GIII - February

don't sell alphabet only lead a slingshot to Monarchy,
not republic. that is not the optimized slingshot I think.

Not sure what you mean. I got republic in the slingshot - I think because I didn't sell alpha/writing, so the AI prioritized other lines, at least until after I got CoL/Philo. When I trade alpha/writing, the AI sometimes go CoL after Map Making, sometimes goes Philo, every so often goes Literature.

But when I don't, they never seem to go up that tree right away. I assume its' because writing is a lower priority than Math, but I am not sure.

yes, I misunderstand.

I just think of research philo, in turn, trade codelaw or Poly
and then choose republic or Monarchy as free tech.

I forgot a independent slingshot.

It looks like I will have a game for the gauntlet!! Assuming I can survive a late industrial age/early modern age onslaught of Panzers, of course... I'm near the end of industrial - Babylon is gone, Russia is a OCC, I'm the big bad becuase Ottoman's attacked and I brought Persia/Germany in..

It's not even close to a gauntlet win - I'm now at 1390 or so - but it will be my first deity win!! Dunno how many turns it takes to get through research in the modern times - I am getting a pretty fearsome set of science farms set up in old russia/ottoman - so we will see - and I have a leader for UN, if I need to rush it to stop a vote.

Am quite excited Am thinking of trying another one as England, but it's just a week till the end of the gauntlet and the weather is getting nicer...

@AutomatedTeller: IMO it's a great feeling when you beat a new level for the first time so I hope that the run-in towards victory is a smooth one.

I'm desperate to make another attempt but I haven't been able to touch civ for over a week. I want to see a pre 1000AD launch for this gauntlet and time is running out. Maybe this weekend will allow me a final try.

yeah - this game is going well. Nice thing is I think I played it well, but I can think of several strategic/tactical decisions that could have made it even better! (stopped my settler/worker farms too soon, should have gotten involved in wars with Germany/Persia when they were at each other's throats, probably should have gone a little *less* heavy in research, so I could have cash rushed libraries and other improvements in my military towns).

It's been nice to feel like I wasn't hanging on by my skin, is all, even though war-weariness has been killer the last set of 20 turns or so.

I'm starting to think it was just a fluke that I beat deity the one time I did.

I don't think I'll be having an entry again.

And it bothers me especially because I was one of the first ones to comment on not having a gauntlet any more and I haven't got a good entry in any of them yet

WOOHOO!!!

1720 AD! That would be taking up the rear, I am sure - but I managed to launch a spaceship on deity!!

Settings:

Sumeria, with Germany, Russia, Babylon, Ottoman and Persia, pangea map, 70% water, normal climate, 5B years old.

Highlights:

Start had a cow by a river + plus dyes right there. Found another cow nearby, so things were off to a good start. Found spices north, and found that we were on a bit of a peninsula. Germany was to my north west, persia to my south west, babylon to my south, with russia and ottoman beyond them.

Persia laid claim to incense and floodplain, which was irritating, but ok. I found silk to my south and started power research through alpha/writing/CoL/Philo to Republic. CoL and Philo brought me to tech parity needing only, I think, Construction.

I had iron right next to me, but no horses, and there was more iron along the coast to the north! I went to claim that, worried that I was overextending myself... then found that Persia and Germany were at war, when Germany destroyed the incense town. So I settled there, hoping their war would last and neither would be strong enough to attack me for the incense.

This turned out to be true, and Germany next razed a persian town near wines!! I immediately settled *that* so had 5 luxes hooked, with 2 irons!! Babylon got shirty at some point and attacked, I think to set off their GA, since they gave up quickly.

Time passes and I go along the top path of the middle ages and the AI goes along the bottom, as normal. I make trades for chivalry, etc, and manage to build some wonders - I got Copernicus and Newtons in Ur (Newton's on my first SGL), and Russia attacked Babylon, and brings all the AI's into the dogpile. I see an opportunity, if I can get down there, cause Babylon has the Pyramids. I declare, but forget to investigate the city, so I have to guess as to a good time to attack... I leave *ONE* damaged spear!! so russia takes it over

After russia blows away Babylon, I start looking over at Germany, thinking that I want to attack them before the industrial age - I really don't want to face Panzers if I can help it. I move my forces over to prep for an attack...

and Russia comes after me (he's between me and Ottoman's, and the Ottoman's are leading the power and score). he takes my silk town immediately, which is in my first ring, and a stack of knights and pikes comes through the jungle towards my capital. I have to bring everyone in - trading, I think, Physics, but I don't remember exactly.

At one point, my entire military consists of 3 1 HP knights, 1 4 HP vet knight and a 1 HP musket. Fortunately, Persia has been pouring across my land and he and germany are distracting the russians, so they never even get an attack off against Ur.

I make peace when I can, to focus on building, but it doesn't take long for Russia to come at me *again*. This time, however, I have military tradition to trade, and cavalry myself - so I figure it's time to carve up the russians and drag everyone, including otto, into it and give the Ottomans' MT.

Russia is soon a OCC - then the Ottomans start eyeing me. I fight two wars against Ottomans through most of the industrial age - basically until tanks is nearly continuous war and brutal war weariness and building temples and police stations as fast as I could.

Fortuately, my friends Bismark and Xerxes are more than happy to come and beat up on the ottomans right with me! I finally manage to get out of war just before going to modern times, gifting everyone in.

All this does is give Persia a monopoly on Fission while everyone else gets rocketry. I can't pry Fission from Persia, so I research computers while everyone else fights.

Modern times was quiet. I managed to stay away from where Germany (the only AI researching) was, so I got Superconductor and Satellites from them and launched in 1720.

My first deity win! Am so happy.

Am going to try another one, I think - I may try another Sumeria, cause I've gotten used to it, but the enkidu does cause some awkwardness, cause you really dont' want to kick off the GA with it.. I am sure I can get a better score if I slow research a little so I have enough money to rush libraries and if I keep worker/settler factories running.

Other things:
No cities greater than size 12 - I didn't need to get there, and I was never able to pry the tech from Bismarck's fingers until it didn't really matter.
Ended up with two SGL's, which I used for newtons and the internet. After universal suffrage, I got all wonders except manhatten project.
I had iron and saltpeter and aluminum - I had to trade for horses, find rubber, oil was in conquered land, and uranium... well, at first, it seemed like it didnt' exist, but I found it.

I forgot about a palace prebuild I was doing for the space ship, so late in the game, the palace moved for no good reason.

Was a lot of fun... will submit my first HOF game!!

Congratulations AutomatedTeller!

thanks. There was definitely a fair amount of luck in it - I dunno that I would say I'm a good deity level player yet! 5 luxes and 2 irons helped, plus xerxes and bismarck beating each other up early helped a lot.

and I can see a bunch of things I should have done differently - I figure i could have easily cut 10-20 turns off by researching sanitation in the industrial age and getting my capitol up to size 22 right away - besides the fact that I could have been popping out 1 turn cavs and infantry

I am thinking that maybe more important than the pyramids may be the collossus and shakespeares (which can get your best city up to size 22 very early, and provides the happiness to keep it from rioting)

I think that my capitol could have been producing near twice the research at size 22 than it did at size 12, which would likely have shaved a turn off of every project. Ah well.

Am also thinking that setting up initial cities so that you can get 4 or 5 up to size 22 in the industrial age, while having smaller ones earlier might be optimal. I just went with fairly tightly spaced cities throughout, which probably hurt on unneccesary corruption and maintenance costs.

AutomatedTeller said:

I am thinking that maybe more important than the pyramids may be the collossus and shakespeares (which can get your best city up to size 22 very early, and provides the happiness to keep it from rioting)

Click to expand...

I'm in two minds as to whether it's worth the research though. The AI normally researches it anyway and so why spend time on it? However I can remember games where I have ended up doing the research for it myself and cursing the AI for making me waste four turns. Also if you haven't got an SGL spare, and wonder cascades are about to happen, researching it yourself sometimes does make sense. Shakespeare's is particularly valuable if you are getting your capital set up with the research wonders.

I'm of the opinion that as most of the game is done with towns and cities rather than metros, I want to get the most out of my first ring and so I don't leave a lot of space unused there. This means that I tend to have my capital capable of getting to size 20 but the surrounding towns rarely get above 14 or 15, assuming that the AI gets Sanitation for me. I'm not sure if that's the right way to go though. I 've been toying with the idea of flooding these towns a bit to get a few extra specialists that could switch between scientists and civil engineers as appropriate but I've not actually put it into practice yet.

BTW, well done AT!

since deity it is, I think the ultimate solution is AIs

instead of sci farms, I perfer to let AI grow big to contribute techs.

killercane said:

Persia really likes getting CoL first,

Click to expand...

that's it, I have benefit from Persia, In one of my games,
I get nearly half techs.

if I get age-free-tech more lucky, I think that will come to a good launch date.

especially ,I will feel great, when I research robotic meanwhile one AI research modernarmor another research
spaceflight.

I dunno if this will work, or if I will get it in time for the gauntlet... but am going to try Germany, with 5 opponents, with AI aggression way down. The idea is to kick off an early modern times golden age with the panzers, or by completing Manhatten (and Newton's or GLib, earlier) and create leaders to rush parts - I can mobilize after building the apollo program, so I should be safe from getting killed, and with the AI's being less aggressive, there *should* be a lot of obsolete units for my blitzing panzers to kill and generate leaders.

I don't need to be the tech leader until the the end of the industrial age, anyway - just need the pace to be breakneck and me to be not too far behind. Dunno how it will work

I figure I need just one other powerful AI at that time to research 1 or 2 MT techs for me. last game I played, only 1 AI did any useful research for me after the middle ages, anyway...

Progress report: Having finally found some time to play my SG turns, I then managed to return to this challenge. I played a number of starts but failed to get anywhere near a 1000AD finish, possibly due to no early SGLs. I then hit a run of bad luck. When I did get an early SGL for my first research tech, Persia had already built the Pyramids via an SGL of their own. I then had a couple of games where I was too close to the Babylonians. They are quite a volatile nation as the screenshot below confirms. I faced an early declaration several times BTW but this one has to be the worst.

Tone said:

I faced an early declaration several times BTW but this one has to be the worst.

Click to expand...

. At least you can just play another game. I had that happen to me in a GOTM game once!

True, but look at the commerce there. Rivers of gold I tell you! Still, I don't think that I had much room for expansion with the Germans also very close to me

BTW I had a similar thing in the (not so recent) England COTM.

good map!
thing that I suffer from Gauntlet is: too many good map been waste!
though they are mostly generate by mapfinder,
I still feel worst when abandon a supreme map.

Well Ive been crazy busy at work and moving as well, so I havent had a lot of time to finish out another one. I will try to get another one done by the time the gauntlet closes while Im at work.... shhh

THE GAUNTLET IS CONCLUDED.

Congratulations to archphoenix for the win, followed by Tone and killercane.

1 archphoenix 10512 940 AD Ottomans
2 Tone 10536 1030 AD Sumeria
3 killercane 10866 1070 AD Iroquois
4 archphoenix 9249 1070 AD Ottomans
5 Tone 8332 1190 AD Sumeria
6 AutomatedTeller 5407 1720 AD Sumeria

Congrats, archphoenix for another convincing win with the Ottomans. I knew that it was possible to get below 1000AD! Did you get most things going your way or was there still room for improvement?