Challenge to reach 100 pop in the shortest time

[Grapjas]

Still need a replay from that though, if you wanted to be on the leaderboards anyway. In any case it's just a fun challenge that can potentially make your routines better and learn from others.

 

[seeh]

On 14/11/2021 at 5:05 PM, 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.

Vali100popChallenge.zip 12 kB · 11 downloads

What surprises me the most at the moment is that your batches are usually not higher than 4 and sometimes even only 1.

[Player of 0AD]

6 hours ago, cl2488 said:

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

Here my 7:40. I'm alone on the map but that doesnt mean that its revealed, its just an endless game (turned off conquest).

 

 

2 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

 Not a single tech researched.

How is that possible? The berry upgrade is supposed to be always worth it. And you need to collect thousands of food and wood, so the 2 other upgrades are supposed to be very productive too.

740.zip

[chrstgtr]

17 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

How is that possible? The berry upgrade is supposed to be always worth it. And you need to collect thousands of food and wood, so the 2 other upgrades are supposed to be very productive too.

 

Simple answer is, it's not always worth it because it depends on your goals. Berry tech is most efficient for a long boom (it lets you research wood tech earlier), but that isn't what I was trying to do. I put my first 6 women on berries, which led to more early pop at the cost of  efficiency (i.e., the wood/farming tech, which would've repaid itself in a few minutes that were beyond my event horizon). If it was a 120 pop challenge my time probably would've been comparatively much slower because my growth curve was sharply flattening. 

[cl2488]

14 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). 

You may post another topic on this challenge. It is interesting to see the record time for 200 pop or 300 pop.

8 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Simple answer is, it's not always worth it because it depends on your goals. Berry tech is most efficient for a long boom (it lets you research wood tech earlier), but that isn't what I was trying to do. I put my first 6 women on berries, which led to more early pop at the cost of  efficiency (i.e., the wood/farming tech, which would've repaid itself in a few minutes that were beyond my event horizon). If it was a 120 pop challenge my time probably would've been comparatively much slower because my growth curve was sharply flattening. 

Can you post your replay here? I am curious to see how you can reach 100 pop in 7:15.

[cl2488]

14 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). 

7:25 is a remarkable time. Can you post your replay here? I will put your name on the leaderboard after I see your replay.

[cl2488]

I have just posted another challenge to reach 200 pop with phase 3 in the forum. You are welcome to take this challenge.

[faction02]

Thanks for the fun challenge, it gives a nice opportunity for anyone to evaluate how well he is doing or try to copy some other people build. I usually don't think too much about the build order, I just try to spend all resources that I have and maximize workers efficiency. Trying various "normal" build order, I would always get to something between 7:40 and 7:50 but I would also usually float quite a lot of resources since it is also the timing around which I normally phase up.

Taking a paper and a pen to write down the key steps of Vali's build then trying to implement it at slow speed is a nice exercise for anyone who want to improve his early game (or don't remember how to play). In a poor attempt to copy Vali's build at 0.75x speed with many mistakes (completely forgetting the berries upgrade among others ), I got to 7:35.

 

10 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

How is that possible? The berry upgrade is supposed to be always worth it. And you need to collect thousands of food and wood, so the 2 other upgrades are supposed to be very productive too.

I think putting 2 extra women or taking the upgrade is close to be equivalent in general, if you don't have extra berries. Taking the upgrade is however a dominant strategy in a normal game because you might have berries that you haven't scouted yet. Since you need to decide from the start if you want the upgrade, you should take the upgrade before scouting just in case you have some extra. In this challenge, since we know from the start that you will never have extra berries to take, it makes sense to consider build orders without the upgrade to get a faster first houses and barrack and focus on training units faster.

About the food upgrade, 40 seconds is quite a long time for techs to be researched relative to the length of the challenge. If you start researching the food upgrade around minute 4-5, it won't make much of a difference relative to someone not taking that upgrade but getting extra fields. Vali research it quite late but get 7 fields, I tried early food upgrade with 6 fields or later food upgrade with 7 fields, both seems to give about the same result. The 7 fields/later tech is however better for a normal game.

For the wood upgrad, Vali researches it before he makes the second house, so it kicks in very early. The main issue there is when the research is completed, Vali needs to develop his farm/build houses&barrack, i.e. add workers to the less efficient sector of his economy instead of adding them to his wood economy where they would be the most productive. Vali has only between 14 to 20 woodcutters in most of the challenge so it doesn't take too many extra woodcutters to compensate for the missing +25%. 

Relative to a non-tech build,  on top of being better for middle-late game, I would guess Vali's build would also be much better, even around minute 7, if you have extra food:

 - The berries tech would be beneficial if you have extra berries;

 - You would be able to delay building farms to get more woodcutters in early game, therefore benefiting more from the wood tech advantage.

 

 

[cl2488]

15 hours ago, seeh said:

What surprises me the most at the moment is that your batches are usually not higher than 4 and sometimes even only 1.

I think by using small batches, you can have enough resource to build a house ahead of time. You can see Vali often just uses one woman to build a house (this saves the most work time) while others are working.

[cl2488]

2 hours ago, faction02 said:

Thanks for the fun challenge, it gives a nice opportunity for anyone to evaluate how well he is doing or try to copy some other people build. I usually don't think too much about the build order, I just try to spend all resources that I have and maximize workers efficiency. Trying various "normal" build order, I would always get to something between 7:40 and 7:50 but I would also usually float quite a lot of resources since it is also the timing around which I normally phase up.

Taking a paper and a pen to write down the key steps of Vali's build then trying to implement it at slow speed is a nice exercise for anyone who want to improve his early game (or don't remember how to play). In a poor attempt to copy Vali's build at 0.75x speed with many mistakes (completely forgetting the berries upgrade among others ), I got to 7:35.

 

I think putting 2 extra women or taking the upgrade is close to be equivalent in general, if you don't have extra berries. Taking the upgrade is however a dominant strategy in a normal game because you might have berries that you haven't scouted yet. Since you need to decide from the start if you want the upgrade, you should take the upgrade before scouting just in case you have some extra. In this challenge, since we know from the start that you will never have extra berries to take, it makes sense to consider build orders without the upgrade to get a faster first houses and barrack and focus on training units faster.

About the food upgrade, 40 seconds is quite a long time for techs to be researched relative to the length of the challenge. If you start researching the food upgrade around minute 4-5, it won't make much of a difference relative to someone not taking that upgrade but getting extra fields. Vali research it quite late but get 7 fields, I tried early food upgrade with 6 fields or later food upgrade with 7 fields, both seems to give about the same result. The 7 fields/later tech is however better for a normal game.

For the wood upgrad, Vali researches it before he makes the second house, so it kicks in very early. The main issue there is when the research is completed, Vali needs to develop his farm/build houses&barrack, i.e. add workers to the less efficient sector of his economy instead of adding them to his wood economy where they would be the most productive. Vali has only between 14 to 20 woodcutters in most of the challenge so it doesn't take too many extra woodcutters to compensate for the missing +25%. 

Relative to a non-tech build,  on top of being better for middle-late game, I would guess Vali's build would also be much better, even around minute 7, if you have extra food:

 - The berries tech would be beneficial if you have extra berries;

 - You would be able to delay building farms to get more woodcutters in early game, therefore benefiting more from the wood tech advantage.

 

 

Do you want to post your replay? I will put you in the leaderboard if you post your replay.

[cl2488]

20 hours ago, Dizaka said:

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.

You can post your replay here for a different civ if you like. 

[cl2488]

20 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). 

Can this build order be applied to do a phase-1 infantry rush in the real game? If you rush the opponent with ~50 infantry at minute 7, you can probably end the game.

[LetswaveaBook]

Something I noticed from Vali's efficient build, is that at 20 population he is housed for some time. What I tended to do was to build a house with all my woodcutters, which reduced the time I was housed. Because I used all units, my wood collection dropped to 0 and that did hurt more than the extra time of being housed.

Initially I always considers Vali's approach strange and I thought there is no valid reason why a strategy involves being housed. However I changed that opinion and Vali does that in the superior way.

Also as you have at most 50 women and want over 30 near your CC for farming, you should send less than 20 women to your storehouse for woodcutting. So that is a mistake I did as well, having to few women around the CC.

I did a number of tries and my best currently is 7:33, with using extra hunt I still can't beat Vali. He must have been optimizing/practicing that build for a long period.

[alre]

I also tried again and my best time is still over 8 min without hunt

[cl2488]

4 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Something I noticed from Vali's efficient build, is that at 20 population he is housed for some time. What I tended to do was to build a house with all my woodcutters, which reduced the time I was housed. Because I used all units, my wood collection dropped to 0 and that did hurt more than the extra time of being housed.

Initially I always considers Vali's approach strange and I thought there is no valid reason why a strategy involves being housed. However I changed that opinion and Vali does that in the superior way.

Also as you have at most 50 women and want over 30 near your CC for farming, you should send less than 20 women to your storehouse for woodcutting. So that is a mistake I did as well, having to few women around the CC.

I did a number of tries and my best currently is 7:33, with using extra hunt I still can't beat Vali. He must have been optimizing/practicing that build for a long period.

Can you post your new replay? I can update the leaderboard after you post your replay.

It is okay not being able to beat Vali's time. 7:33 is a good time already. I would like to watch your replay.

[ISlan]

Tried a few times, the best I got is 07:30

Apparently ValihrAnt is a super human, couldn't break his record xD
Will try again tommrrow

2021-11-17_0006.zip

Edited November 18, 2021 by ISlan

[cl2488]

On 17/11/2021 at 1:11 PM, ISlan said:

Tried a few times, the best I got is 07:30

Apparently ValihrAnt is a super human, couldn't break his record xD
Will try again tommrrow

2021-11-17_0006.zip 15 kB · 2 downloads

7:30 is a very good time. I have added you and your time to the leaderboard.

[cl2488]

On 16/11/2021 at 4:51 AM, faction02 said:

Thanks for the fun challenge, it gives a nice opportunity for anyone to evaluate how well he is doing or try to copy some other people build. I usually don't think too much about the build order, I just try to spend all resources that I have and maximize workers efficiency. Trying various "normal" build order, I would always get to something between 7:40 and 7:50 but I would also usually float quite a lot of resources since it is also the timing around which I normally phase up.

Taking a paper and a pen to write down the key steps of Vali's build then trying to implement it at slow speed is a nice exercise for anyone who want to improve his early game (or don't remember how to play). In a poor attempt to copy Vali's build at 0.75x speed with many mistakes (completely forgetting the berries upgrade among others ), I got to 7:35.

 

I think putting 2 extra women or taking the upgrade is close to be equivalent in general, if you don't have extra berries. Taking the upgrade is however a dominant strategy in a normal game because you might have berries that you haven't scouted yet. Since you need to decide from the start if you want the upgrade, you should take the upgrade before scouting just in case you have some extra. In this challenge, since we know from the start that you will never have extra berries to take, it makes sense to consider build orders without the upgrade to get a faster first houses and barrack and focus on training units faster.

About the food upgrade, 40 seconds is quite a long time for techs to be researched relative to the length of the challenge. If you start researching the food upgrade around minute 4-5, it won't make much of a difference relative to someone not taking that upgrade but getting extra fields. Vali research it quite late but get 7 fields, I tried early food upgrade with 6 fields or later food upgrade with 7 fields, both seems to give about the same result. The 7 fields/later tech is however better for a normal game.

For the wood upgrad, Vali researches it before he makes the second house, so it kicks in very early. The main issue there is when the research is completed, Vali needs to develop his farm/build houses&barrack, i.e. add workers to the less efficient sector of his economy instead of adding them to his wood economy where they would be the most productive. Vali has only between 14 to 20 woodcutters in most of the challenge so it doesn't take too many extra woodcutters to compensate for the missing +25%. 

Relative to a non-tech build,  on top of being better for middle-late game, I would guess Vali's build would also be much better, even around minute 7, if you have extra food:

 - The berries tech would be beneficial if you have extra berries;

 - You would be able to delay building farms to get more woodcutters in early game, therefore benefiting more from the wood tech advantage.

 

 

Do you want to post your replay? I will add you into the leaderboard if you post your replay.

[Player of 0AD]

7:24

 

7_24.zip

[cl2488]

15 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

7:24

 

7_24.zip 12 kB · 1 download

Woo.... A new record!

[Freagarach]

First try: 08:04 on latest trunk (rP26025). The hardest part for me is when to start farming. ^^

2021-11-30_0003.7z

[Freagarach]

Second try: 07:40 (same revision). I won't try anymore, consider me satisfied.

2021-11-30_0006.7z

[the-x]

7:19

 

Improved the start of ValihrAnt:

- Correct number of builders at berry

- Correct recruiting in City Centre

- Correct number of builders for houses at the start and in the 30-100 phase, escpecially the start, 30-50

- wood upgrade I timing

- i never build a farm with 5 cit or make them Shift+ clicked

 

There are no bonusses or extras used, but at the moment i will not upload that replay cause it shows a lot of mathematics especially in the start or all the correct numbers when it comes to optimizing.

[Grapjas]

9 hours ago, Freagarach said:

Second try: 07:40 (same revision). I won't try anymore, consider me satisfied.

Very nice, but why not just play on A25b like we all did?

[cl2488]

9 hours ago, the-x said:

7:19

 

Improved the start of ValihrAnt:

- Correct number of builders at berry

- Correct recruiting in City Centre

- Correct number of builders for houses at the start and in the 30-100 phase, escpecially the start, 30-50

- wood upgrade I timing

- i never build a farm with 5 cit or make them Shift+ clicked

 

There are no bonusses or extras used, but at the moment i will not upload that replay cause it shows a lot of mathematics especially in the start or all the correct numbers when it comes to optimizing.

This is a new record! It would be nice if you can upload your replay to show us how you achieve it. I will put you and your time in the leaderboard if you post your replay. Would you consider posting your replay with commentary on your Youtube channel? It is remarkable to achieve 100 pop in 7:19.

Edited November 30, 2021 by cl2488