Spoonwood's Hall of Fame Attempts

[Spoonwood]

290 AD - After some heavy fighting, we capture Cincinnati. The cost of the palace has increased to 400 shields. Rome signs a peace treat with Japan. The Romans start Magellan's. The Indians start Smith's.

300 AD - We pick up Economics and Rome goes back to war with Japan. A fair amount of healing this turn. The Chinese start Bach's, as do The Zulu. The Zulu start Magellan's.

 

[Spoonwood]

310 AD - A slave begins roading our spice source near 004. We have purchased spices from The Chinese for a while now. But, we also get dyes from them, so there is no use in acquiring spices from China also. The spices getting hooked up will help cut down on the cost of purchasing luxuries, without making it more difficult to get anything from China. We capture Izumi. The fighting becomes quite heavy, and the French suffer many losses of cavalry units to strong Samurai defenders. But, we do manage to secure the area around Izumi:

320 AD - The luxury slider gets raised so that 002 remains content. Other than that, this turn consists mostly of repositioning. We learn Free Artistry and use "What's The Big Picture" to swap to Shakespeare's Theater. The city screen projects it completed in 5 turns. Our people offers our court a palace expansion, and we accept. The Portuguese begin Smith's.

330 AD - We begin research on Theory of Gravity. It gets projected at 7 turns at 90% research, but I question my advisor on this one. The learning of a technology changes builds from horseman to an upgraded unit, if a resource is available. So, this turn, some cities pay for the cost of knights, and then swap builds after saltpeter gets reconnected to complete cavalry. 005 short-rushes a temple, since I think it will produce 20 shields on the next turn:

At Hakodate, we get an MGL for our Heroic Epic:

I notice that Kagoshima, a nearby city lies on a hill. That city seems a suitable target for our cannons. Some workers begin their trek to 002. Some cities are training workers also or will soon do so. The Zulu begin Smith's. The Vikings build J. S. Bach's Cathedral in Bergen. The Portuguese begin Smith's.

340 AD - No one else knows Free Artistry. We capture Bizen. The Romans, The Indians, start Smith's. The Indians start Magellan's. Smith's Trading Company gets built in Delhi. The Portuguese start Magellan's Voyage.

350 AD - Rome and India know Theory of Gravity, which we pick up, as usual from The Great Pillage. No one else knows Free Artistry. We begin researching Magnetism since we want to get into the industrial era sooner rather than later. The Romans and the The Indians start Newton's.

360 AD - The Golden Age is ending. Crank up the luxury slider to 30% to avoid any not too corrupt cities rioting. Shakespeare's Theater says 1 turn left. I use the settler trick, and determine that there are 428 shields in the box. Since Shake's costs 450 shields, and 002 will make 23 shields after I check it's layout, this suggests that Shakespeare's Theater is a lock. We capture Kagoshima, Nara, and Fukushima, thereby saving many of it's citizens from the hazards of radiation exposure, rumored to have already occurred in an alternative universe some 1700 years in the future.

Newton's University would take us 18 turns.
370 AD - 5 AIs have Magnetism. We research Steam Power at 90%, projected to get learned in 15 turns. Looking at the F7, Hispalis and Bombay are building Newton's University.

I don't know when India started it's Golden Age. That city though, I think, has 9 shields per turn without a GA. The total cost of Newton's there is 160 shield. Each row is 40 shields. India has 18 shields in the box, with 18 shields coming in this turn for sure. So, 124 shields without a golden age is (barely) conceivable. That would mean 14 more turns for India to finish Newton's, since (14 * 9) = ((10 + 4) * 9) = (90 + 36) = 126 which is greater than 124. That's 16 total turns of our time. Since our total time needed to build Newton's is 18 turns, it is therefore impossible for us to complete Newton's ahead of India. But, I hadn't joined in the workers come to think of it.

Taking 002 up to size 19, Newton's University drops to 13 turns. It seems unlikely that India's Golden Age would end soon enough for us to win that race. However...

So, 002 will build something else. The Military Academy will take 13 turns to build by hand, while The Heroic Epic takes 7. The Heroic Epic provides four times the culture of The Military Academy. We might manage to get another MGL soon for the Military Academy (we have the Forbidden Palace to build also), so our current MGL rushes The Heroic Epic. 002 would barely remain content at 10% luxuries, so the luxury slider gets raised to 20%. Steam Power projected to take 16 turns.

 

[Spoonwood]

Thought about attacking Osaka this turn. But, China captured it in the meantime:

Egypt and Japan sign a peace treaty. 002 completes The Heroic Epic and starts on The Forbidden Palace. 46 cpt now with 1787 culture so far. That's 396 turns to get to 20k, without any doubling of cultural buildings which will happen here sometime. The people offer our court another palace expansion. The Zulu start Newton's. Lisbon builds Magellan's Voyage.

380 AD - The current turn is turn 153. 2050 is the 540th turn. We have 387 turns left. Egypt goes back to war with Japan. We capture Suo and Kyoto, which had gotten weakened by Chinese forces. The barracks in 002 gets sold for 10 gold, something which could have gotten done years ago. The people offer our court another palace expansion, which we accept. The Romans start Newton's, and complete it at Byzantium.

 

[Spoonwood]

390 AD - The French capture Edo. Japan has lost Dallas to the Vikings. Sapporo to the Indians. Tokyo and Osaka to the Chinese. Satsuma, Izumo, and Yokohama to the Romans.

400 AD - We capture Nagasaki.

 

[Spoonwood]

India and the Mongols both sign a peace treaty with Japan. The governor of Nara gets deposed. As does the governor of Bizen.

410 AD - India goes back to war with Japan (via an iron source coming from them and gpt coming from France). As do The Mongols via our world map. We recapture Bizen. Nara also.

420 AD - Japan has but one city left:

I had thought about France starting a war with India next.

 

[Spoonwood]

India and Scandinavia both block the path to that city, and I would like it's furs. However, India supplies France with over 400 gpt right now and Scandinavia over 200 gpt. It seems tricky to position adequate defense for a war with Scandinavia at the moment. India looks tricky also. China is supplying France only 4 gpt. I'm a little uncertain about starting that war now. One of the more troubling spots concerns a possible cavalry attack from Nanking. Some French conduct a city investigation:

The peace treaty gets renegotiated with China promising to supply Dyes to the French capital. And China declares war when their traders refuse to walk over a few miles of unroaded terrain. The Maya, Portugal, India, Scandinavia, Rome, The Zulu, and The Mongols declare war on China. The French capture New Canton, Tsingtao, and Osaka. Science goes up to 90%, and Steam Power drops to 9 turns.

The Vikings capture Kyoto. Nagaski flips to the Indians.

430 AD - Scandinavia has a supply of furs, the 8th luxury. Science goes up to 100%. Steam Power drops to 7 turns. France captures Kozuke.

De Gaulle would take 6 turns to make it to 002. The palace prebuild is currently at 600 shields, for 19 turns of building. We have two turns left on the Forbidden Palace and 7 on steam power. Nationalism would be 12 turns if we switched to it. I think we can make it to Industrialization in 21 turns. Railroads will make transporting military great leaders around soon enough, I think. So, De Gaulle forms an army.

440 AD - We capture Hangchow, Echigo, and Nanking.

 

[Spoonwood]

One difficulty I've encountered when thinking about this game concerns The Military Academy. If I put The Military Academy in 20k target city, then it can have more culture. But, that also implies that I have fewer turns in which it's possible to buy armies. Additionally, armies get produced later. What I hadn't considered until today is whether The Military Academy can get rebuilt.

So I load up Drazek's 1000 AD save from his 93,000+ points games. I find New Palenque luckily, and abandon it. I go over to Yaxchilan, scroll down, and see the Military Academy available to build.

Since culture doubles after 1000 years, putting the Military Academy in one's 20k city early could have a benefit. But, a game that tight culture wise seems improbable for this game, and one extra culture from a city doubling + a few dozen turns (maybe even 100) of 1 culture probably doesn't outweigh the potential benefit of getting to the modern era more quickly.

The superior strategies I believe are to put the Military Academy in some corrupt area, shortrush workers and buy armies ("wormies" as I think Sirpleb named them), and abandon that city when military domination is assured. Or put the Military Academy in some core area, and later abandon that city. Then rebuild the military academy in one's 20k city.

 

[Spoonwood]

440 AD continued - 002 Military Academy -> Palace Prebuild on Universal Suffrage. Palace reads 22 turns at 33 spt. 21 x 33 = 693, so the palace now costs 700 shields. Rome apparently almost capture Kaifeng.

450 AD - Some barracks get sold in captured Japanese cities. Capture Kaifeng, Canton.

 

[CKS]

One difficulty I've encountered when thinking about this game concerns The Military Academy. If I put The Military Academy in 20k target city, then it can have more culture. But, that also implies that I have fewer turns in which it's possible to buy armies.

In a game like this one, I think your plan to put the MA somewhere else and buy armies is a good one. If you never get it rebuilt in your 20k city, I don't think it is a big deal, as it probably won't change your finish date by more than one turn. In my worst games, dividing the number of turns between being able to build the MA and hitting 20k (which equals the culture I could get by building the MA) by my final cpt gives only about 3 turns that I could save.
Of course, if your 20k city is your first city, where you don't have a palace prebuild, then you want the MA in the 20k city because it gives you a 400-shield prebuild.
I've never tried a Sid game except on archipelago with my own island, where I'm avoiding war rather than going on the attack early on. This plays out entirely differently, and it is much more manageable for players at my level. (My hope is to someday have the _last_ slot on every 20k/standard map table, though I may not manage DG.)
I'm enjoying reading about your game. Thanks for posting.

 

[Spoonwood]

You're welcome CKS.

I currently have 30 workers in 002 14:

Before rails, and after Shakespeare's Theater, I like putting a large of stack of workers in my 20k target city so that pollution can get cleaned in a single turn (or close). The editor has precise information to figure out how many workers one needs to clean pollution in a single turn. I thought about looking that up here, but I have some unroaded tiles still.

Going forward one idea I've had consists in sending Portugal and other AIs to attack the Zulu. During that time I might try to take out Mongolia and/or Egypt on my own. This way I'll have fewer units to attack when the war starts. Or maybe I'll go with gifting away cities to an ally if there's a large stack of units near a captured city.

The Zulu have two stacks with more than 40 units in my territory. I might be miscounting, but I think there's 40 units possible on one screen. France has 1 settler, 59 workers, 3 explorers, 3 warriors, 1 knight (it's an elite), 99 cavalry, 27 cannons, 2 armies, 32 musketeers, and 2 ancient cavalry.

Pollution strikes 002 on an unroaded flatland tile. Clear pollution takes 24 base turns to complete (found in civiliopedia). A road takes 6 turns to complete (I opened the editor, but this is in the civilopedia too). A regular worker needs 3 turns to complete a road on flatland. The editor reads it's 10 turns to clear a forest. Those numbers are for PTW.

In Conquests Edit it reads 6 base turns to build a road, but 4 to clear a forest. The government section says that the worker rate is 2 for a republic. I'm not understanding the conditions for the worker rate to apply and not apply. Did I need 24 workers to clear a flatland tile in a single turn before? I'm remembering the number of workers needed as lower, but both pollution and forests have 'clear' before them.

If it takes 24 worker as non-industrious to clear a single flatland tile in a single tile, then it takes 24/(3/2) = 48 / 3 = 16 turns. MapStat says autosave time as 53 hours 0 mintues. Save game after doing something else with the save open. Find the latest save and load with MapStat, reading 54 hours 8 minutes. Close save. Look through old saves. Want save without Replaceable Parts, but pollution possible. Find Naok's 1340 save . Chose to research Replaceable Parts after some turns! RP doubles worker speed. It's 4 turns to clean a flatland tile with RP playing as industrious, so 8 turns without replaceable parts. 8*(3/2) = 24 / 2 = 12 (I used a hand calculator first). So, 12 turns as non-industrious.

Conclude that the worker rate from the government does apply to cleaning pollution, and predict 8 French workers can clean that tile in a single turn.

 

[Spoonwood]

460 AD - I miscounted and believed that if I moved cavalry in to Chinese territory from the cavlary stack the white circle hovers around, they couldn't sit underneath the army here:

But, I checked the move order. Portugal moves before China, so the longbow has a chance of dying by Portugal's attack before they can attack our cavalry. There's a Portuguese longbowman and medieval infantry in the closest stack by the Chinese longbowman. Later, I finally move cavalry on the hill and kill that longbowman.

Since flips have a high probability of happening before the recentmost war ends, I've been leaving some cavalry and/or cannons outside of captured towns. With armies and rails up, I think that no longer desireable.

One tactic I use involves moving backend cavalry up to the spot where I have fortified cavalry outside of a captured city. Then one of the fortified cavalry moves, while the back end cavalry fortifies. This enables getting back control of captured cities with charging towards new targets. It also makes it easier to take fewer turns to attack cities. I don't use that tactic with elites.

The Chinese land troops near one of our core cities 010! Zoom to 001, upgrade the horseman to cavlary. Scroll around and purchase |, || cavalry via shortushing a worker, purchase a horseman that was due to get built in 2 turns. Also, have some muskets parked.

I've had issues finding use for cannons. This leads me to think about leaving some cannons around the capital in the future.

470 AD - One cavalry wounds, while two other cavalry win and both promote to elite defeating the Chinese longbowman and musketman. Our 8 workers do clean that pollution in exactly one turn.

 

[LordofDread]

It's like reading a fascinating book. Story and thoughts/considerations together. Didn't know Settler trick, this really does help counting shields in box. Many thanks for writing all this up

 

[Spoonwood]

You're welcome LordofDread.

 

[superslug]

If you're trying to get your Palace prebuild up to 1000 shields, I believe that's 60 total towns and cities. (Apologies if you already wrote that, this thread is a great but a lot to keep up with.)

 

[Spoonwood]

470 AD continued - Egypt has furs now, and they declare war on China. We capture Macao and Anyang. A settler moves into place near an iron hill:

On this turn we pay 151 gold to The Zulu for iron, so once some workers move to that tile and we have a pillaging unit there, we'll have a slightly better economy.

Kill one musketman in Beijing with one of the cavlary armies. To my surprise, the next unit is a pikeman. The Celts and China sign a military alliance against India, so The Celts declare war on India. Kaifeng flips.

480 AD - India has Nationalism. Many military builds get changed to spearmen, with some cash rushing also.

I note that the World Map doesn't change the overall gpt that we need to "pay" in this case. Zulu has a worker which we purchase for 100 gold. We trade Writing to The Celts for 80 gold an alliance against The Chinese. Unfortunately, as I suspected but decided to test for certainty purposes, all the spearman builds got changed to rifleman automatically. So, those builds will get changed back to horsemen. Science down to 70% with Steam Power due in 2 turns. Since Beijing has pikes, decide to attack it with the local army. Two veteran pikeman die revealing a regular musketman. The next unit is a 4/4 spearman. One cavalry attacks and wounds to 1/4, with the spearman wounding to 3/4. Another veteran cavalry attacks, and we capture Beijing. We recapture Kaifeng.

 

[Spoonwood]

The Celts contact us wanting to trade World Maps. That gets changed to a trade of world maps + 49 gold from The Celts.

490 AD - Pillage out some Wines so we have some luxury or resource to acquire from Portugal. I check on 002 14, and from the estimates I make it seems that the palace cost is now 800 shields, based on the settler method to get exact shields in the box. Each row of the box is 1/10 of the total palace build. It says 21 turns to completion, at 33 blue shields per turn. That makes for 693 shields. About one and a half rows currently are filled. If it's 700 shields in the box, that doesn't work with 70 + 35 = 105 shields. If it's 800 shields in the box, then it's 120 shields + 693 shields, for a total of 813 shields total produced projected in 21 turns. If it's 900 shields in the box, then it's 150 shields + 693 shields which is less than 900 shields. Clicking on another city and I more simply see 798 shields for some build with 2 shields in the box. I guess I forgot that calculating the cost of the palace can be done from information from any city. Rename '002 14' to 'Lyo 14'. Our soldiers capture Shantung and Tientstin and Shanghai. Both the attacks at Tientstein and Shanghai I felt might not yield captures, but they did. We only had one army attack and 3 cavalry attacks to capture Shanghai, but the army and 2 cavalry won, without the 3rd needing to fight. China has 6 cities left.

The game has 376 turns left. 2363 culture total at 54 cpt in Lyo. (20,000 - 2363) = 17,637. It takes 327 turns to accumlate that 17,637 at the current rate. So, as long as the AIs get controlled to not win, and that city doesn't get captured, 20k victory gets predicted as achievable by 2001. The little library got built in 490 BC, and thus is 490 + 490 = 980 years old and hasn't double in culture yet. We have a few more builds that have not doubled in culture. The other builds can get observed in the following pictures:

 

[Spoonwood]

We learn Steam Power. Research gets reset to 100%. Industrialization projected to get learned in 11 turns. I use "What's The Big Picture" and discover:

I don't think I realized before that resources go in a sort of anticipated chronological order from right to left. Tsingtao riots.

500 AD - A deal for a few hundred gold from Portugal expired last turn, and they don't have any gpt to pay us now. Last turn some units got moved towards our borders with Portugal. Rome on the other hand has 141 gpt we can pick up. The cost of iron and a worker from the Zulu is currently 216 gpt.

We capture Chinan. Lyo's blue shields per turn increases to 40 spt from rails. 900 shield palace projected to complete in 19 turns. We sign an RoP with The Vikings. Electricity would take 13 turns and Medicine 9 turns to research.

 

[Spoonwood]

Purchase a courthouse in Rennes, anticipating that the MGL can get there next turn. China and the Maya sign a peace treaty. China signs a peace treaty with The Zulu.

510 AD - A Portuguese pikeman blocks the MGLs path to Rennes, so it makes it into Rennes, but can't get used this turn. The Maya and The Zulu go back to war with China. We capture Xinjan and Tatung and New Nanking.

520 AD - The MGL hurries the Military Academy. We finally get 4 workers onto the iron hill next to Rennes. We capture Yangchow and China is no more.

 

[Spoonwood]

530 AD - Shuffle units around to try to take all captued Portugal cities. I didn't order the workers to rail first. Learn/relearn that if workers get fortified, then woken up, then they will end up first in the given move order. My current plan consists of having a wide rail network up before having Portugal declare war. Also, we'll still upgrade horseman to cavalry, but with less shortrushing. Additionally, armies will get bought in Rennes about every other turn. Some troops fortify with the 'y' command so that I can see how Portuguese troops move (I play with friend move animations off). We renew the RoP with Portugal.

540 AD - We lose 8 worker moves since a Portuguese unit blocked our path and I didn't look to see if moving using the 'j' key would be '0' or '1'. Zululand seems like a good choice for gifting cities to once that war starts.

 

[Spoonwood]

550 AD - Have a third army in the empire now, Lyo could swap to The Pentagon and finish it this turn with little overrun.

But Universal Suffrage has higher value. It has more culture per turn, more culture that doubles also, and has a better culture per turn to shield ratio. Rennes is on the expanding railroad network.

560 AD - I see something disconcerting:

First, I feel like having Portugal declare war this turn, since Portugal has done something potentially disruptive to our empire's economic tactic. I could have missed that Portuguese worker last turn. A while back I remember asking about the legal status of reloading for the HoF.

Edit: my own picture of Lyo 14 above shows that worker not digging last turn. I'm not sure exactly how long, before that Portuguese worker would finish roading. But, it's either 2 or 3 more of my turns. Since 2 turns is the worst case, it follows that we don't need to have declare Portugal declare war yet.

2 workers move to an unroaded wines source anticipating no longer getting wines from Portugal. Shortrush two knights so that two rifleman can complete next turn.