So whatcha all doing for BG1

Quantum7 · Dec 23, 2005

- I had no stone nor Marble (both were inside cultural boundaries of other players) so I didn't go for Pyramids. Not that hurtful, although it kept me from using specialists, which was bad.
- The "Fishes" name is because I have my default name set to the wrong name. I've been too lazy to change it, so I end up changing it in the game itself

.

Spoiler eventlog :

Orca · Dec 23, 2005

Just finished my final attempt, a 1410 launch. Very annoying to be only 3 turns behind . Hopefully someone else submitted a 1350 launch!

Not exactly 1350 - but yes you arent 3 turns behind

. Cant wait to see if someone manages to launch before 1300 - i will give it another try tommorrow, this is getting really exciting

Quantum7 · Dec 23, 2005

Orca said:
Not exactly 1350 - but yes you arent 3 turns behind . Cant wait to see if someone manages to launch before 1300 - i will give it another try tommorrow, this is getting really exciting

You do realize today is the last day?

Taelis · Dec 23, 2005

I'm pretty sure tomorrow is the last day:

Gauntlet Rules said:
Submitted on or before: December 24th

Quantum7 · Dec 23, 2005

Taelis said:
I'm pretty sure tomorrow is the last day:

Lol, it's already the 24th here

. But I see what you mean (still the 23rd where the forum is).

superslug · Dec 23, 2005

The cutoff I'm going with is around 8amEST on the 25th. I know for sure then that it's not the 24th anywhere on the planet. So you've basically got just under 32 hours from this post's time.

Last minute submissions can be tricky though. Make sure you submit the correct turn after victory, because there may not be time to fix it before the update.

Taelis · Dec 23, 2005

Quantum7 said:
Happiness never seems to be a problem for me (on Prince anyway). Even on great plains (with limited amount of resources), there are so many ways to increase happiness that I generally don't even bother going for Drama. However, getting enough health to get those 23 cities at 1000 AD, that seems to be more of a problem. I finished my last game with no 23 cities, just a few 21 cities, due to that (great plains probably has a bit too few health resources =(().

Actually 23 was the number of fully grown cities I had (well before the end of the game). I had 26 cities in my 1405 game, but looking back 8 of them contributed very little. The OCN for this gauntlet is probably around 15.

Balanced maps have all the health resources, so growing to size 23 is certainly possible, but I rarely have enough food.

I used the culture slider to grow my cities early - many of my cities were size 12-15 before I discovered printing press, liberalism, or nationalism. How do you manage that without the culture slider?

Quantum7 said:
Interestingly enough I generally ignore Calendar, Stonehenge and creative as well. Caste System / 1 chop for an obelisk / a few turns of culture slider seems as effective without having to 'hurt' your science rate.

Now I'm REALLY curious - how do you establish happy cities without Calendar?

Quantum7 said:
Note: I ended up not doing *any* tries on Pangae or Balanced map. Do those always have all resources or do they also miss some resources?

Balanced maps generally have all the resources except marble, which I've only seen once. My last map also lacked silver.

Quantum7 · Dec 23, 2005

Taelis said:
I used the culture slider to grow my cities early - many of my cities were size 12-15 before I discovered printing press, liberalism, or nationalism. How do you manage that without the culture slider?

Now I'm REALLY curious - how do you establish happy cities without Calendar?

I loaded a 1000 AD save to check, but at that date I'm already *way* past Calendar, so I already got it from trading (through the AI). Meaning that from my +13 resource happiness at that time alot is from Calendar. I didn't have to waste any tech time on it though (making it possible to beeline for the techs to advance faster).

Next I loaded a 60 BC save (as I didn't have Calendar then). I only had +4 happiness from resources (gold, silver, gems and furs), but also +1 from religion and +1 from a temple. With that the capital can grow to size 10 and all other cities to size 9. With a forge (+1 happiness * 3) size 12-13 is already possible (all without pyramids). The first forge was 8 turns from completion in the capital. I do remember explicitly researching Metal Casting pretty fast to get access to the forge (but it's a very useful building to have anyway, as the 25% building costs will pay off in the long run).

Thinking back, one of the reasons probably is that I also used larger cities as the 'settler pumps', thereby limiting their growth somewhat.

City sizes are (at 60 BC): 8, 8, 8, 7, 4, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 (I remember doing a settler spam to keep up with Dave, this is probably also my low-point in terms of tech-rate, it's at 30%

)

It'd be interesting to see whether you have substantially larger cities at that point in time. My 100% tech rate would be btw: 180.

Taelis said:
Balanced maps generally have all the resources except marble, which I've only seen once. My last map also lacked silver.

LOL, my great plains lacked all water resources (each AI had one, so they wouldn't trade) and a number of happiness resources =(.

Taelis · Dec 24, 2005

I see your point now - on the great plains maps, especially the left side, you don't need drama or calendar, since you can get all the mining resources. You also have a lot of plains and cows, so commerce cities can actually build something.

On balanced maps there aren't that many cows, and the good cities are on grassland, so I can't build temples or forges (or anything at all before universal sufferage).

I haven't acquired the habit of making intermediate saves, but I think we were at the same point in 60 BC. I had 12 cities to your 11, 3 of mine were new. I believe my three oldest cities were size 10.

What was your final 100% tech rate? I was at 5114.

Taelis · Dec 24, 2005

Quantum7 said:
City sizes are (at 60 BC): 8, 8, 8, 7, 4, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 (I remember doing a settler spam to keep up with Dave, this is probably also my low-point in terms of tech-rate, it's at 30% )

It'd be interesting to see whether you have substantially larger cities at that point in time. My 100% tech rate would be btw: 180.

I'd love to compare the results from using creative + the culture slider ("Catherine's Culture Gambit" (TM)) to other strategies.

In my current game, it's 40BC, city sizes are 11,11,10,8,7,3,3,2,1,1,1. They'd be larger, but I've used the whip thrice in my 4 largest cities. :mischief:

The only resources I have are corn, wheat, pigs, sheep, cows, gold, and ivory. Dye is coming in 4 turns though, which is +2 happiness with theatres, and my capital will have food, health, and happiness to grow to size 13 in 20 turns.

My 80% tech rate (leaving 20% for culture) is 187, and my sustainable tech rate is 40% (also with 20% for culture). At that rate I get 91 beakers/turn.

Quantum7 · Dec 24, 2005

Taelis said:
I see your point now - on the great plains maps, especially the left side, you don't need drama or calendar, since you can get all the mining resources. You also have a lot of plains and cows, so commerce cities can actually build something.

Exactly. Most of my plains cities became great spaceship production cities. Although the 3 cities I initially planted cities naturally became the best commerce cities. The disadvantage is that it leaves less tiles for actual cottages.

Taelis said:
On balanced maps there aren't that many cows, and the good cities are on grassland, so I can't build temples or forges (or anything at all before universal sufferage).

I see what you mean. I had the same problem with the cities in the east, but those had a few hills around them, so I just mined those and let them produce markets & forges & temple's. Still one of those 3 had next to no hills, so I actually had to build 2 workshops to 'service' it (as I had no other reason to adopt Universal Suffrage).

How do you keep those cities healthy btw, if you can't build grocer's? Or are there sufficient health resources to keep them happy until US? Now I also understand why Dave probably switched to Universal Suffrage though

.

Taelis said:
I haven't acquired the habit of making intermediate saves, but I think we were at the same point in 60 BC. I had 12 cities to your 11, 3 of mine were new. I believe my three oldest cities were size 10.

Crashing stimulates making intermediate saves

.

Taelis said:
What was your final 100% tech rate? I was at 5114.

Interesting. At 10 turns before the end it was 3158 (no golden age). With golden age it was just over 4.000. This is with Representation & Mercantilism. With either Free Market / US it's even lower than 3158 (3050 somewhere). I'm guessing I don't know where to find the GNP yet, as Dave's GNP was around 2.000 near the end.

I'm assuming this is due to me having relatively few cottages (even assuming you're in a golden age)? Meaning:
- I need to get even more cottages (lol).
- Representation & Mercantilism are probably what are saving me, as 300+ points are from specialists.

Quantum7 · Dec 24, 2005

Taelis said:
I'd love to compare the results from using creative + the culture slider ("Catherine's Culture Gambit" (TM)) to other strategies.

In my current game, it's 40BC, city sizes are 11,11,10,8,7,3,3,2,1,1,1. They'd be larger, but I've used the whip thrice in my 4 largest cities.

The only resources I have are corn, wheat, pigs, sheep, cows, gold, and ivory. Dye is coming in 4 turns though, which is +2 happiness with theatres, and my capital will have food, health, and happiness to grow to size 13 in 20 turns.

My 80% tech rate (leaving 20% for culture) is 187, and my sustainable tech rate is 40% (also with 20% for culture). At that rate I get 91 beakers/turn.

Definitely interesting. It sounds you're ahead, due to the larger city sizes. I wonder how you're doing in terms of courthouses though? How do you manage to build those without production in commerce cities? (slavery?). And you'll probably get to the tech later, due to going for Theatre & Calendars. Those will eat up alot of your commerce potential. Although it may be feasible to 'out-grow' the costs by simply increasing the revenue faster.

Taelis · Dec 24, 2005

I don't usually build courthouses, rather I beeline for communism after democracy. What I do build I build with chop rushing or slavery, usually that goes theatre, granary, warrior/archer, library, (sometimes aqueduct), and university.

The 5114 tech rate was without a golden age, which ran out a few turns early. I had a massive economy thanks to all the towns (from 26 cities, and happy cities working more cottages earlier). But clearly you were ahead on tech most of the game, since my faster research had to catch up.

This game's going well, I wonder how it will turn out.

DaveMcW · Dec 24, 2005

Orca said:
Not exactly 1350 - but yes you arent 3 turns behind . Cant wait to see if someone manages to launch before 1300 - i will give it another try tommorrow, this is getting really exciting

Ack, does that mean I have to play another game?

I don't think I can motivate myself to do another 1.09 space race, now that I know 1.52 will make them all obsolete.

Orca · Dec 24, 2005

You would better hurry then

- i think today is last day for this gauntlet.
Guess i was a bit overconfident with breaking 1300. I now begin to realize that i got a bit lucky with some things.

Quantum7 · Dec 24, 2005

Taelis said:
I don't usually build courthouses, rather I beeline for communism after democracy. What I do build I build with chop rushing or slavery, usually that goes theatre, granary, warrior/archer, library, (sometimes aqueduct), and university.

The 5114 tech rate was without a golden age, which ran out a few turns early. I had a massive economy thanks to all the towns (from 26 cities, and happy cities working more cottages earlier). But clearly you were ahead on tech most of the game, since my faster research had to catch up.

This game's going well, I wonder how it will turn out.

- Granaries. I don't build them until I need the health; probably a reason your towns grow faster & thus need more happiness earlier (and can work more cottages earlier). Will have to try a game with building more of them faster. Libraries aren't very effective initially anyway.
- I tend to beeline for Code of Laws to get Bureaucracy for free (and to get Caste System & Courthouses). Drama wouldn't be too much of a detour though, as it also reduces the cost for Philosophy to be researched. I don't seem to use Caste System very effectively anyway in these kinds of games (as I seem to only use it for expanding borders quickly lol

)
- I'm guessing combining both effectively (courthouses in the right spots), libraries & universities in other spots may be optimal. Will have to try.

Taelis · Dec 24, 2005

Don't know if you'll want to play another game Dave, but I just finished a 1360 launch.

I wonder when Orca finished - care to share?

Spoiler eventlog :

Quantum7 · Dec 24, 2005

Taelis said:
Don't know if you'll want to play another game Dave, but I just finished a 1360 launch.

Well at least you were already ahead of me =). So this doesn't cost a spot

.

O and gratz ofcourse!

Orca · Dec 24, 2005

I wonder when Orca finished - care to share?

1375 - you beat me grr ^^

edit : Never thought that creative leader ability would have a chance to win since i tend to dont touch the culture slider at all in the game. It seems the game is really well balanced and you can play totally different strats even on competitive level - nice.

Tall German Joe · Dec 24, 2005

Quantum7 said:
- I had no stone nor Marble (both were inside cultural boundaries of other players) so I didn't go for Pyramids. Not that hurtful, although it kept me from using specialists, which was bad.
- The "Fishes" name is because I have my default name set to the wrong name. I've been too lazy to change it, so I end up changing it in the game itself .

I just looked at your log and:

eventlog said:
Turn 12: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!
Turn 13: Asoka converts to Buddhism!
Turn 19: You have declared war on Asoka!
Turn 20: You have captured Delhi!!!
Turn 20: The Indian Civilization has been destroyed!!!
Turn 24: You have discovered Bronze Working!

poor Asoka!!

I just submitted my best, a 1425 A.D. launch with Mansa; turns out I had bronze on a grassland-river right next to my capital, so I chop-rushed a bunch of axemen and smoked Ghandi by 1900 B.C. and Hatshepsut by 1200 B.C. or so (can't quite remember). It was nice because I had almost 3/4 of the map to myself, and 3 capital-quality cities at the start. Also, I had 33 workers this game!! I think I coulda pulled a sub-1400 victory except I forgot to build the Hanging Gardens until after I finished the Apollo Program. >:[

One other trick I thought was kinda clever was that I founded 1 last city at around 1000 A.D. in the middle of a thickly-forested area, and then used it to build the S.S. Life Support by chopping at least 20 forests!!

So whatcha all doing for BG1

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Still hatin' on Khan

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Deity

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Warlord

Prince

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