G-Minor 12

The later years take so long to play

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You ain't just whistling Dixie.

Finally finished this thing late last night, with the last 300+ turns becoming a clickfest. I stopped warring around 1700, with the remaining 3 AIs all buddied up to me.

I had all ideas of really maximizing my score at the end, but just couldn't summon the energy to put much effort into it. Missed a couple of wonders, accidentally razed a couple of others, so that part of my score isn't optimal. Could have gotten closer to the Dom limit, but Liz renounced her vasselage, and I just dinna have the heart to stop her. Still, with the huge population, and the mass of FTs, came out with a score good enough for second currently.

The AI did start building it's SS, but not until there were less than 50 turns to go, so no threat there. I held off on the UN until the very end, just dinna want to have to deal with the resolutions popping up.

The-Hawk said:

Hey superslug... I was thinking about a Vanilla try on this minor. I looked at the starting post just to be safe, glad I did. It says version 1.61.010 is required? I don't think this was ever announced on the forum? Usually there is a new thread that makes it clear a new version is out. Not sure everyone will catch the fact that a higher version is now required?

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Glad I saw this. I'm already about six hours in and I'm using .009

superslug said:

I think you're right, we missed the usual forum announcement. It was announced with an update I believe though, and we're not seeing many .009 submissions as of late, so word's gotten around.

If I see any .009 Gauntlet submissions for this one, I'd probably let them in though. .008 is out of the question though.

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I may load the new mod and start over if I have enough time, but if I don't have time to finish the new one by the 9th, I may beg for an exemption to .010.

OK, my first submission has been accepted. Thought I'd post some numbers to give everyone a target to shoot for...

Score: 16671
Number of Future Techs discovered: 373
Great Persons: I have no idea how many I spawned, but at the end, the next GP required 26,400 points.

I'm hoping to give this another go, because I know I messed some things up. This score can easily be beaten. Some learnings:

- I was too concerned about happiness, I had totally forgotten future techs give smilies. No reason to be building lots of happiness buildings.
- I wasted too much time trying to get Great Profits for the religious wonders. By the end, I had built all 7! However, I think the points for wonders are not as important as techs. I few more early Academies might have been worth more than those extra religious wonders.
- I missed three wonders (although I captured one later). I could not build Collossus or Lighthouse because I was not on the coast. I gifted the required techs to the coastal AI's, but they never built them. By the time I captured the coastal cities, the wonders were obsolete. I thought I might still be able to build them, but apparently not. The third wonder I missed was Kremlin. No excuse... I simply forgot to build it! Imagine how stupid I felt towards the end of the game when the announcement came that Vicky had built Kremlin . Good news was I was able to beeline an army to that city and capture it right at the end of the game, so I got the points anyhow.
- I made some dumb decisions along the way. For example, I revolted to switch to Free Religion for the tech bonus. At that point in the game, I took 6 turns of anarchy! However, while I was still in that anarchy, I had the chance for a UN vote. Doh! Anywhere along the way, I could have forced Free Religion with a UN vote (and no anarchy).
- I never pulled the trigger on the UN resolution that gives foreign trade routes. My concern was that it might have forced me off the Mercantilism civic, and I didn't want to lose the free specialists. Does anyone know if the UN resolution on open markets allows you to keep Mercantilism as your civic? This could have been a huge boost to my income if I had added the trade routes without losing the free specialists. (Hmmmm... maybe I can replay from a save and see what happens to my civic if I voted for that resolution).

One other oddity in the game. Playing Warlords, I got an early Great General. Didn't really know what to do with it, so I used it to add 20 experience points to my most experienced unit. My thought process was that I needed to get one unit high enough to qualify for the Epic and West Point wonders. Anyhow, with the experience boost and free promotions, this little unit became quite a stud . I started using him to pick on AI's to keep them stunted. By the end of the game, he had reached experience level 17! When I reload the game to try the UN resolution thing, I'll take a screenshot of him...

Sorry for the double post... I ran a quick test. Taking the UN resolution for Free Markets (and the foreign trade routes) does not force you off Mercantilism. However, since Mercantilism does not allow foreign routes, the UN resolution accomplished nothing. No value in voting it in.

In my previous post, I said I'd take a screenie of my level 17 unit. However, I can't seem to get it to work . I press print screen, it even allows me to enter a name for the file. But, I'm only getting tiny files with black screens . Might this be a memory problem since this game was so huge at the end?

The-Hawk said:

In my previous post, I said I'd take a screenie of my level 17 unit. However, I can't seem to get it to work . I press print screen, it even allows me to enter a name for the file. But, I'm only getting tiny files with black screens . Might this be a memory problem since this game was so huge at the end?

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I could never get the in-game screenshot to work either. I found its easiest for me to hit the 'Print Screen' and than tab over to Windows Paint and paste it there. That way works for me everytime.

Thanks Methos, pasting into Paint worked. I have no idea why the in-game screenprint is so erratic (it does work sometimes). Anyhow, here is my unit. I got a kick out of how his promotions cover the picture of his mech infantry.

I just submitted my first HOF game ever, for this gauntlet though a low score (5313). BUT: I have some trouble to tell Civ4 to use my nick from this forum, instead of my other nick (Anders). So this might show up as an error when you check the saves. Hope its still acceptable, as I slugged full 30 hours through that game. And that was my third try (got cultural and domination victory in the first two tries.

Now, just for fun I'll try a game with a serious (say financial and/or industrious) civ. ^^

That's no problem, but you should be able to edit your nick in the config file

superslug

Ahh, I have problem with my finish file, when was last turn 2050AD I read notice… fatal memory error and the game was aborted. AutoSave AD-2050 starts with the same notice. I use last AutoSave AD-2046 to finish my game. Last 100 turn I do nothing, only press mouse button “next turn”.

Hindi said:

superslug

Ahh, I have problem with my finish file, when was last turn 2050AD I read notice… fatal memory error and the game was aborted. AutoSave AD-2050 starts with the same notice. I use last AutoSave AD-2046 to finish my game. Last 100 turn I do nothing, only press mouse button “next turn”.

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Send an email to hof@civfanatics.net saying the same thing when you submit.

FoolontheHill said:

I may load the new mod and start over if I have enough time, but if I don't have time to finish the new one by the 9th, I may beg for an exemption to .010.

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I just officialized .009 for this one, but please do upgrade as soon as you're done.

I'm not sure if "officialize" is an official verb in the English language, but if not I just officialized as such for the HOF forum.

superslug

I just send an email to hof@civfanatics.net with bad AutoSave AD-2050.

Well, my fault if i've checked HOF page only today, but 1/9 for a huge map + marathon is a bit close (in other words, no chance to submit for me).

Am i asking much for another week (better 2)?, say until jan 20th???

thanks anyway

superslug said:

Not likely I'm afraid. I'm eager to start the new year's Gauntlet cycle.

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I think you'll get the same answer.
In these extra days, you could also play G-Minor 13!

Two quick questions from an HOF n00b:

is there a reason why my first game doesn't show up in my quattromaster list? Shouldn't it count against all 6 categories? Yeah, you guessed it, I want to become quattromaster with 18 games only. ^^

about gauntlets: is it necessary to complete 2 minors and majors each, or just one each? The info on the page says one, though here in the forums I often read about "my second minor then I'm done".

Bastian-Bux said:

is there a reason why my first game doesn't show up in my quattromaster list? Shouldn't it count against all 6 categories?

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Game don't show up until they are published. Updates are run on the 10th and 25th of each month.

Bastian-Bux said:

about gauntlets: is it necessary to complete 2 minors and majors each, or just one each? The info on the page says one, though here in the forums I often read about "my second minor then I'm done".

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Only one game is required but your top two games in each sub-category are used to calculate QScores.

Btw how it is defined is gauntlet minor or major (is it just difficulty level)? Didnt find any definition of those.

-Dracandross

Dracandross said:

Btw how it is defined is gauntlet minor or major (is it just difficulty level)? Didnt find any definition of those.

-Dracandross

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It's completely arbitrary.

Oh drat, well into my attempt for this game I triggered domination. I've not grasped the Vasselstate thing fully yet, so I didn't realize I can't give cities to my Vassals. The three nations left were too weak to effectively push my boundaries with the cities I gifted. It was in 1795AD, I had aquired 45 Future Techs and just over 10k points, of which 4100 due to pop and still growing. It is so hard to not accumulate culture when even the specialists add to it. With the Statue of Liberty every city has at least one specialist and even the non-specific specialist generates 2 culture...

Well, all that is left, is gather courage for the next try. :suicide:

a space oddity said:

Oh drat, well into my attempt for this game I triggered domination.

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Ouch! This is my biggest fear in this gauntlet. The approach I've taken to try to mitigate this risk...

- I expand and conquer the AI's on my side of the map, but leave the AI's on the other half to expand at their leisure.
- I try not to build any wonders in the cities near the middle of the map so that my borders don't expand too fast.
- Eventually, the AI's fill the empty space so that their cultural borders reach mine. My goal is to expand to the point where I have 40-45% when our borders meet.
- I continue to leave them alone for a while so that they can establish some culture buildings in their border cities. My goal is to create a border at about 45% that is stable... i.e. neither of us is culturally pushing the other.
- Once the border seems stable, I go to war to knock them down so that there is no chance they'll tech to space victory (or reach modern weapons so that they might threaten me).
- However, I leave all their cities intact. All I do is kill their defenders down to the final unit. This way, they don't lose cities creating the stable cultural border.
- I then pillage every single improvement around their cities. This starves them out and seriously stunts their tech growth. However, they don't lose culture so our borders don't move.
- If the AI has collected a bunch of workers in one of its cities back away from our common border, I might take the city and raze it so that I stunt his workforce and their ability to rebuild. But I never capture or raze a city near our common border.
- As the game progresses, I start selectively capturing a couple of the AI border cities just to get closer to the dom limit. But I'm always careful to make sure the overall border is stable before grabbing a couple more.

My experience was that as long as I didn't build anything more than tech buildings (e.g. libraries) in my border cities, the AI was able to maintain enough culture to keep the border very stable.