Why does the GP farm have low base culture. If you have the Sistine Chapel and run 7 Artists, that should be 42 culture all by itself. Assuming you have the National Epic in this city as well and a few Culture buildings (Monument, Lubrary, Temples, Monistaries, etc.) many of which have doubled in culture over the years, it seems logical that the GP farm could be producing 70 to 100 base Culture. Running Free Speech and Building four Cathedrials has the potential to boost the GP farm to 400+ culture per turn. In the one game that I finished, my GP farm was producing over 700 culture per turn (although that was after accidentially adding three GA to the city instead of culture bombing like I should have).

You shouldn't build cathedrals in your GPFarm.

Your numbers are right. Without Sistine's my GPFarm has around 60 base culture. But any of my cottage cities has never had less than 100 base culture. So, assuming that you don't have 6 cities with 6 temples, there is one city that won't build the cathedral, which should it be, the one that has >100c or the one that has <100c? The one that must stop hiring NE-powered artists or the other one?

To get a good (sub-1500) time, you need a capital with 2-3 early cathedrals (4 total) that goes legendary on it's own, a second cottage city with herm and 1-2 early cathedrals (4 total) that is 4 bombs short of legendary when the capital is done and a GP farm that generates 10k and 14GA's (inc a 2nd farm) or 6k and 15GA's by the time the capital is done. And you need to be in FS by 300AD.

Those are very good estimations for a 4 citied, Legendary GPFarm cultural game. :goodjob:


Thinking along these lines:

- In my explained game, my capital would have gone Legendary without the help of any GA in 1430AD. So, unless I get much more than 18GP :eek:, which wouldn't be too efficient anyway, there is no way for me to improve my date (appart from obvious things like winning the Liberalism race) without improving the efficiency of my capital.

- One way to do so would be to use the Hermitage in the capital. But that requieres a more than wonderful second cottage city or another bunch of GA...

- Another way would be to build a couple of 10cpt WW in the capital. Maybe with marble and a bit of luck...

- The other way is not trading for Pottery after Alphabet, but beeline for Pottery since the very beggining. That way my cottages will be much more developped all through the game.

In my current game, (corn, 5FP, 2gold) I have ignored the corn :eek: and started researching Wheel-Pott, trading for Agriculture after Alphabet. I'll let you know how it ends up.

To get a good (sub-1500) time, you need a capital with 2-3 early cathedrals (4 total) that goes legendary on it's own, a second cottage city with herm and 1-2 early cathedrals (4 total) that is 4 bombs short of legendary when the capital is done and a GP farm that generates 10k and 14GA's (inc a 2nd farm) or 6k and 15GA's by the time the capital is done. And you need to be in FS by 300AD.

Those are very good estimations for a 4 citied, Legendary GPFarm cultural game. :goodjob:


Thinking along these lines:

- In my explained game, my capital would have gone Legendary without the help of any GA in 1430AD. So, unless I get much more than 18GP :eek:, which wouldn't be too efficient anyway, there is no way for me to improve my date (appart from obvious things like winning the Liberalism race) without improving the efficiency of my capital.

- One way to do so would be to use the Hermitage in the capital. But that requieres a more than wonderful second cottage city or another bunch of GA...

- Another way would be to build a couple of 10cpt WW in the capital. Maybe with marble and a bit of luck...

- The other way is not trading for Pottery after Alphabet, but beeline for Pottery since the very beggining. That way my cottages will be much more developped all through the game.

In my current game, (corn, 5FP, 2gold) I have ignored the corn :eek: and started researching Wheel-Pott, trading for Agriculture after Alphabet. I'll let you know how it ends up.

I had a game that looked to be going really well. I started with the much coveted Grasslands Gems tile along with seafood, cows, ivory, and a couple of calander resources in my BFC. I was only able to get four cities out before the AI rexed all the available land, but that was okay. My capitol and one other city had high production and commerce. A third was a GP farm, and the forth was building temples for all four religions and running one artist. I was researching education in 1 AD. I was able to get four GA, my capitol up to 20K culture and the second culture city to 10K by 1180 AD when Haty won a Religious Victory.

1180 and the AI won the game from under me! All of my other starts have lasted until at least 1600. I get a great start and the the AI finishes me off fast.

Back to the drawing board.

Grassland gems is overrated. You need hammers in the capital to build everything and at the size 5 happy cap you ideally want to be working 2 gold and 3 cottages (at least 2 on floodplains to prevent starvation). But since you had ivory+cows you were ok hammerwise with that start, you just had slightly less commerce as compared to a 2 gold+corn start.

The best 4 resource start is 2 gold and 2 irrigated corn on a plains hill with 2 floodplains - you grow to size 5 so fast and then you build the settlers so fast and then you can switch off the food and work gold+cottages until HR (except when you are building settler/worker). Plus you can build library before granary because of the 2 food.

There is one thing I have observed in lots of threads about cultural games:
Pleople saying that you should build lots of culture-providing buildings.

Haven't you heard the sentence "a monastery provides 2 cpt and after 1000 years it gets doubled to a whooping 4cpt" a hundred times?

I think that's a wrong way of thinking. In fact, I have never heard a sub-1500AD winner recommend building a lot of Obelisks/Monasteries/Libraries.

In my games, lots of monasteries get built in the 3 Legendary cities only around 1200AD.


First of all, when are you supposed to build those soon-to-be-providing-4cpt monasteries? Before 1000BC you should be building Settlers and granaries, not monasteries. Before 1AD you should be building Workers, missionaries and temples, not monasteries. Before 1000AD you should be building Hermitage and Cathedrals, not monasteries. Some 30 turns before winning the game, yes, you should be building monasteries if there's nothing better available, till some 10 turns before the end, when you should be building culture.

Secondly, 60 hammers is a whole lot for 4 miserable cpt. One of your pop can build a monastery on his own in 20 turns working a mined grasshill. But that same pop could have been working a cottaged grasshill for those 20 turns instead. That way, it would have produced 10*1+10*3 commerce. Ten turns later, it will be producing 4commerce per turn, while the monastery is veeeeery far away from producing 4cpt. By the time the monastery gives 4cpt, the cottage will be yielding around 6 commerce per turn.


I am not saying you should never build a monastery! An early one in the capital can give a good bunch of beakers. And you need several ones if you are not under OR in order to build missionaries to spread your religions.

I am not recommending to cottage your grasshills, either!

I am just saying that transforming hammers into buildings that give culture is a very poor method of building culture. A cottage or an artist are both much more efficient ways of building culture.

Grassland gems is overrated. You need hammers in the capital to build everything and at the size 5 happy cap you ideally want to be working 2 gold and 3 cottages (at least 2 on floodplains to prevent starvation). But since you had ivory+cows you were ok hammerwise with that start, you just had slightly less commerce as compared to a 2 gold+corn start.

The best 4 resource start is 2 gold and 2 irrigated corn on a plains hill with 2 floodplains - you grow to size 5 so fast and then you build the settlers so fast and then you can switch off the food and work gold+cottages until HR (except when you are building settler/worker).

I don't quite agree. The happy cap is not going to last forever. You will want to grow fast when that happens. And you won't be willing to stop working the gold tiles.

So I would prefer a 2 gems and 2 irrigated corn on a plains hill with 2 floodplains start. While building settlers it doesn't make any difference. Later on you can transform your excess food into hammers by way of slavery. In the endgame you will grow bigger and will run more artists or more plains cottages.

One shouldn't discard a 1gems 1 gold start either, for more happy resources. :)

Plus you can build library before granary because of the 2 food.

Food for thought. I am still struggling against the old mantras:
- Build a Granary in every city, no matter how small the city will be.
- The Granary should always be your first building.
It's hard to break old habits.

Looks like a nice game. Specially so being your first Deity win! Lots of room for improvement too.

Do you remember the date you reached Liberalism?
How many religions did you have?
Did you play against 3 leaders? I think 4 is the minimum for a valid HOF submission.

I keep on debating if it is better to go from CS to Liberalism, and trade up to Music; or to go for Music first and then race for Liberalism. :confused:

I had no trouble getting liberalism first after getting music first(through both drama and literature), yeah only 3 leaders although adding another one shouldn't be too hard. In my game CS would only boost hammers so it wasn't much of an argument... I also revolted to state religion when mansa asked me to(which might be a huge benefit of spiritual that you can agree to such demands). Liberalism about 250 AD or something. I didn't trade away edu until right before i had it(using a GS for philo ment the AI's delayed it and gave me some extra time, i didn't trade away philo until i had edu, although i traded away paper right when i got it). In hindsight i should prolly not have researched printing press myself... I think I got all religions... The AI kept spreading them to me, several to several cities sparing me alot of hammers in missionaries. Founded only philo myself. Oh and i did (slow)build cathedrals in my gp farm, i did have a ton of religions though so i never got around to build all the cathedrals anyways(no multiplier resources), I settled the GA from music in my captial(the GP farm), which was probably correct, although i should have built hermitage there with mines as well, Marble would have sped me up this game it is not funny(the marble cathedrals, NE, pantheon, sistine etc, i could maybe have gotten both MOM and TAJ if i had marble which would have been pretty damn good)...

One interesting thing is that my capital basically spammed settlers/workers letting the other cities concentrate on working nothing but cottages(my second cities had no resources, but 4 floodplains, which got improved from the get go), build something like worker -> warrior - warrior - warrior which timed with size 5(i was on a plains hill and had double irrigated corn, rest of titles were mostly grassland), the first worker improved corn(right next to capital) - corn(one turn wasted on moving there) - plains hill(one turn wasted to move there due to hill) - grassland hill (two turns wasted to move there) - grassland hill(thats 5, right next to the other one so one turn wasted moving there). My capital started off with worker then a settler then another settler i think. When i got elephants hooked up in my 3rd city(this one wasn't destined to be legendary but actually my secondary gpo farm), thile doing this the capital built another worker then another settler for the last legendary city(which was quite far away, it happened to have iron and wine(riverside on a plains hill so not actually a very good title), but no other resources, both my legendary cottage sites worked pretty much nothing but cottages, and whipped when needed. This combined with all the flooplain / riverside grassland ment i was outteching the AI(with some tech trading ofc) despite not having gems or gold in my starting city. This leads me to believe that while riverside gems is all well and good, you really want at least two food resources who are imeaditly improvable(two deers is fine, as is two AG resources(but not one deer and one AG, although that might be fine for other reasons, as forested deer is an amazing title no matter what you do), but AH is not as they diverge your tech path too much). So the ideal start might very well be something like 2 corn + 2 gems.

This lead me into another train of thought. Would arboria potentially be a good map for this kind of game. The map doesn't have much gems or gold and no stone however there are a ton of deer and silver, with mapfiner finding something like settling on deer with deer in the imeadiate small cross and 2-3 more silvers/deers in the imeadiate fat cross should not be impossible, this might require teching BW before alpha(and before pottery), but i think it might be worth looking into... Is this map even legal btw(it is in standard map scripts for bts at least...).

Thanks for all the details, oyzar.

I settled the GA from music in my captial(the GP farm), which was probably correct, although i should have built hermitage there with mines as well...

I don't think so. You said you bombed all cities equally. So IMO it would have been best to choose the city with the best base culture and settle the GA there and build the Hermitage there. Then divert some of the GA bombed there to other cities. That way the Hermitage would have provided the best possible yield.

...OTOH, maybe the other cities were too hammer poor to build the Hermitage...

Those are very good estimations for a 4 citied, Legendary GPFarm cultural game. :goodjob:

In my current game, (corn, 5FP, 2gold) I have ignored the corn :eek: and started researching Wheel-Pott, trading for Agriculture after Alphabet. I'll let you know how it ends up.

I wouldn't have ignored the corn - it's significant in cutting the time to build the 2 settlers and in allowing you to work the second gold, which means you finish the library earlier. The extra turns researching ag will almost be offset by the 20% bonus for pottery and earlier working of the second gold.

On vanilla I would go alpha, trade for BW and Poly, then research Lit. Whip granary and library in GP farm, start NE. After Lit, go to Music, hope Mansa founds confu (or muptiple AI have it), trade for CoL, switch to caste (once you can whip out NE), then research CS.

Thanks for all the details, oyzar.



I don't think so. You said you bombed all cities equally. So IMO it would have been best to choose the city with the best base culture and settle the GA there and build the Hermitage there. Then divert some of the GA bombed there to other cities. That way the Hermitage would have provided the best possible yield.

...OTOH, maybe the other cities were too hammer poor to build the Hermitage...

Not only because of the 100% multiplier(my capital had alot of culture from all the wonders as well as from the artists it ran) but also for the GA points which would have contributed quite alot over the course of the game..

You shouldn't build cathedrals in your GPFarm.

Your numbers are right. Without Sistine's my GPFarm has around 60 base culture. But any of my cottage cities has never had less than 100 base culture. So, assuming that you don't have 6 cities with 6 temples, there is one city that won't build the cathedral, which should it be, the one that has >100c or the one that has <100c? The one that must stop hiring NE-powered artists or the other one?

Your assumption is what is different. I generally get 6 cities built so that I can build Cathedrials in all three Culture cities. Maybe that is why my games are less successful. If I stay at 4 cities, I would not have to turn down the research slider as far. By the time I stop researching I am generally able to turn the Culture slider up to 80% or more, so maintenance is not an issue in the late game as much (what with Courthouses and all).

One more loss under my belt. This time the UN was built in the early 1500s and Ghandi won a Diplomatic Victory. Three of the AI players were gifting me techs by about 1000 AD.

I seem to be slower than the other players in this thread because I only generate about 4-6 GA (along with 1-3 early GS) by about 1500 AD. I have never won the Liberalism race. I have never been able to build the Great Library or the Parthenon (I only try for one or the other and then not every game). I have only been able to build the Sistine Chapel one time (but I have rushed it with a GE from the Pyramids 3 or 4 times).

I have thought about trying to go for a Permanent Aliance with one of the AI players, but the option never comes up. I have gotten Defensive Pacts several times. The AI players are often building late game wonders like the Kremlin, Hollywood, The Apollo Program, and the UN, so I know they are far enough along in the tech tree. Any tips on getting a PA in this type of game?

Your assumption is what is different. I generally get 6 cities built so that I can build Cathedrials in all three Culture cities. Maybe that is why my games are less successful. If I stay at 4 cities, I would not have to turn down the research slider as far. By the time I stop researching I am generally able to turn the Culture slider up to 80% or more, so maintenance is not an issue in the late game as much (what with Courthouses and all).

Er... I wouldn't build any courthouses. Even with 6 cities, you should be able to trade for enough gold to run at 100% culture. Techs obviously. Paper and edu alone should net you a few thousand, then you can trade your happy resources once you don't need them, and you can even just ask for a gift of around 60g a couple of times from everybody. I had 5 cities in my win and I think I still ended up with over 2000g in my treasury.

You can't actually get 1K+ for every tech as then the AI will just research them themselves before they get that much money. You can get quite alot of gold and certainly enough to never run anything other than research and later culture once you are past currency...

For those struggling to just win just follow the basic outline in post 229.. It is not that hard.. There are also numerous detailed walkthroughs in this thread.. I'll post some saves later when i get inet on my civ computer. Look at the save jesusin posted. Do your games look anything like that? If not, why?

Just played another game also off hof mod.. 4-5 turns left in 1410.. This was on arboria, also without hof mod(and hence map finder) starting site had 3 deer(settled on one on turn two) as well as rice and cows, one grassland hill rest mostly grassland with a few plains titles, alot of it was riverside though. Got alot of gp's(last was at 2000 or 2300 i think, 3 GS rest artists), got marble this time but still didn't have time for mom and taj... Bombed mostly my gp farm but also the secondary cottage city a ton, it got a bit culture preasured by darius in the early game so it couldn't work all titles before i bombed it twice(after settling the GA from music there)... I got some saves eventually(the 1560 save is from the inland sea game, the others are from the arboria game, sorry for not using proper naming convention). I have already upgraded to 3.17 so seems like i can't use hof mod yet... Guess i won't get a proper game in for this competition anyways... Funny thing about this last game is that i was actually teching so slow that i got gifted both masonery and math before i discovered alpha!!

Not only because of the 100% multiplier(my capital had alot of culture from all the wonders as well as from the artists it ran) but also for the GA points which would have contributed quite alot over the course of the game..

All what wonders?? The AI beats me to everything but TSC because I beeline for it and chop rush it. Are you able to get more wonders?

Pantheon and TSC as well as national epic(and i should have built hermitage there as welll), you can check out the other game, i got the same wonder configuration there... I did a severe mistake which cost me alot of turns in teching alpha before aestics, i could just have traded aestics for alpha from mansa or darius which both had alpha before me(which is why they gifted me techs), although due to the gifting i guess it worked out fine anyways...

Er... I wouldn't build any courthouses. Even with 6 cities, you should be able to trade for enough gold to run at 100% culture. Techs obviously. Paper and edu alone should net you a few thousand, then you can trade your happy resources once you don't need them, and you can even just ask for a gift of around 60g a couple of times from everybody. I had 5 cities in my win and I think I still ended up with over 2000g in my treasury.

Actually, I generally have two commerce cities and a GP farm (like the formula says to do). The other three cities are usually a secondary GP farm (with a few less specialists) and two production centers that link up some resources. Both of them generally build a granary followed by one temple of each religion. After finishing the temples, the Courthouses are a quick build in about 6 turns or so and net me a savings of 4-5 gold per city. 10 Gold per turn in maintenance saved over 100+ turns adds up fast when you consider that it only cost a few turns of production. The GP farms often slow build a courthouse too after they have finished building all other essential buildings.

I tried to play a Boreal as well :)
Was really nice with the Deer + plainhill start and stuff, however my early tech was horrible, and I even had gems in start loc.

I did hunting, bronze, wheel(from hut), agricult, pottery, meditation, PH, Write, COL(free), math, Traded for alpha, CS.

However once I started reseraching math my economy crashed. I had barely no cottages and only one gem mine. Maybe I got to greedy with city locations and I think I should have searched for 2 gem startloc.
Maybe skip agricult and pottery as well but then I think alpha is needed before math

"Late game" boreal was actually quite great. I had plenty of forests to chop down which enabled my to build very many cultural buildings very fast. I got first to liberalism (no music), MoM, Tach Mahal and Sinistine Chapel. Finished in 1490 AD, a bit worse than my best game so far on inland sea.

I've done a few starts now and i don't think you need double gems to succeed... My last start was tripple deer + corn + double silver(under forest though), The trick is to build riverside cottages asap, that way your economy won't crash too hard.. And even if it does it can be all good in that you get gifted techs... The chopping in the early game can really speed up settlers and workers as you got nearly unlimited forests... In that game my gp farm was 4 deer + cows + copper on grassland. Haven't finished yet but due to ai claiming all the leftover good city spots i was left with a mediocre 3rd city so not sure how fast the finish will be...

Yeah I guess, I had 2 grassriver tiles (1 forested), plainhill(for city), 1 gemhill(tundra, froest), 3 plaindeer, 3 tundradeer and 1 wheat. I had trouble working all all that many cottages though since I had to work some deers and also work the gemmine. I had a limit of 6 population because of happieness.

I played as Pacal, dunno why actaully :) anyhow fast graneries was kinda nice. Im wondering if Hannibal is worth trying out for earlygame happieness bonus (+1 by default and +1 for monument).... Anyhow, the Health may be fixable by simply leaving some more forests at least on Boreal game.

I usually get monarchy in trade from aesthetics as the AI's tend to tech this relatively early, after that you have very little happiness issues, doubt charismatic would be worth it for just +2 happiness prior to that... Spiritual is probably better but not sure if it is better than financial or philosophical... You can just build workers and settlers while waiting for monarchy anyways as this seems to time fairly well. In arboria you won't get any thundra so not sure where you have this from...

Ohh I was playing Boreal :s
I thought that was the map you played as well I guess I was mistaken

Lol arboria looked really nice :) basically its grassland instead of plains and tundra

Dang, with immortal GOTM just finished and two Deity GOTMs underway, there's no way for me to participate in the tournament :(

HOF Gauntlets are much better than playing the GOTM IMHO.

6) Delay trading Literature and Drama as much as possible while building The Sistine Chapel, but never trade Music until it (TSC) is built.

7) Research Civil Service -> Paper -> Education (bulb 1 GS) -> Liberalism.

8) Don't trade Education until Liberalism is completed.

Sun Tzu Wu

Here is where I have a problem. How do you delay trading anything? I find that I either trade the techs I have immediately or else the AI demands it from me. In which case, he has maceman (rifleman, mech infantry,...) and I have warriors so I'm obliged to give them everything they ask for.

Well...there are a couple more losses under my belt. I have noticed that Ghandi is almost always the winner (unless one of the other peeps gets an early religious victory). Unclethrill recommended that I play without Ghandi. Maybe that is the problem I am having.

What leader combinations have other people had luck with?

why not play Gandhi yourself?

Well...there are a couple more losses under my belt. I have noticed that Ghandi is almost always the winner (unless one of the other peeps gets an early religious victory). Unclethrill recommended that I play without Ghandi. Maybe that is the problem I am having.

What leader combinations have other people had luck with?

I have daruis roosvelt, lincon and mansa currently. Mansa always end up demanding me into islam after spreading it to all my 4 cities so it is nice anyways... Ghandi might be better than lizzy due to his UU and starting techs, but it's hard to pass up financial.

Seriously if you are building 3 good cities, one of them being a GP farm the other two being cottage cities and 1 other city in decent time i have hard to see how you can keep losing... If you can't get 4 cities up just start over... Build worker -> warrior's until happy cap(with 2+ improvable food resources anyways) then alternate settlers and workers(with an extra worker tossed on, the exact build order depends on what titles you have and what techs you research as with BW you probably want more workers earlier), until you have 4 cities and 6 workers, and you should be set. After done with the workers and settlers you build a library in capital(some of the settlers, workers can actually come from other cities, they don't all need to come from the capital) and then run 2 scientists, do this in at least one of the other cities as well(maybe the GP farm?) until you have 3 GS, use the first one to make an academy in your best cottage city(prolly your capital which will be most developed by then) the others to bulb philo and then education. In the capital improve first food resources then commerce resources(like gems gold and silver), before making mines(until you can work all improved titles at happy cap), then depending on the game either chop or road towards the new city(important to have a worker improving every new city immediately, if you can't do this you should probably have built a worker before the settler). By using this method i find it hard to actually fail at winning baring a lucky AP win or an unlikely dow... Tech path depends a bit on resources but i find either something like ag -> wheel -> pottery -> writing -> alpha or hunting -> bw -> wheel -> pottery -> writing -> alpha(or if you have very spaced cities without any commerce resources in capital it can sometimes work to tech aesthetics before alpha and then trade for alpha). this last tech path is obviously for a deer heavy arboria start, but anyways these techpaths are just guidelines and nothing absolute...

Here is where I have a problem. How do you delay trading anything? I find that I either trade the techs I have immediately or else the AI demands it from me. In which case, he has maceman (rifleman, mech infantry,...) and I have warriors so I'm obliged to give them everything they ask for.

If your Diplomacy is high enough (at least 4), the AI will not demand Technologies as tribute. However, with high Diplomacy the AI may still ask for Technology gifts; if your Diplomacy is at least 5, you can safely decline (losing only 1 point of Diplomacy).

Sun Tzu Wu

If your Diplomacy is high enough (at least 4), the AI will not demand Technologies as tribute. However, with high Diplomacy the AI may still ask for Technology gifts; if your Diplomacy is at least 5, you can safely decline (losing only 1 point of Diplomacy).

Sun Tzu Wu

It doesn't have much to do with the absolute points as with the attitude, if they are pleased or more they ask could you spare this for a friend, and you don't get any - for refusing... You don't gain the +1 for you gave us help though. Several of the leaders used here have a hidden +1 against humans which makes it much easier to get them to pleased. When you are close to completing tsc you can trade away music anyways, you don't need to hold onto it until you actually complete it..

Seriously if you are building 3 good cities, one of them being a GP farm the other two being cottage cities and 1 other city in decent time i have hard to see how you can keep losing...

Thanks for pointing out how much I suck.

Actually, I have finifhed two times with excluded games. The first I detailed in a thread above where I clicked the wrong icon adding three GA to my capitol instead of producing the Great Works to take it from 41K to 53K culture. The second time I was learning to use map finder. I got about half way through the game and said to myself "this map sure seems pretrty similar to one that I played last night" and sure enough it was. I have since learned to move and delete files from map finder as I use them.

That's right...the first time I won it was without having mapfinder installed on my computer. I had no commerce resources in my capitol's BFC, and was able to (almost if not for a misclick) get a very late 1822 finish.

I have been able to do most of the things that are detailed in the walkthroughs by you and others. Thank you very much for the great advice. The one thing that I have not been able to do is be the first to Liberalism. I generally am very late (1000AD-1200AD) to stopping research and cranking up the culture slider. I have been improving this in recent games.

I am determined to get this Gauntlet done before the June 10th deadline. I might have just tried a few times and then went back to playing other games towards my EQM, but after the clicking mishap I have become dedicatged to duplicating that victory (hopefully at a much earlier date).

why not play Gandhi yourself?

I don't like Ghandi too much. I especially don't like him getting Diplomatic victories before 1000AD or Cultural Victories in 1400AD. I have been playing most of my games as Elizabeth. It is hard to beat the combo of Financial and Philosophical for this game type.

I am also taking your advice about making the map more crowded. I am now generating maps with 5 opponents excluding Ghandi and adding Darius and Lincoln. I probably won't play through any of them until tomorrow and hopefully they go a bit better.

Just finished trying Rainforest. It has large numbers floodplains and even more jungle covered grasslands. In the jungle areas, one needs at least 2 Workers clearing jungle full-time in addition to the usual 4-5 Workers for a 4 city civilization. The most disappointing part of this map is the lack of variety in Health resources.

I started out in a grasslands area clear of jungle with 2 Pig, 2 Gems and 1 Deer within the fat cross centered on a fork in the river and I built my Capital there. It turned out that about 4 tiles down each of the three rivers (one downstream and two upstream) there was a potential city site with 2-5 resources within a fat cross area, but each of the non-capital sites was solid jungle. The cities had adjacent and non-overlapping fat crosses, so each commerce city could run up to 20 cottages each (cottaging over unneeded resources).

In this game, I played Elizabeth (Philosophical and Financial) again. Philosophical is really important for the Great Person point boost. Financial is almost as important for the Cottage fueled Research in the early game and the Cottage fueled Culture in the end game. My opponents were Darius I, Hatshepsut, Mansa Musa, and Washington.

Diplomacy went very smoothly in this game; After the usual 0 diplomacy in the early game, it never went below 3; I didn't even have to try to raise my diplomacy, even after Hatshepsut insisted that I join her (AP) Religion. I had three very early religions (Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism); I had Stone, but no Copper or Marble. I managed to build The Pyramids with Stone, but The Sistine Chapel without Marble wasn't even close (Not enough Hammers) at 16t to go. I also lost the race to Liberalism by about 3t; I did foolishly trade Education for Philosophy so I wouldn't have to research it for 4t prior to Liberalism.

Earlier in the game, I didn't notice that Hatshepsut was building the majority of all the World Wonders. On Turn 160 (AD 1000), I noticed that Hatshepsut Culture was already approaching 10K with my Culture roughly at about half that. Both my Cottage and Artist development was very so to start, due to jungle clearing and low Health resources.

Hatshepsut's Culture rate was about 370 Cpt in the third city and my 2nd Cottage city's was 200 Cpt, but my Great Artist spamming should easily close the gap. However, by Turn 200 (AD 1400), Hatshepsut built The Eiffel Tower and Rock N Roll and as 1000 year doubling bonuses kicked in for her early buildings and especially WWs, her Culture rate in her third city rose to 500-600 Cpt. Then on turn 208 (AD 1480), Hatshepsut's Culture rate in her third city inexplicably jumped from 500-600 Cpt to 900-1000 Cpt. I simply couldn't spam Great Artists fast enough to catch up.

On turn 223 (AD 1565), Hatshepsut generated a Great Artist in her third city and used it on the following turn to go from 45.5K Culture to 50.5K resulting in a Cultural Victory (turn 224; AD 1570). I wish I had turned on Permanent Alliance, since my diplomacy was Friendly (14). There would have been enough time to get a Defensive Pact on turn 160 and possibly get the Permanent Alliance on turn 200. Is this waiting period between DP and PA 40 turns or longer?

GP: GS for Academy, GS for most of Education, GE for National Epic, GE for Buddhist Stupa, 8 GA, and three more GA nearly born.

Again, what really slowed me down was Health which was never better than 14-15 until UN Environmentalism (+6 Health) was passed. Even with the poor Health, I had one city at 20P and the Capital at 18P.

I also blundered again by building Hermitage in the GP Farm which had enough Hammers to do it, because the Cottage cities were busy doing something else. I probably should have saved the second GE for the Hermitage.

Well, another poorly played game, but I got the loss this time that I justly deserved.

Sun Tzu Wu

Well this was a first.

The game seemed to be going very well. My BFC had two grassland gems and a gold with a cow and several irrigated tiles for food. One of my grassland hill mines also found silver around turn 80 or so (that's 4 commerce resources in my capitol). I was able to build the Pyramids with Stone and run Representation. I was also able to build the Sistine Chapel with the GE. I had four religions in all four of my cities and had built most of my Cathedrials by about 1200 AD. I had researched all required techs except Nationalism (for Hermitage) which was slowly finishing from the 4 research per Artist.

I got one GA from Music and produced four more by 1300.

Then the AI spread Mining Inc to all four cities and my economy tanked. Sure my production went way up, but the maintenance was like 20 per turn per city. After building Courthouses (which took about 6 turns) I could only run my Culture slider at 40% and the AI borders started to creep up on me. One of my cities was culture flipped. My capitol lost several farmed tiles to Mansa Musa's culture and people started to starve. I could no longer run Artists in my GP farm.

This is the first time that I have lost due to corporation spread.

@ Sun Tzu Wu: Have you been able to get a PA with these settings? The option never comes up for me. I do get a Defensive Pact eventually, but the PA never appears in the Diplo Screen. What is required for a PA?

I have been able to do most of the things that are detailed in the walkthroughs by you and others. Thank you very much for the great advice. The one thing that I have not been able to do is be the first to Liberalism. I generally am very late (1000AD-1200AD) to stopping research and cranking up the culture slider. I have been improving this in recent games.


Being first to Liberalism is not critical. All this means is you don't get Nationalism as the first to Liberalism reward and must research it the hard way. Also, the AI that is first has a slight Tech advantage that could be leveraged into a Win for the AI, but if you are fast at building Culture, losing the Liberalism race will probably only increase the win date by a few turns.

However, you must turn the Culture slider to 100% (or as high as possible)/Research slider to 00% on the Liberalism completion turn. Your Artists should be able to research Printing Press (and Nationalism if you lost the race to Liberalism). No other later period Technologies are needed and all the earlier ones can be traded for.

Note that you should trade only for Technologies that will directly help you win a Cultural Victory. For example, Metal Casting is totally useless for improving Culture and a Forge's -1 Health actually harms Culture by reducing the size of the Population and hence the number of Cottages worked or Artists hired.

Sun Tzu Wu

@ Sun Tzu Wu: Have you been able to get a PA with these settings? The option never comes up for me. I do get a Defensive Pact eventually, but the PA never appears in the Diplo Screen. What is required for a PA?

Permanent Alliance is a game option that is available when you start a Custom Game (selecting the Map type, player leader, opponents, etc). If this option is not selected you will never be able to form a Permanent Alliance with an AI. Also, note that with the PA option selected, an AI can also form a PA with another AI!

Sun Tzu Wu

I have daruis roosvelt, lincon and mansa currently. Mansa always end up demanding me into islam after spreading it to all my 4 cities so it is nice anyways... Ghandi might be better than lizzy due to his UU and starting techs, but it's hard to pass up financial.

Seriously if you are building 3 good cities, one of them being a GP farm the other two being cottage cities and 1 other city in decent time i have hard to see how you can keep losing... If you can't get 4 cities up just start over... Build worker -> warrior's until happy cap(with 2+ improvable food resources anyways) then alternate settlers and workers(with an extra worker tossed on, the exact build order depends on what titles you have and what techs you research as with BW you probably want more workers earlier), until you have 4 cities and 6 workers, and you should be set. After done with the workers and settlers you build a library in capital(some of the settlers, workers can actually come from other cities, they don't all need to come from the capital) and then run 2 scientists, do this in at least one of the other cities as well(maybe the GP farm?) until you have 3 GS, use the first one to make an academy in your best cottage city(prolly your capital which will be most developed by then) the others to bulb philo and then education. In the capital improve first food resources then commerce resources(like gems gold and silver), before making mines(until you can work all improved titles at happy cap), then depending on the game either chop or road towards the new city(important to have a worker improving every new city immediately, if you can't do this you should probably have built a worker before the settler). By using this method i find it hard to actually fail at winning baring a lucky AP win or an unlikely dow... Tech path depends a bit on resources but i find either something like ag -> wheel -> pottery -> writing -> alpha or hunting -> bw -> wheel -> pottery -> writing -> alpha(or if you have very spaced cities without any commerce resources in capital it can sometimes work to tech aesthetics before alpha and then trade for alpha). this last tech path is obviously for a deer heavy arboria start, but anyways these techpaths are just guidelines and nothing absolute...

Do you think your 3rd GS is better than a GA? This is an old discussion I had with WastinTime. I would like to hear your thoughts about it.

The first (early) GS for an Academy is a no brainer. I love to have a second one for Philo, since it provides a religion and it guaranties a won Liberalism race, if you don't trade Philo away.

The third one "just" makes you stop researching sooner. But, is it better than a GA to bomb at the end of the game?

Permanent Alliance is a game option that is available when you start a Custom Game (selecting the Map type, player leader, opponents, etc). If this option is not selected you will never be able to form a Permanent Alliance with an AI. Also, note that with the PA option selected, an AI can also form a PA with another AI!

Sun Tzu Wu

Appart from that you need one of two particular techs (comm or fascism, IIRC) and you need to have a number of turns in DP or a number of turns in common war.

In Vanilla I rarely lose with this settings (very early dow or relations mismanagement).

In BTS, is there something the player can do against an AP victory by the AI? It would be sad not to be in control of the game.

Theocracy is not an option, since you want other religions to spread. The player's pop is not going to be high enough. What can you do? Help spread the religion to more cities for other AIs? They already do that more quickly and effectively than you can. Any ideas?

BTS Gandhi: I think I have had instances where Gandhi has traded me a monopoly tech, at Pleased. Has anyone observed this? Is not Musa the only one to trade monopoly techs anymore?

Do you think your 3rd GS is better than a GA? This is an old discussion I had with WastinTime. I would like to hear your thoughts about it.

The first (early) GS for an Academy is a no brainer. I love to have a second one for Philo, since it provides a religion and it guaranties a won Liberalism race, if you don't trade Philo away.

The third one "just" makes you stop researching sooner. But, is it better than a GA to bomb at the end of the game?

Well of course since cultural is non-linear as you've pointed out before, whether you want a 3rd GS or a GA depends on a bunch of interrelated factors. Mainly on if the extra turns of FS makes a difference in one of the 2 cottage cities being legendary at the time the other is or if you have 2-3 GP farms if the timings of the final pops are close enough or if it's actually better to settle that GA in one of your cities right then...

But generally I feel pretty safe in saying that on normal speed when you need to build a lot of culture in 2 cities instead of just one like on quick, there's a greater chance a GS is better. But my feeling is in most games a GA still will be better.

In BTS, is there something the player can do against an AP victory by the AI? It would be sad not to be in control of the game.

Theocracy is not an option, since you want other religions to spread. The player's pop is not going to be high enough. What can you do? Help spread the religion to more cities for other AIs? They already do that more quickly and effectively than you can. Any ideas?

Its quite easy to not get beat TBH.

First in order for AI to win Apostic palace victory he needs to spread religon to all opponents. Usually AI internal relations is not all that good and one AI are not affected by the religon and has no open border with AP builder.

Second, Since win by self vote is not allowed the AI needs to have good relations(5+?) with at least one other AI who does not share his religon for him to be able to win by AP. (Even AIs who vote for him as president will not vote for him to win unless they really like him).

Third, The AI have to spread the religon in question to you. By spreading his religon to all your cities and abstaining in the victory vote you can probably keep him from winning even if one other AI votes for him (75% needed for win I think).

To sum up, Ive never lost to an AI AP victory and I find them very unlikely to happend. If you do feel there is an actual threat (1 and 2 are fulfilled, and you just got the religon spread as he finished the palace you may wanna "sacrifice" some resourses to spread his religon in your empire fast. (But 1 and 2 are nearly never true, so if you do this your most likely just paranoid)

Appart from that you need one of two particular techs (comm or fascism, IIRC) and you need to have a number of turns in DP or a number of turns in common war.

Do you have to have the techs, or will the option become available when the AI gets the tech. I know that with defensive pacts the option becomes available when the AI gets the tech as I never research that far in these type of games.

Its quite easy to not get beat TBH.

First in order for AI to win Apostic palace victory he needs to spread religon to all opponents. Usually AI internal relations is not all that good and one AI are not affected by the religon and has no open border with AP builder.

Second, Since win by self vote is not allowed the AI needs to have good relations(5+?) with at least one other AI who does not share his religon for him to be able to win by AP. (Even AIs who vote for him as president will not vote for him to win unless they really like him).

Third, The AI have to spread the religon in question to you. By spreading his religon to all your cities and abstaining in the victory vote you can probably keep him from winning even if one other AI votes for him (75% needed for win I think).

To sum up, Ive never lost to an AI AP victory and I find them very unlikely to happend. If you do feel there is an actual threat (1 and 2 are fulfilled, and you just got the religon spread as he finished the palace you may wanna "sacrifice" some resourses to spread his religon in your empire fast. (But 1 and 2 are nearly never true, so if you do this your most likely just paranoid)

In several games, the AP has only cased me to lose a couple of times. It is usually another Cultural victory or the UN that do me in. Ghandi seem to be efficient at achieving both of them.

Well of course since cultural is non-linear as you've pointed out before, whether you want a 3rd GS or a GA depends on a bunch of interrelated factors. Mainly on if the extra turns of FS makes a difference in one of the 2 cottage cities being legendary at the time the other is or if you have 2-3 GP farms if the timings of the final pops are close enough or if it's actually better to settle that GA in one of your cities right then...

But generally I feel pretty safe in saying that on normal speed when you need to build a lot of culture in 2 cities instead of just one like on quick, there's a greater chance a GS is better. But my feeling is in most games a GA still will be better.

Do you save all of your GA for an end of game culture bomb, or do you settle an early GA?

I was thinking about this a couple of days ago. When you settle a GA you get +12 base culture and +3 base gold (an additional +2 culture and +3 research if you get the Pyramids for Representation and the Sistine Chapel). If you have 4-5 Cathedrials and Hermitage in the city combined with the Free Speech civic, that is a whopping 70-84 culture per turn in the late game.

The last couple games, I have been settling the GA from being the first to Music (about turn 70-80) who then has 100+ turns to crank out culture. I estimate that he generates between 5K and 6K culture over the rest of the game (more if it drags out like my games tend to). The extra gold is also beneficial because it will allow the slider to be run at max culture longer without running out of gold.

Do you think this is a good idea or not?

Do you have to have the tech, or will the option become available when the AI gets the tech. I know that with defensive pacts the option becomes available when the AI gets the tech as I never research that far in these type of games.

Yes, the tech can be both yours or theirs.

Do you save all of your GA for an end of game culture bomb, or do you settle an early GA?

I was thinking about this a couple of days ago. When you settle a GA you get +12 base culture and +3 base gold (an additional +2 culture and +3 research if you get the Pyramids for Representation and the Sistine Chapel). If you have 4-5 Cathedrials and Hermitage in the city combined with the Free Speech civic, that is a whopping 70-84 culture per turn in the late game.

The last couple games, I have been settling the GA from being the first to Music (about turn 70-80) who then has 100+ turns to crank out culture. I estimate that he generates between 5K and 6K culture over the rest of the game (more if it drags out like my games tend to). The extra gold is also beneficial because it will allow the slider to be run at max culture longer without running out of gold.

Do you think this is a good idea or not?

Yes. If it is really early and you are going to be quick to build multipliers and the city is not going to be Legendary much sooner than the other two cities, it is a good idea.

The PA option makes the game much easier. I tried it out and didn't even have that great of a start and almost won. Darius had a Space Colony Victory a few turns before I would have had two legendary cities. My PA Asoka had one city at kile 48K so that would have been 3 provided the Legendary cities from both members of the PA count towards a Cultural Victory.

When I got the PA, I got all the advanced techs. My GP farms were generating a lot more GA with Biology and the Environmentalism Civic. I was also able to burn a GA to found Creative Constructions and spread it to my three cities for +18 base culture per turn. Broadcast Towers were like having an additional Cathedrial. I think London was generating something like 900-1000 Culture per turn towards the end there.

My home PC doesn't have map finder. While I am finishing up my monthly reports at work tonight I will run Map Finder on my laptop with PA option to generate some more starts.

Thanks again for all of the advice.

Finished my best game so far yesterday with a "brand new" strategy.

Playing with elizabeth on Inland sea finish in 1420 AD.

I looked for a starting loc on plainhill with 2 commerce resourses and agriculture resource and river.

I found plainhill, 2 gems, 1 FP, 1 pig on hill and marble. Not optimal without agricult resource but I thought I was gonna try it anyway because it had the ever so important marble.

Start building worker and teching agricult -> animal husbundary. Farm the FP, farm the pig and then build 2 gem mines and built an ordinary mine. I wait for pop to increase to 5 before starting to build 3 settlers, after which I built the oracle.

Tech Myst -> Medi -> PH -> Write -> COL -> CS(oracled) -> Alpha

While this tech was taking place I had founded my GP farm city. It had 1 fish, 1 jungled banana, 2 FP (and 1 horse), sadly only 2 forests in reach. I also founded my workhorse city which had 1 cow, 1 FP, 1 horse, multiple forests. Last city to be founded was my second cottage city with rivered grassland, 1 cow, 2 grass hills, 1 plain hill and multiple forests. It also had access to a corn but the AI had built a city behind my lines taking that corn for most of the game.

I popped one semiearly scientist for academy in capital and one just in time for bulb on education, (with an annoying priest in capital in between)

After CS I teched music, education, drama, philosophy, liberalism -> nationalism. Reached liberalism as early as 75 AD if I remember correctly. Traded for Banking and PP

Built Paratheon, MoM, TSC and my capital and Tach Mahal in my workhorse city.

To sum things up, start was a little slow due to lack of agricultural resources and not so good early potential for my GP farm city. Didnt found any religon with my early CoL and only got 3 religons which hurt a bit... Also, No AI built the AP and that really sux (no production bonus) :(

Capital finished legendary without bomb by 1350 AD but my other cities had some trouble obtaining the required culture.

Positive: CS slingshot seem to have worked wonders TBH

In BTS, is there something the player can do against an AP victory by the AI? It would be sad not to be in control of the game.


The Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory requires 75% of all votes, so it isn't very easy for the AI to achieve. The easiest thing to do about The Apostolic Palace and its Religion is simply convert to it. By doing so you double your vote and can thus more easily counter the AP DV. As a bonus, the other Full AP members will really like you. Also, some of the other AIs seem less likely to attack a Full AP Member than any member of a different Religion, except (of course) a member of their own State Religion.

If the AP Religious Leader seems likely to get an AP DV (like in my first game), one can convert cities of its opposition Civs to the AP Religion. Thus making it unlikely that an AP DV vote would ever succeed.

The AP DV is not possible until all Civs have the AP Religion. If you are the last Civ to get the AP Religion, spread it to all your cities as soon as possible (immediately), so you can more effectively counter an AP DV vote.

Sun Tzu Wu

Spaceship defeat to Washington 1710

Doh! Lost the lib race by 1 turn; decided to play on anyway, but fell short by 20 turns or so.

I vow never to play on after losing the race to Liberalism. Its just a waste of time...

Do you save all of your GA for an end of game culture bomb, or do you settle an early GA?



Yes. If it is really early and you are going to be quick to build multipliers and the city is not going to be Legendary much sooner than the other two cities, it is a good idea.


Be sure to settle early GAs in your commerce city that will have half the Cathedrals and Hermitage in it later. Just don't settle too many GAs, so this city goes Legendary before you have enough saved GAs to bomb the other two cities to Legendary. (You want both maximum base Culture and maximum Culture multipliers in the same city; this is also the same city where the first Cathedral of each Religion should be built.) Also, stop settling GAs some time after turn 100 when it isn't clear that the settled GA will accumulate more than 4k Culture before the win date.

Don't worry too much about a settled GA getting slightly less than 4K Culture, since you will be "wasting" far more Culture with the last GA bombed into each Culture city.

Sun Tzu Wu

:king: Hurrah! I finally got a win; albeit in 1775. It may not win any prizes, but I´m feeling pretty ecstatic (if not a little relieved) :king:

My only complaint is this lousy emoticon: :king:. What kind of celebration is that? I wanted a fusilade of fireworks, high stepping can-can girls, a host of angels singing the messiah. What´s the best that I can get? An inane smiley wearing a christmas cracker!

What can I say about the game? Well, for a start, despite losing out the race to philosophy by one turn, and despite losing out the race to liberalism by one turn, and despite vowing never to play on again in such circumstances, I did anyway and managed to wangle a win.

It has to be said that my victory must partly be due to the fact that the AI didn´t finish the spaceship as early as in previous games. I´m not sure why they should have been particularly slow in this game; but undoubtedly dropping Gandhi/Asoka in favour of Washington (as various people pointed out) definitely did make a contribution in this regard.

I also made a better fist of churning out specialists: 2GS & 13 GA, so I was able to bomb the last two cities to legendary with 5 & 8 GAs respectively. Having a dedicated secondary GP farm definitely makes a big difference. (In this game, at least 4 GAs).

I´d like to give this Gauntlet another crack since having broken my duck, the second win ought to be easier; and there is an easy 15 turns or so to be shaved off this time if I can win the race to liberalism. However, I´m not sure whether I will have the time before the deadline ends. (I have been rather neglecting family, friends and work over the last couple of weeks, and questions have been asked!)

I should finally add a big thanks to everyone who took the trouble to give me (copious) advice. I know it has been said before; but it is impressive what a great supportive community there is on this forum.

I owe you all a beer/g&t/tequilla/diet coke (whatever your poison is):beer:.

"Never before in the history of civilization was so much owed by so few to so many".

Congratz Pete :) 17th time does it

My only complaint is this lousy emoticon: :king:. What kind of celebration is that? I wanted a fusilade of fireworks, high stepping can-can girls, a host of angels singing the messiah. What´s the best that I can get? An inane smiley wearing a christmas cracker!


:rotfl:

Congrats on the win!

The PA option makes the game much easier. I tried it out and didn't even have that great of a start and almost won. Darius had a Space Colony Victory a few turns before I would have had two legendary cities. My PA Asoka had one city at kile 48K so that would have been 3 provided the Legendary cities from both members of the PA count towards a Cultural Victory.


When you sign the PA with an AI, you and your PA partner become a Team. The top three Culture cities between you and your PA partner is what counts. This can be any combination of your Culture Cities and your PA partner's Culture Cities, namely (0,3), (1,2), (2,1) and (3,0).

Note that use of a Permanent Alliance will reduce your final Score to about 1/10 of what it would have been without the PA.

Sun Tzu Wu

For this gauntlet, I decided that opponents must be peaceful (rather obvious), but should also _not_ possess either Mining or Mysticism as starting Technologies. Civilizations that possess Mining will be a able to built mines very early and research Bronze Working very early. Civilizations that possess Mysticism will be a able to research Religious Technologies very early. It would nice to be first to at least one of Code of Laws (Confucianism), Theology (Christianity) or Philosophy (Taoism). A Leader may also _not_ be Creative, since that allows it to expand too quickly and without any effort.

That´s an interesting set of criteria.

My recommendations based on the above rules are: Darius I, Hammurabi, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Sitting Bull, and Washington.

Unfortunately I am playing vanilla, so that list as it stands is not applicable to me. I have been using Washington in my latest games, and this does seem to be a beneficial change. I may consider swapping in Roosevelt in some future games.

Asoka: Also don't pick an opponent with the best unique unit (Fast Worker) and the only one that is effective in times of peace (which we hope lasts the entire game).

Yep, you are right. Choosing Asoka was a dumb decision.

Cyrus: I know some people think Cyrus is peaceful, but I don't. In my opinion, he is more prone to attack than most other Leaders.

I can´t say that I have really had many problems with DOWs from Cyrus.

Hatsheput: I can't really say much against Hatshepsut, except she violates my rule against Creative opponents.

It is true that Hatty does grab land very quickly; but apart from that she´s a . .. .. .. .. . cat. If the land grab is a problem, you can always start again (not that I often do this), and if it isn´t it isn´t. Beside, I am finding that I prefer my settled cities to be quite close to the capital. If you spread out too far, you can end up with an isolated city getting surrounded by AIs such that its development is impeded. I´m not finding getting four decent cities to be too much of a problem.

Mansa Musa: Some people say he is required to help the Player research fast enough at Deity level. However, other Leaders may be almost as good and he violates my rule against having Mining as a starting Technology.

I´m never quite sure how Mansa is supposed to affect the tech development. Supposedly he helps the player get a faster time; but how exactly? And if he is helping the player get a faster time, is he not helping the other AIs get a faster time? If you are struggling (like me) to get a win before the AIs launch the spaceship or get a diplo win, would you not be better off without Mansa?

At the moment, I am happy with my revised line up of Washington, Hatty, Mansa, and Cyrus. But if I were to drop one of Hatty, Mansa, or Cyrus to favour Roosevelt, who should it be?

:king: Hurrah! I finally got a win; albeit in 1775. It may not win any prizes, but I´m feeling pretty ecstatic (if not a little relieved) :king:


Another celebratory round of ale for my friends here. :)

Congratulations!

Sun Tzu Wu

Are you settling on the Plains Hill for the extra Hammer?

Yep. I never play unless I can get a start with a plains hill that I can settle on.

Pious_Pete, please, take a look at the 1000BC save and try to discover what's the big difference with your 1000BC saves.

Unfortunately, it´s a BTS save, so I can´t review it until I salvage the disc from the bowels of my computer. And let´s face it, if the choice is faffing around trying to fix my computer, or playing just one more game of Civ, playing Civ wins hand down.

That´s an interesting set of criteria.


My early Opponent choosing criteria of Peaceful, no Creative, and no starting tech of either Mining or Mysticism was intended to just get a win. The Mysticism part was just a way to permit a Religion founding strategy a fair chance of success. Otherwise, the mysticism part of the criteria should be dropped.

I now think that the only criteria of the above that is truly important is Peaceful. I considered Philosophical as a trait to avoid in Opponents, but if one avoids every undesirable trait or starting tech, there will be less than 4 AIs left to be your Opponents.

To get a fast date, exceptions to any criteria may need to be made.


I´m never quite sure how Mansa is supposed to affect the tech development. Supposedly he helps the player get a faster time; but how exactly? And if he is helping the player get a faster time, is he not helping the other AIs get a faster time? If you are struggling (like me) to get a win before the AIs launch the spaceship or get a diplo win, would you not be better off without Mansa?


Mansa Musa researches fast and from what I've heard trades away techs to the Player much earlier, sometimes even when he has sole knowledge of it.


At the moment, I am happy with my revised line up of Washington, Hatty, Mansa, and Cyrus. But if I were to drop one of Hatty, Mansa, or Cyrus to favour Roosevelt, who should it be?


I would replace Cyrus with Roosevelt.

Sun Tzu Wu

I think a second commerce tile such as Gems would make a better start, but that would definitely require using MapFinder.

How do you guys get such good starts?

I ran Mapfinder overnight, with gems as the only criteria. 17 maps were generated. However, only 7 of these had a food resource. Of these, 4 of them had the gems under jungle. Of the remaining three, two were unsuitable for one reason or another (I can´t remember why now). So I was left with only one usable map (1Gem, 1Food, PH), but nothing special to write about.

The next night I ran mapfinder again, this time looking for gems or gold. None of the gems maps proved to be usuable (jungle, too many FPs, no forest, whatever). I had plenty of maps with gold, though only three with 2 gold (and none with gold and gems). None had more than one food resource.

I can´t complain too much since I did use one of the maps with two gold for my victory, though I actually settled on one of the golds.

I can see though that getting an extra commerce or an extra food bonus (or both) would make a huge difference to getting a good start, getting a good early trading postion with alphabet, and winning the race to liberalism. However, I just don´t get them. Perhaps it is something to do with the map settings I use? (Inland sea, temperate).

Try to get a start with at least two food resources and two commerce resources and maybe a few floodplains.

I know it´s the same point as my previous point; but even with map finder, I don´t seem to be getting starts this good.

I would use only one GS on Education and manually research the rest.

This is undoubtedly the most efficient way of using GPPs. It is the approach I used in my winning game, and I guess it would be the approach used by anyone winning the gauntlet.

However, I missed out on winning the lib race by 1 turn. So I spent an extra 15 turns researching Nationalism, and 4 turns researching Music. Spending a third GS on Edu would probably have lead to a lib win (I lost in AD 150), saving research time, getting more dosh/techs in trade etc. So whilst it may not be the most efficient approach, it may be the more secure approach for people struggling to get a win?

BTW. I notice in some of the previous posts, that many people are using their first GS for an early Academy. In the last couple of games I have stopped doing that, prefering the first GS to lightbulb philosophy (for Toaism) instead. I´m not sure if it is possible to do this with the second GS. This seems to be working quite well for me (but that might be because I am getting my first GS too late for it to be fully effective as an Academy).

If you weren't running Mercantilism, running it would allow a free Artist in every city.

Actually, I haven´t been running Mercantilism. I kinda figured that the loss of trade routes would damage my research rate. However, if I´m flush for cash, this shouldn´t really apply. In another post I saw an analysis which seemed to suggest that if you only have 4 cities, that losing the external trade routes is not that much of a loss and is more than compensated for by the extra GPPs.

This is a long-winded way of getting round to saying I´ll try that in my next game.

I really hope you win a GM-29 game...I'm responding to your posts in the hope that I can can help in some small way.

Be assured: your comments have been very useful. Thanks very much.

If we help each other, we will all become better players as a result, much more so than if we all played in isolation.

I have to say that participating in this forum has made playing Civ a fun social experience.

The proper turn came and I culture bombed one city, clicked on my capitol, merged the three GA into a stack of three, and...

I CLICKED THE WRONG DARN BUTTON!!!

I now had three GA settled in my capitol instead of 12K more culture!


I sympathise. I did that once in a GOTM (no second attempts allowed there). I think it probably cost me the shield for fastest cultural win in that game.

I still stack my Artists (it´s far easier to move them about); but I´m much more careful about what button I hit!

In all my games so far i have used one gs for academy(comes pretty early, about the time you start trading), one for philosophy(not always getting the religion though) as well as one for education... Securing the lib race seems rather important to me...

Looking at the legal maps it seems that arboria is not there, sorry about that, maybe it isn't balanced eh?

Spaceship defeat to Washington 1710

Doh! Lost the lib race by 1 turn; decided to play on anyway, but fell short by 20 turns or so.

I vow never to play on after losing the race to Liberalism. Its just a waste of time...

I have never won the race to liberalism

Looking at the legal maps it seems that arboria is not there, sorry about that, maybe it isn't balanced eh?

It Boreal not arboria and boreal is legal.

1010 Religious loss to Mansa Musa. This was the best start yet for me. Stone, Gold, 5 FP. Got Mids. Marble in second city. Parthenon, GE for TSC and Angry Wat (only wonder available). 4 cities 4 religions. I was really rolling and danged if the AI didn't give in after the 5 time MM proposed the win as the only candidate.

On to the next mapfinder save ...:crazyeye:

I have never won the race to liberalism

Winning liberalism if you get philo before any other AI start researching it is not too hard.. At that point in the game you should have two pretty good cottage cities up and running so lib should be done in 6-10 turns itself for completion somewhere between 1 ad and 200 ad(depending on the AI tech speed). If you aren't winning the lib race odds are you either fail to get an academy in capital(academy + burrecracy + tons of gold from AI to run 100% research is VERY powerful) and bulb something or you just don't work enough cottages(or maybe overexpand).

It Boreal not arboria and boreal is legal.

If you read my earlier posts you can see me suggesting to use arboria as that map is quite good giving tons of forest grassland and loads of deer. This is obviously not deemed balanced against the other maps and as such it is not legal... I was not confusing it with boreal i just didn't read the rules properly...

I was really rolling and danged if the AI didn't give in after the 5 time MM proposed the win as the only candidate.


this is due to Lincolns favourite civic being emancipation, if the game goes long enough and he might eventually vote for mansa or another AP candidate.. Quite annoying when everyone are friendly to each other...

I generally get 6 cities built so that I can build Cathedrials in all three Culture cities. Maybe that is why my games are less successful. If I stay at 4 cities, I would not have to turn down the research slider as far. By the time I stop researching I am generally able to turn the Culture slider up to 80% or more, so maintenance is not an issue in the late game as much (what with Courthouses and all).

Before this gauntlet, my strategy was to build 6 cities like you, and like you I struggled to get the culture slider up above 80%.

However, following the advice in this forum, I´ve switched to founding only four cities, and it does seem to work well.

I seem to be slower than the other players in this thread because I only generate about 4-6 GA (along with 1-3 early GS) by about 1500 AD. I have never won the Liberalism race.

Again, this describes me before this gauntlet started. The key is to have a dedicated GP farm early and an auxillary GP farm. And by "dedicated", the GP farm should have nothing superfluous that doesn´t contribute to GPP production (e.g. courthouses).

It´s probably worth going back in this thread and looking at the advice given in response to my questions.

How do you guys get such good starts?

I ran Mapfinder overnight, with gems as the only criteria. 17 maps were generated. However, only 7 of these had a food resource. Of these, 4 of them had the gems under jungle. Of the remaining three, two were unsuitable for one reason or another (I can´t remember why now). So I was left with only one usable map (1Gem, 1Food, PH), but nothing special to write about.

The next night I ran mapfinder again, this time looking for gems or gold. None of the gems maps proved to be usuable (jungle, too many FPs, no forest, whatever). I had plenty of maps with gold, though only three with 2 gold (and none with gold and gems). None had more than one food resource.

I can´t complain too much since I did use one of the maps with two gold for my victory, though I actually settled on one of the golds.

I can see though that getting an extra commerce or an extra food bonus (or both) would make a huge difference to getting a good start, getting a good early trading postion with alphabet, and winning the race to liberalism. However, I just don´t get them. Perhaps it is something to do with the map settings I use? (Inland sea, temperate).

One of my Rule Groups is:

Terrain Groups: Jungle (Max 0)
Combo Types:Gems on Grass Land (Min 2)

In generally only get one or two maps from this particular rule set when letting map finder run for a few hours, but there are four other rule sets that provide decent starts too. I am by no means an expert...I just started using Map Finder a couple days ago.

I just let it run for two hours and generated 23 maps. Three of them are 2 gem starts without jungle.

Well...there are a couple more losses under my belt. I have noticed that Ghandi is almost always the winner (unless one of the other peeps gets an early religious victory). Unclethrill recommended that I play without Ghandi. Maybe that is the problem I am having.

What leader combinations have other people had luck with?

Before this gauntlet I always played Gandhi. For the first 10 games of this gauntlet, I played Gandhi. Then someone pointed out the folly of my ways and I switched to Asoka. This was a bad move since it was more of the same. After 5 games I learnt my lesson, and switched to Washington instead. With Washington, I didn´t have any defeats before 1700. Before that, I didn´t have any games that lasted as long as 1700. I´m sure that Washington is a better opponent to have than either Gandhi or Asoka.

For the record, my other opponents are Cyrus, Hatty, and Mansa.

If you ever have one of those unbeleaveable starts and you are thinking..."There is no way to possible mess this up"...let me assure you that I can find a way.

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii295/Mesix_Orion/3GemsStart0000.jpg

That's right...I started with threee Grasslands Gems and a Marble nearby.

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii295/Mesix_Orion/AlphabetTurn420000.jpg

I got Alphabet by turn 42 and traded a combination of Fishing, Pottery, Writing, and Alphabet for every tech that all five opponents had.

To sum the game up, I had a great start. I set it up with five opponents and allowed PA so that I could team up with the top dog late in the game. I was able to chop the Parthenon in my capitol. I missed the Sistine Chapel in my second city. I got boxed in really fast and only built 3 cities. One of my cities was culture flipped by about 800AD and I quit having just been the last to research Liberalism. I guess I could have played it out and got my capitol to Legendary and PA someone with two legendary cities, but I would not feel that the victory was legit.

If you ever have one of those unbeleaveable starts and you are thinking..."There is no way to possible mess this up"...let me assure you that I can find a way.

The big problem with that start is the lack of any good food resource. Suggest you look for a 2 gems start with corn or wheat. With freshwater corn instead of plains cow, you could have grown twice as fast and gotten to size 4 much quicker, allowing you to build settlers quicker.

And five opponents is only a benefit if you're lucky enough to get good second and third city locations.

What is the date on the entry ranked #1 and whose is it? :) Im currently 3rd with 1420 AD

If you ever have one of those unbeleaveable starts and you are thinking..."There is no way to possible mess this up"...let me assure you that I can find a way.
.

Settling on the Plain hill to the north west of the loc you used would have been sooooo superior. Plainhill for production bonus is more or less a must have.... and you would have gotten another cow as well. 3 gems is nice but 2 is enough., and like someone else said, use less oppoents to get more space

Q: How can you not have any settlers our by the time you get alphabet? :)

The second cow and the third gems to the west were not in view until after I settled.

A: The settler came a couple turns later. After completing a worker (turn 15) I let the city grow to size 3 to work the gems tiles before building a settler. If there had only been 2 gems tiles, I would not have been tempted to let it grow past size 2.

The big problem with that start is the lack of any good food resource. Suggest you look for a 2 gems start with corn or wheat. With freshwater corn instead of plains cow, you could have grown twice as fast and gotten to size 4 much quicker, allowing you to build settlers quicker.

And five opponents is only a benefit if you're lucky enough to get good second and third city locations.

I have another start with 2 corn and 2 gems with five opponents that I will try next. The only reason I tried this start was because it also had marble. There were 2 gems, 1 cow, and 1 marble visible in the starting screen.

I have also generated 11 possible starts with only 4 opponents with PA enabled. I have not looked through them yet to see how good they may be (although all five rule sets I use produce good maps...one actually produces no maps so make that four).

The second cow and the third gems to the west were not in view until after I settled.

A: The settler came a couple turns later. After completing a worker (turn 15) I let the city grow to size 3 to work the gems tiles before building a settler. If there had only been 2 gems tiles, I would not have been tempted to let it grow past size 2.

You really do need an agriculture resource and you need to settle on plainhill (or in rare cases, quarry/food resource). This will help you extremly much. Its ok to move the settler one turn and probably even 2 turns before settling.

Anyhow, you need to settle on +prod or +food tile and you need 1 agriculture resourse or possibly 1 floodplain + one animal resource (not as good). Start by researching Agriculture and building worker (followed by AH if needed). Access to a few flood plain is always a bonus.
No other starting methods are viable, or so I think at least. (I have not done extensive thinking/testing on sea start).

Also, as you may have relized 1 commerce resource is more or less a must have on diety. If you go for a good time, depending on your strategy, a minimum of two may be prefred(however if its gold, make sure you have enough food resource/FP to work them and still grow)

I know it´s the same point as my previous point; but even with map finder, I don´t seem to be getting starts this good.


Which Map type are you using?

A start with two commerce and two food resources shouldn't be too hard to find with map finder. Try searching for just one commerce tile; I think it will exclude plantation resources which are useless for an early research boost. Otherwise, just search for either Gems, Gold, Silver or Fur. These are all the Commerce resources that require early Technologies (either Mining or Hunting) to improve.

Two commerce and two food resources are more likely with some map types and less likely with others.

Great Plains may provide such a start; The east side of this map has forested grasslands which is a good place to build cottages. The forests can be used to chop the first part of a Cathedral and Slavery can easily do the rest, especially if you have the Cathedral's production multiplying resource. Great Plains also seems to have plenty of Marble, if I recall correctly.

I've looked at all 18 BTS HOF (12 of them are available in Warlords and maybe Vanilla too) approved Map types for this gauntlet, but they all have drawbacks. Although Inland Sea has the best dates so far, I think it is only because the best players are using it almost exclusively. Other Map types may be better.

Any Map type that doesn't have a single land mass where all Civs start should not considered seriously, since that would severely restrict trade, even to nothing if you are on your own continent with no access to others Civs until Astronomy is researched, tall ships built and new lands (Civs) discovered.

Whether in the Capital Big Cross or 3-6 tiles away, you also want to find at least Marble. Copper and Stone (within a 6 tile radius) would be good to find too. Some Map types have twice as much Marble, Stone or Copper than others. This may have more of an impact than having only 1 Commerce or 1 Food resource in the Capital site. Some Map types have 2-3 times as many Marble, Stone and Copper resources as others. Highlands for example seems to have plenty of all three of these strategic resources.

If you choose option "Choose Religions", you can pick the Religion of any Technology that provides a Religion from a list of those yet to be found. Obviously, you should pick a Religion matching the production multiplying resource you have. This means you might be able to research Theology and found Islam which has Marble as its "Cathedral" production multiplying resource.

The most important consideration for Map type may be the need for grassland s and floodplains on which to spam Cottages in the two Cottage cities and spam Farms on the main (Culture) GP Farm and and any secondary GP Farms.
More riversides for the Cottages is a secondary consideration for Map type choice as well.

Sun Tzu Wu

The second cow and the third gems to the west were not in view until after I settled.

A: The settler came a couple turns later. After completing a worker (turn 15) I let the city grow to size 3 to work the gems tiles before building a settler. If there had only been 2 gems tiles, I would not have been tempted to let it grow past size 2.

Yes, and if it was a GOTM competition your settling choice would have been certainly justifiable. But since it's HOF where you have theoretically unlimited starts, when you have an start like that you move the settler to the PH and cross your fingers. And if that location turns out to suck, you simply choose another start. At least if you want to challenge for the #1 spot anyway.

The tone of this post is probably much more condesending than I intended, but I've been at a company "function" for the past few hours :D so I'm having difficulty with teh subtelties of posting - please be assured my comments are intended to help your future efforts and not to criticize.

Dang, with immortal GOTM just finished and two Deity GOTMs underway, there's no way for me to participate in the tournament :(

Yeah two deity gotms can very quickly take up your play time. Good fun though :)

(and I haven't even finished the first!)

I think I figured out my biggest mistake.

I have been beelining Alphabet (Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet) and using it to trade for all the other early techs. My thought process was that the 9 turns for Agriculture and 15 Turns for Animal Husbandry were longer than reaching Wheel and Pottery and I also want to get Cottages up and running ASAP so that they grow.

By researching Agriculture first you not only work those resources for earlier growth (and Settler production), but you can also build a Granary while your city grows to further speed up the early game.

I will try detouring from my beeline to take the food techs on my next game and see how it works out. I think that getting Writing via Animal Husbandry vice Potter is only a 4-5 turns longer (and might actually be shorter if the city grows faster to work more commerce tiles).

Yes, and if it was a GOTM competition your settling choice would have been certainly justifiable. But since it's HOF where you have theoretically unlimited starts, when you have an start like that you move the settler to the PH and cross your fingers. And if that location turns out to suck, you simply choose another start. At least if you want to challenge for the #1 spot anyway.

The tone of this post is probably much more condesending than I intended, but I've been at a company "function" for the past few hours :D so I'm having difficulty with teh subtelties of posting - please be assured my comments are intended to help your future efforts and not to criticize.

2 grassland gem starts are not unlimited. I try to make the best of them when mapfinder rolls one up for me to play.

A start with two commerce and two food resources shouldn't be too hard to find with map finder. Try searching for just one commerce tile; I think it will exclude plantation resources which are useless for an early research boost. Otherwise, just search for either Gems, Gold, Silver or Fur. These are all the Commerce resources that require early Technologies (either Mining or Hunting) to improve.


I have my mapfinder rules set to find mining resources instead of commerce resources. I think calander resources are commerce and as you say are worthless. In an ancient start, the only mining resources that are visible are Gold, Silver, and Gems (as Bronze and Iron are hidden until researched).

In addition to my 2 gems rule set, one of the others looks for 2 food and 2 mining resources with no jungles and produces good results.

However, I missed out on winning the lib race by 1 turn. So I spent an extra 15 turns researching Nationalism, and 4 turns researching Music. Spending a third GS on Edu would probably have lead to a lib win (I lost in AD 150), saving research time, getting more dosh/techs in trade etc. So whilst it may not be the most efficient approach, it may be the more secure approach for people struggling to get a win?

BTW. I notice in some of the previous posts, that many people are using their first GS for an early Academy. In the last couple of games I have stopped doing that, prefering the first GS to lightbulb philosophy (for Toaism) instead. I´m not sure if it is possible to do this with the second GS. This seems to be working quite well for me (but that might be because I am getting my first GS too late for it to be fully effective as an Academy).


Great Scientist number and utilization - Settling Early Artists Analysis:

We want the maximum number of Great Artists possible, so that means as few other types of Great People as possible, thus minimum Great Scientists possible. Another consideration is early Great Artists should be settled in the Commerce City with the highest base Culture. A Great Artist's 12 Cpt will be multiplied by Free Speech (+100%), ideally four Cathedrals (+4*50%) and Hermitage (+100%). This means +300% (4 x 12 = 48 Cpt) between Liberalism and Hermitage and +400% (5 x 12 = 60 Cpt) after Hermitage. For BTS, we will build The Sistine Chapel, so these numbers jump to 4 x 14 = 56 Cpt and 5 x 14 = 70 Cpt respectively. Also, the settled GAs bring in 3 Gpt and that will help to keep Research prior to Liberalism at 100% and Culture after Liberalism at 100%, so even if the accumulated Culture is somewhat less than 4000, settling the GA may still be a significant net gain. Assuming a settled GA generates an average of 50 Gpt after an early Liberalism (turn 115 AD 0001), we can expect 85 turns times 50 Cpt or 85 * 50 = 4250 Culture by an expected finish date of AD 1400 (turn 200). If all Cathedrals in the main Commerce City (generally the Capital) are built by turn 115 (AD 0001) and Hermitage is started on the same turn (completed in 12 more turns), the average settled GA Culture rate may be as high as 68 Cpt, so total Culture _after_ Liberalism could be 85 * 68 = 5780. Counting the Culture the settled GA accumulated prior to Liberalism, its total Culture could easily exceed 6000. Thus two settled GAs can produce about the same Culture as three bombed GAs. So I'd advise settling Great Artists at least through turn 115 (AD 0001) and maybe slightly longer with a break even cut off date of turn 200 - (4000 / 68) = 200 - 59 = 141 (AD 0620). (You can adjust your GA settling cut off date by subtracting or adding the no. of turns you expect to win before or after the benchmark date of turn 200, AD 1400.) If you think you are settling a GA too late, remember the 3 Gpt "free" bonus and you will feel better about settling a Great Artist close to this cut off date.

Now that we know how valuable early _settled_ Great Artists can be, we can evaluate the number of Great Scientists to use to get to Liberalism.

Great Scientist number and utilization ...

0 Great Scientists:

It will be extremely difficult to get to Liberalism without at least one Great Scientist. An Oracle Civil Service slingshot (or Education slingshot ;) ) may be part of the plan, plus dilution of the Great Prophet GPPs with Great Artist GPPs making the generation of a Great Prophet in the secondary GP Farm unlikely. With an early Civil Service slingshot there is a good chance of completing Liberalism first. (This is speculation on my part; perhaps someone who executed a Civil Service slingshot in this gauntlet can comment.)

1 Great Scientist builds Academy in Capital:

After Writing, build a Library and hire 2 Scientists until a Great Scientist is generated and build an Academy in the Capital. This could reasonable occur as early as turn 55 (turn 26 Writing + 12 turns building Library + 17 turns of 2 Scientists). Perfect execution of this strategy will almost certainly complete Liberalism first. (Building the Library in 12t would require 9H; 2H could be from the capital's Plain Hill building site; the other 6H could be from two Gems/Gold/Silver/Regular mines. The Library could be built faster via maximum Hammer overflow from the previous build, for example a Granary.)

Since the Academy's usefulness drops with the switch from 100% Research to 100% Culture when Liberalism is completed around turn 115 (AD 0001), the Academy must be built very early or not at all. To get 50 turns effective use of the Academy, it must be completed by turn 65 (BC 1400).

Someone needs to analyze how many turns the Academy needs to be used to equal the value of bulbing Philosophy or Bulbing part of Education. Is 50 turns of 50% base Research in the Capital worth more than either of these bulbs in total Beakers generated?

2 Great Scientists:

The first GS builds Academy as detailed above and second GS bulbs either Philosophy or part of Education. Bulbing Philosophy is preferred, since that will found the associated Religion far earlier that any AI might complete Philosophy. Barring minor mistakes, this strategy will almost certainly complete Liberalism first.

3 Great Scientists:

The first GS builds Academy as detailed above and second GS bulbs Philosophy and the third GS bulbs part of Education. Barring major mistakes, this strategy will almost certainly complete Liberalism first.

Sun Tzu Wu

In all my games so far i have used one gs for academy(comes pretty early, about the time you start trading), one for philosophy(not always getting the religion though) as well as one for education... Securing the lib race seems rather important to me...


This seems like the best, low risk strategy for using the minimal number of Great Scientists to get to Liberalism first around turn 115 (AD 0001).

Sun Tzu Wu

Why not just trade for Philo? You don't get the religion. I think bulbing Philo is a waste, I'd put one in Education before doing that.

Anyway, I always go just 1 GS for early Academy (don't forget it's 4 culture...should double to 8, but that's a bug I think). I get to Lib around turn 120. It's rare the AI can beat that.

:king: Hurrah! I finally got a win; albeit in 1775. It may not win any prizes, but I´m feeling pretty ecstatic (if not a little relieved) :king:


Glad to hear that!

:thumbsup::goodjob::clap::worship::hatsoff::band: :banana:[party]:bounce:

Why not just trade for Philo? You don't get the religion. I think bulbing Philo is a waste, I'd put one in Education before doing that.

Trading for Philo is usually very hard depending on which AI has it. Usually one AI techs it to unlock its religon and then the other AI stay away. The AI who has it has refusesd to trade it in my last 3 games or so :( I guess it depends on which AI you play...
The games in which this happen and I have athetics I usually tech drama -> philo -> Liberalism.

Q: If you settle GA will its culture output double like buildings do?

Whats the actaul trigger for the doubleing of the culture output of buildings?, someone said 1000 years but that seems wierd to me, is it really based on "years" and not turns?

-In BTS at least I have never had any problems at all with getting to liberalism first... The AI just dont research Education. However as a sidenote, I find it very hard to bulb an early scientist for academy, at least without philo trait....

Q: If you settle GA will its culture output double like buildings do?

Whats the actaul trigger for the doubleing of the culture output of buildings?, someone said 1000 years but that seems wierd to me, is it really based on "years" and not turns?

-In BTS at least I have never had any problems at all with getting to liberalism first... The AI just dont research Education.

A: No, only building's culture doubles.

Trigger: 1000 years. It's not linear with turns.

AI sometimes bulb Education...

EDIT : crosspost w/ jesusin

The settled GA does not double.

Things do double in 1000 years. So you want to get things built fast before say 100 AD so they will be doubled before the end of the game.

I've made 2 attempts. My 2nd was 1330 AD. Let me tell you all the things that went wrong and/or were mediocre.

Mediocre capitol fat cross: 2 gold, 1 corn (not irrigated), 2 FP.

I was beaten to Liberalism in the BC years! Normally I can get it 300 AD or later. I saw it coming, so I researched Nationalism hoping to trade for Lib. No dice. I had to research it manually. 425 AD liberalism, and no printing press, never traded for it either.

I couldn't get SoZ, and I kinda forgot to build the Taj. so I built Parth, MoM, Sistine...no oracle.

1 GS for Academy, 16 GA (including Music)
I had a very late National Epic, way into AD years. Only 1 fish, 3 FP too.

I almost ran out of money, I had to build weath and work mines in those cities instead of running artists. Everyone had thousands of gold to trade, but I had no tech.

I'm thinking maybe BTS can come close to beating Quick/Vanilla.

I've made 2 attempts. My 2nd was 1330 AD. Let me tell you all the things that went wrong and/or were mediocre.

Nice time. It's the culture from the buildings that makes the difference on BTS isn't it? I'm guessing you would have finished much later without sistine.

I've made 2 attempts. My 2nd was 1330 AD. Let me tell you all the things that went wrong and/or were mediocre.

What AI players did you use? Beat to liberalism in AD is crule.

Anyhow... I agree that its possible to get early results. I went from my previous best 1460 to 1370 in a medicore game when I changed my tech path. I was about to abandon my game but because I felt lots of small things should have gone better, but in the end I decided to play it out without optimal mangement after 600 AD or so and it still beat my previous game with 9 turns

Great Scientist number and utilization ...

1 Great Scientist builds Academy in Capital:

After Writing, whip a Library and hire 2 Scientists until a Great Scientist is generated and build an Academy in the Capital. This could occur as early as turn 45 (turn 26 Writing + 2 turns chopped Library + 17 turns of 2 Scientists). Perfect execution of this strategy will almost certainly complete Liberalism first.

Since the Academy's usefulness drops with the switch from 100% Research to 100% Culture when Liberalism is completed around turn 115 (AD 0001), the Academy must be built very early or not at all. To get 50 turns effective use of the Academy, it must be completed by turn 65 (BC 1400).

Someone needs to analyze how many turns the Academy needs to be used to equal the value of bulbing Philosophy or Bulbing part of Education. Is 50 turns of 50% base Research in the Capital worth more than either of these bulbs in total Beakers generated?

2 Great Scientists:

The first GS builds Academy as detailed above and second GS bulbs either Philosophy or part of Education. Bulbing Philosophy is preferred, since that will found the associated Religion far earlier that any AI might complete Philosophy. Barring minor mistakes, this strategy will almost certainly complete Liberalism first.

3 Great Scientists:

The first GS builds Academy as detailed above and second GS bulbs Philosophy and the third GS bulbs part of Education. Barring major mistakes, this strategy will almost certainly complete Liberalism first.

Sun Tzu Wu

What tech path are you taking to chop a library around turn 26? If I beeline Alphabet I will get Writing at about this time followed by Alphabet between turn 41-46. Unfortunately, beelining Alphabet does not include a detour to tech Bronze Working (required for chopping). I generally trade for BW after getting Alphabet. Are you researching BW before Writing?

In the analysis of the Academy, you are forgetting the :culture: produced by the Academy. It does not become useless when you crank the Culture slider because it produces 4 (doubled to 8 later) base :culture:. Assuming the same modifiers you detailed above (Cats, Herm, etc.), this could be up to 40 :culture: per turn.

If you are able to build the Pyramids (as I often do when there is Stone present) then your Artists also produce 4 :science: each (assuming you are running Representation...is there any other Government Civic to run?). The Academy will give a boost to :science: for all the specialists in that city which will allow you to tech Printing Press, Guilds, and Banking with the Research slider at 0%.

I have my mapfinder rules set to find mining resources instead of commerce resources. I think calander resources are commerce and as you say are worthless. In an ancient start, the only mining resources that are visible are Gold, Silver, and Gems (as Bronze and Iron are hidden until researched).

In addition to my 2 gems rule set, one of the others looks for 2 food and 2 mining resources with no jungles and produces good results.

Obviously not that good

I think I figured out my biggest mistake.

I have been beelining Alphabet (Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet) and using it to trade for all the other early techs. My thought process was that the 9 turns for Agriculture and 15 Turns for Animal Husbandry were longer than reaching Wheel and Pottery and I also want to get Cottages up and running ASAP so that they grow.

By researching Agriculture first you not only work those resources for earlier growth (and Settler production), but you can also build a Granary while your city grows to further speed up the early game.

I will try detouring from my beeline to take the food techs on my next game and see how it works out. I think that getting Writing via Animal Husbandry vice Potter is only a 4-5 turns longer (and might actually be shorter if the city grows faster to work more commerce tiles).

Granaries come with pottery not Agri or AH.

Obviously not that good

Good start locations for a map...not good games. That would require more skill than I have.

Granaries come with pottery not Agri or AH.

Yes...I realized this after posting while playing a game, but didn't edit it. I think Pottery to Writing to Alphabet is the best tech path...but then what do I know?

I just lost a game to an 1120AD diplomatic victory to Ghandi. I had two cities over 20K culture already, one producing 600 per turn. I was 20 turns away from a PA with Darius to secure the win (he had one big culture city to round out the three) by about turn 200. So much for my 2 corn and 2 gems start.

I decided to take a crack at this, of course with no expectation to finish fastest with Jesusin and WastinTime in the hunt. However, a deity gauntlet is a good box to check.

I abandoned my first two starts because there were no good sites for follow-on cities. Third attempt was a pretty poor start (one gold in capital, but decent 2nd and 3rd cities). Finish time was pretty consistent with the quality of the start :rolleyes: - 1530 AD. My research was slow... didn't even try Oracle, never built an academy (my 1st 3-4 GP's were artists). I was first to music, but then was beaten to Lib by a mile.

Now I'm debating trying again. I think I might stop here. Or, maybe not.

If you play again put your player name as Mesix and PM me the start and finish files...just kidding. I will win this. I would have won that last game before 1500AD if it would have lasted that long.

I think that the Sistine Chapel is almost necessary for a (early or in my case any) win. The +5 :culture: doubles for religious buildings. My monistaries were producing 14 :culture: and my temples were producing 12 :culture: in addition to the extra +2 :culture: per specialist (all artists of course). I had popped 8 GA by 1100AD a few turns before Ghandi won.

The start location and the second city were great, but the other two cities were just production/lesser GP farms. I only had one commerce city (with 3 gold and four floodplains) and my capitol had commerce from the two gems and was completely farmed out to run 5 artists (more later as it was still growing and if I had reached the PA the extra food and health would have allowed me to run 9 or 10 artists). I only had 3 religions, but had Cathedrials for all of them in the two major cities. I had Bronze, Stone, and Marble which really helped. I was teching Nationalism when I lost.

Besides the lack luster commerce locations, I also messed up a little. I never popped a Great Scientist. This made my tech to Liberalism very slow (although Darius gifted me Philosophy which helped). My capitol built the Parthenon and the Sistine Chapel (chopped them both) followed by religious buildings and then the National Epic. By 1000AD all of my cities were done building, I was building culture in two of them, gold in one (to run the slider higher) and research in one (to tech nationalism slowly since I didn't get Pyramids/Representation).

Nice time. It's the culture from the buildings that makes the difference on BTS isn't it? I'm guessing you would have finished much later without sistine.

Why would anyone not build the Sistine? Above, Mesix pointed out most of it's features, but forgot to mention the +5/+10 for the cathedrals and the Great Artist points and +20 for Sistine itself. It's like building 10 wonders for the price of 1.

I didn't use a PA like I thought I would try. Sounded good when I thought turn 200-210 was the target. Now it looks like turn 190 is where to aim. Maybe for fun I'll give that a run.

Another one down. Got mids late (~200AD). Beelined for Liberalism instead of music. Lincoln got lib 10 turns before me (425 AD). Gilgamesh completed TSC same turn so I quit.

Next ...

My PA would have been ready on turn 192 aince I formed a DP on 132. My latests round of map finder starts are without Ghandi. I had taken him out and then put him back when I added the PA option. What better than to get Ghandi as the PA partner? After this last game I am sour on Ghandi.

New opponents: Darius, Hatty, Mansa Musa, and Washington.

I got a couple of good German beers with my dinner, so I am ready to try again...and again...and again!

What's that?...my wife wants to watch a movie since I'm off work tonight?...Doesn't she understand that I only have a few more days to finish this Gauntlet?