G-Major LVIII

[vadalaz]

It worked!

Spoiler :

Will post a writeup later.

 

[Cromagnus]

It worked!

Spoiler :

Will post a writeup later.

Weird, how did that end up happening?? Every AI in my test game, including Dido and Shaka, had a minimum of 300 culture by t100.

Oh, opening Piety... right, that would do it. Tradition, Liberty or Honor would prevent that...

So picking civs that open Piety is the key.

 

[chuckh89]

Played a quick test game. 6 AIs eliminated by t120 and I needed just 1 more policy to get in Liberty but I was nowhere near finishing Oracle, in fact 4 turns away from finishing GL.

It seems that focusing on the cultural CS is the way to go rather than beelining Oracle. I rush-bought 3 archers I think, those should've been 3 CS gifts instead. Archers cost 460, and 500 gold gets 50 influence when the CS seeks investors... Could've just built the archers. I think t140 Liberty is doable with 2 CS allies. A culture pantheon would help also, need some ruin luck for that though. The most important part is a late monument from one of the AIs though... so this is just a gamble. I really want to pull it off though.

Also, barb camps are amazing, you get 120 gold for clearing one! On the other hand, CS tributes are quite underwhelming.

Maybe I am a bit confused,...Don't you have to become friends with the Civ that you drop your GM in for the concert tour??

Usually you can bribe others to go to war with you to avoid exile, but that will never last, and after you have eliminated your third or fourth your never getting rid of that "Guarded" status.

So, how are you guys dropping you culture bomb after eliminating this many Civs from the game...?

 

[Bleidraner]

Maybe I am a bit confused,...Don't you have to become friends with the Civ that you drop your GM in for the concert tour??

Usually you can bribe others to go to war with you to avoid exile, but that will never last, and after you have eliminated your third or fourth your never getting rid of that "Guarded" status.

So, how are you guys dropping you culture bomb after eliminating this many Civs from the game...?

Just declare war on them and make sure you don't get the GM killed.

 

[Bleidraner]

It worked!

Spoiler :

Will post a writeup later.

All hail the master warmonger. Reeeeaaaally cool.

 

[chuckh89]

Just declare war on them and make sure you don't get the GM killed.

Duhh,...!!

I had been playing Vadalaz (Greek Liberation) strategy for so many Gaunlets,...I guess I forgot!! Thanks

 

[vadalaz]

Weird, how did that end up happening?? Every AI in my test game, including Dido and Shaka, had a minimum of 300 culture by t100.

Oh, opening Piety... right, that would do it. Tradition, Liberty or Honor would prevent that...

So picking civs that open Piety is the key.

Yeah that's the idea. Have a Piety opponent that doesn't get a culture ruin and builds a very late monument. Pacal didn't bother to build one in my game at all. And this didn't even take much rerolling, it actually happened on the second try... But maybe I was very lucky.

Anyway, the game plan was simple - spend the first 75-80 turns exploring and hunting down as many barb camps as possible. 3 barb camps is almost 500 gold, which gives 30 influence with a city-state (50 if lucky with the investors quest). If all AIs go Liberty/Tradition and/or build monuments by t75, reroll. If there are less than 2 cultural CSs, reroll.

With that in mind, my BO was Scout, Monument, Archers and later Chariots. Tech-wise I just beelined The Wheel, going for Archery first. I hit a few very nice ruins - a culture one early, a faith one for God-King and a free tech, which happened to be The Wheel. The early access to chariots helped, more so with barb hunting than killing AIs I'd say. Archers eliminate AIs just fine too, but moving from one barb camp to another with them is kinda slow. I had 2 cultural CS allies pretty quickly, unfortunately I couldn't even befriend the third one.

I had Raging Barbarians on and declared war on every civ as soon as I met them - I'm not sure if that really did anything though, as most AIs had monuments by around t40ish anyway. In the end Pacal did have a warrior and an archer though, which I assumed he built early.

Policy-wise I took the +1 hammer one first to speed up the archer spam, plus I didn't have AH yet so there was no point in getting a worker that early. Next I took the worker and the Golden Age - that probably was a mistake. I should've taken the happiness policy instead and tried to get a natural GA first. I had several CS allies, none were mercantile though, so I don't know if I'd get the natural GA in time.

I started the conquest around t80 and finished it on t133. It was a bit slow as the Celts actually expanded, and they spawned in the eastern woods area... For a long time I was wondering why I couldn't get their expo in a peace deal, only later I remembered this was OCC.

Coincidentally I finished Liberty on t133 as well, and then I realised I'd made another mistake - I forgot to build a road from Thebes to Palenque. That cost me 3-4 turns probably.

So yeah, there is some room for improvement here - faster Liberty with a superlong GA and possibly more CS allies/friends, a road between the capital and the remaining AI, faster conquest. I think t125-t130 is doable but requires a lot of things to go perfectly.

 

[Peets]

Yes well with this group more like a day.;-)

Once we figure out the strategy it's all about the execution and the map. I assume it is because the Marathon setting. Imagine if we had to go to hotels or something like that, maybe the gauntlet designer did not know about the bug.

I truly think that the only setting where SS does not really work is on Deity. Or maybe immortal in a space constrained map.

Epic and marathon is major now.
It always amase me how you guys manage to get a low victory time.

I didn't know about the bug. Perhaps small island could have made this "longer"

 

[Bleidraner]

Epic and marathon is major now.
It always amase me how you guys manage to get a low victory time.

I didn't know about the bug. Perhaps small island could have made this "longer"

And Vadalaz did not even need to exploit the bug. He did a straight GM bomb.

 

[chuckh89]

And this didn't even take much rerolling, it actually happened on the second try... But maybe I was very lucky.

With that in mind, my BO was Scout, Monument, Archers and later Chariots. Tech-wise I just beelined The Wheel, going for Archery first. I hit a few very nice ruins - a culture one early, a faith one for God-King and a free tech, which happened to be The Wheel.

You can talk about the AI Civs, and how you have to get "Lucky" with their culture output, Piety, etc...
But IMHO,...The key to your game was getting "The Wheel" free tech,...It is like "pouring fuel on the fire" once you get that Technology.(And,..Of course your excellent warmongering skills)

So funny, most games I am praying before popping a ruin (hoping for ), but most of the time it is a disappointing result. Now, in this game (in which religion, besides a pantheon doesn't even come into play),...I am popping 3 ruins!!

Nice game, hoping to get one on the board with a slightly altered strategy...Most people don't like Marathon, but I find this Gauntlet very enjoyable,...probably going to make more than a few attempts at this Major.

 

[Cromagnus]

You can talk about the AI Civs, and how you have to get "Lucky" with their culture output, Piety, etc...
But IMHO,...The key to your game was getting "The Wheel" free tech,...It is like "pouring fuel on the fire" once you get that Technology.(And,..Of course your excellent warmongering skills)

So funny, most game I am praying before popping a ruin (hoping for ), but most of the time it is a disappointing result. Now, in this game (in which religion, besides a pantheon doesn't even come into play),...I am popping 3 ruins!!

Nice game, hoping to get one on the board with a slightly altered strategy...Most people don't like Marathon, but I find this Gauntlet very enjoyable,...probably going to make more than a few attempts at this Major.

Honestly, getting the wheel early isn't super-important IMHO. It's not hard to clear the map with war chariots... that extra move is huge, so you could get the wheel on t80 and clear the map by t133. The key is super-fast culture, and getting lucky with an AI opening Piety and not building a monument. If they hit 300 culture before you finish liberty, it's over. You don't even need to wipe the map before you finish liberty. You just need to finish liberty fast, and hit Influential status.

 

[chuckh89]

Honestly, getting the wheel early isn't super-important IMHO. It's not hard to clear the map with war chariots... that extra move is huge, so you could get the wheel on t80 and clear the map by t133. The key is super-fast culture, and getting lucky with an AI opening Piety and not building a monument. If they hit 300 culture before you finish liberty, it's over. You don't even need to wipe the map before you finish liberty. You just need to finish liberty fast, and hit Influential status.

Totally agree clearing the map was secondary to culture, but I really didn't start "cooking" on culture until after I had the War Chariots. A majority of my culture came from camps cleared for cultural CS, and money gifted from Barb Hunting. Obviously they are more powerful, and obviously they can quickly get to their destination.

PLUS, the faster you have your promotions on those War Chariots the better, if you can shoot 2 times it is like doubling your army.....Once again, for gaining culture and money to gain culture.

 

[Cromagnus]

This is true, earlier war chariots makes it easier to do CS barb camp quests.

 

[zenmaster]

Nice job, Vadalaz!

That was exactly the same tack I was going to take after my first test game. Have only had time for one try thus far, but I also got an AI civ with a very late monument. If I had had any culture to speak of, I could have tried for the GM bomb, but the civ got to 300 before I could possibly finish Liberty, so I fell back to plan B. With 4 Tourism, I was able to keep pace with the laggard civ and my 360 tourism point Liberty Finisher GM's concert tour was enough to win on T213. My next try was definitely to go for abundant culture and try to catch a laggard civ with a 300 Tourism GM bomb after seeing that it could be done.

Culture was a wreck in my 1st try. No culture ruins; 1 nearby culture civ but it was hostile and never had a doable quest. 2 other culture civs found much later, but like Vadalaz, I had spent my early cash on units and didn't bribe until in the 100's. Got a faith ruin early to help me get a pantheon, but I had no culture-worthy land. Rather than get just 1 extra from God-King, i went Desert Folklore to try and get a religion ASAP, as at that point, I didn't know I would have a culture-lagging civ. I think an early culture ruin is huge in this one, as well as the cultural CSes as Vadalaz pointed out.

I agree with both Cromagnus and Chuck on the early Wheel ruin pop. Yes, Cromagnus is absolutely correct that is not SUPER-important. Assuming the eastern part of the map is not too cluttered with cities, a later Wheel can clear things by T140ish with not too much difficulty. However, popping that early Wheel hands a player 500+ extra gold (from more/faster barb camp destructions) and much faster conquest from the get-go. Even with that earlier Wheel, it still took Vadalaz until T133 to clear the map. People sometimes gloss over the bog that is the Eastern Woodlands/Marsh on Great Plains (Plus), but I've played too many Great Plains type maps to discount how many extra turns/units it will take to clear cities in that muck, even at low levels. I usually prefer to spawn on the edge of the Woodlands, as you can still get Mining Luxes and Pastures, but will have at most one other Civ in the forests with you. One small tip in addition to those already mentioned by Vadalaz, conquer the eastern forest civs sooner rather than later if possible.

Great job as always, Vadalaz! Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

 

[vadalaz]

Honestly, getting the wheel early gave me like one and a half chariots, so it really wasn't that impactful. After all, those could've been 2 archers as well. I got all the important CS quests done with my initial warrior and scout, so I'd estimate that the couple of early chariots brought me 240 gold from 2 extra camps I wouldn't necessarily go for with just archers. Chariots move much faster than the rest of the army so they have the time to go for a barb camp along the way.

In my first test run for this I got an Animal Husbandry ruin and had 4 horses in my capital which I quickly improved. I also happened to have 3 DoFs, so this gave me like 1200 gold in total... Now THAT was useful. A lux tech ruin would've been great too of course. I'd gladly take either of those over the wheel.

I think the perfect ruins for this are culture (preferrably multiple), AH/lux tech for some trades, faith for the pantheon and a warrior upgrade for easy tributes from the useless CS plus improved tanking and barb killing ability. Free population and gold are always nice too but not as good as the others I mentioned in my opinion.

 

[Cromagnus]

T283 the slow way: GL->Writer's Guild->Parthenon, finished liberty when I hit 6 tourism/turn.

Could have been more like 250 though. Two things slowed me down. If you're not finishing with *just* liberty* then you should really take Tradition opener first, followed by free worker/production-bonus/wonder bonus from tradition, then finish liberty.

I started with liberty, and took all but one policy before realizing I wasn't going to have enough tourism to win until later, so I had to take other policies. By then I lost 15% of the build time for Writer's Guild, GL & Parthenon. That would have shaved at least 30 turns. Culture is a non-issue if you're not gambling for the "AI doesn't even build monument" win. In my game even the civs who opened Piety built monuments. So the key might be perma-DoWing a civ early to encourage them to build troops instead.

Spoiler :

 

[zenmaster]

@Cromagnus - Nice T285 game doing it without having a culture-lagging civ. I'm beginning to think Vadalaz and I were pretty lucky to get such laggards. I played 6 quick starts to turn 50 or so to see if no one built a monument-- In every one, everyone had monuments up by T40 despite me declaring war asap and regardless of their SP tree. Had the usual suspects for piety mostly. Pacal was Vadalaz' laggard, and Harald was mine. Had Isabella, Theodora, Morocco etc. Might be rarer to happen than I first thought.

If they hit 300 culture before you finish liberty, it's over. You don't even need to wipe the map before you finish liberty. You just need to finish liberty fast, and hit Influential status.

Big ? for this gauntlet: Will an influential status change if the AI culture later surpasses your tourism, or is the influential label permanent after being reached?

I ask because there was one game I focused on exploration and found 3 culture ruins. Sadly, there was only 1 culture CS (hostile) on the whole map and the only semi late T40 monument builder was far away. It is conceivable you could get crazy culture ruins and CS alliances and finish Liberty before wiping the map and still get influential with a T40 monument builder. Their culture would probably bypass your tourism before you cleared the map though. If their influential status was permanent, you could then win when you cleared the map.

 

[vadalaz]

I think the late monument might have something to do with the AIs deciding to build a settler. Maybe a leader with a high expansion bias like Hiawatha is a good candidate for this too, Shaka as well. But if they do expand and build monuments, it slows down your conquest a bit, especially if the expos are in the eastern woods... meh.

 

[chuckh89]

I think the late monument might have something to do with the AIs deciding to build a settler. Maybe a leader with a high expansion bias like Hiawatha is a good candidate for this too, Shaka as well. But if they do expand and build monuments, it slows down your conquest a bit, especially if the expos are in the eastern woods... meh.

Yes, I have been using Shaka pretty regularly because of the..."If he is building a settler, he's not building a monument strategy"

I have been switching things up every other attempt, and high expansion Civs are a good play (IMHO), But I have not had them become my GM target at the end of Liberty.


-At this level is is very common for settlers to be unprotected, and they normally appear before any workers.


-There is normally one or two Civs that try to get expos going early,...no matter which group you pick as you enemies. If you throw Shaka and Hiawatha into the mix, then the early expansion Civs become quite predictable allowing you to avoid a "Guessing Game", and dedicate a sighted scout to watch dog status. Once you get familiar with the timing it is actually worth the "watch dog" turns to gain free early worker.

But if they do expand and build monuments, it slows down your conquest a bit, especially if the expos are in the eastern woods... meh.

Sometimes it is actually easier to kill off 2 unmanned smaller cities than one strong capital, and since I am usually chasing them, they tend to be in a less then ideal locations.

The biggest problem is Hiawatha in the Eastern Woods that you mentioned,....My latest ventures I have focused on only one high expansion Civ (Shaka)

@Cromagnus - Pacal was Vadalaz' laggard, and Harald was mine. Had Isabella, Theodora, Morocco etc. Might be rarer to happen than I first thought.

Yes, same here....Harold and Pacal have been my GM Concert tour recipients.

-----

ALSO, (And I know the argument on how "You will never regain the culture from barb camps if you open Honor")

I have noticed that if you DoW on your first AI Civ encounter, and then open "Honor" first,...then there is a greater tendency for initial AI Civ to grab "Honor" instead of the other choices. "I know!! Piety is what you want the AI to choose,....Not Honor!" Not if you attack him right away, and get his Melee unit, and then once he is weakened you can prevent any units from getting out of the city.

Most incidence when I have forward settled, and taken out his unit....He went "Honor", and now he doesn't have any units to take down Barbs for culture. If your lucky, you can get his Scout too...And, he usually builds units after such a encounter....

So the combination of no monument, and no barbs has a similar effect as Piety, PLUS your GM concert recipient is only a few tiles away!

I put on "Raging Barbs" to help with the culture output, and if you hunt hard you can come close to straight Liberty.

*Also something to consider is that Cheiftain Level w/ the +33% Barbarian Attack gives your scouts the ability to become Melee Units, a scout with zero starting experience can take down a Warrior Barb Camp in 6 turns, and then 4 turns w/ x2 Survivalism promotion. If I go this route, then they are the only Melee units besides my initial upgraded warrior.

Probably not the "Winning" strategy, But if your trying to get on the board in under 200 Turns,...then you might want to try it!!

 

[zenmaster]

Thanks for the insights, Vadalaz and Chuck.

? for you -- If a late monument often does have to do with the AI building a settler, is it best to try to stick a unit there if possible as Chuck says to try to nab it quick and hope it builds another one, do you think? In another gauntlet at Prince level even, I remember Maria just kept building unguarded settlers for me to nab 2-3 times before she wised up. Maybe Portugal might work...

In my game where Denmark built a monument superlate, I DOWed them very early but then just left them alone pretty much as they were up in the corner. They got an expo city but no monument until T100+. Maybe they built units/shrine and then a settler or had a wonder in the works?