Ridiculous Early Settler Victories

[oopsy poopsy]

I don't think I got 25% that many ruins, although I haven't looked at saves to confirm. When I get a chance I'll run it a couple more times 'cause I'm guessing I just had some poor luck. Did you use scouts to hit camps? On Settler it's certainly doable, but that may be one of the reasons I lost out on ruins, 'cause they're spending way too many turns healing. I think I under-appreciated the number of ruins I could get to with rapid exploration (I did push as much as I could, but I thought camps for 450 should be the priority) and I'll try skipping scout vs. barb and hope they last for my warrior(s) to clean up so I can find more ruins.

As for science, I need to get everything up faster to hit your curve. I can catch up in cities, but without the extra setler/workers from ruins and cash, I was at least 50 turns behind in growth and infrastructure by the the early 100's. If I can duplicate a start like yours I'm hoping I can keep up like 75-80%. I took almost a year off from civ 'cause I played 5-6 games on release and realized I could already beat deity if I was willing to slog out the turns (never finished a full deity so maybe I can't say definitively, but I sure felt like it was in the bag). Anyway, I knew I couldn't stay away forever and the patches have changed it enough that I'm trying it again, but it does mean my chops are nowhere near HOF quality.

 

[bostich]

i wouldnt miss the scouts at the start. i dont try to kill barb camps with scouts at the start but sometimes the barb will attack your worker if u are near him. 1 extra settler from huts is more than 2 barb camps.

I just got another decent start at my 4th try and documented it a bit better:

turn 0: settle goa; start building scout; start researching AH; my starting position is a bit unusual: high production but low food.

turn 3: ruins->population; goa is at size 2

turn 9: ruins->settler; goa finishes scout -> build another one

turn 10: ruins-> gold

turn 12: ruins->pottery; ruins->reval map

turn 13: ruins->culture;

turn 14: open tradition

turn 16: ruins->settler; ruins->reveal map

turn 17: open liberty;

turn 18: settle tombuctu->start monument; goa finishes scout->start worker

turn 20: kill barb camp; buy warrior

turn 21: ruins->culture

turn 23: ruins->settler; open honor

turn 24: ruins->reveal barb camps; kill barb camp; buy worker; finish AH->research writing

turn 25: settle jenne->start monument

turn 26: settle taghaca -> start monument

turn 27: ruins->reveal map

turn 32: kill barb camp; buy warrior

turn 35: kill barb camp

turn 38: kill barb camp; buy worker

turn 41: tombouctu grows to size 2

turn 44: kill barb camp

turn 45: collecitve rule

turn 46: kill barb camp; gao finishes worker->build monument

turn 47:kill barb camp; finish writing->research mining; purchase library in gao and tombouctu

turn 48: jenne grows to size 2

turn 49: settle tondibi; taghaza grows to size 2


That are 12 ruins and 8 killed barb camps. I see a ruin and 1 barb camp at turn 50.

On turn 50 i have:
5 cities; 9 pop;14 bpt; 3 workers; 2 scouts; 3 warrior; 2 libraries; and the worker from citizenship is still open

in comparison to the other game:
i got no early barb camp-> scouts came later->less huts
i bought some warriors->more barb camps destroyed
i bought 2 libraries instead of workers->less workers but more bpt

 

[bostich]

that start got me a turn 417 ( 585 AD ) cultural victory. just a couple turns to slow

I havent found the right timing for the RAs yet.

 

[krakedhalo]

First off, many many thanks to vexing and bostich for all of the great advice in this thread!

I'm starting my first serious run at one of these super early huge Askia Settler victories - eye on science or diplo at the moment. After reading the advice above, I've cooked up a very good start:

Turn 50: 7 cities + 1 settler almost in place, 11 pop, 16 bpt, 8 warriors, 3 scouts, 2 archers (upgraded scouts), 2 workers (haven't used the one from Liberty yet), 3 libraries, 1600+ cash on hand.

That's all from your pointers in this thread and from a barb camp on turn 8. I've found 21 ruins and 21 camps, with 3 camps revealed but not yet dispersed.

I researched AH first, hoping to pop Pottery, but that never happened, so I researched it the old fashioned way. 2-3 turns after getting Pottery, I popped Writing, and soon after Trapping. Those are my only techs so far. Goa has a monument and is now hard at work on GL, currently due in 55 turns.

Now I'm looking for some more concrete advice so I don't screw this up too badly. I usually play for culture, but I think with at least 8 cities and only 1 monument at this point, that's probably not the direction I want to go for the best date. So far my best science date was a 1720 Small/Prince/China, and I really want to learn your secret for leveraging your RAs to the fullest.

Questions:
It seems the consensus, such as it is, is to sign 11 RAs between roughly turn 90 and turn 101, with 1 RA per turn being maybe not the absolute ideal. I don't have enough confidence in my understanding of the RA tech cascade process to do more than 1 per turn and still get the techs I want at each step though. How much cash should I save up for this? Assuming I can find all 11 civs by then (I know 6 now), is 2937 (= 167 x 11 + 1100 for era differences) likely enough for the first round? How much do you plan on for the second round?

What do you consider the requisite techs to have on the turn before your first round of RAs start to come in? Where do you start the RA tech cascade?

It seems like it'd be vital to have PT complete and be in the Renaissance for the Rationalism opener. It's been mentioned several times that there's a very small window for getting the culture for the SP to open Rationalism, but I'm not sure I completely understand why. Clearly the "late" end of the window is set hard and fast - must have Rationalism at least 1 turn before first RA completes. But what's the boundary on the "early" side? Is there a penalty or reason to not want it as early as possible? You're bound by how fast you can get to the Renaissance, obviously, but by bee-lining Astronomy that seems doable in a reasonable amount of time.

My capital is looking a little low on production potential. That means I may have to use a GE from either Liberty or Hagia Sophia for PT. Do you still find that you're able to generate 2 GEs for the UN? Or do you always hard-build the PT and take a GS from Liberty and HS? How many GSs do you normally have to bulb techs at the end?

Thanks so much for all the great tips you've already posted, and for any replies. If there's a good mid-level science strategy thread somewhere I haven't found, that'd be good. So far what I've seen seems to be either too basic or just over my head. Thanks!

 

[vexing]

it's 600 gold per ra, plus you'll have to fund the opposing side, so you need around 10k gold.

you'll want to use liberty finisher for porcelain tower, and hs + a specialist produced engineer is the easiest way to get two up for UN.

using the oracle to pop rationalism after getting into the renaissance era is the easiest way to ensure 100% productive RAs.

 

[bostich]

I usually dont build built the GL right away and instead use it to get education (or even acoustics in culture games) later.

The "early" end of the window for rationalism is getting a rennesaince tech; usually bulbing astronomy with the GS from the PT. Vexing is right: building the oracle can save you the trouble of timing the culture.

You need about 10k gold for the first wave of RAs (600 + 100 era penalty on you side + loans to them) and about 15k for the 2nd wave (750 + 200-300 era penalty + even more loans because on Settler AIs are broke a lot). If you want the RAs as soon as possible you should probably start saving up after turn 50 or even a bit sooner.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

Okay so I'm the unluckiest civ player in this thread, or there's something very screwy that I don't understand. In 10 different 50 turn starts I got 4 or 5 ruins 9 times and 8 one time. Camps I can pull in similar numbers if I get a lot of warriors out early, but they're making their coin fairly late in the first 50 turns because you need two for scout buys, then each one buy a warrior so you're not really making money for settler/workers until turn 35-40 really. My most promising start ( where I got 8 ruins) I decided to cheat and reloaded each ruin 5 times to see if I could pop settlers. That's 40 pops plus the 4 or 5 in the other 9 games (so it's another 40ish, don't remember off the top how many were 4 and how many were 5 when I kept getting the same result, so it's 38-42 really for a total of 78-82 popped huts. In those pops, I haven't received a single settler. I get 1 worker (2 once or twice) a tech (don't remember ever getting 2) and pretty decent splits of the other options (gold, maps, upgrades).

I'm sure I'm not the best scouter, but I pay attention to uncovering the most tiles I can with each move and if I encounter the AI I try to move to places they haven't been (meaning if they pop up from the left I don't keep heading left basically). Sure 10 isn't a huge sample, but now 21 ruins for someone else. My maps simply can't be generating as many ruins as others, but it beats the out of me why or how that can be.

And yes, this was settler difficulty each time. This was a very frustrating experiment that I think I'm done with. To be clear, thanks for the posts and strategy bostich. I'm not trying to complain, but I wanted to follow up in case anyone else out there is feeling like they're going crazy because they get what I get instead of what others do. I just wish I knew why I can't uncover ruins at a similar rate. It sounds like a fun way to get a crazy fast win, but I can't pull it off.

 

[krakedhalo]

Wow, that's pretty unlucky Oopsy. Just to make sure, you're playing this on Settler difficulty, right? You can't pop settlers on any higher difficulty, though you still should've gotten more workers. In the 21/21 start I mentioned above, I popped 2 settlers and 1 worker. Also, are you playing on Great Plains? That allows for faster movement of warriors plus greater visibility for everyone. Take the scouting, not survivability, upgrade path for your scouts.

I also used scouts to fight on the first few camps, figuring that would really speed things up if I won, or if I lost I wasn't that far in to the game that I'd really mind restarting.

 

[vexing]

Okay so I'm the unluckiest civ player in this thread, or there's something very screwy that I don't understand.

and you're playing marathon speed, huge map, great plains? so few ruins should be near impossible.

what may help you is loading up firetuner and revealing the map on turn 1, it'll show you all the ruins. the 4 tiles apart and 4 tiles from start locs results in patterns.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

Not Great Plains, but everything else is right. I was playing Pangaeas. Not Pangaea plus 'cause it's almost impossible to meet CSs that way and I kept medium sea level, 'cause I found if I went with low to try and maximize terrain I'd get a lot of peninsula type things that sucked for scouting. Those experiments weren't a part of the 10 I did. That was done before my first post in this thread.

I can see how pangaea vs. great plains could lower my rates substantially, 'cause mountains get in the way, but it's a discrepancy in results that I find hard to account for the total difference (unless pangaea has a different ruin spawn rate I guess). I will give it one more go with great plains a few times and I'll play with firetuner tomorrow and see how many ruins are being generated just to see if I'm completely mental.

But if they spawn 4 tiles apart, then AI scouts are behaving in a crazy fashion and sneaking in and grabbing in between ones (I don't think for a minute that's actually what's happening on a very large scale. One or two missing in a game sure). If that's hard-coded in, then I'm smoking something, 'cause to ballpark it I'd say they're more like 10-12 apart.

 

[vexing]

there's a min distance of four tiles, that's all i meant. each AI starts with a warrior that they send scouting, and you have your own warrior. most ai won't build a scout initially (while you should be), and even if they do they have to contend with the production penalty. you should be killing the first camps you find and purchasing more warriors to find more camps / ruins

the great plains map is pretty conducive to ruin finding because the center area is all flat terrain (and where your warriors should be heading), while the east and west sides are covered in forests which leaves plenty of ruins for your scouts in those areas.

 

[oopsy poopsy]

I don't have anything definitive yet, but I played 30ish turns waiting for dinner to finish last night and 40 turns this morning with my coffee and on great plains I get way more ruins (although some pretty poor barb spawn in those 2 attempts. If those had been earlier or closer to get scouts out it probably would've been significantly higher). I had 6-7 in 30ish turns last night and had 10 in 40 turns this morning (both were pretty casual tests 'cause I knew I didn't have time to concentrate). Those are with less optimal starts, whereas my 8 ruins in 50 was just about the perfect storm of early camps to get scouts out ASAP.

I'm gonna go back to pangaea too see if maybe I broke a dam or something with the ruins spawn, 'cause the wide open space of the plains does help (also I made more of an effort to try and uncover a 5-6 space ring around each ruin I found based on that 4 tile minimum vex mentioned), but it shouldn't be this different. I know it sounds impossible, but they honestly were nowhere near this close together before. I want to see if maybe I just had an incredibly unlucky set of starts where a simply unfathomable combination of lakes and mountains kept disturbing the placing (I don't actually believe that, but it's the only option I have right now) or whether the issue persists on pangaea, 'cause right now I feel stupid mentioning all this like I was on some kind of non-ruin-seeing acid until last night.

 

[krakedhalo]

I've finally found some time to almost finish that great start I had, trying for my first super-early win with the help of the strategies you guys posted. I had a 22-turn window for unlocking Freedom (bee-lined straight to Astronomy, had plenty of time there), cruised through the first set of RAs and got up through Sci. Method + half of Military Science. Man that's fun the first time you do it! Hard-teched the rest of MS, Steam, Archeology, and Biology, and had just as much fun going through the second set of RAs. I was delayed just slightly because I'd forgotten to resign a couple of them on the appropriate turn, but still, I thought I was in great shape. I even had two spare GSs I didn't need. Bulbed Globalization on turn 283, and thought I'd have a pretty good finish date.

But then I only had one GE for the UN. I knew there'd be some turns left, but, um, wow..... Still 33 turns to go . No Ironworks in the capital, plus no coal for a factory, no aluminum for a hydro plant, and not near a desert. Used a GS to unlock Atomic Theory, and found that I do have Uranium available, but of course it's not somewhere convenient and it'll be 13 turns to get that hooked up before I can buy a Nuclear Power Plant. GAH!

I think I just had too many cities driving up the cost of great people, plus the lack of accessible coal meant no factory, so no specialist slots from the factory.

Soooo, now I'm looking at a finish date in the mid 300s. This has been very different from my normal fast, small-empire culture games. I might try it again in a month or so. Thanks for all the great tips in this thread!

[edit: Bought a bunch of tiles for aluminum (hydro plant) and plopped a new city down to claim some coal. Those, plus using 1 left over GS and the GG from Honor for golden ages allowed me to shave 6-7 turns off, for a turn 320 (300BC) win date. If someone had told me I'd be disappointed with a 300bc Diplo win, I'd never have believed it. Thanks again for all the tips!]

 

[ossi]

I got a 392 cultural victory. Strategy: Just 2 cities, one (the capital) specialized in size, culture and science with landscapes, the second one specialized in culture and production with manufactories (for building utopia). Furthermore I had 3 puppets and 3 very late cities after utopia was initialized. Legalism also works for puppets!
What I do not understand from previous contributions: Rationalism would be nice but you cannot trigger it together with piety, can't you!? Or is oracle an exception? But even then you loose one cultural period!

 

[vexing]

i don't think rationalism can be justified in a cultural game anymore. the benefit of the techs you reach faster don't outweigh the culture gains of piety.

 

[ossi]

i don't think rationalism can be justified in a cultural game anymore. the benefit of the techs you reach faster don't outweigh the culture gains of piety.

ok - thanks - now I understand - your comment on oracle and rationalism was related to diplomatic victory!

 

[vexing]

368 culture. a BC culture win is possible (before turn 350 i think)

 

[krakedhalo]

Turn 384 Space (340AD), but that's with a terribly botched set of RAs. Started signing on turn 80 with about 4500 gold, but then the barb huts dried up and it was turn 96 before I signed the last one. Also didn't have the early beakers to get to ideal pre-RA techs and had to bulb into the Renaissance just to catch Rationalism. Got nowhere near Sci. Theory on the first set, and only 1 MA tech on second set. Then didn't have any GE's.

BC science is totally doable, should be relatively easy actually. Pre 200BC science is likely possible with good luck.

Question: You guys (bostich & vexing) are assuming 7-8 GSs to bulb the final techs, but in two tries I've only just squeaked out a 6th. Last time I think I had too many cities (12ish), this time too few for the beakers I needed (5 cities at turn 100, a few more after turn 290 to claim coal and aluminum). How many cities do you guys generally go for on Diplo/Science runs? How do you get so many great people? I mean, sure, buy early universities, work them full time, etc. but I'm still far behind your GP count.

 

[vexing]

not 8 gs, 8 bulbs. 5 gs, oxford, scientific revolution. for science i'd go for 6 cities (one per part).

 

[krakedhalo]

not 8 gs, 8 bulbs. 5 gs, oxford, scientific revolution. for science i'd go for 6 cities (one per part).

Ah, thanks, that clears it up. I just couldn't imagine how you'd get 8! I'll give this another shot in a couple of weeks. If the last RA comes in around turn 275 and I can get them timed right, it should take no more than 25 more turns to get the SS parts churned out if Engineers can rush Apollo. If not, add 25 or so more to that.