Spoonwood's Hall of Fame Attempts

[Spoonwood]

1555 AD - Learn Satellites, start on Smart Weapons.

1570 AD - Longevity completes. Start on The Manhattan Project with 6 turns as the expected finish time. 120 cpt with 14,419 accumulated. 47 turns to go at the current pace. I think that's 1772 AD. Universal Suffrage and The Pentagon can still double, The Manhattan Project, SDI, and The Palace.

1575 AD - We learn Smart Weapons and start on The Superconductor.

Edit: I think I have 'Wonder Victory' on (by mistake). Thus, Lyo 14 won't build The Manhattan Project.

 

[Spoonwood]

1595 AD - We learn The Superconductor and start on Integrated Defense.

1610 AD - Palace built in Lyo 14. Change builds of 5 cities to SAM missile battery. Lyo 14 at 121 cpt with 15,380 culture total. It gets set to The Manhattan Project as a prebuild.

1615 AD - We learn Integrated Defense, swap the prebuild to Strategic Missile Defense, and start on Ecology.

 

[Spoonwood]

1630 AD - Strategic Missile Defense completes.

122 cpt with 15,865 culture accumulated.

1635 AD - Learn Ecology, start on Synthetic Fibers.

1645 AD - The Arabs declare war on us. They capture three cities.

1650 AD -

We recapture use and Bergen. We raze New Najran, New Fustat, New Fez, New Bukhara, New Kufah, Bukhara, Shiraz, New Mansura, New Basra, New Yamana, Taif, New Aden, New Baghdad, New Khurasan, New Medina, Fez, Mansura, New Damascus, New Mecca, Shihr, Sana'a, Muscat, Tabuk, Hama, Aydab, Bayt Ras, Balkh, and Suhar. We accidently capture New Muscat and abandon it. We capture Mosul and Merw and abandon them. We destroy New Shiraz, New Merw, and New Anjar. We lose some artillery to The Arabs on their turn.

1655 AD - We destroy Balkh. 127 cpt with 16,366 culture total. 29 more turns. Luxury slider goes up to 60%. Learn Synthetic Fibers and start on Recycling with 0% science now.

1670 AD - Make pizza with The Arabs, and eat it too. But seriously, we made peace, because all we are sayin', is give pizza a chance.

 

[Spoonwood]

1758 AD - The Aztecs learn Feudalism!

I did have the game crash on me twice.

Hey, that would chart at 8th on the scoring table on Sid... if I didn't already have two entries on that table.

 

[superslug]

Impressive win and very detailed writeup!

Might be a while before you see it on the official tables, though. I update every 10 games and there's only 2 in so far...

 

[Spoonwood]

Impressive win and very detailed writeup!

Might be a while before you see it on the official tables, though. I update every 10 games and there's only 2 in so far...

Thanks Superslug!

 

[Spoonwood]

Since I currently have a number 2 as my best spot on the 100k tables, I decided to play a 100k game on a Standard Sid map, which is an empty table.

At the end, I basically gave up building culture a few turns early and decided to just click. Our empire didn't build hospitals. I had thought about ordering research to the modern era for The Internet, but (before I decided to just start clicking) it looked like it would require a large amount of specialist management at best. 100k is easily achievable without strict CxC city placement. The 20k game above lead me to realize that it seems very feasible to win the mass cultural victory with a normal sort of city spacing for histographic maps, since I could have easily gotten 160k, and would have!, mostly just by putting librarires and universities everywhere.

I did take a few pictures. I waited on the first war. All core cities got cultural builds before going to war. It did make worrying about happiness a pretty much non-existent issue. Cities hand-built banks mostly before peace treaties got renegotiated. As a consequence of waiting and playing with all scientific opponents and gifting for techs, my first war consisted of fighting Korean rifles with cavalry and cannons. A little before that we lost control of saltpeter, but got it back. No leaders at all during the first war, as I ordered groups of cavlary to just attack rifles. I felt a little surprised by how much the other AIs captured Korean cities. Germany had the biggest civ on the map, and only their war worried me, but it went rather easily once I had everything in place.

We researched Electricity and got to it first, but some AIs had on our next turn. So, we didn't do any research on Replaceable Parts.

The 2nd war I fought against Greece and got a leader:

The Babylonian core lies at the lower rightmost of the map there. We had a lucky large distance from the AIs.

We got a 2nd MGL a turn later. There's another dramatic shift that happened on this turn:

At one point during that war Ottoman units were clogging the area around Greece. So, we had The Ottomans declare war on The Babylonians. They maybe landed once near our capital or something, but barely made the German war phase more difficult. A leader for The Heroic Epic (the 2nd was for The Military Academy) came soon after. Also, since that aforementioned dramatic shift happened, the gold we had accumulated not spent on cash rushing improvements got spent:

Having recently played the French 20k Huge pangea game, I will say that even though having Replaceable Parts enables things to go faster (did you know that fortified 1/4 infrantry is WEAKER than 4/4 fortified cavalry?) turn-wise, it leads to complications like "have I used all the artillery this turn?", which I find a bit difficult to manage.

Also, we lost the capital at one point, as Theodora had 2 rifles on her boats still roaming around after she got secured in her resort by our armies. I even saw one of the rifleman land and put an army in a city next to it, but forgot to account for the RoP. I did order all of the cultural building to get re-bought, even though otherwise I mostly clicked at that point and didn't try to maximize culture per turn, just wanting to finish.

Also, I only used Despotism and Republic. No Communism or pop rushing in Despotism or Feudalism. Republic seems highly preferable for cash-rushing during any sort of warring phase. Civil engineers can do a lot quickly, and disbanding units can also pick things up culture wise. I didn't cash-rush factories or build them, only used them some in capture cities.

Often I have also ordered forestry, then chopping, followed by irrigation. It saves worker turns. But, if you have civil engineers to build cultural buildings, it might just work better to irrigate everything on the map, and then forest and chop and re-irrigate, if there's anything left to build.

I had also toyed around with playing a Large Deity map with 6 opponents for 100k, but I got sneak attacked by Sumeria. Also, I played for a while with The Vikings on an 80% archipelago map, but got tired of that one since the above game felt much more smooth.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think I have the save from when we entered the industrial era:

Now I recall that The Byzantines had extra saltpeter early. But, they lost it. Then, The Sumerians had extra saltpeter later. Our only native resource was horses. There's a spot slightly west of the empire there with Spices that I spotted early, but since someone else settling it might have made trading easier (it didn't in this case), we didn't go for it.

 

[Spoonwood]

I had been playing some histographic starts on Sid islands, but decided to go for one on pangea. Eventually, I just decided to just take a domination victory on a Sid standard pangea map. I learned that putting the last AI in some territory where their cultural borders will never expand to touch the cultural borders of any of your cities ever makes for a good idea, and I wish I had realized that earlier.

Any requests for what I play next? I do have some conditions on what I'll find as a suitable request:

1. It has to come from a table which has empty spots. In other words, any table with 10 spots already on it, is out.

2. I can't have two entries on the table. Anything I submitted wouldn't chart. So, like the above, it wouldn't do anything towards filling up the tables. As an example, standard 20k Deity for me is out.

I won't promise that I will try to maximize whatever map I play.

 

[Ruin]

The Portuguese a weak choice for an upper level 20k game??? I think not.

Feel you got lucky with that settler at that difficulty and didn't really use the seafaring or Carracks. So I'd have to say they are a weak choice. Just because you can kill someone with a feather doesn't make it a great weapon.

Yes I realize you made that remark 16 years ago. Really good thread otherwise.

 

[Spoonwood]

Feel you got lucky with that settler at that difficulty and didn't really use the seafaring or Carracks. So I'd have to say they are a weak choice. Just because you can kill someone with a feather doesn't make it a great weapon.

Yes I realize you made that remark 16 years ago. Really good thread otherwise.

Well, after playing a lot of those type of 20k games I definitely think that they end up weaker than the Byzanties, Carthage, Spain, and possibly even all other Seafaring and maybe also Commerical civs. But, they end up better than many, if not most or all of the non-Alphabet civs at that level.

 

[Spoonwood]

I attempted I think some Standard Regent histographic losses the other day.

On one of them I built the Colossus with the Dutch and didn't build any military. Amsterdam got invaded.

On another I didn't found a city. I had at least two boot orders for my settler and worker pair which just moved them elsewhere. Then I got another and accepted it, but this time I got a humiliating defeat message after accepting the boot order.

 

[Spoonwood]

Both entries on the Large Deity Conquest table used Monarchy.

Large Deity Conquest Archipelago 80%:

I started one with maximum opponents. I drew Sumeria with a two grassland, no fresh water start. Two AIs were on my island and about when a granary finished, it seemed I would need to found in my cultural borders to get more cities before war.

Starting a map just for civ selection, I get America. So, may as well change barbarians to sedentary for the possibility of a free settler. Minimum opponents I think fits better, since there then exist fewer AIs to pop goody huts. Ceremonial Burial SGL seems unlikely due to goody huts an AI free units in any case. Capturing or building wonders I feel more desireable than usual also, since it's America. If no one has Masonry, maybe we can get The Pyramids up? They could pop Masonry from a hut though.

Pick Japan, Celts, Rome, India, Aztecs, and Iroquois. Maybe scientific opponents would seem more suitable than commercial ones to delay them making any boats. If I recall correctly, the move order goes bottom to top, so change the order to Rome, India, Iroquois, Japan, Celts, Aztecs.

Sail Raiser is Spoonwood's title.

First start:

Move settler to hill after moving scout. Road with the worker.

3950 BC - Found Washington and start on a scout. Start maximum research on Alphabet, which reads 50 turns.

3900 BC - Now realize we're in the south, not the north of the map.

3750 BC - Spot 4 tobaccos in the east.

3700 BC - Start on another warrior to help with research. Spot gems in the east. Learn Ceremonial Burial from The Saxons.

3500 BC - Pop 2nd goody hut and get a free warrior.

3450 BC - Alphabet reads 36 turns instead of 40. Spot dyes to the south.

3350 BC - Get a warrior from the third popped hut, and we're out of huts.
Scrap this map. Perhaps this could get won, but look at all this ice:

That's a good amount of desired CxC spaced cities. And no food bonus anywhere other than a deer in the ice off screen. Maybe I'm greedy, but that much ice makes think of this as a below average map. I think the best 2nd city is on the gold hill to the left.

 

[Spoonwood]

Next start:

4000 BC - After scouting see a 4 sugar and one plains wheat spot to the east. Size 5 with 2 food growth does sound good. But, I move the settler north towards grassland.

3950 BC - Spot 2 more plains wheats and jungle border tiles.

3900 BC - Found Washington. Start on The Pyramids. Maximum research on Alphabet, though I thought about researching Bronze Working and going for The Colossus.

3850 BC - Spot Spices in the jungle. And a goody hut on grassland.

3800 BC - Get 25 gold from the Zapotec.

3400 BC - Spot wines in the south after a cultural expansion. Our scout found a lake last turn! Though it needs two jungle tiles cleared before water can get dragged from it.

3250 BC - A roman warrior walks onto the wines. Salve Caesar:

He would have taken Masonry for Alphabet and 10 gold, because we had done max research.

We start a research project on Mathematics. It says 50 turns at 90%. Swap Pyramids to granary, which will finish in 4 turns.

3050 BC - Granary completes. A barbarian starts walking towards Washington. Start on a curragh, since I think he'll steal gold instead of kill off production.

3000 BC - The barbarian men walk towards out scouting party or Rome's warriors instead of towards Washington.

2950 BC - Bede's history implies that we have a good tech position at the moment.

Rome's warrior is now 4/4.

2900 BC - Washington finishes a curragh and starts on a settler. Now see we have a lake to the south for sure.

2850 BC - Spot Roman borders:

2750 BC:

Swap from mined bonus grassland to fishes. Since emphasize production is marked "yes", this could have gotten done last turn.

2710 BC - Settler completes and we start on a warrior. The settler moves south without a road, since I didn't realize that to block off Rome I think I'd better settle near the wines first. Our scout fortifies on the wines. Spot the outline of someone's borders and a goody hut.

2590 BC - Warrior completes and start on another curragh. Found New York and our worker irrigates. Trade:

New York starts on Barracks.

2550 BC - Rome starts on The Pyramids. Check the wonder screen and see that The Aztecs were already trying to build it also.

2510 BC - Change barracks in New York to a granary.

2470 BC - The Aztecs have The Wheel. 2nd curragh out.

2390 BC - With the road to the wines completing next turn, the science slider gets increased a tick, even though it looks like Washington would riot, it won't.

2350 BC - Rome has Iron Working.

2310 BC - The Aztecs have Mysticism.

2230 BC - Found Boston on a hill. It also starts on a granary. Research on Mathematics has dropped from 27 turns to 25 turns.

2190 BC - Completing a warrior, washington starts on a worker, it will drop back to size 1, but have only one turn upon growth, so get 5 shields in the box on the turn after it finishes it's worker. New York having grown to size 2 also now has 5 shields per turn.

 

[Spoonwood]

2190 BC - We have a roman warrior beyond the chokepoint. Change New York to barracks.

2150 BC - New York completes a granary and queues up a spearman and two archers.

2070 BC - The Aztecs have Writing. Even if I had gotten a free settler, I'm now starting to think that expansionist even without huts might be better. Though, if I can catch up and survive, a quicker tech pace might be o. k.

2030 BC - Rome has The Wheel now. One curragh spots a hut on our home island that I hadn't scouted, so a warrior in Washington moves to block off Rome, while the scout starts moving towards it. On the interturn Rome pops the hut and gets barbarians.

1870 BC - Kyoto completes The Colossus.

1725 BC - I had swapped tiles to a fish for Washington. Seeing 29 shields in the box on a settler, I infer that it wasn't going to grow and get an extra shield. Maybe I should just declare war Rome now.

1700 BC - Washington completes a settler and starts on barracks.

1675 BC - The Aztecs start on The Oracle.

1625 BC - The Aztecs start on The Great Lighthouse.

1575 BC - Boston finishes it's granary and starts on a settler. Rome has Writing now also. Learn Mathematics and use "What's the Big Picture":

Map Making was "doubtful" from just Maths and a lump sum. Start max research on Philosophy.

1475 BC - The Aztecs have Horseback Riding. Rome completes The Pyramids. The Aztecs complete The Oracle.

Our little empire:

The Aztecs learn Iron Working:

I can't see two squares in Roman territory, but apparently there does not exist either iron, nor horses on our home island.
1300 BC Our curragh can just see borders west of the Aztecs, but it can't reach them in a single turn. I got the tile position wrong between cities and it now seems that I have no reasonable choice but for a catapult to have 19 shields before it finishes. If you ask me, optimal tile usage between multiple cities is not just some mere problem in micromanagement, but also a difficult one to maximize, especially with emphasize production on.

1275 BC I was wrong! The curragh can get adjacent to the borders. Use the 'D' button to see who we've met. Oh dang, the Aztecs just have a city on this island now.

1250 BC - The curragh floats. Another one will shortly bravely venture north:

1225 BC - It spots another island with borders.

1200 BC - The curragh sinks, but the next one from Chicago knows where to go. The last curragh alive ventures out west into the sea.

1175 BC - And the curragh sinks. We learn Philosophy and Code of Laws as our free tech. Start research on The Republic.

I had suspected The Aztecs as the most powerful AI, and Lord McCauley's research indicates this also:

1125 BC - Rome starts on The Great Lighthouse. Trade Philosophy for Map Making + 12 gold from Rome. Trade Philosophy for Horseback Riding and 46 gold from The Aztecs. The Aztecs have a city in the jungle.

1100 BC - Both start on the Museum of Mausollos.

1075 BC - Spices now hooked up.

1025 BC - New York reaches size 6 and starts putting out 2 turn archers. Washington and Boston were growing to size 4 and putting out a settler or worker. But now, they will go for 7 shields per turn and put out military units at a quicker pace before producing a settler or worker.

1000 BC - The Aztecs have another city on our home island.

975 BC - Our army:

This might not be enough units yet. Two archers and a spear sit north in Philadelphia to take out that wandering warrior.

 

[templar_x]

VERY NICE!!! reminds me a lot of my "All Random"-series which I tried for the HoF. I know there is one awful jungle start lieing around somewhere for me to be continued... :butnottoday:

t_x

 

[Spoonwood]

I thought I had seen an irrigated wheat tile in despotism only produce 2 food before (it had confused me). But, I checked with one of Eman's Huge saves revolting to despotism and pillaging a railroad, and it produces 3 food (which makes my understanding of the standard tile penalty clear).

 

[BlackBetsy]

I love it @Sponwood that you are attempting this. I would have junked that American start at 4000BC. If I don't see a food bonus in the inital view it's CTRL-SHIFT-Q for me.

America is really not used because of useless features on an Archipelago (late UU, Expansionism is of very limited usefulness other than popping a settler). You have your work cut out for you! Love the challenge.

 

[Spoonwood]

975 BC - Declare War on Rome. Drop research to 10%, and increase luxury slider to 30%. It would be nice if we can empty out Roman cities before we charge at them:

We have a spear and an archer on that mountain. Washington is empty. Washington has 3 landing spots. Eventually, the weakest tile for city usage would be the roaded plains square without irrigation or the other plains tile. It's about 6 turns for units to come from Rome to that entrance spot.

950 BC - Rome lands a spear and settler east of New York. Swap wines tile in New York to forest so it maintains 10 shields per turn. Luxury slider up to 40%.

925 BC - Defeat first Roman units. But, leave the last spear, which is 1/3 and fortify an archer and a warrior in New York. Montezuma demands Code of Laws. Decline to give it and they declare war. Aztecs start on The Great Wall.

875 BC - Bombard the Roman stack, but I feel it's not enough to justify an attack, so park more units in New York and start on walls.

850 BC - Finally move the catapult stack to New York. Washington swaps archer to a spearman. Lose a galley from an Aztec ship. Yea, giving into demands makes even more sense now. If your empire doesn't have the contacts, it doesn't help. The Romans want an audience. They'll give 2 gpt and 47 gold for peace. But we decline.

825 BC - Misclick and bombard own city improvements with two 1/3 spears on top of the tile. Boston and Philadelphia riot. I had moved a warrior out of Boston. Roman spearman or archer pillaged the wines. Aztecs complete Great Lighthouse.

800 BC - I had moved the archer off of the mountain. The spearman on the hill got attacked by a 5/5 archer and won, but now it's 2/4. We just manage to remove all Roman units from our lands this turn. The northern Roman warrior gets defeated. Rome completes The Museum of Mausollos. Aztecs start on The Great Wall.

775 BC - Seattle riots.

730 BC - The Aztecs have Construction.

670 BC - Rome has Construction also. The Aztecs have an iron source now. Pay 120 gold for peace with The Aztecs. Pay 36 gold for peace and Construction with The Romans. Change core builds to wealth. Then change New York to a harbor and whip it. I think I saw before that you don't necessarily need to have access for citizens to reliably travel on sea or ocean squares, but can still set up a trade route if you don't have fog of war.

650 BC - It seems that the Aztecs we could trade for a resource or luxury with the Aztecs, but they trade their extra dyes away to Rome. I consider declaring war on Rome, but then realize my trade reputation would end up broken and paying for a luxury or resource would require hard goods (technology, gold, maps, etc. but not something on a turn by turn basis like gpt).

450 BC - Bombay completed Statue of Zeus last turn and before that someone started on the Temple of Artemis:

So even though sea squares are not safely traversable by the human player's citizens, trading still ends up possible if the AIs citizens can safely traverse those squares. This suggests that Navigation or Magnetism is not necessary for the human player to trade for luxuries or resources. However, on an 80% archipelago map, the AIs end up poorer due to fewer river tiles, unit support costs, and not trading with other AIs for their gold per turn via selling technology and other hard goods.

 

[Spoonwood]

I experimented with a bunch of Standard Regent maps on pangea recently, often playing Always War, but keep on abandoning maps. I might still have a save intact with the Maya, but sometimes I can't quite figure out if decided to abandon a map and reloaded to test something on that map. I might also have a France save intact.

I tried for a Standard Regent histographic loss drawing India randomly. I depressed enter for a while. Eventually, the Ottomans demanded something, and upon reloading, I believe they had demanded Alphabet. Holding enter down the entire time isn't going to work.

I'm trying another as The Byzantines and depressed enter to start, and just met the Iroquois in 420 AD. 1846 AD The Iroquois complete The Theory of Evolution. 1868 AD and Hiwahtha's intelligence agent gets exposed in our capital.

1936 AD - The Iroquois start Hoover's Dam.

1946 AD - The Iroquois reach the modern era.

Well, I guess I'm finally ready for regent:

I did manage a histographic loss on large regent before.