Hello ! Here is my first post here around. I apologized for my english, I m not a native speaker ; I hope I m understandable.
Well, I didn t submit the game because I failed a critical move that made me lose my main city -which was an obvious lost- and so I reloaded and played the game for fun. But still I thought it might be cool to share my path, cause the game was very unusual - at least to what I m used.
By the way, there are the finish settings :
Game status: Science Victory
Game date: 1915AD
Turns played: 150
Base score: 1074
Final score: 1234
Time played : 4h57
Again : in reality I lost. More on this further on.
I didn t play a test game, since that was the first time I was loading a game here, and just looked around what the settings were on internet ; tbh, I thought I would do 2-3 games on my own before starting submitting, so the game itself was the actual test.
Since I m not comfortable with domination on deity, I decided to go for a science victory with lots of diplomatics, but still open liberty ; my thought process was that I wouldn t get any benefice from monuments and that an early finish of liberty was an easy access to NC/lot of early science, which seemed nice. Plus, a 3 settlers/2 workers start seemed nice.
I hesitated to go coastal and settle on copper, but my first move west revealed the second copper along a mountain and it definitely seemed a nice place to set the city for science victory (observatory). I knew I wanted to settle on at least 2 luxury to avoid unhappiness, so I settled the first settler on apparition tile and the second on the copper (that tile was very nice due to the abundance of pastures and stable already online), and looked for a lux for ma 3rd city not far from water. The third one, was directly on the salt I found on south-west, while meeting assyria. I built a worker in that city, 2 scouts in capital and started the workshop/library/university pattern, while also stealing a 4th worker from Mogadiscioand, and built 2-3 caravans for food and gold issues. My early gold was entirely dedicated to purchase the horse tile from assyria, which miracularly happened due to lot of luck with CS that grant me 30.
My science opener was printing cause I wanted to scout a lot and get the 2 votes, also the free GP from the tower ; my pantheon was desert shenanigans, and it never became a religion cause I never dedicated a single temple. Shortly, I decided That I would conquer one neighbor to steal his rel.
Around turn 30, I hade met portugal and carthage and we DoF, and to my surprise, Assyria jumped in, when I was pretty sure he would come for me due to my pretty aggressiv start, but I even manage to have a defensiv pact with carthage and portugal. At that point, I felt pretty confident.
And then Assyria broke his DoF and attacked with like
LOTS of units, on turn 36. Portugal and Carthage go to war but they make peace 6 turns later. I got 3 pikers and 2 crossbows, but fortunately, I can build crossbows/longswordsman in like 2-3 turns in both Persepolis and Pasargades, and I miraculy manage to kill all of his land units but one that's very far away. PAsargades is my real capital (faster growth), and has no HP. He has a last land unit. And I don t know what happened, but one of my unit automoved in a way I can t finish his last longsword and lose the city.
Thta's where I reloaded, played the turn properly, saved my city, took the land back and managed to take his capital on turn 60 after a very long attrition game.
The VERY nice surprise was getting both ankor vat and NOTRE DAME in Assyrian capital. I must say I was saved by the fact I was able to golden age from liberty right when Assyria attacked, and the extra movement/gold were critical, as you may imagine.
At that point, Portugal and Carthage are more then friendly, but all other civs start to see me as a warmonger, so I let the other 2 assyrian cities live. I ve got a bit late on science, but I settle NC on the spot via ending liberty, micromanage scientist slots in university and go into industrial via science theory. I focus on making Pasagardea grow via trade route at max.
I manage to make friend with Norway by electing them at WC, Brasil follow them and only mayas, which are leader due to their rel spreading everywhere, seem to still be mad at me cause of my early capital capture ; CHina is neutral.
I open rationalism. I delay building porcelain tower since no one has opened rationalism, and Assyria steal it to me in a way I still don t understand.
The bad surprise was having no coal, and no way to aquire via CS. I hade to settle a 4th city to work a 3coal source, which was very costly but definitely the thing to do, since it allowed a better protection for my other cities from both south and east. I must say that during all this time, I had 0 religion (5ftp at this point) and very little economy (never more then 20gpt), and no allied CS ; I m also low on culture (around 15). I do all I can to maintain my science/prod/food.
I open ideology first via electricity/radio and chose equality, cause SoL is OP, and since the first vote on WC was artistic financial, that's a way to gain a bit of culture via writers/artists without losing too much growth ; the extended golden ages save my economy, since at one point I was even negativ gpt during a GA.
The problem is Portugal go order and Carthage autocracy. Carthage attack Brasil, take 2 cities, Portugal/Mayas denounce them, right when Assyria is coming back in the game, matching my military. I manage to go closer from mayas by sacrifying my alliance with Carthage and bribe Portugal so they attack Assyria in a war that is gonna last until end of the game, freeing me from worrying from them and concentrating my ressources on the other civ.
Unfortunately, Brasil build SoL in a incredibely fast way (GE?) a few turn after opening equality, and all other civs are order. Then teh maya settle near me and move a HUGE amount of troops. Since I rushed the upper way from the tech tree to hit labs, my military is obsolete and I have no gold to improve my old crossbow/rifflemen, who won t obv match canons and GWI.
And then miracle happens again : maya switch to egality and decide I m cool, going enthousiats in a few turns and moving all troops away without attacking. o_o
Not much to say on the end. I rush hubbles, securise my military and go for victory. I probably lost some turns on the end and missmanage my 3rd engineered ; Also, I was veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slow on culture, I might have done better in that domain.
One thing I didn t say : spies were critical in finally reaching some culture/extra food via CS.
Given the difficulty and settings, how did you plan for the turn limit?
I knew I could not compete at score with my strat, I HADE to win before turn 200 ; but I never thought I would end that fast.
Did you change course to Score as time ran out?
Nope, I led tech for alost all game.
Did Golden Ages play a factor in strategy?
Mainly for the extra gold. I built the artist building first to maximize that, and I was glad I did, since at one point that was a one turn thing not to go completely bankrupt without golden age ; also, I hade to take the equality policy that enhance golden ages even longer to make my economy survive.
What are your thoughts on the neighbors/map/Victory condition?
Assyria so close was definitely a bad surprise, but the map was very interesting and the diplomacy super cool to play. Since the east portion of the map was almost free, all civ were pretty close, which made for intense gameplay.
Was this too gimmicky, too tricky? Please be honest about enjoying it or not.
This was realy, realy cool. But at some point, I HADE to be a bit lucky to go further. In any way, I enjoyed a lot. Can t wait to play more acuratelly with the apropriate rules. I ll probably play some old challenges in the meantime.
thanks for the write-up, im glad it worked out.
