Spoonwood's Hall of Fame Attempts

[Spoonwood]

O. K. I did just reread the part of the FAQ saying that losses for other victory conditions than histographic won't get accepted.

But other than the FAQ page says that, what's the reason?

Your settler/city/cities still stood the test of time until victory got achieved, as holds for other non-histographic games.

Submitting saves wouldn't work for conquest losses, since we don't get the option to play more after a conquest loss.

 

[Spoonwood]

Another attempt at a quick loss... and Rome won:

Edit: Had my city conquered in 2 other attempts.

 

[superslug]

The system can't put a game on a Fastest Finish table unless it's actually a Fastest Finish win. There's no real reason or decision behind it; it's just a product of the SQL coding.

 

[Spoonwood]

Small Monarch against the Mongols, Japan, and Zululand. In 2030 AD, the Mongols had a marine land on my capital and raze it.

From the relevant game screen, it seems Zululand might trigger a 100k victory. However, MapStat tells me that they have 78,382 culture, while The Mongols have 69,260 culture. 19 turns to hang on.

2031 AD - Move warriors to cities and change all cities to pikeman. And the game crashes, so I'll have to redo that...

2032 AD - Lose Osaka.

2033 AD - At Yokohoma, one warrior valiantly fights a mechanized infantry and defeats it! Though the Monogls do take Yokohama with another mechanized infantry. They capture Tokyo also.

2034 AD - Lose Sapporo. The Zulu start on The Internet.

2035 AD - The Mongols finish The United Nations.

2036 AD - Lose Kagoshima, Shimonoseki, Matsuyama, and Nara to a Marine.

2037 AD - Lose Nagoya, Nagasaki. The Zulu complete The Internet. The Mongols complete The Manhattan Project.

2039 AD - Pay 1319 gold and our world map to Temujin for peace.

Alright, we'll buy your maps:

Japan's final score was 723. Zululand's was 1587.

I don't recall seeing any Monarch AIs on an 80% archipelago map get to Marines before.

 

[Spoonwood]

Small Monarch Histo:

We played as Carthage. I put Egypt as an opponent, forgetting about the possibility of an 80k loss. But, The Zulu got really big and ended up with the cultural lead over Egypt and The Mongols.

Shaka offered a territory map for some gold at some point, so we took it. I even had the island block wrong and lost a city to a crusader at one point. But 3 warriors managed to defeat it and we got the island block fortified after that and consequently didn't have any more issues.

 

[Spoonwood]

Huge Monarch Spaceship had 9 spots, so I played a game for that table with Sumeria. Only free tech we got was Nuclear Power, and even though we could have traded for Feudalism, we declined for a greater probability of getting Theology, and instead got Feudalism as our free medieval technology. The spaceship got launched in 1180 AD. I thought about warring, but decided against it to finish in less real time. Russia declared on us at one point in the modern age. We didn't conquer them. Playtime records as about 10 and half hours.

 

[Bartleby]

Not too shabby.

 

[Spoonwood]

I've started a bunch of attempts for Large Warlord 130k, and didn't stick with many of them. One issue I ran into lies in the resetting of citizens upon cultural expansions, which comes as annoying for civil engineers. I finally figured out something though.

First, 1400 AD is turn 270. Since the game has 540 turns, that's 270 turns from them. Let's suppose that you have 200 cities at 1400 AD. If you then have each city build a temple and a library, in 140 turns in the worst case, they will all produce 5 culture per turn. But, that's (5x200) = 1000 culture total per turn with (270 - 140) = 130 turns left in the game! So, if you can manage 200 cities by 1400 AD, then have each build a temple and a library, and control the AI so that they don't win otherwise, you can have 130k in 2050 AD. Even on a huge map, you would only need 30k more culture to reach 160k!

 

[Spoonwood]

1705 AD - Large Warlord 130k. Here's a picture of my core cities:

I played it as Always War, as that keeps things interesting early. Except, I made peace with Portugal during on one turn to gift them a prison city, which I had surrounded with ancient cavalry and rider armies. We went back to war by the end of the turn. We didn't even bother researching Military Tradition. They would have an archer attack one of the armies every few turns. We did research to the The Internet, but it seemed pointless. Really, I think it would just worked out faster in terms of time to just capture (or handbuild) the Temple of Artemis and not learn Education. Even if I had needed Military Tradition, unless you need rails, the top branch just isn't worth if trying to get in a fairly quick (time-wise, not turn-wise) a 100k type game.

I went with the above strategy in the previous post, except I had all cultural buildings built in my core, except Great Wonders. Mapstat says 1865 culture per turn on the final turn.

Final score of 5401:

 

[Spoonwood]

I saw that we don't have any 100k type entries for Rome (or at least I thought I saw that). So, I decided to play a Huge Warlord 160k game with Rome. I had started an AW game with Germany, but just played this out normally... though I did declare on multiple AIs at some point. I didn't look for a high quality start. We had deer in a forest in the capital's radius, but not in the immediate nine surrounding tiles. We discovered ivory fairly early, so we built the Statue of Zeus. Then the Temple of Artemis.

Lacking rails, at one point I decided to go with a "military triangle" after getting a second leader. It was elsewhere early (we abandoned the city with The Military Academy and used another MGL to build it in this city), built by an MGL. The basic idea lay in that cities near the City of Armies would short rush a worker and then cavalry (pillaging out iron and saltpeter and training horseman to upgrade would work out less costly, but would have taken more time). And the army city would purchase wormies (worker -> army). The 2nd "triangle" looked something like this:

All cities got or had planned a library eventually. Core cities built more culture. At the end, I just clicked to finish:

Final Score of 6186.

 

[Spoonwood]

I have played another Warlord Huge game going for 160k as Germany. Our empire does Always War this time. The original plan involved capturing the Temple of Artemis. But, upon completing the Monarchy slingshot we got this!

Current battlefront looks like this:

Only Russia and Spain lie in our corner, so it gave us time to develop early! And they died well before we got Chivalry. I decided to build The Hanging Garden and The Sistine Chapel, since we only have 3 luxuries so far. I thought we would capture the Museum of Mausollos city and try to build Sun Tzu's Art of War/Leonardo's Workshop for a Golden Age, but MoM might take a while. We got a 2nd SGL on Invention which got used on Leonardo's Workshop.

We used an MGL to rush the Forbidden Palace, and another for The Pentagon. We have 1 archer army, and 3 knight armies at the moment.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think a courthouse will take this city to 16 shields per turn (at size 12). Consequently, it can produce 5 turn cavalry instead of 6 turn cavalry:

Edit: It worked! City has one more shield per turn now!

 

[Bartleby]

Does the AI attack an archer army if you give it a chance?

 

[Spoonwood]

Does the AI attack an archer army if you give it a chance?

I thought I read that swords will attack a healthy archer army. But, I think I had a swordsmen ignore the 12/13 archer army. It has a longbowman in it now too. But, I'm not risking anything with it now, since I've faced some medieval infantry.

 

[Spoonwood]

Egypt built the Statue of Zeus and wasn't on my continent. I decided not to declare war on them, or even try to find them. They did find us after they had learned Astronomy, I think, but they never landed on our shores. We also decided to keep The Great Library, so we learned Education via it, and then researched to Steam Power and a little more.

Final score of 5300.

Finish date of 1685 AD.

 

[Spoonwood]

Going for Standard Regent 100k. I noticed that I have submitted a game with every civ but, I think, a few:

The Mongols, The Inca, and The Arabs. Notice a theme here... one particular trait I haven't seemed to care for? Hint: I also had a quick histographic game with America, and don't have any other submissions with them. Extra hint: I submitted one game with The Zulu, but it's no longer on any of the tables, because I submitted earlier finish dates with Sumeria. I think the notes for that game lie somewhere at the early part of this thread.

Anyways, I tried an Always War start and decided naw. Then I went for building up culture buildings in core cities before. Then I got to the industrial era and didn't have coal. So, this game I've gone with libraries and marketplaces in the core before war, even though I only had one native luxury, since I shut off research after learning Military Tradition.

We have ivory as our only luxury and built The Statue of Zeus. I preselected all scientific opponents, except Russia and Sumeria. Germany declared war at some point slightly before the SoZ finished I think. And later we got an ancient cavalry army from fighting Germany. We didn't have iron in our core area, but do have horses so it seems like a well-suited for The Mongols. Actually, the builder variant helped me remember how few cities one can have on this map size, before they become all too corrupt.

Fighting with keshiks we got this:

We still had war with Germany also (we just declared on Korea), and didn't have saltpeter hooked up.

So, that MGL made The Military Academy in Wonsan.

And then...

Note the same date?! I thought about waiting until we had saltpeter hooked up. But, decided to use both of those elite star keshiks to form a keshik army.

At 410 AD we have 13 ancient cavalry, 21 cavalry and 6 armies (most cash-rushed from Wonsan).

Athens has The Great Library. Greece will work out as the last one we'll fight, which fits rather well for razing Athens (or keeping it as the city that survives until the end). No pentagon. Probably won't go that route, even though everyone lies on the continent entirely it seems. Korea also has died recently, and Germany might just go next turn.

 

[Spoonwood]

I had the game crash twice on me. One was early, like 6 or so turns into the game when I tried to click on an AI unit to establish contact.

In previous games I see a lot of citizens dying from disease, and we hadn't cleared marsh/jungle in our territory. So, this game we cleared all the marsh and jungle. Not that we irrigated all the tiles or anything special.

Oh... I have a funny picture:

The plague must have struck, because it's still a work in progress!

100k reached in 1555 AD.

Final score of 6014.

 

[Spoonwood]

So, I got to thinking.

Library - 3, temple - 2 (5), cathedral - 3 (8), colosseum - 2 (10), university - 4 (14), research lab - 2 (16). (50 x 16) = 800. (800 x 200) = 160,000! So, if you have 50 cities with all buildings with 200 turns left, reaching 160k by 2050 should work as plenty feasible. 200 turns left is 1750 AD, so that sounds realistic for a huge map.

For a large map (130,000 / 200) = (1300 / 2) = 650. So, 650 culture per turn by 1750. (650 / 16) = ((650 / 2) / (16 / 2)) = (325 / 8) < 41. So, 41 cities should work for a large map.

For a standard map (100,000 / 200) = 500. (500 / 16) = ((500 / 2) / (16 / 2)) = (250 / 8) = (125 / 4) < 32. Generally speaking I've found that the 32nd city can benefit from a courthouse, I think (or use civil engineers). So, that sounds feasible for a standard map.

For a small map (80,000 / 200) = 400. (400 / 16) = (100 / 4) = 25. 25 cities on a small map.

For a tiny map (60,000 / 200) = 300. (300 / 16) = (150 / 8 ) < 19. So, 19 cities on a tiny map.

 

[Spoonwood]

Huge Regent 160k:

Instead of killing off the AIs in the middle ages, I decided to go with fewer cities. We declared war on Japan, The Iroquois, and Germany. Germany had some city elsewhere, and we didn't eliminate them. We got unwanted war declarations from The Ottomans, The Dutch, and France in the modern age. With the first two wars, we just killed off invaders, and made peace. With France, we had everyone declare war on them, and Sumeria took them out of the game.

We had a lot of jungle and marsh. Super strong start. Had a river and grassland cow, and we got a settler from our first hut. AND, though we didn't see it until after the 2nd city had gotten founded, we had two more grassland cows near the capital. After we had core cities built and more, we had the 2nd city become a 1 turn worker pump. Then later once rails got up, we had it become a settler pump, which could have made one every 2 turns, but I wasn't careful in managing that.

Here's a 1000 BC screenshot:

Oh, we had to disband some units slightly before then. Both the capital and the 2nd city had 10 shields per turn and 2 turn growth so were going trebuchet - worker - worker - settler.

Also, this game I learned, that it's not faster, in terms of real time, to have fewer cities in the industrial/modern era than to have more cities in the middle ages. Though fewer cities sounds better, then you need/want to rail first if you're fighting, can do forestry and chopping actively, and can have pollution to clean up. So, I don't think I'll do this "build, build, build" sort of thing again, and instead go with an earlier aggressive approach.


Final score of 5747

 

[Spoonwood]

I've had one crash in the current run with Arabia on Huge Regent. The goal: 160k.

I had some other run with huts going, but in this one just turned huts off. Also, I decided to just declare on the first opponent, and research warrior code, bronze working, and mathematics first. We didn't try for The Republic slingshot and instead just researched Philosophy, took Code of Laws, and then researched Republic.

We haven't had any unwanted war declarations, except one from the Iroquois. We've stayed at war with them instead of making peace. And the AIs can't research at this level. We research Replacable Parts in the following screenshot: