Sid One City Challenge

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Dominae
I assume you edited that start?

Of course. I 'cheated' outrageously this time. I lost a few games by not having, for instance, saltpeter and therefore no musketeers (no GA) and being wiped out by a bunch of Cavalry (against my MI).

I got in trouble when my source of iron became exhausted...

In fact, as explained, all the map is edited (max. of 4 cities per civ on each island).

To compensate a bit, I put all available resources and acouple of luxuries on each island.

If I were to play again, I would not load my island that much, it's not necessary, especially with aluminium and uranium (I wanted to try a spaceship win if I had doubts about my diplo victory).

Oh, ivory is almost essential and you should be the only one having it, otherwise you don't have a pre-built for your wonders.

[Dominae]

So...

Can anyone do it on an unedited map?

[vmxa1]

Maybe Toe Truck, but a person would need to get a very good map.

[punkbass2000]

One question: Why France? For the extra commerce/shields at city size? They don't seem totally counter-intuitive to me, but I would think other traits could be better.

BTW, did you miss out on Shakespears?

[vmxa1]

One good thing about France (other than industrial) is that you can make lots of wonders and not trigger a GA. You do not need to use the UU, so that is another means of holding the GA off.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Dominae
Can anyone do it on an unedited map?

Tiny/Vikings/Archipelago/80% is doable from a decent start.

[vmxa1]

I think that the crux of the question, what constitutes a decent start?

[punkbass2000]

I think the crux of the question is what's the goal we're all discussing? Winning a OCC Sid, or gaining a One-city cultural win on Sid, or both?

[Aeson]

To me "decent" is that you have a start as good or better than both of your opponents. The Food to grow to size 6. The Production to get the Great Library with a Curragh, Garrison, Garrison, Curragh (if necessary), Granary->First Trade (hopefully Alphabet for Masonry right before getting Writing)->Great Library prebuild.

I play with 2 AI on Tiny, which usually helps, but 3 AI could work better in some cases. If you're going to ctrl-alt-q to a "decent" start, using Dry/Cold settings helps out but isn't required. No Alphabet AIs helps a lot but isn't required. No Barbarians helps quite a bit but isn't required.

You need to get the Great Library for it to work, and Invention from it, and have Iron to build/upgrade Berserkers (IIRC... been several months since I've played). The tech pace can't be too fast or you can't get the Archers and Curraghs to upgrade or the cash to do the upgrades. For 20k to work you might need to get a Library and Temple build in somewhere early.

Load up the Berserkers and raze cities. Leave the AI's units outside of cities alone. (You can draw AI units out of cities if you have to by suiciding a unit somewhere on their island if you can land... not always a given.)

It takes a good 300 turns under good conditions to get 20k in one city. That means you could conceivably start building Culture at 1250AD and still hit 20k by 2050AD if all the Wonders were still buildable. ~1000AD is probably the cutoff date for starting full bore on Cultural improvements though, as the AI will be building Wonders. If you're going to be able to handle the AI this way, it's most likely to be in hand by late BC's or early AD's though, leaving plenty of time. Until that point the Palace, Great Library, Temple, and Library will be accumulating culture to help somewhat offset the Wonders that the AI will take early on.

If you don't get the Great Library... try again. If you don't get Iron... try again. If you don't get to Invention soon enough... try again. If the AI gets a big island and has inland cities... try again. If something goes wrong and you can't militarily deal with the AI... try again.

It's definitely not a sure thing, but the odds are best this way I think.

[punkbass2000]

Who would be the best opponents, all in all? Egypt + America? America + Arabia? I assume you don't want Agr., Comm., Sea. or Sci. Mil. could be bad for unit promotions (though Mongols + Zulus might not be bad choices anyway), Exp. is obviously useless on 80%/Tiny/Arch/No barbs. Industrious might be useful, but it would mean they start with Masonry and I believe MS mentioned in his other Sid thread that he constantly sees Egypt specifically not researching Alph. Rel. doesn't seem to valuable for Sid AI for reasons I think we all know.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
One question: Why France? For the extra commerce/shields at city size? They don't seem totally counter-intuitive to me, but I would think other traits could be better.

BTW, did you miss out on Shakespears?

I was more concerned in maximizing the gpt, in order to research at 90-100% and keep some military units (for which you have to pay). I believe in the MA I had 1 pike, 3 Med Inf and 2 trebuchets. The pike became a musketeer, which triggered my GA.

Then, with France as industrious, I needed only 2 workers (less costs) to improve all the tiles.

As I never planned military expeditions like Aeson's and switched government only once to Republic, militaristic, expansionist and religeous civs were out. My map has lots of coast, in order to give chances for other civs to meet fairly early, so seafaring was not a necessay trait.

I never tried to go for Shakespeare, as I zoomed for the essential techs, from Astronomy then to Theory of Gravity. I even missed out Economics, imagine!

As for winning on an unedited map, it should be possible, but my previous (missed) games show that with 5 cities and more, the AI becomes unstoppable in terms of research output. Even on a tiny 80% water map, most other civs will have more than 4 cities, but it's worth another try, I guess.

One of the differences with Aeson's game is that I tried to play it the most 'normally' possible, i.e. with 8 civs (vs. his 2) and giving them the same bonuses in terms of luxuries and resources.

Anyway, as stated, my idea was to have a diplo win at Sid (or even a spaceship). I had not expected the 20K. As I remember, the next civ was Egypt with 16K.

If somedody else comes up with a win on an unedited map, please post it...

Now I'm back to earth (so to say), Emperor, Rome, continents, 8 random civs, conquest win...

Without bragging, is there another interesting challenge around?

[punkbass2000]

You could try a SAW

[Aeson]

One of the differences with Aeson's game is that I tried to play it the most 'normally' possible, i.e. with 8 civs (vs. his 2) and giving them the same bonuses in terms of luxuries and resources.

I think for Tiny maps the default (ie. install the game and start up a Tiny map without changing anything) number of opponents is 3. Max selectable without a mod is 4 or 6? Putting too many civs on a map helps the player in it's own way because it keeps any of the AI from getting too strong too quickly and opens up a lot more diplomacy options.

Having the same resources that the AI does is abnormal in OCC's. 1 city doesn't claim as much land as 4-5, and so should have proportionately fewer resources.

[punkbass2000]

Max on Tiny w/o mod is four (including human).

[vmxa1]

I agree that having 6 to 8 in the game is actually benefitting the human, except for the speed of reserach. The reduction in land for each is more important.

It is just the opposite on a huge map. The more civs then the harder for the human. The AI will have more contact and sooner, the amount of land is not a limiting factor and the human will have more enemies.

So in that game, you play with less than the norm to increase your chances.