers are better if you have the TOA (compare 100 shields for 4 cpt vs 30 shields for 2CPT once the settler founds and gets the temple from the ToA)

The ToA is worth building by hand on the larger map sizes (you build it in the city where normally you would be spamming out the military). On my last Huge run the ToA plus its temples contributed over 60,000 culture

 

[sanabas]

But the rationale doesn't make sense if you're using the extra cash for rushing. Republic generates more cash, sure, but it doesn't generate enough cash to let you rush faster than you would with the whip in feudalism. You're also losing culture while you're in anarchy. 30 shields for a settler that gives 2 cpt is better value than 100 shields for a uni that gives 4, but the problem comes when you run out of space to build cities. It only takes 50 shields to build 2 workers and a settler, which will give you a city with an instantly rushed temple, and will let you generate an additional 4 cpt in most of your cities from unis. There's also the added benefit that ToA temple's do not increase to 4cpt after 1000 years, but handbuilt temples do. It can still be worth building the TOA, but it's not worth avoiding education, it just costs you 2 pop per city to whip the temples straight away when the ToA expires.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I would just stay in feudalism, frankly. You would *only* move in and out if you were religious, but I don't think you should, anyway.

I think when I went for a 100K in the gauntlet, I went as the celts, with egypt, america and china as adversaries, so I could trade for masonry fast and catch a very early SGL.

 

[Marsden]

...what opponents would you suggest? I normally go with England India portugal (i.e. seafaring, expansionist, passive) on higher difficulties, I stack the deck so that no one starts with alphabet

Careful, they ALL start with alphabet. Anyone that starts with Commercial or Seafaring starts with alphabet. Although, I agree that England and Portugal are good 100k opponents. Mongols and Zulu are usually good, and they don't have alphabet.

 

[RFHolloway]

May be its just that I'm not expressing myself well, or may be that I'm not building enough workers to move the population around. My idea is this

switch to republic first

then switch to feudalism when available.Whip everything you can.
At this point it will be about 20 to 25 turns before the cities are ready for another round of whipping. (2 food per turn, means 5 turns for pop growth, if you have got the pyramids).

I am experimenting with spending these turns in republic cash rushing while waiting for the population to grow.

Then switch back to feudalism for a second round of whipping, probably staying there for the rest of the game (unless you run into a cash crunch in which case switch to republic for the final few turns)


I don't think the amount of whipping will be much less, although it may be slightly later (you want to be able to whip most of the towns when you switch back.)

The cash rushing isn't so bad, because cash moves freely between cities, whereas population doesn't - you have to build workers etc. The best targets for rushing are oftain libraies in cities which have just been set up, and so only have 1 population. However the cash is easily available.

The culture lost on switching is effectively a half turn delay in the victory date, so it wouldn't be worth doing so often, but 20 turns in republic on my latest game means 100 extra gp per turn, and 2000 gold gives me 14 extra library rushes for 42 cpt, this pays back the 2 half turn delays in those 20 turns.

perhaps other people delay the culture building later than I do, rexing without culture, but I often find the core runs out of culture buildings to rush (even if I was building uni's)

It would be interesting to track cities built, Culture, and CPT, over the middle phase of the game to see whether that is different, I have some data from recent games if anyone is interested.

 

[Elear]

It is something to consider (and even test out). I can't tell you if this is advantegous to you, however, I would prefer no switch to Republic, unless, you are playing a religious civ? If so, then yes Republic should help out unless you are conquesting the world on an 100k game

 

[AutomatedTeller]

well, getting out of despotism helps with your growth.

but why are you assuming 2 extra food per turn? Once your core is done, I wouldn't mine anything that isn't a hill. Everything gets irrigated - the cities on grass, at least, should grow much faster than 5 turns.

 

[azzaman333]

Well, lets just say that Tiny 80&#37; Pangaea as the Iroquois on Chieftian isnt the best option for 100k.

 

[RFHolloway]

It is something to consider (and even test out). I can't tell you if this is advantegous to you, however, I would prefer no switch to Republic, unless, you are playing a religious civ? If so, then yes Republic should help out unless you are conquesting the world on an 100k game

Yes this will only work if you are religeous - (a reasonable assumption for a 100k game - If I was playing Sumeria I would bypass republic entirely)

 

[RFHolloway]

Currently I have

Tiny Monarch - 1090 AD
Tiny Emperor - 1140 AD
Small Emperor - 1220 AD
Huge Monarch - 1345 AD
Large chieftain - 1140AD (not yet published)

In Progress

Standard Warlord - to complete the map sizes

Next targets

Tiny Regent
Small Demigod - to complete the difficulty
Tiny chieftain - for an attempt at the fastest overall finish

I have now done some analysis on the current 100K games and it looks like there is relatively little difference between standard and small games, but Tiny are 15&#37; quicker in number of turns, large 15% slower, and Huge is 38% slower. Some of this will be due to the fact that Huge maps take longer to do, and so are done less often.

 

[Tone]

You have my utmost respect. I find 100K a bit of a chore (well, only after the dom limit is acheived to be fair ) but I do the very occasional one to maintain the QM status plus once in a GOTM. Tiny or small maps only though. I find it very difficult to imagine doing this on a large or huge map.

 

[Marsden]

Congratulations! I am one of the few that likes the 100k, but one of my other motivations is that its the least populated win condition and therefore had the most empty tables. I'm sure you'll do well to continue.

 

[nerovats]

All VC's still have huge gaps in the HoF. Only tiny and small conquest is hard. Some first places will be hard to reach like huge sid histographic, but there's still a lot of room to become QM with only first places.

Personally I find the greatest thing about this game the great variaty of the vc's. Not only the vc but also race and map size and shape, all require a different strat to get optimum result.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

and they aren't obvious.

For instance, the best 20K strat on low levels is scientific and heavy research. On deity... it seems to be "go out and kill", because then you don't lose wonders in cascades.

 

[RFHolloway]

The culture VC's are definitely designed for builders, on my Large chieftain map I was REXing all the way, and it will be possible to improve on that score significantly. I never hit the dom limit as I was stuck on one end of a snakey pangea with a single tile choke point, had to jump my capital etc, etc.


For emperor difficulty my standard approach is to Rex, beeline for cavalry and then conquor. The usual mistake on this level is that I burn too many cavalry leaving me open to a late counter attack.

 

[nerovats]

Why research cavalry in a culture game? I usually stop at cathedral or maybe universities.

What is REXing?

 

[Elear]

REXing = RapidEXpandING