Adventure Four - Uberfish report

[uberfish]

Executive Summary: Peaceful builder game in which I ended up massively outresearching the AI. Took one city from Qin after he declared war on me in the midgame. Launched in 1876.


Pre-game thoughts: I expect this to be an interesting challenge. Lack of alphabet doesn't just shut down early tech trading, it cuts off access to literature and its nice wonders, and drama and its cheap theatres and happiness control via culture (which is particularly unpleasant for a creative civ.) Music and military tradition are also unavailable, but really who cares about those in a Space Race game.

The major differences from a normal game will probably be that the AI doesn't tend to prioritise alphabet so I'll have to research a lot of the early economic techs singlehandedly. Also, without the culture slider available, I want to avoid midgame wars if possible as happiness control could be a serious problem.


4000 BC Thebes founded on site. Being Egypt with a pig on a hill, the obvious initial research is Animal Husbandry.
3960 BC Hut - 55 gold
3720 BC Hut - 21 gold
3520 BC AH done, research mining.
3320 BC Hut - hostiles. Lose my warrior.
3240 BC Mining done, research pottery.

I'm not going to do the early chop rush from this position, not with all these floodplains in my city radius. I don't really fancy running my capital as a GP farm without National Epic and Great Library, so the plan is to cottage up those floodplains, get an Academy ASAP and turn it into a mainly science city, keeping unworked forests in the city radius for health.

2920 BC Thebes hit size 3, begin first settler. Creative is going to be a big boon to city placement throughout the early game as it turns out.
2880 BC Pottery done, research writing. The computer has been slow founding the first two religions, so I think I will get the oracle easily if I want it. Doing writing now will give me a quick library to speed up research and get an academy in any case.
2720 BC Incas contact me with a scout from the unexplored south (hmm) Looks like they're southeast.
2600 BC Hut, 32 gold
2480 BC Contact with Qin from the north
2440 BC Writing done, start on mysticism.
2240 BC Mysticism done, start meditation.
1960 BC Meditation done, start priesthood.
1840 BC Priesthood done. I have a gut feeling that the computer will NOT complete Oracle before I have researched CoL, so I start CoL aiming ambitiously for a rather late CS slingshot. I may well miss out on the Oracle, but again since it's Monarch level and the computer isn't founding religions that fast, it's probably a 50/50 shot. I don't think I stand to lose much if I fail in this gambit anyway.
1560 BC Decline open borders with Incas until I get my area settled.
1240 BC My first great scientist founds an academy in Thebes.
1200 BC CoL done founding Confucianism in Memphis, sending my missionary to capital, research hunting
1120 BC Hunting done, research fishing, since the next city about to be founded will be coastal.
1080 BC Fishing done. Our next priority is iron working to clear the jungle, so start on bronze. We have war chariots produced in Thebes now, so aren't too worried about barbarian archers or axes.
1000 BC Oracle completed, taking CS and switching to Bureaucracy. Here's my early city placement. It was a tricky decision where to put Memphis but the spot I put it at had a nice set of resources and was in a good position to claim land with the creative bonus:



950 BC Bronze revealed near Thebes, and I switch to slavery. My expansion sites are food rich and slavery is going to be very helpful. Start on Iron Working.
900 BC Open borders with Qin, who has converted to Judaism, although he didn't found it.
825 BC Iron working done, start maths. There's still a whole lot of room to peacefully expand so getting currency and calendar to support that expansion is a priority.
675 BC Maths done. Start on currency
475 BC Action in the jungle. My chariots take a barbarian city. I have a shock promoted chariot on the southern front on axeman hunting duty.
400 BC Currency done. Start on masonry (1 turn) to try and sneak the great lighthouse.
375 BC Masonry done. Start on calendar.
350 BC We take Cherokee, the second barbarian city.
200 BC Calendar done. Onwards to Philo, this is partially a denial move against Qin or HC founding Taoism. Science has dropped to about 50%, chopping some trees and using slavery to work on city improvements.
75 BC Great lighthouse completed with a pop rush. Capture a third barbarian city which never got above size 1 and auto-razes.
25 BC Ivory to Qin for wine. Qin and HC still aren't anywhere near where I expected them to be and I still haven't found their home cities, but I have a couple of chariots looking.

I'm up to 6 cities at 1 AD, two of them captured barbarian cities. The one in the northeast is partially hidden by the screenshot box.



1 AD Take stock. Unusually for this stage of the game, there are still have several good city sites to peacefully expand to. The two AIs I have contact with don't have alphabet yet. Goals now are:

- increase GNP further to fund more expansion, coastal cities where possible, and claim all the resources before the AI settles the sites so I don't have to go to war.
- get some missionaries out there and convert our neighbours
- make contact with more AIs
- push hard to education and liberalism first and hopefully backfill the bottom line of the tech tree once the AI actually bothers to get alphabet (I hope trading with AIs is legal...)

125 AD Finally discover an Incan city, they're creeping along the south.
150 AD Philosophy completed, founding Taoism in Memphis - nice bonus. Research paper. I could make a detour to monotheism for Org Rel, but I don't really have the funds to run that civic yet. Switch to Pacifism for now so I can get a couple of prophets sooner to build shrines and put the priest in my capital back on a productive square, and start Hanging Gardens in my capital.
175 AD Contact with a Mongol scout, aha they own the Jewish holy city.
225 AD HC converts to Confucianism via automatic religion spread.
250 AD Rice to Kublai for Incense. Contact with Americans, they're Jewish too.
325 AD First great prophet completes, it'll build the Confucian shrine.
350 AD Paper complete, start on education.
450 AD Hanging gardens done. Not only does this help with the health problem, but the engineer points will be doubled for a while as I'm still running pacifism. The next GP will most likely pop as either a priest or engineer, and I can use both.
580 AD Christianity founded somewhere.
600 AD Trade world maps with Roosevelt, revealing our entire continent. It's an extremely weird shaped place, no wonder I had trouble finding the other civs.
640 AD Judaism spreads to my newest city, but I'm not going to bother spreading it.
720 AD Education discovered. Going for liberalism. A great engineer pops up - I'll save him for the Taj.
800 AD Banana to Roosevelt for Crab.
880 AD And finally techs appear in the trade window! Two AIs have discovered alphabet. Hopefully I'll be able to trade for most of the lower part of the tech tree so I can concentrate on the economic techs next. Getting them quickly will give me an unbreakable economic and tech lead.
900 AD Liberalism finishes, taking Nationalism, and I start on gunpowder to build muskets for defence if I need to due to border pressures with Qin. Muskets aren't something I normally build, but they're the best unit I can get to quickly. CoL and Paper to Kublai for metal casting, construction and polytheism.
960 AD Paper to Qin for Compass and Monotheism.
1000 AD Philo to Qin for Machinery and to Kublai for Monarchy and Horseback Riding.
1010 AD Rush Taj Mahal with my engineer after amusingly running him to one of my border cities then realising it wasn't an instant build so running him back to my capital. I finished gunpowder and start researching Optics (Qin won't trade.) The golden age will help me finish my universities.
1030 AD A great prophet spawns building the Taoist shrine, and I switch to Org Rel.
1040 AD Optics done. Start on printing press.
1060 AD Frederick initiates contact, I trade him CS and polytheism for feudalism and 40 gold.
1090 AD 140 gold tribute to Qin.
1100 AD Printing press done as my golden age ends, most civs aren't trading tech anymore. Working on guilds for health reasons, and it leads nicely into banking.
1110 AD Finish Oxford, putting my capital at 217 beakers per turn at 80% sci.
1120 AD Guilds finishes, research banking, this'll go nicely with my double shrine city.
1140 AD Contact with Asoka. Islam founded in Chengdu. Banking finishes, start research economics.
1190 AD Economics completes and I get my great merchant, start on constitution. Trade guilds and paper to Asoka for engineering, his world map and some cash, then trade paper to Fred for theology and 80 gold.

This round of trades ends with me in a commanding tech lead.

1200 AD I get the circumnavigation bonus. Qin asks for banking, but I refuse. Kublai switches to theocracy/vassalage, he'll probably declare war on Roosevelt soon as Roosevelt converted to Hinduism a while back.
1220 AD Egypt's creative bonus is swamping a city which Qin built near our borders a while back. Unfortunately, this is giving a -3 close borders diplomatic penalty. Bank in Memphis finishes, we're going to be rich. New city placement doesn't really get worse than this:



1240 AD Spain is demanding tribute too now, I ignore her threats since she isn't even on the same continent. Make a note to get chemistry soon for frigates to defend my fishing, but I'm going to push on from constitution to democracy.
1250 AD Second great scientist goes to make an academy in Heliopolis, and the great merchant from earlier arrives in Shanghai for 2100 gold.
1290 AD Democracy finishes. Revolution to Emancipation + Universal Suffrage, begin Corporation, buy some stuff, start statue of liberty in Thebes.
1320 AD Corporation finishes, obsoleting the great lighthouse but breaking even overall, and more importantly enabling Wall Street now that our requisite 6 banks have been rushed.
1360 AD Astronomy done. Gold to Fred for Fur. Cow to Asoka for Spices. Researching for Replacable Parts, I had better get rifling.
1380 AD Pig to Roosevelt for Deer.
1390 AD Qin's just gone to Theocracy/Vassalage, guess I'm probably his target.
1400 AD Finish Wall Street with an infusion of cash, and start building some lumbermills on the forests that got preserved for health reasons.
1420 AD 150 gold tribute to Kublai.
1430 AD Rifling completed, proceed to chemistry.
1440 AD Qin declares war and invades with a bunch of knights and other random medieval units, I switch to Nationhood and Theocracy and draft up a few riflemen and upgrade a couple of the muskets I built earlier.
1450 AD Kublai declares war - but it's against Roosevelt as predicted.
1470 AD Chemistry is finished, start research on Steel.
1480 AD Statue of Liberty completed.
1510 AD Steel finishes, start on Sci Method. Qin now has rifles too.
1525 AD Sci Method finishes. Start on Physics.
1540 AD With our unhappiness from drafting having worn off, switch out of nationhood and into free speech.
1550 AD Physics finished. Difficult choice here between:

- Communism for the Kremlin
- Biology for superfarms (I don't have many farms)
- Electricity and a straight shot up to computers
- Steam power and assembly line/railroad
- Artillery so I can trump anything Qin throws at me (I need it for rocketry anyway)

I don't normally get artillery early, so I try that out.

My free scientist from Physics will make another academy.

1560 AD Spawn a great prophet, he'll become a super specialist in Memphis where the Ironworks is currently building too.
1570 AD Artillery is researched. Qin has cavalry too now and is probing with them, but they just get killed by rifles continuing his trend of ineffective attacks. Back to the tech dilemma. I decide on Communism though it's off the spaceship path. Since my two shrines + wall street are generating a nice income, I might as well use some of it to monopolise the late game wonders and speed buildings in my commerce cities.
1590 AD I get Communism. Start steam power.
1605 AD Steam power, start assembly line, and an engineer spawns in Thebes, he rushes the Kremlin.
1615 AD Kublai demands I cancel deals with Germany, I don't want to. He becomes Annoyed, so I sell him liberalism for 580 gold to get the diplomatic bonus. I sell it to the Incas too for another 200 gold and use this money to rush various buildings. Also, the first wave of Artillery arrive and take Macau easily. This secures my Coal supply from any future Chinese actions.
1625 AD One turn from assembly line, I rushbuy all currently queued artillery.
1630 AD ... so I can start factories immediately and move to railroad. Also, I switch civics to free religion now that my cities are back on infrastructure builds. This clears my diplomatic penalties and allows some trades with Isabella. She's also the only one without nationalism at this point so I sell it to her for 200 gold.

Changed my mind about railroad after looking at trade screens, I might be able to trade it off the computer and save myself a few turns later. Switch to electricity.

Also, Qin has too many units now for to really want to play the attrition game on his turf and get into war weariness. I can stop the war now in a position where there won't be future border tensions and he'll never even be able to threaten my core in future, so I decide to. He pays me 320 gold for peace.

1650 AD start on radio.
1680 AD Start on computers. AI relations with each other are pretty bad now and they keep demanding I end trades or declare war, which I refuse because I have resource deals going with just about everyone. I rush the Pentagon for denial purposes and build up more military deterrent.
1705 AD Start on rocketry.
1710 AD Rush Broadway and renegotiate some deals and sell some hit musicals for GPT for the trade relations bonus. Frederick has railroad now but won't trade it yet. Sell some more old tech including steam power to other AIs.
1725 AD Rocketry done -> biology.
1730 AD Finish Eiffel Tower and start Apollo.
1740 AD Biology done -> industrialism.
1765 AD Industrialism done, revealing that we don't have any aluminium. Fast tracking to robotics for the Space Elevator looks like the best solution to this problem, so much for the plan of trading for railroad. I start research on it myself.

Nothing much happens while I research through railroad, combustion and plastics. Kublai has conquered most of America but apart from that the world stays at peace for the rest of the game. My position is totally won at this point, and all that remains is to wait for the research and spaceship parts to be built.

1808 AD Apollo completed and we're just starting robotics. Next tech line will be up to fusion.
1822 AD Who needs aluminium when you can just buy the Space Elevator outright (and complete fission, a great scientist saving us a turn on this.) With this done, Memphis will build the docking bay and engine quickly.
1824 AD Unwanted prophet -> super specialist. Should obviously have saved it for a golden age and shaved off 2-3 turns, but I was on autopilot.
1842 AD Fusion. Part-rush Three Gorges with the engineer, not sure why I did this either but since I'd already blown the prophet
1852 AD Satellites. (start thrusters, due in 10-11 turns)
1856 AD Refrigeration.
1862 AD Genetics. (capital and #2 production city starts stasis chamber, due in 7 turns.)
1868 AD Ecology. (Memphis starts life support, due in 4 turns.)
1876 AD Composites and Victory. Egypt starts researching Future Tech, surely an impressive feat for having no alphabet. Turns out that by carefully choosing my endgame research path, the lack of aluminium didn't actually slow me down at all. What slowed me down was having to research ALL post-Medieval techs myself because the AI couldn't keep up this game. The first AI only just completed Apollo as I launched.

Overall view of my 14 city empire, hope the city placements are clear enough:



And detail of my core which I'm running in a somewhat hybridized setup with towns + lumbermills. Yeah, I forgot to build cottages on the little 1 tile islands.




Techs skipped: Archery, Alphabet, Literature, Drama, Music, Military Tradition, Divine Right, Fascism, Flight, Medicine, Mass Media

Techs traded for: Metal Casting, Construction, Polytheism, Monotheism, Compass, Monarchy, Horseback Riding, Machinery, Feudalism, Engineering, Theology

[regoarrarr]

Nice game - looks like the fastest one so far. The Civil Service slingshot from the Oracle looks like the major cause - Liberalism in 900 AD!

[Kylearan]

Hi,

wow, a really early launch date not involving getting some AI cities! Well done. I think your super-early academy in Thebes helped a lot in that regard, as did the early Oxford University.

Would it be possible for you to post a screenshot of your empire? I'd be curious to see how much you managed to settle and where, for comparison purposes.

-Kylearan

[uberfish]

Thanks Taken the time to go through and added some screenshots now mainly highlighting city positioning.

[Sullla]

Early Academy, then using the Oracle to take Civil Service VERY early on. Wow! Power start for sure.

And getting the Great Lighthouse too was certainly strong. Your cities seem to be a bit lacking in tile improvements, but otherwise are impressive.

The research in the early game from that Bureaucracy/Academy combo is amazing. Liberalism in 900AD is just shocking! You got some nice trades as well from the AI civs. I am envious!

And a 1290AD Democracy... That's just frightening. I wonder whether Universal Suffrage was better than Representation, however. I don't know the specifics of your game, but Representation helped me out enormously in mine.

Any details on the Qin war? I read the declaration, but you didn't say anything else. Too bad he forced you out of your desired civics...

The only reason (and I mean the ONLY reason) that you didn't totally run away with this game at the end was that your civ remained small, AND you didn't go to Representation. You finished Apollo Program much sooner than I did, but lacked aluminum and so the parts took a lot longer to build. If you had had aluminum, you easily would have beaten my date. I know you say it didn't, but you could have taken a more optimal path for the spaceship techs otherwise. Not triggering a golden age at the end was also a tactical mistake, I must say.

Your beeline early on allowed you to trade for a lot of the early techs. You probably would have been closed out from later techs, but that turned out not to matter, because you had blown past the AI and left them all in the dust with nothing to trade for. The fact that SOMEHOW the AI was able to keep pace with me and give me a couple of the last few techs (Plastics and Fission) was the ONLY thing that saved me in our race. I WAS also researching faster at the end of the game, since I had a lot more cities. I probably had a little more production overall too. But your earlier lead was SO large, I'm kinda impressed I managed to catch you at all on the last turn.

A tied launch in 1876! Who says that every turn doesn't count! This will be very amusing if we end up having the fastest launch, especially since our games were totally different. Congratulations on an awesome finish.

[Sirian]

I wonder whether Universal Suffrage was better than Representation, however. I don't know the specifics of your game, but Representation helped me out enormously in mine.

If a grassland-happy location like this one isn't good enough to justify UniSuff over Representation, then nothing ever could and the balance is broken.

I don't think you're correct, though. Cashrushing can be mighty if well used, plus the extra shields, plus you can also run Free Speech. Representation without Mercantilism is weaker than with. You're only talking 3 beakers per turn from each specialist. You get two commerce per turn from each Town, and you can have five or ten of those at one city on a map like this. Now you can have a Town, or you can have a Biology farm plus a specialist, but you also need an extra health and happy and you have to grow an extra pop point.

The mandated space race may have hurt this balance slightly, since everything hinges on not blowing money. Cashrushed items have to bring in more net commerce than was spent on them, or they are a drain in such a race, while a normal game might behave differently, offering more chances to benefit from cashrushing.

Considering that you caught up to his lead, that does suggest you had a stronger late game, but that may due to a number of other factors, including your war and added territory. Give him the war and the same territory, and UniSuff in helping to conduct that war, and who knows. Interesting food for thought.

Still a day left on reporting, too.


- Sirian

[uberfish]

Who says that every turn doesn't count! This will be very amusing if we end up having the fastest launch, especially since our games were totally different. Congratulations on an awesome finish.

Thanks for the kind comments Sulla - I read your report and the speed you finished up after assimilating China was scary too.

My Qin war wasn't very interesting which is why I didn't comment on it much, he sent a stack of medieval units against my closest city which died to rifles, then he sent in pillaging knights which died to rifles, then some pillaging cavalry which died to rifles too. In hindsight I probably should have pushed on and taken a couple more of his cities, but with 15 or so units sitting in his nearest city I feared they + other reinforcements he could bring would take too long to grind down. If I had access to the culture slider or police state, I'd definitely have conquered all of China there.

I played the endgame very quickly not really focusing on the competitive aspect of the game and made a few sub-optimal plays, the most obvious being not having a golden age. However I stand by my claim that the lack of aluminium didn't really slow me down; I had enough cash even running 90% science to buy the Elevator, the limiting factor on spaceship completion was researching all the space techs, and the last two parts I build (Stasis and Life Support) aren't sped up by aluminium.

[uberfish]

I was running universal suffrage more for the hammer bonus than the rushbuying, actually. I had enough towns with my hybrid cities for that bonus to account a significant proportion of my production. With the free specialists from Statue of Liberty, Representation would have bumped my research about 10% if I'd taken advantage of Spiritual to switch in and out of it on occasion towards the end though. So there's another turn or two potentially saved.

[Justus_II]

Very impressive game, good to see the peaceful approach can be as effective as Sulla's move to take China. Your early tech pace (combined with the Oracle>Civil Service move) was indeed decisive, I thought I had an early run at Liberalism but you had my pace shattered. I also thought your mid-late game tech discussion was interesting, I am still overly focused on getting Railroads (ingrained from CivII days), yet you postponed that very late, but it doesn't appear that it hurt. With this map, you probably made more hammers from Universal Suffrage than I got from RR'ing the limited mines and lumbermills.

[Knupp715]

Great Game. Liberalism in 900 AD is amazing, along with your research rate. Congrats on such an early finish date. We'll see if you and Sullla's time can be beaten...