Civ V - Beta 3

[t0b4cc0r04d]

I just finished my first attempt on turn 148 (1580AD). I wish I could say I took better notes, but I wasn't expecting much with my first game. Since ICS seems to be the answer for every victory except Cultural, I gave it a shot with Caesar and his expansion-friendly UA (+25% production to buildings already in my capital).

Techwise, my plan was to get HBR asap for early dominant conquest and then pick-and-choose techs based on minimizing beaker overflow. I'll admit I had a huge advantage in popping 8 or 9 goodie huts, 2 of which were population boosts as well as discovering mining AND pottery. This early tech boost allowed me to build the Pyramids, GL, and Oracle... and oddly enough no one ever tried to build Stonehenge so I pumped it out in 2 turns somewhere around the midpoint of this game.

I traded resources for gold early and often and allied with 2 maritime CSs as soon as I found them. I took my '4-horsemen of doom' in a counter-clockwise direction around the sea puppetting every city I captured and making peace when the AI was down to his last city. In retrospect, I probably should have eliminated these AIs because it really wasn't worthwhile trading with them after they'd been conquered and they ended up being more of a nuisance when EVERYONE declared on me for the last ~20 turns or so.

Regarding the conquest, I was really surprised that the first 3 Civs I conquered only had spears/archers. It wasn't until I reached Askia that I faced a pikeman and I think I had knights by this point. My circular conquest was cut short when everyone went to war with me for my 'constant warmongering' so at this point I just sat back and defended my cities while founding new ones in the available spaces. I also saved up every GS so I could bulb Globalization once I learned Electricity.

SP-wise, I took Liberty up to Meritocracy, then waited for Freedom, followed by Rationalism up to Free Thought.

 

[killercane]

I just finished my first attempt on turn 148 (1580AD). I wish I could say I took better notes, but I wasn't expecting much with my first game. Since ICS seems to be the answer for every victory except Cultural, I gave it a shot with Caesar and his expansion-friendly UA (+25% production to buildings already in my capital).

Techwise, my plan was to get HBR asap for early dominant conquest and then pick-and-choose techs based on minimizing beaker overflow. I'll admit I had a huge advantage in popping 8 or 9 goodie huts, 2 of which were population boosts as well as discovering mining AND pottery. This early tech boost allowed me to build the Pyramids, GL, and Oracle... and oddly enough no one ever tried to build Stonehenge so I pumped it out in 2 turns somewhere around the midpoint of this game.

I traded resources for gold early and often and allied with 2 maritime CSs as soon as I found them. I took my '4-horsemen of doom' in a counter-clockwise direction around the sea puppetting every city I captured and making peace when the AI was down to his last city. In retrospect, I probably should have eliminated these AIs because it really wasn't worthwhile trading with them after they'd been conquered and they ended up being more of a nuisance when EVERYONE declared on me for the last ~20 turns or so.

Regarding the conquest, I was really surprised that the first 3 Civs I conquered only had spears/archers. It wasn't until I reached Askia that I faced a pikeman and I think I had knights by this point. My circular conquest was cut short when everyone went to war with me for my 'constant warmongering' so at this point I just sat back and defended my cities while founding new ones in the available spaces. I also saved up every GS so I could bulb Globalization once I learned Electricity.

SP-wise, I took Liberty up to Meritocracy, then waited for Freedom, followed by Rationalism up to Free Thought.

I havent completed a UN game yet. What was your tech speed at turns 75, 100, and 125? I am at turn 124 with way too many scientists and forgot about the 2 free techs via policy. I also forgot about beaker overflow and am wasting 150 beakers/turn on simple techs. I think I might play another to try to get an engineer first or at the same time as the first scientist if that still works.

 

[t0b4cc0r04d]

What was your tech speed at turns 75, 100, and 125? I am at turn 124 with way too many scientists and forgot about the 2 free techs via policy.

I played my game in two sessions so the only save I have was from turn 85. I was only pushing 109 beakers at this point, but that's because I was often stuck in 'unhappiness' from the early puppets. However, I'm 3-turns from finishing Banking when I can make the FP. Once I finished that wonder my empire grew exponentially. At turn 125... I may have been around 600-700 bpt and then around 900 bpt very near the end.

Coincidentally, my last SP came in right after I GS'd to globalization. If I had planned it better, I could have rush-bought some cultural buildings and bulbed that much sooner.

 

[Kamino]

Could probably be far better.

Strategy :
- no ICS
- 4 cities + 1 AI capitale + a few puppets
- 4 maritime CS allied very soon + Siam bonus => awesome food => fast growth => fast tech
- focus on production to pump out tech buildings => a lot of GS => faster tech
- Stonehenge, GLib, Oracle

About the game :
- maritime CS are ridiculously powerful : no need to farm, granary, etc.
- very easy game on my first map : no challenge at all at emperor level
- no tech/production/food overflow : stupid micromanagement
- 5000g to bribe all CS for a diplo win : are you kidding ?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I played my game in two sessions so the only save I have was from turn 85.

The Game defaults of just four autosaves and 10 turns between autosaves is clearly inadequate for serious HOF play and should be for these Beta Gauntlets as well.

Be sure to set your autosave to every turn (1). Also, set max autosave to near the maximum permitted (I use 9999). Instructions:

1) Start Civ V
2) Select Options Menu Entry
3) Select the Interface Options Tab
4) Set "Turns Between Autosaves:" to 1.
5) Set "Max Autosaves Kept:" to 9999.
6) Click the big "Accept" Button in the lower right corner.

With these options changes all your turns will be saved. Even if you start a new game, the old game's autosaves appear in the prev folder within the auto folder.

You can also just move the auto folder to some other folder on your drive and the complete history of your game will remain available until you manually delete it. Hopefully the Game will automatically recreate the auto and prev folder structure, but its easy enough to do manually if necessary.

There is no excuse for having just the session ending saves.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[sanabas]

I'm curious, did the other two that have finished games handpick the opposition? Both built at least 3 early wonders, I've had a few games I haven't bothered to finish, and I'm regularly seeing the great library built in the first 30 turns, oracle not too much later.

 

[Kamino]

I'm curious, did the other two that have finished games handpick the opposition? Both built at least 3 early wonders, I've had a few games I haven't bothered to finish, and I'm regularly seeing the great library built in the first 30 turns, oracle not too much later.

I didn't. But It looks like I was lucky to avoid Ramesses. In all my CiV games, AI has rushed Colossus, Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens, 3 wonders I never build.

 

[BLubmuz]

Interesting gauntlet, pity for the speed.
China, Greece or Siam can be the way to go.

Patronage and commerce as policies.

 

[boehj]

I'll be in on this one. It's something new for me as I've never played Inland Sea or Quick Speed. Or a gauntlet game for that matter.

I'm thinking Siam, Persia or Greece should do the trick.

 

[Kamino]

Same strategy. More optimization.
Could have spare 2 or 3 turns to build UN (9 turns, no aluminium).
Maybe earlier warmongering would be nice (I was far from 2nd GG that could gave me a golden age for UN)

Siam roxx !
Unique power is great here for extra food and extra culture.
And Vat provides a nice cultural bonus too. Elephant is useless.
Turn 89 : 4 cities with 8 SP (4 patronage, 3 rationalism, 1 freedom)

The start will be critical to win this gauntlet. Lucky huts could make the difference. I got 8 with an average output (1 population, 1 tech, 2 gold, 1 map, 1 barbs, 2 upgrades)

And a question : is there enough time to use ICS ?

 

[Kamino]

IPatronage and commerce as policies.

Commerce ???

 

[Kamino]

A gambit could make a huge difference : get a GE from CS to build UN in 1 turn. Need to be very lucky.

I bet somebody could beat 120 turns.

 

[avl8]

i bet the top-dog strategy for this will be ridicilous ics again. Inland sea means lotsa space to settle and all research partners available soon.

My question is : is it worth to go warmongering after successful warrior rush?

 

[Neuro]

Actually, Quick Speed makes ICS less valuable. Moving the settlers into place eats up valuable turns.

 

[boehj]

OK so I played my first Gauntlet game and it was quite enjoyable. I'll be doing these games again in the future for sure!

I played as Siam. I think they're ideally suited to this scenario because of their very powerful UA; the elephants are more than handy too. The UB is good, but it got me into some strife. More on this below.

I finished on turn 194 (1845 AD). The first UN vote was actually turn 184 but I think I only got 5-7 votes then. The world had descended into chaos and there weren't enough CS's to vote for me! Anyway I sorted it all out 10 turns later. A bit of a shame, but oh well...

Some observations:

• I didn't steal any workers but I should have.
• Quick Speed throws everything out of whack but it was good to experience it.
• Having the Mongols as one of your opponents is horrible. Genghis tends to eat your voters. To really optimize your game you might want to make it so he's not in the picture.
• I played a peaceful game. I wardec'd once to grab one tasty city. I was offered a quick peace treaty and I burnt two cities down. This isn't my usual style, and I wouldn't recommend it. I'm sure that doing a loop and taking out your foes one by one is a far better way of doing things. Basically I was far too timid.
• There's not much room to move! This was my first Inland Sea game and I didn't know the board doesn't wrap, etc. Makes for an interesting game tho' because very quickly everyone is in each others' faces.
• The UB (Uni replacement) grabs you some culture which is fine, but you don't really need it if you have a lot of Cultural CS's on side. I made the massive, massive mistake of building it before the Library. I have no idea why I did this but it lost me loads of GPP's/beakers.
• I did a 'moderate' ICS at about turn 90 or so. If I play it again I'll definitely be spamming those settlers earlier and aiming for ~15 cities. I think I had 10 of my own built cities and one puppet. I sold two to China a couple of turns before the final vote and I disbanded most of my military too. This explains the odd look of things at the end.
• SP-wise: Patronage is important - Philanthropy, Scholasticism and very late, Aesthetics. I took the left side of Rationalism for the two free techs. I unlocked Freedom. I unlocked Order and a turn or so before the vote I stuck it up them with United Front.
• There ain't many hammers to be had it seems, so timing GA's is important when building wonders. I got GLib, Oracle, Colossus (stolen), Porcelain Tower, Hagia Sofia, and the Taj (important). I also built Brandenburg Gate to burn the GG but it wasn't needed.

I reckon Emperor is where I need to be. I couldn't have done this on Immortal (or at least, it would have been much slower). I may play this again as China, although my money's on Greece taking the honours with this Gauntlet.

Good fun!

 

[boehj]

BTW, turn 130 is insanely good Kamino. Well done. I'm interested to know how you managed to 'shave off' a healthy ~50% of my turns...

 

[elijahtary]

Turn 212, 1884 AD as Egypt.

It started out pretty decent, my strat was to go ICS after I'd conquered my nearest neighbor (good old Bismark), which went well. Then Augustus and Oda declared on me the same turn. I was able to raze some of Rome's cities, but I was back and forth with Oda all game. In the end, he took 5 CS's within about 10 turns of his last DOW, right as I was starting to build UN.

Went straight for Meritocracy for the +, and went all the + buildings I could. Filled out Patronage and got the +1 for Trading posts. I could probably shave off at least 40 turns from all the warmongering of my neighbors. ICS fell apart, obviously due to that.

I think I'll give this another shot as either Greece or Siam, both for their ridiculous +CS bonuses. This was the first CiV game where I was actually really into it, and wanted to press "Just... one... more... turn..."

 

[boehj]

I did another one, as Greece this time. It was slower (216 turns). Once again it took two votes at the UN because there weren't enough CS's left. I don't know how people are avoiding this and I'm very interested to find out.

Perhaps I'll give China a go, but to be honest, I think I'm punching above my weight here. It's a little too tricky for me.

 

[sanabas]

I did another one, as Greece this time. It was slower (216 turns). Once again it took two votes at the UN because there weren't enough CS's left. I don't know how people are avoiding this and I'm very interested to find out.

Perhaps I'll give China a go, but to be honest, I think I'm punching above my weight here. It's a little too tricky for me.

I made no effort to avoid it, the AI did conquer a few CS, but only 8 need to survive in order to reach the 10 required votes.

 

[Lemming]

finished on turn 184, 1795 AD

started as siam to try a small empire with a few large cities thanks to the CS-bonus from Siam's UA. On turn 25 i built the GL and rushed to Theology to reach medieval, after that i founded 3 core cities. i was lucky with my starting position as i was on the south side of the lake and only had 1 AI (persia) right next to me. After settling right next to my capital, darius was starting to become a nuisance, so i decided to horse-rush his 3 cities and DOWed on turn 78. although this took some time, it was completed on turn 109 with the help of some elephants.

in the meantime i was founding a fourth city in former persian land and concentrated on improving the cities' infrastructure for more happy and science (library/wat/colosseum/monument/...). with persia out of the way i was now pretty alone on my side of the lake and concentrated on growing my cities with the help of the maritime CS food. i was really surprised to have that much of space because usually the inlandSea maps tend to be pretty cramped, but maybe it was a combination of CS placement (they formed a nice ring around me) and the fact that one far away "neighbor" was egypt who played a rather peaceful game with only 3/4 cities and only built wonders and stuff (or at least he tried). also i didnt have a runaway AI, they pretty much developed into equal strength and were quite occupied with each other, maybe this also saved me from being noticed by alexander who was my other "neighbor" and had a hard time with genghis (actually i was really happy to see these two cramped together )

near the end (turn 167) mongolia and stupid egypt declared on me but it was too late and they were too far away to make any impact - in fact i never saw a single egyptian unit, lol with genghis this was another story as he sent a huge army through greek lands (and also embarked on the lake) to my border only to be welcomed by mech inf and one battleship so he never came close to be a threat. the only thing that made me angry was that he also went conquering one of my maritime CS allies and there was nothing i could do about it - i gifted a few units but it was over really quick, so the mongols' UA really seems to make a difference.so in the end after allying all but one of the remaining CS (btw. do you have to ally them or is friendly sufficient for a vote?), the first vote was successful with exactly the 10 votes i needed, hooray my first diplo victory

as for SP i went for patronage and rationalism, didnt have enough culture to go for more than these two.
wonders i built: GL, Oracle, FP, Statue of Liberty, Porcelain Tower, Angkor Wat, Hagia Sophia, the 2 science national wonders and of course UN. Hiawatha beat me to Chichen Itza by a few turns

one thing i noticed and found rather strange: my allied maritime CS were sometimes at war with one of the AIs and all it took me to end it, was calling the AI on the same turn and ask them to make peace with the CS - they agreed everytime without making any further demands. actually that was only working until right at the end when they were at permanent war with each other but during the game this helped me alot, because i dont think that i would have such an early (for me) win without the help of maritime food. so whats the point in these war declarations when they make peace if you just ask for it?

oh, and finally heres the replay for my game:
http://civ5.flexd.net/replay/4cd8d7c1b878bc4cac000001