Beta Gauntlet VII

[Methos]

Is anyone else going for a domination win? I'm having trouble with it. At first I went with minimum opponents but I always got the "We're better off alone" comment. I've switched to between ten and sixteen opponents to keep them weak enough to want to sign a PA.

So far I've been going for the Pyramids everytime, but I believe that's a waste of hammers now. I'm going to start skipping the Pyramids and just wait for the Globe.

BTW, I have yet to finish a game before I quit due to foolish mistakes.

 

[Ronald]

Is anyone else going for a domination win? I'm having trouble with it. At first I went with minimum opponents but I always got the "We're better off alone" comment.

I might give it a try, but I'm not sure.

I just did another diplo game. This time I finished in 1400 AD.

 

[Crayfish]

Hey guys,

Just finished a 760 BC conquest. How are we doing on this victory condition? Map was a plum, the AIs didn't defend themselves at all, and I caught 2 settlers right before the act of settling.

 

[fluffyflyingpig]

1932 dom win. Fun game. Time should be beatable by quite a bit, since I went with low seas and only 9 AI.

 

[Ronald]

....I caught 2 settlers right before the act of settling.

How did you do that without a starting warrior? Did you get one from a hut?

 

[WastinTime]

1932 dom win. Fun game. Time should be beatable by quite a bit, since I went with low seas and only 9 AI.

Did you go with 9 AI so you'd have more choices for a Perm Alliance?

Whom did you get the PA with?

I assume the game plan is get a perm alliance as fast as possible and then be all set up to kill the others a couple turns later. Once you know who your partner is, you could pick off a few of them early.

Did you feel that you raced to the PA ASAP? If so, about what year did you get it?

How many turns did you have to spend if a defensive pact? It was like 50 turns for me.

 

[Crayfish]

I just got a 1050 BC conquest win. Map was best yet, walked straight through all enemies as if they weren't even there.

Copper.. irrelevant
Iron.. irrelevant
Forest chopping.. relevant
Jaguar building.. relevant
Road network.. relevant
Capping settlers.. vital

 

[fluffyflyingpig]

No particular reason for any of the map choices. I wanted a cramped world, to have better odds of a good start location. It also lowers the dom threshold and reduces the number of troops each AI has. Also giving the AI some expansion space lets me build my wonders.

I think having the partner conquer is faster than having them settle, since they don't settle as quickly while at war.

Overall, it was a very suboptimal game. Missed the oracle by 1 turn, due failing to swap to Buracracy imidiately. PA took a long time, wasn't sure how many turns though. Anyone know how many turns of def pact/mutual war are needed for a PA? Fascism sometime in the 1600s, PA some time later. Sorry, it was a test game and I didn't take notes.

Cathy seems to be the obvious choice for a PA partner. Went with her.


Attempt number 2: 1900AD. Fascism in 1450, PA in 1530. AI swapped religions just before I got Fascism. >.< Conquest was horribly slow, 65 turns till domination. Perhaps I should declare war on more nations at once. Lack of horses slowed down conquest quite a bit. Only one herd of horses on the whole map! I've only tried Pangaea, perhaps GP is better. I've started to dislike Balanced due to the lack of marble.

 

[crunch]

For conquests, multiple cow and some hills (with gold perhaps) can be used instead of forests. After all, you can produce max 1 unit per turn. And you can build roads instead of chopping...

 

[Drool]

I am struggling to get a early conquest. By the time I get BW and send my axeman out most of the other civs have already got a second city or at least a settler on the way out. I can maybe destroy one civ before they settle a second city but struggle to get any where near all four.
I have been using pangaea, pressed, high seas and asoka,gandi,izzy and hatsep as opposition. Any ideas to what Im doing wrong.

 

[Crayfish]

I am struggling to get a early conquest. By the time I get BW and send my axeman out most of the other civs have already got a second city or at least a settler on the way out. I can maybe destroy one civ before they settle a second city but struggle to get any where near all four.
I have been using pangaea, pressed, high seas and asoka,gandi,izzy and hatsep as opposition. Any ideas to what Im doing wrong.

I don't see why people here like Axemen at all. It requires a resource, and their 50% melee bonus is pointless. Every opponent defends with archers. Go for Jags (+archer exp bonuses) on a tropical map, move intelligently (through jungles, forests, hills) and you won't be stopped.

In both my early conquests, I knew within 10, perhaps even 5 minutes of playing that the map was good or bad. Sole decision is how close my enemies were to each other and not necessarily to me. Both games took less than 40 minutes.

Also, why are you fighting 4 opponents and not 3?

 

[pooLarized]

well you are going to want a mine on the bronze anyways. the main use of bronze is if you can get 2-3 axemen to the first city before they get so many archers up. its not uncommon to find the first city defended by only 1 archer and 2 warriors.

but bronze is more of a bonus than a requirement like i first thought. some kind of commerce resource is required though.

 

[n0xie]

The real problem is the inability to ask the allied civ to change civics or religion. WTF. I can ask to change before the alliance, but afterwards I can't? I hope this gets changed in a patch. No forced Free Speach and Merchantilism hurts culturaly.

I was suprised to find this out myself. I was trying to do a PA cultural win and my PA kept sitting on theocracy/vasalage. Not helping much if you want a cultural victory. I decided to just go with Domination, but since I wasted half the game setting up for culture I ended rather late (somewhere around 1910)

I hope this is a bug and they'll fix it because it doesn't make sense that you can't change the civics from the AI who likes you the most :s

 

[solidwoody]

Crayfish what map, settings and opponents are you using for conquest?

 

[WastinTime]

CULTURE VICTORY !!!!

1968 AD

I take back what I said about Firaxis forgetting about us OCC players. They did put cultural victory in the game, and it was a lot easier than I thought. It was so much fun too. I got to stroll along up the tech tree for a change instead of racing through it. I purposely avoided all religions so the others would found them. So many new tactics. I'll be able to discuss this game but cannot play for a whole week

What was cool was my PA partner actually went for it hard. Started building cathedrals, Broadway, and switched to Free Speech. It was "Against everything we stand for" just a few turns before the PA (I tried for the switch, but no go.) As you know, you can't make them switch after the PA.

I imagine I could chop off 50 years but this game went pretty well. Both of the last two cities achieved legendary on the same turn, 1968. I went legendary while researching fascism. Felt lucky at times, but it was my first try, so 50 years should be doable.

 

[Crayfish]

well you are going to want a mine on the bronze anyways. the main use of bronze is if you can get 2-3 axemen to the first city before they get so many archers up. its not uncommon to find the first city defended by only 1 archer and 2 warriors.

but bronze is more of a bonus than a requirement like i first thought. some kind of commerce resource is required though.

I still don't buy the Axemen argument. Think about it, even if what you say is correct, is a Jag is going to have a problem with a warrior who defends at what 2? I know I said take the archery +25% bonus, but there's been times where I sprinkle in a +20% city bonus attacker.

And Commerce? That seems irrelevant. Who cares about money, you'll get 2-3 goody huts and you need to research only 4-5 techs the entire game. Money is pointless after that. All you need is a capital city that spits out a Jag every 1 or 2 turns. Like a fire-hose of Jags, all you have to do is guide them in the right direction, hoping that you send enough Jags to each opponent.

 

[Crayfish]

CULTURE VICTORY !!!!

1968 AD

I believe it, I'm just about to finish a cultural myself, but after 1968. I never believed it to be impossible. Some AIs (Louis, Ghandi) just love cultured cities. They build all the culture buildings and have artist great people.

The down side is that they're usually slow in tech development. But who cares about tech development if you're into culture. All you need are the techs that allow culture buildings and wonders.

I think the best combo would be to pick 2 techy AIs, 1 culture AI, and yourself. Then, trade with the techies all game, and then give all your techs to the culture. Don't trade with the techies, only the culture, keep your religion the same as his, and a PA with him at the end game is garunteed.

 

[pooLarized]

And Commerce? That seems irrelevant. Who cares about money, you'll get 2-3 goody huts and you need to research only 4-5 techs the entire game. Money is pointless after that. All you need is a capital city that spits out a Jag every 1 or 2 turns. Like a fire-hose of Jags, all you have to do is guide them in the right direction, hoping that you send enough Jags to each opponent.

without commerce IW takes like 12 turns. personally i think its a small sacrifice to have your worker mine gold or gems in order to be able to start pumping out jags a few turns later. i guess having roads make this less significant so maybe youre right.

on another note, nice work getting cultural victory. ive never actually seen the AI win that way, or even come close, so i wasnt expecting anyone to pull that one off.

 

[Crayfish]

I just upped my own record by 100 years (2 turns). I just wiped the pacifist-threesome off the map at 1150 BC.

I'm beginning to believe 1650 BC as possible, which originally I thought was not likely to be true. If I had the same map as this one, and actually capped 2-3 settlers, it may actually be feasible.

This time I did little mining, I started off with tons of forests. I actually managed to grab one copper, and with city size 4, I was churning Jags out one every 2 turns.

 

[Crayfish]

without commerce IW takes like 12 turns. personally i think its a small sacrifice to have your worker mine gold or gems in order to be able to start pumping out jags a few turns later. i guess having roads make this less significant so maybe youre right.

I see your point now. In that extra time, I build workers.. as many as I can. Usually it ends up being: worker, barracks, worker, worker (and maybe worker), jag, jag, jag, jag,....

The heck with building warriors, who cares about defending your capital. That's wasted time you could be building workers with.

I snag Wheel right after IW, its not clear to me doing anything but Mining, BW, IW makes sense. You couldn't do Mining, BW, Wheel, IW cause you wouldn't have the workforce to take advantage of early roads.

I think the 1650 BC victory is just about sending the optimal # of Jags, and capping settlers. To build a Jag once every 2 turns is pretty easy on any tropical map.