G-Minor LXXXIX

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.


Settings:

• Expansion: Brave New World
• Victory Condition: Diplomacy (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Settler
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Ice Age
• Speed: Standard
• Leader: Germany (Bismark)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: SV8
• Date: 16th November to 1st December 2014

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

First attempt I had a pretty great start, but it took me forever to find the last civ... that cost me a lot of turns. I'm so used to having to delay Printing Press that I'm not at all used to having to rush caravels. And so much useless ice and tundra in my cities. Ice Age is tricky.

It's not exactly on topic, but can anyone confirm if they get red/white checkered squares in World Builder on the hexes that contain cocoa and bison?

So, which turn did you win Cromagnus ? Atomic Era or Information ?

t180, Atomic. I didn't find the last civ until ~t131, and I rush-bought 2 caravels, if I recall. (Which turned out to be unnecessary. Swimming land units found the last civ before they did)

Cromagnus said:

t180, Atomic. I didn't find the last civ until ~t131, and I rush-bought 2 caravels, if I recall. (Which turned out to be unnecessary. Swimming land units found the last civ before they did)

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Nice! When did you have Printing Press? (i.e. how many turns did that last elusive civ cost you?)

Well, I intentionally delayed finishing the last turn of printing press until I found the last civ. I suppose that cost me a turn, but I researched banking and astronomy first, so... 10-15 turns?

I wouldn't have researched astronomy if I didn't think I needed caravels. But, depending on your map luck, you *do* need caravels. So, it's hard to say. Maybe I only lost 5 turns.

If you gamble on not needing astronomy, you can shave another 10, and in this case, if I had built triremes earlier, I would have found that last civ without requiring astronomy. But, that's really hard to predict.

I would like to reiterate how much I hate Ice Age.

Settler does make it fun, you can experiment with a lot of different approaches. With enough culture you can fill out Liberty AND Tradition by t100. I'm not sure completing Liberty is worth it in the long run, but the improved worker speed really helps when you're growing super fast, and without happiness concerns, you can go wide pretty early.

Ultimately, it's all about growth and finding that last civ... but, as I've discovered, with careful planning, you can benefit from Swords Into Plowshares even in a warlike game.

Oh and Bismark is awesome on Settler.

I don't have a lot of diplo VC experience, so I'd appreciate if someone could answer this: is being allies with all 16 CSs and having Forbidden Palace enough to win on the first UN vote, or I have to pass World Religion as well? For a warlike game, that is.

vadalaz said:

I don't have a lot of diplo VC experience, so I'd appreciate if someone could answer this: is being allies with all 16 CSs and having Forbidden Palace enough to win on the first UN vote, or I have to pass World Religion as well? For a warlike game, that is.

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Yes it's enough. You need 39 or 40 votes, I forget exactly. You'd have 40 without world religion. (4 for membership, 32 for CS, 2 for being host and 2 for forbidden palace)

I go for world religion just in case a CS gets eaten, or (more likely) I eat a CS to claim a juicy city spot with a natural wonder and good growth potential. (Or if it's the only way to set up another cargo ship to my capital)

Cromagnus said:

Yes it's enough. You need 39 or 40 votes, I forget exactly. You'd have 40 without world religion. (4 for membership, 32 for CS, 2 for being host and 2 for forbidden palace)

I go for world religion just in case a CS gets eaten, or (more likely) I eat a CS to claim a juicy city spot with a natural wonder and good growth potential. (Or if it's the only way to set up another cargo ship to my capital)

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Thanks, good to know. Won't really matter in my current game though because I underestimated how long it takes to get to Atomic... oh well.

vadalaz said:

Thanks, good to know. Won't really matter in my current game though because I underestimated how long it takes to get to Atomic... oh well.

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Yeah. It's virtually impossible to get from printing press to atomic in one cycle with raw beakers/turn. The key is to get as many great scientists and free techs as you can. So the sooner you fill your university slots the better. The more pre-reqs of atomic tech you research prior to finishing printing press the easier it gets. It's also worth it IMHO to bulb one GS to enter the modern era, because there are really helpful policies that will make that GS pay for itself and then some. But that's only true if you're taking full advantage of secularism, which is of course another key. Personally I think research labs are a waste, and public schools you can't afford to build unless you have sick production. But they might be worth Rush-buying

Won that game on t188. Would've been a t173ish if I played it right, I think.

I played a 5-city Liberty left side into full Tradition. I'm thinking the 5th city might've been detrimental - same feeling I had when I was playing SVs on Settler. All it really did was delay my NC and Education (t100 with detours to Optics and IW). I did have enough gold to rush-buy 3 unis instantly and one more a couple of turns later though. Bismark's army of brutes is great for demanding tributes.

And yeah, I didn't bother with labs and rush-bought 3 or 4 public schools. Overteched really hard in the end, so I don't think the schools were necessary either. Early universities seem to matter the most.

I remember having a sub-75 Education on Settler, though that was as the Shoshone... I think that game is what made me overestimate how quickly I could research things on Settler.

Cromagnus said:

Yeah. It's virtually impossible to get from printing press to atomic in one cycle with raw beakers/turn.

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I don't understand, I reached PP T129 and won T176.So, it's one cycle, no ? When you'll hit plastics you'll need around 15K beakers to reach atomic era.

My games are Oxford for Modern era, one GS and ratio finisher for plastics. Then you'll need 1 GS in backup. With decent faith, you'll have 2 GS.

Memoryjar said:

I don't understand, I reached PP T129 and won T176.So, it's one cycle, no ? When you'll hit plastics you'll need around 15K beakers to reach atomic era.

My games are Oxford for Modern era, one GS and ratio finisher for plastics. Then you'll need 1 GS in backup. With decent faith, you'll have 2 GS.

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Oh I meant without GS. I'm saying that the key is GS and free techs. It would be impossible otherwise.

Do you guys go observatories at all? Or do you just do it the hard way to Atomic? Looks to me as if Penicillin is 50 techs and Atomic Theory 44, but with one more really expensive tech and of course a couple of observatories could make up for the other tech difference. I remember Cromagnus (I think it was) doing a really good analysis on this, and I think the verdict was Atomic Theory was best, but cannot remember, getting old.

Obviously 1 cycle is the only way to go if you want to compete, so Astronomy may not work, as to compete on this one one has to hit PP around 125-130. Thoughts on this?

I always went to Astronomy. I didn't have map where you can reach every civs without astronomy.

I never yet built an obs. I'm playing a game where one city will have one. But it seems not really essential.

Atomic theory is the way to play. You'll need plastics for both. After that, Atomic theory is cheaper than Penicillin (15k over 18k). And it's only three techs. It can be important to reach atomic in one or two turn. You can overflow Atomic with 3 GS. To Penicillin you'll need 5 GSto overflow it.

Yeah, in general, Atomic Theory is the way to go. On certain maps and difficulty settings, Penicillin is a better choice, but that's not relevant to this gauntlet.

I do things a little differently than Memoryjar with regards to GS and Oxford. You actually only need (less than) one extra GS for Penicillin if you use Oxford and Rationalism on Plastics/Penicillin. However, if you don't have great GS points, and you're burning a GS to enter the Modern Era, it kind of evens out as 2 extra... sort of.

If you're jumping 2 eras in one turn, (Industrial->Atomic or Renaissance->Modern) you need even more GS, but you shave turns off the time to victory. I wouldn't recommend trying that until you're very good at warlike diplo.

Mostly I use Penicillin for Emperor+ islands or continents where you'll be using Navigation for conquest anyway... once you're doing that, you might be better off with Penicillin. It's also a good choice for any situation where you're struggling to hit Atomic in one cycle. You can fill out more pre-reqs of Penicillin without founding the world congress, which can help. This is especially true if you have to delay founding because you haven't found the last civ. However, again, none of this is relevant to a settler gauntlet.

Regarding observatories, on Settler, with Bismark, it's absolutely worth it, if you get the right dirt and manage your tribute-based economy well enough to rush buy them.

Also, I believe Astronomy is totally worth it unless you have an ideal map. You don't even know until at least t90 or later whether you need Astronomy. Are you going to restart if you do? So, there's that. If you're going for Astronomy anyway, you might as well try to find some mountain spots for your cities. Plus, Caravels are really good at extracting tribute and protecting your cargo ships. Also, Compass = one extra cargo ship. That's my logic.

I'm working on my best start so far, where I could have had sub-t80 Education. I actually delayed it to get Ironworking and Engineering first. (For the 2 extra cargo ships)

In my opinion, that delay was *totally* worth it. Growth is everything on Settler.

So, policy choices... I've tried full Liberty (planting GS) -> full tradition, but that only works if you have mad culture, and in the long run IMHO delays the free aqueducts too long. In my current game I was planning on doing Full Tradition and then all but one policy of Liberty, but I ended up stopping at the free worker. I wanted to take the golden age and reduced culture cost too, but in order to time Rationalism/Secularism perfectly, I had to delay that due to lack of culture.

I think I could have squeezed in one more policy, but I took a growth pantheon instead of a faith or culture pantheon, and so no pagodas, no culture tiles. That may be the difference. Also, I was torn in the early game between exacting tribute from the nearby Cultural CS and getting extra Culture. I think in the long run I needed the money more than I needed the culture, but it's going to cost me a policy by the end of the game. However, since I'm only running 5 cities, I'm not sure it matters.

I also think with a high faith start and cultural CS allies, Tradition/Piety is valid, because faith-bought science buildings allow you to spend your money on other things, things like allying Maritime CS. And when you get to public schools, Jesuit Education saves tons of money. For the Jesuit Education ploy, I would take +1 food from shrines/temples, but if you're not opening Piety, I think it's a waste to even build shrines.

I may try that at some point. But for now, I feel like a compact empire is the way to go.

EDIT: Also, another idea I'm toying with is hard-building a library in the capital so as not to delay NC, but saving GL for Education... that could yield t70 Education with a ridiculously lucky start.

Or, save it for t80 Acoustics, which if well-timed with Oracle and enough cash to buy Universities, would be truly awesome.

Ok, I'm definitely trying that after my current game. Even if I can't pull it off, it sounds like too much fun to not at least try.

I failed to improve my score on maps with obs and with full tradition.
You don't need obs if you have 6 or 7 cities. Ihad 1K bpt in my best games, without obs.

Growth is really the key. So, I delay too Education for Engineering and Colossus.

I use faith from wonders to have decent faith, it costs many hammers. I'll try without to see if without wonders obs make it.

But you need this free settler and cheap next. I had only one game where I found a settler in a ruin.