Au 201 spolier thread

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by jshelr
Advice Before Starting Please:

I don't want to read the spoilers before starting. However, given the objective of maxing the number of wonders and the promised-land nature of the starting spot, does it make sense to you guys for a player to try for a few mega cities at the beginning (say five), stop expanding to build wonders, and only later to go for a continent takeover after chivelry? Thanks

Building wonders is just one aspect of Ultimate Power, and as Arrian said, a lot is a matter of interpretation. Using my "settler pump" tactics, I was able to push my core up to nine cities with relatively tight spacing (although all the cities can all reach at least size 12), with several of the cities deliberately designed to crowd AI cities in the hope of culture flips. (Nine early temples can do wonders for early cultural rankings!) And by using the luxury slider to grow Thebes to size 12 and a coastal city on the river delta a couple tiles away at least almost that big, I was still able to get all but two of the ancient wonders. The tradeoff was that my military stayed far too small to even consider early warfare, although barracks in size-6 cities did nice things for me once I finally did start building up my military. (And getting two culture flips in my favor, including a city with Ivory, was really nice.)

Nathan

[jshelr]

Nathan and Arrian

Thanks. Just for kicks, I think I'll try a more extreme form of Nathan's version with just five cities more widely spaced and play peacenik for awhile.

[Theseus]

Mostly 3-tile spacing, with terrain exceptions. The definition of "mega" for me has been the ability to generate 20 shields or greater production, thus one WC per turn. NOthing stands in the way of the Egyptian Horde!

[Arrian]

I log on to the strat forum and the threads look like this:

Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus
Last post by... Theseus

Catching up?

My city spacing was almost all 4 tile (or is it 5 tile? I forget how people count) - no overlap. I decided that I had the ability to build in a perfectionist style, so I did. The result, however, was only 2 original cities on rivers (Thebes and my city to the NW towards India). My Colossus city was stuck at size 6 for some time (SW of Thebes, with the 3 cows + wheat... oh, if only there had been a river there!). Once the aqueducts kicked in, though... yeesh!

Still, most of the cities aren't actually big shield producers, due to lots and lots of grassland. Only Thebes is a real monster.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

[Catt]

Just read through the whole spoiler thread and I wish I were playing AU 201 Got too busy with RL and will likely be too busy for the next week or so that I plunged in to see how others are doing.

Sounds like a very fun game and I may have to come back and play it for fun even after all the dust has settled from everyone else's game.

Good stories all

Catt

[Chemical Ollie]

Started an emperor game as Egyptians. Turned cultural win off, as I want to win on emperor in some other way. The cultural win always sneaks up on my when I least expect it.

I had some bad luck with the baddie hut and got my capitol both sacked and pillaged. At least my worker survived. I decided to take it like a man and play on. Built the first ring of cities right at the AI borders. Now they have started to flip to my side.

To my knowledge, I am the only one having literature and my GL is just a few turns away. I missed Oracle, Pyramids, Colossus and Lighthouse. The others have a lot of tech I don't have, but I'm keeping literature for myself until the GL is finished.

Joan was trespassing and declared war when I asked her to leave. I did not mind wasting my GA under despotic condititons, as the early expansion is probably worth more than the GA. I have taken two french cities so far, including Paris. My intention is to take the Lighthouse they just built and perhaps one more city, then extract all their tech for peace.

For unknown reason, there are a lot of unsettled land north of France. I haven't seen that until now, as I did not explore on others territory or trade maps. I just presumed I was stuck with my first ring of cities and started to develop them and build my military instead of expanding further. It might be a good idea to build some more settlers before someone else claim that land.

I have only played one hour so far, as a business trip came in my way. Hope to give it a few more hours when the kids sleep tonight. Looks like a good game. Perhaps the map would fit for a deity OCC too, despite the lack of coast for the capitol?

[jshelr]

An Island of Civiliztion Amid Barbarian Hordes.

Egypt focused it efforts on wonder building to please the gods in this game and the gods were well pleased, at least for awhile.

Cleo was surprised when the pyramids started a golden age for her culture (duh), and who knows what we plan to do with the Great Lighthouse, but it was clear that the plan for a few cities with ample space worked well. Any plan would probably work well on this turf!

Cleo wisely paid all small demands while other civs were constantly at war. As the Great Library culminated the string of wonders built, we started a palace pre-build for HG, since Monarchy was next up. However, the endless wars were so devastating to all our neighboring civs that no further techs were successfully researched and the pre-build went for naught but a courthouse.

Cities starting flipping to Egypt and England finally took offense, declaring war and immediately suffering a flood of chariots.

We’ve nothing particularly worth building at this point and might as well take out England while we wait. The problem is going to be keeping these sick civs alive to do some research so that the Library will pay off.

Piddling along is not really in the spirit of UP. But there’s not much to do until the full map is revealed. Going for max gold!!

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by jshelr
We’ve nothing particularly worth building at this point and might as well take out England while we wait. The problem is going to be keeping these sick civs alive to do some research so that the Library will pay off.

Piddling along is not really in the spirit of UP. But there’s not much to do until the full map is revealed. Going for max gold!!

After a certain point in terms of size and construction of libraries/marketplaces, you're just holding yourself back if you wait for the AIs to do the research. Worse, you're throwing away a huge potential advantage if you want to do more fighting later. I've found that there's very little like the feeling of steamrolling an opponent with cavalry when they don't even have musketmen to defend with. Also, the bigger the tech lead you can build, the harder it will be for an AI to roll shields over from one wonder to another to steal some medieval wonders from you.

Nathan

[Arrian]

Actually, I'd say kick the hell out of your neighbors, but get a few galleys out exploring, because with the lighthouse, you can make contact with all 6 overseas civs. Even if you don't want to make contact with the farthest group (spirit of the scenario and all), you can still meet up with Rome, Germany and Persia. They should be healthier than your barbarian neighbors.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

OK. If we are allowed to travel on the high seas in this game, I need to build a boat.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by jshelr
OK. If we are allowed to travel on the high seas in this game, I need to build a boat.

YES!!! Building the Great Lighthouse and then not going out exploring is almost a crime. The ability to travel on sea tiles safely with galleys can often let you meet civs that have no feasible way to reach you, providing major advantages both diplomatically (you control whether or not they get contact with the civs on your continent) and militarily (you can invade them if you really want to, but they have no practical way to invade you).

Personally, I don't like giving up maps or contact with civs on my continent if it looks like the AIs have no feasible way to reach us. Denying them contact limits their trading opportunities, helping me build my tech lead. And denying them maps means they won't know where to look even when they do get the ability to sail seas safely (or if they try a suicide galley).

And if you're going to get whatever tech you do get from the Great Library from overseas civs, there's no reason to let any of the other civs on your own continent live.

Nathan

[jshelr]

Just wanted to express thanks for setting this game up. It was fun and instructive to be able to build all the wonders and basically do whatever you want. Having played to the industrial era, it's clear to me that my game had become too channeled toward getting ToE and military conquest. Other dimensions were ignored too much. So, at least for me, AU201 was a good sophomore course.

[pvzh]

AI never end turn in treaches waters, but can enter them if they can end the turn in safe waters. Therefore, you can trade the maps safely denying contacts provided there is no 2 tiles crossing from coastal tiles (if you control Lighthouse).

Sell them contacts as somebody gets astronomy.

[Theseus]

With all the insanity about PTW, I figured I'd just play.

It's 1350 AD, and I have DEFINITELY achieved UP.

I early on decided to pull the Arrian Deception...

England: Buh-bye!
France: Buh-bye!
India: Buh-bye!
America: Buh-bye!
Babylon: Buh-bye!

I got Rome to whack Germany.

Hey, let's do the Arrian Deception again!!

Persia: Buh-bye!
Rome: Buh-bye!

I built every GW and SW to date, up through the TOE, except for the Pyramids, GLib, Smith, and Magellan (they are mine now of course). I decided to proactively try Longevity, and built Hospitals... it still sucks. I'm now on Factories for all my core cities (nothing else to build), and Thebes (IW rocks!) is on Hoover. Researching Refining, total culture at 54407.