Au 201 spolier thread - Page 2

nbarclay · October 30, 2002, 14:38

Quote:

Originally posted by jshelr
Advice Before Starting Please:

I don't want to read the spoilers before starting. However, given the objective of maxing the number of wonders and the promised-land nature of the starting spot, does it make sense to you guys for a player to try for a few mega cities at the beginning (say five), stop expanding to build wonders, and only later to go for a continent takeover after chivelry? Thanks

Building wonders is just one aspect of Ultimate Power, and as Arrian said, a lot is a matter of interpretation. Using my "settler pump" tactics, I was able to push my core up to nine cities with relatively tight spacing (although all the cities can all reach at least size 12), with several of the cities deliberately designed to crowd AI cities in the hope of culture flips. (Nine early temples can do wonders for early cultural rankings!) And by using the luxury slider to grow Thebes to size 12 and a coastal city on the river delta a couple tiles away at least almost that big, I was still able to get all but two of the ancient wonders. The tradeoff was that my military stayed far too small to even consider early warfare, although barracks in size-6 cities did nice things for me once I finally did start building up my military. (And getting two culture flips in my favor, including a city with Ivory, was really nice.)

Nathan

jshelr · October 30, 2002, 15:44

Nathan and Arrian

Thanks. Just for kicks, I think I'll try a more extreme form of Nathan's version with just five cities more widely spaced and play peacenik for awhile.

Theseus · October 30, 2002, 16:10

Mostly 3-tile spacing, with terrain exceptions. The definition of "mega" for me has been the ability to generate 20 shields or greater production, thus one WC per turn. NOthing stands in the way of the Egyptian Horde!

Arrian · October 30, 2002, 16:23

I log on to the strat forum and the threads look like this:

Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus

Catching up?

My city spacing was almost all 4 tile (or is it 5 tile? I forget how people count) - no overlap. I decided that I had the ability to build in a perfectionist style, so I did. The result, however, was only 2 original cities on rivers (Thebes and my city to the NW towards India). My Colossus city was stuck at size 6 for some time (SW of Thebes, with the 3 cows + wheat... oh, if only there had been a river there!). Once the aqueducts kicked in, though... yeesh!

Still, most of the cities aren't actually big shield producers, due to lots and lots of grassland. Only Thebes is a real monster.

-Arrian

Theseus · October 30, 2002, 16:54

Catt · October 30, 2002, 18:10

Just read through the whole spoiler thread and I wish I were playing AU 201

Got too busy with RL and will likely be too busy for the next week or so that I plunged in to see how others are doing.

Sounds like a very fun game and I may have to come back and play it for fun even after all the dust has settled from everyone else's game.

Good stories all

Catt

Chemical Ollie · October 31, 2002, 07:57

Started an emperor game as Egyptians. Turned cultural win off, as I want to win on emperor in some other way. The cultural win always sneaks up on my when I least expect it.

I had some bad luck with the baddie hut and got my capitol both sacked and pillaged. At least my worker survived. I decided to take it like a man and play on. Built the first ring of cities right at the AI borders. Now they have started to flip to my side.

To my knowledge, I am the only one having literature and my GL is just a few turns away. I missed Oracle, Pyramids, Colossus and Lighthouse. The others have a lot of tech I don't have, but I'm keeping literature for myself until the GL is finished.

Joan was trespassing and declared war when I asked her to leave. I did not mind wasting my GA under despotic condititons, as the early expansion is probably worth more than the GA. I have taken two french cities so far, including Paris. My intention is to take the Lighthouse they just built and perhaps one more city, then extract all their tech for peace.

For unknown reason, there are a lot of unsettled land north of France. I haven't seen that until now, as I did not explore on others territory or trade maps. I just presumed I was stuck with my first ring of cities and started to develop them and build my military instead of expanding further. It might be a good idea to build some more settlers before someone else claim that land.

I have only played one hour so far, as a business trip came in my way. Hope to give it a few more hours when the kids sleep tonight. Looks like a good game. Perhaps the map would fit for a deity OCC too, despite the lack of coast for the capitol?

jshelr · October 31, 2002, 08:40

An Island of Civiliztion Amid Barbarian Hordes.

Egypt focused it efforts on wonder building to please the gods in this game and the gods were well pleased, at least for awhile.

Cleo was surprised when the pyramids started a golden age for her culture (duh), and who knows what we plan to do with the Great Lighthouse, but it was clear that the plan for a few cities with ample space worked well. Any plan would probably work well on this turf!

Cleo wisely paid all small demands

while other civs were constantly at war. As the Great Library culminated the string of wonders built, we started a palace pre-build for HG, since Monarchy was next up. However, the endless wars were so devastating to all our neighboring civs that no further techs were successfully researched

and the pre-build went for naught but a courthouse.

Cities starting flipping to Egypt

and England finally took offense, declaring war and immediately suffering a flood of chariots.

We’ve nothing particularly worth building at this point and might as well take out England while we wait. The problem is going to be keeping these sick civs alive to do some research so that the Library will pay off.

Piddling along is not really in the spirit of UP. But there’s not much to do until the full map is revealed. Going for max gold!!

nbarclay · October 31, 2002, 09:11

Quote:

Originally posted by jshelr
We’ve nothing particularly worth building at this point and might as well take out England while we wait. The problem is going to be keeping these sick civs alive to do some research so that the Library will pay off.

Piddling along is not really in the spirit of UP. But there’s not much to do until the full map is revealed. Going for max gold!!

After a certain point in terms of size and construction of libraries/marketplaces, you're just holding yourself back if you wait for the AIs to do the research. Worse, you're throwing away a huge potential advantage if you want to do more fighting later. I've found that there's very little like the feeling of steamrolling an opponent with cavalry when they don't even have musketmen to defend with. Also, the bigger the tech lead you can build, the harder it will be for an AI to roll shields over from one wonder to another to steal some medieval wonders from you.

Nathan

Arrian · October 31, 2002, 10:31

Actually, I'd say kick the hell out of your neighbors, but get a few galleys out exploring, because with the lighthouse, you can make contact with all 6 overseas civs. Even if you don't want to make contact with the farthest group (spirit of the scenario and all), you can still meet up with Rome, Germany and Persia. They should be healthier than your barbarian neighbors.

-Arrian

jshelr · October 31, 2002, 10:42

OK. If we are allowed to travel on the high seas in this game, I need to build a boat.

nbarclay · October 31, 2002, 15:53

Quote:

Originally posted by jshelr
OK. If we are allowed to travel on the high seas in this game, I need to build a boat.

YES!!! Building the Great Lighthouse and then not going out exploring is almost a crime. The ability to travel on sea tiles safely with galleys can often let you meet civs that have no feasible way to reach you, providing major advantages both diplomatically (you control whether or not they get contact with the civs on your continent) and militarily (you can invade them if you really want to, but they have no practical way to invade you).

Personally, I don't like giving up maps or contact with civs on my continent if it looks like the AIs have no feasible way to reach us. Denying them contact limits their trading opportunities, helping me build my tech lead. And denying them maps means they won't know where to look even when they do get the ability to sail seas safely (or if they try a suicide galley).

And if you're going to get whatever tech you do get from the Great Library from overseas civs, there's no reason to let any of the other civs on your own continent live.

Nathan

jshelr · November 1, 2002, 09:15

Just wanted to express thanks for setting this game up. It was fun and instructive to be able to build all the wonders and basically do whatever you want. Having played to the industrial era, it's clear to me that my game had become too channeled toward getting ToE and military conquest. Other dimensions were ignored too much. So, at least for me, AU201 was a good sophomore course.

pvzh · November 1, 2002, 15:43

AI never end turn in treaches waters, but can enter them if they can end the turn in safe waters. Therefore, you can trade the maps safely denying contacts provided there is no 2 tiles crossing from coastal tiles (if you control Lighthouse).

Sell them contacts as somebody gets astronomy.

Theseus · November 1, 2002, 21:06

With all the insanity about PTW, I figured I'd just play.

It's 1350 AD, and I have DEFINITELY achieved UP.

I early on decided to pull the Arrian Deception...

England: Buh-bye!
France: Buh-bye!
India: Buh-bye!
America: Buh-bye!
Babylon: Buh-bye!

I got Rome to whack Germany.

Hey, let's do the Arrian Deception again!!

Persia: Buh-bye!
Rome: Buh-bye!

I built every GW and SW to date, up through the TOE, except for the Pyramids, GLib, Smith, and Magellan (they are mine now of course). I decided to proactively try Longevity, and built Hospitals... it still sucks. I'm now on Factories for all my core cities (nothing else to build), and Thebes (IW rocks!) is on Hoover. Researching Refining, total culture at 54407.

vmxa1 · November 1, 2002, 21:27

That will flat get it.

Theseus · November 1, 2002, 21:40

"GOT'CHER RESOURCES HERE!!!

HOT, FRESH RESOURCES!!

SELLIN'EM CHEAP!!"

Chemical Ollie · November 2, 2002, 06:41

I still haven't played more than one hour of this map.

Thursday: My cordless mouse decided to call it a day. Change of batteries did not help. Tried to play with keyboard only, but you can't do diplomatics or micromanage the city screen without a mouse. Borrowed one from my job on friday.

Friday: My kids stayed up untill 2.30 AM. My wife was sleeping. How come a 2-year old never gets tired? Can't they understand that daddie has more important things to do? Like playing CIV.

Bye the way, thats a nice recource collection, Theseus!

nbarclay · November 2, 2002, 07:33

I haven't played much more since my last update, largely because I've been trying to build a new computer. (I've sort of wanted a dual Athlon rig since before Athlons first came out, and I finally decided to take the plunge.)

The year is now 930 AD. Germany is reduced to a single city on an island to the east, and Rome and Persia no longer exist at all. I got my fourth leader in my mopping up against Germany and rushed Longevity before I even got Sanitation, but I failed to get a hoped-for fifth leader in my assaults on Rome's and Persia's final cities. I guess I'll have to build ToE the hard way, not that it will be all that hard with the kind of production powerhouse Thebes is becoming. I have Sanitation now, and am two turns away from Electricity. (By the way, one of the advantages to waiting for cavalry for my big invasion is that elite cavalry who face nothing stronger than pikemen and an occasional longbowman - yes, I had that big a tech lead - have relatively good odds of living long enough to produce leaders.)

Culturally, I'm coming up on the 25,000 barrier in a couple turns. I'd be a little farther along, but once I got industrialization, factories took priority over any cultural project bigger than a temple. (And many outlying cities are still working on Aqueduct/Marketplace combinations to grow without giving up WLTQD.) On the other hand, once I get the production from my factories and hospitals online, building everything else will go more quickly. Research has been at a 4-turn pace ever since Education, and although I had to run a deficit for one of the four turns going after Electricity, in general, I've had very nice surpluses. The AIs still haven't discovered Music Theory or Economics for me, but the Greeks and Iroquois have had Education for a while so they might get Music Theory at any time.

Nathan

DaveMcW · November 2, 2002, 17:36

I'm surprised no one else picked the chinese as an ultimate power civ. The egyptians just can't generate GLs fast enough for me, and I really wanted the pyramids without a despot GA.

Chairman Mao decides to play on emperor level with all victory conditions enabled.

4000 BC - Beijing is founded. The build order is 3 warriors, 4 settlers. Mao's research goal is wheel/horseback riding at 10% science.

3000 BC - Shanghai is founded 2 squares southwest of Beijing. This is the ultimate OCC location, with 5 cows, coastal, and only 3 ocean squares! Mao is tempted to restart and beat the game as an OCC, but that wouldn't really be ultimate power. So he does the next best thing and builds a temple, then the colossus for a science city.

1990 BC - The 5th city is founded. While Shanghai builds the colossus, the other four cooperate to build 2 warriors and 1 worker per city.

1600 BC - The four support cities build barracks, Shanghai finishes the colossus and begins a palace prebuild.

1400 BC - Chinese alchemists discover horseback riding, 4 chariots are upgraded. The great chinese army consists of 10 regular warriors and 4 veteran horsemen. Mao the Impatient declares war on India.

DaveMcW · November 2, 2002, 17:38

1100 BC - Three hundred years of killing Indian warriors and archers has paid off - we have a great leader! The leader runs back to town, creates an army, the army runs back to the elite* horseman which is loaded and attacks another warrior for a victory. The palace build in Shanghai is changed to heroic epic for a loss of 40 shields.

925 BC - Second great leader! He runs to Shanghai and completes the pyramids.

900 BC - The French have completed the oracle in Paris.

730 BC - Mao's strategy of slowly advancing with a small elite force to create leaders is working beautifully. Since a large army is not needed, the core cities are building improvements and settlers to make up for the lost time creating a science city and early army. Suddenly... 4 french warriors run across the border near Paris, right outside an undefended new city.

710 BC - Sneak attack by the French! The new city is lost. Mao makes peace with India for their second-to-last city and sends his elites to train on the French.

650 BC - Third great leader! He buids the great lighthouse in Shanghai, the last wonder that any of his competitors was going for.

550 BC - Paris has fallen, giving the chinese the oracle. They now control every wonder invented; all except the oracle are in Shanghai.

210 BC - Mao becomes chairman of the new chinese republic. Shanghai builds the great wall, starting a golden age. The chinese now have a significant tech lead (and new techs in 4 turns) and control half the continent. The game is won, all that remains is to see how powerful the chinese can get and how soon Shanghai reaches 20k culture.

vmxa1 · November 2, 2002, 18:43

Good thing this was not a PTW with Elimination turned on. India out, no leaders.

Chemical Ollie · November 2, 2002, 20:47

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveMcW
I'm surprised no one else picked the chinese as an ultimate power civ.

I actually considered this at the start but decided against it, as I expected to start the conquest early. Riders are a little late.

Despite the early delay caused by the baddie hut, I became the no 1 civ in BC years. The peace deal with the Frogs took me from 6 techs behind into tech lead!. Wow! Curries and Rosbifs was conquered next one at a time. They had only 5 cities each against my 15 but still put up a very stubborn defence. My war chariots suffered huge casualties against their spearmen.

I have met the civs to the north and still have a small tech lead over Persia who is no 2 on the score board.

It is now around 500 AD, and I have about 1000 score. I own half my continent. Chivalry is just a few turns out, so I await that and upgrade the troops before I take on the next opponent. The Babs have the Great Wall and feudalism, so I probably need those knights. Or perhaps it would be wise to go for the Americans first, as soon as the mercy killing of the pity Joan is over.

Working my way to ultimate power, but it seems that I'm behind most of you? What did you get in the first hut?

Theseus · November 2, 2002, 22:21

I got WAAAAY lucky, with a Settler.

BTW, although China rocks for a warmonger, I'll stand by Egypt as the true UP champ. Penitence and industrious virtue rule over all. I've never had such a great empire, so early, as in this game.

Also BTW, I think that this is a great game to point newer players to, especially the ones that post "I can't keep up in tech / have no money / can;t get any GWs / whatever"... the ones that Olaf and I posted are good, but this baby's insane.

Dominae · November 2, 2002, 23:44

I tried this game briefly as an OCC; I was really tempted by the amazing start, and I thought it would be pretty funny to "flunk out" of AU 201 by doing the antithesis of UP. Anyway, long story short, even with the great start OCC is really really hard on a large map. I was doing pretty well until I lost Newton's University. Things went downhill from there, as the Persians and the Babylonians got about 6 techs ahead of me, with me at 2 gold.

So, have fun all of you who are lured by UP. I'll be playing PTW, but l'll check back in here to see how things are going.

Dominae

Chemical Ollie · November 3, 2002, 05:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
I got WAAAAY lucky, with a Settler.

Aaah, lucky you! I met some evil dudes who killed my warrior, took all my gold, destroyed my produced shields and killed some population. Only my worker survived, as I had moved him away from the action. Because of this, my REX phase ended with the first ring of cites, while the AI had taken the rest of the land. Even if we were allowed to restart, I decided that it was more of a challenge to take it like a man and catch up by warfare.

That is something to think of for all you tournament creators: huts adds more randomness to the outcome and reduce the impact of skill. A difference between getting barbarians that attack your undefended capitol or getting a settler in the first hut is huge.

nbarclay · November 3, 2002, 06:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre

Aaah, lucky you! I met some evil dudes who killed my warrior, took all my gold, destroyed my produced shields and killed some population. Only my worker survived, as I had moved him away from the action. Because of this, my REX phase ended with the first ring of cites, while the AI had taken the rest of the land. Even if we were allowed to restart, I decided that it was more of a challenge to take it like a man and catch up by warfare.

That is something to think of for all you tournament creators: huts adds more randomness to the outcome and reduce the impact of skill. A difference between getting barbarians that attack your undefended capitol or getting a settler in the first hut is huge.

Agreed! As I mentioned in the download thread, I restarted after getting unlucky with barbarians in the first hut. I actually had two warriors to try to fend them off, but I split them to try to protect both Thebes and my worker, and a barbarian got lucky in a cross-river attack on Thebes. As I recall, all I lost besides my warrior was one pop unit, but that was enough that if I played it out, I wouldn't get to see what I'm capable of on this map with a normal start. On the restart, I got a tech; I think it was Warrior Code but I'm not sure.

By the way, when I was running the Apolyton unofficial tournament of the month (before I gave up on it because so many other games were going on), I set barbarian activity to none to keep huts from skewing the results. But since the AU games aren't abouyt competition, I'm not too worried about it here.

Nathan

nbarclay · November 3, 2002, 06:53

It's now 1180 AD, and I finally got around to finishing off Germany. The battle was really a let-down: I sent over my cavalry army for defense, all five surviving elite cavalry that had not yet genrated leaders, an elite sword unit, and two veteran cavalry, and all Germany had to defend the city was a single pikeman! The one attacker I needed to take the city didn't even get scratched!

I finally finished railroading my empire a few turns ago, and I've been doing a lot of build-and-disband to build up outlying areas of my home continent and rush buying to build up outlying areas on the other continent and nearby islands. (Even so, I'm keeping my military "about the same size" as the Iroquois and Greek forces.) I've been averaging about a thousand gold per turn surplus lately (without Smith's!), although it went down a little when I started on Refining. The free unit support under Democracy is a definite help: right now, I'm hovering a little over 100 units and my free support is in the same area. I did finally get Bach's about three turns ago, thanks to Iroquois science; I'm hoping I'll be able to get Smith's before too much longer. My culture is up to a hair under 40,000, and climbing at a rate of over 750 per turn (and accelerating now that most of my empire is finished with the courthouse/factory/police station bit).

Nathan

Chemical Ollie · November 3, 2002, 20:38

Aarrgghh! The Greeks are building all my wonders! And I haven't even found them. My boat sunk when I tried (surprise). They stole Sistine right before my eyes and then Copernicus which I can't even build yet. Leonardo is just 6 turns away and I am prebuilding a palace to change to Bach's. ¤&#@! if I miss those. I had quite low science rate from 600 to 1000 AD to catch up in unit upgrades and city improvements. I thought the GL should help me to keep up, but no.

It is now 1000 AD and I just conquered my home continent. The remains of France was overrun in one turn, and the Yanks had only spearmen and a few swords to slow my 30+ knight horde down. They took perhaps 5 turns to finish.

The Persians declared war when I refused them contact with the Babs. How ridiculous! They did not even know where my continent was, as I had given them no maps.

They never got the chance to met the Babylonians, as I was about to take on them next. I attacked with forty knights in stacks of ten on each border city simultaniously. None of their cities could stop the first wave, despite that they were defended by plenty of pikemen and bowmen. The 2 last cities, including Babylon, were tougher nuts to crack as they upgraded all defenders to musketmen. But with a few turns to build up the siege force with newly rested troops, the whole continent was finally mine. I haven't seen a single leader in all wars. Perhaps China would had been a better choice after all?

I decided against sailing to Persia with my knights, as that would take forever with only galleys. They were happy to make peace in the fictive war.

Now I don't know what to do. The still unknown Greeks seem ahead of me in tech, but I am undoubtfully number one in all other aspects. I have set my fully developed core cities to produce wealth, while most of the conquered cities need further improvements. I think I will play balanced and rush as many buildings as I can but still keep the research rate of a new tech each 5-6 turns. I still have no FP, and still haven't decided if I will build it just north of my capitol to be able to later move the palace or if I should build it further north on my continent.

Now it's time to sleep after a good days work...

nbarclay · November 3, 2002, 22:49

1250 AD, a little over 45,000 culture and growing at almost a thousand a turn. I finally got a chance to get started on Smith's! The game shouild be over with a cultural victory by 1500 if I don't get too bored (or in too big a hurry for PTW) first. Definitely Ultimate Power.

Some people just can't be satisfied. Take a look at my idiot of a trade advisor.

Nathan