The Impossible Walkthrough (PART II)

[frob2900]

I don't care if it may not work all the time. I have to say I am simply impressed by his simple approach that appears to work. Well done obsolete. Keep them coming.

But remember, the point is that it should work for you, in your game. That's the reason for a lot of the criticism here, not that anyone wants to put down obsolete (who has gone through a lot of trouble to put up these walkthroughs).

His strategy is appealing to newer players, because wonder spamming and turtling is what newer players like to do. I did it too when I first started (in each Civ game separately, believe it or not). And if I saw this walkthrough when I first started I would also think it's great, because it would affirm my strategy to me and make me hope that I don't have to learn other aspects of the game (such as balancing teching with expansion etc.).

But it isn't an optimal strategy. And as ABigCivFan points out, one can most of the time do much better, and play a much more solid (and reliable, as in: bad luck won't immediately kill you off) game, by using better strategies.

Like pointed out in the "UNREAL" thread, there as aspects of the strategy that might be useful. But on the whole, if you don't believe the arguments here, the best argument against the strategy is: Try it (on Monarch/Emperor or above). You'll find out in due course why some people have been aggressively (but hopefully not dogmatically) defending early expansion, lightbulbs and cottages. Things tend to work out better then.

[EDIT] I'm still slightly confused about what people think is so new about building a few extra wonders if one is Ind or Philo or has stone/marble/high-capital production. This, as far as I know is nothing very new, and slightly "fortressy" cities often happen for me as the game goes along. It's just the scale things I'm opposed to. There are often more productive things than wonder spamming to be doing during large parts of the game.

 

[Indiansmoke]

The main point of this strategy is settling great people and focusing on production. Lightbulbing is overated and works well only in specific situations i.e grad philosophy first.

Cottages on the other hand are needed, perhaps not in the capital or your other 1-2 high production cities but somewhere.

After obsolete's articles I have to admit that I win easier on Monarch by focusing on GP settling and high production capital. I do not go after all these wonders but still Obsolete's aproach has helped my game.

Kudos to Obsolete.

 

[frob2900]

Cottages on the other hand are needed, perhaps not in the capital or your other 1-2 high production cities but somewhere.

Yes

Lightbulbing is overated and works well only in specific situations i.e grad philosophy first.

Overrated? NO!

Eminetly bulbable:

• Education
• Chemistry
• Printing Press
• Scientific Method
• Electricity
• Biology

Especially the education/chemistry combo is extremely powerful and can on Monarch often get you steel through Liberalism. Overrated. Bah.

After obsolete's articles I have to admit that I win easier on Monarch by focusing on GP settling and high production capital. I do not go after all these wonders but still Obsolete's aproach has helped my game.

Kudos to Obsolete.

GP settling is ok. Just don't forget that there can be better uses for them (especially in the cases I mentioned above).

 

[cabert]

sidenote about lightbulbing (cottaging is a different matter):
it's a lot (!) more powerful on slow games (epic or marathon), because on quick, the turns you save with a lightbulb are just around 5 or 6.
The beakers you get from the settled guys are then a lot better, and the "side benefits" (production or gold or culture or food) matter much more.

Same matter, who would use a GE to rush something you can build in 3 turns anyway (2 if you settle him)?

IMHO on normal speed, lightbulbing and settling have very comparable values.

 

[frob2900]

sidenote about lightbulbing (cottaging is a different matter):
it's a lot (!) more powerful on slow games (epic or marathon), because on quick, the turns you save with a lightbulb are just around 5 or 6.
The beakers you get from the settled guys are then a lot better, and the "side benefits" (production or gold or culture or food) matter much more.

Same matter, who would use a GE to rush something you can build in 3 turns anyway (2 if you settle him)?

IMHO on normal speed, lightbulbing and settling have very comparable values.

Yes, I also agree about this, and freely admit that I mostly play epic. Lately I have played a few normal speeds.. the most recent being a Gandhi/Monarch (inspired by obsolete) and, yes, settling was pretty good. Still couldn't resist bulbing education though

 

[Indiansmoke]

I think on epic and Marathon the advantage of settling is even bigger in the long run.

Calculate in how many turns you would get back the 1200 beackers from lightbulbing part of Education if you settle the scientist. You will find it is no more than 40 turns. So essentially after 40 turns you make a huge profit from settling. And yes you might be able to get to Liberialism or steel first but in the long run, all other things equal, settled GP will outpace you.

 

[frob2900]

I think on epic and Marathon the advantage of settling is even bigger in the long run.

Well, all I can say, is just keep on settling and completely ignoring lightbulbs. If its fun for you then more power to you. But you will perform worse, and that's a guarantee.

 

[Indiansmoke]

I am not completly ignoring lightbulbing, just using it for when absolotely needed. The most common case being going for a cultural win and needing religions. And yes if I know an oponnent is 2 turns away from liberialism and by lightbulbing I can beat them to it then I will do it.

But out of 15 - 20 GP that I will make I will settle at least 12-17, that was warlords mind you, things have changed a lot in BTS, Golden ages and corporations!

 

[frob2900]

And yes if I know an oponnent is 2 turns away from liberialism and by lightbulbing I can beat them to it then I will do it.

You'll have a hard time lightbulbing the liberalism tech unless you started without fishing and haven't researched it (otherwise the scientists prefer sailing->calendar->optics->astronomy). Maybe if you ignore machinery.. but that's suicide.

But out of 15 - 20 GP that I will make I will settle at least 12-17, that was warlords mind you, things have changed a lot in BTS, Golden ages and corporations!

By the time you have 17 great people settled the game is over.

 

[Indiansmoke]

You are right about liberialism...bad example. I guess religions only.


Yes 17 is a lot, 12 is more logical, but in his game obsolete had 17 settled in the capital in 1854 (that is including 2 GG). I usually finish my games after 1900, only had a couple of dominations before that and a ridiculus conquest in 20BC in marathon using War chariots and great plains map.

 

[popejubal]

One other thing that makes a huge difference here is the size of the map.

Think about what the most powerful wonder in the entire game is. I'd say most people would go for either the Pyramids, Great Library or Statue of Liberty. I say it depends.

On a One City Challenge, the most powerful wonder is clearly the Globe Theater.

On a Huge map with just a couple of Civs, Statue of Liberty is going to give you a whole lot more bang for your buck than the Great Library did even though the Statue of Liberty is so much more expensive. On a Duel map, I'm thinking Statue of Liberty is not so very impressive.

Similarly, the Super-city is going to be extra impressive in small maps where single cities can make a very big difference. It will be less significant (although still important) in a Civ that holds 40+ cities.

I know that this should be obvious, but I think it is still worth mentioning.

 

[madscientist]

On the maathon speed/lightbulbing issue. I play exclusively on marathon speed and I think certain techs are great to bulb, theology from a prophet to found christianity, philosophy from a scientist to found taosim, a good chuck of education from a great scientist, metal casting from a merchant if you are industrious and missed the oracle. 30 some turns to research any of these techs is alot of time and the trade value with AIs is extremely high, so you get alot of return. Academies from great scientists I think are better than settling a GS in very high commerce cities (usually the capital also). Great Merchants are useful for the gold mission IF you need it, otherwise settling or bulbing metal casting is preferred. Engineers I think are best for the pyramids (if you get one early enough) then settle them. Prophets are great for shrines with a highly spead religion. Great artists are good for either cultural wins or culture bombing a large captured city. Aside form the above examples I plan to settle most of my grat people in my capital for now on, I am convinced it is a big longterm benefit.

 

[cabert]

Did I mention that the output of the great person when lightbulbing scale with speed?
It also scales with empire size, and thus isn't very impressive when you only have 2 cities.
When your GS can lightbulb all by himself a tech like scientific method, you know your empire is big enough

 

[Indiansmoke]

Did I mention that the output of the great person when lightbulbing scale with speed?
It also scales with empire size, and thus isn't very impressive when you only have 2 cities.
When your GS can lightbulb all by himself a tech like scientific method, you know your empire is big enough

Did not know that! The bigger your empire the better the lightbulbing?
Impressive, I will try it.

 

[madscientist]

Did I mention that the output of the great person when lightbulbing scale with speed?
It also scales with empire size, and thus isn't very impressive when you only have 2 cities.
When your GS can lightbulb all by himself a tech like scientific method, you know your empire is big enough

I have had very large and very small empires at the scientific method era and never been able to bulb the entire tech. I play on hug maps so sometimes I have had 20 + mega cities at that point.

 

[Brave Jay]

Very impressive walk-through, obsolete. hammers truly are more powerful than many people realize. The pyramids helped a lot, but so did going for all of those early wonders with total disreguard to settler spamming. What can you do with a protective/financial combo?

 

[wayne07]

I think the benefit of this strategy (settling GP) is large only if the following is true:

1. You get your Great Persons early. The earlier you get them, the better this works. 2-3 GP before 1AD.

So if you fail to get your early wonders in, this strategy will not work as well. For instance, at higher game levels (immortal), where you will fail to get some of the wonders because of the AI discounts. This will delay the effectiveness of such a strategy. Also, you need to get the right wonders in and it might be difficult to time since you need all that in one city.

2. Research speed of AI is slow. Lightbulbing in essence is large because it provides trading possibilities. For instance: if u bulb philo in time, you can normally trade it for tons of tech you did not have. This is only large if you are trailing in techs. At monarch/emperor, you might still be on par for tech. At higher levels, you often fall behind in tech and lightbulb might be more worth it than settling.

3. You MUST get pyramids for this to work at immortal. The early representation is needed to maintain tech parity if you don't do lightbulbing.

--------------
I think this is really good strategy for emperor level games. But for immortal, you really need luck for it to work. Lightbulb + settlling +early warring is probably better.

That said, i love to see obsolete (or anyone!) try a similar immortal game but doing the following:-

A. No Lightbulbing
B. No Industrious/philo
C. No pyramids
D. 4-3 cities until you hit calvary or rifles (no early expansion/war/AI absorption).

 

[MickeyD]

I tried obsolete's strat @prince with Gandhi. In my map, I had marble, pigs on a hill, corn, and a ton of forests, but no good commerce tiles (tundra start). I went for bw early, discovered copper in my bfc, took out saladin (Hindu holy city, jungles w/dyes)), & Monty (fish start), and i got all of the wonders but Great Light House & Spiral Minaret. Like obsolete, I accidently founded too many religions, so I went cultural and won before 1700 with 10 cities. I really like this strat for high hammer starts. The settled GP + hammers make for an awsome city, and when this strat works, it really works! I agree that the pyramids makes this strat viable, since no cottages=no gold w/o the odd resources (though the dyes helped). While it was fun getting all of the GPs, I wouldn't rely on this strat w/o philo or industrial. Also, jungle starts or true sea starts (w/seafood as your only good food sources) really would cramp this strat. -MickeyD

 

[de Mott]

sidenote about lightbulbing (cottaging is a different matter):
it's a lot (!) more powerful on slow games (epic or marathon), because on quick, the turns you save with a lightbulb are just around 5 or 6.
The beakers you get from the settled guys are then a lot better, and the "side benefits" (production or gold or culture or food) matter much more.

Same matter, who would use a GE to rush something you can build in 3 turns anyway (2 if you settle him)?

IMHO on normal speed, lightbulbing and settling have very comparable values.

You make it sound more clear than it actually is. If you can manage to research education in 6 turns on quick speed, that equates a saving of more than 20 turns on marathon speed (320 max turns vs. 1200). If you consider lightbulbing on marathon, then you should also consider it on quick. Don't fall for the absolute turn saving fallacy.

I think on epic and Marathon the advantage of settling is even bigger in the long run.

Calculate in how many turns you would get back the 1200 beackers from lightbulbing part of Education if you settle the scientist. You will find it is no more than 40 turns.

I would like to see your figures for the percentage boost the GS requires to hit 30 beakers a turn, which would hence result in 1200 beakers in 40 turns (essentially you need more than 225% research bonus for 9 beakers of the GS - with representation - to get to 30 beakers)
Your figures seem to be off.

Again, don't be impressed too much by the slower speed settings. While your settled scientist can work his magic for more turns, lightbulbing would have netted many more beakers. Now count in that techs require many more beakers than in a normal game and your decision to settle or lightbulb won't be so easy any more.
If you can lightbulb for 5000 points, a "representation" settled GS with an average research bonus of 200% over turns needs almost 200 turns to pay off scientifically. And the bonus from acquiring an important tech earlier via lightbulbing (like education -> universities) is not yet factored in (as isn't the 1 hammer profit from the GS).

A. No Lightbulbing
B. No Industrious/philo
C. No pyramids
D. 4-3 cities until you hit calvary or rifles (no early expansion/war/AI absorption).

Hm, if you desperately want to make your game more difficult, go ahead Just make sure that
E. some of the other ai's are industrial and
F. you play on a huge map

 

[de Mott]

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.