Civ V Beta 1

[iggymnrr]

1660 AD

Finished my game using all 6 SPs in Patronage then 2 in Freedom. No Tradition until the end, not a lot of wonder building, no marble, just warred constantly at the start and ran a couple artist tiles since not many wonders. One of my cultural CSs ended in a permanent war with Monty and took out his whole army in about 50 turns. It was funny watching. Couldn't get my Ironworks up fast enough near the end. Only 3 golden ages from GGs until the end when the happiness one only cost 375. I probably should have burnt off a GM for another. No Taj, no time.

Curious how the Renn era can be gotten early with Mecca in flames from barbs. 5 puppets by turn 70. DoW'd every thing that moved early: 4 AI, a military CS and stole a worker from another CS (mistake, bridge too far.) And I still could trade with 3 AI despite war. Take it to them!

Early army: 1 spear, 2 warriors, 1 scout (bought.)

 

[Rudianos]

Well my second try was much better thab the first one. I finished 1760 AD(turn 262).

I decided to be aggressive and managed to capture some cities early but then I started to have serious unhappiness problems. It took so long to recover that I never get second golden age. With that golden age I would have finished a little bit earlier.

But I learned a lot from that challenge and I'm happy with my result.

 

[iggymnrr]

^
Good try. I never got the first happiness golden age.

 

[Nidhogg_Fr]

Finished in 1882, after 311 turns. My start location was close to perfect, marble, 2 gold, coastal, a number of hills, jungle and a river.

I tried the 1 city, lots of puppets strat, saving culture until christo redentor.

Unfortunately, there were 3 continents and I was on one of the landmasses with only one other civ, although there were 4 or 5 city states. So I could not make a lot of puppets until navigation which is the main reason I finished so late I think. My research was a bit low, as was my culture in the end. I was missing a dozen turns at the moment I got Christo. And I think I spent the last 80 turns in a perma-golden age

All in all a nice game. I think I'll make another try.

 

[Tiphereth]

It was:
Scout - warrior - worker - collosus - GL - Oracle - National College
And in between i bought library

From here on i cant remember if i made another building or began making horsemen.

Again, thanks for the answer. : )

I have another question about your build order (and build orders in general). After horsemen, did you build first science buildings like University or did you prefer the temple, maybe a garden ? Between science buildings and culture buildings, I can't made my choice. ^^ During my last game, I did not build culture buildings until late, and with the Ermitage, I discovered a large chain of buildings to build the Opera. Huge mistake. ^^

 

[kmtravis]

Woot! Here is my Culture Victory for the First Gauntlet.

 

[pagh80]

Again, thanks for the answer. : )

I have another question about your build order (and build orders in general). After horsemen, did you build first science buildings like University or did you prefer the temple, maybe a garden ? Between science buildings and culture buildings, I can't made my choice. ^^ During my last game, I did not build culture buildings until late, and with the Ermitage, I discovered a large chain of buildings to build the Opera. Huge mistake. ^^

Btw i did mean stonehenge and not collosus.
About what building to make first. Id say if you cant buy every building you need which would be optimal, i would make temple, and opera house. Museum require soo much to build, so try to find the gold to buy it instead. Garden i never build but always buy. Its a low priority building for me.
As for science building. Always buy a library as soon as you have to gold for it. For university, then i buy it when i feel i have the gold to spare for it. I never build it btw.

Ofc for this to be possible you need to have some puppet cities with trading posts and preferably connected to your capital with roads, if the distance isnt too big.

Btw i read in another post that to calculate if a road is economically feasable, you just need to do a simple calculation
city size * 1.25 - the road tiles needed.
Example: For a size 4 city this means it will bring 4*1.25 = 5 gold if connected to the capital.
That also means if its more than 5 tiles(6 with arabia) away wait to make the road.

 

[nowhere1]

@pagh80
Thank you for your posting . When did you ally yourself with city-states? After patronage tree opened, or as soon as encountering them?

 

[SLayMan]

Here is my Beta Gauntlet 1 game. Finish in turn 450, 2025 AD.

 

[DrakenKin]

Ok here is my third and probably final gauntlet try, 1600 / turn 230.

I could have broken the 1600 barrier, but I missed 3 culture to be able to build cristo one turn earlier.

Overall a good game, even if the start was dodgy... I moved away from the coast and the marble, wasted a couple of turns and settled in the middle of hills. In all my previous games I felt I lacked production so I wanted to make sure I had enough hills this time. At the very end I had around 150 wonder production in my capitol and was able to build Utopia in 12 turns. Too bad Utopia is not considered a wonder.

What I think I did right was dedicating 3 units to scouting all the CS very early (instead of my usual 2), very early conquest (first puppet by turn 16 and second by turn 32), library bought by turn 42 (I had no gold from barbs or ruins, I only bought a scout then saved every penny for the library), after that I kept conquering everything on my continent each time I had some spare happiness. I hit theology by turn 65 and acoustics by turn 67.

 

[krakedhalo]

Second submission, like everyone else I went much more aggressive the second time through. Managed to finish in 1808, turn 274 which put it 130 years earlier than my last try. Could've been at least a dozen turns faster had I not made the following mistakes:

I conquered the whole continent (4 other civs - America, China, Greece, Songhai) with a verrrry small army - originally 1 chariot archer and two horse, bought a 3rd horse later, upgraded them to camel archers towards the end of the campaign. I had the cash to buy more horsemen, shoulda done it. That way I'd have had more puppets sooner.

Research path wasn't right - I went for masonry before writing, and missed the GL. China picked up GL, Lighthouse, Pyramids & something else before I conquered them around turn 80-90.

I got a little unlucky on the map - decent start location, but I had to move 1 tile off the river to get the marble in early - that was a mistake, since when the hydro plant was unlocked I couldn't build it. I hadn't thought about that since I'd never made it that far up the tech tree. I was on a desert though, and got a solar plant a bit later. Biggest map problem was with cultural CS - only had 3, one of which got wiped out by Rome on their island just a few turns after I met them.

Finally, I realllly bungled the end, cost myself at least 10 turns with mistiming builds and not knowing things. I took a few SPs early (Tradition, +33% wonder, 1st two Patronage) then saved for Freedom and -25% cost. Then for the first time I saved up for Christo Redentor. I took the rest of the Patronage group except for Educated Elite, which I really should have taken. That would've been 100+ turns of free GP, and since I was allied with at least 10 CS, it would've more than made up for the little extra culture.

Anyway, got CR with about 15k culture saved, which left me 3-4 policies short. Teched up to SOH and I *thought* I had it timed perfect - finished Chitzen Itza, then Taj Mahal for a long GA to build Utopia. I had a Great Engineer all set for SOH, which got unlocked right as the Taj build ended and my 29th policy completed. Plan was to annex a puppet and use the Engineer for SOH on that turn. Only I didn't know that SOH has to be built on the coast. Nor that my engineer wouldn't be able to totally complete it in one go. Gah . Annexed a coastal city, marched him over, then it took 3-4 turns for SOH to complete before I could even get started on Utopia. Annoying, but I learned my lesson.

Anyhow, much improved from my first game. On to the science games!

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

Ok guys this is my first formal forum game, so I'm kind of excited to have participated. Anyway my win came at 1913, which isn't very great, but hey, a win is a win.

There was one hiccup for me, in that the game crashed in 1862 when I was checking my empire for aluminum in strategic mode. I clicked the resource filter drop down, and the whole program seized up. I hit escape to try to open the menu and then it just closed. In any event my autosave was from the beginning of the turn in which it crashed, so I just had to move a scout, and re-establish a trade with Bismark. I followed the crash exception policy as closely as I could, so I hope you'll count this game (although it's not a forum winner by any stretch).

So here are my saves.

 

[Ozbenno]

Have been off sick for a few days so haven't been following this, amazed to see 1600AD broken . I may even finish my game soon, to hopefully beat Denniz

 

[t0b4cc0r04d]

After seeing all these amazing scores, I set my goal to finish somewhere in the 1700s. I conquered two AIs early on, but soon realized those were the only ones on my continent. I considered conquering the other lands, but then decided to see how the game would progress if I focused only on these 3 cities (my main and the two puppet capitals).

To acquire the two puppets early on I used the 2xWarrior and Archer from an upgrade hut strat. I focused on farms early on to boost my science and later switched to TPs when I wanted more gold. I also HEAVILY traded my luxs even if it put me in an unhappy state. I took some notes, but not as many as I probably should have... got acoustics at turn 66, credentor at 247, and victory at 262 (1760AD).

Well, nothing really groundbreaking here especially after the most recent early 1600 scores (which are amazing). But I'm still proud of my mid 1700s finish with only two puppets.

 

[Tssha]

Well, despite an excellent start my run at this Beta Gauntlet has come to an end. Starting next to Marble, wheat and gems I quickly got my cultural base up and running, building cultural buildings whenever available (which is how I won my sole cultural victory). Got Aristocracy, Mandate of Heaven, Patronage and Constitution (in that order). Went up to three cities.

Though I'd intervened successfully against Napoleon to defend Geneva, Alexander took advantage of his weakness to gain three cities from him, including core city Orleans. Alexander then started a conquest march for the rest of the continent, taking Geneva and Bucharest before I finally was ready to declare war on him. I even managed to retake Bucharest and liberate it, gaining a massive attitude bonus and some culture.

I didn't get much more, because the Iroquois declared on me and forced me to recall my troops from Bucharest's narrow corridor. This was the beginning of the end as the Iroquois took my third city, then surrounded my second while Alexander retook Bucharest and then marched his huge army to surround Mecca (keeping his forces out of sight of the city and then surrounding it in one turn...terrible tactical AI my ass). I was completely overwhelmed.

It's a shame because despite not grabbing Stonehenge or The Oracle, I had managed to complete The Sistine Chapel. You know, Alexander asked me if I'd like to join him in a romp through the Iroquois Nation. I declined politely. Too bad Hiawatha never took me up on the offer to attack Alexander.

Maybe I'll try again. I don't think I'm prepared to handle Gauntlet 2...and I like Arabia.

 

[Juxtapoze]

Well, an improvement on my 1945, I guess. Still not playing as well as others here, but I guess experience will help with that. I took a lot of suggestions from pagh's post and the victory improved. Did a lot more trading with the other AIs that I wasn't puppeting which proved to be a great help. However, I totally forgot to grab a temple/museum/hermitage so I really messed up there.

All in all, I'm happy with 1872. On to the next Gauntlet.

 

[van Ukkel]

1961 AD


This is the first time I've ever played a HoF game.

I'm a long time Civ fan, ever since Civ 1.

It was a lot of fun, and even though I made a lot of mistakes, I'm happy to finish before the year 2000.

I started with marble and 2x cotton, river and 7x hills.

My map had 4 continents.

I shared my continent with the Germans and 2 City States (Maritime and Military).

I conquered Berlin as fast as I could, with only 2 warriors.

My continent also had a coast connection with the biggest continent, where the Persians, Greeks and Russians were.

The Persians asked for my help to take out Alexander, and I took my 2 longswordsmen (upgraded warriors) and a great general and conquered every Greek city (as puppets).

Right after that, as now I was touching borders with the Persians, they decided to attack me. I then bribed Catherine to declare war on the Persians, for a mere 120 gold. The Persians took all the greek cities, but afterwards got wiped by the Russians.

As I fled their continent with my 2 longsworsdmen, I met the Siamese in the next continent, fighting with the Babylonians. I wiped the Babylonians, but this time, I didn't wait a single turn and wiped the Siamese as well.

After that, I met the Aztecs, alone in the last continent, and bribed them to declare war on Catherine. And that held the Russians from running me over until I could finish the Utopia Project.

I built 17 wonders on my capital alone, with 6 more in Berlin. I decided to build a 3rd city to specialize in gold, as I was focusing on food and production only in my 2 other cities, and was running really low on cash.

By the end, I was producing 500 culture points per turn.


View attachment HoF-Gauntlet-Culture-Arabia-Start-4000BC.Civ5Save

View attachment HoF-Gauntlet-Culture-Arabia-Victory-1961AD.Civ5Save

 

[rgnet1]

Has been great reading all the experiences to get to a fast cultural victory. It's quite unsettling to discover, though, that the most efficient way to win culturally is to stomp your way through the civs making puppet states.

Did the designers intend this or is it an exploit of the new game mechanics they didn't foresee? It just seems thematically broken that this would be the fastest way to culture victory. After all, if you're militarily dominant enough to make all those puppet states, you would probably win quicker just going for Domination. The fastest way to one victory condition shouldn't ever be via intentionally ignoring another easier one on the way...

 

[Tiphereth]

Btw i did mean stonehenge and not collosus.

Yeah, I have understood the Colossus like Stonehenge, because it was weird otherwise. : D

Again, thanks for the help. Another (and maybe last question) about your strategy. ^^
When did you unlocked the policies? I tried to unlock the Patronage policies in the same time I tech the Acoustics and after that save all the SP until I built the Cristo Redentor, but the result was not too good (victory on turn 307).

And thanks for the tips about the roads! I was wondering how to build these damn roads. Now I know.

 

[markh]

This will the only submission for this gauntlet from me. Quite boring, but mainly due to the map. I had 5 city states near, but only one AI, Darius. I waited a long time for him to settle near me, but he just did not expand much, so I took his two cities. From then on it just was building and a tiny war with Alexander who was too far away to conquer early.