Quartermaster, here I come!

[AutomatedTeller]

I just submitted my final requirement for the QM - a Monarch Diplomatic victory. It's a cheap one - I don't have an emperor or a Sid game, but this (plus the histo game I submitted for the gauntlet) fulfills all the requirements. And it's not a #1 - 980 AD makes it #3 (out of 4) on the board.

Quick write up - Korea, had a lot of food, just 1 wine, but 3 horses in my territory. 1 war, in the entire world, was when a wandering persian warrior took a size 2 undefended city - my archer died on the counterattack, so I made peace and surrounded him with other cities and eventually flipped him back.

I squeezed in some more cities on other luxes and built 5 wonders - Great Lighthouse (was on a pangea, but I wanted the tourist income in my science city), Newtons and Copernicus in one city, the Mauseleum when I realized that Copernicus isn't a science wonder, Theory of Evolution and, of course, the UN.

Everyone was polite or gracious - the fact that I was trading horses all game, giving away techs and ROP with most people assured that.

At the end, everyone voted for me... except my opponent, who turned out to be Xerxes, because he was the largest - no one was really eligible.

Two oddities

A) this was a 60% water Pangea, and Greece still managed to end up on an island by themselves - it seemed to take forever to set up a trade route.
B) The germans were off on a peninsula through a choke point in some jungle, with extra gems, and never built a harbor, so I had to go through persian territory to set up the trade route.

next for me is to improve my rankings. I have no #1's, which makes me sad


well, that attachment looks like crap....

 

[sanabas]

Congrats.

 

[Bartleby]

Congratulations.
I don't think it's all that unusual to have one or two island starts on a 60% pangaea, especially if you happen to be near the top end of the Domination Limit.

 

[Tone]

Well done. As a valuable contributor to the HoF forum, your QM status is long overdue IMO.

Those number 1s will soon follow. Perhaps you could target some of the weaker spots to get the ball rolling.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

thanks

I tried a couple of SID 20K games... it's a really different approach, when you *have* to build collosus first to assure that you get it, and the ToA gets built so fast - I had to stop one game when the Mongols got the Mausolleum 1 turn before me and 2 turns before Lit came in!! Very frustrating...

 

[Marsden]

Good Job! I think I predicted you would be next a few months ago, not sure. More importantly, Congratulations!


Edit: Wow, I did, I just checked, it's in the march HoF update thread.

 

[killercane]

Congratulations

 

[archphoenix]

Congratulations.
and I am confused by the 60% water Pangea, so many many island! look the left part I think it's a 80% archi.

 

[azzaman333]

Good Job! I think I predicted you would be next a few months ago, not sure. More importantly, Congratulations!


Edit: Wow, I did, I just checked, it's in the march HoF update thread.

(But spiffykeen was 'next' from then (unless someone else was in there somewhere)

But Congratluations to AutomatedTeller for becoming a QM!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

oh - that's because the picture sucks. There is only 1 island, up in the upper left. Let me try to load it again...

As you can see, the bottom left is a near island owned by germany across a very narrow peninsula

 

[Marsden]

(But spiffykeen was 'next' from then (unless someone else was in there somewhere)

But Congratluations to AutomatedTeller for becoming a QM!

You're right! I forgot Spiffykeen was a quartermaster since then. Well, I guess there goes my career as a fortune teller.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

So, as my next trick, I am trying a 20K on Sid.

So far, I've had troubles - I'm trying small - cold, arid, old, with egypt, arabia, japan as opponents. I keep getting an island with the japanese, though, so I can't expand, and eventually they get sick of not killing anyone so just walk in.

But it's been much fun - really different to not get all the wonders and get so far behind in the middle ages!!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I've been trying a 20K Sid game. I picked small because there was only 1 entry and it wasn't great. I suspect this will stand as #1 until sanabas decides that he's sick of not having all the #1! But I learned a lot.

Game settings were cold, arid, 80% arch, as Byzantium, with Japan, Arabia and Cleo (Theo vs. Cleo)

Early attempts showed several things:

1) If you have an AI on your island with you, you are pretty much toast.
2) If you try to squeeze out a settler, I was never able to get Collosus. I don't know if that is everyone else;s experience or not, but it's a big pain!!
3) If two AI's have early contact, like sharing an island, the tech pace is brutal and you may lose MoM, as well.

So I started playing any start - this start for this was not good:

Lots of food (2 wheat, a wine on grass that shows up later, plus the fish), but no hills and only 11 land tiles!!

The land was not great, either - no other big food bonuses and lots of tundra...

but there were a *lot* of luxuries!!

Wines, Incense, Dyes and Furs... plus, underneath Trebizond are spices.

Plus, off to the west was silks on an unclaimed island.

Unfortunately, there were no strategic resources, at all. All I ever managed to get for myself was horses (for a brief period - I kept leaving my non-core cities undefended and Cleo declared war 3 or 4 times to take them - I had to abandon my silk city, just so she wouldn't capture it!) and rubber, which was on a small island that I completely garrisoned with warriors to keep every one off.

I got collosus, finished writing in 50, then zoomed to philosophy and popped an SGL for literature!! What to do now... I could either save it for later (Sistine chapel, for instance) or use it for Great Library. I decided to save it for later and continue building the library - I figured I would get the Glib fine, but Sistine might take forever to build with my 20K city. I managed to get it up to 24 once I got engineering and could add some forests (wheat and wines don't belong in forests!!)

I made it to the middle ages first and got monotheism as my freebie, which was nice. After I got astronomy, I made what may have been a bad decision and decided to go for steam as fast as I could to get rails, instead of going for free artistry. Looking back, I should have gone for free artistry - the extra science would have really helped my research through the rest of the middle ages and the IA, plus Cleo might have gotten Invention for me.

The game was pretty uninteresting - Japan never made it to the industrial age, Cleo kept declaring war on me. At one point, my coal partner (Cleo, i think it was, but I don't know) stopped being willing to trade with me), so I had to attack Cleo to get it. This was kind of scary, but it worked out pretty well.

Here is where Cleo has her coal (and, as it turns out, iron)

It's a little island right in her core... but not attached to her main island.

I dumped a column of infantry and cavs on the iron mountain and did some creative pillaging, then attacked Byblos.... and took it!! Really easily, actually. I was quite surprised - it only had a couple of defenders.

I then put one of my infantry on the coal and rushed a harbor. This, along with the iron that Arabia was giving me allowed me to lay more rails.

The defense of Byblos was easier than I thought, and mainly involved frigates and destroyers sinking frigates and galleons, while the ever slowing tide of reinforcements through themselves piecemeal on my fortified stacks of infantry, and the lux slider kept moving up as war weariness took hold.

I got a leader out of it, and made an army, and it was victorious, so I was able to get Heroic Epic - far too late to make a difference, but it was fun. And then, of course, Byblos flipped and I lost my army and most of my offensive punch!!

Later, I got some marines and built up more of an attack and tried to take on Japan. It went well - the marines got me a beachhead, then Tokyo. I had a stack of about 20 units, half of which were infantry, and the japanese were in the middle of the MA and didn't have iron.

I didn't keep Tokyo an entire turn - I dont' actually know how many japanese units died in that attack, but they wiped out my entire stack, mainly with horsemen and archers - probably some longbows.

Build order:

Palace 4000 BC
Collosus 2190 BC
Library 1225 BC
Mausoleum 825 BC
Glib 470 BC
Temple 130 BC
Colloseum 210 AD
Cathedral 370 AD
Sistine Chapel 470 AD
Uni 630 AD
Copernicus 850 AD
Bach;s 1120 AD
Newton's 1300 AD
Smith's 1510 AD
Shakespears 1595 AD
Universal Suffrage 1700 AD
Theory of Evolution 1752
Intelligence Agency 1814 AD
Battlefield Medicine 1830 AD
Heroic Epic 1858 AD
Military Academy 1872 AD

Other notes:

2 SGL's - one for Writing, one for motorized transport... in 1876, 2 turns before I won, with nothing to build.

I was all set to build hoover dam... and realized it needs a river. In fact, there were no rivers anywhere on this world.

Fun game, good learning experience. I learned:

1) You must protect outlying cities, or else the Sid AI will drop a couple of guys and either take them or force you to abandon them. You can protect your core with just a few guys that you can move swiftly, but each outlying city needs a couple of guards with it.
2) Even crappy starts can be worth playing on SId, because they might not be as crappy as you think.
3) Sid AI's are scary, but not as scary as you think. They are still dumb.

 

[Tone]

Nice report and congrats on the win again. This is tempting me to give it a go (once I've got my computer fully operational again) although maybe the gauntlet needs my attention first.

My suggestion of a fourth learning point: raze and replace in strategically vital areas. I winced at the point when you said that you kept Byblos.

A few questions if I may:

How far did you go with research after Steam? No Lab or MT wonders so I assume that you didn't get that far.

How far did the AI get with research? Did they fall into the quagmire of MPPs and Fascism?

How long could you stop the AIs from contacting one another? I've found that having non seafaring maps with big gaps (>3) between the different island's coastal tiles plus getting the GLHouse can really slow them down but it looks like you weren't able to do that and there's no mention of blockades.

Were you close to losing to an AI reaching 80K? This is often my weak point in Sid 'pelago games and you chose religious civs so their culture must have started growing pretty early I would imagine.​

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Contacts weren't a big deal - the cold, arid starts and lack of luxuries kind of screwed over Japan and Arabia. Egypt was pretty strong throughout and got all the other wonders.

I researched strong until the end - got marines and almost got tanks. The cold arid kept the AI weak, but also kept me weak and my research down. I don't think I had more than 2 or 3 middle ages techs that I could research at 4 turns without running a deficit.

I used techs and luxes to trade for resources as much as I could, so arabia was a tech or so behind me and egypt, too. This helped, cause egypt got me some optionals (mil tradition, sanitation, intelligence)

Yes - I think raze and replace is something I should have done - I didn't have a settler to replace Byblos with, and it really didn't matter than much, anyway - I didn't actually *need* more coal - I had gotten the capitol fully railed - but it was nice to the leader.

At the end, Egypt had 58K culture, and I had 38K - my culture was going up 230 and Egypt was going up 356, so there was no way that Egypt was going to win by 100K. Arabias culture was about the same as mine and was increasing even faster.

I have some other games going - but I think egypt is too strong. I may have to try with Zulu. As I see it, there are only 2 completely safe traits for the AI to have at this level - expansionist, which is worthless on an arch map with no goodies, and militaristic. religious is ok, too, because it doesn't give them a huge advantage.

Agricultural, industrious, scientific are all bad for the AI to have, and commercial and seafaring means that they have alphabet.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Here's a question: If you look at Thebes in the picture with the coal above, you will notice that it is size 2!!

Anyone know why that would be? It's got plenty of food, and it's not like it's giving up tiles to something else. it's pretty wierd, if you ask me...
Not as wierd as the fact that there is a courthouse in it, mind you (I investigated it after the game was over from that save file), but

 

[Tone]

If you look at Thebes in the picture with the coal above, you will notice that it is size 2!!

Anyone know why that would be? It's got plenty of food, and it's not like it's giving up tiles to something else.

There is one grass tile that may have been lost to another city and thus it may own only two 2-food tiles in the city radius. That pretty food poor if you ask me. From the picture, I can see that it can get to size 5 or 6 so my first guess is that Egypt is either pop-rushing or drafting. Another possibility is that it is building settlers maybe. Note that only one of the other cituies in view it at it's max as far as I can see which suggests some type of pop rushing or conscription going on. What's the government?

ps is the last post unfinished?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

(continued from previous post) wierd nevertheless.


(now it is finished... just held over to the next post )

That actually makes sense, that they are creating settlers.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I was starting a game... and was suprised to see this. Note the date (3850 BC).

Then note that this is a warlord game.

Anyone know how this might happen?

(Fixed the screenshot, which was messed up)

 

[Marsden]

I was starting a game... and was suprised to see this. Note the date (3850 BC).

Then note that this is a warlord game.

Anyone know how this might happen?

I got an invalid attachment page.

EDIT: Could that be our dear friend the Volcano again? Or perhaps barbarians?