The Impossible Walkthrough (PART II)

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1705AD

Ok, after you have seen all this… how on earth does this statement make any sense? I can’t figure it out. Especially considering I had cavalary ohhh… 500 years ahead of Shaka even, and if Shaka even has one by now, it is only because I gave him the techs for them!

Spoiler :

 

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1725

Another priest arrives. And I have a chance to lightbulb him for a junker tech called theology. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’ve purposely been rejecting free offers for this stupid tech the whole time. Now I am being offered to lightbulb this precious gem like a total newb? I have better plans for him…

Note: My pathetic city of Bombay at the bottom with city size of 4. I knew I’d have a problem with it. Those mines need to be changed to windmills soon, and I’m working on it. The reason for the excess mines is to increase the chance of gaining a metal. I seem to always get screwed on not getting any iron.

Also, I can’t really build farms there yet, which sucks. So I have to wait for biology… grrr. Actually that’s ok, we are going to trade right now… Electricity for biology, and do some other tech trades with the group on the other continent. We are only trading electricity NOW because we are 1 turn from completing it. We won’t risk running into a build-rush.

Spoiler :

 

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A bit later, and lets look at pacts. Huayna and Shaka sitting in a tree…. Hmm, guess I’ll postpone my planned attack on shaka for now, and the same goes for Huayna.

And Isabella the religious fanatic, ended up in what I can only guess is a religious war… Nice. I think I’ll sit on the sidelines for a bit and watch again…

 

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1846AD

Damn. We get a great artist from what was once Mansu’s FIRST capital. Oh well, I hate artist pollution but that’s just how it goes. Huayna was culture pushing against that city, so the game ran some artist specialists. Unfortunately, these guys are not good for anything, in fact, even lightbulbing isn’t feasible for them, as their tech trees usually suck so bad. But we can make some use out of him. Rep will give +3 beakers from him, and then we get +4 gold as well, before filters so we’ll get something nevertheless.


1850

We are 1 turn way from completing the UN, and 1 turn away from getting plastic tech. But, we are NOT going to complete the UN. We will put it in the que, and wait for someone else to build it, then we’ll grab a bunch of gold from it when that happens. This way, if we decide we really want to build it in an emergency, then it will always be just 1 turn away for an insta-build.

1854

We have completed the Pentagon, and all the media wonders…(Broadway, Eiffel Tower, RocknRoll, Holywood) Except, for the UN which we don’t want.

Time to look at our super-fortress again. Just look at that beaker power, 800 a turn from just one city! Eeek, and it’s STILL growing.

Note: We really did screw up somewhere. For some reason, I had been planning on building the Thee Gorges Damn in the super fortress. You’d think being so close to the ocean, and a nearby river, with a lake we’d be set, considering the SoL was no problem. But nope… My over-sight. We simply are not allowed to build it here.

Solution? We are going to rush-build it in what was Mansu’s second capital. Wish I had found out earlier though!

And…. Here is our emergency fix-it mode, for rushing big wonders after a foul-up like that. Note that OR is being used here because Huayna spread his stupid Islam to all our cities. GEE, THANKS ******! WAY TO GO AND HELP YOUR OPPONENTS.

Spoiler :

 

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1886AD

Another GE arrives, but instead of absorbing him, I’m going to use him to help rush the Damn. After our little error, we really don’t want another AI beating us to such a big wonder.

Also note, all our other cities have built their factories without any pollution producing power sources. They are all counting on us!
Now.. let’s do some math.

At our current rate, it will take 14 turns to complete the dam. That’s 14 turns that may be safe for us, but we don’t want to risk losing this powerful wonder to another AI, a very big AI which will benefit of this with all his cities, leaving us to have to waste time building pollution causing generators.

We could lightbulb him off for 1330 B towards our current tech, Robotics, but that’s such an idiotic tactic right now, that we are not even going to discuss it…

Fact: We will get 820h from the engineer if he use him to rush. It won’t be enough though, but we can complete the rest with a gold rush. In fact, we have tech spending turned off to stockpile gold in order to use it to aid in rushing this piece… and in face we HAVE been rushing the factory, forge, etc in this city already just for this wonder building purpose! Not to mention, running my workers around like an idiot getting water-wheels and workshops up and running asap for this emergency fix!

We are already 558 of 1750 h total needed for investment in this wonder. So… after the GE pours his hammers in, we instantly switch to US civic again and fill in with gold and BOOM, Gorges damn in record time….

Dohh!!! Forgot that I have to wait a couple turns because of recent civic switch! What an over-rated trait this silly spiritual gimmick is!

 

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1900AD

Remember that first capital Mansu had which I plowed over with cavalry? Well, he had spammed so many cotts around it (very bad strategy), and I didn’t have time to pillage em all. I found a good use for them though. I am turning it into a Gold production SE. I generally don’t do these, but time to adapt to the situation. So much gold, but so crap production. This is why cottages really hurt on power conversion. But alas, we gold-rushed the Wall street, and now the Grocer. Even without the grocer we are doing almost 200 gold a turn here. What do you guys think?

So now we have a Production/Science SE in the capital (fortress), and a Gold SE in another capital…

Spoiler :

 

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1906AD

Another great engineer arrives. There is only one world wonder left, hehe. To absorb him, or keep him handy is a good question. Reason being, there are not that many turns left, so absorbing is questionable. Of course, even if we were free to lightbulb him, at this stage the techs are so costly that lightbulbs only make up a very minute piece of stack of beakers needed. Both those options take big performance hits in the very late stage of the game. It may be best to keep him handy in case we need to build the Space-E in another city (other than capital) that fits the degree requirements.


1912AD

Alright, silly Shaka went to war against Frederick, who is on another island. (Yup, stupid). I decided to take a chance and go after him as well, now that he has no defence pact with Huayna. I hunkered down for a turn in Mansu’s two cities and waited for the onslaught. Nothing happened, so I decided to move my units out and see what was going on. Found a gigantic stack awaiting me.

At this point, I decided to slowly roll a couple artillery up there, and break down that 60% culture defence before slamming into it. And knowing the dumb AI, if I keep mounting mass units outside his city, he will divert almost all units from other cities into that one spot to defend it. Which means I can break his entire army in one fell swoop here when I take that city. And just maybe… I can vassal him right after without needing to go after the others. It’s a long shot, but would save some time for me.

BTW, wouldn’t you know, the bastard started attacking my stack of Mechanized infantry with a bunch of trebuchets! Like I said.. Shaka is an idiot.

Spoiler :

 

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1914AD

I began work on the space elevator. Actually, I was able to build it in my fortress, so there was no need to build it elsewhere. That meant I could bring my pure hammer power online, and not really need any GE to speed things up.. So I then absorbed that GE I had hanging around into the city. Now granted, this may not be optimal, as the number of turns left is getting quite short. However, I did it because I could!

It really wasn’t going to take me many turns at all to make the space elevator. But even still, it can be argued to use the GE anyway to help rush, and then I could shave off a few turns to use for space ship parts building, or more units for the war effort. I didn’t bother because obviously… mechanized armour vs trebuchets? Come on, who needs the optimization right now???


1921AD

Another GS arises. I then set him to work inside the flying super-fortress.


1922AD

I finally decided enough was enough! I killed around 30 units trying to hold onto that stupid city, lol. Poor Shaka still had his cavalry hiding inside it, as though cavalry were going to get some culture defense or something. And to say I hurt him here, is putting it lightly. I took the city and totally broke his back. Unfortunately he wouldn’t talk to me so I couldn’t see if he’d capit, but the next turn he sure did…

He capitulated to Frederick. Damnit! That sorta sucks, but at least it wasn’t to Huayna. In any case, next turn a spy arrived in his capital, and now I think I see what may have also caused Shaka to capit to Frederick here…

Though I still feel robbed of a Vassal here!

 

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1923AD

I’ll be cranking out modern tanks next turn. Not bad, considering I haven’t been spending money on tech for most the game! Also note the hammer production. This turn alone I am pouring in 957 hammers into the current project component.

That’s a whole grand of hammers in one turn!

 

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1932AD.

SCREW UP! I screwed up. I forgot to pay attention the Fortress que for one turn.. and I accidently completed the UN. LOL. I can’t help it that we’re so advanced that after multiple generations… no one still has built the thing! Oh well… We won’t even attempt to vote for ourself, there is no real chance of getting the votes, lets just hope no one at all gets secretary.


1934AD

Alright, time to fix my stupid mistake. We COULD reload from some auto-save, which I am tempted because it was an honest mistake, however I’d still feel guilty. Lets try to fix our problem by getting Qui to war vs Frederik. We wont even care about asking for his gold, just get him to war. Frederick will drag his vassal Shaka into war with him, and since I wont vote either, and even my Vassal Mansu hates Qui, we may be able to breath and not worry about a secretary during the voting.

Spoiler :

 

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1937

Do you see this?! 905.60 beakers a turn! One city, and this many beakers and it’s STILL GROWING! We can push this over 1 K beakers to set a record, but then it would start to heavily starve down, and we don’t want a starved city. Nevertheless, one very well run city, is worth many smaller junk-cities (don’t let anyone fool you on this). In fact, my single super-fortress is worth more power than Shaka’s entire empire!

Spoiler :

 

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1940AD

Another GS arrives. Woohoo!



Lets look at the tech trade menu and see who’s in the lead.

Holy tech-whore batman! Someone actually managed to find a crappy tech that we don’t have yet. Alright!!! Time to get cracking!

 

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Alright, lets just put some of our toy modern-armours to use here. Lets try and take some more cities… and jump into the war. Looks like everyone now is having some fun… except for Huayna who thinks he can sneak by me and somehow win the space race.

Actually he’s pretty much zooming along in the race… Grabbing the pieces left and right. Unfortunately for him, I’m always one step ahead… and he simply can’t beat me here. There isn’t a way in hell he can surpass me, and I’m going to time things to finish off with him still short by 1 piece. Because that’s always my style.

 

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REDICULOUS!

Remember how I got totally screwed by chance with that barbarian city in the very early stages of this game? Like three times???

That same luck continues now. I just lost another 99.8% chance to win battle!

Some explanation. Frederick just went and captured this city on my continent which was owned by Isabella. This is why there is no culture defence in it, and also why all fredericks units are badly damaged. So I came along and attack with fully healthy and promoted MODERN ARMOUR. LOL….

I mean… 99.8% is what the indicator says. Yet first attack…. And my tank dies? I’m still so LMFAO… I don’t think anyone would believe it, so I tired to get a shot here. Unfortunately I can’t scroll the battle result vertically to fit, only horizontal but I think you can still see what happened. Looks like I lost EVERY wave of battle there, even with my first strike modifier. Geezus.

In any case, I had plenty more tanks, so it’s not really that hard a break. These things happen once in a while…. Ummm.. err…. Depends on the definition of a while I guess.

 

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1946AD

Ok, and on the opposite side of the flank… we take yet another city from Shaka. A little culture problem, though that will be fixed as soon as we take the capital. Ummm.. well we are just about to launch so we won’t make it there in time.. but if we were behind in the space race… we’d be taking it at least.

Spoiler :

 

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1948AD

And of course… the year before 1948 it was already over. Our space ship launches and that is the end of that. Poor Huayna, thought he could actually get his last space ship part off in time. Nope, not going to happen. And even if there was a chance in hell of that happening… we would have sabotaged his production back into the stone age.

Note: Ignore the UN window again, the text in middle bottom already indicates Space Race is won. Also note, even though there wasn’t even a point in marching units towards Shakas capital at this point, I just did it for the hell of it. I also moved artillery undefended and out towards the west here. This never fails to lure enemy units out to HIT it, which is great because now you attack the cities with less units hiding behind the culture defense and fortification bonuses.

 

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Wow, would you look at that. Somehow, our capital was awarded #1 city. I would have never guessed…

I wonder if it’s only because we have so many world wonders built that they can’t all fit for a single view.

 

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And notice, that despite Qui was a gigantic monopoly…. We still held #1 in manufacturing goods. Again… do you suspect that perhaps our super-fortress had something to do with that?

Spoiler :

And again, as can be seen & listed, all this arised from just our capital and sister city. And in fact, our sister city really didn’t do anything and wasn’t even needed. This sole effort was from the flying fortress.

Spoiler :

And there you have it…. Once again we did not build any cottages, and never lightbulbed a single thing. Impossible? I think not.

 

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Saves

Initial

Liberalism Race

SoL

1946

 

[madscientist]

OBSOLETE, nicely played again and thanks for doing this for a PHIL/SPIR leader (although people will now say you can only do this with Spir leaders ) and your were on the coast.

I mus admit I am using the settled GP's in quite a few games myself and I am quite pleased. I have also tried to go more towards food/production for the capital and again pleased here. So your posts, while the caused alot or arguments, have helped my game. Some comments from my games that used some of your techniques.

1) Prince/Marathon/Huge random map (ended with snaky/fractal thing) with Louis XIV. Paris started on shore (2 seafood) I think 5 hills, elephants, bananas/corn and edned up being an absolute beast. I had stone in my third city (I did quickly settle 2 other cities). Got almost every wonder I wanted (built Parthanon in another city), the great lighthouse and pyramids were the most important since I had ALL costal cities and ran representation the whole game. Used the first great person (merchant) to bulb metal casting (fast forges too tempting and I did miss out on the oracle) and built an academy in the capital with fourth great person (scientist). Otherwise I settled 4 great engineers, 6 great scientists, 3 great merchants no prohpets or artists. I was getting 100 GPP/turn and at one point 750 beakers/turn from Paris until I ended up teching scientific method/corporation/chemistry. I never ran cast system and went straight to democracy from slavery. I had a large tech lead and will evntually launch the space ship if I continue the game.

2) Monarch/Marathon/Huge randon map (another fractal mess dead center) with Cyrus. I am good at Prince but only have 1 win on monarch. Got GW/pyramids/great library in capital which turned into a GP farm, production monster. Spend first GE on pyramids I believe, bulbed PHIL and settled the rest, the capital is again a powerhouse. Waited until someone attacked me to utilize the imperialistic/GW combo since I had alot of land to settle which took until mid-middle age era. AT this point I used what I learned from ABIGCIVFAN's war-maniac walkthrough and I am doing rather well in this game. For me that's a big thing on monarch with huge maps (I know most think marathon is easier but I am still considering if it is).

3) Currently Saladin, early start, no GP yet, only Oracle which I used to get confuscism. We will see where this goes but I am pretty sure I will use the great prophets (I will get these with the Massadra) to found theology, at least one shrine but will likely settle most once my religious duties are done.

I do mean to go one about my own games, but I did want to say that your posts have helped my games tremendously. I still cottage and bulb because I think they have strategic value at certain times, but I do see the value of settled GP's and more of an emphasis on food/production (although I do cottage spam in some of my other cities).