Adventure 54 - Lewwyn builds a ton of Paratroopers

[Lewwyn]

***warning pics aren't converted and avg 1MB***

SO I've never done one of these reports. I didn't intend to make one when I started. Just thought the game would be interesting so I started playing it. a week later...

I tried to take some important screenies, but I ended up just taking screenies of all my wonder builds. I got the pop screenies though. I missed my 88 beakers or whatever.

I won in 1765 by DOMINATION. Seriously did you expect anything else? :D



I started thinking about how I wanted to play this and decided I would go heavy mines + Oracle MC + Elephants + conquer a neighbor + tech to paratroopers + kill everyone.

My God I love paratroopers. They're nowhere near as good in an MP game. But in SP against AIs? It's just a rain of terror. Especially against opponents with LBs and knights. But I'm getting ahead of myself.



So first I got my worker and started connecting food sources. My scout wandered around and didn't find anyone. I didn't meet Cathy for the longest time. I got a bunch of maps and some gold. Then I hit the jackpot and popped BW from a hut.

I saved my forests mostly around the cap and chopped out the Oracle. I don't seem to have a picture of that...

But one of the things about this map was that I need SOME kind of economy. Cottages... NO! They didn't seem worth it. What am I? I'm ORG/IND! That sounds like a wonder-whoring over-expanding type of plan. (Plus wealth builds ) We got ocean! Lets get the GLH and Colossus. My first settler goes North West... NW? But Lewwyn, that's all crap ass tundra! Yeah but its crap ass tundra with forests on it next to ocean...



So yeah we chop the GLH and then we chop the Colossus.



And that's about the extent of what that city did the entire game. Oh it did produce 2 GMs. One used in a GA and one used to create Sid's Sushi much later on. But as you can see it was size 3 when it built the GLH and the Colossus.

In that pic you can see that Cathy has settled Rostov on the Spices there next to the cow. Now none of you guys have seen me play SP really, but I tend to get mad at AIs. You can also see that I have 4 cities at turn 72 there. I settled down SW from the cap to grab the cows and pigs, but I missed the horses (which I actually never settled in this game!) The other city is NE of the cap on the coast to immediately take benefit from the GLH TRs.

At this point I am teching Math and I'm on my way towards HBR and Construction for WEs. My goal is to get them and crush Cathy while she only has archers.

T95 I get Hanging gardens. I have 8 cities at this point. 5 of them coastal.



You can see I'm getting 93 beakers in that picture. In the Colossus pic you can see that I'm getting 67 beakers. So I'm guessing that the Hanging Gradens slingshot me over 88 beakers. I guess that's my 88 beaker point.

I begin my assault on Cathy:



BTW you can see that Rajavihara there. I beat Cathy's settler there and planted a turn before her. I really wanted that marble for more wonder-whoring.

3 turns later is 25 AD and I get a shot of my pop:



352 at 25AD and I think it was the same on turn 1AD. None of my cities had grow on this turn, but i missed the shot and I didn't want to go reloading through autosaves or anything.

I did indeed finish MOM 6 turns later on t122 (150AD).

Ummm, pardon my elephants...







In this shot you can see the war stretched south because Cathy is a zergling... You can also see I'm just finishing up north in the minimap. Also Machinery came in at 275AD. I had missed it early and took this shot to show the date.

Here I am completing the Statue of Zeus:



Cathy has like one city left. Speaking of:



Good Job Cathy. SO she's vassals up one her last city, Bismark WarDecs. I kill Cathy seconds later...

So 880 AD I have Cathy dead and I turn East to Germany... who won't speak to me and let me get peace.

5 Turns later in 980AD I build Sistine:



Now to be clear I've been using maybe 3 cities to continuously produce WEs and cats and the rest have been building infrastructure. My WEs mostly didn't die because I was up against archers at the beginning and only later did Cathy get Iron for spears. But I basically had a steady stream of WEs from my 3rd city SW of the cap which produced a WE every 2turns. I eventually put HE in there two and I settled 2 GGs there so I was churning out 7-9XP units. Without Vassalage or Theo even. I was in bureaucracy for a most of the time and all my wonder builds you may have noticed (besides the Oceanside wonders) were in the cap. You may have also noticed that after SoZ I built the NE. So my Cap was happily turning out GPs too.

In the end I had 5 GAs and I spent 60 turns in Golden Ages during the Medieval - Ren - Early Industrial Ages. This was pretty freaking huge and I got such a boost over the AIs since I simply had so many cities.

Let's do a 1000AD Turn of the times report:








I have 27 cities. They are here from West to East:





As the war with Cathy was winding down I Spammed the hell out of settlers and just went city crazy. In that last picture with Stuttgart you can see 2 size 1 cities there that I just planted... Yes I'm at war with Germany when I plant these with like 2 chariots around.

My units "raced" East. Like 10 turns. Then crushed 2 German cities Essen and Stuttgart. Captured them and Bismark finally gives me peace.

[Lewwyn]

I go into builder mode.
Here's Angkor Wat T164 (1040AD):



Taj T176 (1160AD):



Notre Dame T180 (1200AD):



University of Sankore T184 (1240):



This is still in the Capital BTW. GA + Burea + Mines. I have windmills but I haven't been replacing mines at all yet. I've just been building windmills in the new cities. The old cities still only have mines. But I'm getting there. The best thing is that these cities have built all the infrastructure so fast that I have a ton of wealth builds. (:wink2: Gaspar)

Also between the two shots there you can see I got the World map of the south. Bought for 198 gold. Also teched to optics and built caravels to get Circumnav:



Its not long until I get Liberalism on T191 (1310AD) and I take Replaceable Parts with it.



I've also settled an island city to get 2C TRs and I'm settling another one as well.

T197 (1370AD) sees my first pop 15 city:



This was something I wasn't pushing in any way, pretty much a natural growth with all the FPs and windmills.

I build the Kremlin in 1500AD on T210:



Also my pop score for 1500AD:



And Demos at this time:



Now sharp eyed readers will notice something funny about these turns. I have 100% science running... but I'm making gold. What's that? Yes, I am at this point and for at least 10 turns before this running a 100% sci slider without losing money. How is this possible? Wealth builds my friend. On a n only hill map everything gets built so fast that all you have left to build is wealth and there are just so many hammers. Especially in a Golden Age! And at this point I'm in State Property as well! Compare that to the poor AIs that are still researching Nationalism and Engineering while I tech Railroad at unbreakable 100% sci!

Statue of Liberty at T217 (1535AD):



I run Gold slider as I near the end of my GA and the end of Astronomy which will kill my Colossus. Needed Astro for Physics I think and teh GS and for flight. A little later I have to tech Corporation to get to Assembly Line which hurt as well given that I had harbors and Custom houses everywhere and was getting upwards of 10C for overseas international TRs.

My tech slowed slightly when I got to factories because a lot of my wealth cities need to build them and suddenly I had a deficit. But I continued to build wonders (in my cap). T230 saw Broadway fall (1600AD).



I'm teching Assembly line here so I'm getting closer to paratroopers. Next turn on T231 I pop my last Golden Age to prepare for war:



Now I was supremely lucky that my cap just kept popping Great Prophets and Great Spies and a Great Engineer and a Great artist. Here you can see I moved the GE out of the city so that he wouldn't be used in the GA. I wanted to save the GE and the GM that was about to pop in my GLH city for Mining Inc and Sid's Sushi.

I teched Facism got the GG and settled him in my HE city. I switched into Police state from US which I had been using to rush production with gold. It was an easy switch because I never built a single cottage all game and I never had to worry about being in Emancipation, US, or Freespeech for the Cottage bonuses. So Police state it was.

I was starting to have Unhealthy issues too so after Fascism I started teching to Enviro and about halfway through the GA switched in to Enviromentalism. At this point I was out of State Property and promptly founded the two corporations in my cap (where I built Wall street). Now my cive was merrily building Paratroopers and Fighters and soon to be bombers as well.

T242 I built the Pentagon (1660AD) on the last turn of my GA:



Which coincidentally coincide with my decision to take over the rest of my continent:



Poor Pacal and his longbows. You may notice at the very top NE of Mah-whaterver is a fort from which my paratroopers are about to paradrop across the water into the north of Pacal's territory.

Within 10 turns I captured every single city on the continent and Pacal capitulated so I didn't have to go kill his 1 tile island city. I then turned my Empire to Germany who happened to also have a Defensive pact with Egypt. Now Bismark was the only AI to get Gunpowder and he even had rifles so he was probably the hardest to kill, but...



It wasn't that hard. Bombers + Paradropping paratroopers just owned even rifles.

You may notice that Egypt has been eviscerated in the south as well. I had settled one city on their continent like ages ago. Then I built airports in all the cities producing Paratroopers. Then I built an airport in the south continental city. Then I just airlifted dozens of Paratroopers there. When I declared war. I paradropped out and captured 3 nearby Egypt cities. Then I moved my units into those cities and paradropped out of those cities next to new ones and so on and so forth. Its like a wave. And because I'm fighting LBs and Maces and Knights with 24STR Paratroopers who have on average 9XP and simply insta heal after every battle its just a riot. Its not even necessary to use bomber but I do. I had my HE city spit out 17XP bombers that get C2 and then +2 to operational range and they are pretty amazing.

Its also really easy to kill Egypt when they build 60 million caravels:



Those are just the ones I can see.
As for me:



Huzzah!

Now I tried to end the game with a diplo victory and the UN on T254 (1720AD) but I think I was too populous and never got the option:



But I kept building wonders: Rock N Roll, T258 (1740AD):



Cristo Redentor T261 (1755):



Eiffel Tower also on T261 (1755):



Finally after Egypt Capitulated and I declared war on Wang Kon and Survayman a few cities cam out of revolt and border popped me into Domination range:



I played this turn just for the heck of it because the previous turn I had pardropped craploads of Paratroopers into position. On this turn I took 7 cities.

Some score shots:






Yay. That was fun. I think 66 hours is an exaggeration since I left Civ open and just Tabbed in and out of it over the week. I started this game on the 3rd finished it yesterday or today depending on whether you want my living in the future timezone. I'll go through and try to put all the dates for my wonders and scoring info in a follow up post tomorrow morning (which will still be you guys evening).

[kjn]

Impressive game, back in the USSR! I never teched to Flight, and depended on marines and transports. You know how lucky you are when you win with domination like that.

[Lewwyn]

Scoring Chart:

Win on 1765AD by Domination.

Wonders (I just listed them all here for fun and for myself. I'm actually not sure which is 550 hammers though ):

GLH - T72 (1120BC)
Colossus - T92 (575BC)
Hanging Gardens - T95 (500BC)
MoM - T122 (150AD)
SoZ - T149 (780AD)
Sistine - T159 (980AD)
Angkor Wat - T164 (1040AD)
Taj - T176 (1160AD)
Notre Dame - T180 (1200AD)
University of Sankore - T184 (1240AD)
Kremlin - T210 (1500AD)
Statue of Liberty - T217 (1535AD)
Broadway - T230 (1600AD)
Pentagon - T242 (1660AD)
UN - T254 (1720AD)
Rock N Roll - T258 (1740AD)
Cristo Redentor - T261 (1755AD)
Eiffel Tower - T261 (1755AD)


Populations:

1AD - Is that 47 pop?

1500AD - 351? I'm not sure what number you want from the mouseover.

Size 15 city - T197 (1370AD)


Techs:

88 Beakers - T95 (500BC)

Machinery - 275BC

Replaceable Parts - T191 (1310AD)

[BRickAstley]

Awesome game and good report to read too Lewwyn. I think I probably missed some pictures though, crappy school Internet likes to crap out about two thirds of the way down the page.

[T-hawk]

Yeah, great writeup, very readable and entertaining. Do more!

Paratroopers, great way to deal with such a rough map. Go over the hills, not through them!

What am I? I'm ORG/IND! That sounds like a wonder-whoring over-expanding type of plan.

Yes, that was the idea. I wanted the Baray UB, but not Sury. Exp didn't seem so hot with granaries indirectly nerfed (high hammers, low food) and neither did Cre with the same for libraries (lack of food to run scientists.) But Org courthouses and lighthouses and Ind-powered HG, GL, GL would fit right in.

Now I tried to end the game with a diplo victory and the UN on T254 (1720AD) but I think I was too populous and never got the option:

Yeah, you can't vote yourself to a diplomatic victory; that rule was added sometime around one of the Warlords patches I think. The standard play is to keep yourself just below the limit of 60% while taking a vassal who will be forced to vote for you.

I'll go over the scoring details when I collect it for everyone in a few days.