Ultimate Comback Challenge?

[Bigv32]

I was thinking today after looking through some old threads from new players asking for advise, if an experienced player was to take over this game, how quickly could they win it? Well that led to another question/challenge that I wanted to get some ideas for when I finish my current game in GEM.

If you were to play on a low level (lets say Noble because I believe that is the level where the AI and human on are the same level) and not start playing for x number of turns, how long could you wait before victory was impossible?

I was thinking that possibly you could wait 100 turns, but then it would be impossible.

Granted, it require the AI not to DOW on you, so this may be impractical without using the worldbuilder to keep your original settler safe, but my question still stands.


IF you were to willing to wait for X number of turns before settling your first city on Noble, how long could you wait and still win?

Vicotry condition does not matter. Lets assume 7-8 AI on either a Pangea map or even distributed between two continents. You can be any civ you want.

 

[civvver]

On noble? In 100 turns the AI will probably have like 4 cities and maybe alphabet? I think you could wait longer even as long as your settler survived. You'll probably die to barbs within 100 turns though on any difficulty.

 

[Keilah]

just worldbuilder in a couple infantries to protect your initial 2 units, wait the 100 turns or w/e, delete the units and play from there. Don't promote them or you may accidentally unlock heroic epic.

 

[vicawoo]

Well you can wait at least 15 turns, since unit wise that puts you even with immortal's free worker, or maybe 25 to 30 turns to match the deity settler and worker.

Presumably you can wait a very long time and go for an AP win. I don't know about pangea for over 100 turns, since they might just take your land before you can settle.

 

[mtr12]

Get the RevDCM mod (turn off revolutions and barbciv if you want), and use AIAutoPlay for 100 turns.

Should be hard enough to come back from that.

 

[GenerallyGreat]

I started a random noble pangea and teched archery for defense then switched to wealth. After a while I figured setting to 100% esp would be more useless and better for this so it's set to $72. Meditation was also researched because you get an automatic 1 bulb per turn. After 100 turns I deleted the archers that had accumulated although they weren't needed as there were no barbs spotted. So this isn't quite starting after 100 turns but anyway this was the lazy way of doing it.

 

[2metraninja]

How you build wealth if you dont have Currency?

Far better is to build warriors and then just disable them after some number - you will have protection too.

 

[civvver]

Well you can wait at least 15 turns, since unit wise that puts you even with immortal's free worker, or maybe 25 to 30 turns to match the deity settler and worker.

Presumably you can wait a very long time and go for an AP win. I don't know about pangea for over 100 turns, since they might just take your land before you can settle.

I think you're overestimating the Noble AI. First I believe they'll be less aggressive in their expansion. Second, their research and units cost a lot more than at immortal. I guess it depends on what speed we're talking about, but 100 turns of noble is what time period? 500AD?

 

[Bigv32]

I was thinking about this, and it seems to me like the best way to go about this would be to worldbuild your units to a random island for safety. Wait 100 turns and then start. I also don't think pangea would be a problem as the AI would expand slowly.

 

[Mylene]

You couldn't wait any turns on Deity probably, cos of barb defense.
Turn ~38 they'd enter your borders.

 

[Abegweit]

There used to be a 1AD challenge in civ2 (I think, maybe it was civ3). I seem to recall that it was called WFJ (Waiting For Jesus). Kinda the same thing.

This sounds like fun. I thintk I'll give it a try.

 

[coanda]

Easiest would be a no-barbarians isolation start. Some benchmarks from what I've seen of Noble games here (it's been a while since I played one myself, so these are a bit suspect)...
They tend to fill up their continent between 500 and 1000 AD (T135-T160).
They tend to get Astronomy between 1200 and 1500 AD (T180-210).
They tend to mostly fill other continents 40-50 turns after Astronomy.
If I'm wrong about these, then all my speculation to follow is going to be off-base.

I'm convinced the easiest option would be a no-barbs isolation start, where every AI starts in isolation (to slow overall tech rate). Under those conditions, I'd expect around 200 turns before your continent starts filling with AIs.

Then a 100-turn delay would be fairly easy - you'd still have another 100 turns to develop your continent before the AIs are an issue, by which time you might even have a monopoly tech to trade with them to get caught up in tech (and your continent would be basically filled).

A 150-turn delay would be trickier - you get maybe 50 turns before AIs start being an issue, and probably 80-90 turns before your continent is basically full (you still likely get most of the land on your continent). Diplo finesse should keep AIs from threatening to actually win until around 1950 AD (T360), so you've got until what'll feel like 1500 AD to be ready to actually stomp Modern-Age Noble AIs. A skillful human with basically a whole continent's tiles to utilize can likely manage that.

A 200-turn delay is all but impossible. It'd be a struggle to get just a couple cities. AP would have been built before you started playing, and UN would be built long before you could tech all the way to Mass Media. Every wonder and first-to-tech bonus would be long gone by the time you got there; on the other hand, you'd get very nice trade-route commerce after reaching Astronomy, and you'd get 130% research rate because every AI would already know everything you were working on. The AIs would have filled out their tech trees and basically all be threatening to win by a point that would feel like 1000 AD to the human. I'm not prepared to categorically state it can't be done, but I don't think I could climb out of that sort of hole.