Civ V - Beta 4

How do you change this setting?
Go to you steam library. Right-click on the game name in the upper left list. Select Properties. Go to the updates tab. There is a dropdown for automatic updates.
 

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I would just try a new start if Horses are not within 3 Hexes of the Capital. I would proceed only with 4 Horses.
I think 3 is the optimum distance and is far superior to 2 due to settling difference. Two cells to make a road, maybe even a bit of free luxury border expansion. I don't think this is vital though. I do think that when someone beats me they'll have 6 horses.

Maybe just steal a Worker from a nearby Civ. I've seen them plenty early enough to build a Horse Pasture. Steal more Workers as needed.
I haven't - you will be able to buy a worker in late 20s. I've not seen CS having them before that. I'm unsure what they tend to build that early though.

I still say stealing a Worker would result in an earlier Win versus building or buying one.
I agree if you can find one in the 20s.

May have to increase the Difficulty level to get significant help from the Barbarians though. Even, Raging Barbarians on King level may be too wimpy to capture AI capitals. You may have better luck getting the AIs to capture each others Capitals.
I would say decrease difficulty. I have never seen barbs capture cities, let alone capitals.

I haven't either. Just haven't played enough Civ V to be familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of each AI Leader.
Unsure of the edge available here. I don't think much though. I saw one Immortal and maybe 4-5 2 tier units, all spearmen. I guess I should rescind my earlier suggestion and just say no warrior replacement civs. To go up a tier - no Aztecs/Zulus/Persians/Greeks?

Sun Tzu Wu
Have an urge to troll you for signing your name in each post when your name is in standard forum format.
 
Go to you steam library. Right-click on the game name in the upper left list. Select Properties. Go to the updates tab. There is a dropdown for automatic updates.

Change has been made. Thanks for the info.
 
How do you change this setting?

Look for a menu item called "Off-Line Mode". When Steam is in Off-Line Mode it assumes there is no Internet to connect to and doesn't update anything, but it does allow you to Play your Games.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I'm withdrawing my earlier best time - I replayed a couple of turns, didn't realise that wasn't allowed. I'll play again tonight & see if I can beat 58 without replaying. Started a game this morning where I had 8 nearby horses, a 3 food tile and spawned in one of the central spots, so that's a promising start.

Now I just need to find a +1 pop hut and +30 culture (I really like this for faster settler if you can get it in time - having the 2nd village down before turn 20 is key)
 
Yes, Barbarians seem harmless enough, unless you select Raging Barbarians. Would Raging Barbarians capture enemy AI Capitals for you or are they true pacifists? May have to increase the Difficulty level to get significant help from the Barbarians though. Even, Raging Barbarians on King level may be too wimpy to capture AI capitals. You may have better luck getting the AIs to capture each others Capitals.

I would say decrease difficulty. I have never seen barbs capture cities, let alone capitals.

Unless I am crazy barbarians don't capture cities anymore. They pillage your treasury for up to X gold depending on the game settings.

So No Barbarians would probably be the best choice for this victory condition if it were legal.
 
Ah, no idea. I hadn't even had a barbarian attack a village before until playing this challenge, they just aren't very aggressive compared to earlier civs.
 
Hi everyone,

I started in the lower middle of the map with plenty of horses (2x + 4x)
Build was scout worker settler horseman horseman horseman horseman horseman ...
The second city also had 4 horses.
Then I mainly build horsemen and conquered the world.
Civics I started with discipline for the +15% then I took the free general for a golden age. I did not build anything else than horsemen.
I Did not get anything great from Huts. Also I did not exploit the trade system. Mainly because I wanted to finish a fast as possible (from a real time perspective)

If I ever play this again I will send only 3 horsemen per city (maybe try 2) and start sending them to the cities in the corners first(mountains and forest). This will definitely speed up things.
I think I lost too many turns healing. Also for <80 turn results I think you really have to use the trade exploits and buy horsemen as soon as you got the tech.

Unlike others I really liked this kind of gauntlet. Because I would not have enough time to participate in a space race gauntlet. It is nice being able to finish the Gauntlet in about two hours.
Also your objective to gain new HOF players was achieved. In earlier civ releases I had so much fun playing civ I never bothered to get involved with GOTM or HOF.
Civ V, however, is so boring that I already abandoned it after one weekend.
But now I found out, if there is some kind of competition like this it actually can be fun. Mostly the competition against myself. I played this 4 times and had a lot of fun.
177turns (no horsemen only swords and cats)
133turns (no horses before conquering first city with chariots)
118turns (great start + good huts but waited too long to build an army)
90turns

Finaly remarks: Please start another mini-gauntlet like this soon.
 

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I've not tried selecting opponents. Greece and Persia are the obvious ones to avoid.

I had one game with both of them and it was a pain in the ...
Usually I conquer capitals with 3 horses. But when I arrived Persia, which was nicely located in the mountainous area, they had already 8 of their super units around + hill defensive bonus.

@56 turns
getting a knight is just incredible. Not sure how I could beat that time...although I do like the idea of having huts in the game this seems a bit overpowered. But at least you did not get a GDR from a hut.....:eek:
 
I'm pretty sure I can beat 56 turns - due to unit placement, the knight could only join in the attack on two capitals. The first one I already had another horse, a war chariot and a scout to take, so it didn't help.

The second one I could move the horse back in time to help attack a fresh capital. That horse took the final capital as my last move that turn, so I think knight just saved me one turn.

I think that if someone gets a 3 food cell, 6 horses in range of their first two cities, a central placement and a +1 pop hut, they'll be able to get low 50s. I'm messing around with the other challenge at the moment, but maybe will have another go now that I know I can't reload.

As for picking civs - my plan is to leave it on random and just hit Greece/Persia as soon as possible. You have to restart half a dozen times for each useful start, and re-selecting everything each time is a waste of my life.
 
was on a good way to a around turn 50 win after I had poped animal tech in t1 - then there is 1 HUGE mountan barrier between the nw and sw guy and I need like 15 turns to reach him. Also my land was REAL bad (no river only 1 res - no horse in cap)
Poping tech or having some very good gold income res. (river + lux) seems to be most important for superfast wins - as u need something to trade to ai - to abuse ...
and d avoid persia another time - have lost also like 2-3 turns when outmanoevering its uu.

there seems to be a pretty big difference in civs, some are just pure garbage like allways (Japan comes into my mind 1.- never ever expands), while others like India never build ANY units and most of them are even more Moderator Action: <snip> .

Ok they are all bad .....
 
I played without huts (10 games) and can't get consistently below an estimated 100 turns. Played up to turn 50 at least (finished half of the games) and the last couple of games I knew how to estimate well, 10th game saw me off by 2 turns. I did not use the war-money "bug" and all starts were center of map.

Played one game with huts, could finish it turn 83 or 84 if I wished (made mistakes so it could be quicker).

My conclusion goody huts are the lottery ticket to victory for this gauntlet. I'll see if I can use the money "bug" to get below 70 turns which would be as low as I need to go to post the saves without shaming myself :p

Anybody else feels like trying to compare?
 
In answer to tommynt on the civs:

I use Japan, China, India, Askia, England, Ottomans and Thai. Seems to work best agression wise.
 
turn 56. Started in the centre and had +1pop goody hut and +30 culture (went for +1food). That gave me first riders around turn 35. Since during my previous tries it allways took longest to actually locate the last civ I went for 3 scouts this time. Had three armies - only riders. Sometimes you can even finish a capital with a single rider. Mainly ignored other cities/barbarians as well.

I believe that earlier tech doesn't help that much. What helped was the additional money/turn from the gems I had when cheating the other civs for their hard-earned money :)

IMO we should have 2 winners from this - one for those (like me) who exploited the trading-weakness (sell money/turn for money and declare war in the same turn) and instand-heal (which I used as well) and those that didn't. I think I would have enjoyed the game more without both.

Last, but not least, I think I personally would much prever a game with more possible variances and a longer game... unsure if I would try one as short as this again.
 

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What was your score Azalnubizar? I also got a 56 & 3972 HOF (I had 3990 when I cheat-reloaded in my earlier score).

No tech huts, but also got +1 pop, +30 culture (went for settler build speed). Both Siam and America had 300+ gold to give me when I declared war, letting me buy my first 4 horsemen. I was able to connect another 4 in time to be useful too. Settled my 2nd village on marble instead and bought the worker. Finished connecting first horses same turn as HBR.

I'm not sure how much faster than this I can do without getting HBR/Wheel/AH/lots of pop in a hut. I think tech does help provided the AI has enough money for you to buy 2-3 horsemen and you settle on horses.

The problem is reaching the far away civs. My final turn I killed the furthest away civ with my initial 2 horsemen - they killed one player then moved to the corner. They had to spend a while healing while my other armies converged on the final player, but still. Hard to imagine being much faster.

My plan is to use initial warrior with the 3 war chariots you can make before HBR. That's one army. Second army is initial 2 horses. Third army is final 2 horses. If you can get a chariot to help them out, they can kill civs by themselves. The chariots can catch up later on.

I had a game earlier on where I had 2 horsemen outside the final village on turn 50, but they weren't enough and I couldn't get reinforcements there in time. In that game I popped a knight with my second move with the horseman. The knight can take villages by himself, which meant I now had four armies instead. So to improve on turn 56 by much you need one of the following:

1. Get a knight
2. Several pop huts
3. AH/HBR/Wheel in a hut

You also need to be central, you need to have at least 6 horses in radius of first 2 villages and you need either a 3 food cell or a 2/1/x cell. You also need to not lose your scouts to early barbs. It probably helps to pick pacifist early game civs too. Siam, America, India.... Anyone else? And best to avoid Persia & Greece.
 

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Turn 53, 3950 points.

Picked civs to include America, India & Siam & avoid Persia/Greece. I got a lot of pop huts. I also tried using 4 armies instead (one horseman in each), which worked pretty well. I arranged it so that I was attacking the first village with my spearman and two war chariots the same turn I finished HBR. Was fairly lucky with stealing workers & luxury timing so never had to fight at -10.

Had another game where I was attacking final city on turn 50, but didn't have enough to kill it & couldn't get more there in time. So I imagine 52 is possible without getting super super super hut lucky. If the AI had more gold - it sometimes does - I could've bought 4 horsemen from the start instead of 3. So perhaps that could've shaved a turn off too. Finally, I know where the civ spawn points are, but didn't know which had spawned where so couldn't take peace with one (and the gold/GPT that entails) knowing that I'd have time to re-declare. Dunno if that would've helped much.
 

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Turn 53, 3950 points.

Picked civs to include America, India & Siam & avoid Persia/Greece. I got a lot of pop huts. I also tried using 4 armies instead (one horseman in each), which worked pretty well. I arranged it so that I was attacking the first village with my spearman and two war chariots the same turn I finished HBR. Was fairly lucky with stealing workers & luxury timing so never had to fight at -10.

Had another game where I was attacking final city on turn 50, but didn't have enough to kill it & couldn't get more there in time. So I imagine 52 is possible without getting super super super hut lucky. If the AI had more gold - it sometimes does - I could've bought 4 horsemen from the start instead of 3. So perhaps that could've shaved a turn off too. Finally, I know where the civ spawn points are, but didn't know which had spawned where so couldn't take peace with one (and the gold/GPT that entails) knowing that I'd have time to re-declare. Dunno if that would've helped much.
I have to say, it is difficult to get T50 win w/o some sort of mapfinder tool. I think it makes the most since to go with a warrior rush to someone close on the plains, but this hurts your scouting tremendously. You should have someone vanquished by T25, and this army can heal and take another close AI. Horsemen for the rest.

The money required for T50 win is very unbalanced from map to map. Some maps you have excess gold and some not nearly enough. This is solved by scouting but most importantly hut luck. I have always liked huts but without MF tool it really kills any sort of enjoyment left for this debacle of a game since regenerating is an 8 step process or thereabouts.
 
I agree that hut luck is important.

I disagree with warrior rush because they can't get to the far away civs. T53 literally gives you 16-17 turns to kill everyone with your horses and it takes half of those to reach everyone. I think it's much better to go scout, settler, 2x scout if you can fit both in, 2x war chariot, spam chariots or horses depending on which resources you have. The initial war chariots & your warrior can take an undefended city.

The map also has fixed spawn points and very similar landmarks - mountains to the west & forest to the east. That covers 5 of the 8 spawns. The 6th spawn has one river, the 7th & 8th have two rivers and you have to scout for whether you're top mid-left or mid bottom. So it makes it easy to scout the right civs, and as soon as you meet someone you can move on to the next.

Also, some civs seem to save gold up more than others. Siam/America/India definitely do. I imagine any of the non-expansionist ones would have more gold.
 
turn 56. Started in the centre and had +1pop goody hut and +30 culture (went for +1food). That gave me first riders around turn 35. Since during my previous tries it allways took longest to actually locate the last civ I went for 3 scouts this time. Had three armies - only riders. Sometimes you can even finish a capital with a single rider. Mainly ignored other cities/barbarians as well.

I believe that earlier tech doesn't help that much. What helped was the additional money/turn from the gems I had when cheating the other civs for their hard-earned money :)

IMO we should have 2 winners from this - one for those (like me) who exploited the trading-weakness (sell money/turn for money and declare war in the same turn) and instand-heal (which I used as well) and those that didn't. I think I would have enjoyed the game more without both.

Last, but not least, I think I personally would much prever a game with more possible variances and a longer game... unsure if I would try one as short as this again.

I think this just proves how big an issue the map restarts are. Basically the fastest time is being determined by:

(i) A central start to be able to attack everyone fairly quickly, and for being able to utilize all 3 scouts effectively.
(ii) Two early huts to get a settler out as fast as possible: One gives +1 pop for faster production, the other gives the culture for 50% cost. This lets you get settler sooner, and get horses up soon after.

At this point if you're trying to beat this start:
(0) Build scouts then settler, then horse.
(i) Restart if you're near an edge of the map
(ii) Restart if you can't get a settler out by turn 25.
(iii) Restart if you can't get your first horseman by turn 39.
(iv) Restart if you can't find all the Civs by turn 50.
(v) Restart if you can't win by turn 56.

The competing against humans actually seems to make the game more gamey (exploitative) then fun, with all sorts of exploit abuse (instant-heal, trade violations, etc.).
 
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