Not the most interesting of these many, many games:

My setup:



That's horses, iron, and copper hidden.

Horses, iron: Complete waste. Should have done more golds. I felt that the food/gold spread was fine. Lots of wars, everyone but Izzy. 1846 victory, I think 2 points? Hannibal teched like mad, and I gave Izzy too many techs to (hopefully) have her pop some for me via the Internet. Hannibal himself was only like 5 techs behind me anyway. The victory time wasn't that bad, but the AIs never teched slowly.

Also, don't think I got that much out of building TGW: the barbs disappear so fast anyway.

Apologize for the lame report, but there really wasn't that much that hasn't been covered in the others.

Nothing like some last minute holiday browsing.

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/adv48/

I'm thrilled to see the response to this scenario, 21 games posted so far! So how can we capture this lightning in a bottle for more events? I'm guessing it had something to do with taking just a few hours to play, and with the multiplayer games slowing down over Christmas... any other thoughts?

Teaser shot, report coming later. I'm not exactly sure how big my lead was at the end, but I think it's around 36 techs. Finish in 1852.



The AIs... didn't do so well this game. Charlemagne killed Hannibal, not me!

Only time for a brief report. I may fill in more later when I have time. (Anyone who "followed" my PBEM3 may commence groaning, eye-rolling, and tomato-tossing).

Layout:


This is for clarity. I put forests on all but the nearest wheat/corn/gold, so the first worker would have something to do before BronzeWorking finishes

Reasoning:
Obviously we want all 4 stone/marble/copper/iron, and after hemming/hawing I figured that would be plenty of "hard" production. In terms of tile yield I'd rather the marble under the city than stone, but need stone sooner for wonders, and quarries take long time to build so put stone on the start tile. Food is king, so every land tile stays grass. In the long run corn is better than gold for research but early game gold is great, I unscientifically guessed that 5 was a good number of early commerce tiles.

A couple coastal tiles seemed like a fine trade, allows overseas trade routes, Harbor and Customs house further boosting. (Harbor health useful too.)

Extra rivers are not for more watermills, but just to make sure resources can be hooked up without Wheel/roads.

Globe + NP solve all your cap problems but not for a while, so it would be good to have some "alternate" resources to raise those caps instead of strictly the best tile yields. (This was part of the reason for water in the first place also).

The lake fish vs. river corn/wheat is interesting tradeoff. The first is 7 food once lighthoused vs. 6 for farmed corn, and an extra commerce (and another with Colossus), the corn eventually ties in food (Biology), wins in hammers (Levee). And of course the fish requires a work boat, and can't have a forest chop either. Seemed interesting enough to try some.

My edits had an unfortuante side effect with levees:

Sponsor's decision on whether to dock me. Obviously its an advantage and "unnatural", though less than floodplains on grass corn...certainly didn't intend it, and here's a screenshot from an early save showing that as far as I could tell, no way to know I screwed that up until building the levee.

Believe I just made those two tiles coast and did not touch those rivers, curious if anyone else wanting sea access had the same problem.



Score: (1735AD finish)

Have everything else to the left.

Darn, Hannibal got Arty just that turn.
By my count I have the following monopolies:
Electricity
Radio
Refrigeration
Mass Media
Superconductors
Computers
Industrialism
Plastics
Satellites
Composites
Ecology
Fission
Fusion
Fiber Optics
Adv. Flight
Genetics
+16

Play direction:
Two workers out of the gate, followed by WBs and starting Pyramids. (mining->BW->masonry). Despite the fast growth, two was plenty for the development stage.

Wanted to hog the water wonders so spend a lot of chops on TGL (weird but wanted something different. Sadly I missed out on Temple Of Artemis, that may have been useful for once), and went Metal Casting before Aesthetics (forge was +3 happy which was nice, but perhaps straight Globe beeline made most sense). Globe came before Great Library/National Epic. With the gold/silver/gems goosing research I delayed Caste quite a bit, actually whipped a lot of wonders (not too bad when you have resource + forge + OR + Bureacracy). After the first half it was a lot more routine for OCC - sling Lib>Biology for National Park, beeline to Superconductors, standard space tech order.

Charlemagned declared once but he was most backwards of AIs. If he landed all 8 galleons at once he could have killed me, but he didn't, allowing some quickly built Modern Armors and one Destroyer (upgraded from my exploring caravel) to deal with it easily. Towards the end I was trading my Oil for Mining resources with Sury, but got nervous, and when I couldn't cancel the deal actually DOW'd him to get it back (right after he launched a cross continental invasion against Charlie). He had more Cavs than I expected, but still had time to build/draft (this was after launch) and withstand that without much trouble.

Decided not to start any other wars myself, but as my continent was more advanced I did some bribing among Izzy/Shaka/Sury. Obviously that paid off in the end with Hannibal becoming most advanced, but could never bribe his neighbors to fight him. All religions save Hindu were founded on my continent so that limited warring opporunities.

Key mistakes:
Not knowing how this was going to go, my tech plans were thrown off. I was assuming I'd get more in trades and realized that I would not want to trade as much until I knew who the laggards were, but did not realize just how far ahead of the AIs I would get. Should have self-researched Alphabet instead of stubbornly waiting for one of them to get it.

Some silly forgetfullness - not getting Animal Husbandry for a long time (see above about expecting trades - no one got Alphabet! should have researched that myself), then forgettign to actually go pasture the damned pigs. In a later golden age, forgot until turn 9 of 12 to adopt free market; another 10 commerce traderoute . Holding off on Astro to milk the colossus, then realzing the observatory made up about 10 times as much as I lost from 6 water tile commerce.

Not founding Mining sooner. I got a great engineer near railroad, but I initially thought mining would be only 5 hammers, while settling is 3, plus 6 beakers, plus I feared corporate costs might make me run <100% science sometimes. Forgot that I could trade happy/health/coal/uranium for more resources; corrected this error with the Fusion GE. But in the end costs were manageable even without a Courthouse (never built one earlier because I hate Spies, and didn't have time at the end).

_______________________
Very cool idea though to be honest I'm not sure the scoring mechanism was the best - even more so than usual you are quite reliant on the vagaries of AI behavior in the competition. Great to see 20 reports as I sneak in under the wire at 11:45 PM PST on 1/10.

Perhaps a 2nd challenge with this setup would be a straight fastest win OCC space race with Always Peace/No Tech Trading, to evaluate in the most "pure" fashion possible the terrain choices

Unfortunately I forgot to take a good picture of my resource setup, so this one will have to do:

(the empty squares have copper and iron on them, the forests have ivory and deer).

My overall strategy was to try and balance high end-game potential with a fast start. I wanted lots of food to run mass scientists with representation to generate science. But, I also needed health and happiness to grow early on, until I could build the globe theater/national park (that's why I have two forests, with ivory and deer in them). And I wanted to have enough production to build lots of wonders- not so much because I wanted them for myself, but to try and slow down the AIs. That's why I used half plains, half grassland. I think I did pretty well, but I could have done better with some tweaks. I finished in 1854 AD with a score of 14. I could have gotten an earlier finish, but since I wanted to be ahead of the AIs as much as possible, I avoided trading with them almost completely.

I focused on food/scientists for research, reasoning that a 6 food farm could feed 2 rep scientists who produce 12 beakers (plus their gpp) which would be more than a town or gold mine. However, from reading other reports I think gold mines are better, because of their faster start and lower population requirements. Another advantage of gold is that beauracracy boosts gold commerce, but not scientist research, so the gold becomes a 12 commerce tile. Also I should have included more forests- I left the land clear, because I wanted to develop it ASAP. But more forests would have helped. I still like the deer forest- it's only 5 food 1 hammer, but also an extra 1.5 health, which as like 1.5 extra food in this case.

Workboat first (thanks to 3hammer city tile and 4 hammer plains hill forest ivory tile, I get 7 hammers/turn and finish it in 5 turns) then worker second. Early Stonehenge and great wall with stone, then oracle with ivory (oracle metal working). Then great lighthouse, temples of artemis, and pyramids. Beeline to drama, build globe theater, then backtrack for great library, national epic, and actually all the other early wonders lol.

(372 BPT in 150 BC lol)

Got optics fairly early to scout the other continent. Next research goal was biology, for farms and national park. At some point surya and Shaka declared war on me, but I crushed them both with muskets. They did slow me down a bit by pillaging, but they also gave me some great generals. Finished the national park in 1020 AD, which helped grow my population a lot. I was still only at pop 36 by then, which is a lot by normal standars, but not good enough for this. My population at the very end of the game was 46.


Early on it was clear that Hannibal would be the most advanced AI. I tried to slow him down with privateers and spies, but that didn’t do much. Still, I managed to kill lots of caravels. He stole the taj mahal from me. By the end, I killed 137 caravels lol, plus 2 Ships of the Line, 2 frigates, 1 ironclad.

I managed to get every tech except advanced flight and stealth when the spaceship landed, lacking nothing (thanks to the internet). I feel like I did a good job of balancing research and production- I don't think that trading off food for production or vice versa would have helped much. I also doubt that nukes would have helped me, but maybe- Hannibal was about 5 techs ahead of every other AI, so I just needed to slow him down more. What would have helped a lot more would have been to send over a stack of rifles to pillage hannibal into oblivion. I also could have gotten a better start by using Lake fish, and more gold instead of farms.

So I guess we can get the important part out of the way first, here's what I did with the start:


My worldbuildering (can I make that a one-word verb around here?) skills aren't great, those two lake fish look terrible!

I figured the happy cap would go away pretty quickly with Globe Theater an early-ish build. To get there with a happy cap of better than 5 (and for trading later) I made two of the tiles that would've been gold gems and silver.

Health would be a concern for much longer (until we built the national park, another of the essential national wonders. Along with Ironworks, National Epic, and Oxford imo). With that in mind I threw in that crab and rice, even though they'd have better tile yields as corn/wheat or more fish.

I made the starting tile stone as opposed to marble as my first wonder build was pyramids for representation, which I imagine most people were in all game for the +3 beakers for all specialists, as well as the extra happy until drama.

First builds were two workboats for those juicy lake fish.
Tech path was Mining, BW, Mysticism, Masonry, Polytheism, Sailing, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Math, Priesthood, Code of Laws.

And that's as long as I kept track because it highlights that with some commerce in you're capital and no settlers to worry about, you can go for a Oracle into Civil Service even on immortal. Turn 72 for that, and I was definitely worried about it falling before then.

Ran two scientists as soon as the library was up and got a crucial academy at turn 81. After that I basically let the Great People come out as whatever they wished (well, of course, I didn't work spies or artists.... that might go without saying in an OCC going for a spaceship win.)

Here's the city just as I complete Globe Theater:


I got lulled into a false sense of security around this time (turn 90 to be exact) as the whole starting continent was Buddhist (thanks to Izzy of course) and Sury even declared on Spain! I figured as long as I could keep Shaka happy I'd tech along merrily. I even paid Shaka to fight with Sury as soon as there was peace so that no one would notice I still had about 3 dog soldiers as the basis of my military.

Perhaps a serious mistake - Mausoleum being built in a distant land reminded me perhaps calendar wasn't pointless, extra long golden ages would've been nice with all these Great People I hoped to spawn.

Still teching along and I take scientific method with the liberalism free tech, which actually cuts my beakers per turn by about 18%... you'd think discovering how to test things would increase your research! At this point I was feeling good about my game: peace with my neighbors, building the right buildings and national wonders, thinking about the tech order for the most efficient building of the space ship. Coming up on turn 175 and I've railroaded my lands and built the national park (being sure to road first as national park would cut off that coal access I think). Those railroaded grassland gold mines with an extra river commerce and hammer (levee) were looking awesome.

Then my game came off the rails a bit.

First Sury declares on me (although we were friends, had to have been my abysmal power rating, which must happen a lot in OCCs). He can't take my city but I have to build units to try and clear his out so he'll accept peace. I don't want to pay him techs for peace obviously. Finally get him out and fix the pillaged gold after about 20 turns.

About this point in the game I start using great people for golden ages, except one engineer who built mining inc.

Fast forward to turn 260. Now Sury and Izzy declare on me. Once again they won't take the city but I have most defensive units and have to start using production to build something to clear out my lands. 15 more turns of building units instead of teching along. Can't these people just let me have my one city!!

Here's my city at turn 275 after building a bunch of mech. infantry and modern armor to convince those two to give me peace:



Only 15 turns of peace and then Izzy and Shaka come calling! They've even got planes now and I've got none of my own. At this point I sort of ignore them mostly. Kill them if they interfere with me working tiles but I mostly just huddle in my city and keep building spaceship parts. I launch with 1 engine in 1892 AD still at war with two opponents. Now I have a few turns to wreak some havoc while my spaceship flies.

Burn a couple cities as retribution (and it felt soooo good) but Cyrus and Sury both had good tech rates which it was far too late to do anything about.



So I win in 1892 with a bunch of tanks still in my land and my city pillaged back to size 31 (it was sitting pretty at 36 until the fish were gone.)

The sad final tech screen:



I'm not great at reading this but I think I'm up Superconductors, Genetics, Fiber Optics, and Fusion on everybody.

Cryus even has stealth so that one -1 modifier.

Final Score: +3

I didn't come out with a great score but I did have fun trying to think up what land would be best before the game even started, enjoyed that I knocked this game out in about 3 hours total, and if pressed would say it was nice to play a game where the AI opponents were still putting up a real fight late into the game. All in all a pleasurable experience, thanks T-Hawk!

ETA: My factory was sabotaged (or whatever the word I'm looking for that is 'destroyed by spies') a very annoying 7 times! Had to waste at least 7 turns rebuilding it.)

As you can probably tell in the Adventure 48 opening thread, I put a Forest in my Capital tile after settling. Put in Ivory too (turned out to be an almost total waste) for 4 hammer.
Resources around my capital were Copper, Iron, Marble, Stone, and an even amount of Corn + Wheat. All forested except 3 cereal tiles. No other food resources - Rice stinks, and the others don't contribute as Corp resources.
No Coastal tiles placed, and I dumped rivers all over the fat cross just for fun.
Jumped right into the game without testing beyond the first 50 turns or so (on a different map).

Bronze Working beelined, followed immediately by Masonry. The plan was to chop out Pyramids, which is critically important - Planned to go Specialist economy (Republic-Bureaucracy-Caste-Merc-Pacifism) to power my research, hence my city name 'University Base'.

Managed to secure Pyramids - swapped to Republic (along with OR I think?) immediately. Built Stonehenge, Oracle too, just because I could. Took Temple of Artemis, Great Wall, Parthenon, Great Library, MoM, HG.
Grabbed Mathematics with Oracle - In that test game I tried I couldn't grab Civil Service in time, so I played it safe here. Civil Service was teched next.
Built Globe Theatre, which was the key national wonder in the game.

I'm pretty sure i'd have not gotten most of these wonders if I hadn't chopped like crazy.
IIRC I got an early Scientist who founded an Academy immediately.

Now Shaka moved a stack up to my borders while I had only Warriors and some Dog Soldiers (I think) defense :shock: Well time for Macemen upgrades!
And alternated 1t builds (Macemen alternating with Cats I think).
Managed to repel their stack just after they bombarded University Base to 0%. I kind of regret dumping rivers for fun; it meant I could not counterattack without the amphibious penalty. After that stack broke, I started spamming Macemen, Crossbowmen, Cats, (and around 2 Pikemen and a lone Elephant) thanks to HE, hence failing to grab wonders after that - they were mostly built by Sury and the gang overseas.

Somewhere along the line, Sury declared on Isabella (who I was aligned to by Buddhism) and asked me to do the same. Didn't have much choice there - Isabella was doomed anyway - silly girl tried to grab one too many religions, IIRC.
Well, I was slowly razing Shaka's cities, and when his capital went down (along with Colossus and Great Lighthouse, I think?), I realised he had offshore cities. Damn it!
Around this time it was posted that my Forest tile in the capital was illegal. Bummer. Deleted it via WB to minimise damage, although most of the damage was already done - 1 hammer isn't much this late in the game, but is a ton in the early game.

Somewhere along the line I grabbed Taj (for denial), and got Liberalism first as well and chose Rifling as the free tech.


Upgraded my junk to Rifles, and cleaned up his cities on the mainland while Sury filled 'em up. As my Rifles were shuffling back to my territory, Sury declared war on me! Darn it, I was hoping to grab Assembly Line before attacking.


I had visibility on most of his cities, and so moved up my Rifles next to a former Spanish city crushed by my culture. I massively screwed up here - the visibility caused me to be overconfident, and I lost nearly all my troops when suicide cats from the darkness hit them.

Retreated, and quickly spammed Infantry (Assembly Line just came in). Managed to repel Sury's ugly stack as he spent turns bombarding UB's defenses. After that, went on an offensive. Burned down his cities (along with Chichen Itza which he built), when suddenly the folks overseas (Hannibal, Cyrus, Charlemagne) come knocking.
Especially Charlemagne - he DoWed me and landed a ton of medieval junk next to UB. Thankfully I was building Marines in there, and managed to hold out until my Infantry returned home.


After that he'd try another feeble Amphibious landing (EDIT: Just after I eliminated Sury), and never invaded again, though I kept burning his colonies on the continent.
Hannibal popped up capturing the barb cities around. He had a TON of troops (Cavalry), and I just didn't have the production capability to fight that. He proceeded to colonise the entire continent (except the south, which was Cyrus' territory). My Tanks pillaged most of the Towns around the place (except the first few colonies that Hannibal established. Damn.).

Now the problem I had was that:
1) I didn't have a clear tech path for scoring
2) The other Continent was a Christian lovefest.
3) Non-coastal = no sabotaging the Christian Brotherhood.

Hannibal went crazy with tech suddenly (his cottages must've fully matured on the other continent). I grabbed Space Elevator and Internet to prevent him from getting those, and I quickly built the spaceship parts.

In the end I launched with only 3 thrusters, taking 16 turns to reach. I'd win as long as Hannibal doesn't decide to come knocking - he became Annoyed with me.

Now, 1 turn before my spaceship arrives, Hannibal completed Fusion, cleaning out the whole tech tree. DAMN IT!



University Base, at the end.

Needed 8.8k gpp for next GP.

So, for scoring:

0: Tech Lead over AI
0: Techs lacked possessed AI (Thanks, Internet!)
-5: Bloody forest in Capital for when it mattered early in the game
Total:
-5.

I really regret not clarifing whether I could place forests in the City tile before jumping right in, or at least waiting a few days before attempting the game, because that cost me 5 pts.
Also, I think not building Ironworks hurt my spaceship race - I built HE (to save my sorry behind vs Shaka), NE (specialist economy), Globe (obviously), Oxford (necessary to keep up in tech), NP (more specialists).
Then there's Cereal Mills. I think it was a bad decision to go for it. It only gave +12 food, and I could've had an assortment of health in the early game if i went for other health resources instead. AND it cost a ton to maintain.
Oh well. I guess i'm in the running for the worst score this time.

Many thanks to T-hawk for sponsoring this game, which was tremendous fun to play. I had never played a solo OOC before (I have done a couple in succession games), and I plan to try a few more -- without the wishlist and most certainly not at immortal.

My thoughts after reading the scenario were focused on how to get all the things a civilization needs from one city. I wanted:

- Plenty of food to grow large, but also concentrated food so I could grow rapidly early while working only a few tiles
- Plenty of hammers, since my capital would have to produce everything itself including wonders (and later SS parts)
- Lots of commerce, to get and keep a tech edge so I could survive and also to beat immortal AIs into space
- Early happiness, so I could grow my city large early
- Health resources, so I could grow my city large
- Strategic resources, for military strength and wonder building

It seemed obvious that non-resource tiles like floodplains could not compete -- a grassland with a food resource could give everything they did, plus greater food with a farm and no unhealthiness. Among possible resources, I wanted those with early doubler buildings for both happiness and health: precious metals, grains, seafood, and market resources.

Here is what I came up with (the tiles NW and 2N1W of the city have horses and iron):



Everything but the corn and wheat are forested for chop hammers (forests would be kept on deer, ivory, and furs obviously). I have 9 early health (15 with granary and harbor) plus 5 early happiness (10 with forge and market) to allow me to rapidly grow to significant size. My fish are in a lake for even more food. I have stone, marble, and horses. And of course multiple golds as my primary commerce tiles.

I was somewhat concerned about not having copper, but with the dog soldiers the only real risk was a very early chariot rush before I got IW and could build a spear or two. If necessary protective archers could be built to handle early chariots. This allowed one more gold tile for additional commerce.

I got started, and met all three of the local continent's AIs by T10. Isabella had already founded Buddhism on T9, and Hinduism followed quickly on T17 to someone on the other continent (eventually revealed to be Hannibal). Judaism took a while, but was founded by Shaka on T50. I founded CoL 4 turns later and sent the missionary to convert Sury to set up some serious religious hatred on the continent. My primary goal of keeping the AIs fighting one another rather than me was not completely successful, but overall it was effective. Isabella, Sury, and Shaka would all declare on each other multiple times.

I went for the Oracle and took CS in 1600 BC -- an obvious move, but not knowing how quickly the other continent was teching I did not want to press my luck further. The Stonehenge/Oracle combo did give me grief by spawning my first three GP as prophets, even with 2 library scientists running. I settled them all, and never worried about gold again -- my slider would remain at 100% until the end of the game. The 4th GP finally was a GS for my academy; all other GP would be settled until much later; I would eventually use 1 and 2 GP golden ages, burning 2 artists and a scientist for them.

Shaka decided to declare on me in 150 AD with some HAs, chariots, and cats. I had macemen and had just produced my first two knights, so he was easily crushed. I sent a small force and burned down one Zulu city, and Shaka agreed to peace. He would declare again in 1842 AD, sending about 20 rifles, half a dozen cav, and some trebs. I smashed him with artillery, cavs, and infantry and annihilated his entire stack in one turn. He would agree to peace shortly afterwards.

That was all the fighting I did, other than about 3 barb units early on. I kept to my teching and wonder building (16 world wonders, plus the Internet) and stayed out of the numerous AI wars. I made no attempts to incite fighting or trigger wars, other than converting Sury to Confucianism early on. Having no state religion helped greatly, but I slowly accumulated negative diplo from refusals and conditions were very tense in the late game. For a long while I was respectable in total power, as I built quite a number of units and kept them upgraded with all the gold my many settled great people produced. But by the very late game I was quite weak compared to the AIs, and was very worried about a possible declaration by Hannibal who had built the Manhattan Project. All of the other AIs had dog-piled Isabella and wiped out the Spanish, and I knew additional wars were going to break out.

Fortunately Hannibal decided to go after Sury, who was the #2 power. Multiple tac nukes took out much of the Khmer core in a single turn. I was very pleased to not be Hannibal's target. I might have been able to hold out -- my space ship had launched the previous turn, and I had built SDI, bunker, and bomb shelter in Cahokia -- but with multiple nukes Hannibal probably could have taken me out before it reached Alpha Centauri.

Space victory in 1892 AD (T316). Hannibal and Sury had completed their Apollo Programs and the SS Docking Bay, but no other parts.

I had completed the tech tree, and there were seven techs not known to any AI: Ecology, Fusion, Fiber Optics, Superconductors, Genetics, Composites, and Advanced Flight. So 7 points total scenario score.

At the end of the game, my capital had exactly 100 base hammers. I managed 1 turn with max overflow, and with forge/factory/power/IW/Bureaucracy/resource doubler/lab on an SS part got a ridiculous 1000 hammers in one turn. I was generating 1479 beakers per turn at 100% research, with cash flow at +27 gold per turn. (Lots and lots of unit maintenance.)

Settled great people:

4 prophets
3 artists
10 scientists
4 merchants
2 engineers
2 generals (as instructors)
1 spy

All the Rep beakers were critical, and the food and hammers did not hurt. But the cash was probably the most interesting aspect -- I can not recall another game where I literally never had to worry about cash or drop the science slider. It felt...weird.

My national wonders were Oxford (of course), National Epic (of course), and Iron Works. I would eventually build the Globe Theater with about 25 turns left in the game when Emancipation unhappiness really kicked in, and Heroic Epic after the SS launched (mostly so I could pump out some 1-turn ICBMs for emergency defense/deterrent). I could have built Wall Street any time in the later game, but never actually needed it to remain cash flow positive.

A look at Cahokia at the end:



One mistake in this game is amusing in retrospect, but I was very unhappy when it happened: I lost Liberalism to Isabella! I was stretching to get a really juicy tech from it, and saw she had finished Education. I needed one more turn to take Industrialism from it, but she bulbed the tech. Could have improved my finish date by several turns if I had not made that little blunder.

In any case, this was a tremendously fun game. Thanks again to T-hawk!

In the original adventure thread I joked about 20 grassland fish being the best setup. As it turns out grassland fish don't work because you can't get fishing boats on land... but lake fish do:



Now I could squeeze more fish in, and I suspect there will be people running max-food setups like 18 corn, but such a setup will not only have trouble converting food to hammers in the endgame but hit extremely serious diminishing returns on GPP (it's hardly worth generating them past #20.) Another tempting setup would be to max out on Bureaucratic gold mines and rely primarily on wonder GPP. However, because of my name and that post I feel compelled to use a more fishy strategy.

Note I do have one clam/crab and one silver/gems sacrificing a bit of late game output in return for raising the health and happiness caps in the early game and getting wonders done faster. Also stone on the starting hill for 3 hammer output and wonder acceleration.

Now, for national wonders it's completely impossible to do without: Oxford, Ironworks, Globe Theatre, National Park. Most players will build national epic in OCC, I often avoid it because of its great artist pollution as great artists are by far the worst GP type to get saddled with and taking the GP multiplier from +200% to +300% just hits diminishing returns very quickly. Instead I'm going with Moai Statues as my 5th for obvious reasons. This will give me 7-1-2 Lake Fish, the best food tiles possible in the game. Why are we not playing Elizabeth for 7-1-3 Protective is a useless trait, and the Native American UU and UB are equally worthless.

For world wonders I mainly want GE and GS point contributors because these are the best GP types. I don't want to rush Oracle because the prophet points could interfere with getting an Academy up. 1-2 prophets/merchants would be ok since I have to pay for military upkeep under Pacifism, but any more would just be generating too much useless gold.

t0: Work gold hill (0/3/1)
t5: Fishing boat, work lake fish (6/0/2)
t6: Contact from Isabella
t8: Mining, contact from Suryavarman
t10: Isabella founds and converts to Buddhism
t12: Fishing boat
t15: Contact from Shaka
t18: Fishing boat
t19: Bronzeworking
t22: Worker
t25: Worker
t26: Masonry
t30: Mysticism
t35: Polytheism
t37: Priesthood
t41: Pyramids (2360BC)
t42: Writing, Dog Soldier for anti-barbarian duty, Revolt Representation
t46: Sailing, Library
t50: Lighthouse, Judaism FIADL
t51: #1 GP engineer
t52: Fishing boat
t53: Aesthetics
t54: Fishing boat
t55: Fishing boat
t56: Literature, fishing boat
t61: Drama
t65: Code of Laws (found Confucianism)
t66: Meditation
t68: Great Library (1320 BC)
t70: Mathematics, Theatre
t71: #2 GP, Academy
t77: Civil Service
t80: Globe Theatre
t81: Fishing boat
t82: Philosophy (found Taoism), Fishing boat, Revolt Bureaucracy/Pacifism. Pacifism isn't doing anything for now
t84: Fishing boat (10/10)
t85: Music, free artist, #3 GP artist so I get to settle two of them this turn
t88: Alphabet, Moai Statues, Trade for The Wheel
t89: Isabella: Trade CoL, Aesthetics, Mathematics for Monarchy, Pottery, Iron, Monotheism
t90: Aqueduct
t91: Paper, Granary. Surya converted to Judaism and declared war on Isabella. I'm stuck in no state religion at the moment as the other two neighbours are Buddhist
t94: Oracle -> Nationalism (550 BC... seriously. I had education 1/3 of the way done because I really wasn't expecting to get this wonder at this point in time... so I took nationalism, the other 3k beaker tech available)
t97: The Hanging Gardens (475 BC)
t98: Revolt to Judaism, I really need the pacifism bonus and Surya appears to be winning the war. Isabella is annoyed, Shaka doesn't really care.
t100: Education
t101: #4 GP Scientist
t103: Metal Casting, University
t104: Currency
t105: Compass
t106: Oxford (research = 630bpt)
t107: Machinery
t108: Forge
t109: Optics, University of Sankore, #5 GP Engineer
t110: Calendar, Caravel
t111: Harbour
t112: Monastery
t113: Monastery
t114: Astronomy, Monastery
t115: Feudalism, Observatory, #6 GP Engineer
t116: Jewish Temple
t117: Guilds, Market, Shaka declares war vs Surya
t118: Banking, Meet Cyrus and Charlemagne, Trade for Cyrus' map and construction, trade for Cyrus' rice and open borders. All the other continent is Hindu and Cyrus is the clear leader. Surya is getting the upper hand on Isabella.
t119: Grocer
t120: Economics, free Merchant saved, revolt Caste System/Free Market, meet Hannibal and open borders
t122: #7 GP Engineer
t123: Gunpowder, Customs House
t124: Synagogue
t126: Constitution, Bank
t127: Jail
t128: Corporation, Barracks
t129: #8 GP scientist, Courthouse, Zulus are making progress against Khmer, capturing a city
t130: Printing Press, Musket - Bribe Zulus to convert to Judaism and give us 50 gold with Drama, sold it to Isabella and Shaka for more gold too
t131: Engineering, Musket
t132: Spy (defensive duty only)
t133: Musket
t134: Chemistry, Musket (4 total, plus 1 dog and 1 warrior that can be upgraded)
t135: Privateer
t136: Scientific Method (research drops from 1040 to 913), Privateer, #9 GP Engineer
t137: Privateer (these are going to the other continent to harrass Cyrus and Hannibal)
t138: Privateer, Circumnavigation
t139: Privateer
t140: Privateer
t141: Biology, Privateer (7 total). 3 privateers are on Cyrus, 1 on Hannibal, and 3 on Shaka since he's winning the wars on my continent so I might as well slow him down
t143: Liberalism -> Medicine, National Park, Sid's Sushi, train some Executives - 5 or so. Sent these to Khmer/Zulu to offset my corporation costs
t145: #10 GP scientist
t146: Steel
t147: Physics, free scientist
t153: Ironworks
t154: #11 gp scientist, Drydock, Peace breaks out on my continent
t155: Rep Parts, start building Research when there's nothing better to do
t158: Steam Power
t159: Levee
t162: Isabella declares war... her invasion stack is a few longbow/cat/axes


Needless to say this isn't going to accomplish anything, I'll even fight outside the city to stop pillaging and easily beat this attack off

t163: Assembly Line, #12 GP scientist
t164: Lose one musket at 88% odds, kill 3 units
t165: Factory, Surya declares on Isabella
t166: Coal Plant, Great General (military instructor)
t167: Musket
t168: Railroad, Isabella pays 60g for peace, lose one privateer
t170: Rifling
t172: #13 GP scientist
t174: Electricity
t178: Combustion
t179: Second privateer sunk by Cyrus
t182: #14 GP scientist
t183: Industrialism
t184: Industrial Park
t189: Radio, Cyrus clears out the last of the privateers finally
t192: Artillery, #15 GP engineer
t197: Rocketry
t200: Apollo Program
t203: Plastics, #16 GP scientist
t209: Computers. Zulus clear out their privateers.
t214: Superconductor
t215: Laboratory, switch 8 scientist specialists to engineers and start building thrusters, #17 GP scientist
t220: Satellites
t227: Robotics, Hannibal declares war, #18 GP scientist



Ok, this appears to be a slightly more serious threat than the last invasion but:

t228: Missile Cruiser, upgrade defenders to 6x Mech Inf, put the Cruiser on Sea Patrol
t229: Kill invading units with Mechs, let the 8 or so frigates suicide themselves trying to pillage vs the 40 strength cruiser...
t230: Same as t229, the total losses here were 1 pillaged gem mine and a couple of turns of overseas trade routes
t233: Space Elevator, another Hannibal frigate suicides
t234: Composites, Thrusters 5/5
t238: Paid Hannibal some small amount of gold for peace, unfortunately I can't get my open borders back for trade routes since I'm his worst enemy now
t240: #19 GP engineer
t241: Fibre Optics. Library sabotaged by AI spies
t242: Library rebuilt
t245: Casing 5/5
t246: Fission
t247: Cockpit 1/1
t251: Docking Bay 1/1
t253: Fusion, free engineer -> Golden Age, also had to trade Liberalism to Cyrus to get him into free market to get traderoutes back due to the annoying Mercantilism plague
t257: #20 GP scientist



t259: Genetics
t260: Engine 2/2
t261: Library blown up again (at least it's not the factory)
t262: Stasis Chamber 1/1
t263: Ecology
t265: Life Support 1/1 - Launch Spaceship (1775 AD)
t266: Mass Media, The Internet -> Theology, Divine Right, Military Tradition, Democracy, Communism, Hunting, Archery, Animal Husbandry, Horseback Riding, Military Science
t267: Library rebuilt, #21 GP = engineer
t268: Fascism, Great General, research = 1962 bpt
t271: Refrigeration
t275: Flight, Space Victory (1810 AD) Also Shaka killed off the Khmer this turn.



MONOPOLY TECHS

Industrialism, Plastics, Composites, Ecology
Satellites
Computers, Fibre Optics, Fusion, Robotics, Superconductor, Genetics
Biology, Medicine, Refrigeration

Event score: 14 victory points

This one was a lot of fun, thanks T-hawk. I might have to replay it and try the bureaucracy-gold approach sometime.

A placeholder - report to come later. I got a space victory in 1865AD and I believe I got 6 points, though I'll check that. Teaser pic: