G-Minor 133

If i didn't screw up somewhere i finished 1795 or something. Got a start with lizzy in the east with 2 deer and 2 furs.
Still room for improvement, because i got 3 prophets from the oracle in the beginning. Barbs were a non issue.
 
I've never been able to wrap my head around the specialist economy. I've always at least cottaged my capital. I just can't picture how it works with only food resources. Do you bulb any great people? or are they all settled?
Settle all GPs except maybe artists. I've been trying National Epic before Oxford with a rep/pacifism switch before Oxford. (Yes, CS via oracle for this to work.) Then Globe and grow like a weed.

Then you run State Property? with workshops and watermills?
Enviro with something resembling 4 cottages, 4 windmills, 4 watermills, 3 forest preserves and around 5 settled GPs at 1 AD. (I think I had 3 towns by 1 AD too.)
I should try a game like that because it just feels wrong and I want to understand it better. It must work if you finished 1600's. Can you elaborate on some of the basics (like tech beelines).
Metal casting came after paper/education and since mids were almost done. So I teched pacifism since forge would be done by then for the rep/pacifism switch. Initial techs were hunting and polytheism before deciding on how to get OR and granary/library. (Judaism implies no pork--deer and corn is fine.)
Key wonders/buildings, etc.?
GL for sure.
I have a Pig, Pig, Pig, Deer, Fur, Fur start to try, but it's not on a river.
I'm big on rivers and am used to playing commerce sucky starts, hence my preference for early CS and improvise as needed. (Stay flexible!) I never get great starts. Just give me a brown hill on a river with some food and I'm in. Players like Dynamic draw 3 gems and dual green silver not me. Guess I learned to play ugly starts and have come to like them.

Edit: I believed I settled the first scientist then academy. I tried a center of map start over the weekend, accidentally oracled neither CS or Education. Somehow I launched at 1695 with nothing but cows. (GW was needed there. Lots of barbs.)
 
GL for sure.

I made a few tries. In each try, the Great Library would built after the OxU and Pyramids. This put it close enough to Astromony that I would be building an Observatory before long. I always seemed too close to Sci Meth to make the Great Library worth building. If you have marble, maybe its worth it.

When are you building the GL to make it worthwhile?
 
I guess that if you're not going for national park as Iggy suggested, delaying Sci method is possible without major problems.

Anyway i'm impressed by those times.
 
tried the iggy approach or what I thought about it... ended ~30 turns later then my best... could be that I used ghandi instead of Elisabeth.

not sure what is the problem, the WastinTime timetable worked for me the best up to now.

very fun scenario have to admit... even if a bit problematic to see the outcome soon enough to abandon for next game.

The more I played the more I think that going for ancient wonders is not effective due to teching speed.
 
I made a few tries. In each try, the Great Library would built after the OxU and Pyramids. This put it close enough to Astromony that I would be building an Observatory before long. I always seemed too close to Sci Meth to make the Great Library worth building. If you have marble, maybe its worth it.

When are you building the GL to make it worthwhile?
I tend to forget these things but I had Oxford at 200 BC with GL, mids, forge, temple and rep/pacifism -- energetic. Yes to marble! Stone may work too if a reasonable (rare) site can be found. With stone it may be prudent for academy first instead of settling 1st scientist. (Oracle and mids finish very fast ...) Settling creates possibilties to use extra food for feast, fast or famine to get multiples of 4 with OR but risks a prophet (tolerable.) Slower tech by a bit but okay.

@v Yes I used Elizabeth. True to form, for me with Elizabeth, something bad happened with the barb HA thing. It is surprising that Gandhi could play as well as he does in this. Pericles is okay but behind Gandhi and Peter is a bit behind Betsy.

One thing I have not considered is neither Globe or Park. 4 cases: Park with Globe is pointless, either national wonder seems to argue for the exclusion of the other. That leaves only neither as a possibility.

Tried a no quarry 3-food start. Oxford at 200 AD and the tech after education was economics believe it or not. Finished at 1695. That try was almost abandoned but it came to life like out of nowwhere. I only mention this because early CS can give rise to imagination to try something wild.
 
interesting, my best up to now involved park + globe to solve unhappy and unhealth, but was still 1 century late compared to yours

but globe was built after forest preserves were changed to workshops.

Ironic enough the only reason why I didn't build yesterday the park was that I was expecting coal (was in top right) and I got coal and found Aluminium corp. for the aluminium. But still was half century late... could the financial trait of Elisabeth make 30 turns difference or more?

What I find troubling is employing scientist in the early game with the bigger happy cap we get at settler and the amount of food and the need for all the production of buildings.
 
Just improved to 1770, using plains/flood plains and a couple hills and Ghandi. Nice start with 2 cows, 2 wheat, gem hill and spices in BFC, wine just outside, stone 2 rings out, and coal and oil both showed up later. Had to trade for iron and copper. I held off on Pyramids until stone was reached.

Still need to improve my early game I think. I do find I do better when I have at least 2 workers. If they run out of things to do, I road to nearby neighbors for trade.

Just noticed that I hit Legendary culture on the last turn. :D
 
Found a curious triple corn and deer with stone in 4th ring that made it out at 1675 AD. Would have been better with a memory. I forgot to switch to rep in the rep/pacifism switch, forgot about Oxford and even forgot about lib. Tech trough enviro and superc was fast, lib just slipped my mind. Off hand, it looks possible to catch both stone and marble. Perhaps GL/mids and engineer Oxford if an engineer pops?

@Xevious
Brown hill cows are nice windmills as is stone when through with it.
 
interesting, my best up to now involved park + globe to solve unhappy and unhealth, but was still 1 century late compared to yours

but globe was built after forest preserves were changed to workshops.

I just finished my best tonight (1725) and had the same thing you did, park and globe after preserves->workshops. Think I need more cottages (only had 4) to speed up economy early and then switch them out for production later. May try that next. The last three games I submitted have all been Ghandi (after using Peter initially). This game I got all seven religions. I did not not build a single military unit and I didn't build the Great Wall. I only defended against one barb warrior. I did play with ten ais, and had a NE start, but had 6 ais around me that kept the barbs away. The rapid culture expansion helped as well (I did most of the monasteries and temples).

Start was corn/deer/pig then iron in BFC, fur/stone 2nd ring. I traded for aluminum and copper after gifting Ottomans the needed techs. I teched Civil Service before using Oracle to get Education. Looks like you could go really late with Oracle. I noticed in a previous game that Pyramids lasted unbuilt all the way to the end.

I also did Mining Inc and realize now that its probably better to just settle the engineer. I ended up trading for 4 iron, but silver was long gone by this time, so I ended up with 7 hammers when I could have got 9 from settling plus the science boost.

Would like to make it into the 1600s but not sure I'll have time to do another. I've been neglecting work. :mischief:
 
I tried a park game and it seems like a person should be alert to trading for aluminum. Keep a likely AI(s) gifted up in tech. Production was really slow.

Did some testing and it is possible to have Oxford by 500 BC with mids/GL/NE and rep/pac with settled GPs + cottages. Couldn't get coal in the test game.

It is also possible to finish by 1705 on only 2 golden ages.
 
I tried a game in the west for a change. 1675 finish with only 2 golden ages. Start had a mountain and a pond. This was my second best attempt. Somewhere in there, there is an idea waiting to happen.
 
Submitted now a 1730 victory. It's not the best, but close enough for me to call it off. I'm now convinced that Iggy strategy works best, would be now an excercise in finding the best start and execution. NP pulls best research, but the production lost matters. First of all, you can chop all those forests to build up infrastructures/wonders fast. Wait for bureucracy+math+OR+forge prechopping with 2 workers and you will pump out UNI/oxford/NE/GL/HG in no time once you oracle education. This will help early research and GP production a lot. Also coal helps SS production a lot. Not only it grant access to alluminium through corporation but also gives 50% extra from ironworks. You can pull casings out in 2 turns quite easly, in fact research was more of a bottleneck for me, i had time to build both engines and all 5 thrusters while researching. Research could be optimized a lot i bet, and that's where i could improve my time i believe.
 
After playing this gauntlet, I wanted to take what I learned and try challenge VI-8 (emperor OCC).
My strategy failed to get a decent finish, because I didn't coordinate with the AI. I ended up learning a few things about cooperating with the non-Deity AI. So I came back to give this a real try.

I managed to shave off 35 years! 7 turns. I didn't think I had time to search longer for a good start, so I took a West start that looked pretty good. I still think East is better, so I may try again if there's time. I'm sure I can get 1500's.

Yes, I'm still (ab)using the National Park. And I'm still convinced of it's power.
 
^ I had the same thing in mind and it worked pretty well for me. Missed my goal of 1700 by a little bit because i misscalculated a thruster which delayed the ship by 1 turn and couldn't get my hands on copper and alu although there were two AI with an extra source :(
Start was in the east with wet corn, deer, and one fur iirc.
Played with NP but I can't say if iggy's approach is better or worse. Might be completely map/start dependent.
Anyways not going to try another one, was a really fun gauntlet and learned a lot so thanks to everybody how participated in the thread and the creator(s). :goodjob:
 
I think 1500s is possible too. My best was 1655 AD. For what its worth here's a screen of the 1 AD save:
Spoiler :
That was a busy BC era! York is half brown with Globe nearing completion.
I tried some Park games to around 1690. It's like Globe games have great, fast finishes but murky middle games. Park games have straight forward middle games with slow finishes.
 

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I quickly tried an East start and it was not great. I'm now thinking the West is better as long as you can find enough forests (both in your BFC for the Park and outside it for chopping. The West starts have gold/silver and that early quick start makes all the difference. Food is of course the most important thing to get in the West, and not just food resources. It makes a huge difference if you forests are on grass instead of dessert.

Fun Gauntlet. I think I've beat it to death.
 
^
Fun gauntlet. I won't have internet access over the weekend so congrats on beating me (at least) and to anyone who can beat 1655 AD. I have a curious start and idea for a Park game in the East. It involves monarchy/bureau (oracle education) and very early sci-meth for preserve happiness before constitution. The East start had double deer, one on a food plain. Odd. Anyhoo it has been fun. Perhaps you could post a few details on your game.
 
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