G-Major LVIII

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Peets

Emperor
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While 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 << BEFORE playing!​

Settings:
  • Expansion: Brave New World
  • Victory Condition: Culture (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
  • Difficulty: Chieftain
  • Map Size: Standard
  • Map Type: Great Plains Plus
  • Speed: Marathon
  • Leader: Egypt (Ramesses II)
  • Required: One City Challenge
  • Opponents: Any
  • Version: SV8
  • Date: 1st March to 1st April 2015
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.
 
OCC means no liberation possible, but perhaps the GM bomb will be enough anyway if you kill everyone fast enough and one of the AIs never builds a monument? Either that or SS+Parthenon for 6 tourism plus modifiers from OB/trade/religion and kill all but the civs you're influential with...

Hitting the right ruins will be important here.
 
No doubt. Ruins are just about everything in this challenge. That and having the right strategy. But, having the right strategy and missing the important ruins means 25-50 lost turns.
 
Why did this one have to be the Major! I will give this a few tries, but I will not even consider playing an OCC at Warlord for a long culture game, so all out war, and anything that does not win in the first 80 turns I will retire.

Wait, this is Marathon! Oh I get it now.
 
I'll save people the trouble: warlike GM bomb by itself does not work. I tried this, and a GM bomb is only worth 300 pts. Even the most pitiful AI (Shaka & Dido) have more than 300 culture by the time you can GM bomb. If you think about this, it makes sense. A monument is 2/turn. Capital is 1/turn. By t100 that's 300. T100 is the equivalent of finishing Liberty on T33 on Standard. It's not going to happen. Neither is sacred sites.
 
Cromagnus said:
I'll save people the trouble: warlike GM bomb by itself does not work. I tried this, and a GM bomb is only worth 300 pts. Even the most pitiful AI (Shaka & Dido) have more than 300 culture by the time you can GM bomb. If you think about this, it makes sense. A monument is 2/turn. Capital is 1/turn. By t100 that's 300. T100 is the equivalent of finishing Liberty on T33 on Standard. It's not going to happen. Neither is sacred sites.
Click to expand...

Need to think this through but it does not sound right even with the bug. I think it makes GM bomb strategy even easier. Do I understand you right, GM bomb with no tourism is 300? Well that's great and 3 times what is in standard as I expected. Just a matter of killing your first cap before say turn 70 as opposed to t30 at standard. Maybe I misunderstand you?
EDIT: of course the bigger map will make it more difficult, but one promo ruin and you are in business I think.
 
OK, i can now confirm this.

i remember vadalaz already mentioned that in previous minor thread and i replied that it's not a case in my game, but in fact i didn't exactly checked the strength of the GM when it's born. But now i checked that and yes, modifier is applied twice.

First time it's applied to the strength of GM when it's born: for quick: St=Tou*10*0,67. Then it's applied when GM perform a tour: Generated Tou = St*0,67.

As a conclusion, GM strength in current version of the civ is determined as following:

Quick: 4,489*current Tou
Standard: 10*current Tou
Epic: 22,5*current Tou
Marathon: 90*current Tou.

I don't think it's intended behavior, so it's most likely coder mistake.
For marathon difference in GM strength between generating 100 Tou and 101 Tou is huge: 300 vs 9090.

But we have what we have and this math should be taken into account during play.
 
Bleidraner said:
Need to think this through but it does not sound right even with the bug. I think it makes GM bomb strategy even easier. Do I understand you right, GM bomb with no tourism is 300? Well that's great and 3 times what is in standard as I expected. Just a matter of killing your first cap before say turn 70 as opposed to t30 at standard. Maybe I misunderstand you?
EDIT: of course the bigger map will make it more difficult, but one promo ruin and you are in business I think.
Click to expand...
Disregard all this, of course it is OCC. what the hell was I thinking about.
 
Morcar_olmig said:
OK, i can now confirm this.

i remember vadalaz already mentioned that in previous minor thread and i replied that it's not a case in my game, but in fact i didn't exactly checked the strength of the GM when it's born. But now i checked that and yes, modifier is applied twice.

First time it's applied to the strength of GM when it's born: for quick: St=Tou*10*0,67. Then it's applied when GM perform a tour: Generated Tou = St*0,67.

As a conclusion, GM strength in current version of the civ is determined as following:

Quick: 4,489*current Tou
Standard: 10*current Tou
Epic: 22,5*current Tou
Marathon: 90*current Tou.

I don't think it's intended behavior, so it's most likely coder mistake.
For marathon difference in GM strength between generating 100 Tou and 101 Tou is huge: 300 vs 9090.

But we have what we have and this math should be taken into account during play.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the calculations M_O.
 
Yes, GM Bomb will still work, but not until you are generating actual tourism, which takes longer than finishing Liberty. By the time you can generate more Tourism than a bulb, even the bug isn't quite enough. I tried a Parthenon/Liberty beeline too, and it generates even less tourism. (180)

3 great works = 540 tourism. By the time you can generate that much tourism, the AI has more than 540 culture. (Or at least it's *very* close)

This game won't require airports OR hotels, but it won't be over before t200. (IMHO)

Barring an insanely lucky start, I expect the medals to be T300+.

I'll try another attempt if time allows.
 
Cromagnus said:
Yes, GM Bomb will still work, but not until you are generating actual tourism, which takes longer than finishing Liberty. By the time you can generate more Tourism than a bulb, even the bug isn't quite enough. I tried a Parthenon/Liberty beeline too, and it generates even less tourism. (180)

3 great works = 540 tourism. By the time you can generate that much tourism, the AI has more than 540 culture. (Or at least it's *very* close)

This game won't require airports OR hotels, but it won't be over before t200. (IMHO)

Barring an insanely lucky start, I expect the medals to be T300+.

I'll try another attempt if time allows.
Click to expand...

Or SS + Parthenon + 1 great work. Um. 10'policies. No.
 
Bleidraner said:
Or SS + Parthenon + 1 great work. Um. 10'policies. No.
Click to expand...

Well, it's not completely insane. If we assume that the medals are t300+, it's not theoretically impossible on Chieftain to complete SS + Liberty by t300.

If you went SS first, you'd be generating tourism for some of those turns. Let's assume best case scenario. Faith Wonder, One with Nature, 5 religious CS allies = 20fpt.

Religion on t50, place mosque on t80, place Monastery on t105, extend religion on t150, SS on t150, finish parthenon on t150, boom, 6 tourism/turn starting at t150.

Assuming the AI is generating 3/turn, (Monument+Capital) they will have 900 culture by t300. You will have 900 tourism. Great Musician not even required. If the AI has more than 900 culture, you drop a GM bomb worth 540 tourism, and win on t300.

So that might still be the fastest way. But it would require a truly ideal scenario. It seems more likely that we'll have to actually grow the capital and research some techs for once. ;)
 
Cromagnus said:
I'll save people the trouble: warlike GM bomb by itself does not work. I tried this, and a GM bomb is only worth 300 pts. Even the most pitiful AI (Shaka & Dido) have more than 300 culture by the time you can GM bomb. If you think about this, it makes sense. A monument is 2/turn. Capital is 1/turn. By t100 that's 300. T100 is the equivalent of finishing Liberty on T33 on Standard. It's not going to happen. Neither is sacred sites.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the legwork to confirm this, and for the bug report.

Thanks to Morcar_olmig also for the calculations though forgive me for asking to clarify one line:

Morcar_olmig said:
As a conclusion, GM strength in current version of the civ is determined as following:

Quick: 4,489*current Tou
Standard: 10*current Tou
Epic: 22,5*current Tou
Marathon: 90*current Tou.

I don't think it's intended behavior, so it's most likely coder mistake.
For marathon difference in GM strength between generating 100 Tou and 101 Tou is huge: 300 vs 9090.
Click to expand...
I don't understand that last line. Is it the difference between 0 and 10 Tourism yields 300 vs 900 GM Concert Tour Tourism points?

This seems like a very weird gauntlet to be a major. I guess an attempt to get a culture victory that is not fastest by sacred sites? The low difficulty makes it essentially a domination game with a puzzle of how to get the culture you need for the last AI civ having to deal with OCC, though. Not that the puzzle is uninteresting mind you, it's just that I'm not sure it needs a month to explore [emoji6]
Thanks for the very interesting gauntlets of late! They have been a great mix.
 
zenmaster said:
Thanks to Morcar_olmig also for the calculations though forgive me for asking to clarify one line:


I don't understand that last line. Is it the difference between 0 and 10 Tourism yields 300 vs 900 GM Concert Tour Tourism points?
Click to expand...

Sorry, i'm mistaken here. It should sound like that:

If you are generating from 0 to 3 Tou per turn, your GM will still earn 100 Strength (because 3*10*3 = 90 are still less than 100) and it will become 300 when you perform a tour
If you are generating 4 Tou per turn, your GM will earn 120 Strength (here we have 4*10*3 what gives us more than 100 Strength) and it will become 3*120 = 360 when you perform a tour.
If you are generating 10 Tou per turn, your GM will earn 300 Strength (here we have 10*10*3 what gives us more than 100 Strength) and it will become 3*300 = 900 when you perform a tour.
 
zenmaster said:
This seems like a very weird gauntlet to be a major. I guess an attempt to get a culture victory that is not fastest by sacred sites? The low difficulty makes it essentially a domination game with a puzzle of how to get the culture you need for the last AI civ having to deal with OCC, though. Not that the puzzle is uninteresting mind you, it's just that I'm not sure it needs a month to explore [emoji6]
Thanks for the very interesting gauntlets of late! They have been a great mix.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Cromagnus said:
Well, it's not completely insane. If we assume that the medals are t300+, it's not theoretically impossible on Chieftain to complete SS + Liberty by t300.

If you went SS first, you'd be generating tourism for some of those turns. Let's assume best case scenario. Faith Wonder, One with Nature, 5 religious CS allies = 20fpt.

Religion on t50, place mosque on t80, place Monastery on t105, extend religion on t150, SS on t150, finish parthenon on t150, boom, 6 tourism/turn starting at t150.

Assuming the AI is generating 3/turn, (Monument+Capital) they will have 900 culture by t300. You will have 900 tourism. Great Musician not even required. If the AI has more than 900 culture, you drop a GM bomb worth 540 tourism, and win on t300.

So that might still be the fastest way. But it would require a truly ideal scenario. It seems more likely that we'll have to actually grow the capital and research some techs for once. ;)
Click to expand...

I did a test run on std speed, then another on marathon. The feeling is very different. As mentioned, with 16 tourism on marathon, the GM results in 1440 tourism, so the 1st GM ended the game (well, crossbowmen helped take out some culture leaders). On std, by the time the GM came, others had too much culture and it did no good. Also, finance is different: w/ exactly the same leaders, on std they had some money. On marathon they were always running negative GPT (so was I, but the 300/city converted bonus was huge).

Some notes from the two runs:


  1. Try to get center of map (can tell by outline). Very important for trade routes and/or for quicker army arrival times :)
  2. Std: Try to get lots of luxs (more important than food for this one). Salt is good, wheat not good - you want to sell a lot.
  3. Marathon: salt (or wheat). Lux's less important, except possibly:
  4. Pick war-monger opponents (since easy difficulty) and use lux to bribe them to fight other civs to keep culture down.
  5. Std: ?Open Tradition? -> Open Liberty, Free Worker (if you can't steal) -> possibly the 15% wonder bonus -> 3 in Religion. Aesthetics (all) -> ???
  6. Marathon: ?Open Tradition? -> Open Liberty, Free Worker (for salt, go Liberty first) -> 3 in religion -> rest of Liberty (since the GM is so powerful)
  7. Happiness is not an issue w/ OCC, so no other policies in Tradition except possibly the 15%..
  8. Std: Scout, scout, scout, possibly buy monument, granary????, shrine
  9. Marathon: Only 2 scouts, as initial warriors explore far more of the map before the first scouts come out (map size does not scale to speed).
  10. Use GL(also has writer slots) to slingshot to Drama, build Parthenon; then Borobudr/Hagia Sophia (order depends upon whether you have religion). SSites
  11. Marathon: Food focus until ~~10(??), then production (but still growing). Std: it's a long haul game: food.
  12. Std: Go for techs that have trade routes. Spread the love. Don't bother on marathon.
  13. 100gold/city -> buy units (300 on marathon)
  14. std: get luxes, go to theology, go to crossbow (this will get you writers and artist guilds), ignore all else (except later sailing for the extra trade route).
  15. (hm.. colossus might also be worth it, if you get a "coastal city").
  16. Use war chariot early?
  17. Try to convert capitals early, so their pantheon stops generating faith, slowing down their religion.
  18. Avoid letting others forward settle you, even outside the 3 useful "worked" tiles, as lux'es outside that range can still be sold.

At least on the Mac, I found a new bug: if only 2 religions exist and you have OCC set, and take over other Holy City then the "World Religions" screen lists no religions for the rest of the game.

Of course I forgot to have autosaves on... so can't enter the game.
 
I know the chances are slim at best, but I'm still hoping for a 300 tourism GM bomb + kill everyone strat to work. If an AI builds a monument on t75 and goes Piety they'll get 300 culture only by turn 150, give or take a couple of turns. The problem is that this weak culture AI might be like 10 turns away so you should be aiming for a T140 Liberty, which is going to be hard even on Chieftain. Maybe something like Archery into GL into Oracle could work, and hopefully get at least one of the necessary techs in a ruin... and a couple of cultural CS allies... yeah, a lot of things need to go perfectly. It's be so stylish to win this on t150 though.

I'll try to DoW everyone as soon as I meet them and turn on raging barbs to see if that delays AIs' monuments.
 
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.
 
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