No Sales Challenge

[Tabarnak]

I'm trying your map alpaca and i decided to go Tradition(yeah yeah again) but now to compare with my multiplayer friend Islandia

I got quite a nice start, i DoWed Egypt on turn 13 and stole him a worker. I put my 2nd city into a very productive spot and started the GL in there while my capital was building other settlers. This time i focused on production tiles right away and salt is one of these excellent tiles to work early on.

Spoiler :

I made peace with Egypt and he turned hostile. Some turns later i got my city #3 and #4. I killed a barb camp with a worker in it that instantly gave me Warsaw as an ally. Both Warsaw and Venice demand the GL so i really hope that this wonder will be built in time for them...and for me

Spoiler :

But...

Spoiler :

Yeah...2 little turns behind I killed another barb camp to please Venice at least and made it my 2nd ally. Not bad from a guy that didn't sell a single thing(nor loan).

Some turns later Egypt DoWed me . He wants revenge and caught me when i was still walking back from Venice. I immediately rush bought a UU in Uxmal. I tought he was going for this city but he changed his direction to Tikal. He tried to take Tikal but he forgot to let a melee unit alive. 3 wounded warriors where waiting for the next turn but i killed all 3 of them just before phew When all his ranged units where left, i cleaned almost his whole army...that was close after all!

Spoiler :

After more or less peaceful turns i found something interesting...

Spoiler :

Alright...well i'm happy for sure to find this in first place but i got lucky to have extra gold so late in the game. Capital built Oracle at turn 76. I completed Tradition. Then i started the NC at turn 79. Tikal will start HG.

Spoiler :

My first free gp is online! But what to take? Well that's simple. It's the Great Admiral. First of all i can skip Astronomy. Secondly i can find other things much faster and get a lot of informations rapidly. I can also make some good relationships sooner and get them friendly faster. And finally to find more...cs. with 2 policies in Patronnage(culture rise fast enough in this game), it will be easier to ally some cs. I need more happiness...again.

Spoiler :

Edit(1 hour and half later) :

I found almost all civs. I finished Chichen Itza and i exchanged a luxury with Netherlands. 2 turns later i entered a golden age. Education researched, i'm working on these as soon as possible. I rushed a university into Chichen. The 2nd long count gp has been a scientist that i settled.

Spoiler :

Some turns later i made a tic tac toe move. I decided to give 3 luxuries for Ghandi in exchange of...spice!

Spoiler :

But why this move when i already have +9 happiness? For this!

Spoiler :

I found a natural wonder at turn 113-114 for Hong Kong. I had only one copy of whales and silk. Only a single 250 gold was used to ally 2 more cs . and i gained more happiness too

I picked a ge for my 3rd long count bonus. My cities are still growing :

Spoiler :

 

[alpaca]

I started doing a write up of this game and the specifics of no sales of resources to the AI, but as I started playing through this save, I found that it was an almost perfect set up for trying out a rapid expansion, infinite city sprawl type set up because both of the civ and the unfortunate placement of the capitol (more on that in the spoiler!).

As a result, I am going to write this up as a Let's Play which will take a bit more time and requires me to dig around my autosaves to get correct screenshots from key points in the game. I'll start with my general observations though.

General Observations:

My playstayle and background are mostly multiplayer and this is actually the first single player G&K game I've finished so I can't really tell if this is faster or slower than "normal" but I do think that since I normally don't take advantage of selling resources to the AI anyway, this fit my playstyle quite well. I did notice that I had a considerably faster start selling resources to AI with a tradition opening, but the liberty opening seems to negate the need to sell resources in order to buy settlers/ workers. I think that on immortal, a sub 250 turn space race victory in G&K seems a decent speed.

It seemed like ICS playstyle with the lack of reliance on wonders and the ais doing deals for gold so it was an interesting option.

Turn 243 is quite fast. I'm looking forward to see when Tabarnak finishes for comparison as I'm pretty sure you're both better players than me

 

[ifinnem]

Yeah turn times seem pretty quick and maybe game style not too different from when you can sell...

 

[Tabarnak]

Turn 141 : I allied a 5th cs thanks to the great merchant from the long count bonus. I signed 4 RAs.

Spoiler :

What makes no sale rule difficult is that you can't tech like mad AND upgrade units like you want. I decided to turtle for the army size and just play defensively. Egypt is sending a lot more units than usual but this time Venice can hurt him a bit. Going to finish ND soon in Tikal.

Spoiler :

Turn 152 : I reached the indu. era and started on some public schools. First RAs begin to pop up. I picked the great artist for another long count bonus and used it for a golden age. With some amphitheaters and 2 cultural cs allies, i try to fill the Rationnalism tree as fast as possible.

Spoiler :

 

[Islandia]

That's so funny Tab - I thought this was going to be just an interesting and fun challenge in and of itself, but I think that this actually represents a clash of philosophies and playstyles. In a true sense, this is going to be a test of going wide versus going tall taken to two extremes so I am highly interested in how this turns out since I don't think any real testing has been done on this with G&K out - whether the tradition 4 cities approach or the liberty mass spam approach works better (the no sale part is almost a secondary consideration).

I haven't fully finished my let's play yet http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=11728046

but here's a screenshot of the exact same turn - 152 and the economic overview at that time.

Spoiler :

You are slightly ahead of me in tech, beakers, happiness, but I have quite a bit more in faith, population and number of cities. Definitely want to see how this evolves! (That's 15 cities in case you can't see the bottom of the screenshot).

Spoiler :

 

[Tabarnak]

That's indeed a great game. Maya litterally own the ICS style. But still...Tradition is against pretty strong even without luxuries selling, thanks to a great hilled and productive area.

Question : Does other AIs hate you enough to not be able to sign 3-4 RAs per wave? Because it's not the case for me.

 

[Islandia]

Question : Does other AIs hate you enough to not be able to sign 3-4 RAs per wave? Because it's not the case for me.

Actually if you look at the screenshot, I'm at friendly with all the AIs except one. I killed off Egypt before they had met anyone so I didn't get a diplomatic hit for that. I was only consistently able to sign 2 - 3 RAs per wave though because the AI had no money and I was trying not to front load money to them for GPT deals (seemed too much like a sale in my opinion). I think somehow I got off to such a massive start over the AIs that they just never had much money and never approached me in any of the categories other than military after the Egypt wars were over.

 

[Islandia]

Okay - I've done a full write up of the game for the Civ Stories area as a Let's Play

Feel free to check it out and critique or compare notes to your own finish:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=471542

I definitely made some major mistakes in the late game so I fully expect Tab to beat my time to spaceship launch - don't let me down Tab!

 

[Tabarnak]

Turn 173 : Situation after public schools.

Spoiler :

Turn 201 : Situation after 3 research labs built.

Spoiler :

Turn 225 : I have the same ''problem'' than any other science game i played so far...my cities stayed idle for 15-20 turns until new techs(parts). Not teching fast enough i guess. The Mayan long count privated me of 3-4 gs too. In fact this bonus ''slows'' down your science progression

Spoiler :

The capital is chunking over 250 hpt and built the last part in 3 turns only.

Spoiler :

I finished at 234. I would have finished earlier if Ghandi and Poly didn't denounce me some turns before RAs completion(they litterally gave me no science at all).

I gave some gold to fund RAs and i asked for gpt in exchange of this loan. I loaned myself 3 times(90 gold for 4 gpt and 2x22 for 1 gpt each) I think it's ok to loan gold from the AI. These actions make you lose gold through the game so i don't think it's a bad thing for the challenge. Nothing compered to real free gold by selling spare ressources. But even without these gpt things the finish date would be approximatively the same.

Here is the save :

 

[Tabarnak]

I saw your report Islandia and with over 1700 bpt you were rocking hard This set-up in mp games should be enough to destroy any human temptations

I'm sure you would have done better than me with this ICS style. Surely below 230 maybe 220.

But this long count bonus is actually ''bad'' for science games.

Do you think it's possible to repeat this with any other civ?(religion is very important i guess) This map looks pretty well suited for this approach too, with a nice and large chunk of land just for yourself without any fear to be attacked from the front.

 

[alpaca]

I saw your report Islandia and with over 1700 bpt you were rocking hard This set-up in mp games should be enough to destroy any human temptations

I'm sure you would have done better than me with this ICS style. Surely below 230 maybe 220.

But this long count bonus is actually ''bad'' for science games.

Do you think it's possible to repeat this with any other civ?(religion is very important i guess) This map looks pretty well suited for this approach too, with a nice and large chunk of land just for yourself without any fear to be attacked from the front.

Not sure if the time's good for you but 234 would be really fast for me. It's true that you get fewer GS but it's difficult to evaluate the bonuses from the other GP vs 100 more GS points. The only GP that cost you points are the GE, GM and GA, the GG and Admiral are free and the prophet should only increase faith cost. I'd say the bonuses for the GE and GA are easily worth 100 points as they help you to get a wonder/finish rationalism faster. The GM is the only questionable one but it could in principle pay for rush-buying a science building.

I don't know if you can change a civ in a savegame but I guess you could re-roll maps until you get a suitable one or create a scenario in the map editor so you can swap out civs in the same starting location.

 

[Islandia]

I saw your report Islandia and with over 1700 bpt you were rocking hard This set-up in mp games should be enough to destroy any human temptations

I'm sure you would have done better than me with this ICS style. Surely below 230 maybe 220.

But this long count bonus is actually ''bad'' for science games.

Do you think it's possible to repeat this with any other civ?(religion is very important i guess) This map looks pretty well suited for this approach too, with a nice and large chunk of land just for yourself without any fear to be attacked from the front.

Yeah I took a look at the turn around point and it was somewhere near turn 200 that the 18 cities started producing more beakers than your 4, and then the beakers started rising exponentially as the population exploded and research labs came online for all the cities. If I had to replay this style again with a similar setup, knowing what I know now about the faith point generation and being able to buy multiple great scientists once all the pagodas came online, I definitely feel like it can outpace a 4 city start by the time things get interesting.

Nonetheless, your launch time was pretty awesome. I need to learn to control my RAs a lot better the way you do them. I suppose I should have just given the gold to the AI to get the RAs signed rather than try to wait for them to come up with it themselves.

I agree with you that the long count bonus sort of hurts a pure science game, but don't underestimate how valuable that early Great Admiral was to meeting the other civs and getting RAs in place faster without having to research astronomy. I think I naturally only generated and additional 3 or 4 scientists, though many of the cities were starting to get close once public schools had been built and were working 3 science specialists.

There was nothing super special about Maya except that their shrine synchronized well with religious picks and the free early GP helped me enhance the religion much faster. I actually think that Celts, Byzantines, Ethiopia are all good candidates since they usually get to found religion early. I don't see how you would do ICS without religion since at the end, it directly accounted for 72 happiness in the empire (4 per city). I think if I were going any other civ, I would probably substitute Mosque or Religious Center in place of Asceticism since the Pagoda faith generation is so good and snowballs quickly.

 

[Tabarnak]

I agree with you that the long count bonus sort of hurts a pure science game, but don't underestimate how valuable that early Great Admiral was to meeting the other civs and getting RAs in place faster without having to research astronomy.

Yeah, making pure pangea maps less appealing for Mayans(i mean who cares about great admirals when there is no water).

 

[alpaca]

There was nothing super special about Maya except that their shrine synchronized well with religious picks and the free early GP helped me enhance the religion much faster. I actually think that Celts, Byzantines, Ethiopia are all good candidates since they usually get to found religion early. I don't see how you would do ICS without religion since at the end, it directly accounted for 72 happiness in the empire (4 per city). I think if I were going any other civ, I would probably substitute Mosque or Religious Center in place of Asceticism since the Pagoda faith generation is so good and snowballs quickly.

+1 faith and +2 science per city is pretty nice for an ICS playstyle. It also means building shrines is less of a liability as usual. On immortal, though, you can usually pick up pagodas and something else for happiness pretty late, so you can do it with any civ if you prioritize shrines.