Your SID level experiences

[Enriquillo]

It’s Beta 1.12, 110 BC, SID, Archipelago, and standard map. I’m France playing against Summeria and Babylon. Least aggression and only conquest or elimination victory allowed.

Now this is some serious cooking.
And here I was feeling guilty about playing with 4 AI's on a large map and unpatched
You must be a topchef, am I right?

I got the Pyramids and Great Library. I’m a few turns from Banking

How in the world did you get the pyramids? I don't see myself beating the computer to any wonder except the GL because they're building at such an insance pace.
Did they just ignore the pyramids for some reason?

Oh and did you mean currency instead of banking??

[Drachen]

Originally posted by Enriquillo


Now this is some serious cooking.
And here I was feeling guilty about playing with 4 AI's on a large map and unpatched
You must be a topchef, am I right?

Master Chef apparently! But to be honest I think this whole cooking thing is a bit overblown. I used the settings provided by game designers and that makes it legal in my book. The idea that using the settings to disadvantage the AI is "cooking" has much more relevance on lower game levels where your goal should be to improve your skill set to match the standard settings. We’re talking SID here and it’s not like a bunch of us are beating it regularly. Therefore I propose that we maximize our advantages until strats are developed to deal with the insane production advantages the AI enjoys and afterwards we can move towards standard settings. Gets off soapbox.

[vmxa1]

I don't see a big problem with making settings to advantage yourself. The issue is that others need to know the settings used to be able to evaluate any strat to see if it is worth adopting.

So if the game is on a huge pangea with only two civs, that is fine, but the strategy use may not work for other settings. Not that it is evil or anything. It may in fact be fun.

[DrSpike]

Hehe looks like my cooking terminology has entered the language of 'Poly. Just remember, when you cook, leave some for me!

[Drachen]

Originally posted by Enriquillo

How in the world did you get the pyramids? I don't see myself beating the computer to any wonder except the GL because they're building at such an insance pace.
Did they just ignore the pyramids for some reason?

Oh and did you mean currency instead of banking??

No I meant banking and that’s kinda of the reason I posted the game since it appears that SID is perhaps doable. Download the original zip and have a look perhaps?

As to the pyramids. I'm not sure that building them is the best idea but it is possible to get them with a good start location. I got it in a few previous SID attempts with just shielded grassland. My guess is you can get them about 50% of the time. Build warriors until your population lets you build a settler. Immediately switch your capital to Pyramids and use the second city to support with workers etc. When you’ve maxed your Pyramid efforts then switch 2nd city to Palace pre-build for the GL and start pumping settlers and spears from capital as soon as the Pyramids are done. France has great starting techs for a plan like this and you’ll note that my opponents don’t. The downside is that your rex comes very late but with your own island and the AI busy elsewhere it can work out alright.

Game update…this just in…France is first to Printing press and sweet Jesus we’ve got a leader! Trade Gilgamesh iron and Press for Astronomy, Music, Metal, and Economics. Rush Adam Smith’s and Voila we’ve got our Golden Age without Saltpeter or war. Everybody’s happy with trade and Right of Passage the order of the day. Democracy in 7 turns followed by a bit o trade and I’m on my way to Steam power baby...yeah.

[Drachen]

Replaceable Parts arrives and I have no saltpeter, coal, or rubber on 21% of the map.

Don't you just love resource scarcity?

[DrSpike]

Hehe tough break.........maybe you have all of the aluminium.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Hehe tough break.........maybe you have all of the aluminium.

I probably will if I have taken over most of Babylon by then...and I intend to! This game is perhaps a couple of hundred turns from completion but I think this game is basically won.

[The Viceroy]

My problem was, I messed up early on, didn't grap enough resources and was far too slow off the mark with the wonders.

As I was not on an island, i was surrounded by 0AD, and had no where to expand to. . sounds like your doing really well Drachen .. good luck

[Enriquillo]

Ok, I checked out your 4000bc save and now I understand why you're on your way to banking in 110bc.
You're using accelerated production or have otherwise edited the rules.
Warriors cost only 6 shields and I can start researching pottery in 15 turns.

See on default rules you won't even be close to banking in 110bc, that's why I was sceptical about your claim.

Not judging you or anything , but it does help if you clarify you're playing on different then default rules, it makes such a big difference you can't even begin to compare the two games.

[Enriquillo]

I just played out your 4000bc save with the french for a few turns, the Pyramids were build at 2900bc, no way I could have beaten that

Other then that it's pretty easy , I even got philosphy first and the great library as a result.

It doesn't seem that accelerated production benefits the AI on SID, or does it?

[DrSpike]

Wow that guy brings a whole new dimension to cooking.

[Drachen]

Originally posted by The Viceroy
My problem was, I messed up early on, didn't grap enough resources and was far too slow off the mark with the wonders.

As I was not on an island, i was surrounded by 0AD, and had no where to expand to. . sounds like your doing really well Drachen .. good luck

Thanks Viceroy. As far as the expansion is concerned I don't think I'm anywhere near ready to play on anything but an island map. I just don't see how you could avoid being engulfed as you were in your game.

We'll see if I'm doing as well as I think when the fighting starts. The power graph for Babylon makes me think I'm going to need a whole bunch of units to invade and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to support them yet.

[asleepathewheel]

There's an incredibly cool succession game victory on sid over at civfan, an amazing tale, started right when the game came out, not much time spent learning the new nuances.

[Drachen]

Hey Enriquillo, I Just wanted to thank you for helping to pull me into this SID thing. I was busy mucking about with the new traits on Emperor and didn’t expect to get to SID for some time but I found your earlier posts in this thread kind of intriguing. So thanks.


Enriquillo: “Ok, I checked out your 4000bc save and now I understand why you're on your way to banking in 110bc.
You're using accelerated production or have otherwise edited the rules.”

Drachen: Yes, this game set to accelerated production but it is not the product of any sort of mod using the editor.

Enriquillo: “Other then that it's pretty easy , I even got philosphy first and the great library as a result.”

Drachen: SID is hard but not impossible. The AI is researching faster than you are but it still has to do it. So if you start with Alphabet and they don’t then you may just get to Philosophy first. Other than that, I don’t think I would ever describe this game as easy. I have never spent so much time in a game on micromanagement issues. I tweaked the specialists every turn and had to use forest planting/harvesting to scrabble out my production. The unhappiness is also a bear in this game. I never build colosseums in my emperor games but I had to build them just after temples in this one. Play it out for awhile after The Great Library is obsolete and see what you think.

Enriquillo: “It doesn't seem that accelerated production benefits the AI on SID, or does it”

Drachen: It seems pretty unlikely that the developers would only enable Acceleration for the human player and so any effects are probably a bit more subtle. Certainly the early force advantage of the AI might be offset more quickly by accelerating production IF the AI didn’t build units and you did. The AI might also lose out on some number rounding effects or they might gain. I just don’t know how rounding off works in Civ. In general, I had thought that using accelerated production merely speeded up the game without any DIRECT gain in relative advantage for either the human or the AI.

Enriquillo: “I just played out your 4000bc save with the french for a few turns, the Pyramids were build at 2900bc, no way I could have beaten that ”

Drachen: I got the Pyramids in 2590BC and that was flat out the fastest I could go to get them. I even dumped two early workers into the capital to decrease production time by a couple of turns. Clearly nobody can beat the AI in a head to head Pyramid race but that isn’t what happened this time around and I did get them. Replay the start a couple of times and follow the recipe I “cooked” up. You’ll get em sooner or later. Also realize that this wasn’t the first time I tried this strategy. I didn’t play out several other starts in which I failed to get the Wonders, found myself with company on my Island, or got attacked early on because I was stupid enough to think that the Zulu would be a good AI to take on. The game posts have been from the second time I played this map from 4000BC since I quit it right after an AI beat me to the Pyramids the first time. The second time I placed my second city at the exact same location and changed what I did by taking a 95% Pyramid effort to 100%. I also slightly modified the path taken by my warriors while scouting although I think that had little effect on the overall game. The fact that this is my second attempt at this map clearly means that this is a reprise of a game which I lost.

Enriquillo: “See on default rules you won't even be close to banking in 110bc, that's why I was sceptical about your claim. Not judging you or anything , but it does help if you clarify you're playing on different then default rules, it makes such a big difference you can't even begin to compare the two games.”

Drachen: My original post states “It’s Beta 1.12, 110 BC, SID, Archipelago, and standard map. I’m France playing against Summeria and Babylon. Least aggression and only conquest or elimination victory allowed…I plead guilty to cooking the settings and as a first step at SID I think it’s fair. Heck…I would have broiled the settings if I could. ”

I included many of the games parameters and I’ll bet if you look through a number of game posts that this amount of game setting info is unusually large although admittedly incomplete. I will be very glad to answer any question anybody has about the game settings used. I also think it’s pretty clear that “broiled” settings are about as far as one can get from standard settings without cheating and I made that very clear from the outset. I also made it clear in a later post that “I think this whole cooking thing is a bit overblown. I used the settings provided by game designers and that makes it legal in my book.” I apologize if I failed to make these facts as clear as I should have but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Cheers