Replay #6 Short Story

[troglodyt]

Are you trying to be funny or are you really just ignorant?

Huh? What do you mean?
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[WelshGandalf]

Why Oracle CoL, MC seems like a decent option if you're aheading direct for prateorians. Stop the settling, chop/whip some forges which will boost your troop production. Or math perhaps, for better chops and taking you closer to catapults.

 

[jihe]

Ok, this will be interesting again. CoL is in place. I love the fact that your cities almost have no culture half of the time But then again Atrium can work 6 good tiles with ease so who needs culture anyway.

Culture will be easy after CoL and some auto spread.

 

[Um the Muse]

I go through a lot of games with cities having little to no culture for a long time. On Marathon speed, you need 30 culture to pop a border. With proper planning, that means you can be size two in the meantime. Often, you might as well just use what you can already improve. Strong resources are an exception, but that's why you build your cities to take advantage of them even without borderpops if you can help it.

 

[Seraiel]

Oh man this start actually has WAY WAY WAY to many gold. XD Good joke right?

There is no enough Gold .

I'd say, this start was better than I expected from the 1st screen, anyhow, I would have played it even if it only would have had 2 Golds, as that doesn't matter so much on Deity. The key in my game is to get Oracle and a good Tech from it, for that, I need 1-2 Golds. Through the Oracle-tech again, I can stay in the tech-race forever through trading, at least until Calendar, and Calendar-Ressources are often even better than Gold. Calendar is normally available at 1500 BC with so many opponents, and with it, I improve my tech-rate to about 200 BPT at 1000 BC.

I do build Cottages, but those matter a lot later.

It's 2000 BC and you are basically broke (but not broken). Why am I not surprised?

Are you hoping that you'll get iron automatically by settling as much land as possible? The times I played the Romans, I beelined straight to IW just to find out where the stuff is. But that was on normal game speed and lower difficulty with a coastal start. Obviously not feasible here.

[Edit: I've overlooked the fact that in your screenshot you were in anarchy. So maybe not broke!]

I think Seras mentality here is if you're going to go broke you gotta go big or go home. There is no point in going to the Olympics if you don't want to win the gold, so there is no point to going broke in Civ unless you go really broke.

That begs the question: What is the gold medal here? Obviously it isn't highest score.

Obviously fastest finish date.

As fast as possible with Romans? I think he's a little slow for that.

First: You saw that right on the 2nd look, I wasn't broke, how could I with so many Golds and so few cities .

Regarding the Iron: I played some maps with Rome as practice before that. My experience was, that I could always settle 8-10 cities (through the enormous power of chopping and IMP-trait) .
This means, there is simply no reason to "rush" someone or research IW early myself, as IW is always available with Alpha at 2000 BC on Deity with so many AIs, one AI always researches it, through Oracle I get Alpha (by trade) and through Alpha I get IW. Anyhow, if I wouldn't have had Iron, I would have simply researched Construction and would have gone for Elepult (I had Ivory) .

If I would have neither gotten Iron, nor Ivory, I'd have rerolled the map, and that is what Zx Zero Zx said. For HoF, I have to gamble at some times, but I can gamble, the question I have to answer to myself is, am I willing to invest 1h to replay the time until Oracle, there is nn for me to win every map, only thing that counts for me is, can I get a #1 position in what I'm trying to achieve

Regarding this game, that means faster Conquest than this game by Moonsinger to score 100 points in EQM, a competition in which Incan games are excluded, so I'm not late at all, I have all the time until 1664 AD iirc.

For HoF and Huge maps, the minimum # of opponents is 10.

Enjoying your latest story!

Sun Tzu Wu

Question was, would 17 opponents have made the conquest easier or more difficult.

Ok, this will be interesting again. CoL is in place. I love the fact that your cities almost have no culture half of the time But then again Atrium can work 6 good tiles with ease so who needs culture anyway.

Culture will be easy after CoL and some auto spread.

I go through a lot of games with cities having little to no culture for a long time. On Marathon speed, you need 30 culture to pop a border. With proper planning, that means you can be size two in the meantime. Often, you might as well just use what you can already improve. Strong resources are an exception, but that's why you build your cities to take advantage of them even without borderpops if you can help it.

As Um said, Culture comes slower on Marathon than on normal, 30 turns for a Borderpop with a Monument. Antium has nn for Culture, as it has enough good tiles to work and the in the 9-tiles-square, Cumae and Mediolanum did not even have a chance for a borderpop yet. I could not use the Religion I got by CoL (@ jihe) as I had to convert to Christianity as Hatty had started with Horses, and I didn't knew who her other neighbours were. The possibility to build her UU greatly raises her chances to go to war, therefor, I needed her to be pleased towards me. Mediolanum is Christian, so will get a borderpop soon, Antium (as said) has nn for one, that leaves Mediolanum, which is building a Monument on the screens.

Question can only be: Why did I settle Cumae and Mediolanum without Food in the 9-tiles-square, and that one is easy. Cumae has Forrests, so I could chop out that Monument easily, and Mediolanum has a green hill, therefor can build the Monument easily (it got Christianity, which made the plan to build the Monument obsolete again) . I know that settling near the Food fastens up the developement of a city greatly, but with these cities, there was no choice imho, as I could settle on extremely strong tiles (Marble-plains-hill and plains-hill with access to fresh-water) . Settling on those tiles means more to me than being able to work the from the start.
Also: Settling the cities somewhere else would have ment missing a lot of good tiles (riverside grassland, grassland hills) .

Why Oracle CoL, MC seems like a decent option if you're aheading direct for prateorians. Stop the settling, chop/whip some forges which will boost your troop production. Or math perhaps, for better chops and taking you closer to catapults.

Very interesting and hard questions:

Regarding Math: Oracling Math imho is a waste, the tech is too small, one cannot get Alpha easily with it. In addition, AI tends to get Math often and early.
Regarding MC: MC is very good Trade-bait, but I didn't want to give the AIs early access to Machinery -> XBows.

My plan was to deny the AI(s) anything that would make my time harder (XBs, LBs, Maces, etc.) , still, cheap (ORG) Courthouses would let me support a large empire without directly enabling a threat to my Praets.

What I don't get is why I should stop the settling when there are still great places that I can settle easily and cheap (IMP!) .

Sera

P. S.: Next part going online soon.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Good point about courthouses and ORG, especially on deity where costs are higher.

Usually with rushes you want to attack ASAP. But with IMP and nice places of course it's a good idea to settle. Looking forwards to seeing how this pans out.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Number of opponents: 10

...

Why not minimum number of opponents?

Let me try again on this point. Sorry, I found the above question confusing, because 10 is already the minimum number of opponents allowed on a Huge map by the HoF.

Now that I understand you meant to ask the question of why not use 17 opponents, the maximum allowed on a Huge map by the HoF, it is clear that you meant to use the word "maximum" in your question quoted above rather than "minimum". Right?

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[troglodyt]

Ok, I'm confused. I'm unfamiliar with the HoF conversion mechanics: How does Moonsingers future start win in 1664 translate to you playing an ancient start having also time till this date? Or are you saying that you are done by 1120BC (because that seems to be the calculated finish date for purposes of comparison)? Or am I just stupid?

 

[Seraiel]

Let me try again on this point. Sorry, I found the above question confusing, because 10 is already the minimum number of opponents allowed on a Huge map by the HoF.

Now that I understand you meant to ask the question of why not use 17 opponents, the maximum allowed on a Huge map by the HoF, it is clear that you meant to use the word "maximum" in your question quoted above rather than "minimum". Right?

Sun Tzu Wu

You're absolutely right, I ment to say "maximum", corrected that mistake.

Ok, I'm confused. I'm unfamiliar with the HoF conversion mechanics: How does Moonsingers future start win in 1664 translate to you playing an ancient start having also time till this date? Or are you saying that you are done by 1120BC (because that seems to be the calculated finish date for purposes of comparison)? Or am I just stupid?

The competition I'm going for is EQM (elite Quattromasters) , from which Incan games are excluded. The future start from Moonsinger is the best non-Incan Conquest Victory ever achieved on Huge maps, so by being faster than 16xx AD, I should get 100 points? One could say I went for the low-hanging fruit .

 

[Jester Fool]

Courthouses would let me support a large empire without directly enabling a threat to my Praets.

On Deity, isn't CoL pretty much worthless to the AIs (since they have Noble maintenance anyway)? Trading MC or Currency to the AIs early would seem counter productive while trading them CoL seems pretty one sided in your favor (and you do have a lot of maintenance to deal with).

 

[Seraiel]

2000 BC to 1000 BC


In the last episode, I REXed to 4 cities and oracled CoL. CoL itself gave me the possibility to get the following techs by trade:

• Alphabet
• Sailing
• Poltheism
• Monotheism
• Masonry
• Ironworking

Of course, I revolutionize to Organized Religion to get easy Borderpops through Missionaries and speed up the Production of the necessary buildings. I also discover unsettled Iron nearby:

The screen is from 1800 BC. I've settled the 5th city Ravenna, the planned GP Farm, and I copied the scoreboard on it so you could see that I bribed all AIs against each other . You see my good relations with them, which I got by gifting them techs until (including) Alpha. Gifting Alpha to them was done on purpose, because I wanted the AIs to conduct bribes themselves.

The tech-screen:

Showing that I invested everything but CoL to befriend / bribe the AIs. Just one note: I bribed the Christians against the Hindus, like that, I make sure that I don't up AIs I could get on friendly and wars are likely to last longer. I had no idea at that time where the AIs were sitting as I hadn't explored the map yet.

Chopping and REXing goes further, 1740 BC I found Arretium near Iron:

And soon after that (1680 BC) I found Mediolanum:

1610 follows Arpinium:

The screens show the process of city specialization very well imo. The first ones are just basic specialization, on the last one I've already counted the tiles which I plan to work. Good tiles are imho only the - neutral Grassland tiles, everything else is just to be whipped away (except Ressources of course) .

1580 BC, I finish the research of Aesthetics. I also get Math by trade.

Just when I was shortly before producing Praets, the next techs come in. Mansa has finished the research of Metalcasting, with trading that I get myself Monarchy, Currency and Construction! (It's good that I have strong and many friends) . My own research goes towards Literature which I discover in 1250 BC:

The tech-screen again:

Things to see are, that Brennus is sucking up the whole hate as planned, he gets no techs at all. Roosevelt is the most far advanced, he has lightbulbed Philosophy already, which I cannot trade from him because I'm too far behind still. Roosevelt also got the GLH, so a lot is expected from him. Lucky fact: My neighbour Willem got the Mids .
Let's look at the demographics:

Rough picture, showing that the best AI has almost twice of my research, the production (which I'm focusing) doesn't look too bad, but I'm last in population and of course Soldiers, as I didn't start to build up any Military yet.

With having Currency now, all my financial problems are solved (you could see that my Slider was already at 50% on one of the last screens) . My Research therefor goes with 100% towards Music as that is most often the best route on Deity. Here is a screen from 990 BC, the end of this post, with one of the most tragic moments:

Things:

• I lost Music with 1 turn...
• I favoured building Forges instead of only focusing on building Praets.
• Some cities are fully set up (Granary + Forge) and have started on troop-production already.
• Ressources are all connected, as the cities themselves are (basically this means, that the empire is fully set up, as everything else will get whipped away) .
• I haven't started on whipping the cities down yet, as it's still too early for that. Working the green hills is better, whipping will start short before the war I plan against willem. Current Stack-size: 5 Catapults.
• The production of a Great Scientist has started (very late, but the Capital didn't have enough for that and Ravenna took forever to be set up / had no Forrests to chop out the infra) .
• Due to me trading techs and having decided for the Christians, those are getting strong, while the others are suffering greatly. The whole world is at war.
• Mansa is so nice and finally researches Calendar. Anyhow, not that important as I got almost no Calendar Ressources and don't plan on growing the cities large.

----------------

Hope this post covered everything needed, if not, plz ask. Till later,

Seraiel

 

[Pangaea]

Looks like a very different strategy here, of REXing and setting up cities and infrastructure intead of pumping units and wading in blood. Because you are waiting for Praets?

 

[Seraiel]

Looks like a very different strategy here, of REXing and setting up cities and infrastructure intead of pumping units and wading in blood. Because you are waiting for Praets?

You're part right, and part wrong.

I had to wait for Praets a good time, because I missed "lucky-Iron" with Neapolis by 1 tile, and the Iron I settled after getting IW through trade (Arretium) needed a Borderpop, otherwise, the city would have had no Food. I then got MC from Mansa, and it made sense to me somehow to build Forges, as with going to war so late, I calculated that I'd need at least 15 cats and 15 Praets (better 20/20, Deity AI builds crazy SoDs) . 40 troops from mainly 4 cities means 10 troops from each, so about 1000 / city. 1000 is about the sum at which a Forge pays for itself, so it made sense to me to get them up first, especially because Praets live forever (you'll see) . Of course, getting the cities earlier would have had its benefits, anyhow, there are only 2 possibilities imo:

1. Stick to 3-4 cities, beeline IW and rush.
2. REX peacefully until there are no good places anymore, let the AI develop the land and grow the cities, conquer with Catapults.

The 1st can mean high losses because of hills-cities and Walls, imo ancient wars suck. The 2nd possibility means almost no losses, and by that compensates for getting the cities later. Imo the safer choice, especially on Huge maps with few AIs where one doesn't get blocked early. Loosing less and setting up the cities properly fastens up the conquest of the following Civs greatly, you'll see that once I enter warmode, there'll be almost no time in between the wars and I got an interesting preview for you:

Showing that I only lost 1/4 of my Praets during the whole game!

Sera

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Yea your first target has to be very juicy to not wait for Catapults, even when they are juicy I still max out the land I can settle into before attacking. This way I have more cities to whip, and thus more units.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

... and the Iron I settled after getting IW through trade (Arretium) needed a Borderpop, otherwise, the city would have had no Food.

I usually settle directly on the needed resource (real HoF style FTW ). That's some 30 turns for the border pop and around 10 turns hooking up the resource (depending on number of workers) quicker than in your case .

You risk to have a crappy city in the end, but all great empires have some of those .

EDIT: I just read the rest of your post and saw you went for a stronger buildup, so your decision was right I guess. Playing for the "low hanging fruit" slots in the HoF table or the gauntlets/challenger series is a totally different story.

cheers

 

[sossos]

Regarding this game, that means faster Conquest than this game by Moonsinger to score 100 points in EQM, a competition in which Incan games are excluded, so I'm not late at all, I have all the time until 1664 AD iirc.

Hi Seraiel,

Is the link correct? The Date Qscore of this game is only 0.023, but it's true that the game is ended in 93 turns.

The fastest Conquest of Huge Marathon Deity on HOF page ends on year 1120 BC, with 191 turns from the Ancient start.

I'm also confused by the HOF settings. Sometimes it counts the turns used, so Future start/Industiral start wins; sometimes it counts on the ending year , so the Ancient start outstrips.

Ah, I think it is because I selected "all versions". For BTS, there is no Huge Deity Marathon record yet for the fastest Conquest. (It's maybe more weird)

 

[Seraiel]

What you all don't read is that I'm playing for EQM, not for QM .

If I were playing for QM, I would of course play with Incans, and then I'd maybe have a chance to beat that ridiculous 1000 BC date, but for EQM, the best non-Incan game, so the one with the fastest finish date gets 100 points as Incans are excluded . I don't think that the number of turns means anything, but maybe Ozbenno, SunTzuWu or WastinTime can tell us? The version doesn't matter either if I'm informed correctly, which I find a little odd, but I can understand the reasoning behind that.
There is also something about a phantom date, which I didn't fully understand, but we'll get an answer with the next HoF update at the latest .

@ Walter: Nice to know that you think what I did was right. I have obviously little to experience with non-Sushi-games, none with non-Incan-non-Sushi games. I always try to think about my decisions and if that doesn't lead to anything, I decide by intuition. And with "low hanging fruit" I didn't want to say that I played sloppy or anything, the game took me 70h . That was really ment independently just to answer the question to what my goal with this game was, that was to play the Civ Revent had determined and if I could get 100 points in EQM, I thought why not .

 

[sossos]

What you all don't read is that I'm playing for EQM, not for QM .

If I were playing for QM, I would of course play with Incans, and then I'd maybe have a chance to beat that ridiculous 1000 BC date, but for EQM, the best non-Incan game, so the one with the fastest finish date gets 100 points as Incans are excluded . I don't think that the number of turns means anything, but maybe Ozbenno, SunTzuWu or WastinTime can tell us? The version doesn't matter either if I'm informed correctly, which I find a little odd, but I can understand the reasoning behind that.
There is also something about a phantom date, which I didn't fully understand, but we'll get an answer with the next HoF update at the latest .

@ Walter: Nice to know that you think what I did was right. I have obviously little to experience with non-Sushi-games, none with non-Incan-non-Sushi games. I always try to think about my decisions and if that doesn't lead to anything, I decide by intuition. And with "low hanging fruit" I didn't want to say that I played sloppy or anything, the game took me 70h . That was really ment independently just to answer the question to what my goal with this game was, that was to play the Civ Revent had determined and if I could get 100 points in EQM, I thought why not .

If it is EQM, that game of future start by moonsinger does not even meet the criteria.

"Entries must use Ancient Starting era."

BTW, I only see a list of players in EQM, rated by their accomplishments. How can I find the fastest conquest in EQM games?

 

[Seraiel]

If only ancient starts are allowed, I don't understand the "Rock of Ages" sub-challenge.

 

[sossos]

If only ancient starts are allowed, I don't understand the "Rock of Ages" sub-challenge.

Yes, it's controversial. It may be regarded as an exception in the 6 challenges.

One game may be put in any of the 6 categories: a conquest victory by Rome on big and small with future start, normal speed. However, if it is not played with an ancient start, it cannot meet the requirement of the other 5 events.

So you need to post 33+4 games to complete all events, but 74 games or more for better points.

Anyway, it's a long journey.