T100 Science Victory Attempt: Norway

[Minou]

I've always been obsessed with trying for T100 Science games. I managed to pull off a T98 win with Hammurabi using "cooked" settings (extra AIs and City States, choosing Natural Wonders, activating Heroes, Secret Societies, etc.). Eventually I concluded it was not possible with Hammurabi on "standard" settings (Deity, Standard Map, Continents). However, because pillaging is so broken I wonder if this is possible with Harald Hardrada? The key will be using loyalty flipping to pillage as much as possible, with the new tehcs/civics snowballing the value of the pillaging and the faith/gold paying for most of our infrastructure and military. This week I started a game and will try and post updates as I play, which I hope will be interesting and also keep me from messing up by playing too fast.

Here is the starting map, a nice spot because of the wonder of course and also because a coastal capital means we can get Viking Longships in the water quickly. The only negative is growth will be slow, but that is more than balanced by the culture boost. The first goal is to capture an AI city to set up the first pillaging site, and the easiest way to do that will be either a quick levy (culture will help us get Amani very early) or to luck out and find a coastal city to smash with a pair of Longships (they will chew right through anything without walls).

Boosts: Astrology

 

[Minou]

T2: Rather than settling in place, it makes sense to burn a turn to move directly on the +2c tile. Settling here let's us start off with a robust 4.2cpt. Original Warrior pops a nearby hut and we get a great reward, a Scout. With the free explorer, we can skip right to a Builder as our first unit and get working on Animal Husbandry to reveal Horses since there are no minable resources nearby.

Boosts: Sailing

 

[Minou]

T3: More good news - Original Warrior meets Granada in time for a free envoy. That will speed the Builder, and Granada is a top notch CS for this strategy, as we can eventually spam Alcazars on flatland tiles for more pillaging! Their quest is to build a Holy Site. Meanwhile our Scout finds another hut quickly, but gets a Military Training inspiration, which is pretty marginal as this one is easy to earn organically.

Boosts: Military Training

T4: Original Warrior finds a third hut.

T5: Borders expand onto Wheat, which will allow us to actually grow in a reasonable amount of time (we were working a one-food wonder tile before). Our Scout also finds ANOTHER hut. Original Warrior pops the third hut, which is another dud with a Bronze Working boost, again something we probably could have picked up naturally.

Boosts: Bronze Working

 

[Minou]

T6: It's hut mania! Original Warrior Scout spots ANOTHER hut. That's an insane five huts in six turns. On the one hand that's incredibly lucky but on the other they continue to be very weak - the fourth is an Irrigation boost, which we would pick up instantly with out first Builder. If we would have hit a Relic or Builder on one of these we'd really be rolling.... Original Warrior has also spotted some borders using the Settler lens, hopefully a useful City State.

Boosts: Irrigation

T7: Code of Laws is complete thanks to the wonder, and we also meet Buenos Aires for another free envoy (Masonry is their quest). B.A. is normally a moderately good city state but actually one of the weakest in this game, because the extra happiness can make it harder to flip cities by Loyalty. Of course, that is only a problem for their Suzerain. Our Scout pops hut 5 for an envoy, the second useful reward of the game (aside from the Scout itself).

Civics: Code of Laws

 

[Minou]

T8: We already have 1fpt from God King, so it's worth buying the Pearl for 50g. Working the Pearl will put us at 25f on T20, which gives us an outside shot at Religious Settlements, and if we fail we can at least hook up and sell the Pearl for gold and choose an alternative pantheon (plus we want to boost Mysticism for the envoy). We could also have a shot at Religious Settlements via pillaging if we stumble upon an AI or CS with a pasture or camp. However, the idiot AI almost always blows their free Builders on a pile of useless farms, so that's not super likely.

T9: Scout finds hut #6.

T10: We are up to 2.5spt, 4.2 cpt, 2fpt, and 9gpt and will hit 2 pop next turn. Pretty good stats, and we have the potential to accelerate with our free envoy opening the door to some Alcazar fun once we pick up the Mysticism envoy.

T11: Some nice luck this turn. As the Scout pops the hut it also reveals a new continent. This gives us the Foreign Trade Boost and the hut itself has an Early Empire boost, together shaving about 10 turns off the time till our first Governor. If we take Amani and go Mysticism after EE, we could have two levy armies in under 15 turns - though the big hurdle will be that we need at least 400g to pay for that.

Boosts: Foreign Trade, Early Empire

 

[Minou]

T12: Animal Husbandry is complete and we hit the jackpot - three Horses within range of the capital!

Techs: Animal Husbandry

 

[Minou]

T13: The Scout meets the first AI, Greece. A pretty good one since they tend to pay more for DF and spawn in hilly terrane (good for pillaging mines). Greece has 6f, which probably means they met a religious City State or have a resource like Tobacco. Hopefully they are only gaining 1f a turn, if which case we will beat them to a pantheon. The diplomacy screen shows Greece does not know any other AIs so the east of the map may be fairly empty.
Plus, Original Warrior finds another hut.

 

[Arcaian]

Glad to see you doing another one of these, I've really enjoyed reading your previous work in this style!

 

[Minou]

T14: We FINALLY hit 2 pop this turn. Growth has been a real drag as we worked 1 food tiles the whole game so far. The Builder also completes. The next build will be a Slinger to chase down the Archery boost. Finally, upon checking we see Greece is at 7f, meaning they are only gaining 1fpt so we should be safe to beat them to a Pantheon (no telling where the other 6 AIs stand though...)

This turn it's time for some cheese. If we are going to pull off the T100 win we need every trick in the book. We can trade Greece 15gpt for 150g. That's a bad deal on paper as over 30 turns it will cost 450g. But, its a great deal if we instantly declare war!

Civics: Foreign Trade

 

[Minou]

T15: The next hut has an envoy, so we can levy Granada right away!

We also meet the second AI, Khmer. A pretty average AI, no major benefits or drawbacks given our strategy. They have 10f, which could be bad - possibly they have already gained a Pantheon.... Khmer does not know any other AIs (not even Greece) and has 104g to steal later - but not quite yet as we don't want their roving Scout messing with our Builder. We can however "borrow" 25g for 2gpt so we can levy Granada right away. Their 6 Warriors might be enough to take out a Khmer city.

The Builder throws down a farm on the Wheat for much needed food (no boost, since we already got it from a dud hut).

Boosts: Mercenaries


T16: Khmer's faith is 11 at the start of the turn, a big relief. This means they are only growing by 1fpt so we will beat them to a Pantheon as well. Still 5 AIs in the fog to worry about though.... One of the levied Warriors clears a camp. Again we already have the boost from a hut, but the 30g is helpful and the Warrior also gains a promotion. Especially with Original Warrior swinging west to help, we should have enough troops to capture a city but annoyingly three of the levies are badly damaged and need to heal a few turns. There must have been a bunch of barbarians running around earlier...

T17: Annoyingly Khmer denounces us only two turns after we met them! There goes our chance to siphon their gold. They also go up to 13f, meaning they added a second 1f source. We are still ahead 19f to 13f and even if they add a third source next turn we will beat them to 25f.

We meet the third AI this turn as well, Netherlands. Other vanilla AI in terms being neither good nor bad for this game. They only have 2 cities, which means they should have their second free Settler still on the map - kind of late for that. Maybe we will luck out and catch it, as whether or not the AI escorts Settlers seems pretty random these days.

 

[Minou]

Are these images showing up OK for viewers? I see the screenshots fine on my desktop but they dont seem to load on my phone.

 

[Arcaian]

I see them fine on my desktop

 

[Planktonic]

I'm seeing them fine on my phone. Really glad you're doing this again- very interesting.

 

[Vandlys]

I'm seeing them fine on my phone. Really glad you're doing this again- very interesting.

+1

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Interesting attempt. One problem with Norway though is that the pillaging yields scale rather poorly, so the only way to increase science income is to pillage more frequently per turn. I would reckon that you need an enormous army for that, spread all over the world. And at some point transition into a self sustained source of science income. One advantage though is that you can utilize Reyna pretty well with the absurd gold income to buy districts (including the space port), provided you can find enough mines to constantly pillage.

 

[Minou]

Glad the images work! But I have to say pillaging does not scale poorly at all. Quite the opposite. By the end of the game with Raid you can pillage >100s and >400g from a single mine! You do in fact need a very large army so it is important to remember to buy mass quantities of cheap Scouts/Warriors/Chariots before go obsolete. These units can do the pillaging while upgraded Tanks and Artillery re-take the cities after the flip. If my plan works, there is no transition to domestic science - Campuses can be largely ignored except to get some boosts (Recorded History, Astronomy, Printing) and for Oxford. There's no worrying about finding mines as you just build, pillage, and repair them yourself (though you do need hilly cities to have enough).

The only negative of the pillage strategy is that once you hit Steel, it get much harder to re-take the city. But, some siege units (hopefully ancient Catapults upgraded to Artillery) can handle that.

 

[Minou]

T18: The Builder hooks the first horse hooked up. We should ultimately be able to max out to 50 Horses (the cap without a Barracks) by the time we research HBR. Food is killing us though - in two turns we can swap off the Pearl at least. Speaking of that I forgot to mention the Dutch have 0f. So, we will beat them to a Pantheon as well.

Boosts: Horseback Riding

 

[Minou]

T19: Our levied Warriors are racing to get north before Khmer completes Early Empire and closes their borders. This reveals that the city of
Mahendraparvata is a nice one for flipping if we can capture it, with a ton of pasture/quarry/plantation tiles and a decent number of hills too. Since the Netherlands has no units milling close to us now, we can trade for 125g from them and then declare, tricking them just like we did with Greece.

Meanwhile at home, the Builder uses its final charge to build a beautiful lakeside Alacazar, creating a 1f/1h/3c/2s/1g tile

Boosts: Craftsmanship

 

[Minou]

T20: We won the race! We hit 25f this turn and Religious Settlements is still available. The Settler will found a city to the NE near Marble, Citrus and a bunch of forests - the main goal of this city is to chop Horsemen out once we complete HBR. We will want to wait a turn though for the Slinger to complete as an unescorted Settler is just too risky while we are at war with two AIs and barbs may also be lurking.

Our turn 20 stats look great, 1 City and 1 Settler, 3cpt / 4.5spt /2fpt 6gpt

Boosts: Mysticism

 

[Minou]

T21: Slinger pops and marches north with the Settler. Now that we can work the Wheat again, we will grow to 3 pop in 5 turns. Next up in the build queue is another Builder. Three levied Warriors heal this turn as the battle grows closer, while the three full strength Warriors position themselves to siege the city of
Mahendraparvata on the opening turn of the war.

T22: Due to the strengths of Norway, we actually finish Sailing ahead of Mining. We will want to get at least two Viking Longships into the water early. Our injured levied Warriors are now back up to ~70HP and start moving again. We need to balance the risk of attacking at less than 100% health versus the risk of waiting too long and getting defeated by walls or freshly popped Archers.

Techs: Sailing

T23: Early Empire is in, allowing us to finally get out of God King and into Urban Planning plus swap out Discipline for Maritime Industries. With the 100% production boost from this policy and another 50% boost from Norway's unique ability, we can churn out Longships in just 3 turns each even at 2 pop! We also gain our first Governor Title, which let's us send Amani over to Buenos Aires.

Civics: Early Empire

T24: It has been 10 turns since our hoax war on Greece, and we can sign Peace now. One silly mistake, I accidentally gave them Open Borders instead of selling it. But, they only would have paid 2g anyway. The levies are just about fully in place - in two turns we could be set up to send 6 Warriors in and completely surround Mahendraparvata on the first turn of the war.... This is really going to make or break the entire game because pillaging snowballs and we need to get the first pillage city set up ASAP. Fingers crosses for no walls materializing..........