G-Minor 118

[Manco Capac]

Yeah , I've read the rules but misinterpreted it: I thought it meant we are not allowed to play in team with the AI.
Anyways, this:

The assignment of players to teams must be left as default

settles once for all the possibility to begin in the upper location of the map. Sigh...

 

[AgedOne]

@Tachywaxon
Have you tried the audacious 'run all the way to the north, settle there, get horses and quickly kill off one or two civs' strategy? It's fun, and more effective than you imagine it is going to be at first You may have to try several times before the horses are in reach, but those few failures are well worth the effort when you find that you have a 4-city empire and acres of expansion space - full of prime resources - at turn 75, like I did today!

 

[cabert]

IMHO a plain warrior rush would be enough war for a cultural game.

 

[AgedOne]

IMHO a plain warrior rush would be enough war for a cultural game.

I do agree that the War Chariot rush is just a little overpowered for those poor Prince-level defences!

The first time I tried it, my real intention was getting the land in the north of the Oasis - which looked better (to my casual gaze) than the south. I was worried that wasting 15 turns before settling my capital would have allowed the AI to set up stronger defences involving multiple archers. The horses were in the north, and so the plan seemed to have come together well.

However, in practice it is only just true that the defences are stronger! You do find some with just warriors around turn 50!

The other misconception that I had initially is that the land in the north is better. As kovacsflo said a few posts back, for a good cultural game one needs resources which scattered around the map - some only in the north, some only in the desert heart and some only in the south. A far-spread empire seems to be the best strategy - but that itself has drawbacks, mainly economic.

My biggest problem to overcome in this game is actually how to amass the required 3x50000 culture in only 220 turns! That's what kovacsflo has managed. My best is around 50 turns later than that. I don't know how to make up even half of such a difference.

 

[shulec]

My biggest problem to overcome in this game is actually how to amass the required 3x50000 culture in only 220 turns! That's what kovacsflo has managed. My best is around 50 turns later than that. I don't know how to make up even half of such a difference.

Here's the answer: More cities earlier. I my game, I took four AI cities in no time with War Chariots. Three capitols and another city that be became my best culture producer. That's five cities, very early. I built one city for stone (6) and one for GP farm(7) and two more on food/hammer rich sites.

I screwed up big time by having marble with a mine on it that I thought I converted to a quarry. I built the early marble wonders and some cathedrals thinking I already had marble. I also had my stone city razed trying a worker steal and didn't see that there was a warrior sitting right outside the city. If I hadn't made these dumb mistakes, I probably would have had a 1400's victory. Instead I am about three turns behind the lead.

 

[Manco Capac]

@Tachywaxon
Have you tried the audacious 'run all the way to the north, settle there, get horses and quickly kill off one or two civs' strategy? It's fun, and more effective than you imagine it is going to be at first You may have to try several times before the horses are in reach, but those few failures are well worth the effort when you find that you have a 4-city empire and acres of expansion space - full of prime resources - at turn 75, like I did today!

Yeah, I've made the long pilgrimage to reach the promised land whispered as a legend by a obscure horse headed egyptian god. People was ravished to see some horses popped out of nowhere and felt a prophecy was about to be accomplished, thus had to crush its neighbours to thank the horse headed god for such glory and prosperity.

In all seriousness, I've made several attempts in order to find a good site before turn 20 and in one of my recent attempt, my capital had wheat, cow, marble and horse within BFC. I crushed Gandhi, De Gaulle and almost Isabella with only one lost war chariot before turn 70.
The only matter is the unfathomable ugliness of the captured capitals : no food at all in all three. Well, I kept in store this game not knowing what to do with it.
I should finish my first game, but an irresistible force is drawing me to start again one after one, knowing with such mapscript, it is very likely to find better the next try. (to myself).

@Shulec

This is the kind of situation I would smash my head over the computer knowing all this could've avoided easily with better concentration. I suppose you played fast. Seriously, three turns, so close, so enraging.

 

[kcd_swede]

Grrr... you guys are amazing. Great strategy, lousy detail management. I'll have you know that you are way ahead of us (me) who has lame strategy but exceptional attention to detail.

 

[shulec]

In all seriousness, I've made several attempts in order to find a good site before turn 20 and in one of my recent attempts, my capital had wheat, cow, marble and horse within BFC. I crushed Gandhi, De Gaulle and almost Isabella with only one lost war chariot before turn 70.
The only matter is the unfathomable ugliness of the captured capitals : no food at all in all three.

I have seen the same things in my games. In my 1570 game, my capitol had only an Oasis and grassland; my second culture city had only one non-irriagated wheat, and my third culture city had only three flood plains for food. The one trade off is that there are a lot of forests, so chop hard and go easy on the whip!

Finding good GP farm is the problem. I found a three crab site. I thought about making one in the south were food is in excess, but it will be too far to move the last few GA near the end of the game.

I did blow one start that I thought would be awesome. I had plains sheep, grass sheep, grass horses, marble and silver. Unfortunately, I got caught with my pants down when I tried a worker steal. Gandhi had a warrior right outside my capitol. That was a Prince loss!

Here is another hint: Use the maximum number of AI. This will give you more AI capitols to pick from!

Cabert suggests a warrior rush. I tried this a couple of times. It is costly and low yield.

 

[Manco Capac]

I have seen the same things in my games. In my 1570 game, my capitol had only an Oasis and grassland [horse , I suppose]...

What! I feel more ashamed than before. With that, you can achieve a ~1400 AD CV (if those blunders didn't happen). Damn, now I think I'm too much demanding. No surprise I didn't finish one game yet, people here doesn't care that much about city quality.

 

[shulec]

What! I feel more ashamed than before. With that, you can achieve a ~1400 AD CV (if those blunders didn't happen). Damn, now I think I'm too much demanding. No surprise I didn't finish one game yet, people here doesn't care that much about city quality.

My horses were actually 1 N of my bfc.

There is another cliche that really isn't a cliche, BUILD ENOUGH WORKERS! In my game, I stole a lot and built quite a few and still could have used more.

BTW, I was really late to CS and missed the Oracle by a lonshot. It helps, but is not essential.

 

[jesusin]

Very interesting. I'm sorry I won't have the time.

I have never played HOF Oasis culture. I played some GOTM Oasis culture and everything felt slow, not the best of mapscripts. Anyway, I never had problems finding three 6or8-FP cities in the center of the map. That's more than enough for any city or GPFarm.


In my Prince HOF games with other maps warrior rush was the key. Your goal is 10 cities by 1AD. The more food they get, the more GAs they'll pop and the sooner you will win. For Liberalism, the goal was 1AD, although 200AD is good too.


I don't recommend following the advise of the aforementioned article. That was thought for Deity, not for Prince. Read this instead:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=411672


So all in all:
- Grow to 9 or 10 cities fast (be it REX or warrior rush). The faster the better.
- Make your cottages+gold capital, your FP GPFarm and your production city your 3 Legendary cities.
- Concentrate on food for your auxiliary cities. A single pig city is able to pop a GA and to build its 4 temples.
- Get the CS sling
- Get Marble
- If your leader is not Spiritual, use a GP for a GAge in which you will revolt from Bu+slav+OR to FS+CS+Pacif. Timing this moment with the end of religion spreading plus half the cathedrlas built and with Liberalism and you'll have reached perfection.EDIT: Ah, it has to be Hatty. Frequent 5-turn periods in OR+slavery are very advisable.

Good luck all, I will eagerly read your deeds.

 

[Manco Capac]

You're not participating, Jesusin. I wondered before if you were about to give a try and was curious how early you can pull off this victory condition on this mapscript.

What do you think about the trick to trek to the north so as to hook up horses, then kill all your neighbours for ultra rapid expansion? Is it valuable to lose 15 turns for war chariot rush or better to remain in place in the south?

 

[Manco Capac]

I've finally won my first game:
1570 AD with ~35000 pts. Surprisingly, I have a tie with Shulec...not for long knowing he will try again. I didn't expect that date at all as I boded a date around 1650 AD. Ah, the power of gold rushing! This is what I missed in my prediction.

 

[jesusin]

. Ah, the power of gold rushing! This is what I missed in my prediction.

That's quite intriguing. I never gold-rush buildings, but that's maybe just ignorance on my part.

Were you able to maintain 100% culture in the final phase, with poor-Prince AIs not contributing much with their trades?

My first impression is that 1 turn of 100% gold instead of 1 turn of 100% culture in order to be able to buy some ...what? 50 hammers?... is not worth it,



EDIT: as for your first question, I normally play peaceful games so I'm not the one to ask about military strategies... If pressed to answer I'd say nothing is worth 15 turns lost in the beginning.

 

[Manco Capac]

That's quite intriguing. I never gold-rush buildings, but that's maybe just ignorance on my part.

Were you able to maintain 100% culture in the final phase, with poor-Prince AIs not contributing much with their trades?

My first impression is that 1 turn of 100% gold instead of 1 turn of 100% culture in order to be able to buy some ...what? 50 hammers?... is not worth it,

Since 900 AD, the date where I teched Liberalism, I simply stopped all researches and I didn't touch the slider, even for gold.
What made me survive the loss of money was well-placed merchants, double shrines and trades.
Most of the gold comes from trades; I siphoned the AI at each turn.The rest comes from failure gold from wonders I partially build in a non-legendary city, then build the respective wonder in a legendary city.
Moreover, as everyone hated Mansa Musa (I chose mostly mild to dangerous warmongers in my game : Nappy, Toku, De Gaulle, Mehmet II, Mao that I launched them against Mansa Musa), he had lots of cash (around 700 for example because of war) from slighty-bent-towards-gold slider I obtained for backward techs...yeah, he was the most backward civ! No surprise he lost his capital at one moment to barbs wherein was built Temple of Artemis and wherein he founded Judaism.

I mostly rushed Missionaries, Great Temples and the Hermitage. I made a stupid move to take Divine Right instead of Nationalism via Liberalism. I stupidly thought to get another religion earlier would let me time to spread it. Then, I just gold rushed the Hermitage to save 5 turns. In any case, at one moment, Universal Suffrage was more useful than Representation.

EDIT: as for your first question, I normally play peaceful games so I'm not the one to ask about military strategies... If pressed to answer I'd say nothing is worth 15 turns lost in the beginning.

Interesting to see a different opinion, which causes me conflict of choice.

 

[kovacsflo]

Everyone seems aim a rush for a better result, but I really doubt it should be the key, or at least not in Oasis map, because of the unbalanced resources. You only need 9-10 cities, it should be enough. If you rush AI, you will have these cities earlier, but what kind of cities will you have? Probebly not proper ones for legendary, because only a few places will do. That's why I settled down in distant places.

Anyway I start to feel that my 1550 AD finish won't be enough. But I add that I did it with raging barbs just to get more points, even accepting that it will slows me down. I needed to build The Great Wall, fortunately having stone.

 

[shulec]

I've finally won my first game:
1570 AD with ~35000 pts. Surprisingly, I have a tie with Shulec...not for long knowing he will try again. I didn't expect that date at all as I boded a date around 1650 AD. Ah, the power of gold rushing! This is what I missed in my prediction.

Nice game Tachywaxon! Let's see your non rush game and see which is better. I plan to play a peaceful, Southern start to see which gives me a better result. I am going to chronicle my Northern start in a moment, hoping anyone can give take something from it.

 

[shulec]

Game settings.
I chose no barbarians, max opponents, Events and Huts. I want max opponents for close capitals during my early rush. I also wanted more civs to be able to sell off my techs. I set choose religions, but this was unnecessary since I got all the resources.

Here were my opponents:

Spoiler :

I chose this bunch to try to keep them civil and prevent wars. No aggressive or protective leader and I limited Industrious leaders.

Game start

I made the march up north looking for a halfway decent start site. I founded Memphis in 3440 BC, Turn 13. Here is my city, the turn I get Animal husbandry and build a worker:

Spoiler :

This capitol site is a real turd, but I needed the horses and wheat is about the best food resource without going far north for seafood. I chose it for its multiple hammer sites. I use Kaitzilla's approach from a previous gauntlet game and spammed Wonders in the capitol since it would not have a lot of commerce.

Getting my War Chariots
I had my warrior follow my settler site for two reasons. I wanted to worker steal and I wanted to pick up any huts my settler passed by. I didn't waste any turns deviating right or left or onto hills to slow my settler down. My warrior grabbed a quick worker from Elizabeth. Unfortunately, it took a while to get BW, so my two workers were not terribly active right away. An Oasis in the capitol would have shaved several turns of research off from AH>Min>BW. I built one WC and sent him to the nearby capitol to steal a worker and take down a garrisoned warrior. I took the first capitol (to the west) with two WC. At this point, my workers essentially built roads between my capitol an soon to be conquered capitols. I took the next to capitols with 4 WC. I sent two reinforcement WC west and sent the next four WC east. I then merged my WC groups and went East for my final capitol. I sent two I ended up taking four capitols between 2040 BC and 850 BC. I took six cities total.

Spoiler :

After taking four cities, I had seven workers and 8 War Chariots. I used the WC to take two Greek cities, one after the other with peace in between (peace for Polytheism and archery) and to give a chance for him to make me another worker.

This was my city situation after making peace:

Spoiler :

I am on the cusp of Oracling CS:

Spoiler :

I have some screenshots showing city production once I have 9 cities. Then I have screenshots of my most important cities:

Spoiler :

I finished research at 900 AD. Here are my soon to be legendary cities:

Spoiler :

Great People
This was the weakest part of my game by far. I was unhappy with my GP farm not having any 5F or 6F tiles. I generated only 6 GA. One of these, I got one from Music. I built one academy, bulbed Philosophy, built the Holy Temple for Christianity. I settled a great merchant and great priest very late. I used the GE to build Versailles very late. The rest of the GP contributed to two GA.

Spoiler :

Legendary Cities
Here are images of my final three legendary cities showing the buildings built in each:

Spoiler :

Improvements
1. I would like to have built 10 cities, so my GP farm wouldn't have to divert GP points to hammers for temples.
2. I should have worked one or two artist specialists to dilute out GPP toward non-Artists.
3. I switched to Pacifism quite late. I could have gotten more GA with earlier Pacifism.
4. According to Jesusin, I should have put more energy into hammers and less into cottages.
5. I spent too many turns at 100% cash (0% research, 0% culture) for the big Universal Suffrage rush buy of temples and cathedrals.
6. I hoarded techs too much to ensure I could get all of my target Wonders. I should have traded the crap out of my techs and let the AI tech a bit more for me.

 

[jesusin]

Two newbe questions:

- what's the conversion rate of gold-rushing?
- how many temples required to build a cathedral in a large map?

 

[AgedOne]

@shulec
Thank you so much for sharing your game! I had just reached the point yesterday evening where I felt I understood far less about getting a fast culture victory than I ever did. Even jesusin's posts, while full of information, left me feeling that I was playing the wrong strategy, and that the correct one required a complete re-think. (Part of my problem is that I don't feel comfortable playing a strategy unless I understand how it works, what it is accomplishing etc.)
Now, having read your post, I can see how your game went and compare it to my own (much slower) attempts.

It is quite clear that the biggest difference between our games occurs between turns 82 and 155!!
(I am not forgetting what you said in an earlier post about more cities earlier being the key)

While we have both concentrated on building the essential wonders and cathedrals, you have built far more of them for more religions in a shorter time than I managed. Can I ask what your main means of fast building was? Whipping, chopping, or buying through 'gold-rush'?

I was very careful to keep my GPP pool as pure as possible, trying to pop as many GA as possible, but - as you mention - you have not been so careful and have generated a diverse set of GP.
Interestingly, this must mean that our culture points were accumulated from a quite difference 'balance' of sources.
Mine, I would think, came from

(a) setting slider to 100% after my research completed
(b) bombing GAs into my cities
(c) building in the cities
(d) the buildings in my cities
​

Yours, on the other hand, seems to owe more to the buildings, and certainly much less to GAs, wouldn't you think?

I particularly noticed you setting research rate to 0%, but building research in your cities. This is a technique that I have never used (never learned!) but I will have to look at. I assume this is to build up gold for rush buying later?

I will definitely be having some more attempts before the deadline, and will think about my strategy in a different way. However, the top 3 places in this game have nothing to fear from me