Adventure 35 - Sponsor's Shadow and Comments

[Ruff_Hi]

T-Hawk - how did you make the game with a permanent Golden Age?

The game write up says ...

The Golden Age setup was done by changing the game-speed length modifier and making the Palace launch a Golden Age (like the Taj Mahal.) This needed the sponsor to settle the capital and play the first turn to allow the AIs to settle. From there, the save can be loaded and played with the permanent Golden Age without needing a game mod.

Here is what I did ...

• opened your starting save
• opened WB, moved the oil for all civs from water to land, delete the cities, add settlers
• saved it as a WB save
• edit the resulting WB text file - change always-peace option to always-war
• create mod (edit palace building to start GA, edit length of GA to about 4100% or so)
• start civ4 with mod - main menu, single player, play scenario and select the file that I just edited
• settle city, GA starts, end turn (AIs settle)
• save game - but the games are saved under the mod and require the mod to play
• so ... open WB, save scenario
• restart Civ, play scenario - but no GA

What am I missing?

[T-hawk]

Technically, I didn't do it with a "mod" the way the game uses the term. I just edited the XML files right in place under Assets (not CustomAssets). That might be the trick.

Active turns of Golden Age do not get saved into a worldbuilder scenario file - you have to start the GA and play directly from there.

In case it helps, here's the original 4000 BC save, before a turn was played, so you don't need to delete cities and units.

[T-hawk]

Ok, so this one is old news now, but I wanted another crack at it. (I guess I'm not quite burned out yet. )

I wanted to try Timmy's beeline to Liberalism -> Democracy, and worked out a lightbulb sequence to do it as fast as possible. It went like this:

0. Oracle for Code of Laws.
1. Great Scientist to lightbulb Philosophy. (needs Alphabet, Mathematics.) Caste/Pacifism right away.
2. Merchant for Civil Service. (needs Monarchy, Metal Casting, Currency.)
3. Scientist for Education.
4. Merchant for Constitution. (perhaps a mistake, could have trade missioned for more.)
5. Scientist for Liberalism -- but DON'T FINISH IT. (Needs Compass and Aesthetics, avoid Machinery.)
6. Scientist for Printing Press. (after researching Machinery.)
7. Finish Liberalism into Democracy.

That little two-step is needed because the Liberalism bulb has to come before Machinery (else Optics and Astronomy open up), but the actual Democracy slingshot requires Machinery via Printing Press. I also burned my second scientist for an Academy in Paris, since that would return more beakers than a bulb by the time the Democracy beeline completed.

I used both Paris and the stone city for GP production while other cities developed as normal. I did do the Pyramids for Representation all the way. The Oracle had to go in another city to avoid unwanted Prophet points. I actually had to try the opening three times until I got it right. This time I went with a less dense city build, eight cities total.

This got Liberalism to Democracy on turn 79, 160 AD, just as my workers had finished the basics of resource improvement and hill mining. Then I built cottages everywhere and adopted Emancipation right away. I also took Free Religion right away, since my religion hadn't spread beyond the GP cities in Pacifism. Following are some assorted notes:

I never went Free Speech. Bureaucracy was superior all the way with Paris at 120 base commerce. 60 from Bureaucracy is slightly less commerce than Free Speech on my 33 towns, but worth more science with Oxford in Paris.

I had great luck on GPs the rest of the way, with a Merchant timed for Sid's Sushi, an Engineer timed for Mining Inc, only one Artist, and the rest Scientists for a total of six Academies. Bigger cities translate into more payoff from each Academy.

After Democracy, I beelined Sid's Sushi and thence to Superconductor via Refrigeration. Refrigeration was definitely a net gain, with Supermarket health critical to support Sushi. Just after Sushi, I spent five turns in Slavery / Org Rel (towns grown by then) to whip laboratories, though this was probably a mistake. Mining Inc at +28 hammers built everything just fine with time to spare.

I stole only one tech, Drama, and did build a few theaters for happiness. The rest of my espionage points went into civics changes, to knock Asoka and Brennus out of Mercantilism into Free Market for trade routes. I built only a couple espionage buildings, cutting over to Wealth instead much sooner. (This time I was far enough ahead of all the AIs that there would be nothing to steal anyway.)

Both coal and oil got traded away for health reasons after railroading the important tiles. A couple times I would cancel the coal deal, build railroads on a new set of tiles, and restart the coal export within the same turn. No coal plants, used TGD for power.

Thanks to Mining Inc, I got both SS Engines done in synch and lost no flight time on the spaceship. Victory in...



1655 AD, exactly the same as Timmy got.