Jeremiah: Thank you for posting that. It let me see where I was in comparison to you. I have tried this gauntlet 4-5 times already (not counting restarts because of the map sucking) and only finished 1 of them, rest were way far behind. That finish was around 1740 or something, I thought that was good
Anyway, I followed your write up and log pretty well. I change around a couple things that I thought you could improve on. My biggest thing in the past was knowing the best tech route. Anyway, on my first attempt following your tech routes and advice, I BEAT YOU
1666!!!!!!!! Looks like that is second right behind Shillen. I can beat his score though, I messed up on a couple things. Anyway, here is a copy of my log:
Red are my comments
I got a scout and a warrior out of 2 goody huts. That helped a lot, managed to snag a total of 5 huts I think, most I have gotten on the gauntlet attempts. The warrior helped me from wasting turns to build one to fotify in a city to make it happy. I also pulled my original warrior back into a city once the scout got going pretty good.
My starting city wasn't on a river, all other cities were. Only reason I kept the map was that marble and 2 food resources were in my starting area. I culture flipped 2 cities without trying. I could have grabbed 1-2 more with a culture bomb but didn't want to piss off my neighbors.
Turn 21: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 35: You have discovered Masonry!
Turn 46: You have discovered The Wheel!
Turn 58: You have discovered Pottery!
Turn 72: You have discovered Writing!
Turn 111: You have discovered Alphabet!
I went straight for Alphabet and traded for all the previous techs you spent time teching. They are important, but all of my workers were chop rushing more settlers and workers so they couldn't have used any of them.
Turn 114: BigBenOSU has completed The Pyramids!
Chop rushed like crazy.
Turn 123: BigBenOSU has completed Stonehenge!
Turn 124: BigBenOSU adopts Representation!
Turn 129: BigBenOSU has completed The Oracle!
Chop rushed so I could get the free tech
Turn 130: Christianity has been founded in Xian!
Turn 130: You have discovered Theology!
Turn 130: BigBenOSU converts to Christianity!
Turn 140: BigBenOSU has completed The Parthenon!
Turn 149: You have discovered Drama!
Turn 156: Imhotep has been born in Tianjin!
Turn 158: BigBenOSU has completed The Hanging Gardens!
If Imhotep is an Great Engineer I believe I rushed this.
Turn 159: You have discovered Literature!
Turn 166: BigBenOSU has completed The Sistine Chapel!
Turn 167: BigBenOSU has completed The Great Library!
Turn 172: Homer has been born in Beijing!
Think I made an academy in my highest science producing city
Turn 172: You have discovered Music!
Turn 182: Archimedes has been born in Shandong!
Think I made an academy in my second highest science producing city.
Turn 184: Taoism has been founded in Shanghai!
Turn 184: You have discovered Philosophy!
Turn 185: The revolution has begun!!!
Turn 185: BigBenOSU adopts Pacifism!
Turn 188: BigBenOSU has completed Notre Dame!
Turn 189: You have discovered Metal Casting!
Turn 193: You have discovered Paper!
Turn 193: Mahavira has been born in Guangzhou!
Built my religious wonder
Turn 196: Lahore has revolted and joined the Chinese Empire!
Turn 199: BigBenOSU has completed The Church of the Nativity!
Turn 201: You have discovered Education!
Turn 205: Xi Ling Shi has been born in Shandong!
Can't remember what type of great person this is.
Turn 209: BigBenOSU is the first to discover Liberalism!
Turn 209: You have discovered Liberalism!
Turn 210: Islam has been founded in Tianjin!
Turn 210: You have discovered Divine Right!
Bought with the free tech from liberalism.
Turn 212: You have discovered Machinery!
Turn 215: Thespis has been born in Beijing!
Didn't want to culture bomb anything. Can't remember if I added him a production city or got a tech.
Turn 217: You have discovered Printing Press!
Turn 219: Awdaghost has revolted and joined the Chinese Empire!
Turn 221: You have discovered Civil Service!
Turn 221: Nabu-rimanni has been born in Xian!
Think I did an academy
Turn 222: BigBenOSU adopts Free Speech!
Turn 222: BigBenOSU adopts Free Religion!
Turn 225: BigBenOSU has completed Angkor Wat!
Turn 227: You have discovered Nationalism!
Turn 228: BigBenOSU adopts Serfdom!
Turn 235: You have discovered Constitution!
Turn 243: Ptolemy has been born in Shandong!
Saved him for Golden Age I think
Turn 244: You have discovered Democracy!
Turn 245: BigBenOSU adopts Emancipation!
Turn 248: You have discovered Guilds!
Turn 250: You have discovered Banking!
Turn 251: BigBenOSU adopts Universal Suffrage!
Turn 251: BigBenOSU adopts Mercantilism!
Turn 252: BigBenOSU's Golden Age has begun!!!
Turn 252: BigBenOSU has completed The Taj Mahal!
Turn 253: Harkuf has been born in Beijing!
Saved him for a Golden Age I think
Turn 253: You have discovered Economics!
Turn 254: BigBenOSU has completed Versailles!
Turn 255: Mansa Musa has completed The Spiral Minaret!
Beat me by 1-2 turns
Turn 257: You have discovered Replaceable Parts!
Turn 260: You have discovered Corporation!
Turn 261: You have discovered Gunpowder!
Turn 264: You have discovered Chemistry!
Turn 264: BigBenOSU has completed The Hagia Sophia!
Turn 266: You have discovered Steam Power!
Turn 268: Mansa Musa is the first to circumnavigate the Globe! If I would have map traded the turn before I would have had it.
Can't remember if it is an extra move for ships or for everything.
Turn 269: You have discovered Steel!
Turn 272: You have discovered Railroad!
Turn 276: You have discovered Astronomy!
Turn 278: You have discovered Scientific Method!
Turn 278: BigBenOSU has completed The Statue of Liberty!
Turn 282: You have discovered Biology!
Turn 283: Virgil has been born in Guangzhou!
Turn 285: Zu Chongzhi has been born in Beijing!
Saved him
Turn 285: You have discovered Physics!
Turn 289: You have discovered Electricity!
Turn 290: Pytheas has been born in Shandong!
Golden aged him
Turn 291: BigBenOSU's Golden Age has begun!!!
I was stupid and didn't wait until spaceship production started.
Turn 292: You have discovered Assembly Line!
Turn 295: You have discovered Industrialism!
Turn 297: You have discovered Artillery!
Turn 301: You have discovered Rocketry!
Turn 306: You have discovered Plastics!
Turn 311: You have discovered Ecology!
Turn 311: Bi Sheng has been born in Beijing!
Dumped him in my production city
Turn 312: BigBenOSU adopts Environmentalism!
Turn 315: You have discovered Radio!
Turn 321: You have discovered Computers!
Turn 327: You have discovered Robotics!
Turn 327: BigBenOSU has completed Broadway!
Turn 331: You have discovered Satellites!
Turn 332: BigBenOSU has completed Apollo Program!
Turn 333: BigBenOSU has completed The Kremlin!
Turn 336: You have discovered Fiber Optics!
Turn 339: You have discovered Refrigeration!
Turn 344: BigBenOSU has completed SS Casing!
Turn 346: You have discovered Genetics!
Turn 347: BigBenOSU has completed SS Thrusters!
Turn 348: Cyrus has completed Apollo Program!
Turn 349: BigBenOSU has completed SS Casing!
Turn 349: You have created SS Casing in Hangzhou. Work has now begun on The Space Elevator.
Turn 350: BigBenOSU has completed SS Life Support!
Turn 351: BigBenOSU has completed SS Docking Bay!
Turn 351: BigBenOSU has completed SS Thrusters!
Turn 351: BigBenOSU has completed SS Thrusters!
Turn 352: Mansa Musa has completed Apollo Program!
Turn 353: BigBenOSU has completed SS Casing!
Turn 353: BigBenOSU has completed SS Casing!
Turn 353: BigBenOSU has completed SS Casing!
Turn 353: Hatshepsut has completed Apollo Program!
Turn 354: Blaise Pascal has been born in Beijing!
Turn 354: You have discovered Fusion!
Turn 356: You have discovered Medicine!
Turn 361: You have discovered Composites!
Turn 363: BigBenOSU has completed SS Cockpit!
Turn 367: BigBenOSU has completed SS Stasis Chamber!
Turn 367: BigBenOSU has completed SS Engine!
Turn 367: BigBenOSU has completed The Three Gorges Dam!
BigBenOSU (China) gives: defensive pact
Mali gives: defensive pact -- Deal started in turn 314
BigBenOSU (China) gives: open border
Persia gives: open border -- Deal started in turn 143
BigBenOSU (China) gives: open border
Mali gives: open border -- Deal started in turn 143
BigBenOSU (China) gives: open border
Egypt gives: open border -- Deal started in turn 143
BigBenOSU (China) gives: open border
India gives: open border -- Deal started in turn 143
BigBenOSU (China) gives: wheat
Persia gives: pig -- Deal started in turn 149
BigBenOSU (China) gives: defensive pact
Persia gives: defensive pact -- Deal started in turn 297
BigBenOSU (China) gives: defensive pact
India gives: defensive pact -- Deal started in turn 297
Well, there you have it. I can't remember exactly when I messed up so I didn't include all of it. Here are some of the things I think I did well and stuff I think is important to playing this challenge successfully as well as some things that I know I should have did a lot better. I could have cut 10-15 turns out pretty easily.
Just so you know, my tech was almost never at 100%. It didn't get to 90% until REALLY late in the game. I was running 40-60% for the majority of my teching.
I don't automate my workers until all of the resources are linked and I have built on every space that my cities are using. I would say that I automate my workers when all my cities are around population of 10. I automate my cities from the beginning. It is very important that you set the emphasis of the automation. This is key to playing successfully. Here is what I do about that:
1. I try and remember to set the emphasis on production as soon as the cities are founded.
2. Once all of my workers and settlers have been chop rushed from that city I change the emphasis to growth and make granaries first.
3. I try and watch the population of my cities as much as I can. When they reach 10 I change the emphasis back to production. This gets the cities to pump out some of the important buildings around the time the become available.
4. When I have built all of the buildings that I can without waiting on new tech I change the emphasis back to growht.
5. As cities reach the 20 population mark I set the emphasis to research. However you need to play around with this. For some cities I got more beakers when I had research and growth checked rather than just research. This helps out a ton with the tech rush in the end so you can keep up with your production.
6. When the space race starts I set all cities emphasis to production.
Here are things that I think went wrong:
1. Should have did a better job of exploring in all directions of my starting point. I left out one side that had some resources I wanted. So it took me 1-2 extra moves to find a good spot to set up city #3.
2. I had marble right outside my capital and linked it. I placed city #3 three spaces from stone. I meant to chop rush a library to get it expanded in time for stone. I forgot about it. I could have sped up production of pyramids and stonehenge if I would have.
3. I didn't change some of my citys' emphasis when I should have. Need to stay on top of that more.
4. I went for 20 pop per city. The increased pop helps with teching, but I think having it that large hurts production in the end from all the
people. I need to play around and see where it balances out.
5. I think if I would have culture bombed my main two production cities right before the space race I could have expanded their borders and got more workable land out of it. Believe it works that way.
6. I had three Golden Ages, 2 from Great People and one from the Taj. I think I could have used the Great People more effectively. I think if I would have saved a Great Prophet and a Great Merchant for a Golden Age during spaceship production and placed the rest in my main production cities.
7. I need to specialize my cities more. I tried to balance them all between growth with farms and watermills on the rivers. Need to work that out.
8. Wonder placement. A lot of the early wonders were all dependent on which city had the most forest around it to chop rush it with. I don't know if getting the wonders earlier is better or placing them in better locations and rish not getting them first.
9. Need more cottages early. I build too many water mills where I should build cottages.
10. Need to take the time to evaluate cities. I plan on making an excel file with each terrain type, each building on it, what that building yeilds in the beginning, and what it yields after all the techs are out. This will let me evaluate how many farms a city needs for X amount of population. Then I can build the rest up as water mills and mines.
11. Evaluating cities will also let me see which ones will have the maximum possible production in the end run.
12. Converting farms, windmills, and watermills. I just figured it out in the last 10 turns or so. When your cities are done growing to the size you want, you need to only keep enough farms to give food for that population. That way you can convert the farms to watermills during mid-game or to workshops nearing the space race. Right before you start producing the spaceship parts you need to convert all windmills to mines and have railroads on them and then you need to convert all of the watermills to workshops. If your farms can support your population you can convert your towns to workshops as well. It will kill your income but will shorten your turns by 2-3 for a spaceship part.
13. I just figured some of those things out after the fact. I don't consider them mistakes since I didn't think about them beforehand. The only real "mistakes" I made were the stone thing in the beginning (cost me atleast 2-3 turns) and I didn't convert the emphasis of my major production city to production when I started making the Apollo Program (cost me about 4 turns).
Altogether I should have finished around 1652-54 if I didn't make those major mistakes. With all of the little things I learned during this game I think I can cut out an additional 10 turns or so. That will put my ideal finish around 1610-1625. I played this one all the way through so I need a break. May get my next go at it tomorrow before work. Will let you guys know.
That is about all I have to say. Sorry the post was so long, not sure who will read it
Anyway, if you have any questions feel free to ask.
