Spoonwood's Hall of Fame Attempts

Large Emperor Conquest with the Vikings, 80% archipelago. Only 6 opponents. Final score of 7048:

LEC.png
 
Did you use the coastal Bezerk raiding strategy?

(Also - 3 down 7 to go to the next update).
 
I'm trying a flood plain start with The Maya on Sid.

I've just met Persia:

Persian Resources.png


They are trading with Babylon:

Persian Babylon Trading.png


Babylon has Furs and Silks:

Furs and Silks.png


In my experience, resources and luxuries only show up on the trading screen if an AI has those luxuries or resource in their territory.

Persia could be sending Horses, Iron, or Spices to Babylon. Babylon could only be sending Silks to Persia. I finally realize that I don't have enough gold per turn for a military alliance this early.
 
Greek has no surplus resources (or luxuries) so far, but has lots of gpt:

Greek No Resources.png


Sumeria has 9 surplus gpt this turn.
 
When you have only one Sid AI on a flank like the Ottomans are, do you tend to go after them first? Or keep them happy and leave them until the end? What victory condition are you going for?
 
When you have only one Sid AI on a flank like the Ottomans are, do you tend to go after them first?

No. For the first war, I want allies nearby. Probably leave them until the end.

I don't know about which victory condition I'll go for. Maybe histographic sounds right, even though it's a pangea map. Maybe 100k might be better since I already have a spot on that table.

MapStat has a bug where it sometimes tells you that a luxury or strategic resource, when it's not available for trade.
 
690 BC - Persia has Iron for sale. We have a source of iron unhooked also, and we become a Republic. Babylon has some gpt, but no surplus resources (strategic or otherwise) to trade. Since we don't know Feudalism and for some other reasons, iron only costs 12 gpt.

Persian Spices.png


Persia still trades something with both Sumeria and Babylon. One city investigation and with some logical inference we could determine who Persia trades with. For example, if we investigated a Babylonian city for example, and did NOT find that they had spices, then Persia would export one of those spices to Sumeria.

But, we have a resource trade with Persia. I already reconnected the road this turn.

670 BC with the road disconnect, Babylon has Iron, Furs, and Silks. They have surplus iron also, and some gpt.
 
The Korea game:

I'm not sure I've mentioned what I called to myself "The Korea game" before. In between my first completed Sid histographic (the higher scoring one) and the second one (the one with more food bonuses near my starting spot), I started another one. Korea and The Maya related as neighbors, so I called it The Korea game. There exists a fair amount of jungle somewhat near the capital to the west. The starting area has a wheat and a deer for the 1st and 2nd city.

I pretty much got to the end of the conquest phase, and soon decided that I didn't want to finish as a histographic game. So, I took a domination victory. CrPViwer tells me that with 66.3% of the map filled, 4571 tiles lay under the control of The Maya. (4571 / x) = .663. So, x = (4571 / .663). Thus, 6894 total tiles on the map, for a domination limit of 4550 tiles?

The 750 AD save has 58 armies, which I think is the most I've had before. The first military great leader spawned in 210 AD. Just 2 turns later, a city called City of Armies appeared. Since usually the 2nd or 3rd or 4th MGL I get goes to construction of The Military Academy, it looks like The Maya averaged over one new army per turn for 50 turns. On the other hand, the 750 AD save has 2 turns left on Electricity, though Sanitation has gotten learned.

In contrast, I remember that in the 4 cow histographic game had Replaceable Parts by the end of the Portuguese war, and for sure at the start of the Sumerian war at 640 AD.
 
More on the Korea game.

I see that the 400 AD save has 33 armies, 186 cavalry, 45 cannons, 22 rifleman, and 57 galleons. Some of the gold deals I got almost surely originated from the luxury deals. For example, here with The Byzantines:

Byzantine Deals.png


Probably something like loan 22 gpt for (360 + 36) = 396 gold. Then pay however much gpt for dyes, the 396 gold, any other gold that Theodora's banker had, maybe their world map or a technology. Then the road to the capital gets pillaged.

Now, there exist some deals with AIs which don't have a luxury or resource currently in progress for that save. For example, these deals with Babylon:

Babylon Deals.png


Possibly Babylon had some luxury or resource which we traded for. But, more likely comes as that we first loaned out 356 gpt for (356 x 18) = 6408 gold. Then we payed 396 gpt for the military alliance against the English. The 469 gpt from the above probably came before some military alliance used to purchase the gold back, but the military alliance has now expired because whomever we had allied against had their leader die.

The 400 AD save also has the golden age just about to end.
 
I've gone back to trying for a Sid Standard histographic game, playing 60% archipelago. I tried with sedentary barbarians in one run, but lost two settlers when my neighbor got barbarians from huts, and gave up on that game.

I looked for a start which would have a 1 turn worker pump once in Republic at size 5, and have one that started with 2 grassland cows, and a river. I think I moved the settler 2 turns to find the spot, as the settler started on a bonus grassland tile, and cities on bonus grassland tiles waste a shield until they reach size 7, I think.

I noticed that Athens lay on top of a grassland cow at one point when I used ctrl + shift + m. I like the map, as 6 of the 7 AIs all end up on the same landmass. Only Korea lies on some other island. I gave away a city with Ivory early to get technology from Germany, but I think it would have worked better to keep it in this case. We started the first war with Babylon, and they quickly got conquered as they only had pikeman while we had cavalry.

Start of Babylonian War.png


In the 2nd war we fight Germany (orange), who has riflemen. And we haven't had 2, let alone 1 MGL so far, and thus we're fighting rifleman with cavalry and cannons. We captured the German city with Shakespeare's Theater, and it hadn't reached size 13, I think.

Persia has the Pyramids and Leo's at the other end of our landmass. Greece has Bach's. I think Germany has Smith's? I think it took the AIs 10 turns to reserach Communism from Nationalism, and Fascism appeared a turn later I believe. Hopefully, they research Electricity, Replacable Parts, and Sanitation before we get to them all.

Edit: We also have bought horses, iron, and saltpeter this entire time. In fact, I kind of got worried about iron at some point and had started thinking about doing some sort of deal to liberate a source. Korea had an extra iron before we could afford to pay the gpt for it, and I think traded it away to someone at some point. But eventually Persia showed up with an extra source of iron.
 
First MGL:

First MGL.png


We have a 40 shield per turn city, which will build The Heroic Epic (often I just MGL rush that).

470 AD - Korea and Persia have Industrialization.

480 AD - Greece and Korea have Ironclads. We do acquire it, as we did Industrialization. But, since we're getting iron from Persia both made for a mistake, since now iron has increased a good bit in price. On the bright side, the Military Academy will finally go up during this third war.

2nd MGL.png


And we get another MGL this turn.

Edit: I think we went with 10% luxuries that turn, as we managed to trade for gems with a capture of Zabalm, and have 8 luxuries for the moment.
 
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Well, the Sumerian war had what looked like an unfortunate happening:

Dang Persia.png


So, I decided to have Greece declare war. During that period, though this happened, which made the above Persian capture look like a blessing in disguise:

Electricity.png



Some Sumerian cities might flip in 20 turns, but oh well, I think.


Electricity cost a bit too:

Cost Of Electricity.png


Sumerian Gift.png


Then we got the gold back via the ivory, sold/gifted Electricity to the other AIs, except Greece. Question comes as... after Greece, do I go at Persia and then the Byzantines? Or just wait until someone gets Replaceable Parts? I think just wait. The military advisor rates us average to Persia... but they had larger cities now.

Also, since the golden age just ended, and we don't have any cities except a few putting in infrastructure, we decide to mobilize for war. Unfortunately, this will need to last until we make peace with Korea (who will be the last opponent). Dang, I had hoped that mobilization would apply to ships. But it does not. Oh well. At least they still can get built when mobilized. Nor does it apply to cannons :(.

And we gain control of Sun Tzu's Art of War and J. S. Bach's Cathedral:

Athens.png


Athens sits on a cow, but we'll keep it. I hadn't realized that the elimination of an AI would demobilize one's nation. We remobilize and go back to crushing resistance. The luxury slider goes to 0%, since we can use more money in purchasing armies, core cities still have "we love the Great Instigator" days in effect, and soon upgrading to artillery guns.

590 AD - Persia makes peace with Sumeria. Sumeria, Korea, and Persia have The Corporation. Of course, we pick it up and gift it to The Byzantines.
 
I had a power failure in 620 AD (yes! that long ago!... but seriously). But, I had a save midway it seems, so I don't have to replay the entire turn thankfully.
 
670 AD - Persia has a monopoly on Replacable Parts. I thought they might get there first! :)

680 AD - We go to war with both Persia and The Byzantines. Now to liberate the armies that I have guarding settlers positioned in artillery ranges of cities (probably not the best idea, but it's o. k.).
 
Persia has now gotten banished from the mainland, and we've shipped troops over to the big island near Korea (which had some Korean cities even before).

We've had an issue with The Byzatines for a few turns with getting a landing spot. From when we first saw the issue. We had landed an army next to Naissus before The Byzantines declared on us. We had gifted them two cities so that we could trade for incense from them, and pillaged. Earlier we had traded horses from them, but Sumeria had pillaged that territory.

Also, the turn after the following picture, the Persian cavalry attacked Dyrachium, lost, and one of Sumeria's rifleman moved to the other square, or the Sumerian rifle attacked the Persian cavalry.

Can't Land.png
 
I think want some artillery guns before attacking this city:

Need Guns.png


780 AD - Korea and Persia have Refining.

After much gunfire:

End of Persia.png


Happily that ends mobilization, since I wasn't sure what would happen, since I still have a war with The Byzantines going on. Now, we can turn all unhappy citizens into civil engineers to get infrastructure up. Score up to 4270. That's already a score higher than the Standard Chieftain histographic 1st place game.
 
820 AD - Score of 4393. I had railroaded much of Sumerian territory on the previous two turns. Sumeria declares war on us, by means of ivory pillaged. We lose another cavalry army. It had attacked at full health also. That might be the 8th lost this game. It seems higher than in other games, though some were from attacking infantry with cavalry armies not at full health. There won't be any counterattack:

Sumeria Is Gone.png


We block Korea from attacking The Byzantines:

Korean Block.png


That stack may well have taken them out, and I'd rather keep it than order it burned after Korea takes it. 63% of the domination limit!

830 AD - Score of 4531.

840 AD - We finish off The Byzantines. Score of 4669. Instead of using healthy armies to quash resistance, we'll just use cavalry units, so we can set up for war with Korea. Our target on the first turn will be the spices. We have settlers underneath the infantries away from the landing spot, and more on the landing spot. We'll also try to burn the Korean cities not on their main island.

Spice Target.png


The city of Taejon will get capture, then replaced with our own city. We might hold some other cities for a turn. I often mark cities like that with a tag like "Gone 860 AD". Though, maybe we'll mostly burn cities. I've had cities move to their corner edges for more sea squares. I haven't been trying to wait until I get them to low population numbers. More like purchase the last of a settler, then move the city.

We had irrigated some squares before for city growth. Some slaves still working some jungles. Now it's foresting, chopping, and irrigating or re-irrigating to get infrastructure in and grow.

850 AD - Score up to 4808. Wang gets his ice resort:

Korea's Ice Resort.png


Don't mind Brusa, we are evacuating from there soon. We keep Iri so that we can ship settlers over and do as follows:

Before.png



After Settling.png


We capture Marad also, and don't raze it since it's size 1. But, we do sell off it's buildings and abandon it.

We start having to disband temporary cities to not trigger the domination limit. But still, the invasion goes about as planned as we split Korea into two:

Invasion as Planned.png
 
860-870 AD - Got a little too aggressive with attacking the Korean stack near Dyrrachium. With some assistance from their ironclads, they managed to attack and defeat three wounded armies! I might actually have reached double digit losses in total armies this game. Looked for a landing spot for a healthy army in 870 AD and couldn't find any. Though, maybe that will change? We still have 18 armies.

After transporting some workers between islands, worker choices become more aesthetic than practical. This means, some workers start railroading and mining hills and mountains, instead of looking around for the best tiles to develop. We have some forests outside of our cultural borders also for when global warming comes. There's still more forestry that could get done, but I'm not sure I want to do all that.

880 AD - We get an MGL attacking one of the last Korean cities. Our Forbidden Palace city is not in a good spot (not enough grassland... it made sense at the time, but the culture isn't good for high score with poorer food terrain or no sea squares), so this will allow us to build a new one quickly. We DO have a landing spot outside of Dyrrachium. We'll see if Korea attacks the healthy cavalry army that we land. After clearing Korea off of their home island, artilleries with their extra range start to fire at Korea's ships.

890 AD - Korea does not attack the army near Dyrrachium! Korea landed a settler and swordsmen to try to recolonize their old island. Of course, the settler turned into slaves. Score up to 5309.
 
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