G-Major 14

Which takes me to FiveAces proposed strategy. I like it, it is simple and flawless. Just try it and win the gauntlet! If you don’t win, well, just propose another strategy. That's the way to progress. Just a comment, why delay the building of the third city? Build it soon, get missionaries out of it, cottage it now that you have it…

Click to expand...

Working on it. First tried as Peter. Health was nice, but I don't have much experience with SE so research suffered (missed 1st to Lib) and more importantly, you have to keep the sci's while researching Lib anyway, so you greatly increase chances of generating a worthless GS (or 2!). I have concluded you must be Liz for the best time. Wish I reached that one earlier - the map I had as Peter was really good.

Second try - put 3rd city in production location, made GP Farm 4th. Should not have done that. Religion spread is too unpredictable, although I screwed up royally on founding Tao by accidentally starving my capital 1 turn short of the GS and not realizing it until right Mansa founded. Doh!

Am now in 1180-ish with best city at ~11k/400CPT and building cath. Won't win any awards, but I'd like to finish for my 1st Deity win. Need some advice though - share borders with Roos and Hatty. Hatty friendly (+10 or something) with HR, trades, borders, peace, and shared Hindu. Roos cautious with -1 for close borders, peace, trades, and heathen rel. Some calvaries appearing at his borders/border cities. Should I convert to Roos rel to mitigate DOW at the expense of big drop in Hatty relations and 1 turn Anarchy?

I just quit my first attempt (first Deity game too). Doing OK until Washington declared war (I hate him in my games, don't know why I put him in but I looked at the opponents for Jesusin's game and went with them).

Mansa gifted me calendar in 160BC just as I moved some workers about to build a dye plantation (or not... as I would have discovered). What a dude! He wouldn't DOW on Washington though.

Tried looking at Jesusin's player log - all I can say is "Que?".

Just started researching paper at 0AD so it was going to be slow going to liberalism anyway.

The start wasn't very good anyway, just 1 food and no commerce at the capital. Had a nice cottage 2nd city (which Washington took when I quit) and a GP-farm lite. Health and happiness weren't too bad and got 2 religions spread to me and was first to lightbulb philosophy.

At least it doesn't take very long to play this major.

EDIT: 2nd attempt, quit after 5 minutes. Everyone had alphabet except Cyrus when I got it. He didn't want to trade maths for it.

Just a comment, why delay the building of the third city? Build it soon, get missionaries out of it, cottage it now that you have it…

Click to expand...

My theory was the turns spent building the 2nd settler were better spent growing the city to accelerate research. Based on the two games played though I don't believe that to be the case anymore. Lib race is not a concern if you have gold and execute well and an early 3rd city should be able to produce enough on its own to save 1 GA. So because I delayed I decided I needed to build a city for prod/cottages before the GP farm in case the Artists didn't give enough base culture. So now I have two moderate cities with about same base culture and CPT, only one of which needs to be legendary and at least 2 less GA. My second city could have produced the missionaries. Heck, I only needed to build 3 total to fully spread Hindu Tao and Conf cause Mansa spammed me with the last 2.

Bottom line - I agree you need to get the third city up soonest, to either grow its cottages or pop.

3rd attempt: Washington is first to Liberalism in 80AD. I told you I hated him. I guess it was my fault thinking it would be OK to trade philosophy to someone for calendar and cash. I think I'll give up on that game too... only 2 cities any good and the 3rd will have to battle against Asoka's culture, didn't get 3rd city out in time so had no space really. Was just about to lightbulb education with 2nd GS.

Decent start though, gems and gold on a plains hill.

The AI that could be put in for a safer ride:
Asoka
Gandhi
Hatty
Musa
Roosevelt
Fred
--
Cyrus
Wang Kong
Augustus

I was going with the same dudes as Jesusin, i.e. Asoka, Cyrus, Hatshepsut, Mansa, Roosevelt, Washington. I think I'll drop Washington for Gandhi next time. He always does bad things to me like invade just as I'm about to win a space race. Roosevelt is fine though. Could try Fred or Wang or Augustus I suppose.

I've only got warlords disc at the mo so does that change anything re AI aggression?

I'd take Fred over Wash anytime.

In warlords even Gandhi can attack you early if you drop an unprotected city at the place he was going to get his third, esp if it is near his home. Otherwise - no biggie.

Cheers I'll give Fred a go. He was pretty friendly in my only Monarch win to date, even after I ruthlessly backstabbed him.

I don't think I'll be doing that in this game though with my couple of warriors. I'm still worried about getting attacked. Do you just give in to all demands?

As I understand Jesusin's strat it's pick up either agri/animal husbandry (more useful early on) or wheel/pottery (good for early cottages though, and cheaper) on the way to writing, alphabet. Trade alphabet to everyone once you can get maths from one and try and pick up bronze working, the two techs you missed out on on the way to writing, get priesthood and meditiation (all from trades as well) so you can lightbulb philo with 1st GS, then do code of laws->civil service->paper->edu (lightbulb part with 2nd GS)->lib, take nationalism and slow tech to something (constitution and democracy probably??).

Combine this with a huge tech hand-out after liberalism to get people happy with you, and then settle back and hope for the best.

Does that sound like a good plan?

How many workers do you think you need?

Is it worth going for music or is it too unlikely?

I stick to 3 city plan but may put some junk cities down towards the end just to get temples for more cathedrals if need be (if I can get that far into the game). EDIT: Presumably I flip a couple as well.

Civics wise I change when I have slavery and OR (perhaps, don't normally have a religion declared by then, should I adopt Taoism as soon as I found it from the lightbulb [sounds a bit risky to me])? If I don't have a state religion I wait till I have beuareaucracy before changing, my cities aren't that big anyway and are running scientists or artists if they want to slow growth.

Next civics change cities are a bit bigger so go to caste/pacifism (picked a religion by then I guess... this is further on than I have managed so far).

Then change to free speech and whatever else looks good at the end. EDIT: Free religion obviously.

That's the plan anyway

ParadigmShifter said:

Then change to free speech and whatever else looks good at the end. EDIT: Free religion obviously.

Click to expand...

What about Free Religion is attractive to you? Is it the 10% boost when you're running 0% science? or is the couple happy faces when you are +10 happy from running culture at 100%?

The not aggravating anyone who is a different state religion to me is the attraction of free religion to me. Having to pick one to run pacifism is going to cause some tension is it not? That's what I reckoned anyway. BTW deity is scary after playing monarch. I tend not to pick a religion in monarch unless I really have to (but rarely go for culture anyway).

No free religion, definitely. Pacifism is the way.

Well Im chugging along on this one, at about 14xx on quick so far but not submitted as I can play much better. Im currently going with my Civ 3esque culture strategy ("Buy everything you can with Repub...er, Universal Suffrage"). If you are having trouble winning, pick any Industrious leader, get a stone, plains hill, food and commerce combination start, and buy your way to victory! Deity AIs always have holes in the pockets of their big moneybags.

So stick with pacifism seems to be the advice I'm getting then (if I can get a chance to actually get far enough to pick a state religion that is). Just pick the religion most of the big-shots have and go with that?

I was thinking switch to pacifism after I have spread the religion of choice to my cities (obviously), which I figure will be around the time I get my 2nd GS out from a library in the capital (I build a library in my first 2 cities but generally run scientists in my capital only and by the time I am ready to run GPs in the 2nd and 3rd cities I have drama and theatres by then so artists are obviouly going to be the better move). EDIT: I'll build a library in my 3rd city too obviously for culture but a theatre is priority build.

Is it worth getting a 3rd GS to (partially?) lightbulb liberalism? First GS is normally waiting around a bit to lightbulb philosophy (playing Liz), it comes while I am researching drama normally. 2nd is waiting around for a bit too (comes while researching CoL or paper, think paper is too cheap too lightbulb, save it for some of education). I know I need calendar, metal casting and compass to lightbulb lib. I could get them from trading philosophy or maybe drama probably but that went wrong in game 2 when someone must have traded it to Washington and he got lib in 80AD.

EDIT: Looking at the techs I need to lightbulb lib it doesn't seem worth it but any quicker to lib has to be a bonus. Calendar I was thinking was OK but with high culture the happy bonus from dye aint going to be that important and I think it's just bananas that have a health bonus (unless I build grocers, which doesn't seem like it will happen in this gauntlet), metal casting adds unhealthiness and the happy again isn't going to make any difference, and compass is totally useless.

ParadigmShifter said:

Is it worth getting a 3rd GS to (partially?) lightbulb liberalism? ...
... I know I need calendar, metal casting and compass to lightbulb lib.

Click to expand...

Waw, this could be huge. I never realised you can lighbulb Liberalism if you delay Machinery.

If this works, a third GS is definitively a possibility. You can trade for all that useless needed techs. Being sure of winning the Liberalism race can be used to detour to Music, or maybe just to get to Liberalism sooner. The price to pay is assigning scientist early when you would like to grow, build workers, etc.

I will think about it.

Second try, PH,corn, 2gold, 5FP start. 6 cities, 4 religions, 7 cathedrals, 14GP, 1355AD finish.

confu missed by 2t, tao by 3. Gifted techs soon not to be dowed. Civics very different this time, no slavery: HR+CS+OR. Bu. 15AD, NE, Libe-Print, FS+Pa. FM.

The 4 relis spread around 300BC. 2 of them needed stone, I didn't have it.

At 1AD I new it wasn't a good game, 5cities, 5workers, need monasteries, 1 single temple... Too much need for hammers. Natio y Eco 300AD, not sure if taking PP from Liberalism was a good idea. 200h wasted in failed TajMaj. Herm 560AD, before 1st cathedral.
GP use: educ,philo just in time, 2-3-7 bombs.

Good luck everybody.

ParadigmShifter said:

Tried looking at Jesusin's player log - all I can say is "Que?".

Click to expand...

What is so surprising?
Just ask, I have no secrets.

15th game is not going so well. Only 62 CPT in cities 2 and 3 at 1000 AD. Just can't seem to build cathedrals fast enough there.

I say "Que?" - because it's in Spanish! I liked the names for your cities though - 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 & 06!

I think this is easier in vanilla becasue you don't need maths for civil service.

I see in your write up in the original thread you said you researched Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Pottery (so presumably you had wheel in there too unless you got it from a hut).

I was thinking going one route or the other - Agri/AH or Wheel/Pot, both lead to writing. Then straight to writing, alphabet, drama presumably. In warlords we need maths then for CS, so I try and trade alphabet for maths, mysticism, meditation, and priesthood, and the tech path you don't take to writing. That opens up code of laws which is next, running a scientist in the meantime (capital is usually first to get a library up). First sci pops philo, hopefully getting Taoism, then a dash for civil service and paper, then education with help from 2nd scientist lightbulb, then it's artists everywhere from then on?

Liberalism is lightbulbable if you have the 3 techs I mentioned earlier (calendar, metal casting and compass) EDIT: and NOT machinery, as you rightly said, hope that helps your strat.

My last attempt Asoka got liberalism in 15AD so I gave up then EDIT: I was 10 turns away from education, 7 turns making a loss at 100%, need to beg more cash from pleased AIs I think. I've been trading a bit much I think to get techs like monarchy which definitely must be needed. I suppose the key is get to alphabet early enough to be able to get bronze working (although last game got it from a hut!), monarchy, and the pre-reqs for code of laws, plus monarchy for HR and monotheism for OR (perhaps, not had much chance to spread religion around so early in a game yet, but you don't need a state religion to build missionaries I believe). That's a lot of trading to be done if you can't afford to trade drama or code of laws (that's the only techs I traded to get monarchy and mono., I think that was my mistake).

Interesting game though I don't think I'll succeed in this quest!

EDIT: I'd feel that I'd won a small victory if I actually beat the deity AIs to liberalism! I'd not tried deity until today. Gosh.

Winning the race to Liberalism is not actually essential to victory here though, is it? As opposed to making sure you get there soon after 1 AD? Or is picking up Nationalism for free an essential element in victory?

I am clearly doing something a bit wrong still, because I am 15 attempts without getting really close.

I dunno I may continue some of my games (7 turns left on education at 15AD is the best I've done so far) but would like to beat the AIs to it just to see if I can really. I think I'll have no chance staying weak against the AI if it techs that fast.

I think a 2nd city just for producing workers and settlers is a good idea like in Jesusin's original thread. You get boxed in extremely fast don't you!