Civ V Beta 1

[killercane]

No one has mentioned the Patronage path. That, and the 100% in cities with a world wonder are key policies. Then you can save them up for Redentor. I made a mistake and did some commerce path and something else in my first culture game before Redentor. Wouldve made a big difference!

 

[Ozbenno]

Where do I send my save? I never played the Civ4 HOF, so I'm unsure where to send it. Also, I wasn't sure if you wanted me to save 1 turn before I win, or right after, so I saved both.

Attach it to a post here in this thread, care to expand on how you achieved your date

 

[Neuro]

If this is the 'official' stance of the people running the gauntlet, that this is a viable strat and will allow you to win the gauntlet, then I'm going to protest and respectfully not play in it at all. It's too bad, as I was hoping to really get into the fun competitive side of this site and forums finally with Civ 5, but not if exploits of bad game designing are going to be promoted as the way to do it.

Saving up your culture points is a tactical gambit. On the one hand, you'll get your policies cheaper in the end; but the drawback is that you have to play a large portion of the game without those self-same policies.

The exploit method people are referring to is building 8-9 cities, and then selling them off right before you buy your socials so the price goes down. However, this tactic is very obvious in the same-game if you look at Deal History.

 

[hecubus]

Neither as clean nor as quick as it could have been, but it was actually an earlier finish than my Bollywood win, which was on Warlord. Two cities (I kept pondering a third but never went for it), neither coastal so I never even saw the other continent. Catherine and Suleiman showed up late-game and Cathy traded me coal so I could build a factory.

I did actually save up my culture points (and free Oracle policy) and used Great Library + early Great Scientist from GL/Oracle to slingshot to Acoustics, opening up the Freedom branch where I did my first spending. Bought a lot of completely useless SPs later on to fill out trees, I ended up going into the commerce branch for emergency gold boost to stop some bleeding.

 

[Ozbenno]

The exploit method people are referring to is building 8-9 cities, and then selling them off right before you buy your socials so the price goes down. However, this tactic is very obvious in the same-game if you look at Deal History.

Here is one that we can check for (thanks for the heads up) and does seem a bit too cheesy, I'd say we ban this one for the game. I'll change the front post to indicate what is acceptable or not. All comments on this are welcome.

You're right, going with small numbers of cities and saving your policies is an inherent risk and (at this stage) is OK for this gauntlet. I remember in Civ IV culture games, I would have every city defended by only one warrior because I could then spend my hammers/cash on other culture buildings. Massive risk but gets you a better time if it works.

 

[Neuro]

Ok, here's my start and finish. A lot of restarts before I found a spot that wasn't 90% desert (darn bias start!). Also it helped that the only other civ on my continent was Ghandi, so for the early part of the game we just played nice and sang songs... until the Horsemen arrived.

 

[Denniz]

The threshold for something being an exploit rather than a stragey is when it relies on a design flaw that provides such a significant advantage that everyone would have to use it to be competative. A design flaw in the sense of how the designers meant the game to be played.

I realize that that is a subjective measure. Many can and will argue where to draw the line. I believe that ultimately it doesn't matter if everyone agrees with what we call an exploit for HOF purposes. (Probably not possible, anyway. ) What matters that we all agree to follow the same rules when playing games for HOF competitions. How else can we truly compare our games?

In this case, Ozbenno has asked that people don't use the policy cost "strategy" outlined earlier in the thread.

• saving up your culture points til late in the game
• selling off some or all of your cities
• then allocating your culture points at a reduced cost to win a earlier victory

 

[punctuator]

Oh no!

I'm about 170 turns into my game, and I just noticed people are posting two saves: a start save, and a victory save. I do see that's in the linked HoF rules page, but on a different tab (registration and submissions) that I didn't see. Didn't make an initial save. Oops.

I am also finding, btw, that I keep going back and forth on whether to found that third city. It seems like at this point I'm committed to two.

I was probably hindered at any rate because on my small continent there is just one other civ and 3 city-states, and none of them is cultural.

 

[StoneColdNuts]

Trying this out currently. Settled on the coast, trading post'd everything green, I have 2+ Maritime CSs and a Cultural too. Beelined Calendar, landed Stonehenge, got some worker techs, then beelined Philosophy, and landed the Oracle. Did not take any SPs. Settled a second and third coastal city (looking to get +3 production here).

I teched out to Education, and lined up a GS the same turn. I bulbed Acoustics to get me into the Renaissance Era, which would increase all my City-State yields and open up Free Religion. I took those three policies, and started down the Patronage tree, and took the first on the Commerce tree to feed the CS, and work towards the +3 Production.

About to settle my fourth city, that'll probably do, unless I take out a Militaristic civ (also on the coast) to please a maritime. I'll keep that a puppet. This is turn 116, 25 AD.

Not sure how this compares to others, but I think I'm doing OK.

 

[JWideman]

I've quickly discovered that this continent isn't big enough. I've got Oda, Alex, and Monty on here. This might work in my favor anyway, as Monty has already asked me to join him in a war against Alex, who just happens to have placed Sparta where I was planning to put my 3rd city. Oda will only agree to a secret pact against Alex, but we shall see.
Thanks to an unlucky barbarian and his worker slave, I was able to ally with a cultural CS cheaply. After Calendar, and a detour to Masonry, I continue into the classical age with Philosophy. Built a library for some science push (I'm not putting specialists in it, however) and the oracle (only 9 turns!) for the free SP. I'm now only 9 turns away from free religion, and I'll be spending those 2 free SPs as soon as I get them, as I'm breaking into the medieval era in 4 turns via theology.
I enter the medieval era, but I'm not stopping there. I'm beelining accoustics, which has THREE must-build wonders for culture. It will also put me into the renaissance era, which has the VERY important freedom SP tree. I'm taking a chance, as I'm skipping my military techs until after.
I managed to sucker Alex into buying my extra marble for 300 gold, and I turned around and entered a research agreement with Oda. This is either going to go very very well, or horribly.
It appears that I'm the sucker. Monty appears absent in this battle, and he exchanged a research agreement with me that reduced my funds to nothing. I could have rejected it, but it is always better in the long run to accept.
I goofed selecting my SP and instead of free religion I grabbed patronage. Although, with the war going the way it is, I don't think this is going to matter.
At first Alex thought he was winning, and taunted me with a peace offer that would ruin me. But he underestimated the power of warrior spam, and soon Sparta was a smoking ruin. Now he offered a similar deal for peace, only in my favor this time. I got what I came for, accepted the deal, and built Damascus.

 

[DJMGator13]

Oh no!

I'm about 170 turns into my game, and I just noticed people are posting two saves: a start save, and a victory save. I do see that's in the linked HoF rules page, but on a different tab (registration and submissions) that I didn't see. Didn't make an initial save. Oops.

I am also finding, btw, that I keep going back and forth on whether to found that third city. It seems like at this point I'm committed to two.

I was probably hindered at any rate because on my small continent there is just one other civ and 3 city-states, and none of them is cultural.

Check your Autosave folder, mine has a file titled something like "Autosave_Initial...BC 4000".

 

[punctuator]

Check your Autosave folder, mine has a file titled something like "Autosave_Initial...BC 4000".

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll just start a new game. I have some better ideas anyway, and could use a reachable cultural city state.

 

[Methos]

A lot of restarts before I found a spot that wasn't 90% desert (darn bias start!).

I've been checking the "Don't Use Biased Starts", or whatever its called. So far it doesn't seem to help that much, as I still end up in desert, or desert-like lands.

Since Civ V doesn't have a regen option, I typically play out each save for around ten to 15 turns to see what the map is like. My current map I was about to regen when I popped a hut for culture. That's a first for me, so I decided to play the map out. Well, it sucks! City spots are so horrible IMO that I only have two cities and I don't plan on building a third. Oddly this amp has a ton of the same resources and my two cities already have double or more of each resource.

I'm doing okay on the game, but I'm not happy with it. I'll play it out just to see what kind of date I can get, as well as learn from any mistakes.

 

[Neuro]

Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to try again and see if I can get it lower than 321. The start was similar to my previous game; me starting on a continent with one other civ, Japan instead of Ghandi this time. As soon as my scout hit a Ruins upgrade to archer, I sent him and the warrior over to Kyoto and knocked that sucker down. Picked up Stonehenge, Great Library into Civil Service, and the Oracle. The only downside is that I'm so busy pushing the culture that I have almost no military, and the barbs are a constant issue.

Currently on turn 132, everything is on pace, though I can't seem to find any other civs. Barb galleys are everywhere, and I am once again landlocked. Have to wait till I get Astronomy I guess.

 

[bhavv]

In this case, Ozbenno has asked that people don't use the policy cost "strategy" outlined earlier in the thread.

• saving up your culture points til late in the game
• selling off some or all of your cities
• then allocating your culture points at a reduced cost to win a earlier victory

Its ok to save policies for after the Cristo Redentor without selling any cities right?

Otherwise they do get far to expensive to manage a culture win. Selling cities is the exploit, but saving policies is a game mechanic as the game tells you that you can right click to dismiss the policy message without spending any culture.

I've tried 3 or 4 culture attempts so far, and they have been completely impossible without saving polices to use after Cristo Redentor.

 

[shenryyr]

doing it with standard game mechanics w/out any tricks or fancy tactics makes cultural victory a real pain. tried to play nice but eventually just took over the continent and spun the planet for the next two hundred turns waiting to win at 2049. i think i had too many annexes and not enough puppets- 50/50 just isn't a great ratio, the social policy counter went far too high to finish in a timely manner.

 

[Methos]

Its ok to save policies for after the Cristo Redentor without selling any cities right?

Otherwise they do get far to expensive to manage a culture win. Selling cities is the exploit, but saving policies is a game mechanic as the game tells you that you can right click to dismiss the policy message without spending any culture.

I've tried 3 or 4 culture attempts so far, and they have been completely impossible without saving polices to use after Cristo Redentor.

Saving up policies is fine, so long as you're not selling off cities. I tend to agree that saving culture up for mass policy buying later is a valid strategy and one I, myself use.

 

[Ozbenno]

Yes, saving up policies until after Cristo Redentor is an acceptable tactic for this game.

 

[sanabas]

Cold, wet worlds tend to be short on deserts, too. Though you can still get given one.

Started a fun one, then had crash to desktop. Going to play it again anyway, try and be as similar as possible. Got the desert/floodplain start, but moving my warrior revealed some marble, so moved my settler too. Have an ivory/marble/banana start, with silks? two tiles away. Sharing a continent with the songhai, frogs & Iroquois. Only 3 city-states, 2 culture, 1 food. Barbs eat my scouts.

Also, for the OP, might be helpful to say 7 opponents, 8 total civs. Saves confusion, especially as there'll hopefully be lots and lots of people new to the HoF.

 

[bhavv]

Popping Great Scientists for Acoustics is really slow without babylon

I'm trying as Darius atm to try out the super long golden ages, and will try an Arabia game for this later on, but I will be far less likely to suceed with them if I cant even win with Babylon or Persia.