Civ VI - Beta Gauntlet II

Just to make it clear - is selling several of same luxury to same AI exploit? Since extra luxury does nothing i was wondering why some of my AI opponents sometimes buy the same luxury for 10 gpt or something like that..

 

I don't see that as game changing. You could just as easily sell the resource to other AI Civs that do not have the Luxury resource. There just isn't enough resources of one kind on any map to make this exploitative. Besides, you don't really know whether they are trading this resource to another AI Civ (maybe your enemy) at a profit!

 

Can you trade a resource received through trade?

 

Maybe not; I did not check it. It still doesn't make trading multiple resources to the same AI exploitative; we exploit the AI every way we can to win. For fairness though, we often ban game changing exploits like any way to get an infinite or huge amount of something that should be finite and of relatively normal size for such things.

 

Turn 326/327 Space Victory

The last 30 turns or so were a production grind.

Game in summary:
- Settled a bunch of cities.
- Found religion and was Suzy for Jerusalem for entire game.
- Jesuit is awesome... Divine Spark isn't bad either...
- Egypt DOW'd me around turn 25. Took both her cities.
- Kongo DOW'd me, I took some of his cities then peaced out and converted him. He was then BFF/Ally for the rest of the game.
- Sumeria kept trying to convert me so I converted his Holy City.
- Spain similarly annoying but ended up fighting Sumeria outside my Holy City leaving me to take out the victor and use the "Remove Heresy" mop to clear out the filth.
- Almost didn't meet Rome. Met them around 50 turns before launch...
- Built 5 Spaceports... (Forgot about one and did the other when I thought I'd have better hammers elsewhere). Should have stuck with 3 but no impact on the end result.
- Last parts took 30 turns each but run in parallel from two spaceports. Sped up through re-assigning trade routes and some last minute chopping in one city.

 

I've just had a very frustrating game where I had cleared the tech tree by T175 but was nowhere near finishing the production by T210 due to not having any industrial city states and no luck at all with great scientists. Maybe I'd gone a little hard on the campii vs industrial zones although i still had plenty of fully developed industrial zones, but this map script is a pain due to its immense size. Even discovering city states took far longer than I'm used to on any game. I was still exploring the map at T140 with 8 horsemen out scouting after they had taken out a few cities

 

Been there, done that... The trick is mainly to find the right time to switch from infra to district projects. Power plants just about everywhere is good, but you don't need more campus buildings than necessary to finish teching by the time you recruit Carl Sagan or otherwise are ready to start building the last Mars module.

If hunting for Sagan, the Campus projects yield a lot of science and you need surprisingly few campus buildings. Research Labs are usually completely unnecessary. Libraries probably pay off everywhere, even if built late, as they're cheap and give 1 GS point. Though I haven't done the math on how many turns a library needs to create the amount of GS points you could get from Campus projects for the same production. I should do the math, probably for uni as well. Would be good to know how late they are worth building.

 

Roughly, proejcts' conversion rate (from production to gpp) is growing from 3:1 in the begining of game to 5:1 in late game. So library pays off after 15,6 turns in terms of gpp. As far as I know, citizen slot doesn't give any gpp points in current version. However, if devs changed building slot generates gpp then it would pay off gpp faster than now. On the other hand, science output pays off really fast due to rationalism card and citizen slot, even research lab does.

 

Thanks for this, it is good to know!

Yes, science output pays off fast, but only if you do need that science to reach your key techs in time for when you can use them. In a science victory, once you have Electricity and Rocketry, the only key techs left are those that unlock Space Projects and ideally you should not invest more into science than what is needed to have those techs by the time you can start building the projects. I've found that research labs are not needed to clear the tech tree fast enough, therefore that production is better to invest into Research Grants. So far recruiting Sagan has been my bottleneck, since teching can be done by t180 even without Research Labs. Though maybe once strategies are refined and possibly I come up with better ways to get the modules up into space, then Research Labs become relevant again. It also depends on how many scientific city states are around to boost your Campuses.

 

Carl Sagan is really hard to get on time if playing for science victory. The only time I got him before Science victory was pre patch Sumeria T62 play. Maybe my play is not optimal but I usually ended up already sent all Mars modules without him.

 

@mayhemster, @elitetroops - I'm having another go and thought I was doing okay but am now at turn 190 and not even close to finishing the tech tree!

Founded six cities, have three campusses and am Eurekaing my little heart out. Screenshots added.

Empire at Turn 191:


Tech and Civics Progress at Turn 191:


Not so much a "where am I going wrong" but more of a "what's your general approach"?

 

Mars habitation launched on turn 321, winning space race victory.

I founded only 3 cities initially. Sad, Ghandi without his own religion, took a while to build a holy site + shrine, as I wasn't sure it'd be compatible with a science win.

Brazil dow'd on me before turn 100. Almost caught with my pants down as I was planning to assault France, who was closer. The game kinda sucked at that point, and I thought of just restarting a map for HOF gauntlet 2. I stuck through it, despite slugging through thick rainforest without finding any of Brazil's cities. I decided to sue for peace, albeit a profitable one (I eliminated Brazil's military, yet I did not find a single city)

Went ahead with my initial plan and dow'd on France, who by this time rex'd 4-6 cities. I took em' all! Now things were looking a bit better...My scout finally found Brazil, who, despite losing a war, was still ahead in science and culture. No wonder, his capital built the Chichen Itza, creating a powerhouse amidst the jungle. Managed to take 1 city, but my swords and cats took time to wittle down his walls. Lossed 3 cats and a sword, omg! Nightmare... Again, sued for peace.

Now focused on science and improving my empire of 10-12 cities around turn 150, (I think? should really take some notes...) Founded a couple more cities, but inefficiently let them grow on their own...

Norway dow'd on me late game, when the 1st spaceport was built. It was suicide as I had arty to his berserkers. Merged his cities with mine. Slight downside, I had to switch priorities a bit to military.

Beelined a lot of techs, first industrialization, then the spaceport tech, I think more micro would help in the future, as I really ignored eurekas for a while. Built Oxford, and maintained a monopoly on GS, GE and GM.

My policies revolve around increasing science and commerce adjacency bonuses, and most of the time, my favorite +2 to builds for builders.

As for governments, went for merchant republic, then communism for a spell until democracy for the final push. Finished the tech tree before 310.

Scythia also wanted to die, so dow'd on me with horses, muskets and field cannons. My army was doing nothing then and parked right on his borders. I didn't even bother upgrading knights to modern tanks, or tanks for that matter, took 3 of his cities, liberated 1 to city state vilnius, peace deal included 700+ gold, 70+ gpt and a couple of great works. The AI really didn't rex enough, except for Brazil, who by late game is still producing settlers. (good for me, the int'l trade routes policy +5 cogs, +10 gold really helped building the space race modules)

I built only 3 spaceports, the last 2 a bit late (first time playing HOF and trying to finish quickly). Paris ended up building Ruhr and most space race components. My 2nd and 3rd city built the other two, but the 3rd city built only the last component needed for the win: mars habitation.

I also realized gauntlets needed to be won quickly so I rushed the last component by chopping and harvesting 1 stone site, which was unimproved until the last. As a rule though I always use trade routes to help with production of key items, if I'm okay with gold.


P.S.
Experienced 1 crash with great general late attaching to a unit that already moved on turn 255, which is the only note I made...

 

Yeah, I noticed in 6otM 01 you didn't use him. I'm still not sure what is the best, but he can be recruited quite early. I got him turn 182 in that game, but I was badly behind in my spaceport city and he wasn't enough to get everything launched immediately, despite also having Kwolek's +100% boost. (Actually it was sheer stupidity that I forgot to switch to Communism before triggering him for an additional +10% boost. Had I remembered that, I would have beaten your date by one turn. ) In that game he was the last info era great scientist to appear. I was done teching turn 166 and recruited the first info era great scientist already turn 174, so I believe with better spaceport planning and a bit of luck, it could be possible to use him to launch the last module as early as t175.

@RaidandTrade, you want more cities. A lot more. Go on the war path early to conquer a couple of neighbors and possibly city states that aren't helpful for your target (leave scientific and most industrial city states). Aim at at least 12-15 cities, if possible already in the BCs, and get campuses everywhere. In the game where I was done teching t166 I had 21 cities, 19 campuses and 3 scientific city states with 6 envoys each for +12 science/campus. Though this was overkill, since I wasn't ready to launch that early.

 

@elitetroops - Thanks for the tips. Back to war it is!

 

SV Turn 205.

I left all map options on default and just tried my luck. The map was ok but far from good. It had Geneva and Hongkong(which was on the other side of the map and when i found it around t150 it was conquered by Sumeria) also Stockholm but i only found it after the satelite start. No Toronto. I had Japan as my direct neighbour and Rome directly next to it, conquered Japan and 2 of the roman cities but left Rome itself as it had walls and i only had archers. Had 16 cities, 4 of them conquered. Timed Big Ben so i could just buy every scientist with 35k gold.

I had Full Industrial in every City, also Campi and Trade in most. 3-4 Research labs in my best production cities. I started Projects very late around t175 cause i had massive gold problems in the midgame and needed TD buildings.
I know this is far from being a superb time, but its a start

India is a really bad Civ for SV imo, no early pressure, UU and UB suck, Religion is not useful when hunting for the fastest time.

I would really like to try this again with a Toronto/Hongkong map and more than one gold Citystate.

The screens show my Empire by turn 100 and in the finishing turn.

 

That's a great game, whacker!

Interesting that you could get that much out of Big Ben. Before the game was released I thought a lot about some similar strategy, but since I started playing it I never found it practical to generate such amounts. And I'm also a bit confused when you said you had massive gold problems, yet somehow collected 17k gold in time for Big Ben.

I usually completely neglect Commercial Hub buildings. 2 Markets for the inspiration, possibly 2 banks for Economics eureka, but no more. The payback time on those things is horrendously bad. But perhaps I should do some math here as well. How many turns does a Bank need to earn gold for purchasing the amount of GPP that the same production put into a campus project would have earned you? I have no clue about the math for purchasing GP with gold, nor do I remember seeing such a formula anywhere.

 

Well i was in minus gold at turn 150 , markets, banks, stocks all at once in almost every city is very fast when all your prudction buildings are completed. Add in the Free market card, and at once gold is at +400-500 or even higher. Then you only need roughly 25 turns and can finish big ben. On a better map with a better civ like the GOTM1, you can finish big ben around t180 and instantly end the game.
I had a t181 finish in GOTM1 but i replayed it twice to accomplish that, so i didnt submit it. All post patch.

 

Hmm... it's an interesting strategy, certainly worth considering.

Market+Bank+Stock Exchange = 725 production and this yields 15 gold/turn, 30 with the policy. The payback time, with policy, in regards to buying production (how long does it take them to earn you enough money to buy 725 cogs worth of production) is 97 turns, a bit less if you have some legacy bonus from Merchant Republic, but definitely not worth it to build them for this purpose.

For your idea, we have to compare to GP generation. Let's say I build those buildings in 10 cities and 25 turns later Big Ben. Total production cost = 9000. If I instead put 9000 production into research grants, it should yield about 1800 Great Scientist points, if Trojan's 5:1 ratio mentioned above is correct. This would also depend on if I have Hong Kong and if I'm running Democracy, I don't know if the 5:1 ratio assumes those or not. Over 25 turns the buildings would yield 7500 gold, which is doubled to 15000. Can 15000 gold pay for 1800 Great Scientist points? Actually, in Democracy, I think so.

However, in case I am suzerain of Hong Kong and run Democracy, 9000 raw production into research grants should also yield around 2100 science. This makes up for quite a lot of Campus buildings, which I then don't need to build and can substitute them with research grants as well. And the CH buildings require that those Commercial Hubs are built in the first place, which I'm currently not so sure that I would want to do. My plan was to go with max 4 Commercial Hubs. Also, running the double gold from CH buildings policy requires that I give up some other policy. Probably not a very big deal, at least not if I'm already in Democracy.

Another thing that I haven't checked is how chops and district projects work. I know you can chop into district projects to complete them faster, but do you also get the 15% science yield from chopping into a research grant? Can I turn forests into science?

Anyway, I can see that there definitely could be something to this strategy. Good to have more options to consider!