Psychotic Wonder Building

[Aeson]

I've been playing a lot of builder games lately, mostly focusing on building as many wonders as possible on Monarch and Emperor. I've had pretty good success with turning off civ specific traits, building every wonder (with the help of 1 early leader for the pyramids, Monarch) in my first try (beginners luck!) even. Most of the time I miss out on 1 or 2 wonders on Monarch though, and haven't built every one since.

Today I played a game as the Chinese, Monarch, everything standard. I was hoping that militaristic would lead to more leaders, and finally be able to build every wonder again. The starting point was decent, nothing spectacular though. I had barbs off, because an early settler would make things too easy, and the tech rate has too much variation with huts. I've made it through most of the Middle Ages, and have built every wonder so far, but it's been close at times...

Research

With civ specific traits off, it cuts down on the early tech rate (trading starting techs) tremendously. The AI's always research Bronzeworking->Warrior Code to start off with, so Ceremonial Burial->Pottery->Alphabet is the path to take. I leave research at 100% for as long as possible, and try to keep it maxed out for the entire Ancient Era.

With civ specific traits on, there are a lot more options. I usually try to research one of the second tier techs if available from the start, because the AI will have all the first tier shortly after the game begins. Mysticism is a great tech to start out with, as it gives a wonder to start building. That only works for Religious civs though.

If you have culturally linked starting positions, try to research the tech which none of your neighbors will start with.

Tech 'Trading'

With techs being a bit harder to buy/trade with 1.29f, I have been using petty wars right from first contact often to get most of the techs from the AI. These wars invariably start with my warriors stumbling upon an AI, finding where their worker is, and then capturing it. Usually the worker can make it back to my holdings, but if not it's ok. The key is to slow down the AI as much as possible. Then my warriors either keep exploring, or if the AI's capitol is on really good terrain I pillage a bit, trying to get the AI to attack me across a river and on good terrain.

Once the 'war' has been going for some time the AI will start to fall behind in cities and techs, and will usually give up whatever they have for peace. I try to have one of these wars going at all times, so that with the next AI advance I can get it for peace.

These pillaging wars are also great for ruining the AI's production, which should keep any of them on your continent from competing in the wonder races. Just don't put too much effort into the wars though, your scouting warriors should be enough, especially if you are militaristic.

City Building

This is where things get interesting. If you expand too much too early, the early wonders will be built by someone else. Too little expansion and you won't be able to keep up in the tech race, and the later wonders will be the ones missed.

I try to start the Oracle in my capitol (or best production city) after the second Settler has been built. The second city (built on the coast if at all possible) will start a wonder after it's first Settler has left. The Collosus and Lighthouse tend to be the wonders the AI forgets, but they will definitely switch to them if they are on the coast.

The third city depends on the civ I am playing. With militaristic, it's a military camp, building nothing but a barracks, at least 1 settler, and then military units. If it has really good production though, it gets put in the wonder rotation.

Also, if I'm not industrious, there needs to be a worker factory. This city might get a granary even, but it's not necessary. The only thing it builds is workers, to add to the wonder cities population and to keep up the terrain improvements.

All other cities build a settler to keep expansion going, and then either become military camps or start prebuilds (even if it's just a Library or Courthouse, but Colloseums work well) for some of the later wonders. The Great Lighthouse usually is best to build in one of these cities, just start the Palace prebuild early.

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I'll continue this later... gotta run now. I'm attaching the Chinese game for anyone to look at.

[DeepO]

Nice strat thread idea, Aeson, but I have to say that if you were to start a thread in which you aimed for all wonders on deity you'd really blow me away

I'm curious how it will work out. I remember one monarch game in which I was able to build all wonders, but have never done it on Emperor... the problem being both the oracle and the pyramids. If you get a GL for the pyramids, the AIs may not use it as a prebuild for the Oracle, which could mean you have a shot at it. With these two build early on, Colossus is still a bit of a guess, as the AIs will indeed switch when they have a outdated wonder build order in a coastal city. After these 3, there is little problem left, although you have to make sure you get to monarchy early on. I'm very curious on how you'll plan to build all the early ones, the rest is a bit of a done game

DeepO

[Aeson]

Wonder Building

As everyone knows, spillover is what makes the wonder race difficult. To build as many wonders as possible, there are several ways to minimize this.

Obviously, if they don't have the required tech they can't build it. Keeping the AI backwards gives the player a headstart, but you can only manipulate so many AI, the ones you have contact with. Even once you have contact with AI on other landmasses it's too costly to send invasion forces to set them back. One solution is to just declare wars, and then try to buy alliances with their neighbors. It slows down trading a bit, and forces the AI's to build more military instead of improvements. This is really where the 'Psychotic' part comes in. To be a 'builder' you have to be at almost constant war... wars which don't serve any other purpose than to be at war. Great fun!

Another way to minimize spillover is to always pay attention to which cities are building what. Don't be afraid to spend money to identify (investigate city) the main competition. There is usually something that can be done to slow their production, but if you don't realize the danger there isn't anything that can be done. Most of my cash in the ancient era ends up being used to set up embassies and investigate cities.

Usually the AI's coastal cities aren't as productive as their interior ones, so pass on the watery wonders in favor of the land based. Know the cost for the wonders, and try to finish off the cheap ones first, with less productive cities. The Oracle will almost always be built the turn after the Pyramids (if it hasn't been built first), so make sure to finish off the Oracle before the Pyramids. The Great Wall tends to be spillover from the Hanging Gardens as well. Of course, never finish the Lighthouse before the Collosus, or it will be lost too.

I've noticed in 1.29f that the AI tends to not research Literacy until quite late, do the same. This keeps the Great Library safe from spillover builds for most of the ancient era. In several of my games it's been the last ancient era wonder built. It's one of the more valuable ones, so it's hard to hold off on building it early, but it's best to do so.

Another trick which can sometimes buy a couple turns is to give the competing AI a government advance. If they are in anarchy, they aren't building their wonder. Timing two wonders to be completed on the same turn often will stop the spillover in it's tracks. In timing prebuilds this should be one of the main concerns.

When all else fails, it's back to war. Set up on a mountain in AI territory somewhere and start slaughtering anything that passes by. Pray for leaders!

[Aeson]

DeepO -

Building all the wonders on Deity would certainly be something. I don't think it's possible other than in an extremely lucky setting, with the perfect map. I'm sure it could be pulled off on a Pangaea (where all the AI were present) map with the Zulu. Impi can really tear up the AI's improvements, without which they can't compete as well in the wonder race. Militaristic should help with leaders. The hard part would be holding off all the AI you're at war with while doing the pillaging and building the wonders. Maybe an early settler and a bunch of techs from huts?

I'm usually happy to get 3 ancient era wonders on Deity (as a builder). I've just been nostalgic about civ 2 lately, namely how every wonder, every game, was mine. I wanted to see at how high a difficulty level that that sort of consistancy was possible in Civ3.

[Aeson]

Map Settings

Where you start, and where the AI starts, will play a large role in how many wonders you can build. Some map settings are more favorable than others. If you get a good starting location on 3 Billion/Cold/Dry settings, you might have the only one. Using an Expansionist civ on a large or Huge/Pangaea map can all but guarantee a tech lead (and possibly an extra Settler).

Pangaeas will allow you to manipulate the AI more directly, but also speeds up tech rate. Archipelago could mean you're all alone, which isn't a good thing. I'd prefer more AI's on my landmass than not. Another drawback of Archipelago is that more cities will be coastal than otherwise, so the Collosus and Lighthouse will be in danger with almost every spillover.

I find that the better the map is overall, the worse the chances of building every wonder gets. The AI's aren't that smart about city placement, so in bad terrain they end up with bad cities. The player can break out of patterns and at least have better cities than the AI. In good terrain, even bad city placement results in good cities.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
Another trick which can sometimes buy a couple turns is to give the competing AI a government advance. If they are in anarchy, they aren't building their wonder.

Very good one! I have used it before, but certainly not systematic...

Timing two wonders to be completed on the same turn often will stop the spillover in it's tracks. In timing prebuilds this should be one of the main concerns.

Aeson, I think you can squeeze out one more turn. I did it quite a few times already, but I'm not sure it is 100% safe, there might be some risk involved.

You will end your production before the AIs have a chance of changing theirs. So, if you are building both the pyramids and the oracle, you can time it so that they are finished in consequent turns. The sequence of events goes like this:
Turn 1 (a): you build the pyramids.
Turn 1 (b): all AIs shift from pyramids to oracle, but don't build it yet!
Turn 2: you build the oracle... the AIs curse you and their lost shields.

You can do this with a few wonders in a row, I once had 3, nearly 4 wonders built in as many turns(Sun Tzu, Bach, Sistine, nearly Leonardo. Not in that order, I think). For this, you have to know the order in which the AIs will prefer their wonders, so investigation and planning are key. I was unlucky, however, as one AI was building Leonardo already, and he finished in turn 3... otherwise I would have pulled it off. I should have investigated at that time.

DeepO

[Arrian]

I've just been nostalgic about civ 2 lately, namely how every wonder, every game, was mine. I wanted to see at how high a difficulty level that that sort of consistancy was possible in Civ3.

One of the main reasons for my "search for ultimate power." And amusingly enough, I have such a game going now, as China, on Monarch.

Settings: Standard, Continents, 70%, normal, temperate, 4 billion.

I started on a mega-continent, along with the Germans, English, Japanese, French, Russians and Indians. Contact was made pretty quickly, and for once I made sure to contact them every single turn. I bought at least 6 workers from the various AIs (3 from Russia alone), probably more. These would replenish Beijing after it built a settler. Thus, by 1300 bc, I was roughly double my nearest competitor. It helped that England and Germany had a pissing match over who had the better archers.

Russia ended up sneak attacking me. Then they got Japan and Germany to ally with them. They were so weak, though! I was never attacked by a German unit, and only had to kill 2 Japanese units that came for me. Russia sent its 3 warriors and 2 spearmen. I did pay Joan of Arc off for an alliance vs. Russia. The counterattack made Japan into an OCC. I made peace with Bismarck, and proceeded on to Russia. I left them with 2 cities. Then I attacked my "ally" Joany and left her with 1 city. Then Germany. Finally a leader! FP rushed. Then it was England's turn. During this, India allied with somebody against me, but I was able to hold them off and then start hurting them too. A second leader... Leonardo's rushed, GA begins.

I was a republic, so I was trying to keep the wars short, with short recovery periods, then back to war. 3 turns after I rushed Leo's, I had Riders. Lots of 'em. I made peace with India, finished off England (who had finished off Japan). I then decided to polish off the shattered remnants of Germany, France and Russia. I did so, gaining leader #3 - with whom I made an army of Riders. I did it in a really STUPID way, though. Russia was down to 2 offshore cities. In taking the first of these, I got my leader. I made the army, and loaded it up with 3 riders. I killed the other city. woohoo! Let's get this army back home... err... umm... oh, yeah, caravels only carry 3 units. *sigh*

Finally, it came time to destroy India. I did so, using the anarchy during my switch from republic to democracy. I gained leader #4 in the process, who rushed Magellan. Leader #5 came shortly thereafter. He moved my palace to a slightly better spot.

"So, it is down to you and it is down to me." - Vizzini, The Princess Bride

The Zulu are all that remain. The funny part: they have no idea what I did to the other six civs. It's 1255 AD, I'm a democracy, researching Theory of Gravity. As for Wonders, I didn't build them all. I captured the Pyramids, Oracle, Great Lighthouse and Great Wall.

There are some large islands out in the middle of the ocean I could colonize. But the prize I was seeking - the 8th luxury - is not there. There appear to be no gems on this map. I'm probably going to just invade Zululand and get it over with. As soon as I have galleons, so I can bring my army!

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Aeson,

To comment on your approach, which is slightly different:

-Capturing or even buying the AI's workers will really hurt them.

-Getting them into wars stunts their growth even more.

-Be not afraid of the large continent with lots of AI neighbors. You can slow the tech rate down by stunting them with worker capture/purchase and lots of war.

War is your friend. Domination is your destiny. Fear, Anger, Aggression, your true allies are they.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Shaka: [pointing behind Arrian] What in the world can that be?

Arrian: What?! Where?! I don't see anything.

[Impis sneak onto all of Arrian's coastal resources... not realizing that they can't pillage on the same turn!!]

[Arrian]

I can't believe Aeson posted this thread on the very day I was thinking about almost the exact same stuff.

"To create, you must destroy. Smash a glass and cry, Too Much Joy" - Too Much Joy

I think China has officially defeated Japan to take the #1 spot in my favorite civs list.

Funny, my empire in the "Game of Ultimate Power" was... prettier... more elegant. Plus I got more leaders. But in the final reckoning, I think this game is more powerful (more powerful than ultimate power? hmm).

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Arrian
War is your friend. Domination is your destiny. Fear, Anger, Aggression, your true allies are they.

-Arrian

You have gone so far over to the Dark Side, even I am afraid.

[Arrian]

I find your lack of faith... disturbing, Theseus.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

You sound like the Emperor

Seriously, I think it's interesting that the warmongers among us are getting increasingly aggressive.

Sir Ralph is now down to 3 cities for the Archer Rush.

Aeson and I are wandering around whacking AI's with Warriors.

You look at AI civs like food, and you are seemingly ravenous.

And a lot of other posters are being seduced...

I think it's great... I gotta try the Worker Absorption Gambit.

[Arrian]

That's Vader's line, actually (original Star Wars, in the Death Star, where he "reprimands" the cocky guy who dares suggest the DS is more powerful than the force).

My archer rush is usually with ONE city. Barracks, archer, archer, archer -> locate nearest AI and take capitol.

But yeah, overall I think people are pushing the warfighting to the max and finding it can work. Ever read any of the "always war" succession game threads over at CivFanatics? Great stuff. If they met an AI, they could do 1 trading session, and then HAD to declare war. No peace, ever. They won.

-Arrian

[Lord Merciless]

Even though I'm a devout warmonger, I don't fight wars at all times. There are periods in which defenders got an upperhand over attackers. I see the period from Gunpowder to Military Tradition being the first one, and the period from Replaceable Parts to Mobile Transportation being the second one. Each period is, according to my experience, 20-40 turns long. I usually use these periods to consolidate my conquest and strengthen my infrastructure.

[Arrian]

But if you've been beating on the AIs properly, they don't have access to saltpeter, or even iron. You're dealing with archers and spearmen

Actually, in my Chinese game, I had to leave the Indians alone for a bit, so they had iron. Pikemen & War Elephants vs. HORDES of Riders. They did not last long. I took 1 or 2 cities per turn.

The other AIs, however, were not allowed to use iron. I took it away. [Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" voice] NO IRON FOR YOU! [/Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" voice].

Pardon me today, btw, I was playing until 2am and I'm barely functioning.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Theseus
Sir Ralph is now down to 3 cities for the Archer Rush.

I'm down to attack the Greeks with 1 vet archer, 1 reg and 1 elite warrior, raze 1 city and get a tech and 2 cities for peace. Sounds hazardous, no? I even succeeded to defeat a regular hoplite, well, my unit defending, that is.

What really disturbs me here is, that nobody except Aeson is talking about wonders . So I will, well, try at least to look not like a thread jacker. I usually don't give a damn on ancient wonders, but Aesons strategy notes are as always brilliant, and so I will try to get some in the AU 103 game, using some techniques he describes.

[Lord Merciless]

I do go after these resources, but in most of my games they are often buried deep inside AI Civs's territories, and it's not rare to see an AI cities built on top of them.

[Arrian]

Sir Ralph is right. And since I'm largely responsible for the threadjack...

Aeson's wonder building tips are good, particularly if you are on a large continent with most of the AI civs. Then you have the luxury of being able to investigate their cities and mess up their growth.

I would like to add that if wonder building is your priority, a late ancient/early medieval golden age is the way to go. Triggering your GA by building the Hanging Gardens, for instance, is great for this. This should give you a nice jump on the medieval wonders. Of course, if you manage the type of wonder building success Aeson has, your golden age WILL be somewhere in the ancient age. With China, clearly it will be triggered by the Great Wall.

The important message I think Aeson was trying to convey is that in order to be the ultimate builder, you have to hamper the AI... which pretty much means war. Buying workers is hit 'n miss. Stealing them is another thing. Plus you can rip up their improvements, steal their resources/luxuries, and force them into survival mode. This requires fewer units than you might think. So it is possible to build and fight at the same time - in fact, that may be the most effective method of all.

-Arrian

p.s. Oh, one more thing. Kinda like the Great Library, it seems that the AI isn't as interested in the Hanging Gardens anymore after 1.29.

[Theseus]

Sorry, SR, I'm equally at fault.

Re GWs:

In addition to hampering the AI civs, Aeson points out that avoiding GW cascades is critically important.

Anybody have a sense of which cascades are the ones to watch out for, and what the solutions (order?) are?

(ps: Arrian, I was at least close in referencing the Emperor... and next time you quote Princess Bride, you gotta give me a chance to slip in"You made the greatest mistake of all...")

[Arrian]

Cascades:

Oracle to Pyramids. Pyramids to GL (though less so than pre-1.29). Anything being build in a coastal city to the Colossus, or failing that the Lighthouse. Great Library to Great Wall or Hanging Gardens, depending on what tech is out there (some of this is dependent on the human. If you trade away Monarchy, you may get a HG cascade).

Sun Tzu/Sistine/Leo is a tough cascade. What gets real nasty is when this spills over to Copernicus and/or Bach. Ouch. If there is at least one strong (tech-wise) AI out there, this is a possibility.

After that, it's clear sailing.

-Arrian

(I figure the "Never go in against a Sicilian, when DEATH is on the line!" was implied The Sicilian in me applauded)

[Theseus]

So Aeson's saying he's beating all these cascades??!! Un-frigging-believable.

I can't even get close.

We should consider this when we do the GW game in AU.

(last ps: Actually, considing the topic, I was referring to "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." But I'm glad you liked it.)

[Catt]

Soren indicated (in plain English) that the AIs assign more importance to optional technologies under 1.29f (he actually said that 1.21 tweaked the AIs to not care so much about optional techs and that 1.29 reversed the trend a bit).

Not enough gameplay under my belt to say for sure, but I definitely experienced some cascade problems in "Give Peace a Chance" with Newton's / Shakespeare's / Magellan's -- only one of which is in the mandatory tech path. Used to be you could lacksadaisically go back to get Shakespeare's after first researching Steam Power and/or Industrialization . . . not anymore, I fear.

All this of course assumes that you haven't achieved a good-sized tech lead by the time the end of the MIddle Ages rolls around . . .

Catt

[Lord Merciless]

The Medieval Age is the hardest to master. 9 wonders in all. It really depends on the map to be able to build them all. If you play with 16 civs on continental maps, there is no way you can build them all. First, the tech rate will be high; second, you can't reach all the civs in time to mess them up. So the only solution is to generate leaders, but that's kind unreliable, too.

[Aeson]

Well I finished up the Chinese game. The last close call was Leo's, the French had a cascade going all the way from the Hanging Gardens, during which time they switched to/from Sistene, Sun Tzu's, Copernicus, and JS Bach! There was no way to beat them with pure production, had to use my final leader. I had rushed 2 other wonders with leaders earlier, but I could have built those most likely anyways.

After Leo's the AI's usually didn't even get a chance to start any wonders. One thing I wanted to touch on that I didn't mention was the timing of the GA.

To get all the ancient era wonders, you just about need an ancient era GA. I like to time it to hit right when I've changed into Monarchy or Republic, and as early as possible. With China, Monarchy is the beeline I take, but their GA isn't until the Great Wall. Egypt has a very nicely timed GA, as you can beeline for Republic or Monarchy by the time the Pyramids have been built. With no civ specific traits, the first wonder built will start the GA, so I try to time the Oracle, Pyramids, Colossus, and government tech all for about the same point in time.

The AI absolutely ignores Literacy in 1.29f. I was playing an OCC attempt at Deity earlier today where I was able to build the Colossus, Oracle, and Hanging Gardens before I had to build the Great Library. It was just about the perfect starting location though, but still none of the AI had Literacy until I traded it to them 1 turn before the GL was finished. One of them was even in the Middle Ages by that time.

Here's the final save to my Chinese game. While I did get all the wonders, it wasn't quite what I was hoping for. Leo's definitely deserves a *. Having only 2 of the 6 AI on my continent was a big part of the problem.

[Arrian]

Wow, Aeson. That's about all I can say. That's amazing.

I too finished my China game, somewhere around 1500AD. It just took me a little while to get my troops in position. Zululand was invaded and 5 leaders later (army, Univ. Suffrage, ToE, army, and nothing, as it was the last turn) was destroyed. Happily, my original horseman elite+leader, The Companions, made it all the way to elite Cavalry, meaning he created 2 great leaders and could have gotten a third, had I chosen to drag things out. He had quite a career.

I was going to leave the Zulu with a little city named "Zulu reservation" and play longer, but I decided to just pull the trigger. Amusingly enough, when I took "Zulu reservation" the Zulu repopped! Lucky for me they repopped on the same small island, so it only took 2 extra turns to hunt them down and kill them.

A minor change (I think) to one of the wonders that I noticed: Universal Suffrage was generation 4 culture per turn. Didn't it use to be less?

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Do leader generating elites retain their names when upgraded?

[Theseus]

Yup... it can get confusing.

For instance, I named a Horsemen* the King's Horsemen... then I kept getting confused as it upgraded through Knight and Cav.

I have yet to see one of these guys, after upgrading, generate a new GL... do you get to name it again?

[Arrian]

Yes, you do get to name it again, but the default choice is the original name. Thus, the popup that came up when the Rider version of the unit created a leader already read "The Companions." All I had to do was press enter.

Unfortunately, my most inspired named unit (The Nine ) only generated one leader.

-Arrian

[Catt]

Originally posted by Theseus
Yup... it can get confusing.

For instance, I named a Horsemen* the King's Horsemen... then I kept getting confused as it upgraded through Knight and Cav.

One of the first opportunities I had to rename a unit I just hit the "O" button -- accepting the new name of "Horseman" but thinking that since I hadn't changed the name I was electing to not utilize the rename function.

On at least 4 or 5 subsequent occasions during that game I zoomed to a city to upgrade that damn "Horseman" that I somehow missed in my knight and cavalry upgrades and that kept appearing in the right-click dropdown of available units.

(Yeah, I know, it shouldn't have happened 4 or 5 times, but what can I say?).