Adventure 34, Timmy's predictable path

[timmy827]

Short summary - took engineer for Pyramids, rushed Liz semi-competently, expanded into clear lead in all categories. Retired in 1200AD after taking most of Caesar's mainland with cannons + a few drafted rifles and had started hitting Izzy as well; no AI was close to any units on that tech level. Domination was assured but I just didn't feel like playing it out.
Also, as I noted in the game thread, I didn't realize right away that Epic speed was not intended, and played my game out on that speed.

Quick thoughts about the GP options (written before playing):

Settling options are pretty bland. Not that they wouldn't be good, but most of them would be like having a grassland gems or something added to the capital's fat cross - cool but not especially novel. Any tech bulb is also a bad idea; by the time to you get to techs expensive enough that you're not wasting most of the bulb, there are usually other ways to get the GP needed so that also wouldn't be new.

GG is right out, one unit can't do that much. An early medic III would be cool but you still need an army to support that.
GSpy - could be interesting, but I don't have enough experience with tech stealing. I assume that Archduke gave us a map with neighbors we'll meet early so we could use this (and the GG) but still, I don't like the small chance of isolated start here.
GM - Early trade mission for gold is more attractive than any tech bulb. It may be possible to do a mass warrior->axe upgrade a la Civ3's swordsman rush. But early rushes on Monarch are generally easy enough so this wouldn't open any seriously new options.
A GA would be cool if you could settle next to and flip an AI's capital very early, but the math doesn't work out. Assuming settling as close as possible, an insta-bomb will start dumping 20+ per turn in the city tile, but a capital will soon pop borders a 2nd time and be getting 40+/turn. If the leader is on a peninsula and you use your Imperialistness for a very quick 2nd city you could maybe seal them in completely; that would also be fun but I'm not taking a chance on the map being shaped that way.

This leaves the obvious choice - GE for early Pyramids. With all that food, the capital is gonna benefit hugely from the Rep happiness even before specialists come into play. Besides such a powerful wonder, it gives us another wonder of our chooising fairly soon through the GE points. I also rarely do a SE with Pyramids outside of OCC (Epic 19 is probably the closest, but I built a lot of cottages too) so for me the option is farily novel (although maybe not for some of the vets). I'm sure this will be a popular choice, but frankly I don't see any other option that could be anywhere close to as good.
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After playing, at the time I posted I only saw one other person had done the same. Guess it sort of worked like no one picking Rome in Gourmet Menu. Now for the game...

[timmy827]

It's tempting to build the pyramids ASAP for the GE points accumulation, but there are too many other techs needed for this start - mining, bronze, ag, fishing, and we start with none of them . I build a 2nd scout and a warrior before starting the worker; initial hut pops Archery. I eventually pop another scout, which helps me find a total of 250 gold, the locations of Liz, MM, and Izzy, and a near-complete map of the continent, which is rather...Edenic. 2nd city to the northeast claims wheat, fish, gold, cow, but an English city prevented use of the latter two resources for quite a while.

Beginning was kind of a drag. With Liz's proximity and copper at the capital, a rush was the clear choice. But with London on a hill and having walls the losses were brutal, lost 5 axemen taking out 2 archers and 1 axe (good news was that her iron was in London's 3rd ring and she would be without any strategic resources from then on) I paused and built some settlers to claim the marble island and block Augustus from moving off his peninsula. Around 550BC I take York, which is also on a hill with walls, and also costs me dearly (but I could finally get the gold and cow at my 2nd city). Due to the large need for axemen, I'd run no specialists so far - not the optimal use of free Pyramids! Fortunately Liz's last city was not on a hill and a few archers were easy enough to take out. After that I focused on peaceful expansion, heres the results at the AD crossover:

You can see TGL being built in the capital which of course became a great GP farm. Vienna and Nuremburg were the previously mentioned blocking cities. The former was sort of blah (rice plus grass cottages) but later was a strong city, grabbed marble and eventually it got the Moai Statues. Augsburg had several hill tiles and got the HE, a great general from my Liz wars settled there. I moved the capital to London eventually for Bureacracy as it had great cottage terrain; also its outlying forests were converted to the Uberleum. Angle and Ulm were typical lush jungle cities with multiple food for fast growth+tons of cottageable land, the two remaining barb cities in the picture were similar once I captured them.
Cottages? Yep. Someday I should do I a no-cottage game, but I didn't want to micro as much and couldn't turn that voice in the back of my head saying "always cottage flood plain areas". Also, I wasn't sure if I was going Dom or Space for a while; a farm-spam SE would have been better for the former.

I converted to Mansa's Islam early, but soon after the rush finished went to Izzy's Christiainity for obvious reasons. Augustus did the opposite, but stayed Cautious the whole time. Unfortunately he eventually went into "enough on our hands" and given the map shape I was definitely his target, but he never actually declared. I was worried for a bit until the HE city got up to speed and cranked enough axes for safety (nice that it was close to the border), so all it really cost me was a delay in capturing barb cities.

I have never gotten so many great engineers as I did in this game - 4 not counting the freebie. The first rushed Great Lighthouse in late BC years; not the most hammer-efficient use but I was still a ways from Aesthetics (and Great Library would be slightly cheaper with the marble) and few other good options on horizon. Since we are on the main continent it wasn't the game-breaker (only 4 coastal cities in above picture), but still helpful. I was suffering from worker shortage for all those new cities when I got the 2nd and was able to trade Mansa Music for Theology to rush Hagia Sophia, also a big help. The 3rd and 4th were as irritating as they were unlikely (I was running gobs of scientists and had something like 8% engineer odds, and wanted scientists to bulb Education, Lib, Chemistry, PP, and Astro; not getting all of those by bulb slowed me down a fair bit). I saved the 3rd for a 2-man GA while I hand-built the Taj, then got yet another :mad: Other GP's of note included one Merchant from the Lighthouse which went to Paris (Temple of Artemis + intercontinental was a lot of gold) and the free GA from Music which was used for golden age as usual.

My bulbing, trading with Mansa (this guy is by far the most game-changing AI on lower difficulties due to his willingness to trade with practically no restrictions), size, and free wonders shot me way ahead of any AI. I was able to do the trick of bulbing most of Liberalism (760AD) before getting Machinery, then bulbing PP and going further up the tree before cashing it (for Steel, 1080AD). Around that time the Taj completed for golden age #2 and things were out of hand - here are some pictures of the tech trading screen through the game (2nd is from retirement date of 1200AD):


I didn't include it, but I also had a pic of selling Monotheism for cash while researching Rifling
As I approached my tech goals for domination (Rifling, Mil Trad, Steel, Astro) I started building lots of workshops. I haven't ever used them much pre-state property before, but with that extra hammer from Caste they were sure powerful. With many large cities and not that much happy cap space, I didn't abuse drafted rifles that much, preferring to keep cities large enough to crank Cannon, Cavs, and eventually Settlers for gap-filling.

1st war started against Rome in 1100AD, and not surprisingly the Statue of Zeus caused me 10x more pain than their legions (if not for the recent patch toning down WW, I would have delayed the invasion until having a navy good enough to land at that city first, instead of going up the peninsula from Augsburg/Vienna.) Remembering my 1st epic Byzantine embarrassment of losing a stack of rifles to a lot of siege+medieval units, I sicced Izzy on Mansa at this time for some outdated techs, hoping to get them to burn any large stacks they had been hoarding. My own DOW against Spain came in 1180AD, taking one city right away and another attempt foiled only by insufficient non-cannon attackers. At this point I stopped as it was a foregone conclusion. Rome had crumbled and I was a few turns away from taking their last mainland city on the western tip. I had just finished the tech for cavs to speed up my land conquest and needed only Astronomy for an island hopping campaign against the Roman remnants and France to claim however much more than the starting continent was needed for domination.
Here's a map overview:



I was only at 26% of land, but the demographics confirmed that there was no chance of anyone slowing me down (can't see everyone's power, but Izzy is by far the largest AI):


Yes, those numbers are golden-age boosted (nearly five times the best AI production!), but I have GP's saved for a 3rd one to be started as soon as the this one expires, and by the time that golden age ended I imagine both Spain and Mali will be mostly crushed.

Thanks to Archduke. Too bad that I was a bit burned out to finish the game, but from the number of new members submitting its clear this was a good game idea.

[T-hawk]

This leaves the obvious choice - GE for early Pyramids. After playing, at the time I posted I only saw one other person had done the same. Guess it sort of worked like no one picking Rome in Gourmet Menu.

Nah, we just didn't get around to reporting yet. I did the GE-Pyramids power play too, and so did Fenton.

Another victim of Incomplete Game Syndrome.

A GA would be cool if you could settle next to and flip an AI's capital very early, but the math doesn't work out. Assuming settling as close as possible, an insta-bomb will start dumping 20+ per turn in the city tile, but a capital will soon pop borders a 2nd time and be getting 40+/turn.

This is an interesting discussion; I'm about to follow up in TheArchduke's thread.