G-Major 137

[Qactus]

I'll be playing this with Augustus Caesar on a Terra map. I'm obviously not competing for fastest finish, but rather want to use this Gauntlet to win non-AP Deity for the first time.
Huts, events, barbs and vassals are all active to ensure the whole CIV experience.

So far I've tried two main approaches, the first one being an Ironworking+Wheel beeline directly after e.g. Agriculture to find and settle Iron with the third settler, followed by Maths and then a trade for Alphabet with IW+Maths (this trade seems to be a bit lucky, but usually worked)

The second approach was targeting Alpha instead to then trade for Ironworking, while chopping out as many IMP settlers as possible, grabbing land and hoping to include an iron ressource.

The latter seems to work better. The Praetorians will come a bit later, but since it's Marathon speed they'll have a very long lifespan that can be prolonged with focussing on massive siege to support them.

A problem I encounter is the inability to make peace after stealing workers. Often an event will make peace sooner or later, but sometimes it hust won't happen. Then it's very risky to settle cities only defended by warriors. Self-teching Archery is just not worth it, so to be sure I would have to be lucky with finding copper too and not just iron.

 

[Pangaea]

Doubt I'll be playing this, but I would think that the ability to peace vassal Mansa would be a fairly big plus when you need to tech so deep, and speed is of the essence. With so much land/islands, vassals are bound to get many sushi and mining resources too, so corps can be boosted a fair bit I would imagine by resource trade/gifts. Vassals tend to be willing to give you the farm just for something they need, so one can get a lot better than 1:1 deals.

The annoying thing with vassals is when they vassal to somebody you don't want to wage war on, or if they suddenly go culture and become useless to you, while contributing towards the domination limit. That happened in my most recent game with Asoka, and it was annoying to lose a tech trade partner that early.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Qactus: Praets are an interesting pick, and you should have a lot of success in conquesting with them, bit are you sure you don't want a Civ that's FIN? FiN Coast is a big part of this game, as are Cottages. Darius has also a good UU, but economically, he's a lot stronger. I hope you at least picked Augustus.


@ Pangaea: Come on! Your a Deity player now, there'sno way you want to miss this! ^^

 

[WastinTime]

A problem I encounter is the inability to make peace after stealing workers. Often an event will make peace sooner or later, but sometimes it hust won't happen. Then it's very risky to settle cities only defended by warriors. Self-teching Archery is just not worth it, so to be sure I would have to be lucky with finding copper too and not just iron.

You can solve this problem by using the Aggressive AI game option. Don't let it scare you. They're not that much more aggressive. They will make peace very quickly as long as you threaten a city with a unit in their BFC.

Coincidentally, Pangaea, this also solves your problem. The AI is far less likely to go for a culture victory. I used to play a lot of Permanent Alliance OCC space race and you need Aggressive AI so your PA partner doesn't switch to culture.

That reminds me: If you're not planning to try to beat 1000 AD, a permanent alliance is a great way to play on Deity. The AI is fast enough to join up with one. Or try peaceful OCC. More fun, and a very fast game.

 

[Seraiel]

AGG AI is a horrible setting from my experience. You can look for the thread I made about it in S&T. Easy Worker stealing, yes, but how are 10 Longbows in every city?

Also, AIs at war tech much slower, so no way to be competetive at all with that setting.

 

[WastinTime]

AGG AI is a horrible setting from my experience. You can look for the thread I made about it in S&T. Easy Worker stealing, yes, but how are 10 Longbows in every city?

Also, AIs at war tech much slower, so no way to be competetive at all with that setting.

Now you've got me scared. I didn't use Agg AI in my other space race, but I know I wish I had early on. IIRC, I just forgot to use the option.

 

[Seraiel]

Now you've got me scared. I didn't use Agg AI in my other space race, but I know I wish I had early on. IIRC, I just forgot to use the option.

Bcool used AGG-AI in his Deity 15xx AD space race with the dutch, but he also didn't conquer that much but mostly settled the new world.

Be happy you didn't use that setting, wars are really hardly manageable with it. I'm not sure, but in the mentioned thread there are a lot of screens and a comparison against normal AIs, I believe I had to kill 500+ units pre gunpowder with AGG ^^ .

“you will only find in there what you take with you my padawan“ .

 

[Seraiel]

Here is the link http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=506770

 

[WastinTime]

Interesting. I looked back at some of my 'big games' and it looks like I always talked myself out of AggAI (or I chickened out). Still good for some types of games, but maybe not this one. Thanks for steering me away again.

 

[Pangaea]

@ Pangaea: Come on! Your a Deity player now, there'sno way you want to miss this! ^^

I've won a few games on Deity, but that doesn't necessarily make me a Deity player. Have never played on Marathon either, and the need to manage so many cities, with many more turns than on normal settings, would mean an incredibly slow game. I already play slow as it is! The last game I submitted, in the challenges, I spent 42 hours or something like that to go to space. Others are around 10 hours, and some much less than that. I've no idea how you can play so quickly and be so competitive. I had probably spent 10 hours by 1AD

That said, perhaps I will give it a go anyway, if I find the time. Would you need more workers for instance compared to normal/standard settings?

 

[Seraiel]

Marathon is a lot easier as you'll notice. Once you have a technological military advantage, it holds forever, you can probably conquer half of rhe map with Immortals and HAs. Don't forget, that units are also relatively cheaper on Marathon.

I plan on spending about 200h on my game, once I get a good one.

 

[WastinTime]

I've won a few games on Deity, but that doesn't necessarily make me a Deity player. Have never played on Marathon either, and the need to manage so many cities, with many more turns than on normal settings, would mean an incredibly slow game. I already play slow as it is! The last game I submitted, in the challenges, I spent 42 hours or something like that to go to space. Others are around 10 hours, and some much less than that. I've no idea how you can play so quickly and be so competitive. I had probably spent 10 hours by 1AD

That said, perhaps I will give it a go anyway, if I find the time. Would you need more workers for instance compared to normal/standard settings?

Marathon is known to be way easier. It should feel like Immortal or Emperor.
There are some 'feature/bugs' with the time scaling. For example, you heal at the same speed. Another way to say that is: you heal 3x faster than normal speed.
And it's like your Axes have 3 movement and chariots have 6...compared to normal speed. Another huge marathon difference is that military should be 50% more expensive! if scaled properly a Warrior (15h) should be 45h, but it's only 30h. Chariots, only 60hammers, etc. (buildings are not included)

And you don't have to have a huge empire. Or even go to war. Just get enough cities to build Oxford (ok maybe a couple more than that.)

Or do OCC if you're really short on time.

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the tips. Quick healing is indeed very useful. If I'm going to play this game I want to play it properly, though, even if I can't compete with the other posters in here like yourself and Seraiel. I'm just a little concerned about the time commitment.

Have you guys come to any sort of conclusion on Terra v B&S?

What about leaders? Darius, HC and Liz have been mentioned. What about the ever so loveable Egyptians? Those War Chariots are mean buggars.

 

[Seraiel]

I'm sure your game can be very competitive. You've played a 16xx Space Race on a faster speed, best I ever had is also only a 1545 AD Space Race.

Regarding the leaders: I believe HC is forbidden in this Gauntlet. Hatty or even better, Ramesses are great picks, the only thing worse about thwm is, that SPI is not as useful on Marathon than it is on Quick, and they're both not FIN, which is a great deal in games that are won by the person that conducts the most research over time.
Darius Immortals are even stronger against Archers than WCs, and Marathon allows for great early choking, so he has just the edge for this Gauntlet.

Im pretty sure that I'll play Terra btw.. The new world is just very attractive with all its trees and resources, as is flat maintenance.

 

[Pangaea]

I have a 1560AD space win too, but that was on Prince, and you can't exactly reliably kill off three AIs by 1200BC on Immortal or Deity

Re:Spiritual, does this mean that the wait for civic switches doesn't scale either, so even on marathon you can change every 5 turns?

From what I can tell, there actually isn't a big difference between WCs and Immortals against Archers. The Immortal is better as long as the archer doesn't have any promotions (typically CG), but if you're up against archers with CG and 25% fortification, then the WC is marginally better. At least if this calculator isn't too badly mucked up: http://home.comcast.net/~proc/civ4/combat_calc.htm

Against hill archers, the WC is already marginally better without any archer promotions. Plus, you get a little more bang for your buck for Combat promotions when the base strength is 5 instead of 4.

But having FIN may be a pretty big advantage here. It's a trait that lasts the whole game of course, and FIN coast is pretty good to work too.

On Terra, would you then want to wage some maybe limited war in the beginning (not smacking the whole continent), and then take over the whole new world? And then build spaceparts there, helped by greatly boosted forest chops?

 

[WastinTime]

In order to counter the 'free Astronomy' that Terra provides, a sushi player could just ignore Astronomy and get it free from the AI eventually. Sushi does not require Astronomy and I've decided on Sushi, so I'm still leaning towards B&S. If only I could get the 'flat' setting HoF says it's allowed, so I wonder if I would be allowed to hack the settings files or if that would fail the 'lock assets' check. It's worth a shot!

If you're going state property, then you're probably better off with Terra (no distance maintenance), free Astronomy, and more workshop tiles.

 

[Seraiel]

Apart from things that are connected to happiness, basically nothing scales in this game, so you can change every 5T and you also get the same diplo modifiers, although only very few years passed.

What I ment though, is, that revolutions on Marathon also basically last a shorter time, as 1 switch is only 2T, switches are 3T iirc., that's not very much, and one won't make many switches that can't wait for a GA too.

I'll go for full rampage btw.. I just leave a few AIs alive so I can trade techs with them, that's why I also. want to settle the new world.

And just a minor + for Immortals: They get defensive bonuses, so choking is even easier with them.

 

[ZPV]

Speaking of golden ages, how do you generate the great people for them on Marathon? Starving them out doesn't exactly work...
Do you just have to have a few cities dedicated to running lots of specialists?

 

[Seraiel]

When I have 10 cities early, I'll hire at least 2 Scientists in 2 of them, for an Academy and for bulbing Edu. Probably even 3 cities to start a GA with Edu, though that would probably also be possible with the Music GA.

Once in a GA, I switch to Caste + Pac and starve out as many GPs out of as many cities as possible, so I also use Cottage citiea if they're large enough. 3rd GA from TM and 4th is easy with the physics and Com GPs. I'm not sure if 5th GA makes much more sense than bulbing.

 

[Pangaea]

Suppose techs cost 3x as much too, and you get 3x as many beakers from bulbs compared to on normal settings?

Generated a few maps to count resources. Intended to do more, but it became a huge pain in the neck to count-delete so many icons. But I did 3 maps each of Terra and B&S. Hardly statistically significant, but anywho...

         Mining     Sushi
Terra      55         88
B&S        47        161

Unsurprisingly there were a great deal more Sushi resources on Big and Small. It varied a fair bit on Terra, because sometimes there was a map with some islands too, and those naturally got more seafood. Pretty similar in Mining resources, but a little bit more on Terra, probably due to the bigger 'normal' landmass. All 6 maps I generated (3 for each), had about 10 gold+silver tiles.