Nobles' Club LIV: Peter the Great of Russia

[Soirana]

Reached alpha whatever in 1924

Spoiler :

Settled on stone since this means i can get stonehenge before gwall and hope to dodge spies. [got one spy and two artists in end i believe].


, she got Alpha before BW in 2000BC? Who of us is human?

After henge, gwall and mids i got oracle

damn lucky to get it at such date with neighbours like these. Pacal or Issy could easily nail it at 1900BC...

Used MC to get Alpha and after traded to parity.

the initial tech pace was really amazing. Not sure how i could drag myself out without oracle [probably slowly and painfully.]

Meanwhile world decided to ate Gilga

Well, he did rather well actually. Have not vasalized or lost too much even if he was fighting till end.

Got first GS for Academy in 500AD

Well, was a bit busy wonderbuilding.

After Gilga made peace with world i bribed them each on other


Did good job in leaving me alone and fighting each other. Have not seen that many vasalazitions and splits in ages.

Tried lib into biology but korea had education so i ended lib into steel. Well, hoped to somehow trade for printing press... Should have taken at least SM honestly.
Guess running to much for wonders like hagia and taj.

Well, my mistakes in endtechs was part of problem. Other was some space pasrts destroyed by spies and Pacal decalring on me

After three turns of beating [modern armour vs infantry and mobile artilery piled on top] he signed peace.

Capitol in end

I mined uranium as hammers were more problem than tech. Could have mined other hills but i liked it green
Looking back should have skipped Globe and built HE instead. Should have dealt with unhapiness anyway i believe.
Although globe helped denying resolutions a lot

Winning shot [horsehockyy score]:


TECHS [times more or less correct]:
at 1200BC

freaked me out
1050AD? [after lib]

arround 1500AD

Somehow they started lagging a bit

edit: immortal save immortal difficulty.

 

[vranasm]

when i see all those reporst i think 2 things.

1) there definitely is demand for occ challenges
2) dalamb should provide soon another map for us . Maybe some more normal peter's game?

 

[vranasm]

Well I know this is OCC map, but I started to play it normally Emperor Epic and ehm...have a question or two.
Played to 5BC

Spoiler :

Basically I settle our peninsula with corn+gems blocker city, that lead to 6 cities with a lot of food.
At first I thought that this map is trivial with so much goodness around and thought about someone who will screw it... weeell I am the one! If somebody on earth could screw then definitely me.

About the question I have. It seems that the overall tech rate is somewhat skyrocketed, is this normal on emperor? I have the feeling that in my other tries (only 2 yet) at 5BC no words about CS, feud and some strong medieval techs like now:



What would you suggest to do with this map? I am a bit on top of overall score, probably because of all those techs I traded etc. and some wonders, will you wait for cavalry war? I am not sure I will build enough tech lead to take the rest, or just try space victory?

From wonders I got pyramids (since i usually didnt race for pyramids, it happened that like for 2k years I wasnt in representation, with phil leader and all those foods every city working specs... I told ya, if someone can screw it, etc, etc) and Lately Great Library ah and Parthenon from Great Engineer.
At 5 BC I got GS that I used for Philosophy, that should secure me lead on Liberalism.
Have strong production base of GS's.

So what now?

 

[UWHabs]

Well I know this is OCC map, but I started to play it normally Emperor Epic and ehm...have a question or two.
Played to 5BC

I'm not sure the diplo situation, but given you have a few backwards neighbours, I'd suggest expanding out through them. Keep a couple cities back home to keep you up in tech, but given the map, I'd be afraid of falling behind as the AI settle more land. If you can take out one or 2 neighbours, then you should have enough land to secure yourself whatever vic condition you want.

 

[vranasm]

I'm not sure the diplo situation, but given you have a few backwards neighbours, I'd suggest expanding out through them. Keep a couple cities back home to keep you up in tech, but given the map, I'd be afraid of falling behind as the AI settle more land. If you can take out one or 2 neighbours, then you should have enough land to secure yourself whatever vic condition you want.

Spoiler :

diplo is to say the least interresting... hatty hates izzy, izzy somewhat doesnt like exactly me...
hatty and 2 other are jewish block. MM ended hindu etc.
I think expanding through izzy would be best.

Question remains where i will be building units! ;-) so much food...well i think i will just whip army...that means some anarchy though

 

[barbertje]

I won an immortal OCC space victory in 1894.

Spoiler :

Except for mansa, all the AI's were amazingly backwards for a long time. There was not much techtrading. Mansa was dogpiled at about 1500, and
his captal was taken, so no problems with a cultural victory here.
It's still possible to outtech the AI's at immortal:


You really start to surge ahead after oxford at about 400 AD.

I would have won a deity space victory in 1864, but:

Spoiler :

Mansa won a cultural victory in 1795. Impossible to stop. His only coastal city had 15 defenders, and he has tanks and fighters, and he has vassalized Washington.
The gnp situation is not so good here

 

[happyturtle]

Monarch save, Prince difficulty, OCC, goody huts off
Space win 1983

Spoiler :

Tile management:

I pretty much had four phases:
1. Improve resources first, chop and mine hills, leave most forests in place.
2. As happy cap goes up, add more farms.
3. National Park - forest preserves for 8 or 9 free specialists
4. When necessary for growth, turn the mines into windmills and forest preserves into farms.

By the end, every tile was improved for maximum food production. I'd also founded Cereal Mills for more food, and had 5 or so settled Great Merchants. Ended up getting to 43 population.

The Space Race:

I could have won earlier, but I detoured for the Space Elevator, because I'd never built it before and wanted to see the animation. I was very amused that apparently one can built it without having mastered flight. I also put off launching the ship for a while to let my city grow to maximum size. Of course after I launched it, another rice came available to trade, so I could have gotten it up to 44. And if I'd settled 1N to include the fish, it could have gotten even bigger.

I didn't avoid popping spies, so that's probably why I never had any sabotage.

Religion:

I had no state religion all game. I switched to Organized Religion when Hatty requested, even though I didn't actually have any religion to be organized around. Kind of a waste of a turn of anarchy. By the time Christianity spread to me, I was in Free Religion. Since no one was Christian, I was never tempted to change.

National Wonders and Great People:

My National Wonders were Globe, National Epic, Oxford, National Park, and Ironworks. I settled every great person except the Music GA which I used to pop borders, a Merchant to found Cereal Mills, and my very last one started a Golden Age 7 turns before victory. I couldn't believe how fast they were popping! The accumulation of all those settled specialists really is powerful!

Civics:

Civics were Representation, Bureaucracy, Caste, Free Market, and Free Religion for most of the game. Eventually the UN forced emancipation on me, but I had enough specialist slots by then that it wasn't much of a problem.

War:

I sent out quite a few privateer stacks to pillage the AIs. There were lots of nice bottleneck places where you could disrupt trade to multiple cities at once. They levelled up nicely and got me two great generals, and then I brought them home to be upgraded to destroyers which never got used.

About the map:

I think adding the extra resources made it too easy. OCC has a lot of strengths to make up for its small size, and I think just about any capital site with stone will work fine. Working the diplomacy to get what you need in trade is just part of the challenge, I think.

Finally, two screenshots:

Spoiler :

The Megalopolis of Moscow (darn... just realized I could have windmilled over the gold for another )


34 Great People! All but 3 settled. I think I probably got all of the 'first to tech x gets a ' techs except for Fascism.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

This was alternately frustrating and fun... the first game I tried to win as fast as possible and my spaceship crumbled on the way to AC..

The second game I went on emperor where I had a nuclear meltdown while building space ship parts... population of 38 went down to 12... fallout everywhere....

Not to be deterred (I can do this!) took a third try, built every spaceship part, built a coal plant, built nothing unnecessary (no spies, minimal garrison) and launched in 1938.

Amazed at the amount of crappy 'random' events from the AI. Theater was destroyed 3 turns after building it, library was taken out similarly (hurricane).. many others.

 

[happyturtle]

My uranium mine collapsed three times. And I had bandits in the corn twice, within about 5 turns of each other. Not any more random events than usual, it was just odd to have the same events hitting the same tile.

 

[Gwynnja]

Noble, OCC, Normal speed, random events off

Spoiler :

What a fun map. I normally play monarch, but went down to noble. Not necessary. I settled in place and dominated from turn 1. Hogged every wonder (other than Versailles and a couple shrines) and settled almost my great people. Initial tech order Myst> Ag> masonry> BW> roads> poly> priesthood> writing. education @ 150 ad, liberalism @ 1500 ad (industrialism.) Hatty and Izzy shared my religion and Giligan harassed mansa and washington the whole game so I could build in peace. it's the 1800s and I'm building spaceship parts, but i don't know if I want to finish. fun game, great overpowered map. I should have played monarch.

 

[Jman5]

Spoiler :

Now that I've played this and read over everyone's posts, I see I played it a bit differently. I figured I had enough food by moving up 1 North that I could afford to not only run a heavy specialist economy, but I could also cottage up my empire at the same time. By the end I was one turn shy of 33 population. I also didn't sit back and win via space race. No, no it was Conquest win for me! I will say I regret playing this on noble because the AI were so backwards by the end it was kind of a joke. Modern Armor vs Riflemen or worse

The only tense moments were when a random event caused a barbarian swordsmen invasion in 100 AD when all I had were a few warriors garrisoning my capital. Also a random event made Isabella declare on me. However I managed to bribe my good friend Egypt into the war so it didn't last long.

Spoiler :

 

[admtanaka]

This was alternately frustrating and fun... the first game I tried to win as fast as possible and my spaceship crumbled on the way to AC..

The second game I went on emperor where I had a nuclear meltdown while building space ship parts... population of 38 went down to 12... fallout everywhere....

Not to be deterred (I can do this!) took a third try, built every spaceship part, built a coal plant, built nothing unnecessary (no spies, minimal garrison) and launched in 1938.

Amazed at the amount of crappy 'random' events from the AI. Theater was destroyed 3 turns after building it, library was taken out similarly (hurricane).. many others.

Never, never, never, never, never, EVER build a nuclear plant in OCC!

 

[cripp7]

Monarch / Domination 1702AD

Spoiler :

Started with the monarch save, thinksmoke it was an OCC while not checking OCC tick mark, played up to Lib as an OCC. Building swords/axes/cats in 1 turn at a time, popped out an army and took down Pascal, then Hatty. Took SM with Lib (shouldn't have, dropped my by 100bpt!) Spammed cossaks, 1702AD Dom




My Wonderland

 

[lymond]

Emperor Epic 1916 AD Space Victory

The Story:

Spoiler :

I haven't finished a forum game in some time. This was a nice setup for an OCC certainly, if not a bit cooked. I decided to settle 1E to have an extra hill and extra seafood. In hindsight, I think this was the best spot you could settle. Settling in place was about the worst place you could settle and 1N is on the iron so that would significantly reduce hammers. 1N would still be acceptable though.

Basically at the start, with all the forest in the BFC, my intent was to safe every forest for the National Park. I often build the NP in an OCC just for the health, but it may not have been necessary. Still, with forest preserves I netted a good 10 or 11 additional specialists.

Also, the Mids was an absolute priority. After some initial worker techs I went masonry and chopped it out with some of the plentiful forest outside the BFC (i doubt all the forests were there on the original map gen) Of course, the stone helped some too.

Priority wonders were Mids, Parth, GL, MoM, Taj and Statue of Liberty. I believe I built every wonder I intended to build and really focused on the plan for space with minimal wonder building. I did build Cristo which probably was not necessary as once I had my civics set I did not change them. Most civic changes except very early were made in GAs. The Great Lighthouse is generally a waste in the OCC unless you are industrious.

National Wonders:

National Epic (a given)
Globe (necessary)
Oxford (always)
Ironworks (boost production for parts including extra engineers)
National Park (no health issues and lots of extra specialists)


I should have achieved space victory a bit sooner than I did. A few setbacks effected my overall date. First, my early great people were not ideal. Always hope for a scientist first, but the Mids caused me to get an engineer. Of course, I used him on a wonder - forget which. Then I popped a couple of artists. So the first GS for academy was not until my 4th or 5th great person. After this I think might have bulbed a couple of tech but pretty much settled most GPs from then on out except some oddballs that I used for GAs. Also, an early request by Hatty or Izzy made me stop trading with Gilgs. This issue here is that it prevented me from entering his borders - by land or sea - in order to meet Vicky and Mansa. Therefore, I did not meet either one until after Optics, which was not a tech I prioritized. Thus, especially Mansa, I lacked a couple more trading partners.

Civics: Representation (Mids), Bureau, Caste, Environmentalism, Pacifism

I basically stayed in all these civics the entire game once each civic was available. I spent a brief time in Merc and Free Market, but switch to Enviro when I traded for medicine. Enviro was obvious for the commerce boost from all the forest preserves. If I decided against NP and forest preserves, I would have gone the hammer route by workshopping any possible tile and using State Property.

Cereal Mills was the only food corp available by the time I finally popped a GM. Not a huge boost in food but enough to run a few more specialists. I think I had about 25 or 26 specialists running once I hit full growth.

Remained peaceful through much of the game. At one point, I had several ais please including sweet Izzy. Built the UN and thought I might have an outside chance to win Diplo if I wanted, but America for some reason had great relations with Hatty.

Everything got interesting toward the end. Mansa, as usual, was the top competitor in the space race. For a moment, I thought I really might lost to him but despite his building the internet (which did nothing for him due to all the other ais being quite behind) I maintained enough of a tech lead that a couple of key parts were still not available to him. What was interesting though is the sudden world war that occurred. I had DPs with Izzy and Mansa. Washington declared on Mansa, which pulled me into war. Vicky had a DP with Wash so she then DOW on me. Luckily I just had to fight off a few of her ships and the get peace. Hatty took care of much of the rest with UN votes. American declared on Mansa again later which pretty nerved his chances at victory.

So it was sit back and hit end turn until the end. I came with in 1 turn of completing the tech tree.

My Empire of One




With NP and Environmentalism, forest preserve tiles are actually pretty decent.




Many AIs would have been much more behind than they appear here if not for trading quite a few techs for large chunks of gold.

 

[dalamb]

Never, never, never, never, never, EVER build a nuclear plant in OCC!

Especially when I went to all the trouble to give you a nice river for a hydro plant.

My own game (noble/epic/occ, AP and space wins):

Spoiler :

I had forgotten that with only one city the game goes a lot faster, which is likely the only reason I could finish this one before my wrists started screaming at me.

I played one game to the point of discovering Philosophy and founding Taoism -- only to realize that since no other religion had spread I was going to take a serious diplomatic hit by adopting it as a state religion so I could use Pacifism. Diplomacy is pretty important when you have only one city to build things with, so I decided to restart and, if at all possible, hold off on Taoism until something else spread to me first. In a normal game it can be important to get Philosophy before the AIs do, because it's an Education/Liberalism prerequisite and they tend to de-prioritize it when somebody else has it. So I'd have to watch what other civs were doing with their research, and seeing what they're actually researching (as opposed to what they could be researching, from the Techs screen) requires good espionage. So I restarted, determined to build the Great Wall ASAP for the Great Spy points and settle my first spy to get those critical extra EP.

Tech order was agriculture > bronze working, building a worker first. By the time the worker came online he had a camp and two farms to build, and by the time he was done with those he could chop trees from the hills I wanted to mine. (I kept forests everywhere else in the BFC, planning on using the National Park and getting the free specialists from forest preserves). Next was masonry for the wall and the 'mids, while building a couple more scouts and a single warrior for happiness. With no need for pastures in the BFC I put off animal husbandry, and not needing the fish immediately because of the other 3 food, I tech'd wheel > pottery > writing and built a library to run the two scientists; the great wall finished the same turn I discovered writing. I chopped a 2nd worker and made do with 2 for most of the early game. They mined the hills in the BFC then spent most of the rest of the game building roads everywhere; post-math they chopped trees outside the BFC (every little bit of production counts!).

After writing tech order was myst > meditation > priesthood (for the oracle, from which I got MC) > archery (to protect the narrow isthmus from the AI -- with the GW I didn't need them for barbarians) > fishing > sailing (at which point I built a galley and another scout, the previous 3 having been killed by barbarians; I figured exploring the coasts by sea was going to be a lot safer!).

In between fishing and sailing Buddhism spread to me. The game got a lot less tense as, one by one, all the AIs but Korea became Buddhist. This plus caving in to most AI demands meant that all but one AI were pleased with me from fairly early on, and most eventually became friendly. Thus my diplomatic worries were soothed. In the same time frame (about 1200 BC) I got my first Great Spy, whom I settled. Thereafter I focused espionage on each AI in turn to get EP up to the point where I could see their research. Since Buddhism spread so early, I had no worries about playing brinksmanship with Philosophy, but I figured it would be useful to delay Liberalism as long as possible to get the most expensive tech I could.

After sailing I got Math and began chopping forests outside the BFC, then IW and finally AH, the latter only for pastures for health and trading to the AIs. Then Currency for better trade, and then the aesthetics > literature route to build the National Epic, then drama so I could build the Globe Theatre, ending all happiness worries (I could have easily defied any AP/UN resolutions had I wanted to, and did manage to avoid having to switch to Emancipation). I took Music for the free Great Artist, whom I eventually used for a golden age. Finally I took Philosophy and eventually switched to Pacifism; at that point with a PHI leader, the Normal speed, and Pacifism, I was getting Great People much faster in real-time than I can ever remember from past games. The "eventually" was because I first tech'd CoL and Civil Service, starting a Golden Age and switching to Bureaucracy / Caste / Pacifism.

After CS I researched Paper and built the University of Sankore, mostly for the Great Scientist points but also the small boost in from building a buddhist temple, monastery, and stupa (the only time I can recall building a cathedral in a non-cultural-win game).

I settled most Great People in the early game, except the Great Artist for the first golden age. The 2nd Great Spy built Scotland Yard. Eventually I got a 3rd spy and 2nd artist, who gave another Golden Age. I got the free Great People from Communism, Fascism, Physics, and Fission, missing the one for Economics (prioritized by Vicky; I failed to notice she was working on the tech, since I was too focused on watching for people researching Liberalism).

By the time I had finished Sankore I'd traded for Theology with Mansa, and had to think hard about the Apostolic Palace. At first I was just thinking about the 6 from the 3 Buddhist buildings -- every little bit helps -- but then I realzed I really, really needed the AP to give me a chance to control its resolutions. With only one city my population was never going to be large enough, but with the AP I was guaranteed to be a candidate, and applying my limited diplomacy skills might be enough to have people vote with me. In any case as AP resident I could forever put off diplomatic victory votes, which I was worried an AI might win.

In 640 AD I got to within 1 turn of liberalism and held off for a better free tech. At Normal and with all the from settled great people I was ahead in techs along the branches I was following; I traded for some mid-game techs but in the late game there was little to trade. I put off Liberalism until I could take Steam Power from it and build a levee; I could have held out even longer, but I figured the levee was worth it. I quickly got to Railroad and metaphorically slapped my forehead when I realized I'd forgotten you need coal or oil to actually build the improvement. So scientific method and combustion became priorities; ideally I should have gone for them first had I remembered, especially since oil let me upgrade my triremes to destroyers, ending any fears of a late-game sea invasion by Korea.

I'm quite willing to back up a few turns if things don't go the way I want, so a couple of times when the AP diplomatic win vote came up I let it proceed -- planning to back up (and delete the replay file) if somebody else won. Since I could prevent the vote forever I figured this was just experimenting, not some form of cheating. I this got a surprise AP win in 1705 AD. I backed up and went for the space win I'd always wanted. That win came in 1927 AD -- for a significantly lower score than the cheesy AP win. In future I might disable diplomacy wins when trying an OCC.

I made a lot of screen shots but am not sure which of them anyone would find interesting, so I've saved myself the work of cropping and uploading. If anyone wants to see some of the intermediate state let me know and I'll edit a few in. I might post some of the events I've never seen before.

Edit:

Spoiler wonders built :

National: As listed in my summary of strategy articles I'd read: National Epic, Globe Theatre, Oxford University, Iron Works, and National Park.

World:

• The core ones listed in uberfish' strategy: Pyramids, Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Great Library, Broadway, Rock&Roll (which got some resource trades for me).
• Ones part of my specific plan for this game: Great Wall, Apostolic Palace, Mining Inc.
• Opportunistic ones: Taj Mahal, U. Sankore, Spiral Minaret, Mausoleum, Pentagon, Cristo Redentor (which let me accede to a few late-game civic change requests without penalty), Kremlin (party for denial to the AI, partly for the GPP).

Spoiler some statistics :

Units (including great people). Disparity between "built" and "current" for military units is primarily promotions, aside from 3 scouts killed by barbarians.


Demographics:

Charts: safe despite pitiful power levels.

 

[drlake]

I might have to try OCC after all. I started a normal game on Emp, and the game just seems too easy with that resource-rich start.

 

[lymond]

@dalamb - I recommend being more selective in building wonders for an OCC. Some of those wonders are completely useless in a space win and especially an OCC. This might be a little different if you were Industrious in which wonders are serving as your quasi-philo trait. Pentagon, SM and a few others are useless. I don't like Rock and Roll here either. By Pentagon ( a lot of worthless hammers) you really should be powering your way to space part. Build research if anything.

 

[happyturtle]

I built a few useless wonders on my OCC, strictly to deny them to the AI.

This was a fun game. I think I'll try it again on a higher difficulty.

 

[JoeMacUnGee]

As a note on chopping for the OCC, I just beat my first OCC on Noble, as Pericles. I left as many forests as possible for lumbermills. Riverside lumbermill tiles are producing 4 hammers base, the city is producing nearly 500 hammers in the late 1800s. Serious production. Do NOT chop all trees, IMO.

 

[Jman5]

Spoiler :

I quickly got to Railroad and metaphorically slapped my forehead when I realized I'd forgotten you need coal or oil to actually build the improvement.

I did the same thing