So very cold (of the map generator)

[Aeson]

I played up to 1555AD last night, mostly just building up tanks to upgrade to modern armor when the time came. I took advantage of some wars on the other continent to establish a foothold. The AI's in this game have all been completely psycho. I don't think there has been a turn of peace for any of the AI since the advent of nationalism.

I should get synthetic fibers at least a couple of turns before anyone else... should be a fun couple of turns!

[Arrian]

200 Modern Armor ready to go. That's nice. The AI, however, has Mech Infantry, no?

And how in the HELL are you so rich? I've been that rich once or twice... on Monarch a with beautiful starting position and the spoils of early continental conquest. I cannot fathom, however, turning that iceberg into 10 grand.

-Arrian

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by Arrian
200 Modern Armor ready to go. That's nice. The AI, however, has Mech Infantry, no?

And how in the HELL are you so rich? I've been that rich once or twice... on Monarch a with beautiful starting position and the spoils of early continental conquest. I cannot fathom, however, turning that iceberg into 10 grand.

-Arrian

If you trade tech wisely you can be reaping in like all of the AI's income. Sometimes you shouldnt trade tech, but other times when another AI has it and they will get it eventually, might as well trade it for the bazillion gold a turn.

[Aeson]

Except for researching Synthetic Fibers, I've been on 100% tax rate for the entire game. I did research Ecology first, with one scientist and 40 turns (the AI likes the 'space' techs far too much). I bought Spaceflight with it and 9k gold (no one else could afford it yet), then sold those to all the other AI's who had any cash. I ended up making a profit off of Spaceflight alone. Every tech through the last half of the Industrial age made me a profit this way, and the free Fission helped a lot too.

I've also had 3 and sometimes 4 Iron sources to sell, for a while I was selling 6 gems, 2 saltpeter, 2 coal, an oil... It just all adds up eventually. I was up to 20k just recently, but I rushed a lot of tanks with it. Just need enough gold for the upgrades (~8000).

Some of the AI do not have Mechs yet, and a couple more of them are lacking Oil and/or Rubber. The ones without Rubber will only have Riflemen available to build, though most of them do have Infantry built in times past. Modern Armor should cut through those civs like a hot knife. Also on the other continent England and Rome have been in a knock down drag out fight for centuries now. Most of Rome's southern holdings are conquered Greek cities, and very small with no culture (Greeks are out). So I might be able to pull off a conquest win. I'll have to resort to capitol killing to delay spaceships most likely though.

[Theseus]

Aeson, are you really Deep Blue in disguise?

[Aeson]

Who is deep blue? (That probably answers your question )

Just a mini-update. I had 235 MA at 1575AD. I bought an ROP with China for 900 gold, and attacked Indian and the Americans. It only took about half of my MA's to finish both of them off, lost 20 in the process. I got Hoover Dam and Universal Suffrage to boot. So now I have 215 MA and the map looks like this:

[Aeson]

MA's sure are fun. China even had mostly Mech Infantry and I still was able to take all but 5 cities in 1 turn. The ROP I broke helped, but because of the way the AI spaces their cities it wouldn't have mattered anyways. None of my MA's had enough hp's after their first fight to blitz, and all of China's cities were with 2 tiles imbetween.

Down to 165 MA's though.

[Aeson]

The Iroquois decided to attack my MPP partner the Romans in 1590AD. I had to declare war and they took 1 of my less well defended chinese cities. I had been building up a force of MA's on the eastern isle, so I was ready. Because of the Iroquois city to the far south east, I disbanded most of their cities to avoid culture flips.

I also finally started getting leaders fighting against the Iroquois, 3 in total, 1 on defence even! I thought about moving my palace to the mainland, but it's more interesting to leave it where it is. So I ended up with 3 more armies, bringing my total surviving to 7.

No one has started building spaceship parts yet (extremely late already for deity), so I should be able to finish this game off in conquest style.

Here is the map from 1600AD, I have 114 MA's left. So the continent cost me a little more than 120 MA's, not bad.

[jshelr]

Alkis has to realize that we make no attempt to speak english in this country.

[Arrian]

Aeson,

Deep Blue is a supercomputer - the one that beat the #1 ranked chess player, IIRC.

Hmm... looks like England has to go. They have unlawfully stolen your Orange.

-Arrian

[Cookie Monster]

Fascinating........................

Turning a worthless piece of land into a supreme empire on deity while amassing large quantities of cold hard cash deserves a reward of some sort from Firaxis!!!!!!!

[Carver]

Amazing. So what now? Are you moving modern armors over to the second continent for a capitol killing blitz if necessary?

[Barfus]

i guess this thread is dead, but i for one would really like to know what thee hell happened.....damn fine show. damn fine

[Barfus]

all the dumb luck in the universe converged on my comp a few minutes ago, look at this spot. i settled my first city and immediately got a tech, plus the city itself is on a wine.....crazy....

[Aeson]

Nice start there Barfus!

Another update, though the game is pretty much uninteresting now. 1635AD, 121MA's, 8 Armies, Babylon is no more. The Iroquois will be gone in a turn or two.

[alva]

hope to more threda like this one. Learned quite alot from it
thanks guys

btw @Barfus: you should have move 1 tile up and settled there, you wasted the wine wine bonus you city is located on only semi serious though

[Barfus]

id dint realize i was building on one (it was the first turn), and i did get some use out of it. the second i built the city a popup appeared saying "road brings wine, etc. people are happy." the other reason i didnt move was because i HATE clearing forest, and as it turns out, this island im on is nothing but......actually worse, its jungle.


keep it up aeson! show the generator whose boss

[JFL_Dragon]

Supurb Effort Aeson

[dawidge]

Absolutely incredible game. Aeson. I've got it saved to get back to, but I'm trying to work through minitourney III.

[Carver]

Barfus, I would have done what you did also and built where you started. On anything other than chieftain you can't waste a turn moving your settler around. I always build exactly where my civ is born.

[Arrian]

I'll disagree with that. I play on Monarch normally, and often move my original settler 1 tile. Not more than that, though.

And while that is a nice spot, Barfus, I would trade it for one with a river, a cow, and a bunch of shielded grassland. But that's me.

-Arrian

[dunk]

I agree with Arrian.

I've taken to saving my game when it starts and making sure my first city is on the coast. I absolutely HATE having cities one tile inland.

BTW, that was one hell of a game Aeson.

[Barfus]

heard that carver.....impossible otherwise.....everyone gets ahead of you

[HazieDaVampire]

well, i've started my 3rd ever game on the second difficulty level, i'm on an island not to much bigger than your and i'm having to struggle away at the AI's citys it has build on the south of my island, plus all of the AI's are annoyed at me!

[vondrack]

Aeson, I bow to your skills. I would never imagine that one can get so far from such a crappy starting location. From now on, I will try every starting position I get just to see if it is doable...

A great thread, learned a lot here!

[Barfus]

yes, aeson....you are awesome.

[Theseus]

We're not worthy, we're not worthy (many smilies).

Aeson, if you're up for it, I'll send you my most untenable position... play it out or comment, if you will.

BTW, you, and some of the other recent games, have inspired me.

I'm going to start a new thread (tomorrow, as it's late), for the Best of the Best.

Aeson is at the front of the line.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

*bows down in worship*

Incredible. Just plain incredible. That was a performance truly worthy of the title of Deity. (Maybe you should PM Ming or MarkG about that. )

So, you have a map of the end of the game?

[ShuShu]

... Best Practices session...

1) Let me state, that the starting location was impossible. Since Aeson achieved the impossible, whatever he does is a best practice...

In all seriousness, I would have thought this thread silenced one debate once and for all. Aeson essentially explored his entire map before settling. All those who insist that there is not enough time to explore on monarchy, regent or any other level need to reread Aeson's early game description.

2) Just curious. How many people who have read this thread think they could play this map to victory even given Aeson's playbook? (not I)

3) The scary thing is, it doesn't even look like he did anything out of the ordinary. (well other than the 250 modern armor... )

[Aeson]

I had a lot of family over for the past few days, so haven't played much more of the game since the last update. Just a couple of turns.

I signed up England and Germany to MPP's and then attacked Rome. Took all of the central penninsula the first turn. I should be able to keep all the cities as none of them had any Roman Culture. I've been getting a lot of leaders, turning them into armies. Up to 17 armies which really helps. 2 more turns of revolution and then I'll switch to a Monarchy to finish off the game.

As far as wandering around at the start of the game, I only think it's worth it if you can see a really great location within a move or two, or as in this case, there just isn't any food around. Without 2 food sources a city doesn't have much ability to pump out settlers. So moving in that case is almost necessary. It would be interesting to see how long a player could go before building their first city and still end up winning. Barbarians would probably have to be off though.