http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/hof/staff/gauntlet.gifWhile the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php)BEFORE playing!

Settings:

Victory Condition: Cultural (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Monarch
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Boreal
Speed: Quick
Civ: Any
Opponents: Any
Version: 3.19.001
Date: 10th to 25th September 2009
Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

As suggested by kcd_swede (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8419768&postcount=74) in the gauntlet suggestion thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=314666).

The older major has to come first for me. If I got any time after I get that done, I'll give this a try.

I think this just has to be Gandhi, for all the worker actions required. I might give it a try next week.

what is boreal map?

what is boreal map?

Ice and trees, and more deer than you can poke a stick at. :p

It's not a great map but can be interesting.

http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/hof/staff/gauntlet.gifWhile the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php)BEFORE playing!

Settings:

Victory Condition: Cultural (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Monarch
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Boreal
Speed: Quick
Civ: Any
Opponents: Any
Version: 3.19.001
Date: 10th to 25th September 2009
Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

Thank you!!!!

Not a lot of cottagable land should make for some interesting adaptations to the more traditional culture game, I think.

This will be fun!

I just have submitted a game with 1530 AD victory.

I played with Gandhi, built many wonders, but which really made this game harder is the lack of cottages. I could build only 8 of it in my cultural cities all together. The advantage of boreal is having good GP farms. Insipte of that I had only 9 GA-s, I was very unlucky. I had 12 different non-GA GP-s :( The average risk of having a great idiot is just 25-30% if I build wonders like stonehenge, great wall and so on. At least I could use 4 great prophets to build a shrine by the middle of the game. Others seemed totally useless. I add that at the end of the game my cultural cities produced 700-900 cultural points each, so it still wasn't a dramatic loss, rather irritating. I can't understand why can't we have a GP system which is not so luck dependent. All cities should collect their GP points dependent on the type of GP point. If your cities have produced enough GP points for have a GA, you would take it, and your great prophet points would be remained until you have enough to produce a great prohet. That would be a similar system as founding father collecting in civ4: colonization.

I think the best available that is about 1400AD by these settings.

Flori

Nice game, Flori!

I played as Mansa, and had Lincoln, Brennus, Zara, Charle, Asoka, and SB as opponents. Why? I don't know... I need help choosing opponents for a culture vc. Financial trait was mostly wasted without a lot of cottages, but I settled my 3 legends along a long river so it wasn't totally wasted. I used a really nice GPFarm as one of the legend cities, and even used the capitol (also legend) as a supplemental GPFarm.

To make up for low cottage density, I thought Wonderspam might improve my finish date, and it seemed to work OK. I got about 8 GA plus the free one from music, but a lot of GS (made academy in each legend city, and bulbed Philo to get my second religion).

I only had 9 cities, totally peaceful, got marble and stone and gold. Schwed Paya let me adopt pacifism early, and Parthenon, also had Pyramids. GE used to hurry Sistines. I adopted Brennus religion since it was the first and only spread to me. Brennus was generally hated by all, and this cost me relations with everyone except him (Zara was originally also hindu, but converted to christian and the free religion and started hating us too).

It was about 1100AD and I was headed for about a 1600AD finish, when Asoka and Zara DOW'd me. I got Brennus to join, and that maybe saved my game. By losing Goa, I now had only 8 cities and the final cathaderals being built in legend2 and legend3 were halted (all hammers lost with no compensation???). I was about 1 or 2 turns from having Zara take my legend3 city when I was able to buy peace for techs. I had plenty of space to build a new city, chop 2 temples out, and finish the cathedrals, but this was an unecessary delay.

All the bribing to war and buying peace meant I had to give up my monopoly on Liberalism precursors, and I lost the liberalism race and had to tech Nationalism myself.:mad: It meant I missed out on getting Christianity from Theology. Plus the slaving and building units and such... I lost at least 20 turns on my finish date. But at least I won the game and submitted.

To be honest... 1710AD is one of my best finish dates for a culture victory, so I'm satisfied with it. Actually, I'm pretty pleased that I seem to be getting much better at culture victories in general. So... I'm pretty confident I can improve this result if I have time for some more play.

(This was my second attempt, btw... in the first attempt as Willem and max number of opponents... Zara and Cyrus DOW'd me and took two of my legend cities before I quit in disgust. :p I learned that fewer opponents to enable peaceful expansion on this otherwise large land map is smarter).

Question: Does anyone else think Civil Service is over-rated for culture VC? It seems that unless you get it from Oracle sling, Bureacracy is obsolete in favor of Free Speech so quickly it isn't worth the bother. If CS wasn't on the path to Nationalism you could almost skip it without losing anything, imo.

"I played as Mansa, and had Lincoln, Brennus, Zara, Charle, Asoka, and SB as opponents. Why? I don't know... I need help choosing opponents for a culture vc."

OK, so never choose an industrial, agressive or an imperialistic leader for opponent, nor an Indian or a Russian one. I think the prohibition of the 3 traits is obvious. Russian leaders are often attacks you, so I don't play with them, inspite of that Catherine looks so good:) Gandhi and Asoka are very much focuses on cultural victory: building wonders, researching religious techs, which make your work harder.
I add that since the minor is just monarch, choosing opponents in not a dramatically important question.

"Financial trait was mostly wasted without a lot of cottages, but I settled my 3 legends along a long river so it wasn't totally wasted."

I found that in boreal fin trait is almost totally useless. The problem is not only the lack of grassland rivers, but also the lack of health bonuses. It is hard to build a city with 16-17 population.

"To make up for low cottage density, I thought Wonderspam might improve my finish date, and it seemed to work OK."

Yes, that's the only way since it is just monarch so you have enough time to build many wonders.

"I only had 9 cities, totally peaceful, got marble and stone and gold."

You lucky, gold is very rare in boreal. I have 11 cities, got stone in my capital's river tile (so I didn't need to discover the wheel early). Got marble much later.

"Question: Does anyone else think Civil Service is over-rated for culture VC? It seems that unless you get it from Oracle sling, Bureacracy is obsolete in favor of Free Speech so quickly it isn't worth the bother. If CS wasn't on the path to Nationalism you could almost skip it without losing anything, imo."

I agree with that. I usually use Oracle to discover CoL. Music and philosophy are more important than CS. I add that is only true for cultural victories of course.

Flori

@kovacsflo: Wow, that's a pretty great time, with only 8 cottages and 9 GA's! Why couldn't you control your GP farm better? Is it just hard to get a good GP farm going on this map (lack of health resources or something else)?

@kcd_swede: Gandhi's brutal in culture games, but I think Asoka's much better than him. The unlucky thing is that you played as your best possible opponent.

Oracling CS isn't that important, I think. It's more important that you get your cities running very early in culture games. CoL is a nice one to take.

Why couldn't you control your GP farm better? Is it just hard to get a good GP farm going on this map (lack of health resources or something else)?

I wrote that I was very unlucky in GA producing. Most of my GP-s (except 4 GA-s) came from my cultural cities, which were polluted. But it is brutal that the 25-30% risk resulted so many non-GA Gp-s.

Other cities had 4-7 GA-s, the problem was that these cities produced less GP points than my cultural ones, so they couldn't result more GA-s. More GP farms wouldn't be a solution. I can just repeat: building every wonder can result non-GA GP-s, but you must be very unlucky to have much prophets than you need (shrines are very useful). Other GP-s are hard to use.

I see. I guess I've never really wonderspammed much before. Given all the non-GA GP's, I guess you were running a long golden age at the end?

If this was largely dependent on hammer rate towards wonders and cathedrals, I wonder if Ramesses could actually beat Gandhi... Probably tough to beat the extra 5-6 GP's and the fast worker, though.

I see. I guess I've never really wonderspammed much before. Given all the non-GA GP's, I guess you were running a long golden age at the end?

Yes, it's true. I have 3 golden ages, the first from my first great spy, the second from building the Taj Mahal which continued by a third one from another spy and a great prophet till the end.

I add that I still tried to be careful in wonderspamming: if it was possible, I built a wonder which produced GA points. If not, I built great prophet or engineer giving wonders with only one exception: I had to build the Great Wall since I played with raging barbs.

I wonder if Ramesses could actually beat Gandhi... Probably tough to beat the extra 5-6 GP's and the fast worker, though.

It is the same what I had in my mind after finishing my mentioned game, with the addition that I also counted on Qin Shi Huang because of his pavilions. But don't forget that boreal map and fast game speed makes fast workers extremly useful.

Flóri

First try with Gandhi, 1440 AD.

Pretty much standard procedure:
- 6 cities, 3rd became GP farm (6-7 artists, >93% GA prob)
- founded Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity(bulbed) and Confucianism. No others spread. 4 cathedrals in capital, 4 cathedrals + hermitage in 2nd city
- both multiplier cities had some deer/sheep (3-5?), 1 gem, and about 4 towns. I did build more cottages, but too late so that Artists became the better alternative in the end.
- crucial wonders were Pyramids, Sixtine, AP for free hammers, and probably Maussolos + Taj Mahal. I built some more, also prebuilt some for money
- researched Liberalism->Nationalism, then PP and shut down (although the rep beakers brought me to Democracy, filling everything else up by tech trades)

Fun game, and although I played somewhat lazy, I had some luck with late Great Artists (9 total) and with (active) religion spreading. But surely a pre 1400 AD date is possible, since I built 2 shrines which I don't consider necessary at all, and had 1 Great Prophet left in the end. Furthermore I triggered only 2 golden ages (Taj Mahal + 1GE).

Boreal maps can be fun, provided you make use of their benefits: lots of food and tons of forests. Actually I think there is no better map for the temple spamming part :D.

/EDIT: I should add that I had stone and marble in city 2 & 3. Pretty much mandatory for wonders and cathedrals. Traded horses for copper for cheap conf.caths.
/EDIT2: and Parthenon was the most important wonder, of course ;)

Thank you very much for the comments kovacsflo and babybluepants! I'm learning a lot from the discussions.

I had submitted a 1480AD game. I played much like karmina, but I played a nine-city game and had trouble with maintenance costs despite running a double shrine capital.

So I tried out a six-city game, and now improved to 1440AD as well, and that in a game with average luck, no real good GPfarm (7+foodsources) and no marble. OTOH I had three good cottage sites.

Let's break 1400 now!

Comments about playing the boreal map

Mapfinder is not very useful.
For the capital, I am looking for at least two plainsforest+deer tiles, with one in the inner ring, at least four total food sources, and a river with at least five cottagable grass/plains tiles.
Gems are nice, but since you usually need bronze before they can be mined, I dont mind not having any in the capital.

Many maps fit this description, but we have to discard many after exploring if:
No good 2nd/3rd legendary sites
No good GP farm
No stone nearby
Also if we miss pyramids or something

I find getting hinduism off the bat is very strong, as building warriors for exploration and hut popping is very nice on a map like this.
Working the 2f2h deer tiles makes up for the later worker.
Teching hinduism and building worker leaves it with nothing to do for a while.

Tech wise, I tend to Oracle alpha or confu, then bulb theo and philo and part of edu. Obviously getting to liberalism->nationalism as quick as practical. Rep beakers should get you anything else desirable (like PP).

Thanks for the fun idea : Boreal - Culture requires a different style than I'm used to. Nice new twist. It's hard to trade resources for cash on this map.
My game did not have enough workers. I was still chopping at 1000AD. My tech pace was crawling, I should have done an academy. I was still researching around 700 AD--and that was just Lib->Nat and Drama (no PP). I also never got a religion to spread to me. I just had the 3 I discovered.

If I play one more time, my target date will be: 1250 AD, hopefully getting sub-1300. I'm starting to wonder if Boreal is actually a very strong map for culture. Might have to try it on Deity.

I only had 9 cities

Isn't that 2 or 3 too many? In my book, you only go for 9 cities if you have 3 cottage cities.

I want to play this one, I'm trying to find time desperately.

This time I played with Ramesses - he was much better choice in this map than Gandhi.

Wonders: 19 all together
Cathedrals: 10
Cottages: 17
Religions: 6 (I founded 5 of them)

Great people:
11 GA (9 borned in my cultural cities)
2 Great prophet (1 at the end, the other built a shrine)
2 Great spy (1 for golden age, the other remained since I couldn't do anything useful with him)
2 Great merchant (both of them at the last few turns)
1 Great scientist (he helped me to discover printing press)

I had stone in my capital and I received marble from my 6th city. I had 2 coppers as well. I had 2 GP farms, but my capital produced so many GP points (50 basic at the end) that I received only 1 GA from my 4th city. I had 9 cities.

My cultural cities all had enough food, plain or grassland river tile, but except my capital hammers were problematic, so I had to fulfill it by chopping trees nearby.

All in all I see that an industrial leader is very useful in this gauntlet, since AIs leave you enough time to build as many wonders as you want. I add that at the last 500 year I only built 2-3 wonders - cathedrals were more important.

Flóri

Some conclusions about my submission:

- I won't ever play with a non-industrial leader in easier difficulties while aiming cultural victory.

- I won't try again settling down more than 4-5 GP farms in Boreal (including my 3 cultural cities). Young cities will never reach a GA even by having 5 artists.

- I am about to say that it is better if the first 2-3 great people are prophets. Early shrines helps your economy to discover liberalism and your state religion's shrine can give you even 18 culture points! Just build it ASAP.

- Stone is essential from the beginning, marble can wait a bit. I played with raging barbs, everything what I had to do for the increased points is to build the great wall. Stonehenge and pyramids are critical as well. In boreal you can't get too much luxury resources while deers let your cities grow fast.

- And I will pray not to have more than 1 great spies :)

Good tips kovacsflo, but one of the great things about Civ is that many strategies can work equally well. My first game was very messy as I described (not enough workers), but I still got 13xx AD finish. Here are a few things I did differently:

I never had stone. I only built Great Artist Wonders + Pyramids/Oracle. As long as I have stuff to build (monateries, temples, etc.) then I don't feel the need to get wonders.
All of my GA were born with 100% probability. I had all GA and just one GE. I forgot how much better the shrine is in BTS. I avoid it in vanilla but will change that.

So Ind trait was not a big deal for me -- I played Gandhi. Fast workers on forests/quick speed seems essential to me.

I only had 6 cities, and only 3 religions.

I really liked my map though. We'll see if there's another map worthy of a another shot at this.

I forgot how much better the shrine is in BTS. I avoid it in vanilla but will change that.


What's the difference, please?

What's the difference, please?

Shrine is 4 culture in vanilla. (doubles to 8 after 1000 years, I think, don't know cus I never build them)

With BTS + Sistine Chapel, the culture is 9 (doubled = 18)

Also, on Monarch I found it hard to trade for cash to keep the slider at 100% until very late in the game (with Deity, it's easier), so the gold from the shrine is more useful in this gauntlet than it would normally be.

I have to strongly disagree with getting more than 1 shrine however.

Also, on Monarch I found it hard to trade for cash to keep the slider at 100% until very late in the game (with Deity, it's easier), so the gold from the shrine is more useful in this gauntlet than it would normally be.

I have to strongly disagree with getting more than 1 shrine however.

But the question is the following: do we agree to build wonders which can result a prophet or not? I think apostolic palace, spiral minaret and stonehenge are still useful even by resulting a prophet sometimes.

Having a prophet at the beginning is even more useful as having a GA. But the other prophets still can help you much, even by shrines in cultural cities. Small religions still gives you money and some culture points. Also you can found christianity and islam earlier. I don't want to say that the 2nd, 3rd or later prophets are more useful than GAs, but having such useful wonders which I mentioned means that the price is acceptable IMO.

Which really polluted my GP points was the great wall. Great spies are only can help you if you start a golden age. Some other wonders are questionable like temple of Artemis. I built it because of 2 reasons:

1. I couldn't build another wonder in my coastal city, which needed more culture points.

2. I know that later I will build the great lighthouse and a harbor in that city, which makes the temple of Artemis more useful.

And also great library is questionable, but in my 1320 AD submission I had so many GP points in my capital that it still didn't really matter. The chance of GA decreased from 65% to 54 % as far as I remember, and in that time I could use a GE or a prophet very well. All in all I had 1 great scientist, who helped me to discover printing press, and fasten my great person producing. This is a risky thing, but I think luck is an important part in gauntlets. Not the less careful player will win this minor.

I still had 11 GAs and a shrine establishing prophet. If I don't mention the 3 great persons who were born at the last 1-2 turn, I had only 2 great person who weren't too useful: the 2nd great spy and the scientist.

Good tips kovacsflo, but one of the great things about Civ is that many strategies can work equally well.

I agree. But I tried Gandhi and I wasn't satisfied with him.

I never had stone. I only built Great Artist Wonders + Pyramids/Oracle. As long as I have stuff to build (monateries, temples, etc.) then I don't feel the need to get wonders.
All of my GA were born with 100% probability. I had all GA and just one GE. I forgot how much better the shrine is in BTS. I avoid it in vanilla but will change that.

In my strategy stone and later marble are essential.
I'm wondering how many GAs did you have and how many cities had enough food and time to give you a GA.

Fast workers on forests/quick speed seems essential to me.

I only had 6 cities, and only 3 religions.

I really liked my map though. We'll see if there's another map worthy of a another shot at this.

These are the settings when you really can use fast workers, I agree. But having 12 workers instead of 8 is still not difficult. 6 city and 3 religion seems few to me. 6 city and 3 religion means only 6 cathedrals. Compared to this, an 13xx AD result is pretty good. I add that practically your 7-9th cities will only help you by building temples, but it is still a big help.

Why was your map so good?

I had 5 grass and 3 gems in the captial(but not great food there) and four really good food cities + marble/copper. All without having to spread out too wide.

I probably had 15 or 16 GAs. I'd have to look.

I tried one with Ramesses... Nice start with 2 gems and 4 river grass, as well as a great NE site nearby. But, it's been brutal going. The biggest problem is no marble... I've completely under-expanded and I'm way too slow getting cathedrals up. I guess I don't really know how to wonderspam. The mass of wonders in mid-game really conflicts with temples and cathedrals, I feel. And, I'm kinda hating the random GP pops... I'm at 100% slider in 590 AD right now; looks like probably 1500's on a quick calculation, but I might not invest the 2-3 hrs to finish.

I think I'll try Gandhi next. Fast workers would help, and there's plenty of things to build without going for many wonders.

I almost wanna play expansive for the +2 health and worker build bonus on this map. Say, Peter or Bismarck, depending on the strategy... Or not.

I tried one with Ramesses... Nice start with 2 gems and 4 river grass, as well as a great NE site nearby. But, it's been brutal going. The biggest problem is no marble... I've completely under-expanded and I'm way too slow getting cathedrals up. I guess I don't really know how to wonderspam. The mass of wonders in mid-game really conflicts with temples and cathedrals, I feel. And, I'm kinda hating the random GP pops... I'm at 100% slider in 590 AD right now; looks like probably 1500's on a quick calculation, but I might not invest the 2-3 hrs to finish.

I think I'll try Gandhi next. Fast workers would help, and there's plenty of things to build without going for many wonders.

I almost wanna play expansive for the +2 health and worker build bonus on this map. Say, Peter or Bismarck, depending on the strategy... Or not.

You don't need to start close to marble - it is enough if you have marble in a horrible place when your wonderspam needs marble. Random GP pop is not a serious problem if you can have prophets instead. All in all, at the late game your cultural cities can produce 2500 culture points all together, so I am about to say that GAs are a bit owervalued in this topic.

Expansive leaders? I myself found it useful having bigger cities for more cottages. But the problem is that you have to chop more forests, so 2 more cottages costs +3 health points practically (+1 for the 2 chopped forests).

Btw what is NE? My mother language is Hungarian and somatimes I have problems with shortenings in this forum.

Flóri

I myself found it useful having bigger cities for more cottages. But the problem is that you have to chop more forests, so 2 more cottages costs +3 health points practically (+1 for the 2 chopped forests).

Yeah, that's just it. I keep wondering if I should chop more or keep some health points. There are just so few resources. Granted I didn't get any coast in this game, and I've seen seafood on this map. That could be 2-3 more, and I'd probably be fine.

And my native language is Serbian - we're neighbors. It stands for National Epic.

I meant no marble anywhere at all...

In my game I never even bothered to build aqueducts, and I traded away my fish for gold. In other words, health was never an issue. Even after I chopped every most forests. And I did not get the herbalist random event for health either.

Yeah, that's just it. I keep wondering if I should chop more or keep some health points. There are just so few resources. Granted I didn't get any coast in this game, and I've seen seafood on this map. That could be 2-3 more, and I'd probably be fine.

City growing is very much depends on the situation in this map, but I experienced that it is very hard to grow your cities belove 16 pop. Fish and crabs are quite rare, but you still can have at least one of them. But in the best situation, you still could have
just +2 health from harbor, since there is no clam in the whole map.

Anyway in my 1320 AD game my third city was a coastal with 8 river tiles, a fish, 2 or 3 deers and a sheep.

And my native language is Serbian - we're neighbors.

OK, I just see that in your avatar Canada is written as home, that's why I supposed that your mother language is English (I know it still could be French).

Let me preface by saying I have no Monarch Civ 4 victories yet. So, I'm giving this a go, as i figure Cultural is going to be about the easiest way to get one. If can win one, it'll be nowhere near some I'm seeing posted. But, I have some observations/questions:

Wow, is it hard to keep up with the land grab that the other civs do. I've made two efforts, after I aborted the first, when I was underpowered, and got declared on by Hannibal. But, in both games, I can get to maybe 6 cities, and I run out of room. Mind you I'm going all peaceful. Sure, I could've had more if I'd gone for more settlers, earlier. I actually had a lot of room by myself, in this one(albeit not a lot of good settling sites). But, my economy would have tanked. Mind you, I had no gems in my area, surprisingly. But, I did make quite a few cottages.

Second, does the difficulty impact religion spread? I founded Buddhism, and gave up waiting, and started making missionaries. If I am not mistaken, this will be my first game ever where my religion didn't spread into one of my other cities, on it's own.

I've also had bad luck with failure to spreads in this one. Seems like a lot of things step up, in difficulty. Or, is it just bad luck?

Quick speed, once again, gets boned on the religion spread. There just aren't many turns in the entire game, so religion may appear to spread slower if you are used to other speeds. It's not difficulty related. Failure to spread is also just bad luck, not level.

Let me preface by saying I have no Monarch Civ 4 victories yet. So, I'm giving this a go, as i figure Cultural is going to be about the easiest way to get one. If can win one, it'll be nowhere near some I'm seeing posted. But, I have some observations/questions:

Wow, is it hard to keep up with the land grab that the other civs do. I've made two efforts, after I aborted the first, when I was underpowered, and got declared on by Hannibal. But, in both games, I can get to maybe 6 cities, and I run out of room. Mind you I'm going all peaceful. Sure, I could've had more if I'd gone for more settlers, earlier. I actually had a lot of room by myself, in this one(albeit not a lot of good settling sites). But, my economy would have tanked. Mind you, I had no gems in my area, surprisingly. But, I did make quite a few cottages.

Land grabbing is not so difficult in monarch. And in the other hand, since we are talking about a cultural victory, don't forget that you can settle down cities close to your neighbours - you will take away the land (and even cities) from AI. Don't hesitate to settle down cities far away if you will have valuable resources (stone or marble) or a great GP farm.

Flóri

Isn't that 2 or 3 too many? In my book, you only go for 9 cities if you have 3 cottage cities.

I want to play this one, I'm trying to find time desperately.

I only had 2 religions (untill near the very end) so I thought I'd need nine to get 2 cathedrals in each. But since I GPFarmed one of them...

I'm sure you are right.

I only had 2 religions (untill near the very end) so I thought I'd need nine to get 2 cathedrals in each. But since I GPFarmed one of them...

I'm sure you are right.

If you want to get religion from an AI, settle down a city close to an AI. In boreal, you can find a neighbour who has a religion which you don't AND the civilization has no connection with you.

Then connect your lonely city with your neighbour. Sooner or later you will have this religion.

You guys noticed GOTM 46? I think I might just give that a go with my second attempt.

GOTM 46 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333512)

Ok, I got my first Monarch victory. Nothing special 1896. 7 cities with no stone or marble anywhere nearby. I believe my 3 cultural cities had 10 cottage sites. I got 7 GAs.

Nothing special, but it sure helps my QM and EQM

Oh....also, I didn't go for one of the better leaders for this. I used a pretty good one I had no victories with, Saladin and Arabia

First try: Gem+gold+fur, no green tiles Gandhi; stone closeby, herbalist-1pop, research hindu and juda early. Alpha got in trades 800BC, Pyramids. CS sling T61. Acad T68. NE+Par+Library in capital T80. Sistine T88. 4religions founded. Got dowed, I expected a victory T135, 1450AD, 18GA+Academy GS+GE, big city2 problem, 0 cottages.
Slow settling was my worst problem. Also, too few workers, there is so much to chop in this map!

EDIT: researching at 0% most of the time.

^ Yeah, under-expansion was my biggest problem in this one.

I've decided to just finish my crappy Ramesses attempt, as I won't have time for another one. I still have 20t to play, but it's basically done. Looks like 1530 AD, maybe down to 1510 AD if I can micro a few things better. No marble (or copper) really hurt me. Also, only 3 religions. I had plenty of time to get another cathedral set up. I built ToA early, which was just idiotic - it cost me an extra late GA, and it slowed my expansion quite a bit. My other big mistake was delaying Philosophy forever with the intent to bulb (when I really didn't need to), and popping a GP with 95%+ GS odds. I lost Tao by a turn as a result. With marble and an extra religion I'd probably shave a 5-10t? That would be a pretty awesome date for me, and I didn't even know what I was doing in this game. So... I can say that Ramesses on this map type is great. I wonder if normal speed would be even better. It would save a lot of chopping turns.

I went with 6 cities; 2 wonder/cath spam, 1 GA farm as LC's; 11 GA, 2 GP (one golden age, one will be unused), 2 GS (acad and education). Thebes: Oracle, ToA, Pyramids, HG, some other wonder that escapes me now, 3 Cathedrals, 2 gems, 3 grass river, very low on food (stuck at size 10 all game); Memphis: +14fpt, NE, Parth; Heliopolis: Sistine, MoM, Taj, Herm, 3 Cathedrals, 4-5 plains cottages.

Hm, after several further tries I get the impression that the key to this gauntlet is a lot of luck.

The winner needs
1. stone
2. marble
3. to trade for copper and/or gold
4. your first 3 cities legendary, which means
4a. a couple of gems
4b. two cities with 6+ towns or gems
4c. one citiy with 8+ artists
5. Mids & Oracle while spamming settlers & workers. Can be tricky vs monarch AI.
6. 4+ religions. Both founding and spreading needs some luck.
7. and of course luck with the general RNG annoyances like huts, dows & GPs.

I'm especially pissed of by 1. and 2...
My best try so far was 1420 with Gandhi, where I missed all of the 3 early religions but got spread hinduism & judaism. No marble, no copper, but a total of 5 gems in my first two cities, and a nice GP farm (8-9 artists max). Consequently I didn't spam wonders but concentrated on multipliers. Did get very late Mausoleum + Taj Mahal though. 10 GA 3 GP 2 GS. Things you can control are enough workers, aggressive trading for money, and not forgetting to switch to democracy to buy buildings when maxing the culture slider. Oh, and building any cottages AD is definitely too late.

Completed my game for 1520 AD. I completely screwed up the endgame in terms of GP management, as I played 25t in about 15 minutes this morning, but somehow still finished 1t ahead of estimate. Amazing how that works. :D Everything the same as I described above, except only 10 GA, and +1 GM (unused).

@karmina,

Isn't that the case with more or less every gauntlet? This map type is kinda frustrating, though. You discover about 50 deer in the first 20t, but other resources tend to be spread out. It takes a while to evaluate a start. I've tried a few, but I keep having to send one of my first settlers really far just to get a total crap resource city. I think this would work much better on normal speed. I'll probably try one, if I find the time next week.

Final try for me: 1280 AD with Gandhi.
Hope this gets accepted, recorded submission date is 25th, 10:50 AM....

- 11 workers, 10 towns, 6 cities
- 9 Great Artists, all for great works
- 6 Great Prohets (2 shrines, 2 golden ages, bulbed theo + CS)
- 1 GE (golden age)
- 1 GS, built an academy in 1200 AD :rolleyes:
- 4 religions, plus one very late Islamic cathedral to squeeze out one turn

GPfarm capital had 6 food 1 gem.
2nd city was far away, not legendary, but stone, 2 gems and lots of hills.
4th city (legendary) food poor, but marble and 2 gems. Got a lot of Great Artists.
6th city very late (AD) for copper, chopped the 4 temples within 4 turns.

Although I tried hard to get my cottages BC, 2 of them never made it to towns, and most were only towns for less than 10 turns. So still too few workers, as you have very few BC turns left after trading for pottery...unfortunately building workers really conflicts with all the other stuff like settlers, missionaries, wonders and of course SE :sad:

I think beelining to Alphabet->Mathematics->Currency before heading for Music and CS was quite important on this map.

Results:

G-Minor 80 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=minor&gauntlet=185) - Cultural, Monarch, Standard, Quick on Boreal
1st karmina 1280 AD
2nd kovacsflo 1320 AD
3rd WastinTime 1380 AD

Congratulations!

well done!

Final try for me: 1280 AD with Gandhi.
Hope this gets accepted, recorded submission date is 25th, 10:50 AM....

Congrat Karmina! You could successfully beat my 1320 date, but I'm still satisfied with my result, since my minor gained 53,6 gauntlet Qscore thanks to raging barbs.

Flóri

Congrats. Nice to see the 12xx. I never got a chance to play a 2nd game.

Thanks@all!
It was fun, and I think I learned a lot. Actually there was still room to improve as none of my cities had optimum terrain, but 3 finished and 2 quit games already took more than enough time.

And now to something completely different: GMajor60, an always war OCC on emperor!
Should be a true challenge :D

Results:

G-Minor 80 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=minor&gauntlet=185) - Cultural, Monarch, Standard, Quick on Boreal
1st karmina 1280 AD
2nd kovacsflo 1320 AD
3rd WastinTime 1380 AD

Congratulations!

Congrats everyone... that was fun and an educational experience all in one!

Finished my second try... I bit late, I know.


Start: 4 food tiles, 3gems. Ghandi.
Research: Medi-worker techs-CS sling-Music-Liber.
Production: Warrior-Warrior-Worker-Setter-...
Priorities: Pyramids for research, CoL for slingshot.

Cities built: 8, wanted 6 but there were 2 4-food-resource sites, which provided 1GA each.
Religions: 4, 1 infected.
Cathedrals: 7 (3 plus Parthenon, 2, 1)
GPs: 18, all of them GA, bombed 18 (3, 7, 8)

Oracle: 685BC
Pyramids: 580BC
NE: 230AD
Sistine's: ??
TajMaj: 980AD



Mistakes:
-failing to get the sling by 1 turn, then reloading and whipping to get it (I won't submit)
-researching sailing myself 1 turn before they researched Alpa and would have traded it to me (I was in a hurry to connect Stone for Pyramids).
-forgetting to include Musa
-playing with a zero green tiles capital.
-getting Pyramids 3 turns after CS, so had to wait on Bureaucracy 3t not to delay Representation 2t.
- Insuficient number of workers (17)

Pluses:
- zero cottages, research at 0% after sling, Liberalism got 840AD anyway.
- mercantilism 1040AD just in time to make the small city spit its GA before the GPFarm.
- more workers than ever in my life, I would normally have played with half of them.

Result: 1180AD


It was no doubt a very special map and a very special challenge, it's been very fun.