NotThat's Huge Sid attempt

[notthat]

Hi all,

You don't know me, but I know you. 8)
LONG time lurker.


I decided to try out a huge sid arch run for the HOF. Because, why not, right?
It will probably take me quite a few attempts, but hopefully I'll be able to do it.

Settings:

Huge, archipelago 60%, no barbs, wet warm 5 billion, I'm playing as Maya vs 8 opponents:
Greece, Germany, Japan, Sumeria, Byzantines, Babylon, Russia, Persia.
Least aggressive. All victory conditions except wonder vic. Respawn AI off, culturally linked positions on.


May the best settler unit win.

 

[Elear]

It's good to see a lurker start posting. Best of luck. I've stepped back down to Deity since Sid made me bang my head a few too many times.

 

[notthat]

I've played a game till 500 BC. Then I found out the save I used was of an old ruleset of mapfinder which only had 7 opponents. Oops!

Was no good game anyhow. Anyways I've got some good practice on archipelago, which I don't normally play.
I'll leave mapfinder to run and find me some starts to play tomorrow.

 

[notthat]

I realized I ommited that I am playing for a histographic victory.

All mentioned settings, except barbs which are sedentary. I actually used workers to scout for the beginning of the game. It hurts a bit for obvious reasons, but the benefit is that you end up getting maps from huts which make scouting more powerful. All warriors were disbanded, to the dismay of my military advisor. I told him to man up, and that if he wants an army he should teach my workers how to fight. They are overpaid anyway.


It was the year 4000 BC. They say that a guy named Christ will be born 4000 years from now, and thus we have to count the years by how long left until he's born. Kinda weird if you ask me, but we are pretty primitive bunch.

The textbox said the people have vested power in me to build a civilization that will stand the test of time. Since I always do what textboxes tell me, I thought I should.

Domination limit 4350.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204216&stc=1&d=1234918264

Turned out to be a 3 cow start. I opened up with worker, settler, worker, settler, granary in capital. Stright up granary in first 2 towns. Followed by nothing but workers and settlers from these cities.

After some scouting it turned out despite the wow-zomg starting position there was a lot of plains / desert / mountains / jungles where my core supposed to go. It was pretty frustrating but the starting position seemed to have one thing going for it...: There was no one around for miles, and I was on a big landmass.
As it later turned out I was infact sharing the landmass with the Byzantines, but since everyone know Byzantine is the worst civ in the game (snikers Byz fans) it wasn't a problem. Plus, they were far.

I opened up with 50 turn Alphabet, followed by 50 turn writting. I think it adds up to be 80 turns alltogether or just about (I haven't learned mathematics yet). My towns aren't great yet, but I'm making up for it with quantity. Basically it's a mad scramble to fill my landmass before the AI helps me out too much.

Turns out there is only 1 luxury resource on the huge area of my landmass which I'm holding. But I persist...

I built some curraghs, it's almost funny how slow they are at scouting on a huge map. My poor sailors have been rowing for hundreds of years. But I am merciless, and they will row or it's the plank for them.
I met some of my enemies, uhh I mean my friends, and they all know all the techs I can see. Except the Russians. They didn't know alphabet, and since they were right next to the Byzantines, I thought I'd tell him how to form letters (Though I didn't know what are letters good for at the time).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204219&stc=1&d=1234919503

P.S. Cathrine is too ugly.

Thanks to the russian I was able to spot horses, one node was found at the south of my area. I walked a settler to it and I was one turn away when I was contacted by the Germans. But where are they? I check all my curraghs, none of them met them. And just when I decided they must've spot me and moved into the fog then I notice this...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204220&stc=1&d=1234919661

Oh it was a Kodak moment for sure...

Turned out there was another horse resource all the way at the far north. At bird's flight speed it would take about 500 years to get there. For my poor settlers probably much more. I order them to get to it, and that they are not to show their faces in Maya land unmounted.

I started prebuilding my FP before reaching 18 cities, which was a good idea since it still took forever to be completed.

Fast forward to 530 BC. I secured the horses but they are 8 turns from being connected.
Writting just completed. I know 7 opponents, the sneaky Persia are still hiding. They are too clever. Nevermind, I will find them in their hole.
I establish embassies. Everyone know many of the other civs. 6 out of 7 are in the middleages and have literature. Japan is the only one who is slightly behind. I pay an arm, a leg, and mortage my children for literature. I immediately open trade with Japan, but they are not impressed. I get them to give iron work, and mysticism, and I had to add like 100 gold. Note to self: Make Japan suffer.

Aha! But what's this! I check my empire and find out I have 3 unconnected iron spots. Woohoo!
Once I get these babies connected it's time for some serious trading.
Here are some pictures of my empire as of 530 BC:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204222&stc=1&d=1234920536
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204223&stc=1&d=1234920536
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204224&stc=1&d=1234920536
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204225&stc=1&d=1234920604
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204226&stc=1&d=1234920604
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204228&stc=1&d=1234920815

Regarding happiness, I have a question. This is my first milk game so I am unsure of the ropes. Should I already set my luxury slider higher? (Trading for luxuries is WAY too pricy for me ATM). I fear that if I do I will be left too far behind on the tech tree to make a comeback. Should I up the luxury slider and worry about technologies later? I have some bad experience with sid AIs leaving me in the dust...

Edit: Japan, not Korea.

 

[Chamnix]

IMO, you should not use the luxury slider more than is necessary early in the game. I think you should start out playing the game as if you were going for a fast domination victory and worry about the extra happiness only after you have some control over the game.

 

[notthat]

Yeah that's a good advice. I just checked out your game, you were much better than I am by the same time. I think I'll switch into war mode. I'm a builder at heart

 

[Marsden]

Good luck, we're all counting on you.

 

[notthat]

Good luck, we're all counting on you.

Oh man that guy is my hero!

It's 110AD. It's tough going. If I didn't know it can't be true I could've swore the AI is cheating! It's like he has a discount on everything!

I'm a republic, and I'm not too far behind in technology. However my core is disfunctioning, my military is still non existant, and it takes forever to build units. I managed getting 2 cities capable of 3turn knights, everything else is struggling. Sid penalty on OCN is a killer.
I think if I keep pushing I'll manage to get a conquest, I'm not sure how long it will take though.
And on top of that I just managed to bust my trade reputation in an embarassing way.

However it's not all bad, I'm trying to get my golden age started. If Babylon will be so kind as to give me 5 minutes alone with a low tech unit... (don't ask)

 

[Elear]

Getting the core to work properly in the early Middle Ages is a huge challenge with that low OCP, I agree. I'm not surprised since I don't think your core area is particularly good. It's very difficult to get an operational core when starting in that jungle/plains area.

P.S. - Who will you ally against Byzantine? There's no one else on your island. That's the problem I forsee.

 

[notthat]

Well at the moment this is the diplomacy status:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204255&stc=1&d=1234940224

So it's all very subtle.
Actually I was only half meaning to make that happen. Everyone just started declaring on everyone and I'm trying to take advantage with some alliance deals for grabbing cheap techs.

As for the Byzantines, I was hoping I could just run them over with cavalry. I could ally the whole world against them just to avoid any interruptions and maybe help a bit vs their sea.
They are giving me some nice power demonstrations of their units, but they're mostly low tech stuff.

My empire:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204256&stc=1&d=1234940224

My golden age comes at a much needed moment. I'll try to avoid my builder ways and focus mostly on military, although some of my non corrupt cities badly need a few things.

I figure at the worst case once I'll get in industrial age I could overpower even sid AI with my patented calavry rush with artilery. Hopefully I'll make progress sooner though.

 

[notthat]

Oh and as for the core, I thought I was following the right plan: At the beginning of the game deliberately expanded mostly to the near north. Then I placed my FP there. I figured with the lower distance corruption I could get my core to be nice and 8 shaped. Maybe it worked, I dunno. Seems like I have very few core productive cities.
Also on deity I always play Iroquois. Maybe the switch to sid + not commercial does not go well with me. O_o

 

[Spoonwood]

Both of Moonsinger's 80+ K games and Kuningas's game used the luxury slider early. Check the saves in the HoF. SirPleb's game, at least so far as I can guess from his write-up, didn't do such and only scored in 60+ K range. So, you really want to have a *near domination* approach to the game, *while* having a happy empire. In other words both.

 

[notthat]

It's 480 AD. Basically in the past 35 turns I've had my golden age, mostly been building my core and getting more cities to productive status. I know the clock is ticking, but I saw no way to make military advance.

I have been enjoying myself playing the diplomatic game. Tying up deals to peace treaty and MA sure is fun. It doesn't always work the way you want it to, sometimes even the AI doesn't break his deals! Hacks!
I just got into industrial age. Up until now I wasn't really certain if picking scientific civs (and Japan - Doh!) was justified. I got like 6 techs in 1 turn by gifting 2 enemies into IA. I traded with Persia their steam engine, for my music theory + economics + navigation + military tradition + misc. Much fun!

Rail network up surprisingly fast, I don't generally bother railing with workers as they head for the core. I got the rail network up with 130 workers in few turns.
Currently I'm fighting Byzantines. My army is still kinda weak, some 40 cavalries and 20 cannons, but it will change very fast. They lack iron and saltpaper, so I don't expect them to last very long. Though some nation traded them iron recently, but I really needed the cash :O

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=204432&stc=1&d=1235034901

Score is 3380 atm. I consider this a practice run and I learn as I go. If I clear everyone out in reasonable time (what I consider reasonable anyway) and then practice doing milk set up then I'll consider this game to have achieved it's purpose for the future.

 

[Elear]

Your position doesn't look too bad at all to me.

One thing of note: the spacing of your cities seems erratic. In some places it is really tight, and in others it is so loose that there are actually tiles you cannot work.

I think the one thing to be concerned about would be the efficiency of your military building capacities. 40 cavalry seems a little low if you want to conquest anyone. Have you tried disabling your own saltpeter every few turns to build horsemen or Knights instead of Cavalry? Then, upgrade. I think this would be much faster.

edit: I know what it's like to be a builder. I think you need to draw away from those tendencies even more because, as you admitted, it's caused you to waste time already.

 

[notthat]

What do you do with your totally corrupt cities? Irrigate everything and assign tax collectors? How much do you let them grow? I can't say I'm doing too well with them. At the moment I have like 1-2 tax collectors in each max, and they are small in size. My happiness situation isn't too great atm.
As for disccounting saltpaper, If i'm not mistaken, doing the disccount trick is basically the same thing as if I rush them with gold. I am in republic so that's not an issue. Getting gold is though.

 

[notthat]

And in other news, I just found out you can scroll down massive unit lists with the mouse wheel instead of clicking the downward arrow key dozens of times.

 

[Spoonwood]

It's 30 gold for a 10 shield upgrade. It costs you 40 gold to buy something for 10 shields (if you already have 1 shield in the box).

 

[notthat]

It's 30 gold for a 10 shield upgrade. It costs you 40 gold to buy something for 10 shields (if you already have 1 shield in the box).

!

Outstanding. Thank you goodsir.


It's 560 AD now. At 480 AD The Byzantines have Marched some 300 units into my territory. Mostly low tech, but about 25+ knights as well At the time I only had about 40 cavs and 20 cannons. In the past turns I've been busy trying to reduce their numbers, while increasing my cannons count. I'm at 52 cannons 40 cavs and 3 armys now and I only have about 100 Byzantine units in my territory.

In my deity games, usual war is like this: Kill computer units, head for their towns while killing reinforcements, win.
On sid this appears to be very time consuming. A better idea is to skirmish with their forces, and heading for their towns at the same time. I will try to follow this more.

ATM I'm paying 280 gold per turn for army upkeep. This is killing me. The dime finally dropped and I decided to plant a lot more cities in my totally corrupted parts for unit support. After I'll plant more cities the plan is to irrigate everyone and try to get them to size 7. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Chamnix]

!
It's 560 AD now. At 480 AD The Byzantines have Marched some 300 units into my territory. Mostly low tech, but about 25+ knights as well At the time I only had about 40 cavs and 20 cannons. In the past turns I've been busy trying to reduce their numbers, while increasing my cannons count. I'm at 52 cannons 40 cavs and 3 armys now and I only have about 100 Byzantine units in my territory.

How have you been doing this? Killing 200 units with 40 cavalry takes at least 5 turns even if you win all the time and don't spend time healing. The AI is just ignoring your cities? Are you luring the AI stack back and forth with empty cities or some other trick?

 

[notthat]

The bulk of their units are pikemen / spearmen / archers / medieval infantry which are easy to kill. Only now riflemen are starting to show up. Also a lot of them the AI consider defensive units so he will walk about aimlessly until he kindly stands on flat land.
Yeah I do lure their stack into open cities. They achieve virtually nothing. Except one time when they sent all of their knights to attack my 2 incense city which was guarded by nothing but cavalries, without walls. That was a bad turn (first real turn of the war).

It's hard to say how many units I kill each turn, maybe 30. I did build some cavalries and lost some, that may explain it.
All I know is the number of hostile units in territory according to civassist.