Civ VI - Beta Gauntlet I

[stormtrooper412]

can you still have Martyrs without the MSM?

 

[Ozbenno]

can you still have Martyrs without the MSM?

You can but they won't necessarily have the martyr promotion that gives a relic when they die.

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

One of city states suzerain bonuses is an ability to choose apostle upgrades from all the list. Forgot the city state name.

 

[vadalaz]

One of city states suzerain bonuses is an ability to choose apostle upgrade from all the list. Forgot the city state name.

That's Yerevan

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

Thought I'd give it another shot and I wanted to try a different strategy this time, but... I got a very good map with a relic goody hut, Kandy and 2 AIs on my continent. Won on turn 116 without ever building Mont St Michel. Delayed exploration + normal apostle spam did the trick. Picked Wats as one of the religious beliefs for a bit of a science boost, I think they sped up Cartography by 3-4 turns.

Kandy is OP and this seems like a pretty awkward strategy on Prince without it, the AIs just don't generate enough faith. I'd imagine Emperor is the sweet spot for it?

Turn 116 is really impressive!

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

Thought I'd give it another shot and I wanted to try a different strategy this time, but... I got a very good map with a relic goody hut, Kandy and 2 AIs on my continent. Won on turn 116 without ever building Mont St Michel. Delayed exploration + normal apostle spam did the trick. Picked Wats as one of the religious beliefs for a bit of a science boost, I think they sped up Cartography by 3-4 turns.

Kandy is OP and this seems like a pretty awkward strategy on Prince without it, the AIs just don't generate enough faith. I'd imagine Emperor is the sweet spot for it?

Can you give us some screenshots?
When you became a suzerain of Kandy? Was building enough slots for relics a problem?

 

[mayhemster]

First time I did this and I made lots of mistakes, finished by turn 184 but I could have got it by around turn 120 if I hadn't messed up and gone exploring for natural wonders before I had enough relic slots...

Its quite frustrating waiting for the AI to build apostles/missionaries when you have loads of Apostles ready to suicide in

 

[Cyrano1410]

I did T186 with no Kandy and an ... insanely bad... starting position (see attached jpg). Getting a relic from Goody Hut helped tons, otherwise I would have had a T300 win probably.

The global strategy I followed:

• I wanted Stonehenge to set up religion fast and have an early wonder. I sent a scout out to find a Natural Wonder to get my Eureka.
• Then I would pump out Theater squares and fill them with Great Works as well as grab all the wonders I could.
• I would suicide apostles on religious civs to get the relics, that didn't really worked out since only one very bad AI got to found their religion on my continent

What I learned:

• win is limited by your second contender, the AI with the most domestic tourists, which are in actual fact accumulated culture (defense). I think you can get earlier win by "killing the competition", ie. preventing them from generating culture.
• having international trade routes and open borders agreement greatly increases tourism output
  
• one AI did go to war against me and I was scared. Turns out I won handily and made a metric crap ton of money in the peace deal: 40 gold per turn. This allowed me to buy most units and buildings here on out.
• I had too many great people and not enough spots for their great works

How I am going to replay:

• I won't get Stonehenge, letting the AI getting it so I have earlier contenders in the Apostles business
• relics and the associated belief that triples tourism are a must-have
• I will definitely declare wars in order to steal cities, get gold through peace deals, steal relics and great works, and plunder their culture-related improvements or districts. Hopefully, the AIs make more units and less culture buildings. If I am the suzerain of a cultural city-state, I could declare wars on contenders so they lose all emissaries and don't get the culture boost (I am that committed).
• I may try to militarily destroy the opponent with the highest domestic tourists
• therefore, I will focus a lot more on unit production, rather than wonders

 

[MyOtherName]

I'm down to turn 156, but that's with a Kandy start. Cartography seems to be a big bottleneck for relic approaches; I might start building a campus or two to hurry that along. Or focus on getting two (near-)coastal cities and celestial navigation tech relatively early. I guess I should start going with the science producing religious building too.

A campus would unlock the great library too, if I find it convenient to pick up a great writer or two.

I need to figure out what to do with my culture after theology, especially if I'm not going to do Mont St. Michel. I've been going for the merchant state government to help with my trade routes, but that's probably not best.

I wonder if an early industrial zone would be helpful, so as to spam the project to get an engineer to rush half of Mont St. Michel?

 

[vadalaz]

Can you give us some screenshots?
When you became a suzerain of Kandy? Was building enough slots for relics a problem?

Yeah I attached a t116 screenshot. Became suzerain of Kandy pretty early, was first to meet them + easy quest to train a galley. Getting enough slots wasn't a huge problem, but I did have to delay exploring my continent for maybe 15-20 turns.

 

[Cyrano1410]

Yeah I attached a t116 screenshot.

Seeing this, I'm thinking, France boned you. If they hadn't had that much culture, you could have won several turns earlier. The third contender, Arabia, is at only 12!

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

Two games in a row my lucky Kandy was destroyed by aggressive neighbours

Maybe I should preventively send there an army immediately after I discover it?

 

[elitetroops]

Two games in a row my lucky Kandy was destroyed by aggressive neighbours

Destroyed? As in razed? If merely captured, you can liberate it. The few times I've liberated city states I've immediately become suzerain with 3 envoys and no competition. I'm not sure if it always works like that.

I started a game for this and my first impression is that prince is sooo much slower than deity. Not enough cities to capture early. I also get the impression that a small map has a lot more land/civ than a standard sized map. Though this might also be because the AI doesn't spam lots of cities early to fill it up. My game had a pretty sad set of city states, so not sure if I'll finish it.

 

[Ozbenno]

OK submissions coming in thick and fast at the moment. Here is the state of play at the moment, let me know if forgotten anyone.

1 vadalaz T116
2 Archybald T155
3 ssjos T155
4 mayhemster T184
5 Cyrano1410 T186
6 Ogaw T189
7 King Jason T209
8 Agent Zero Range T240
9 balkottth213 T240
10 Rathmourn T307
11/12 Reserved for Ozbenno and Denniz still stumbling along...

 

[Ozbenno]

From the Civ V HoF rules, it says that all games must start in the Ancient Era. Why is that?

I understand that this gauntlet requires Ancient Era starts, but why must other (non-gauntlet) games be Ancient Era starts to be included in the CFC Civ V HoF?

Will this rule also apply to CFC Civ VI HoF? I have played hundreds of Civ IV HoF games and those with non-Ancient Era starts have been in general more fun to play than the Ancient Era games (though usually not as competitive).

Of course, Civ V and Civ VI are hugely different from Civ IV; Civ V and Civ VI games started from the Ancient Era can probably be completed many times faster than Civ IV Ancient Era games. Perhaps, that is what makes this rule tolerable for Civ V.

More a post for the HOF Format thread but we are looking at this.

 

[MyOtherName]

How does one submit currently? Just attach to this thread? Am I disqualified for having the Aztec mod still loaded?

 

[Ozbenno]

How does one submit currently? Just attach to this thread? Am I disqualified for having the Aztec mod still loaded?

Just post a save/screenshot of the win. Aztecs are fine.

 

[MyOtherName]

Okay, here's my turn 156 win.

 

[redeemed371240]

Thought I'd give it another shot and I wanted to try a different strategy this time, but... I got a very good map with a relic goody hut, Kandy and 2 AIs on my continent. Won on turn 116 without ever building Mont St Michel.

vadalaz, this strategy is brilliant! Perhaps there's a way to shave off even more turns. Under ideal conditions, it may be possible to skip cartography and win without training any apostles.

Here's my theory:

1) Choose AIs with weak early culture. In the game I'm about to work on, I'm going to choose Frederick, Harald, Montezuma, Teddy, and Victoria.

2) Beeline currency since each trade route to another player boosts tourism with that player by 25 percent, I think.

3) Settle as many cities as possible and build only two temples. If this strategy works, a relic from a tribal village and two natural wonder relics is all you'll need for a cultural victory. Focus on commercial hubs and harbors, if you have time, for the rest of your districts for more trade routes to foreign civilizations.

4) Bend to the agendas of each AI on your landmass so that you can declare friendship with all of them and retain the same government as them if possible. A combination of friendship, multiple trade routes, and identical governments could boost individual tourism, but I haven't had the time to test this.

Benefits to this strategy:

1) No theater districts or wonders are required.

2) By the time you build your temples with a production rush by chopping forests and clearing bonus resources, it'll be around turn 70. The domestic tourism rate you'll likely have to beat will be near 10.

Limitations to this strategy:

1) This strategy requires a copious amount of RNG. Kandy, at least two natural wonders, and three AIs must be on your continent and you need a relic from a tribal village. In the best case scenario, Harald will discover you after he researches shipbuilding, but this is unlikely.

2) Three reliquary-boosted relics, the trade routes, and identical government boosts may not be enough to overcome even 10 domestic tourism.

I'm going to test this strategy out in my game, but I wanted to make it public for someone else to try in case I don't have time since I work two jobs.

 

[Xger]

I've already switched to low-culture opponents as my best attempt placed waaay too many tourists when I focused with civs that likes religion. Haven't had a good map yet though...