BOTM Gauntlet #11

[Lexad]

Disclaimer: the gauntlet is NOT a parallel competition, but an unofficial challenge within the GOTM. The reasons for starting it are (1) increasing competition for those who want it, and (2) making it easier to compare different games and learn.

The rules are simple:
1. Take BOTM-11 CHALLENGER save
2. Play the game according to GOTM rules, and submit it as usual.
3. There will be a chosen VC each time, announced before the game starts. The winner of the gauntlet will be the one who gets the fastest victory of that type.
4. It would be great if everyone could post their spoilers and/or saves at say 1000BC, 1AD and 1000AD after the game is over, so that we can compare different games in more detail. I will not make this rule compulsory for the first game, but we'll see later.

The chosen VC for this game, to utilize Russian UU and UB, is Culture (I wanted to go for Space Colony, but that was in BOTM9, and any military vic on Warlord is like hunting in the chicken pen).

Good luck!

 

[Lexad]

Note: Byzantian UB, which replaces Theatre, does not allow hiring artists.

 

[Ronnie1]

I am not worthy...but I did try!

 

[Ronnie1]

I think my submission will be rejected because I did not have the proper permissions set on a Vista machine and blew right past the warning, .

I played by the rules, and will pass on my results when the time comes.

 

[AlanH]

Moderator Action: The rules about not posting outside the Spoiler threads while the game is in progress apply here just as they do elsewhere.

 

[Skurn]

I guess we can use that thread now and I would like how you did manage the first turns.
Lacking the initial warrior and techs, I made choices that lead me to miss the horses to the east which in the end was I think very detrimental to my game

Here was my initial thinking (copied from the first spoiler thread)

Spoiler :

I settled on the coast south of pigs on T2.
Starting without techs, I figured that the best tile to improve early would be the fish, and I needed a warrior asap to start exploring.
So I researched fishing while building a warrior. When done (T5), I researched mining (T11) and BW (T22) while building a workboat and growing to size 2, then a settler (whipped).
Boudicca found me, and later Louis. I settled my 2nd city on the plain hill 2N of corn to block my land and have a nice production city (T29). I wasn't aware of horse location at that time, and had not explored enough east to see the copper.
I noticed the copper between the celts and the French shortly after. But since the first founded Buddhism, and the second Hinduism, I didn't think it would be that good to settle a third city over there, the cultural pressure might just be too much. Anyway, a war between the 2 was certainly due to happen soon, I thought.
I researched Agri and AH while building a worker in each city. Horses popped between the celts and the french too, not worth getting it now since I didn't seek the elimination of my neighbours! My plan was then to wait for the religions to spread to me, and hopefully that the 2 AIs go at each other (rather likely considering who they are). Louis founded judaism and converted to it, which changed nothing to the situation.

How did you start, and why?

 

[Lexad]

So, the results: only 2 (edit - 4) participants, and smoked by Gosha's contender by a long shot.

Lexad 1450AD
Grey Cardinal 1520
Ronnie1 (ex-list) 1810
Skurn 1812AD

As for my playstyle, I was recently playing a lot on deity with Inca, so just went for warrior rush. Took Bibracte 3 vs 1, Paris 5 vas 2. Bibracte had Buddhism, Paris - Hindu. So this was the much needed starting boost for my development.

Comparing my game to Gosha's, I've underinvested in research and founded cities 8 and 9 too late - nuff said ninth city with 4 food resources (fish, 2 bananas, sugar) hasn't managed to give a single GPerson, and finished temples overly late. I also lost marble city to a stray barb warrior. Missed Shenge by 1 turn. And the bigggest problem was the low happiness - should've went for Monarchy very early.

 

[jesusin]

Congrats, Lexad.

 

[Lexad]

Thanx! Maybe you can give some details on your improvemet attempt of Gosha's play here, to give us a master class?

 

[Ronnie1]

For the record....I won a cultural victory in 1810....As I said above, the entry was disallowed because I missed a warning and played it on a machine with the wrong permissions. The final save is attached. Very close to Skurn...not so much to Lexad.

 

[jesusin]

Thanx! Maybe you can give some details on your improvemet attempt of Gosha's play here, to give us a master class?

Sure. I'll report back whether I improve the result or not. It just won't happen this week, sorry, too busy

I still it would be better if it was himself who tried to improve, with the general idea of "sooner pacif, more GA" in mind.

 

[Lexad]

jesusin, from my non-Quick experience, the difference between bombing with 16 GA and 13 GA is like 3-4 turns on Normal. These turns can be cut in a better way than Pacifism - like OR for slaving temples and cathedrals. Therefore I would not necessarily expect fast Pacifism to be the key to fastest victory.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, from my non-Quick experience, the difference between bombing with 16 GA and 13 GA is like 3-4 turns on Normal.

I estimate every GA as a bit more than 2 turns in Quick, so 3 additional GA would be at least 9-10 turns in Normal speed.

We shall see.

 

[Skurn]

Congrats Lexad ! I didn't put up much of a fight though

As for my playstyle, I was recently playing a lot on deity with Inca, so just went for warrior rush. Took Bibracte 3 vs 1, Paris 5 vas 2. Bibracte had Buddhism, Paris - Hindu. So this was the much needed starting boost for my development.

Did you decide warrior rush right from the start? You could have been isolated, or very far from any IA. Even at that level of difficulty, if you have to take a hill capital from an aggressive civ, 3 or 4 warriors might not be enough to kill a lone defending warrior. Moreover, if they founded a religion, they might get an additionnal level of culture before you have 3 warriors at their border.

I didn't open your save yet, but I guess that for your strat you settled on a PH?

 

[Lexad]

@jesusin
I'm anxious to see your improvement of gosha's play, was just giving my impressions. I'll try to not forget to attach some calc from my later culture games - it has a column for total GA bombs requred for the 3 LCs, and it is from its dynamics I derive my conclusions.

@Skurn
Thanx! Yes, I was intending to warrior-rush. No, I wasn't settling on p-hill, I started the warrior first as I made a bet I wasn't isolated - and even if I were wrong, 1 warrior would not hurt much. But I found Boudicca and Louis fast with my warrior, so turned hammers on max and took 1-warrior defended Bibracte. I saw the tile from a hill to ascertain it wasn't hill, and I was monitoring my enemies' power (and thus, number of warriors) from power graph in Statictics. As they didn't have Slavery this early, thus could not whip out extra defenders. So no blind risks taken here.

 

[Skurn]

I started with a warrior too (while researching fishing) but I sent him west, so I didn't know about the celts and the french early on.
Maybe I would have changed my plan if I had known.. Bibracte had very nice land to cottage

 

[Lexad]

Yes. Much in this tourny depended on early luck. I know Dynamic lost 3 warriors on 1 in Bibracte to no effect and resigned in disgust.

 

[Lexad]

Ok, here is the simple tool I use for culture calcs. The key column is L, where the total GA required to win by culturebombing are. You can see that with high cpt level, as is in the example (I believe it's data from BOTM11, except that I edited cp, as the last numbers were 5 turns before the win, and thus unillustrative), the density of GA required is rather high. Namely, getting a 13th GA will save you nothing, as 2 cities pass the limit simultaneously. Getting 2GA over the 12 you have saves you 3 turns, 3 GA - 4 turns, 4 GA - 5 turns, and only getting mind-boggling 17GA will allow you to carve 9 turns off you result comparing to 12GA scenario.
I understand that one example proves nothing, but that's the real setup. The effect of GA is not uniformly distributed, because cities pass each GA-step with their own culture at different speeds, and these passes-over tend to cluster. As I've seen you mostly playing Quick speeds for culture, with lower culture requirement and thus weak specialist-based third city without cathedrals, which is bombed by GAs from almost zero - so you have e.g.0-5-9 bomb distribution - you might have to realize here the picture is different. In the situation of strong lead city requiring no bombs and weak third city recovered by bombs, each GA indeed allows to save more. But you will hardly see such situations on slower speeds. Therefore I believe that Gosha played strategically correct, prioritizing strong research, happiness (unlike me) and production+commerce over 1-2 extra GAs.

 

[jesusin]

If my excel was so easy to understand I 'd already have published it.

I thought Russians in general and Spanish in general were very much like each other. It is interesting to see how two minds look at the same easy problem in so different a way.



Enough blah-blah.

There is a time were a single additional GA is worth a lot. That's when the third city is lagging. My Quick cultural games tend to finish with 1-5-9 bombs. So the last 2-4 GA are beyond that point. All 3 cities are finishing more or less at the same time. That's when an additional GA tends to save 2-3turns.

Attached is an example of my last Epic speed cultural game (maybe our Cultural Gauntlet?). If you feel more confortable with your stile of thinking just introduce the initial data of my 3 cities in your excel. The last 3 rows represent the number of GA I'm bombing (0-16-18) and the turns remaining till each city goes Legendary. I set an expected pesimistic finish date, calculate how many GA I can get at that time (only 18), then use the attached excel to see how long it'll take to win. The date I get is earlier to my pesimistic one, so I realize I won't have the time to get 18GA, only 15. Then I use this input to get a new expected victory date, using 16GA. This time everything matches, I can pop 16GA at the expected date.

The result of this example at this point in the game (1AD?) shows that the 17th GA reduces the remaining turns to victory from 85 to 72. The 18th saves just 1 turn, from 72 to 71. So 2 GA save 14 turns at Epic (9 at Normal, 6 at Quick). Ergo 3turns per GA at Quick!

 

[Lexad]

(0-16-18) - it must be a typo... it must be a typo...

Jesusin, if you include 18th GA, which saves you 1 turn, the average effect for three is (85-71)/3 = 14/3, or 2 turns per GA on Quick. So this is still an outlier - it is good if your final GA turned out to be 17th, but you're totally screwed if it was 18th. And as I said, low base culture inflates the turn-effect of GA, so no wonders here - my example had 2nd city twice as culture-generating and 3rd - 4 times more.