[BTS] Shaking Off the Rust - Monarch Playthrough

[G-Off_Unit]

Hey, all. I don't remember when the last time was that I played Civ4, but I've made my return in the last week. Clearly need my hand held through it though, so I'm hoping I can get some help with this map that's beaten me twice now.

The start:

Map details for those who want to play along:

Spoiler :

Leader: Saladin (chosen randomly)
Map Type: Archipelago (Snaky Continents)
No huts
No events
Everything else is default

Here's turn 1 for me:

Spoiler :

I'll give more details about my failures later but for now I have to run to work. For starters though, how should I start? Fishing or Agriculture?

 

[Swordnboard]

Welcome back to civ 4!

Wow, look at all of the food! Quite a lot of options with this one because of that.

First question for you: why the move? I understand you've played this start before, so probably knew there would be a wasted clam if you settled in place, but even knowing that I'm not sure I would have moved. Moving where you move kills 1 hill, and moves another one (plains, 2N1E of the settler's initial location) out of the fat cross, and our capital looks a bit low on traditional hammers as it is. Not usually that important given all the food, but the great lighthouse is probably in play here since it's snaky continents

Anyways, I'll start a playthrough alongside yours. As for your position, I would probably go Agri first. We can do mining->BW after that so the worker can farm corn, mine pigs, then start chopping. Fishing is a pretty good tech here too, but only 4 food per clam makes the corn a stronger tile to set up.

 

[G-Off_Unit]

Welcome back to civ 4!

Wow, look at all of the food! Quite a lot of options with this one because of that.

First question for you: why the move? I understand you've played this start before, so probably knew there would be a wasted clam if you settled in place, but even knowing that I'm not sure I would have moved. Moving where you move kills 1 hill, and moves another one (plains, 2N1E of the settler's initial location) out of the fat cross, and our capital looks a bit low on traditional hammers as it is. Not usually that important given all the food, but the great lighthouse is probably in play here since it's snaky continents

Anyways, I'll start a playthrough alongside yours. As for your position, I would probably go Agri first. We can do mining->BW after that so the worker can farm corn, mine pigs, then start chopping. Fishing is a pretty good tech here too, but only 4 food per clam makes the corn a stronger tile to set up.

I made the move the first time I played the map. It was irrational decision, if I'm being honest. Even knowing that the circles suggested by the game don't necessarily make good city locations, I knew that they're usually indicative of even unseen resources, but I couldn't take a peek with my warrior so I made the move with the settler. But when I saw all the clam tiles I settled without thinking any further about it. The second game I decided it would actually probably be best to settle in place - even trying to give an honest evaluation of the starting situation as if I didn't know a thing about the map - but I settled on the hill because I felt like I was cheating to play it differently. Though now that I think about it, if I'm replaying the map to try to learn from my mistakes, then even my turn zero plays should change if they were wrong to begin with, so I think I'll start again (since I'm only on turn 1) - maybe I'll move onto the hill and then move back to settle as a compromise, lol (and I suppose that's arguably the right play, too).

I'll edit the details of my first two attempts into my OP.

 

[G-Off_Unit]

Nevermind about editing. I'm being informed that my edit is somehow too spam-like, so here it is here:

Details about my previous attempts. The following contains map spoilers that anyone attempting the map will want to avoid at least until they've met every AI on the map:

Spoiler :

I don't think this is a difficult map, but as the title says, I'm rusty (I remember being good enough to beat Monarch regularly at my peak - I already won my first game back on Prince handily so I figured I was ready for this jump). My only neighbour on the continent is Churchill, and there's no copper and just one source of iron (on his end of a choke point between our capitals). My first attempt was a sloppy mess. Bad improvements, too few workers, and I undervalued iron working after discovering horses near my capital so Churchill beat me to the only source of metal available to either of us until Astronomy. By the time I'd taken it and, eventually, London, I'd been discovered by a caravel and learned that I was so far behind in tech that there was no point continuing if I was playing to win.

My second attempt went much better. I beat Churchill to the iron and had a nice a nice specialist economy running. I even got to friendly terms with Churchill, so he would actually tech trade with me. I was doing so well, in fact, that I was the first player to get compass - and by a mile, as it turned out. (Wang Kon was isolated but not backwards, and the other four were on teams of two in terms of their state religions. If there had been any warfare between them before I encountered them there was no evidence of it, but a short-lived holy war did break out not long after I met them.) I decided to just continue teching peacefully to try to get a space race victory but as soon as all the AIs discovered each other they tech traded like mad until they caught up to me and eventually surpassed me. Right after I completed the Apollo program, Pacal declared on me and I knew there wasn't any point continuing.

Although I'm sure there's still room for improvement in my early game and I know that my mistake in game two was playing too passively (I did try to make a push on Wang Kon at one point, but before I stormed the beaches I noticed that he'd either discovered or traded for Rifling), the one pervasive issue with my gameplay that carried over both games was not only my inability to take advantage of opportunities that presented themselves, but to recognize when opportunities were presenting themselves at all. For example, I know now that I obviously need to go to war with Churchill to win on this map (probably the earlier, the better). In attempt 1 I missed iron and fell way behind because of that, and in attempt 2 I was worried a war would set me far behind in tech (and I didn't want a repeat of the first game) and that I misjudged that 6 cities and a friendly AI was enough to win on this difficulty.

Still, even knowing all this I feel unsure about when exactly I should be going to war and how to recover my economy afterwords so that I don't fall behind in tech. I know that I should be aiming for certain benchmarks but I'm not entirely clear on what they are and even less clear on how exactly to reach them. That's something that takes experience - which I technically have but it's so far back that I don't remember it, haha.

 

[sampsa]

If you improve your early game everything will be much much easier. I think you have already made two mistakes in your T1 screenshot. You can see in the T0 screenshot that there is only coast to the west, so no point sending the warrior to that direction. With no previous info I think moving settler 1SW is bad. Coastal/ocean tiles are weak and your capital should not be aiming to catch them. Catching a lot of forest on the other hand is great, they are free for you (well, they do cost worker turns).

I started a game and switched the difficulty to deity, but obviously with monarch starting units it's far from deity difficulty. Also, barbs didn't act like they should, animals after turn 40 and so on.

T15

Spoiler :

SIP, agri, worker first. I'm working 3 tile to get the fogbuster up north asap (mark x looks like a good spot with this info). No biggie not growing while the food tile is being improved. Going mining-BW-fishing and chopping some settlers/workers/boats out. Marked spots seem good 2nd and 3rd cities (food on first ring!). Fortified warrior fobusting east.

I don't think you need to attack your only neighbor quickly, you have lots of decent land to expand into. I'm not planning to finish the game.

 

[G-Off_Unit]

If you improve your early game everything will be much much easier. I think you have already made two mistakes in your T1 screenshot. You can see in the T0 screenshot that there is only coast to the west, so no point sending the warrior to that direction. With no previous info I think moving settler 1SW is bad. Coastal/ocean tiles are weak and your capital should not be aiming to catch them. Catching a lot of forest on the other hand is great, they are free for you (well, they do cost worker turns).

I started a game and switched the difficulty to deity, but obviously with monarch starting units it's far from deity difficulty. Also, barbs didn't act like they should, animals after turn 40 and so on.

T15

Spoiler :

View attachment 501695

SIP, agri, worker first. I'm working 3 tile to get the fogbuster up north asap (mark x looks like a good spot with this info). No biggie not growing while the food tile is being improved. Going mining-BW-fishing and chopping some settlers/workers/boats out. Marked spots seem good 2nd and 3rd cities (food on first ring!). Fortified warrior fobusting east.

I don't think you need to attack your only neighbor quickly, you have lots of decent land to expand into. I'm not planning to finish the game.

Aside from my capital placement, that's exactly what my civ looked like in game 2 (game one your two BFCs were both 1N) - and I settled a city 1 W of your "x" marker to get two sources of seafood with the silver mine. Here's where I'm at with my current playthrough, though I don't think it's any different, really, from game 2 at this point in the game:

Spoiler :

City #6 will go on top of the tundra hoses in the NE (there are two unscouted seafood sources up there). I also have the GLH in Mecca.

This game is playing out very differently from my previous two as well. For one thing, Churchill didn't found Buddhism (or any religion, for that matter), and for another, I was able to steal a worker from him very early on.

If it's my early game that needs work, then what am I missing here? Should I already have a sixth city? And if this is more or less where I should already be at then where do I go from here? Do I need to make a move on Churchill ASAP or should I be safe to tech peacefully? - Because that didn't work on my last attempt. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like my early game is at least good enough to win this game (even if it could be better). I'm just lost in terms of where I'm supposed to go from here. This is why/where I think I lack the experience to win this game.

Oh, and as for my warrior move, do you mean I made a bad scouting move in terms of finding a better location for my capital or for better future cities? I know that I'll have to learn to be more efficient with my turn zero scouts at higher difficulties but on Monarch I'm free to explore everything without being punished for it, and I knew I'd be able to see the rest of the land available to me before popping a settler given that I have coast on two sides of me and tundra on a third. As for finding better capital placements, there isn't really much to uncover with the warrior in one turn, is there? (Three tiles, one of them forested?) And with two forests for the settler to get through up north could anything have made killing two (or more) turns worth that move?

Thanks for your input.

 

[lymond]

Yep, totally agree with Sampsa and Sword. Moving blind like that in this case was not advisable. SIP seems the only option here. Yeah, lost clams but technically you did not know that and your warrior was not well position for a helpful T0 reveal. In hindsight if one could see that clam on T0, one could try to position the settling to fit two cities, but that may require to much movment, and loss of one clam is not a big deal.

I think Sampsa meant that the warrior would be better served moving E since one can see that the land ends to the W. So it is really about analyzing the map on T0 and seeing into the fog.

Sal is a tough leader with his poor starting techs..well, TW is nice, but no food techs at all. So AG>Mining> BW only way to go. As you move up levels, which I assume you want to do here, then you have to sometimes make tough choices on techs. AH seems obvious for pigs, but AH is rather expensive and mining the pigs is strong combined with the corn. Fishing>POT probably good next for more food and commerce and granary.

Bottom line as you move up levels is you have to make more judicious tech decisions. Did you tech IW too or was Alpha already in and you traded for it? Teching IW generally bad.

Not sure on Church here or where he is. Whether to go for him early or not depends on proximity and if you can get enough good cities with what you have. Sometimes better to stay peaceful and reap the trade routes and trading than killing someone, especially on an Archi map.

My goal here would be GLH and expansion.

Oh wait, I see Church. Hmmm he's reasonably close, but right now you are basically Semi-Iso so if you kill him then no trade routes. Ofc, trading techs is likely out for some times.

A scout WB is advisable often on an Archi map to open coastlines for trade routes an to meet other AIs, if accessible.

If I was to go after Church here, I'd probably go for Horse Archers.

"Early game" is about a combination of things. Holistically is about making better decisions about techs, settling, builds diplomacy and, importantly, worker management. It takes practice and really doing what you are doing right now with help from guys like Sampsa and Sword to understand these decisions. You will get there.

I will say that Archi maps are probably not the best for learning though.

 

[sampsa]

I like your settling pattern in that game. Hard to say just from that screenshot where you could improve, but you've only just settled city number 5 on T91. It is really slow. You have way too many improvements as you are not able to work all of them. Damascus hasn't finished it's granary yet. After you found a city, it should be very high on your priority list to get a granary up (In Najran, definitely granary before monument). Chopping more early would improve your game.

All that being said, this is a poor starting area and a poor leader. There is a lot of food but it's hard to use it all. This suggests going for monarchy (hereditary rule) might be a good idea. You could add an extra city 1N3W of capital to use the corn.

Yes, I mean that warrior move on T0 was sub-optimal, but it's no big deal. Just trying to say there are always ways to make accurate decisions and inaccuracies add up quickly. I understand your reasons for it now, but it's nearly impossible to find something there that would make you settle your capital in that direction.

I think I'll play on monarch from scratch and see how my T91 looks.

 

[Swordnboard]

To me this seems like a situation where attacking Churchill makes a lot of sense. Your number of cities is OK, not great, but their quality as far as research is concerned is lacking, so adding churchill's land to the mix would be a big help towards reaching optics/astro and making contact with the other AI. Plus, on monarch, maintenance doesn't grow too quickly so a few more cities would be a big plus. Horse archers are good at the moment, but chariots will work too (that means you could have attacked him much earlier as well).

From the current position, I agree with lymond that researching IW this early is a no-go, and I like Sampsa's idea of monarchy for happiness.

 

[sampsa]

T91: (spoiler tags out of habit)

Spoiler :

Agri-min-BW-fish-AH-sailing-masonry-writing-pottery-medi-ph-monarchy-(CoL).

Lost my warrior T8 so early exploration was a disaster. No big deal on this map though, so clear 2nd/3rd city spots. With the help of chops (and whips), got out 2nd worker, 3 settlers, 3 boats (one for exploring). Put one chop into stonehenge for failgold since commerce is limiting factor on GLH date here. Note how in the screenshot all cities are at the same size they have good (improved) tiles. 2 workers is enough for a long time when you have many seafood tiles. Mainly their duty is chopping.

Got GLH T72 (should be safe on monarch?). Btw I think NW-cities are much better like this: crab on the 1st ring. Don't try to found cities that will eventually be good as waiting for a border pop wastes a lot of precious time. Put food on the 1st ring when not playing a creative leader. Got a bit sloppy at the end doing stupid stuff like putting into monuments in Basra and Kufah - I'll be in caste soon so can run an artist for border pop. Note how none of my cities besides capital has produced . It's often a waste of to build monuments. Should have improved the pig already, only then cottages... Capital should be way past size 15 by 1AD with this amount of food and -resources.

Save attached, I suggest you to look at it to get an idea on the details.

 

[Fish Man]

t72

Spoiler :

Chariots sure are fun aren't they? Especially on monarch .

 

[sampsa]

@Undefeatable

Spoiler :

Yes, actually I was going to say that I'm playing peacefully mostly to show that it's possible. Early attacks are very strong, but after that many players start to struggle because they don't know how to setup their empire.

 

[Fish Man]

@Undefeatable

Spoiler :

Yes, actually I was going to say that I'm playing peacefully mostly to show that it's possible. Early attacks are very strong, but after that many players start to struggle because they don't know how to setup their empire.

Yeah. As it turns out I'm in a bit of an economic hole right now. Nothing that currency and GLH can't fix though. And this is not deity so of course I'm still in the black and not like at -10 right now. Plus GLH goes super late on monarch usually, so I'm confident I can get it with a few chops.

 

[Fish Man]

t94 - currency in 5, economy fixed

 

[sampsa]

Hmm, I'm not very impressed. War slowed you down a lot while I can take his grown cities pretty much whenever I want to. Is not working the fish in Bagdad intentional btw?

Edit: Also, slow building settlers in a city with a granary is pretty .

 

[Fish Man]

Hmm, I'm not very impressed. War slowed you down a lot while I can take his grown cities pretty much whenever I want to. Is not working the fish in Bagdad intentional btw?

Edit: Also, slow building settlers in a city with a granary is pretty .

Hmm, some valid critiques. I am about a tech behind you, but that'll soon be made up for, I feel.

Protective archers are no joke, and having to face 2 of them is infinitely better than having to face 4. I find that the hammer investment of units lost - cities gained is greatest after the AIs have just built the second city. For about 6-7 chariots you get 2 workers and 2 cities - that's 180 hammers for at least about 360. Not to mention the land you free up and the prevention of a DoW that might come sooner or later, as well as the massive commerce gain from a city with like 15 cottageable green/FP tiles.

On monarch, the AI makes stupid choices regarding their cities, so the sooner you take, the better. They'll dally around building farms on floodplains even when their capital has reached the health limit, spam either useless buildings or useful ones that promptly get destroyed on city capture, or worse, chug out pro archers like there's no tomorrow. Plus their city placement can be...questionable at times, so after their first 2-3 sites I prefer to make the choices about where my cities should go.

"I can take his grown cities pretty much whenever I want to"

With what? HAs are nice but a very costly detour, and not insignificant hammer investment. You'll need 2 for every 1 archer they have because PRO. Cuirs come way late, and yes you might knock him out but what of the other 5 rivals? Plus MT interferes with astro significantly. Swords? Slow, requires hard-teching IW early on which is also a pain, by the time they reach a city he'll have whipped walls and a half dozen archers, not even that effective. Cats? OK, but again, construction is an otherwise useless detour, and sort of suboptimal without phants. On monarch I think chariot rush was clearly the way to go, since it enabled me to instantly turn his cities into productive ones for me from the get-go, without researching other techs besides the ones I would've anyways.

Anyways, here's 1ADish save. Reaching 250 beakers with CS. Someone nabbed confu before me which was annoying. After CS I'm planning on optics, trade some backfills, bulb astro, lib communism, and then depending on the map potentially winning space under t300 without starting another offensive war.

PS - there was a reason I worked the silver mine, and that is that I wanted a granary before passing the 1/2-to-growth limit at which food starts being stored for the next pop. That way I make sure every food I accumulate in that city is worth the mos,t. Plus the silver is a relatively nice tile to work.

About the slow building settlers thing - yeah, I agree. I think I forgot I had a granary in that city .

 

[Fish Man]

t140 update: economy somewhat struggling, but OTOH 17 cities up and running. Couldn't have done that with Churchie in the way .

 

[sampsa]

Hmm, some valid critiques. I am about a tech behind you, but that'll soon be made up for, I feel.

Protective archers are no joke, and having to face 2 of them is infinitely better than having to face 4. I find that the hammer investment of units lost - cities gained is greatest after the AIs have just built the second city. For about 6-7 chariots you get 2 workers and 2 cities - that's 180 hammers for at least about 360. Not to mention the land you free up and the prevention of a DoW that might come sooner or later, as well as the massive commerce gain from a city with like 15 cottageable green/FP tiles.

On monarch, the AI makes stupid choices regarding their cities, so the sooner you take, the better. They'll dally around building farms on floodplains even when their capital has reached the health limit, spam either useless buildings or useful ones that promptly get destroyed on city capture, or worse, chug out pro archers like there's no tomorrow. Plus their city placement can be...questionable at times, so after their first 2-3 sites I prefer to make the choices about where my cities should go.

I don't really disagree. It doesn't matter what difficulty level we are on though, the stupid AI choices are always there. I am in no way saying that a chariot rush is sub-optimal play.

"I can take his grown cities pretty much whenever I want to"

With what? HAs are nice but a very costly detour, and not insignificant hammer investment. You'll need 2 for every 1 archer they have because PRO. Cuirs come way late, and yes you might knock him out but what of the other 5 rivals? Plus MT interferes with astro significantly. Swords? Slow, requires hard-teching IW early on which is also a pain, by the time they reach a city he'll have whipped walls and a half dozen archers, not even that effective. Cats? OK, but again, construction is an otherwise useless detour, and sort of suboptimal without phants. On monarch I think chariot rush was clearly the way to go, since it enabled me to instantly turn his cities into productive ones for me from the get-go, without researching other techs besides the ones I would've anyways.

This is certainly a valid point. Definitely heading for astro asap so many things are a detour (pretty much everything except swords and xbows and both require iron). If I continued the game, I think I'd just detour HBR though. It's easier to pull those off now than earlier since I am able to whip them efficiently with granaries. I think a monarch AI has no chance against say 12 (even unpromoted) HAs in late BCs if you use them wisely, but of course I could be just underestimating monarch AI.

Anyways, here's 1ADish save. Reaching 250 beakers with CS. Someone nabbed confu before me which was annoying. After CS I'm planning on optics, trade some backfills, bulb astro, lib communism, and then depending on the map potentially winning space under t300 without starting another offensive war.

250 is certainly good, but nothing phenomenal after such a swift start and supposedly a huge capital.

PS - there was a reason I worked the silver mine, and that is that I wanted a granary before passing the 1/2-to-growth limit at which food starts being stored for the next pop. That way I make sure every food I accumulate in that city is worth the mos,t. Plus the silver is a relatively nice tile to work.

My intuition was (and kinda is) that it's just really bad micro. Working fish and whipping @size2 wins a lot of food. Winning food leads to you working more -tiles (coast or silver) earlier. I guess your point is that you can reach currency a turn sooner. Hmm, that indeed might be a good enough reason to sacrifice food. Food for thought.

Edit:

t140 update: economy somewhat struggling, but OTOH 17 cities up and running. Couldn't have done that with Churchie in the way .

Are you saying I couldn't reach 17 cities T140 from my save?

 

[Fish Man]

I don't really disagree. It doesn't matter what difficulty level we are on though, the stupid AI choices are always there. I am in no way saying that a chariot rush is sub-optimal play.


This is certainly a valid point. Definitely heading for astro asap so many things are a detour (pretty much everything except swords and xbows and both require iron). If I continued the game, I think I'd just detour HBR though. It's easier to pull those off now than earlier since I am able to whip them efficiently with granaries. I think a monarch AI has no chance against say 12 (even unpromoted) HAs in late BCs if you use them wisely, but of course I could be just underestimating monarch AI.


250 is certainly good, but nothing phenomenal after such a swift start and supposedly a huge capital.


My intuition was (and kinda is) that it's just really bad micro. Working fish and whipping @size2 wins a lot of food. Winning food leads to you working more -tiles (coast or silver) earlier. I guess your point is that you can reach currency a turn sooner. Hmm, that indeed might be a good enough reason to sacrifice food. Food for thought.

Edit:
Are you saying I couldn't reach 17 cities T140 from my save?

First off, thanks for the reply, really enjoy the talk!

You're right, a monarch AI does have no chance against 12 HAs, especially one without metal. However: 12 HAs = 600 hammers, and you'll take at most 4 cities because in the ancient through medieval eras monarch AIs tech and expand slowwwly (they don't know what cottages and whipping are, it seems). That is quite inefficient IMO. HBR is also bad since besides the HAs it has absolutely 0 use in iso: no trade bait, no cashing in on AI failgold by throwing them a useless tech, etc. So you're also throwing 350 beakers to the wind. That could be used on currency, or maths, or CoL.

The other issue is that I especially don't trust AI city placement on this map. There are a couple ocean fish, IIRC, that the AI could completely waste by settling a tile off in the wrong place, many ways. In fact, Churchie killed a clam the moment he settled his cap (I would've too if I didn't peek ahead at the starting screenies). Would you really want to take that risk?

Yeah, 250 isn't phenomenal, I agree. I'm actually interested in how I could've improved on that number.

The currency one turn earlier was also another reason for working the silver, yes.

You physically can't have 17 cities by turn 140...unless you do some conquering . But that brings into play the issues we discussed earlier .

Actually, I'm interested in how you'd win, space or otherwise, if you left Churchill alone for a bit. As promised, I got a sub-t300 space win, arriving on T297. Shall we have a formal space race?

 

[sampsa]

First off, thanks for the reply, really enjoy the talk!

You're right, a monarch AI does have no chance against 12 HAs, especially one without metal. However: 12 HAs = 600 hammers, and you'll take at most 4 cities because in the ancient through medieval eras monarch AIs tech and expand slowwwly (they don't know what cottages and whipping are, it seems). That is quite inefficient IMO. HBR is also bad since besides the HAs it has absolutely 0 use in iso: no trade bait, no cashing in on AI failgold by throwing them a useless tech, etc. So you're also throwing 350 beakers to the wind. That could be used on currency, or maths, or CoL.

I did play on a bit peacefully and Churchill expanded surprisingly well, I think 6 cities 1AD. Yes, we agree that HBR is a detour, but one that might be the optimal play at that point. Those 350 can be "saved" earlier by having a more connected, efficient empire.

The other issue is that I especially don't trust AI city placement on this map. There are a couple ocean fish, IIRC, that the AI could completely waste by settling a tile off in the wrong place, many ways. In fact, Churchie killed a clam the moment he settled his cap (I would've too if I didn't peek ahead at the starting screenies). Would you really want to take that risk?

This is extremely minor IMO. There are plenty of good sites.

Yeah, 250 isn't phenomenal, I agree. I'm actually interested in how I could've improved on that number.

In your 1AD save, your capital is really pathetic, you are not able to even work all the food in that area. I think you should go for monarchy and I'm not sold on currency. Again I want to stress that I think chariot rush IS a very good choice.

You physically can't have 17 cities by turn 140...unless you do some conquering . But that brings into play the issues we discussed earlier .

Yes, obviously that requires conquering Churchs. Unlucky that I didn't settle the fp-site that happened to have iron. No need for HBR-detour then.

Actually, I'm interested in how you'd win, space or otherwise, if you left Churchill alone for a bit. As promised, I got a sub-t300 space win, arriving on T297. Shall we have a formal space race?

I'd rate my T91 save won in any way I want (duh, it's monarch). I can settle islands behind Churchill if I want to. Not that I need to, just go astro and then start conquering. I have never won space in BtS and I don't understand why you always insist on it. Military wins are easy and clean especially on lower levels.

Many of your previous comments also seem to assume a space victory in sight (and thus you value for example city amount a lot), while I think the bottleneck for victory is astronomy date.

Edit: which is why going for CoL especially having medi is , ruins the astro bulb.