Sandman's QC

[Sandman2003]

It is about time I wrote up my Quartermaster Challenge progress, as well (as Moth), I think. First some observations - the QC can be completed with submission of only seven games - five triple whammies, and a double whammy complete the fastest finish legs, and a single milk game finishes the challenge. Also with the Octathlon able to be completed with six games, it is not necessary to win a game higher than demi-god difficulty. Finally, with the number of empty slots still, it is not that hard to score well in the fastest finish categories currently, so inevitably, I think the decider in final quality of Quartermaster's accomplishments will end up by being measured against players best milk game. In this way the Hall of Fame has kind of come full circle!

Anyway, my games:

Before QC I had submitted five games to the HoF into four seperate categories, but all were diplo victories (meaning I could no longer complete the QC in just seven games!). While I still hold some firsts there, there remains some unfinished business in the standard emperor category! (Interesting how while one slot becomes rather competitive, another eg small emperor diplo while having entries appears rather less competitive currently).

The QC represents a number of firsts for me personnally. I had never previously had the motivation to try a culture game of either sort, and I have never intentionally played out a game for the sole purpose of optimising final game score.

To finish off the fastest finish requirements I played:
Small Regent 20K (1480AD) - as Babylon with sedentry barbs. After over 30 starts, and failing to get a masonry SGL, I played out a land locked start with good productive potential, that had the benefit of an early bonus settler. In the end, my city was producing 125 shields per turn, resulting in 8 turn modern wonders, not that that helped much. I know that 30+ attempts with a sci civ and no early SGL is mathematically possible, but it seemed to me that maybe the regent AI were too often getting free masonry from a hut, reducing my odds down further than I thought! In any future attempt (at regent+) I would try without the barbs at all.

Huge Demi-God Domination (1280AD) - as Persia. I think I would have been better off with the Ottomans, but that is just personal preference. This game was most notable for the lack of MGLs. In several single turns I had as many as 10 elite victories without any luck. I am sure my run of drought extended past 60 elite victories before I could finally start the army production. After that of course, the AI was history.

Large Monarch Space (1410AD) - as Russia. The start looked alright, but then I found all the good land for commerce near me was heavily infeted with jungle. I also underestimated the amount of expansion necessary for a decent tech pace on large. On the flip side - those Cossacks rock at leader production, wow!

Tiny Regent Culture 100K (1405AD) - as Babylon. For some reason I though it worthwhile to build as many wonders as possible. I really doubt it was worthwhile even on this size map. Faster expansion (ie settlers or military) would have resulted in a better use of the shields, allowing all the more sites for temples, libraries etc to be rushed!

Standard Monarch Conquest (130AD) - as Iroquois on a 3 billion year old world. I set AI aggression to max for this one hoping this would mean the AI would be at war with each other almost continuously, slowing their progress even further. It didn't really seem to happen. What did happen was those over charged testosterone shooting puppies threw their warriors at my empire slowing my development! For example, before I even had bronze working (or a garrison in the capital) the Koreans entered my capitals radius. Remebering the max aggression setting, I immediately purchased bronze working off the Koreans for gpt, and swapped my half built grnary over to a spear. Sure enough, bronze working became a really cheap tech and the single Korean warrior perished against my spear.

My other mistake in this game was the lack of transport units (galleys). Only at the very end did I start building galleys, while my troops were otherwise forced to trudge one tile a turn through the Indian jungle to smash the final opponent, all 100+ of my mounties that is.... I can certainly trim some time off this game, too.

Coming up next - my first ever milk attempt!

 

[bed_head7]

No dates?!

 

[Sandman2003]

No dates?!

Dates added now!

 

[Sandman2003]

For my first milk run, I decided to try a small deity map as the Mayans. Small so as to have enough time to finish up the QC requirements reasonably quickly, but also, and just as importantly, I firmly believe that the amount you learn in a 'first' game is sufficiently substantial that a huge map would definitely have been a waste. Deity - well the score multiplier is almost as good as Sid, and I know I can win at Deity.

I have played into four starts - abandoning the others fairly early for various reasons, most notably one start had me squeezed between two AI on the same landmass - future prospects looked bleak. The others just didn't seem to be going well enough for a score based attempt, so I dumped them - not that it really matters in small deity(C3C) histographic at the moment as there are precisely zero entries. In fact there are only two entries period and they are both standard maps! Still you may as well start as you mean to continue!

I have now played about half way through my chosen start. I selected four AI - America, Mongols, Arabs and Russians. World type was the usual milk variety ie warm, wet, 5 bil yo archipelago. Start location was ok, not brilliant, but acceptable - limited later production, but at least the four turn settler factory was obvious from the start.

What I later found out was that once again I shared a landmass with two other AI - the Mongols and America, but fortunately this time I could block them both off via two chokes. We also had the only substantial amount of tundra very close to the capital, so some potentially valuable lowish corruption land was of much less value than we would like.

AT 1000BC - we have found all the other AI, and blocked both chokes.
11 cities
2 settlers
18 workers
7 warriors
1 galley
1 curragh

We are in Monarchy and only lack currency, construction and The Republic from the AA. COde of LAws was not available when we picked up philosophy so we went for Monarchy instead. We are actually the tech leaders, but everybody else is also in Monarchy, except Russia.

The map -

The problems with this map started emerging at this point. While we had both iron and horses, the only luxury availabel to us was a spice source up the right hand choke and much closer to the Mongol capital. This would continue to be a problem, especially when the Mongols sneak attacked us, and quickly took a couple of cities, including the spice city. Forcing us into our first war. With the help of a javelin thrower inspired GA, we were able to stop the Mongol advance and reverse the flow, recapturing our lost citiea and making some ground back against the Mongols.

More to come ...

 

[ignas]

Good luck with your QC

 

[Sandman2003]

Thanks ignas, when complete, the current milk is the final leg of the QC for my initial completion, but I am only currently in the 1600's with AI still not entirely under the thumb, so it isn't overly likely that it will be done in time for the next update.

 

[Sandman2003]

The image is the mini-map from 10AD showing the Mongol advance down the eastern choke. I was two turns from Chivalry at this stage with a military of:
13 workers (the Mongols captured some carelessly left undefended near the border pre their surprise declaration)
5 warriors
2 swordsmen
5 horsemen
1 pikeman
10 MI
5 javelin throwers
1 curragh
We still had 17 cities in spite of losses to the Mongols

10AD
In the SW, we have one city by the Americans. I originally thought that this was a seperate landmss, but later found out that it was yet more of the same original starting landmass!

The Mongolian campaign turned for the better shortly thereafter, and saw us regain all lost ground, then take out half the Mongol empire gaining Leonardo's, ivory (2nd lux) and Statue of Zeus in quick succession. After a short period of peace, and armed with a bunch of knights and now ancient cavalry, the Mongols fortuitously attacked the Americans. After about six turns we entered the fray, this time on the side of the Mongols. Our beach-head in the SW was used as a launching ground to attack the soft underbelly of the Americans. With the bulk of the AMerican troops in the north fighting Mongols our advance through American territory was swift.

By 1000AD, the Americans were done for, and we had secured the third and final lux on our home continent. Unfortunately the Russians had also established a presence on this the major landmass. Doubly concerning at this time was that both the Russians and the Arabs had technological superiority, and the Russians were clearly becoming the dominant world power, having secured all the important scientific wonders of the Colossus (well useful commerce from this one), Copernicus and Newton's, and so were charging ahead. One of the clear problems of palying against only four AI is the lack of trading partners, so we were forced to embark on a determined science push to try and catch up.

1000AD
Just for the record, score at this time was 2474, and we were in third position with Russia leading on 2619. We were only at 30% of world area though, and about 1/5th of Russian culture (which was around 30k). We were finally one turn from the IA.

By 1250AD we were industrial, and rapidly building our railnet. The Mongols were still alive, but fighting the Russians. We were racing for ToE - the great tech equaliser (in the human hands) - with electricty and scientific mehod to go before we could build it. Our growing workforce had been busy clearing swamp/marsh and irrigating - though this took a back seat while we built the most important rails.

1250AD
Our race to ToE was a race we were destined to lose! The Russians finished off their excursions down the optional techs and beat us to Scientific Method by about one turn, so we were not even able to get trade value from a monopoly tech. A conflict with the Russians was inevitable.

At this point it is worth reflecting on why we were in a bit of a pickle. I think it comes down to three factors -
1) The very limited luxury especially at the beginning of the game, but even at this stage we only had three native luxes. Luxes are critical imho for maintaining high science and happiness.
2) Rather than pursuing the goal of overcoming the AI as a relentless task, I was continuously torn between trying to improve pop/happiness in order to boost score with what I had. I am interested in the opinions of experience milkers as to whether this is sensible or not.
3) Limited numbers of AI restrict trade opportunities, and therefore potential for n-fers, trading with backward civs, and the ability to sell techs multiple times to boost your economy. Net result we weren't in the position I would expect to be in in a normal deity game at this stage.

4) - maybe I have gotten too used to the advantages of the sci trait as well...

Stats at this time -
Score 2965 now number one versus Russia 2919
Culture 10k versus Russia 40K
% of world area 36.
cities 51 (I think).
Military weak against Arabs and Russia, strong against Mongols.

1400AD, the halfway point in game turn terms, - we own our continent bar one Arab city, and are at war with the Russians, with Arab assistance. The Mongols are gone. We are preparing to invade the Russian mainland. The Russian possessions are two major islands and a scattering of three very minor island holdings. The Russians are blessed with three native luxes on their home land, and all their key wonders. This war is fought in the age of infantry versus artillery and cavalry - so losses are high on all sides.

1400AD
Stats at this time -
Score 3642 versus Russia 3201
Culture 15k versus Russia 54K
% of world area 50.
cities 60.
Military weak against Arabs and Russia.

 

[Sandman2003]

The Russians, however, were not to hold out against us! Our landings involved two trips of 7 galleons (I think), the firts being infantry heavy, the second bringing the balance of the artillery and the first cavalry. The first three Russian cities fell fairly quickly, then the big science city was razed ot he the ground. However, the capital proved somewhat tougher. Our artillery was unable to redline all units. We threw our cavs at them anyway. The seige lasted over three whole turns and saw the rise of our very first leader of the game. The leader quickly formed an army, then just as quickly perished without chalking up a single victory - looke like another long wait before we will be able to build MA etc.

Finally, the capital fell, so we quickly finished off the peninsular before war weariness finally got too much for our people. Still the spoils of war included three new native luxes, and the power of Russia was no more - we deprived them of all their luxuries, most of their core and one of their rubber sources. As a final boon we were able to take Sanitation almost for free in the peace settlement - finally albe to build hospitals. That would help our science push, and prove invaluable in increasing score.

The next 100 years was relatively peaceful while we rushed for tanks. The Arabs foolishly headed down the atomic theory/electronics path and started building Hoovers. The Russians were not quite a spent force, they picked up amphibious war, and entered the Modern Age, picking up computers and starting on SETI.

The turn we learnt motorised transport, we declared on the Arabs, the last major hurdle to complete control of the game. Within a couple of turns we eliminated the Arab sole source of rubber and sole source of oil. Then the troops moved to the top of the Arab island and started progressing through Arab cities. However, it was not until the Arabs landed several counter-attacking SoDs on our various holdings that we got to truelly smash their power. Artillery plus tanks made short work of these unfortified collections of infantry. The date is now 1665AD, the map...

1665AD
Stats at this time -
Score 5281 versus new challenger Arabs 3143
Culture 28k versus Russia 66K
% of world area 64 (21 tiles from domination).
cities 78.
Military average against Arabs and strong against Russia.
SO in reality I could take on both at the same time and win easily enough. I don't have to though, because the Russians are currently fighting the Arabs with me (one way to use up their marines, hehe).

 

[Sandman2003]

The wars continued much as expected, with the main Arab land collapsing by 1705AD.

It was now time to change the focus to the Russians. I set up an ice-bound undeveloped city in the tundra to the north of my main island, gifted it to the Russians, then started stealing techs. The first careful steal succeeded, giving me flight. The second failed but no declaration. Several more failed, with no Russuian declaration, so I gave up waiting on the Russians to declare, and declared on them.

We finally got another MGL, and this time the resulting tank army survived its first battle, and actually survived long into the future, until I decided to disband it for shields. A second leader was generated a short while later. I had thoughts of jumping the palace to a better location, but I never executed these thoughts. Instead, the guy rushed Wall Street.

My final concern was the size of my enemies' navy - my Mayan fleet was tiny, mainly transports - and the Russians had marines. However, this proved an unnecessary concern. I did not suffer an amphibious assualt once, and the transports were largely able to drive from the safety of a city on one island, to the safety of a city at the destination island. A whole bunch of ships were caught in the final few cities as well.

Given the crumbling foes, I commenced on the serious milking effort, ie relocating cities to higher food areas, and irrigation of mined tiles. Most tundra and mountainous region cities were moved to flat grassland areas. The desert cities remained though, because even if I moved them, I felt that the cultural borders of surrounding cities would encroach on then unworkable tiles, so there wasn't much point worrying about them (anyway as agricultural, they were as good as plains tiles in any event, and they were not enough grassland tiles to replace all the desert and plains tiles.)

By 1766AD, all the wars were over, and the Russians were safely tucked in out of harms way.

Now the military retirement started occurring, as well as winding down of worker numbers, through worker joins (not Russians though). Cities completed aqueducts, harbours, hospitals and mass transport systems as required, and as necessary cultura buildings were sold off. For most of the rest of the game, I was within 2 tiles of the domination limit, although I accidentally did slip over the limit once, and had to do my allowed reload for exceeding domination limit.

The rest of the game was spent clearing polution when necessary, with workers teams stacked to just the right number to completely clear the pollution in a single turn, and otherwise learning modern techs at a leisurely pace. I did make one silly blunder. The Wall Street location proved to not be very clever. It was a remote location where I only wanted one city cultural expansion to stay within the domoination limit. Of course Wall Street provides culture, so I had to disband the city and start over.

The score graph (showing per turn as well as Firaxis):

Final score 13483 Firaxis points. Not too shabby for a first attempt on a small map!

 

[Sandman2003]

Having finally completed my Small Map Milk attempt, I decided to revisit some of my weaker submissions in fastest finish categories. In particular, I played through my Standard Monarch Conquest. This time I toned down the AI agrresiveness, and went for a tamer, older world. The latter would mean faster AI development, but my MW's (since I am the Iroquois) would be able to reach them faster without as much trouble.

I used the same foes as in my earlier attempt, America, Korea, Portugal and India. I researched for horses, then up the Monarchy path all the way to the end, trading with the AI a bit for IW (so I would knoiw the location of their iron sources), and writing (so I could make them war against each other). I may have been better off going for philosophy with Monarchy as my free tech, rather than researching the expensive government tech.

Anyway, in spite of the lowered aggression, the AI did end up attacking me a little prematurely - the sight of my totally ungarrisoned outskirt city sitting on ivory was just too tempting I guess. Still my execution of the wars was a little better this time - MW numbers peaked at about 63 - resulting in victory in 90BC.

There is still a bit of room for improvement, though, get to Monarchy faster, make the initial settler pump inot a warrior/settler pump, and worry a lot less about a despotic GA - it really wouldn't matter against the poor MOnarchy AI, I think.

 

[Svar]

I may have been better off going for philosophy with Monarchy as my free tech, rather than researching the expensive government tech.

I have been doing this all the way up to Emperor difficulty. I haven't played a Demi-God game yet but it doesn't work for Deity as I almost never get Philosophy first at that level. You can play good starts very quickly ot practice this technique. I usually have already switched to Monarchy by 1000 BC in my practice starts and all my completed games.

 

[Sandman2003]

I think I completed the government change by 1000BC even with direct research all the way. It can probably be done faster on emperor due to the AIs actually being a bit more timely with soemthng worthwhile to trade, I suspect. Anyway, if there is a next time, I will definitely go the philosophy route after polytheism - I agree that it is relatively easy to get all the way to emperor.

On Deity, when I get to make a run at philosophy, I have found that employing an excessive number of scientists, at the cost of growth, tends to improve your chances on being first to philosophy quite a bit.

 

[sanabas]

Most of my deity games I can manage to get philosophy first, it's just very rare in those games for me to have monarchy available as the freebie.

 

[Sandman2003]

...and the chances of picking up the more desirable Republic are often even less....

Anyway, I have started my search for a huge archipelago deity map for my serious milk attempt. I have decided to use Sumeria, and have the remainder oif the sci civs as opponents - see how we fare with a relatively fast sci pace! Mapfinder (v6.5) is looking for maps with a river/cow start and dom limits in excess of 4400, though I am joping for one in excess of 4500. SO far after about 2000 iterations, none are 4500 or better, but I have several that are otherwise workable.

 

[Sandman2003]

After a couple of abandoned runs with Sumeria - the first because my inadequate supply of knights resulted in my needing to back out of an MA early destroying rep, the second because I played the early turns way too fast (to make up for time on the first) and after researching alphabet forgot to launch curraghs until I was almost upto writing - woops! - I decided to switch back to the Maya. My early forrages really only taught me that I can easily do without the science trait, and really need those industrious workers.

For now I have given up on 4500, as well. The map I am currently taking forward has a dom limit of only 4404, but my starting landmass is huge, and supports three AI from the beginning. What makes this one attractive was that the Babs are between Greece and my Maya, and there was a huge block of connected land in the opposite direction that was easily claimable early. In addition, I had easy access to one lux (dyes), and both horses and iron, though the iron was in the farthest reaches of my available lands. This later point meant that while my settlers and workers pushed east towards the iron deposit, I had plenty of time to build up massive numbers of veteran warriors for upgrading to MI. (I have built a large number of horses as well, but the AI hasn't researched chivalry for me yet!)

The Babs managed to build Zeus, and later Sun Tzu, but that just meant that there were three prizes available form the war - ivory being the third. I brought in Greece in the hopes that thiis would burn up some of their units as well, and now at 350AD the Babs are on the run.

The war front

I have just captured Sun Tzu (in Ninevah), and generated an MGL after only 10 elite victories - that makes a pleasant change from my recent average of 30+ elite wins. I haven't seen an AC recently, but from F7 I know it is still in Babylonian hands. Other game details - achipelago (4400+ what else), normal milk climate - wet, warm, 5 billion, opponents all sci civs barring the Byzantines - I didn't like their extra sea movement or annoying dromons. I am at 10% world area, which is behind Russia's 11%, but I am lacking quite a few cultural expansions at the moment. Score is 2566 which is good enough only for third, behind Russia 2687, and Babs 2689, though I am catching up with both of these.

 

[killercane]

One of the reasons I went for the Iro for my milk run was the monarchy slingshot. You should get it 90% of the time with a min on writing then philo coupled with the good old arabs, egyptians and their religious buddies. But using the Maya, like Svar indicated, that gambit is tough.

hows the score per turn looking Sandman?

 

[Sandman2003]

@killercane - I do like the Iro (MW rock), but if I was using them on this map I would have discarded the map due to literally huge amounts of jungle starting on my first tier ring to the south of my capital. OTOH, JTs suck. Sure free workers are nice, but the real wars on deity are not usually going to start until attack 4 units are in play in my games anyway.

My research path was alpha at min followed by writing at min. I was not first to writing, but then I did philosophy at max, and was first, taking currency - I had already traded for Monarchy, though hadn't switched, and there was no code of laws around to buy and so jump to republic, though that came out the very next turn. I think for this part of the game I am better off in Monarchy. Just the worker support alone would choke me in a republic, yet alone WW, and enough units to wage a huge deity war. I simply don't have access to enough luxes yet, even through trade (no astronomy yet) to keep enough people happy in that government. We are in a Monarchy now of course.

Score is rising quite quickly, but I am unsure of the per turn chnage at the moment. I will post it in my next update.

 

[Sandman2003]

I haven't actually had the time to play that much farther into my game, but I have got to 550AD. The Babylonians have been reduced to a OCC - while eliminating them completely would be desireable to eliminate some potential flips completely - their last city is in a painful place to go after (as in time consuming to get to) so I am letting them live for now. All three stated objectives were achieved. ie I now own ivory, Sun Tzu and the Statue of Zeus.

To answer Killercane's question, my score has risen to 3312 (1st) which is a rise of 746 in 20 turns, or an average of 37.3. I noted at the beginning of the turnset that it was rising at about 33, so presumably it is now increaing at roughly 41 or 42ppt. That should continue to rise steadily in the near future as I have a fair bit of ex-Bab territory to fill in where I burnt high flip risk Bab cities, and haven't yet filled the spots with settlers.

Looking at the strategic picture, I am two techs short of Military Tradition. Since my earlier flutter in the AA, I have done zero research (other than single scientist, although no projects have finished to date). I have simply traded for techs when there has been a minimum of a two-fer opportunity. I have found one curse with this map. While I have been blessed with a native lux, iron, horses and salt peter, the supply available to me has only been one source of each lux, although I have recently added a second horse resource. Consequently, to keep up and have a reasonable flow of luxes, I have traded away my only iron and my only salt, partly deliberately so I can build cheaper units for upgrade, and partly out of need.

My strategy for the near future is to reposition troops down in the south for an assault on weak Persia. Why not complete the conquest of my own continent first? Well I already have all the known resources on the continent, although additional duplicates wouldn't hurt for trading purposes, so the gains from Greece would not be that great. Further more, I brought them into the war on the Babs, so their troops are likely to be positioned near our mutual border - not ideal for war.

Persia on the other hand, has no less than four sources of incense - that would make the third native lux, and also provide tradeable resources to help keep me in the game. They would also offer an opportunity for me to build up the serious cavalry forces needed for the next major assault on the Ottoman empire in the SW. The Ottos have a split empire, and the prizes of both four silks and two fur resources available in their core, and presumably major settlement area.

Like my own continent (I really did set the parameters for archipelago), the Ottos share a continent with two other major civilisations - the Germans and the Russians - both of whom will be used to help weaken the Ottos. I should also be able to pump out armies through the Military Academy and make short work of the Ottos, even if they are up to rifles by that time.

The Persian attack will take at least another twenty turns before my slow moving army is in place (I used predominantly MI against initially bowmen and spears, but latterly LBs), giving me plently of time to build up lots of horses for upgrade to knights or even cavs. Meanwhile my core is finishing off some cathedrals - a build I have seldom used, but decided to in this case due to my expected time lag until I have 5 luxes under my control - and poring out units for the wars. I also need a bunch more workers to keep clearing jungle and finish off improvements around the core, and newly conquered territories. And of course, rails are not too far away either.

The Persian holdings at 550AD -