G-Major LIV

[Bleidraner]

I'll see how it comes out, I'm unfamiliar about when start to do settlers, 3 cities ? 4 cities total ? got a nice start but lost HG, my capital just won't grow but other two cities will and can put observatory on all of them.

How far the tech tree is usually needed to go for culture victory ?

RoFortaleza, I did a write up on SS (Sacred Sites) in the context of the last Gminor, Enrico, in that GMinor thread, not very applicable as Enrico cannot spam cities, but it will give you an idea of what the SS strategy is about. Zenmaster added a lot of comments that ARE very relevant for a gauntlet like this one. You can start there and start testing different strategies.
I promise I will do a write up for this one, but I don't feel comfortable doing that before completing a competitive game and tasting what Great Plains feels like. So, after I play over the weekend I will do a detailed explanation. SS is fun.

 

[vadalaz]

Had a pretty good Liberty game going, and then...

Spoiler :

I conquered Brazil on t25. A few turns before that it looked like he wouldn't get enough culture, but he must've hit a culture ruin. So dumb that I didn't check again before capturing. Sigh...

T75 seems highly unlikely to me, but sub-100 can be done I think.

 

[chuckh89]

T75 seems highly unlikely to me, but sub-100 can be done I think.

I would assume that Uluru is pretty much mandatory for a sub-100 SS win...??

 

[Bleidraner]

I would assume that Uluru is pretty much mandatory for a sub-100 SS win...??

Vadalaz is using a different and brilliant strategy, invented by him, based on Liberty, not SS, check the last Gminor Enrico thread. Vadalaz you should give a name to it. He explains it well there. It is the winning strategy, with SS in this gauntlet lower than 130 is tough and sub 100 impossible I believe.

 

[fils]

vadalaz, that's impressive.

I tried doing that a couple times but I had to abandon every game. My best game the same thing as you happened (but I checked ) - I conquered the first civ one turn too late and he got over 100 culture.

It looks like this will clearly beat SS, but at least that strat has a lot less variance involved and you can put up a decent finish with pretty much every start. I shall try again later.

 

[vadalaz]

Yeah, SS is much more consistent. I've been abandoning my recent attempts as well, AIs actually manage to find ruins on Great Plains and they hit the 20 culture too often.

Perhaps a mixed approach is best for this - go for Sacred Sites but conquer a civ early, kill everyone else and liberate the first civ to become influential with it a few turns later. That way there's no annoying pre-req of a <100 culture neighbour and you don't have to delay your monument so you get your free settler faster etc.

 

[chuckh89]

Vadalaz is using a different and brilliant strategy, invented by him, based on Liberty, not SS, check the last Gminor Enrico thread. Vadalaz you should give a name to it. He explains it well there. It is the winning strategy, with SS in this gauntlet lower than 130 is tough and sub 100 impossible I believe.

Nice Strategy, probably will be the winning one....

 

[n0m0n]

Yes, on second thought the liberty strat is gonna be tough. It's definitely doable but I'm not sure how much faster than T150 you'll be able to finish. Main problems are that you need to completely wipe out everyone, and camel tech comes too late, especially when your research rate is being slowed by early conquest.

I did a test run of T141 SS. It could've been T130 with a bit better play, but it actually turned out to be a decent game. Made a few major mistakes, notably getting war dec'd and losing a city for a while. I was influential with everyone except Portugal on T133, who had double the culture of second place. I conquered them to win the game.

GP is a pretty small map. I ran out of room to place cities, and there's a high chance of someone coveting your lands and war decing.

Yeah, the running out of room problem and war decs have been mmy problem with getting a good ss.

Venice and Carthage seem like good AIs, Mongolia too, unless you start next to them and piss them off too fast. Korea and Babylon (expands slow and gives pretty good science from just trade routes and maybe one or two tech steals from spies (if rationalism is reached somewhat fast) are also okay picks, but other than those I am a bit uncertain. Which would you guys recommend?

 

[chuckh89]

Yeah, SS is much more consistent. I've been abandoning my recent attempts as well, AIs actually manage to find ruins on Great Plains and they hit the 20 culture too often.

Perhaps a mixed approach is best for this - go for Sacred Sites but conquer a civ early, kill everyone else and liberate the first civ to become influential with it a few turns later. That way there's no annoying pre-req of a <100 culture neighbour and you don't have to delay your monument so you get your free settler faster etc.

I usually try to find a setup to dominate my neighbor early, and keep him under my control while I am getting my rolling.

Eventually someone will take him over (or pay someone to do it), Now attack the conqueror, and keep him under control until all Civs almost eliminated....Then liberate. Pop GM. Finish off other Capital.

I guess that is kind of a combination of the 2 strategies...Right...??

 

[vadalaz]

Finally!

Spoiler :

 

[chuckh89]

Finally!

Spoiler :

Winner, Winner,....Chicken Dinner!

Awesome Job on Game and Strategy Bro...

 

[bostich]

Does anybody want to test the peaceful SS approach under optimal conditions?

I got a start with 3 faith generating natural wonders:

Mt. Sinai: south west of starting position. close. 8 + 4 faith
Sri Pada: north east of starting position. just behind 2 city states. 4 + 4 faith
Mt. Kailash: north west corner of the map. far away. 2 + 4 faith

That amounts to 26 faith per turn from natural wonders very early in the game.

I messed up my culture generation and got sacred sites only on turn 90, so no chance of a good finish time. Maybe one of you can test whether the peaceful approach works at all for a sub turn 100 finish.

 

[fils]

Does anybody want to test the peaceful SS approach under optimal conditions?

I got a start with 3 faith generating natural wonders:

Mt. Sinai: south west of starting position. close. 8 + 4 faith
Sri Pada: north east of starting position. just behind 2 city states. 4 + 4 faith
Mt. Kailash: north west corner of the map. far away. 2 + 4 faith

That amounts to 26 faith per turn from natural wonders very early in the game.

I messed up my culture generation and got sacred sites only on turn 90, so no chance of a good finish time. Maybe one of you can test whether the peaceful approach works at all for a sub turn 100 finish.

Damn, that is optimal. I'll give it a shot. With this you could skip the left side of Liberty tree to get SS much faster. There's also no need to build Stonehenge like I usually do in SS games.

A nearby cultural CS makes a huge difference in SS games too.

e: missing one of the map packs so I can't try that start, unfortunately. Might try rolling a couple of my own and roaming to see if I can settle on a faith wonder.

 

[RoFortaleza]

RoFortaleza, I did a write up on SS (Sacred Sites) in the context of the last Gminor, Enrico, in that GMinor thread, not very applicable as Enrico cannot spam cities, but it will give you an idea of what the SS strategy is about. Zenmaster added a lot of comments that ARE very relevant for a gauntlet like this one. You can start there and start testing different strategies.
I promise I will do a write up for this one, but I don't feel comfortable doing that before completing a competitive game and tasting what Great Plains feels like. So, after I play over the weekend I will do a detailed explanation. SS is fun.

Great, thanks

I'll go over there and also check on that start from bostich and vadalaz strategy.

Hohoho, lot's of reading and fails incoming this shall be fun.

 

[fils]

Well, bostich's save inspired me to try SS again even though I couldn't load it. Ended up winning a completely peaceful SS game at T120.

I think I played it pretty well - close to optimal. I could've shaved a few turns off maybe doing some things differently, but the rest is up to luck of the map. I had faith buildings bought in all of my cities on T114 for 40 tourism per turn.

I thought about going warlike, but there was no runaway culture AI. 3 or 4 of them were close in culture and my last influential civ was completely on the opposite side of me. I chose Pilgrimmage instead of World Church to go along with the peaceful strat. Unfortunately the two AIs closest to me founded second and third religions so Pilgrimmage wasn't as great as it could have been.

Made some minor mistakes... mostly with city placement. Biggest mistake was I should have placed my city right next to Mt. Kailash instead of 2 tiles away (did not have enough gold to buy it), but this would have only made a 1 or 2 turn difference considering my tourism endgame.

I didn't get any faith from NW or CS to help found my pantheon, just my shrine. This meant a really late pantheon - 3rd or 4th one founded. Luckily I still managed to get faith from gems.

Bad luck with CS. Only managed to complete two relevant CS quests all game, and both of them were too late to really make a difference. Spawning next to religious CS would have helped a lot, and even though I had two cultural CS right next to me they only offered one quest that I could complete all game. I spent 500g to ally one of the religious which in hindsight would have been more efficiently spent on buying a settler. I never reached medieval era so the CS bonuses weren't that enticing.

You'll see in my SS below that the Uluru tile is still unclaimed pretty close to my capital which is a huge shame. I would have settled there in 5 more turns had Gandhi not beat me to it. That would have been my best chance to improve my finish time... but I doubt I could have finished much faster than T115 on this map, even with Uluru.

I think T100 is a pipe dream for SS with these gauntlet settings. Maybe T110-115 is possible with a combination of amazing map and optimal play, but I can't see it being faster than that. Of course, I'm open to new strat ideas and to be proven wrong These are really fast games and this gauntlet lasts a full month so maybe someone will be able to pull it off. This game only took 1h22m and I tend to play slower than most.

 

[bostich]

I can't believe that a sub-T100 SS win is impossible.

On quick i have gotten several peaceful wins sub-T60 and that was before the patch. And Great Plains is the perfect map for natural wonders. You can get 2-3 of them almost every game; just have to re-roll till 1-2 of them are religious.

 

[Bleidraner]

My lack of ability with war is killing me, especially these early rushes. Going peaceful SS is limiting me to 150. Are there any good threads or lets play that cover early rushes? I see Vadalaz cleaning the map by t110 and I cannot get even close. Don't know what is the BO, don't know how much strength I need for each army (I assume you have to have 2), Don't know what the tech order needs to be. I am learning by trial and error but I need some help, please.

 

[vadalaz]

My lack of ability with war is killing me, especially these early rushes. Going peaceful SS is limiting me to 150. Are there any good threads or lets play that cover early rushes? I see Vadalaz cleaning the map by t110 and I cannot get even close. Don't know what is the BO, don't know how much strength I need for each army (I assume you have to have 2), Don't know what the tech order needs to be. I am learning by trial and error but I need some help, please.

Here's how I approached it:

- Turn promotion saving on if you haven't. It's allowed in HOF and it helps a lot.
- Look for a solid production start, preferrably middle of the map, but west is ok too. Mining lux and Marble are the best since you want fast Construction.
- First research Archery, then lux tech, then Construction.
- Capital BO: 2x Scout - 2x Archer - (another archer if you get neither a scout upgrade nor enough gold to rush buy one) - Monument - (Shrine if you went Calendar) - Archers/Scouts/Chariot Archers/CBs. The 3 archers and a warrior at the beginning should be enough to conquer a neighbour flatland capital by t30ish. Second city BO is Monument, then units.
- From here go to the next capital and try to demand tributes from CSs on your way there, you'll need gold for archer upgrades. Ideally you want to take down that capital and soon upgrade your archers there.
- Now I like to move the upgraded CB army to the eastern forests (build a chariot or two to catch up to those, and get some scouts too), then build a second army to clean up the flat terrain. As for army strength, 4-6 ranged units, 2-3 scouts and a worker bait worked fine for me.
- Steal AI workers whenever you can. Steal from CSs if you need worker baits and don't happen to have one in your army.
- If an AI expands and you aren't planning to fight that AI in the next 15 turns, DoW them and take their expansion in the peace deal 5 turns later (as long as you're #1 in army score)
- In the end make sure you have Greece surrounded and can take him out in 1-2 turns after he liberates the <100 culture civ

Hope this helps!

 

[fils]

I can't believe that a sub-T100 SS win is impossible.

On quick i have gotten several peaceful wins sub-T60 and that was before the patch. And Great Plains is the perfect map for natural wonders. You can get 2-3 of them almost every game; just have to re-roll till 1-2 of them are religious.

In my game you'll see I got faith from gem pantheon which is pretty much as good as if not better than NW pantheon, since you get the production and gold from those as well. If you settle your cap on an NW you may be bottlenecked by settler production speed.

The main reason why I don't buy the T100 thing is that Arabia gets 0 advantages when doing the SS strat. You could use a completely generic civ and get the same results. Poland or Byzantium might be able to do what you say. Spain maybe too, with their NW affinity.

edit:
Just one more thing- CS quests come too late for that win speed too, which are so key in generating the early culture to reform as fast as possible.

You can do simple math to figure it out. Let's assume you get SS at T60 (this is quite fast). Culture leader in my game has ~750 total culture at T100 (and I got quite lucky with AI policies). That means you need to average 18.75 tourism per turn to win by that turn.

That's a lot of faith. You'll need at least 30 tourism on T100 to make up for the slow tourism in the beginning. This means you'll need to reform for the second tourism building, because getting 15 cities by then is impossible, even if you were playing on a map that had the space for that many

So let's say an endgame goal of 15 faith buildings, and that's being conservative. Founding and reforming religion takes 500 faith. With the -20% cost of faith purchases SP a monastery + mosque cost 280 faith. This means you need an absolute minimum of 4700 faith by T100, or an average of 47 FPT.

It's actually more faith than that because you can't afford to delay early buildings for the -20% faith cost policy. And you'll likely need more than 30 tourism at T100 to win. My game I had 22 tourism at that turn and it took me 20 more turns to secure victory. As far as faith goes, I'm also sitting at a very strong faith gain of +84 per turn at T100 and I'm well short of those benchmarks (only 11 faith buildings- 8 monasteries + 3 mosques). Thus, I maintain that it's pretty much impossible.

 

[bostich]

I should maybe tell you that my best SS finishes are with an uncommon strategy. No Liberty - straight piety means earlier faith buildings generating more faith and faster SS and I don't waste 300 faith to enhance my religion, I use the Great Prophet from finishing piety.

I agree that you don't want to have a faith NW in the capital. Its job is to produce settlers. We want the faith NW in the 2nd city.

Lets say we hit SS on turn 65 with 5 faith buildings giving us 10 tpt and get another one every 3rd turn. With 8 cities we will hit 32 tpt on turn 98 and have generated 693 tourism by then. That would be 757 tourism by turn 100.

We wouldn't quite get 40-50 fpt on turn 65, but soon after. For example 12 fpt from NW and 5 cities with faith building, shrine and temple would be 6 fpt per city giving us 40-50 fpt around turn 70.

Edit: on turn 98 we would generate 8 * (2+2+2+3) + 12 = 84 faith per turn, giving us an additional 2 tpt every 2nd turn if we could get more cities.
Edit 2: fixed calculation