G-III Psi

Hello and welcome to the latest Gauntlet for the Civ III HOF. This month, we go back to a smaller easier difficulty but with a more labor intensive victory condition. So Getlemen, get your whips!

• Mapsize: Small
• Difficulty: Warlord
• Condition: 100k Cultural

All submissions must be in by 03/15/08.

Babylon or Celts?

I think the extra food and the faster UU will more than make up for the cheaper buildings - particularly if I remember to keep producing workers! The increased SGL chance might save some replay time though! (celts first - Babs as second choice)

Pangea - arid if Celts, normal for babs 5m years - SGL's for pyramids, and ToA will be key - wouldn't research beyond Chivalry. Maximum land

Will stop off in Republic before Feudalism, and may flip flop back into republic for the cash in the late game

Opponents - Spain, England and India (so no goodie huts)

Will try to snag an early tech and the republic slingshot - Masonry (SGL and pyramids) or Pottery (Granary) are the two options.

I started running maps as Russia first.

I'll try to pop an early settler and as much of the Ancient Age as possible. The Pyramids SGL will come from Ceremonial Burial. I don't think the UU is that important since almost all of our cities will be built not captured. Temples will come from the Temple of Artemis and libraries are as cultured as cathedrals so I prefer scientific to religious - of course, my 1 anarchy will be longer, and I won't have the option of switching back and forth - it will just be Feudalism ASAP.

If there are not enough huts on the small map to get out of the Ancient Age quickly enough with Russia, then I'll probably try Sumeria next.

I guess I'd better give this one a try as well. Since it is my only HoF 100k entry

I picked Sumeria to make expansion faster (agri), build libraries easier (sci) and better chance of an early sgl.

I got lucky and got a sgl from CB, and beelined to Polytheism for Temple of Artemis (1950 BC). I went straight for Philosophy and got another sgl building the pyramids in 1400 BC.

On the downside i have no iron within reach, but the byzantines are cornered with only 4 cities, so I might figure something out

I'm currently at 1000 BC, 12 cities and have just built the Collosus. At least it looks like I'm going to improve my own entry

Good luck everyone...

I dunno if I'll get around to this one either. I've been heavily playing my Deity milkrun the last couple of weeks (even though I'll struggle to beat 50k) so if I play any civ games besides this, they'll be light on management.

Chamnix said:

libraries are as cultured as cathedrals so I prefer scientific to religious .

Click to expand...

that comment stood out - I prefer relegious as I can pop rush both libraries and cathedrals more easily - the problem with non religious is that 160 is a lot to pop whip. That comment implies an either or approach or am I missing something?

That's what I got from Chamnix's comment, too.

I used to think having religous was half wasted because ToA provides free temples anyway, but that's foolish as the half price cathedral is the best culture investment after the library. Perhaps he plans on universities in every town, but that would nullify the ToA effect (education required for Universities) and makes it that much more difficult.

I have a game started to 1000BC. I get rather frustrated with these, as these above most seem to need the 2 SGLs required for a really competitive date. I did get them, but on around the 25th try, so I basically wanted an away from it. I'll pick it up later in the month or early March. I also promise to do a proper write up, with pictures and stuff, unless no one wants me to, then here's your chance to say you don't.

You are both right - library + cathedral is definitely cheaper under religious than scientific. The problem I've had is that 80 shields is still a pretty significant in a relatively new city. I've never actually calculated it , but it has seemed in my past games that the 40-shield library instead of an 80-shield cathedral as the first build in a city does more for a speedy finish date than the second build .

Of course, there is always the Bablylonian option...

Now that I can understand - the difference in speed of the culture builds and the SGL chance vs the fewer turns in anarchy. (since culture accrues at half rate in anarchy that is worth about a turn and a half right there, plus the benefit of an early republic over despotism until feudalism)

I go, library, cathedral, and colluseum, in that order. Library and cathedral are same shield and culture for religous, but library has cheaper maintenance and running out of gold is a serious potential problem because of high building maintenance. I can't remember, but my last small had about 150 towns, so 150gpt for libraries, 300 gpt for cats, and 300 for arenas = 750gpt just to keep everything maintained.

I submitted a 1030AD game using Sumeria. Settings were 60%pangea, warm, wet, 5byo, no barbs, least aggressive versus England, Portugal, and the Hittites. Since I am still unable to use MapFinder after a few handrolls I got this start.



Research went cb-->masonry-->mysticism for which I got an SGL in 2710BC when I had three towns.



I used this for the Pyramids in 2670BC and then went for the feudalism slingshot. Research went writing-->literature-->CoL-->currency-->construction-->philosophy while trading for alpha, bw, wc, the wheel, iw, hbr, math, polytheism and maps. In 1000BC on the same turn Henry got maps he dow'ed me with a single warrior taking the town with my only luxury.



At this point I had 25 towns, 61 citizens, the Pyramids, Forbidden Palace, 2 libraries, 30 workers, and 5 Enkidu Warriors. I was three turns from philosophy, but had to turn down research for peace with Henry to get maps. I built 2 archers but retook Marad starting my GA in 850BC. This was probably a mistake as I got peace with Henry getting maps the next turn and discovered philosophy taking feudalism as my free tech and also getting monotheism for free. I revolted during my GA and got a 5-turn anarchy becoming a feudalism in 690BC.

I still had not gotten another SGL, so scrambled to build the ToA which didn't complete until 250BC. I continued to research getting theology, chivalry, engineering, invention, gunpowder, chemistry, metallurgy, and military tradition. The three techs after gunpowder were especially not needed and I lost a lot of gold that could have been used for maintenance fees later as I started to run short of gold. At 10AD I had 83 cities, 183 citizens, 83 workers, and 4 settlers making 357cpt. I am still halfway to the dom limit of 1050 tiles.



I built cathedrals and colosseums in my core before resuming heavy settler production when I should have concentrated on settlers until I had reached the dom. limit. My last towns wouldn't be completed until about 800AD with 154 towns about 100 tiles from the dom limit. I was making 1438cpt at the end of the game. Each turn saw me whipping shields into towns with population until their buildings library-cathedral-colosseum were complete. It took a long time to get luxuries on this map and I only had 4 by 10AD and seven at the end. Building maintenance was a big headache for my feudal government and sometimes I had to slow growth in some towns to hire taxmen to keep me afloat. Marketplaces in my core eventually helped to pay for things.

I'm sure this time will be beat so I am starting another game with the Russians hoping to use fast research to get to the Internet fast enough to get a good date. I used this approach on standard cheiftain to get an 850AD date, but there is no penalty for running negative gpt on cheiftain so this may not work as well on warlord.

I just submitted the game i started earlier in this thread. I got a 1070 finish, which obviously won't win the gauntlet, but at least it significantly improves my present entry. I had hoped to be able to take another try, but i have been too busy, and I'm not sure I'll be able to play another one in just two days... (Not that I won't try )

I'm not that experienced in 100k attempts - I have actually only completed those two. In my original entry I was in republic, and only used cash rush. Obviously it quickly became clear for me, that the whip is much more effective

My finish date could have been better, since it took me quite a while to figure out the part-rush trick for cathedrals. Without that it was almost impossible to rush them, since it required a size 12 city that already had done quite a bit of prebuilding to rush it all at once. But i got the hang of it eventually

I ended up making 1440 cpt in 179 cities around 40 tiles from the domination limit. A few things that could have improved my finish date could be:
#1 Part rushing earlier
#2 Building more early wonders, not only for the culture, but they also could give an economic boost with the tourism.
#3 Less research - I researched to gunpowder, which was totally pointless at this level since i never build a single military unit except for a few early enkidu warriors.

I was quite surprised to see that i had a life expectancy of 46 years, which is obscenely overrated

I've submitted a game. 910AD.

100K is really not my thing but I quite enjoyed this really. I set up a game with my rivals being the French, the Ottomans and the Vikings. I played as Arabia, 'cause I wanted a REL/EXP civ. I do like the Ansar so that was a bonus but the plan was to try and pop my way into the MA asap. I got there in 1325BC but the disappointing thing for me was that the Ottomans didn't get Fued nor Mono as their freebie. That was about as much use to me as a chocolate teapot, but still I am getting ahead of myself.

I played out the first 80 turns or so of a few games until I got what I was hoping for...




He built the Pyramids after I met the Ottomans. I was hoping for another for the ToA but in end I had to handbuild it, completing it in 330BC. In my previous 100K games I never bothered with this, using universities to boost the lack of early culture. The ToA seemed far most effective though so I'll probably go down that route again for lower level games.

When I entered the MA, I decided to go 50 turns for Fued research and use Republic to build up a decent treasury to help with the maintenance costs. A few turns after that the Vikings declared war on me. They killed one of my scouts but that was no bad thing. I gladly accepted the war fever and allied the French against them so that those two could slug it out whilst I continued to fill my half of the landmass. I never took a PT from the Vikings.

For some stupid reason I was under the impression tha the ToA would trigger my GA. Why didn't I check the civilopedia??? I used the Colossus to trigger it in 50BC though.



You might also notice that I had quite a decent cash reserve. More about that later.

A few turns later I declared on my great buddies the Ottomans.



I had claimed all of my space and they had some decent land plus several luxes. I felt a little bad about it but they were between me and further expansion. I took peace ten turns later when I had reduced them to a single city. A bit later I also declared on the French. They had come off second best to the Vikings and had accepted one peace treaty too many with my foes. I took a few cities from them and was soon just a small number of tiles from the 1054 dom limit.

I then just ICS'd and whipped my way to victory, finishing with 1668cpt in 910AD, just two tiles short of the domination limit with 175 cities.

I didn't switch to Fued until much too late though. I had built up a massive cash reserve that never got used and I finished with over 9000gp. I was worried about the maintenance cost but with no unis and no temple costs this game ws not like my other ones. An earlier whip would have been pretty useful I feel. Not a bad date overall but not good enough to win this gauntlet.

That's a good date Tone and a nice game keldr, but I would have guessed something in the 800's to win this gauntlet as well.

I had two more submissions for this. The first was a 1080AD game using Russia and fast research. Bad results on the age changes and not enough cities lowered this date. The Internet was built in 680AD, but needed to be much sooner for this type of game to compete with feudal whip.

My last submission was a 990AD game using Babylon. This game had only one SGL for the Pyramids and a slow expansion at the start. I used a GA in Republic to cash-rush enough settlers to make over 150 cities, switching to feudalism only in 330AD. I ended with 1592cpt and only four colosseums left to build. The cheap buildings work pretty well once the whipping starts. Even though I was only 4 tiles from the dom. limit, I could have squeezed in about 15-20 more cities to improve this time a little I think.

keldr said:

#3 Less research - I researched to gunpowder, which was totally pointless at this level since i never build a single military unit except for a few early enkidu warriors.

Click to expand...

Even though one doesn't need gunpowder to build musketmen, its the only 60 shield build other than a harbor for most civs to use as a short-rush. As such, I think gunpowder is pretty useful in this type of game. I agree anything after that is pointless for the whip.

PrinceMyshkin said:

Even though one doesn't need gunpowder to build musketmen, its the only 60 shield build other than a harbor for most civs to use as a short-rush. As such, I think gunpowder is pretty useful in this type of game. I agree anything after that is pointless for the whip.

Click to expand...

That was one of the unplanned benefits of using Arabia in my attempt. My Ansars gave me a 60 shield short-rush option. I'd certainly consider them again, although the GA can come a bit too late unless you can get in a couple of early wonders that fit the bill.

Results will be published soon BTW. We still have about four hours left from the time of this post just in case there are any last minute (Chamnix-style) entries.

There won't be one from me this time - I just didn't get to it this month .

I have another game going, that will beat my first entry, but it won't be finished in time for the deadline though... From the discussion in the last gauntlet, I could see that I had untill 1 PM CET to finish it. It kinda got my hopes up for a while, but I am currently only at 500AD, so not really that close to being finished...

Congrats to you guys...

Gauntlet closed!

The gold medal goes to Marsden for an 820AD entry. (He tells me that he'll post his game details here when he can!)

2nd: Tone 910AD
3rd: PrinceMyshkin 990AD
4th: Keldr 1070AD.

Well done to all competitors. The new gauntlet will be up and running very soon. Edit: link here

ps. Let us know how you get on with that other game, Keldr.

Thank you, Tone. Without further delay:

Civ=Celts Babylon is ok, but I rather have the increased growth on lower levels. On a higher level, I think Babylon might be better. I have bad luck with the Sumerians, so I don’t use them anymore. Plus I’m not too fond of the Endiku, but on the other hand I’m not to fond of the Bowman and the Gailec Swordsman is overpriced.
Opponents: Germany, Russia, Sumeria (although I don’t know why I took Sumeria, I would have preferred Ottomans or maybe Persia. Aggression level set to minimum.

Settings: 60% water, pangea, warm, dry, 5 byo. I hate jungles and marsh, I rather deal with deserts, they don’t take any longer to road or irrigate and they are as good as plains to the Celts, so mark another one to agricultural.


As I mentioned before, I played through around maybe 20 maps to get some sgls. I got tired of giving up after discovering alphabet and decided to give this one a chance. My research path is alphabet, writing, code of laws, philosophy, republic (free hopefully) and then literature or what ever I think the AI doesn’t have. I like to let the AI do as much research as possible otherwise and even on warlord in this game Sumeria had mysticism and polytheism for me when I finally found them



It looked nice, and I personally find constantly restarting tedious, certainly not fun. Sometimes this seems less like a game and more like work. I as got my settler factory set up as soon as possible and tried to produce as many cities as I could.

Good news/bad news.

After just accepting that I might have to handbuild my wonders I get some good news!



He will be Pyramids as soon as I’m in Republic. I find the golden age in this game to be somewhat extraneous so I don’t really care if my empire is “ready” for one, just to be in republic, which soon comes free after philosophy.



My next research project gave me my 2nd leader!



Which becomes:


I was quite happy at this point, that is until I finally got a good look around, there’s a ton of desert here not far from my core. This is going to slow my growth. (This is when I stopped for 2 weeks. To get the necessary sgls and not have the grassland was making me frustrated. ) Then I had an idea. I put the aggressive settler building campaign on hold and start an aggressive worker building campaign. This was going to slow short term growth even more but hopefully increase growth over the long term (which it did somewhat, grass would have been better) Furthermore, the stupid desert ended in bands of jungle, with marshes, too!.  I got my workers busy irrigating asap. Because corruption is so total I don’t bother roading very much, just so all cities are connected then irrigate everything around, food is shields!




Here you can see the less than optimal terrain. At 1000BC I had 24 cities. I like to have at least 25, so I wasn’t too far of the mark. I actually switched the Statue of Zeus and Forbidden Palace around, I wanted the statue sooner. After it was finished I didn’t build another military unit the rest of the game, and 4 culture per turn doesn’t hurt either. Luxuries weren’t the greatest on this map, too. I had 2 close, but a third was across the desert a fourth across even more and jungle and the other four were claimed by Russia and Germany. I was fully prepared to not fight the whole game, the Russian luxuries were just in the borders so I knew my super temple culture would snatch them away, but stupid Bismark had to settle on the furs. My army destroyed the offending town, and I was heading for Berlin but my Ancient Cavalry pooped out on me, they couldn’t beat the German spearmen so I took a peace treaty with Germany mostly intact. They never tried anything again and the Russians were completely cowed, so that corner was stable. The Sumerians actually spread around pretty well and were average against me, but they didn’t pull anything, and my merciless culture drove their borders back.




I made the switch to middle ages and gifted everyone up and got engineering and monotheism from them, but I had to research feudalism, then invention and gunpowder. Then single scientist on theology. 100% taxes from now on out, I just about bankrupted myself, cash rushing every settler I could get. I got my saltpeter hooked up and the switch to feudalism was made around 170BC.

I was disappointed my city total topped out around 140. Some poor placing and the aforementioned slow growth, poor play, and bad terrain all contributed to the low city count. But continuing on, I started my whipping. I always go library, cathedral, coliseum. Libraries and cathedrals are the same shield cost and same culture per turn but the cathedral maintenance is more, so I put off some fees that way. Running 100% taxes builds up the treasury enough so that by the time the buildings are completing I can afford many turns of deficit spending. When the coliseums are done, I start wealth and try to hire taxmen. As you can see here:

My feudalism is running in the black.

Towards the end I join some workers to certain towns to get those last coliseums out.
Lots of whipping later:

Great game and nice write-up, Marsden! With number one and four in any 100k, you've just about mastered this condition. I noticed a lot of 2 pop. cities in the above screenshot. I was whipping cities down to one pop. every chance I got, but I guess growth and whipping go faster if you let them grow just a bit. Always something to learn.