RefSteel's Adv 48 - The Absentminded Mapmaker

[RefSteel]

The ship has launched, and we're on our way!



You may notice I've made a few more upgrades, with potential for more in place. I now have three Mech Infs, and just beside the spaceship near the top of the screen, you can see one of my privateers, returned home to avoid swarms of caravels, and since nationalized and upgraded to the destroyer URS Teach. ("SS" just stands for "Sailing Ship" - these Privateers are free agents. URS stands for Utopian Republic Ship, naturally.) I've lost two other Privateers, but the SS Drake is still wreaking havoc off the eastern Khmer coast. It would easily have qualified me not only for HE but for West Point if I had any National Wonder slots remaining - it was far and away my most experienced unit in the game.

Here it is, returning home through Zulu waters, just before the end of the game:



I tried different promotions with each of the four, but found this an ideal path for privateers: Drill to sustain the minimum possible damage from attacks of inferior force, Medic as soon as possible to minimize healing time between battles, and combat thereafter the better to ensure speedy victory. I don't like going straight to Combat because I expect them to face inferior targets. My experience has been that if your privateers are up against frigates (or even Galleons produced in the numbers the AI likes to churn) they're past their useful lifetime anyway.

In the meantime, I went right on teching - and Headwaters went right on growing ... up until turn 259, when it finally reached its upper limit (shown here rebuilding its Observatory - yet another victim of Khmer sabotage).



In addition to the GG from Fascism, I had landed a second Great General from non-war combat with my rivals, thanks in no small part to the inimitable SS Drake! I think my foursome of Privateers were my favorite part of this entire game. And of course my three military instructors were joined to two great engineers, two great prophets, and no less than fourteen great scientists! (Note that I'm also running 36 scientist specialists of the not-as-great variety!)

I did make one last civics swap on the last turn of my last golden age: Knowing I wouldn't be able to research another tech in time in any case, I went to Police State/Nationhood/Theocracy. This meant that I could draft 7xp MechInfs (which start with March, CG1 and Drill 1 anyway) and build 15xp Modern Armor (with Blitz to help get rid of big obsolete stacks) rapidly. I didn't actually do any drafting; I just wanted the option in case it was needed. I did however build 4 Modern Amor by the end of the game.

The last message I got (or at least the last one I recorded) from the AIs was a demand from Shaka that I join his suicidal war against the Khmer. I was 4 turns away from victory.

And so it ended - completely "peacefully." My privateers wreaked havoc for ages and Sury's spies perpetrated a long war of late-game attrition against me, but technically I remained at peace, with a 100% research slider, throughout the entire game!



You can see in this image that Sury had finally captured Shaka's capital some turns back (and one of his island cities just last turn) but hadn't quite finished off the last of the Zulus. You can see the Drake maneuvering around the south to avoid Khmer frigates while the rest of my army and navy remains at home. (The Caravels have been upgraded to Destroyers by this point.) You can see Laser research still six turns from completion - I don't think I could have finished it in time even if my final civic switch had been to rep/bureau/Caste/FM/FR and I'd built research instead of Modern Armor - but I guess I could be wrong there. You can see that I have visibility on many of Sury's cities; I'd been pouring my espionage spending onto him exclusively for a long time, hoping to slow down his sabotage a little, and of course he kept spending all the EPs he accumulated against me.

You can see I was up way, way too late once again, and that I was back to running Merchants. You can see that I upgraded my cannon to an artillery piece and the highlighted unit - Prospector Joe, my starting Warrior - to a Mechanized Infantry. (The Dog was a Mech Inf too by then, helping to watch over my workers.) You can see all four of my Modern Armor batallions - and my spot in fourth place on the scoreboard when I've just won the game! And of course you can see my Turn 266 1780 Space Race victory.

(Scoring notes to follow)

[RefSteel]

Okay; time to calculate my score! Let's start by hitting "One ... more ... turn!" and taking a look at our handy-dandy Foreign Advisor Tech screen!



Techs I lack that anyone else has: Nada.
Techs I have that everyone else lacks:
1. Electricity
2. Assembly Line
3. Liberalism
4. Flight
5. Artillery

Well, that's a start. Now to have a look at our tech tree...
(Warning: Wide, Extremely Low-Quality Image Ahead)


...to include everything for which those are necessary prerequisites:
6. Rocketry
7. Industriaism
8. Fission
9. Radio
10. Refrigeration
11. Satellites
12. Plastics
13. Mass Media
14. Computers
15. Advanced Flight
16. Composites
17. Ecology
18. Superconductors
19. Fiber Optics
20. Robotics
21. Genetics
22. Fusion

Overseas city captures: None.

Total score: 22!


Also, because it amuses me, here's a list of all the stuff I built, have, lost, and killed:
(apologies for the low-quality composite image...)



- I love that my most-numerous current units are Mech Infs, all upgraded from old junk - and tied for my second-most-numerous are likewise-upgraded Destroyers (from a Trireme, two Caravels, and a Privateer). The lone Artillery Unit was originally built as a Cannon.

- I told you I killed a lot of Triremes and Caravels! At least one of those Galleys also belonged to one of my rivals, but I slew way more barbs at sea than the one barb Warrior I got on land.

- The two Privateers I lost - I think mainly due to carelessness - were the only units I lost in the entire game!

- Of course I only ever had one of each building in play at a time; the ones at the top of the list were all destroyed by Khmer saboteurs and rebuilt. Yes, they blew up the library twice, and yes I went ahead and rebuilt it each time. My spaceship was on the way, and I didn't need the production for anything else by then.

- I notice "Projects" aren't listed, so there's no place for Apollo, The Internet, 5 casings, 4 thrusters, and one each of the other spaceship parts.

Also, check out the top five cities:



Carthage has almost as many wonders as Headwaters - and Utica has yet three more! I was actually somewhat restrained with wonders here, especially as my hammers lagged behind my tech for much of the game. In particular, I skipped normally-attractive (to me at least) wonders like the Parthenon and the GLib because I knew I'd be getting SciMeth so soon they'd do almost nothing for me.



Huh. Augustus Caesar, you say? I didn't even have to fight anybody! Well, except through my various Letters of Marque, I mean. If I'm going to match Augustus, I need to at least prove I can survive a war with that idiot Sury.

Besides, I need to pay him back for all the sabotage!

(Just ... one ... more ... turn....!)

[RefSteel]

So, yeah. After taking all those endgame screenshots, I immediately declared war on Sury - my immediate neighbor, and the world leader in military power (and several other related categories). I had to prove my paper army really could do the job, right? This had the effect of significantly reducing my available food - some of my Cereal Mills resources had come from him - so I drafted a Mech Inf immediately, and went to work. I managed to lose three Modern Armor units at one point when Sury threw the kitchen sink at them, and a Mech Inf at low odds to boot, but that was a few turns into the war, after I'd built several more. It was far too late. I started overrunning the continent, taking out his cities and armies as they presented themselves, stealing his workers to use as combat engineers ... and just as my rising Power finally met Sury's in its fall, Hannibal - who had himself taken over the world Power lead, increasing sharply over the past several turns - piled on with a surprise attack on my capital. His destroyers covered transports as they unloaded cavalry, infantry, and artillery, but I scraped together the forces necessary to clean them up, and soon had Missile Cruisers (and later, Stealth Destroyers) helping my own destroyers to patrol the seas, with Jet Fighters to help out by spotting enemy ships at long range and/or going on air strikes to cut them down to size.



Sury never did manage to finish Shaka off, though the Zulus were reduced to their final island city. Left to himself, of course he would have - but I won the game, and then put an end to his empire in overtime, before he got the chance.

Hannibal kept on coming; he brought battleships to the scene, and even missile cruisers of his own eventually, and I couldn't go after him on his continent, as I was preserving the score-based "variant" even after winning the game. Still, he couldn't crack my air and sea defenses, and when he tried to land settling parties or assault troops on my continent, they were slaughtered for their troubles. Eventually, he had to admit that he wasn't making any headway and I was just trashing his fleets. Around the time my stealth destroyers were heading out to take the battle to his waters, before I even assembled any carrier battle groups to bomb and pillage his land into the stone age, Hannibal saw the writing on the wall.



Even if it is just his world map and treasury, this heavily favorable peace deal is ample enough demonstration for me. It's been a fun game. Now, I wonder what I could have done with a handful of freshwater fishies....

(Maybe no better, by the way. [EDIT: And I wrote this before the discussion above about land resources being potentially better anyway....] I'm pretty sure I lucked out with the Oracle, and you can make up for a whole lot of food-for-specialists and commerce if you get Education more or less for free. I may also have been lucky to avoid war as long as I did - in fact, until more than a dozen turns after I won the game ... and even then, Hanni might have been bought into the war by Sury, after I declared on him. So, if my score ends up being competitive after all ... I guess it's better to be lucky than good!)

[RefSteel]

Oops: One Last Thing™!

Also I'm curious why you decided to move the rivers? Just to work around the sea tiles for coastal access?

To maximize my workers' ability to road/chop/whatever through the forests without worrying about the river-crossing penalty pre-construction. Your river layout was fine in a vaccuum, but I wanted a coastal city, I wanted the forests where I put them to maximize the chance of a spread (which never happened from the forests anyway, sadly) and my Pyramids plan was very exact, as you must have noticed: I actually built a ~50 turn microplan to include the workers' precise movements (it's relatively quick and easy to do with just two workers to keep track of) for the beginning of the game, and my rivers had to accomodate what I wanted from them. (After my initial plan ran out though, I just played it by ear.)

In other words: I moved the rivers because I obsessed about the "perfect" starting tiles and am otherwise thoroughly crazy!

[T-hawk]

I loved every word. Especially the hands-full image of Shaka. And the privateers, good call on Drill, I didn't think of that. I also skipped Great Library, not worth it when you already had other specialists working through the cheap GP slots, and Sci Meth coming quickly.

To maximize my workers' ability to road/chop/whatever through the forests without worrying about the river-crossing penalty pre-construction.

Timmy also pointed out that the rivers could be connected to each other to make sure every tile had trade connection without needing a road. So yeah, my original rivers weren't perfect.

am otherwise thoroughly crazy!

I think we can work that out from the clock time in your screenshots. And if not that, continuing to play after you already won just to show who's boss.

I had you beat on city size though - up to 69, with 50 regular scientists and 20+ great ones.

[novice]

Timmy also pointed out that the rivers could be connected to each other to make sure every tile had trade connection without needing a road. So yeah, my original rivers weren't perfect.

I think the tiles will be connected as long as they're adjacent, rivered, and in your culture, even if the rivers aren't drawn in a connected manner.

[regoarrarr]

I think the tiles will be connected as long as they're adjacent, rivered, and in your culture, even if the rivers aren't drawn in a connected manner.

Hmm I can't remember for sure but I know that in some of my test games, the resources that weren't on the "main" river were not connected - that was why I made sure to put my silver and gems on that main river.

I could be mis-remembering though

[fluffyflyingpig]

Privateer Drill+Medic Promotions

This lines up with my findings. Once Caravels start showing up, Combat I and II are nice so that your odds are back up at 99% and the AI doesn't start getting any silly ideas about attacking. It took me a while to notice that blockading doesn't count as movement, so you can blockade and heal at the same time.

Even if it is just his world map and treasury, this heavily favorable peace deal is ample enough demonstration for me. It's been a fun game. Now, I wonder what I could have done with a handful of freshwater fishies....

(Maybe no better, by the way. [EDIT: And I wrote this before the discussion above about land resources being potentially better anyway....] I'm pretty sure I lucked out with the Oracle, and you can make up for a whole lot of food-for-specialists and commerce if you get Education more or less for free. I may also have been lucky to avoid war as long as I did - in fact, until more than a dozen turns after I won the game ... and even then, Hanni might have been bought into the war by Sury, after I declared on him. So, if my score ends up being competitive after all ... I guess it's better to be lucky than good!)

Don't sell yourself short here, you played an excellent game and made great choices with the land overall--enough gold for a fast start and food for late game potential. Getting Education instead of Civil Service via Oracle is nice, but only a moderate 5-10 turn boost to your finish date at best. Any chance you could post your final GNP graph for comparison?

[RefSteel]

Any chance you could post your final GNP graph for comparison?

Certainly!



The jagged dips and rises near the end are mostly due to WLtPMD. I believe the two huge dips at the end correspond to the moment I switched all my scientists to merchants and when (after launching the spaceship and filling in most of the rest of my tech tree) I switched to PS/Nat/Theo, respectively.

[RefSteel]

I think the tiles will be connected as long as they're adjacent, rivered, and in your culture, even if the rivers aren't drawn in a connected manner.

This is in keeping with my findings too. At first, I wanted all my rivers connected for just this reason, but a couple of tests showed it wasn't necessary. I'm curious about exceptions though - rego, do you think you could duplicate some of the tests you did?

AND, I somehow didn't include this in my report, but it's important: Thanks very much, T-Hawk; I really enjoyed this game!!!