Tokugawa Civil Service Challenge
- Thread starter Simple Machine
- Start date
I managed to get T84 with a lot of effort, but I had to use Worldbuilder to "auto-spread" Buddhism to my capital within 4 turns of founding. Good enough for me.
(I could've rerolled until I got lucky, but there's no point.)
I finished Civil Service exactly, with zero overflow beakers. I had to micro a bunch of stuff with beaker precision, otherwise I would miss by 3 or 4 beakers.
(I could've rerolled until I got lucky, but there's no point.)
I finished Civil Service exactly, with zero overflow beakers. I had to micro a bunch of stuff with beaker precision, otherwise I would miss by 3 or 4 beakers.
Spoiler :
Isn't that impractical because you'd need to self-tech both Currency and Alphabet? Combined those are almost as expensive as CS I think.
Well, better results by other players proved that it isn't the best strategy. Still I got sub T90, so it isn't bad. There are positive sides:
- You don't have to research religious techs, so you save some beakers here
- You can build research, so hammers become useful. For example, riverside PH mine provides 5 beakers, and riverside plains cottage provides 3-4 beakers - better than scientist specialist. Add two beakers for golden age.
- Currency gives you extra traderoute in every city - unfortunately, you have to build third city to make use of it
. I didn't realise it before the game
- You don't have to save money before finishing library because you can build wealth later
I tried going through the religious line, but found it challenging. Getting 2 great prophets out is very hard without aid from early wonders like Stonehenge. I managed to squeeze 2nd prophet out by turn 91, by doing only two cities and delaying the second city until I had 2 religions in capital, but was then missing all of math and whatever would be left from CS after the bulb.
I think T84 is the best I can find. (If T83 is possible somehow, it would have to be something very extreme!)
I tried doing AH since Tokyo and Osaka have cows. The cities develop more since they have much more food and production, but the initial delay (since you have to research Agriculture -> AH) means CS comes a few turns later. Without much optimization, I got T90, with Kyoto and Osaka at population 8 and 7, with Buddhist and Confucian temples in both.
I also tried doing Agriculture -> Pottery -> Mining, but this was about half a turn slower than Agriculture -> Mining -> Pottery. There just isn't a way to develop as quickly if you delay Mining the silver. For example, you can delay your settler until size 4, but then, even though you can get a GS a turn earlier (1440 BC in the logs), and you can bulb math a turn earlier, your second city is settled about two turns later, and the second city isn't able to develop quite as quickly, so the CS tech time becomes about a turn and a half slower.
I tried doing AH since Tokyo and Osaka have cows. The cities develop more since they have much more food and production, but the initial delay (since you have to research Agriculture -> AH) means CS comes a few turns later. Without much optimization, I got T90, with Kyoto and Osaka at population 8 and 7, with Buddhist and Confucian temples in both.
I also tried doing Agriculture -> Pottery -> Mining, but this was about half a turn slower than Agriculture -> Mining -> Pottery. There just isn't a way to develop as quickly if you delay Mining the silver. For example, you can delay your settler until size 4, but then, even though you can get a GS a turn earlier (1440 BC in the logs), and you can bulb math a turn earlier, your second city is settled about two turns later, and the second city isn't able to develop quite as quickly, so the CS tech time becomes about a turn and a half slower.
Of course getting CS early is one thing but in a real game just 2 cities by that date might not be a winning strat.Might have a play on a new game getting early CS. Normally mine arrives much later. I wonder who might be the best leader for this strat? I am thinking Egyptians due to their unique building. Spam double priests. Maybe Oracle too. What to do with early CS once you have it. Maybe industrious leader too and try culture.
My favorite way to play this to grow the cities with the cows. I struggle to cottage over animals lol.
It's slower but gets you a higher population haha. For example: there's a turn 90 (that's 6 turns slower than the best found) that gets AH and Writing before Pottery, grows the cities to size 8 and 7, and gets 91 bpt (with an academy contributing 16 bpt) instead of the 67 bpt (Math bulb) above. Switching into Bureaucracy gets you 124 bpt on T91 at 100% which is fine.
That said, I do understand why AH just doesn't work here. There's too many other things to do:
It's slower but gets you a higher population haha. For example: there's a turn 90 (that's 6 turns slower than the best found) that gets AH and Writing before Pottery, grows the cities to size 8 and 7, and gets 91 bpt (with an academy contributing 16 bpt) instead of the 67 bpt (Math bulb) above. Switching into Bureaucracy gets you 124 bpt on T91 at 100% which is fine.
That said, I do understand why AH just doesn't work here. There's too many other things to do:
- Need agriculture to grow capital.
- Need mining because the silver mine is a good tile.
- Need a second city because there's another good commerce spot. If you don't settle a second city, your capital will run out of stuff to build and your worker will have nothing to do.
- Need a library because a GS is strong.
- Need early writing because a late GS is not very helpful for CS.
- Since you're getting an early library, you don't have time to develop a third city.
- Need pottery because cottages are pretty strong and you run out of tiles to work.
Spoiler :
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Chalybion
Chieftain
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But you still need IW, MC, Machinery. The first two can be traded for, probably, so that leaves 10 or so turns to research Machinery, then more time to whip macemen from two cities. Then you have 15 or so turns until longbows show up. It'd be fun to try, but 4 city engineering rush would be way better and only a little slower
Izuul
Level 86
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It's a fun exercise but probably doesn't have any practical utility. There's not much point in rushing CS with a poorly developed capitol that can't properly take advantage of Beauracracy, and if you tried this on deity you'd also end up stuck on 2 or 3 cities.
Izuul
Level 86
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- Jan 26, 2012
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BTW this reminds me of Kossin's micro challenges. Newer players might want to search for those old threads and check them out.
Edit: found the link to them.
Anyone ever notice how Education says 'CIV4 = $' ?
Welcome to the Micro Challenge Central!
The challenges so far:
Micro Challenge 1...
Edit: found the link to them.
Anyone ever notice how Education says 'CIV4 = $' ?
Welcome to the Micro Challenge Central!
The challenges so far:
Micro Challenge 1...
Those are some fun threads there!
I saw a nice rule of thumb in Challenge VI (Gandhi): to value extra food, compare the % faster you'd grow to next pop vs. the % benefit of (CAP - CURRENT) citizens.
Funny, when I did Agriculture -> Mining -> Pottery, I hit CS at turn 84, with 0 beaker overflow. (With good religion spread.)
And when I do Agriculture -> Pottery -> Mining, I miss CS at turn 84 by exactly 9 beakers, even though Fippy apparently did a dozen or two beakers better.
That's because I have to build settler at pop 4 in order to get Writing before settler finishes, and because I work the silver mine a bit less, I end up with a few beakers less...
Gosh, I wonder how Fippy did better, I must have done a mental calculation wrong, but I can't be too frustrated, because I'd say it's not horrible micro to miss a few beakers here and there over 80 turns... Maybe it's because I insist on growing capital to size 6?
I saw a nice rule of thumb in Challenge VI (Gandhi): to value extra food, compare the % faster you'd grow to next pop vs. the % benefit of (CAP - CURRENT) citizens.
Funny, when I did Agriculture -> Mining -> Pottery, I hit CS at turn 84, with 0 beaker overflow. (With good religion spread.)
And when I do Agriculture -> Pottery -> Mining, I miss CS at turn 84 by exactly 9 beakers, even though Fippy apparently did a dozen or two beakers better.
That's because I have to build settler at pop 4 in order to get Writing before settler finishes, and because I work the silver mine a bit less, I end up with a few beakers less...
Gosh, I wonder how Fippy did better, I must have done a mental calculation wrong, but I can't be too frustrated, because I'd say it's not horrible micro to miss a few beakers here and there over 80 turns... Maybe it's because I insist on growing capital to size 6?
That or Mylene is the Mycro queen. She plays like this for fun and it like an auto reflex for her. She is probably one of the best players on here.So don't be too downbeat.
I tried some other strategies lol. T85 is possible with settler at size 5 from capital (and Pottery before Mining, and lucky religion spread), but it's extremely tight, and I don't think T84 is possible that way. You can build the library at a reasonable time (2080 BC via city screen), and you grow the capital to 6 a bit faster (since running scientists means you're short on food), so you get a bit more bpt at the end (~70 bpt), but the worker has too much to do.
[Edit] Or even T86 (a third of a turn away from T85) with academy (and Pottery before Mining) and 88 bpt. [Edit] And that same one gives you T85 (half a turn away from T84) with 72 bpt if you do a math bulb.
[Edit] Or even T86 (a third of a turn away from T85) with academy (and Pottery before Mining) and 88 bpt. [Edit] And that same one gives you T85 (half a turn away from T84) with 72 bpt if you do a math bulb.
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Aha, the reason I wasn't getting T84 with Pottery before Mining is because I didn't binary research correctly.
I did Meditation before going 0% research to get an early border pop in Osaka. (This was the correct strategy with "Mining before Pottery" because there you have too many beakers before GS bulb, but not with the "Pottery before Mining" approach.)
Now I'm able to do T84 with 2 surplus gold and ~13 surplus beakers. (With WorldBuilder auto-spread.) Later, I might try to save a few more beakers somehow....
[Edit] Looks like I can get 2 surplus gold and ~19 surplus beakers with early granary. Not sure it's possible to do better. Oddly, early monasteries only gives me ~15 surplus beakers (although probably a way to get a couple via rounding).
[Edit] Even if I manip rounding and stuff I'm short at least ~48 beakers (with max 70 bpts research rate at the end). Maybe there's a way to find one or two more beakers, but 48, nope.
I did Meditation before going 0% research to get an early border pop in Osaka. (This was the correct strategy with "Mining before Pottery" because there you have too many beakers before GS bulb, but not with the "Pottery before Mining" approach.)
Now I'm able to do T84 with 2 surplus gold and ~13 surplus beakers. (With WorldBuilder auto-spread.) Later, I might try to save a few more beakers somehow....
[Edit] Looks like I can get 2 surplus gold and ~19 surplus beakers with early granary. Not sure it's possible to do better. Oddly, early monasteries only gives me ~15 surplus beakers (although probably a way to get a couple via rounding).
[Edit] Even if I manip rounding and stuff I'm short at least ~48 beakers (with max 70 bpts research rate at the end). Maybe there's a way to find one or two more beakers, but 48, nope.
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