The Impossible Walkthrough (PART II)

[madscientist]

I've read all of the recent game reports from you, obsolete.
First of all, congrats for all the wins. You were now challenged to do it on immortal and I'm almost sure you could get a win there, too, if you improved on some aspects of your gaming. I think you really relied too much on one city in this game for too long.

While I see the synergy effects and experimented with them myself earlier, I fail to see the point for settling some of the great people. Especially the settling of late game GS seems a waste for me. Really late into the game, your dreaded lightbulbing or a golden age should be their uses. At any time, you are almost always better off, using the GS for an Academy and its 50% research bonus. That is, if you paid more attention to other cities earlier. Even without cottages, your SE approach could have netted a nice amount of beakers in a big second/third city with an Academy.
It seemed to me that you were settling those scientists just to make your powerhouse appear even more impressive.
As the science rate of your powerhouse is indeed very high, the overall science rate of your empire is what counts in the end. And this is, correct if I'm mistaken, just average at best.

Generally I have to side with frob in saying that while I agree that your strategy is a possible way to win the game (in earlier games I was successful with this strategy on monarch, too, but not on emperor due to military aggression of my opponents), it isn't the best one to do it.

The settled GS also gives you one hammer before modifiers which adds to the production powerhouse. I am still undecided whether to settle GS or pop another academy in another city. I do think bulbing after education with a GS is a waste though.

 

[frob2900]

I do think bulbing after education with a GS is a waste though.

Nonsense. After Education theres still usually Printing Press, Chemistry, Astronomy, Scientific Method, Electricity and Computers.

 

[madscientist]

Nonsense. After Education theres still usually Printing Press, Chemistry, Astronomy, Scientific Method, Electricity and Computers.

I have bulbed most of these at some point but never seam to get as much return as I expect. Bulbing Phil gets your taoism, a great trading tech, or a big edge in the liberalism race in not traded. Bulbing education helps getting to liberalism faster. I have bulbed scientific method to get to physics faster and usign 2 GS (one from physics) to almost research all of biology but again it doesn't seam to give me as much as settling the GS or building an academy. On marathon it usually amounts to saving 10-15 turns which is meh.

 

[Dirk1302]

Printing press and chemistry are automatic lightbulbs indeed for an immediate advantage, thereafter it depends on what the situation is, shaving 1-2 turns of techs like electricity is not always worth it might be better to save for golden ages or an especially good academy in this case.

 

[frob2900]

Bulbing Phil gets your taoism, a great trading tech, or a big edge in the liberalism race in not traded. Bulbing education helps getting to liberalism faster. ... almost research all of biology but again it doesn't seam to give me as much as settling the GS or building an academy. On marathon it usually amounts to saving 10-15 turns which is meh.

Well I wouldn't exactly settle a GS around the time of biology. To be honest great scientists are best spent on golden ages around then. Can help you industrialize really fast.

 

[madscientist]

Well I wouldn't exactly settle a GS around the time of biology. To be honest great scientists are best spent on golden ages around then. Can help you industrialize really fast.

OK, I'll buy that argument although I usually use the golden age while building spaceship parts, if ou time it right all part production can be accelerated with a golden age.

 

[frob2900]

OK, I'll buy that argument although I usually use the golden age while building spaceship parts,

There isnt just one golden age. Work your specialists right and you can routinely have two or even three.

 

[madscientist]

Using 2 for a golden age is one thing, using three for a second (or third if I get the Taj mahal) is a bit. I play marathon speed so a 16 turn GA is not that thrilling, definitly not worth 5 GP.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

An excellent walk through and definitely some food for thought! Thanks Obsolete

 

[Random Oracle]

Using 2 for a golden age is one thing, using three for a second (or third if I get the Taj mahal) is a bit. I play marathon speed so a 16 turn GA is not that thrilling, definitly not worth 5 GP.

Golden ages look to be a lot more attractive an option with BtS, though.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

One can argue forever whether it was "actually easy", "actually awesome" or "actually cheating". All I'm going to say to the critics is: <nothing really>.

This is simply example of "fine play". I believe the next challange he/she/it should confront is try winning conquest on Monarch, BTS. I heard it's hard.

 

[frob2900]

I believe the next challange he/she/it should confront is try winning conquest on Monarch, BTS. I heard it's hard.

Yes, I agree. Things are bound to be shifted in BtS, so it would make sense to reevaluate everything in a while when people are becoming familiar with the new mechanics.

 

[obsolete]

Your approach(spamming wonders in capital and NOT expanding) while fun for beginners, might only work 1% of the time on Emperor given a very good starting location and weak neighbor AIs. On Immortal+, it has no chance.

O_o

This is how I've often won Immortal. In any case, I know what's coming... prove it.

Well, just for you ABigCivFan, I took some shots of yet ANOTHER game that I SHOULD NOT HAVE EVEN BEEN WASTING MY TIME ON!

I will try and do the write-up for it today and hope to get it posted soon because I am going out at the end of the week and will probably not have any computers around me for a week or more.

Hopefully, it'll teach you more than one thing on what CAN and CAN'T work on Immortal.

And BTW everyone, I'll call it 'The Insane Walkthrough' thanks to Sjaramei, who came up with that one in one of the earlier threads.



P.S.

Now PLEASE, don't ask me to do it again but on Deity. I haven't played Deity since they re-vamped the AI a while back, and while I am a stronger player now, I think I'd rather pass until I get some 'rainy day' time-bank handy to take a few runs at it.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Your approach(spamming wonders in capital and NOT expanding) while fun for beginners, might only work 1% of the time on Emperor given a very good starting location and weak neighbor AIs. On Immortal+, it has no chance.

I said that because after seeing how brutally bad you managed your empire, I just did not think your play was close to Immortal caliber given a "Normal" game setup. I did not mean that the approach you used could not win an Immortal game. Of cause, you can almost win on any level if you are determined to by using a super map and run a series of "trial and error" until you get a win.

While I had some harsh views of your overall game management, I truely appreciate you going through the length to prove that the
game can be won given the right circumstances by focusing on some very specific synergy strategy.

Although many people including myself had pointed out that your games were played far from "optimal" by neglecting some fundamental gaming ideas, I am sure some new players had learned a lot about the great synergy among wonders, settled GPs and great power of a super city. Your approach is almost like an OCC game where the player try to build a super-mega city by stuffing all the wonders into it because they have no other choice.

Anyway. Thanks for your effort and I am looking forward to your "Insane walkthrough". Challenges are always good.

 

[jihe]

To be honest I am rather underwhelmed by this. Having only the capital and one small city by 820AD is a pretty bad advise for new players. If you want to build a super fortress why not just play OCC? uberfish's guide basically does the same Pyramid/settling and it works on immortal. Honestly just playing normally will also win, perhaps even more convincingly, on monarch.

 

[aquar]

Obselete, your posts are absolutely great. I'm a newbie and besides reading about micromanaging, your threads have really taught me to use my mind in this game. Thank you! Before any lashing, I admit my mind is gone.

Obselete, would you change anything for vanilla?

 

[Bureaucracy]

Can you even buy the vanilla package anymore?

I would like to see the changes for BtS myself.