Beta Gauntlet IV

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.


Any submissions meeting the following criteria will be considered Gauntlet entries:

• Difficulty: Noble
• Mapsize: Large
• Victory: Diplomatic (though ALL victory conditions must be enabled!)
• Starting Era: Any
• Speed: Normal
• Submitted on or before: Feb 9th.

Whichever game has the earliest finish date will be declared the victor. The winner (and settings for the next Gauntlet) will be announced with the next Hall of Fame update.

While each map can only be played once, players are more than welcome to generate new maps and submit multiple games. Also, as everyone is playing their own distinct maps, there is no need for spoiler limitation within the forum. In fact, we encourage detailed posting of strategy and gameplay, although all conversation about this Guantlet should stay within this thread.

Any games not finished before the submission cutoff may still be submitted to the Hall of Fame as general entries.

New players:
Please note that we need two files for Hall of Fame submissions. A save from your initial 4000bc turn, and the turn after you win. For the last file, when you win the game, you'll be displayed your sequence of victory screens and then be prompted if you wish to exit or play "just a few more turns". Select just a few more turns, and then save the game immediately without playing further.

Winning Game Prediction:

Tropical Balanced Ancient Marathon
Victoria VS Mansa Musa, Hatshepsut, Cyrus, Asoka, Frederick
Diplomatic Victory, 700AD

- Bill

BlueRenner said:

Tropical Balanced Ancient Marathon- Bill

Click to expand...

Except of course we're restricting to just Normal gamespeed this time, which I should probably emphasize.

Hmm. Right. Bump predicted finish date up 200 years then.

- Bill

Just played with your settings. Worked well, I think Ghandi may be a better opponent, they could never keep up with me at all. Anyway, I think 700 is still the goal time, even on normal speed. I achieved 1020 and I SHOULD have gotten 950 but forgot that I could rush buy the rest of the UN after I used my GE. I think my next try I can get 900 pretty easily, so by the time the gauntlet is over, 700 should be doable.

I had a funny research path that I can refine later.

bronze-pottery-mysticism(chop rush stonehenge)-masonry(build pyramids)-poly-priesthood(start oracle)-mono-alphabet-theology(use your great prophet from stonehenge - paper(oracle)-electricity-liberalism-radio(with liberalism)-mass media

I was worried about the opponents beating me to the Oracle but on noble it isn't anything to worry about. Next time I am going bronze-pottery-myst-masonry-alphabet-theo-paper-electricity-liberalism-radio-mass media.

Sweet, this will be my first gauntlet. Since I've played nothing but diplo games lately, to submit to the HOF. My finishes have been getting better, but I'm nowhere NEAR 900 ad. I just finished my best one, and it was 1200 or so, but that was a small map, on marathon speed. Normal speed's gonna be much harder. Good luck all.

Nice to see that each gauntlet is a completely different victory condition. I am thinking of cottage spamming early to maximize the tech pace and push hard to the UN. Then at some point switch over to all farms to maximize my population. On Noble difficulty, it should be easy to foster good relations with the AI since you should have a good tech lead.

I am going to try a game tonight. I'll report back my results.

700 AD? Wow you guys must be a hell of alot better at teching up.... I just finished a 1600 AD win on a Pangaea, and I can't see how I could have gone ANY faster. Are you just completely ignoring all other techs??? I suppose that might be a good way to go, but from my line of reasoning I thought it might go a little bit faster if I had some infrastructure (especially in case the AI decides it wants to start a war).

Who are the AIs that you set yourselves up against, and why? Maybe if I could find a more pacifist group of enemies, things might go more smoothly.

It probably didn't help that somehow my opponents beat me to the Oracle :/ One of only 2 non-religion wonders that the AI managed to finish first too....

700 AD will be the goal finish date. I just finished in 870 and was majorly hurt that I never got a great engineer for the UN. Had to spend 25 turns chop rushing it then buying the rest. I also didn't have any stone or marble, both would have helped in the early game.

Anyway, I am using the opponents that Blue mentioned in the beginning. Asoka, Cyrus, Frederick, Hatty, and Mansa. I think putting Ghandi in for someone on there may be a better choice though. Even though Cyrus is the best techer he won't trade iron working very easily which is the only real tech I want from them.

This time I played as Lizzie and I think it will be the best choice again. I never needed the extra health victoria would have provided and getting an extra GP helps.

The main point of any non-conquest victory is research. You want to get to the end tech as fast as you possibly can. The only important tech along the way is alphabet. Use that to trade for everything that isn't directly on the way to mass media.

I popped mysticism and wheel from huts but without those my tech path would have looked like this: bronze-masonry-mysticism-monotheism-pottery-priesthood-alphabet-theology(used prophet)-paper(used oracle)-electricity-liberalism-radio(liberalism)-mass media

I need to get to mysticism to build Stonehenge in your second city. Don't found a 3rd city yet. Then you have to beat everyone to monotheism (or ealier religion) to get your stonehenge city to be your holy city. Convert one of the citizens to a priest. With the great prophet points from both you will pop a phophet soon. On novice level you don't need cottages as early as you do with harder games so I put that near the end.

Have the Oracle working as soon as you can. If you get to alphabet before you get your great prophet, trade for meditation. If you don't, tech meditation after writing. When you get your GP use him to research theology. Then chop rush the oracle as fast as possible. Use the free tech for paper. This gives you a MAJOR advantage in shortening your tech path.

Now follow the basic strat of chop rushing settlers and workers. Found as many cities as you can and still keep your tech % decent. I founded 8 last game. Don't found more than 10 total. Chop rush the pyramids in the city that has access to stone or the one with the most trees. When your cities have a problem with happiness, switch to representation.

Cottage spam like crazy to get your tech rate up. Connect resources to keep happiness and health up. Trade for as many techs as you can. Give away what you can't trade with to keep everyone happy. As soon as you trade for currency, start trading your tech for 20-30 cash. Together with cottages this keeps me around 80-100% tech percentage by 1 AD.

Here is what I build in order: granaries, lighthouse(if on coast), library, monastery(for tech boost), temple or aquaduct if you need happiness/health, university once you get education, then wealth. You don't need anything else. (maybe a warrior for happiness if you get time early). Don't build any other wonders, you don't need them.

Hopefully you can get a great engineer from the pyramid city. Save him. If you get a great prophet, you can use him to found a holy shrine, do it in your city with the most cities of that religion for bonus money. With any other great people use them for research. Try and save or atleast maximize the amount of tech you get. And only try for things you need to get to mass media.

I tech philosophy and education early so I can get pacifism (for the cash not to convert religion) and universities. Then tech to electricity. Then tech liberalism, use that to get radio. Radio is the most expensive tech so that maximizes the gain. Then tech mass media. Use your great engineer to build the UN (or atleast part of it). Make sure to let the UN build 1 turn before trying ot buy it.

There you have it. Fairly easy sub 1000AD finish.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

BTW, if you go with the AI's listed or any of the other ones that aren't warmongers they will never declare war before 1000AD (almost never). If you are trading/giving away your techs they will never declare on you anyway. The opponents are so spread out on this map border problems don't start wars either. Don't build military and don't research military techs.

I only research the prerequisites to mass media with the exception of alphabet, philosophy, education, and liberalism. But the last three are cheaper to tech than to tech radio alone. So you are saving time by teching them, not to mention the extra cash from philo and uni's from education.

Ignore that date. I had it set on marathon speed and didn't change it. Will update what my time is on normal soon.

Ouch. Normal speed sucks. Just had a 1520 finish. The turn difference is huge on normal, I don't like it. I need to adjust my entire strategy for the speed change. I tried 8 cities and had maybe 50% of the cottages I wanted. I will probably only go with 4-5 cities, maybe less.

I need to try some things out, but I am thinking 1400 would be a decent goal for this gauntlet. Sub 1000 is impossible.

Just finished my first attempt, with a 1380 ad finish. It could have been quicker, I made a few mistakes, especially with religions. I played as Qin, and had all the same opponents listed above (Mansa, Fredrick, Asoka, Cyrus) except I had Elizabeth in place of Hatty.

I settled on spot and built 2 (and a half) warriors, until my city hit size 3, and then started churning out workers. Had a whole lot of forest, so chop rushing the workers snowballed, until I had about 6, and then I chop rushed 3 settlers. Popped a lot of huts, but only one gave me a tech, ironworking.

My teching went something like - bronze working, mysticism, wheel, pottery, writing. I didn't go for alphabet until I finished code of laws, and I used the Oracle to get civil service. I used liberalism to get physics, instead of radio, which was probably stupid. When you get the great scientist from physics, he'll help discover electricity every time, which is helpful. I traded and gifted techs and resources as much as possible, and everyone was friendly pretty quick. I founded 6 cities total, and cottage spammed them all.

As far as religions, I only founded Confucianism. At the time almost everyone was Buddhist, except one AI that had no religion. Everyone was "pleased" at the time, so my mistake was trying to make a bunch of missionaries, thinking I needed the relations boost from converting everyone. There's nothing more frustrating than sending a missionary across the map for 12 turns only to have him fail because you didn't feel like wasting a couple more turns to put him in a city with no religion. I wound up never adopting a state religion.

What I realized is, as you continue gifting techs, you'll eventually give the AI whatever it is that allows pacifism, and a few of them will switch to that anyway. My other mistake was not switching to pacifism until the last few turns, by accident, even though I had no state religion for the entire game.

I don't think going for early religions is the best idea on this one, especially if you only play against 5 opponents. They're so spread out it takes forever to get missionaries to them, and confucianism never spread outside of my city on its own, even after I built the shrine and had trade routes with everyone.

I am in the middle of a game as Quin. I tired Victoria but found I was having problems getting stone to build the Pyramids. The current game is going very well. I started by building 2 workers then a settler. Each subsequent city built a worker then a settler. I have 7 cities and will probably make a couple more. I have cottage spammed everything but will convert them to farms later. Not sure how fast I am going to get to mass media but we will see. I am spreading Conf like made to get extra gold for my shrine. But it does take forever to get missionaries some where.

My tech path was Bronze Working - Pottery - Masonry - Priesthood - Alphabet - Code of Laws - Philosphy (Oracle) - Currently I am heading towards liberalism but I may divert to electricity so I can get radio with liberalism.

I have traded heavilly with all AI and everyone is pleased with me. I also give away tech when they ask for it.

I did not find many huts with the lone warrior doing the exploration. I kind of forgot how big a Large map is and how long it takes to explore on Normal speed.

I plan on trying a couple of different scenarios in a few games to find the optimal growth rate for normal. I think in my next game I am going to make warriors until the city is level 2 then start making workers. I think I really need one extra warrior to help with the exploration phase of the game. Ideally I want to make contact with all AIs by the time I have developed writing.

I should finish this game Saturday so I will post back with my results.

I think I'll steal the idea someone had for gauntlet 3. Have only one spiritual civ that will take all the religions. That will make it easier to get the rest of the world all under 1 religion. Of course I'm still not decided if you should do any warmongering or not to increase your votes. On noble it would be very easy to take out a couple civs.

I think I'll actually have time to play a couple games of this this weekend. I haven't played a game of civ in weeks, I miss it.

I am going to go against the grain and predict:

Temporate Balanced Ancient Normal
Quin VS a bunch of peaceful/financial leaders
Diplomatic Victory, 400AD

I think the key to the best time will be Great People.

You obviously need 2 Engineers to rush the UN the turn you get it. Then you need a Prophet to build the shrine for the religion you focus on spreading. After you have Music and Monarchy, Artists will rush Radio and Mass Media. Scientists can also rush many of the techs along the research path.

See my GP tech reference at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

Founding the religions has nothing to do with spreading them. You don't have time to spread them or need to. Getting all the other civs under 1 religion isn't important either. If you are trading away techs for cash and gifting a few of them, then you will receive enough votes to win. I have finished 3 games so far, 2 w/ marathon speed (stupid), and 1 with normal. I have only had 1 AI (other than the opponent) vote against me and that still made me have 80% of the vote.

The only thing you need to worry about is teching fast enough. DaveMcW brought up a really good point about the GP. That could help out. But I am finding in normal speed that GP are coming way too slow. Prophets are easy and if you convert to caste system then artists and scientists won't be that hard either. The problem is getting 1 engineer, much less 2. You have to get the pyramids built after stonehenge and before the oracle to get a GE at all. I don't know how to go about getting a second. Unless you can get the hanging gardens in your pyramid city.

And I stand corrected, 1400 may not be the goal

I think a goal of 1300 or sooner is pretty realistic. Looking back at my 1600 AD game I can see that I made alot of mistakes, and I think that I can knock off at least 100 years off of my time. Alot of you guys are alot faster than me, too!

Played my first attempt. 1420AD. Made quite a few mistakes including not switching to representation for like a ton of turns after getting the Pyramids, even though I was majorly happiness limited. I always forget to switch after building Pyramids, but I don't think it's ever taken me more than 10 turns to realize it. This was like 30+ turns. But anyway I generated 4 great engineers, 1 great scientist and 4 or 5 great artists. I used 1 engineer for notre dame (not too useful really but nothing else to use him for, 1 engineer on oxford university, 2 engineers on united nations. I used all 4-5 artists on radio, though they were only giving like 1200 beakers each which is way less than I thought they would. I used liberalism on electricity only because I didn't think I'd get through electricity through self-research before one of the AI's learned liberalism. Next time I'll probably try to generate some scientists to use on electricity and use liberalism to get radio, then any artists I have on mass media.

Big Ben was right in that religion had no impact at all. I was confucian most of the game and every other civ was some other religion. I did convert Cyrus through 1 missionary but that didn't help since Cyrus ended up being my opponent. Anyway I switched to free religion and still had over +10 relations with all the AI's so I won easily.

I founded 7 cities only, just enough for oxford university. I built the pyramids, parthenon, hanging gardens and notre dame. I somehow forgot all about the oracle until about 500AD when it was already built (even though I self-researched priesthood early just for that). Like I said I wasn't paying very good attention during much of the game. I'm not used to the speed of normal games. At the end of the game 50% of the map still hadn't been settled by anyone...

edit: Oh yeah, I played as Elizabeth against Cyrus, Washington, Mansa Musa, Victoria and Frederick. I'm dumping Washington and Frederick next game because they never want to trade techs. I don't see how anyone can play without Mansa in their game as he gives you monopoly techs at the drop of a hat. I used a tropical, low sea level, balanced map. I never had any stone or marble and still built the pyramids by 600BC or something like that. There was stone nearby but I would have had to settle a half-desert city and didn't feel it was worth it. I had a great production city with horses + copper + wheat + pigs + 3 food lake + several hills and many forests around it for chopping as well. It also ended up being my great person factory of course, although I didn't build any farms except to connect wheat/corn/rice.