Challenge to reach 100 pop in the shortest time

[cl2488]

Would you be interested in designing efficient build orders to take the following challenge?

(1) Use Spartans on a small mainland map (subalphine biome) with low starting resources.

(2) Don't take any extra berry beside the starting berry (but you can take extra hunt).

(3) The maximum woman population is 50. 

With the above setting and requirements, please try your best to reach 100 pop in the fastest time. The 100 units need to be on the map (units in the queue don't count). You may make the pop exactly 100; once the 100th unit comes out, you may stop and record the time. Please post your time and your replays here. 

Leaderboard (standard setting with no team bonus; only players with replays uploaded are listed)

1. 7:01 Player of 0 AD (weirdjoke)

2: 7:10 Feldfeld

3. 7:20 Philip the Swaggerless

4. 7:27 ValihrAnt

5. 7:30 ISlan 

6. 7:40 Freagarach

7. 7:42 Grapjast

8. 7:45 cl2488

9. 7:58 Vrayer

10. 8:08 Letswaveabook

11: 8:15 alre

 

Additional note:

7:16 Player of 0 AD (weirdjoke) (using multiple team bonuses, a revealed map and a hero to help kill the hunt).

Edited September 29, 2022 by cl2488

[Grapjas]

Nice and fun idea! 

[LetswaveaBook]

I tried something and to be the first to put a timing on the mark, I had 8:08 and 100 population out (91 trained) against a sandbox AI. As it was my first try, improvements are certainly possible.

100popchallenge.zip

[Grapjas]

I got 08:52 08:15 07:42 with 100 trained units and without extra hunt.

 

8m_52s.zip8m_15s.zip7m_42s.zip

Edited November 15, 2021 by Grapjas

[alre]

I'm so pissed because I had one try and managed to make 8:15 with everyone trained fully (touched 100 pop at 7:29), but it didn't store the replay.

EDIT: oh wait, I found it, for some reason it was in the MP replays.

2021-11-14_0001.zip

Edited November 14, 2021 by alre

[ValihrAnt]

Clicked to 100 right around minute 7 and then had everyone trained 7:27. I didn't take any extra hunt as I think it's really rng dependant to have that. This is pretty much the exact build I use when there is no extra food, except I'd have added an additional farm and the 2nd barrack a bit later with the last few soldiers going to the mines.

Vali100popChallenge.zip

[Player of 0AD]

7:16     xD

weird.zip

[Grapjas]

5 hours ago, ValihrAnt said:

Clicked to 100 right around minute 7 and then had everyone trained 7:27. I didn't take any extra hunt as I think it's really rng dependant to have that. This is pretty much the exact build I use when there is no extra food, except I'd have added an additional farm and the 2nd barrack a bit later with the last few soldiers going to the mines.

That's pretty good, you might make it on the leaderboards.

 

edit: wooosh

Edited November 14, 2021 by Grapjas

[maroder]

I think I would be much more interested to see an complete speedrun to win vs the AI.

Settings would be:

two teams: team 1: player vs team 2: (one or more) very hard balanced Petra

settings: Mainland, normal size, whatever biome, whatever civ, standard starting res and pop cap, (no cheats obvs)

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by maroder

[cl2488]

Below are some factors that you should consider to optimize the build order:

(1) Should we take the berry upgrade? Should all four starting women build the farmstead or just one or two build it while the other collecting berry?

(2) How to make the farmstead and storehouse most efficiently (positioning; how many units should build them)?

(3) What is the best time to take the farming and woodcutting upgrade?

(4) Have as few units as possible to build the houses without being housed (The building efficiency drops when more units build a house).

(5) How to reduce the walking time of the units?

(6) What is the best ratio of units on food and wood?

....

It is sophisticated to push the 100-pop time record. Can you push the time to below 7 minutes? What is the ultimate "world record" build order?

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by cl2488

[cl2488]

3 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

7:16     xD

weird.zip 15 kB · 8 downloads

It is a clever trick to use multiple beam bonuses. How does the regicide mode help the pop growth? Does the hero count in the pop?

[Palaxin]

Maybe I am too old and stuck with the slow paced old school RTS... But 100 pop in 7 minutes is one of the reasons why I don't actively play 0 A.D. anymore...

[cl2488]

On 14/11/2021 at 5:33 AM, LetswaveaBook said:

I tried something and to be the first to put a timing on the mark, I had 8:08 and 100 population out (91 trained) against a sandbox AI. As it was my first try, improvements are certainly possible.

100popchallenge.zip 12 kB · 2 downloads

I watched your reply. 8 minutes is decent time. Below are several things that I saw, which may help you to improve: 

(1) I don't think it is a good idea to make cavalry in this challenge as it takes much longer time to make a cav than a woman.

(2) You did not take the wood cutting upgrade. I think it is important to take the woodcutting upgrade early.

(3) Too many units building the barrack and houses; you can cut the number of builders as the building efficiency drops with the number of builders.

(4) You have too much wood and not enough food. You can improve the eco balance.

Would you like to try it again and push your time limit (and possibly reach or beat Vali's time)?

Edited November 15, 2021 by cl2488

[cl2488]

My best time is 7:45.

cl2488_100pop_challenge.zip

[Player of 0AD]

2 hours ago, cl2488 said:

It is a clever trick to use multiple beam bonuses. How does the regicide mode help the pop growth? Does the hero count in the pop?

Clever trick, yeah? I thought it violates unwritten laws maybe ; )

The hero can scout and hunt deer xD  But he doesnt count in the statistics

[cl2488]

6 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Clever trick, yeah? I thought it violates unwritten laws maybe ; )

The hero can scout and hunt deer xD  But he doesnt count in the statistics

It does not violate anything. I don't mean anything negative when use the word "trick". I was surprised to find that you cleverly uses the team bonus to boost the economy. Vali was intrigued by your time and said your replay is hilarious. By the way, if you don't use the team bonus and hero, what is your best time? Can you beat Vali's time?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I heard about 100 pop "trained" versus "reached". Often times players talk about each others population to gauge how well they are doing before the cartography upgrade comes in. They will go off of the housing metric shown on the UI, rather than the number of units that have come out of the barracks/stable/cc. 

Which metric of population is being used here? Is it the actual number of spawned units, or the "population" indicator, which includes unspawned units?

6 hours ago, cl2488 said:

How does the regicide mode help the pop growth? Does the hero count in the pop?

indibil hero for iberians would make their skirms cost 38 food 38 wood (insane). If you pair that with ptol food trickle, roman inf training speed, then you have an outrageous boom.

I think an interesting experiment would be to see who has the fastest build under constant conditions, like just kush and with an identical map and 0 team each time. This would mean that if someone were to have a better result, it would have been due to a difference caused by a player.

Edited November 15, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[cl2488]

3 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

I heard about 100 pop "trained" versus "reached". Often times players talk about each others population to gauge how well they are doing before the cartography upgrade comes in. They will go off of the housing metric shown on the UI, rather than the number of units that have come out of the barracks/stable/cc. 

Which metric of population is being used here? Is it the actual number of spawned units, or the "population" indicator, which includes unspawned units?

indibil hero for iberians would make their skirms cost 38 food 38 wood (insane). If you pair that with ptol food trickle, roman inf training speed, then you have an outrageous boom.

I think an interesting experiment would be to see who has the fastest build under constant conditions, like just kush and with an identical map and 0 team each time. This would mean that if someone were to have a better result, it would have been due to a difference caused by a player.

The 100 pop means there are 100 units on the map (not including the units in the queue).

[Player of 0AD]

10 hours ago, cl2488 said:

It does not violate anything. I don't mean anything negative when use the word "trick". I was surprised to find that you cleverly uses the team bonus to boost the economy. Vali was intrigued by your time and said your replay is hilarious. By the way, if you don't use the team bonus and hero, what is your best time? Can you beat Vali's time?

My best time is 7:43 and no I cant beat Vali, I'm deeply impressed that I'm always at least 16 seconds slower than him.

7 hours ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

indibil hero for iberians would make their skirms cost 38 food 38 wood (insane). If you pair that with ptol food trickle, roman inf training speed, then you have an outrageous boom.

 

Britomarus from the Gauls might be even better because his bonus doesnt help only with soldier costs but with all the gathering  (doesnt help with movement speed though)

[cl2488]

6 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

My best time is 7:43 and no I cant beat Vali, I'm deeply impressed that I'm always at least 16 seconds slower than him.

Britomarus from the Gauls might be even better because his bonus doesnt help only with soldier costs but with all the gathering  (doesnt help with movement speed though)

Would you like to post your replay here? I will put your time in the leaderboard.

[chrstgtr]

May I suggest a revision? 100 pop doesn’t have any in game meaning. It’s just a round number and doesn’t require going p2 or doing any techs beyond maybe food and or wood. I think a better challenge would be to do 200 or 300 pop with some limit on women and require p3. I only say this because the first time I did it I got a ‘bad’ time which I felt was because I did upgrades. So I tried twice more, each time with a worse “normal” game build order and I got a better time each time. With that said, my best time after 3 attempts was 7:25 using a build order that would make me terribly slow in mid-late game (zero techs; 1 barrack). 

[Dizaka]

1 minute ago, chrstgtr said:

May I suggest a revision? 100 pop doesn’t have any in game meaning. It’s just a round number and doesn’t require going p2 or doing any techs beyond maybe food and or wood. I think a better challenge would be to do 200 or 300 pop with some limit on women and require p3. I only say this because the first time I did it I got a ‘bad’ time which I felt was because I did upgrades. So I tried twice more, each time with a worse “normal” game build order and I got a better time each time. With that said, my best time after 3 attempts was 7:25 using a build order that would make me terribly slow in mid-late game (zero techs; 1 barrack). 

Additionally, there's better boom methods to 50/50 women/men that cannot be maximized with Sparta.  However, they can be with 75 wood home civs.

[Grapjas]

24 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

With that said, my best time after 3 attempts was 7:25 using a build order that would make me terribly slow in mid-late game (zero techs; 1 barrack).

Not going to tell you how to play the game, but i got 07:42 with 2 eco techs (farming + wood) and 2 barracks, which is a little slower than yours, sure. But definitely wouldn't ruin mid/late game with that routine.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Grapjas

[alre]

2 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

May I suggest a revision? 100 pop doesn’t have any in game meaning. It’s just a round number and doesn’t require going p2 or doing any techs beyond maybe food and or wood. I think a better challenge would be to do 200 or 300 pop with some limit on women and require p3. I only say this because the first time I did it I got a ‘bad’ time which I felt was because I did upgrades. So I tried twice more, each time with a worse “normal” game build order and I got a better time each time. With that said, my best time after 3 attempts was 7:25 using a build order that would make me terribly slow in mid-late game (zero techs; 1 barrack). 

that's interesting though, with or without hunt? no challenge can be a perfect proxy for the game itself anyway.

[chrstgtr]

24 minutes ago, alre said:

that's interesting though, with or without hunt? no challenge can be a perfect proxy for the game itself anyway.

I only used chicken and initial berries. No extra hunt/berries. Not a single tech researched. Built 1 farmstand, 1 storehouse, 1 barrack, and 6 farms. 

And, agreed. This proxy is just not really a proxy for anything--it's almost a standalone challenge that led to a very weird build order (that would've been quite slow after the 100 pop mark). I also think that I actually would've been quicker if I had never made a farmstand (I didn't do berry tech, but I did make farmstand).  

BTW, if you (or anyone) liked this there was something similar to this for reaching 300 pop quickest. I ended up using women tech and had like 40 farms and 5 woodchoppers. I can't remember the exact time, but it was sub 10 minutes.