G-Major 137

[WastinTime]

fyi, anarchy is only 1t per civic change in the beginning. Careful, once you hit a certain # (maybe 13 cities on standard size) then it jumps to 2t for one and gets worse from there. But later, you're in a golden age.

 

[WastinTime]

You can also do Cereal. I think this is better on Terra.

Advantage: fewer resources generate more food.
- No culture component! Keeps you under the dom limit. Sushi borders go crazy. That's what's nice about the B&S water map too. You can control borders better.

 

[Seraiel]

Sushi is better than cereal, also on Terra. It's something like 15-20 from Sushi while Cereal sometimes is only 5 .

The point about anarchy only being 1T in the beginning is interesting though. Haven't played Marathon competetively for very long.

 

[Pangaea]

You can also do Cereal. I think this is better on Terra.

Advantage: fewer resources generate more food.
- No culture component! Keeps you under the dom limit. Sushi borders go crazy. That's what's nice about the B&S water map too. You can control borders better.

I thought about counting that too, but I was a bit fed up at that point so didn't bother. From memory there were a decent amount of wheat and corn on Terra, but not sure if it would have been more with Cereal than Sushi.

Now I'm quite intrigued in trying this out, but can't for the life of me decide on maptype or leader.

I also did a little math on corporations cost, using the formula from the Civopedia. With 60 resources and a pop 20 city, the costs were 113.6 per turn, without a courthouse. *gulp*

 

[Seraiel]

@ pangaea:

Getting many cities early will be the biggest key to victory in this Gauntlet, because cities mean power. If I were you, I'd try out Lizzy for 5-10 Chariot rushes. Either you then got one that worked well, or you can dismiss lizuy and take Darius.

Rome, Egypt, those are definately 2nd best Civs. Personally I'd love to play with Lizzy for the half price universities.

And there's actually nothing that can be done wrong with playing a tropical terra map. I'd look for the food score of both though and compare them. Whichever is higher in the average, is the better mapscript

 

[WastinTime]

I thought about counting that too, but I was a bit fed up at that point so didn't bother. From memory there were a decent amount of wheat and corn on Terra, but not sure if it would have been more with Cereal than Sushi.

Now I'm quite intrigued in trying this out, but can't for the life of me decide on maptype or leader.

I also did a little math on corporations cost, using the formula from the Civopedia. With 60 resources and a pop 20 city, the costs were 113.6 per turn, without a courthouse. *gulp*

but you'd never, not have a courthouse in a city like that.

 

[WastinTime]

Now I'm quite intrigued in trying this out, but can't for the life of me decide on maptype or leader.

You might as well go with the old standard 'Terra' instead of exploring new ground. The distance maintenance will kill you on B&S.

And same with leader. go with the tried and true Darius. Just be sure to go hard early while his UU is still relevant. That unit leads to HAs. I conquered an entire Large, Highlands map by 1110BC with HAs, no cats.... and Highlands is gigantic.

 

[Seraiel]

but you'd never, not have a courthouse in a city like that.

Yes, but that's exactly what I also always critizise about Sushi. It's way to expensive, how many specialists would be needed to outperform 55 GPT maintenance? The only reason to actually take it is, that Mining is superb with Factories, and can make more than twice its maintenance in gold with Factories.

State Property would be so much easier. No corthouses needed, no expensive execs needed and also no rare GPs needed. There are definitely maps on which SP is superior, like when there are only few mining resources, because too many AIs still live, like the Huge map I played with Ragnar. I'm not sure about this map and this leader. Maybe I'll replay save after gauntlet is done, so that this discussion finally gets an answer.

 

[WastinTime]

But Darius get's 1/2 price courthouses. Even in State Property they pay for themselves, so you're building them anyway. And then you get all that espionage. If only you can find a way to convert it to something useful.

 

[Pangaea]

but you'd never, not have a courthouse in a city like that.

Definitely not; it was merely an example to show how expensive corporations are with many resources and decent population. For corps, you of course need courthouses in every city.

You might as well go with the old standard 'Terra' instead of exploring new ground. The distance maintenance will kill you on B&S.

And same with leader. go with the tried and true Darius. Just be sure to go hard early while his UU is still relevant. That unit leads to HAs. I conquered an entire Large, Highlands map by 1110BC with HAs, no cats.... and Highlands is gigantic.

@ pangaea:

Getting many cities early will be the biggest key to victory in this Gauntlet, because cities mean power. If I were you, I'd try out Lizzy for 5-10 Chariot rushes. Either you then got one that worked well, or you can dismiss lizuy and take Darius.

Rome, Egypt, those are definately 2nd best Civs. Personally I'd love to play with Lizzy for the half price universities.

And there's actually nothing that can be done wrong with playing a tropical terra map. I'd look for the food score of both though and compare them. Whichever is higher in the average, is the better mapscript

Tough to decide between Darius and Lizzie, both are great in their own ways. But I do think I'm leaning towards Terra, so I don't have to deal with the micro nightmare of spreading cities and corps to all those islands, plus the maintenance costs that go with it.

Darius should be really good on such a large map as civics will cost a lot too, and the Immortal speaks for itself. But easier and earlier GPs is good too, and of course half price universities (is it 7 you need on large?). I guess Seraiel is going with Darius, so maybe I should try Lizzie instead. Have already played her in the HoF, but that's probably not relevant as I won't be getting (E)QM any time soon.

Any thoughts about opposition though?

 

[WastinTime]

Yes, but that's exactly what I also always critizise about Sushi. It's way to expensive, how many specialists would be needed to outperform 55 GPT maintenance?

I know it's hard to imagine, but every 10 turns you gain 1000 bpt (until you start having happiness problems). Who cares if you're paying 1000-2000 gpt if your beakers go up from 2000 to 6000 bpt.

Those are rough numbers. I may need to adjust them. Not enough time rt now.

 

[WastinTime]

You could also give away or disconnect your sushi resources once all your cities have grown. Now you have 8000 bpt with almost no maintenance

I imagine this is not the way to go. You can use that population to whip factory, coal plant, lab, etc.

In the end, -gpt doesn't matter as much as +bpt. I already told you my secret on how to make 1000+ gpt. Try that with State Property!

 

[WastinTime]

... so I don't have to deal with the micro nightmare of spreading cities and corps to all those islands, plus the maintenance costs that go with it.

It's not like you're playing a score game with 100's of cities.

You'll have 40-50 cities. My 700 AD space game had barely over 40.
It will take you ~10 turns to spread 1 corp (out of 450 turns)

Then sit back and watch the magic happen. As I said in my writeup, I hadn't played space in a long time. I didn't know exactly what was optimal, but the rest of the game plays itself. I was winging it after corps, so there is room for improvement on 700 AD.

You really should consider corps if you haven't tried them. It's unbelievable how your tech rate goes up.

 

[Pangaea]

I have tried corps and they're indeed very powerful, but I can imagine it's a pain to spread them to all those islands if playing on B&S, needing an armada of galleys/whatever and so forth. I am intrigued to play this map gauntlet, however, so it's more a case of settling on a leader and mapscript. And opposition.

Will find your Writeup and read it again too.

 

[Qactus]

Thanks for the remarks on Agg AI and worker stealing. I will stay away from that setting this time, but I enjoy lerarning these things already for future games. I could imagine this works great in a culture game for example, where you don't plan to conquer much (or any) land.

@ 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.

If playing for fastest finish, FIN is a must have of course. But I'm set on Praetorians now. If only we had Unrestricted leaders, then I'd play Hannibal of Rome
Yes, I picked Augustus because I like the versatility of the IND trait. But I also considered Julius because city upkeep on Deity is said to be brutal. So I just hope State property will save me.

fyi, anarchy is only 1t per civic change in the beginning. Careful, once you hit a certain # (maybe 13 cities on standard size) then it jumps to 2t for one and gets worse from there. But later, you're in a golden age.

The combination of Marathon speed and large map size actually makes even the first switch to slavery a 2-turn Anarchy.
But it's still not a big issue given the factor other things scale on Marathon.

 

[Pangaea]

I have read the 700AD Writeup again, and this comment interested me

Also, the Engines are what makes an SS-build slow, so it's faster to build Research in all cities and tech to Fusion as fast as possible and only then begin on building the SS simultaniously I think.

Is this a common approach?

So far in my space games, the Engines haven't been the biggest problem, but Stasis and sometimes Life Support

Beating this game will still take a lot of time, not sure it won't get beaten ever.

It shall be interesting to see if it can be beaten

 

[WastinTime]

So far in my space games, the Engines haven't been the biggest problem, but Stasis and sometimes Life Support

You might consider skipping the 2nd engine.

Stasis and LifeSupport you should chop and/or use whip overflow.

 

[Pangaea]

Had a little trial run (first ever at marathon). Didn't pick among the presumably best starts, but another gold popped up. Don't think it went all that well to be honest, and didn't get out the settler until turn 89. Horses are far away too, so no point continuing this game. For Darius, I guess you need BFC horse. Everything feels so sloooowww though. 6 turns for a road, 15 turns for a farm. Holy smokes!

Mining-AH-Wheel-Writing a good way to start?

Any glaring errors, and glaring inclusions or omissions among AIs?

Spoiler :

 

[Seraiel]

I'd tech BW with Darius if I wanted to Immortal rush. Mining before AH is better than AH directly probably, so rest looks ok. When you Immortal rush, you don't build a 2nd city btw but let your first one grow.

 

[Qactus]

@Pangaea: With one dry corn that'd be a bit low on food for my taste, especially when having to work two gold mines. Since you have to go for early AH anyway, pigs or something would be great. All those forests look great though.