Civ VI - Beta Gauntlet VI

[Ozbenno]

While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

*There is no Civ VI HOF Mod as of yet, so please play these games in the spirit of the >> Civ V HOF rules <<. Please review these before playing.

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Science (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Emporer
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Large
• Map Type: Continents
• Speed: Normal
• Leader: Victoria
• Opponents: Any, (default number of opponents only, no duplicate leaders)
• City States: Default number only
• Resources: Standard
• Start Position: Standard
• Limit Turns: By Game Speed
• Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians
• Version: Latest patch
• Date: 19th May 2017 to 19th June 2017

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

While each map can only be played once, players are more than welcome to generate new maps and submit multiple games (although only the fastest finish will be counted). Also, as everyone is playing their own distinct maps, there is no need for spoiler limitation within the thread. In fact, we encourage detailed posting of strategy and gameplay.

Please attach to your post your starting save as well as the save on the turn of your victory.

 

[Ozbenno]

An attempt at a less war-oriented game (although I'm sure that it will help).

Please note the Large map setting.

What tactics are going to work in this game? How do you leverage England's unique units/buildings?

 

[Sumorex]

I've mostly played to Domination victories, so this should be fun to learn more. The two games I've played with Victoria were fun and different... getting a free unit on settling or conquering was pretty cool for conquests.

Should be some synergy between Royal Navy Dockyard and The Great Zimbabwe.... leading to the apropos Big Ben finish.

 

[trendy]

Not really sure how a larger map but with more civs and city-states makes it easier to play peaceful. Didn't get to trying this one, unfortunately

 

[Sumorex]

And that's the third start I've chucked because John Curtain stands between me and the rest of the world. This game needs the ability to either save starting options or regenerate the map.

 

[Ozbenno]

This game needs the ability to either save starting options or regenerate the map.

Regenerating the map option would be great.

 

[Sumorex]

My current game has a single land mass. Is that common on a continents map? I'm a Civ IV player and continents maps were almost always land masses separated by ocean.

 

[trendy]

Normally, continents will have two large, separated landmasses (on standard at least).

 

[whacker]

Here is my first entry: T172 SV.

I already did quite a few recaps of SV`s, so forgive me for not writing a detailed summary. I will answer any questions.

I left all setting on default and went with random AI`s as well.

Conquered/settled the whole continent (all Ai`s except 3 were on my landmass, i killed them all to become suzerain with 3 envois) and then finished with a high production Zimbabwe city, lots of traderoutes and a Big Ben timing. Found Karthage on the other continent for an absurd amount of traderoutes. On the very last turn somebody else took it away from me but nvm.

My starting position was very weak, but i was lucky with most of the AI´s being fairly close by. The bonus melee units from the UA were far more powerful than i initially thought.
I think England is a super powerful civ, they are top tier for CV and SV and very solid at DV.

 

[Sumorex]

Do you have a strategic reason for only using the Aztec DLC?

 

[whacker]

The strategic reason is saving money IRL and buying all DLC`s later as a package.

 

[trendy]

For all the people here that seem to have trouble with keeping the initial start save file, you can edit the max number of autosaves in a text file called UserOptions, from your main civ6 directory folder (\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI for me). Change AutoSaveKeepCount to 999, have one turn autosave frequency set ingame, and you should never have that problem again.

 

[Rakish]

Finished my run-through to mars by 1300AD SV turn 191

Had a funny map, 5 main continents 4 of which really reminded me of Europe, Africa and North, south America with an odd extra in the middle down south I guess you could call it Australia but its to close to the America's to fit the analogy well.

Had two civs on my smallish continent stretched along the north of the map (Europe) with two commercial CS and one industrial. Conquered France and Norway (how appropriate), quickly considering they where on the other side of the continent, lucky scouting I think. Norway escaped to one of the other land masses to the south (Africa) which was home to the Asian civs of Japan and China with Germany playing a 3 city tall strat in the corner (good luck with that). I did partly conquer that continent later but it was just so difficult to approach and move around by the time I made headway the cities weren't going to speed up the victory much.

build Zimbabwe by turn 130 something with 20 odd traders running out of it, finished the game with 25 trade routes i believe. build Colosseum after that, then 40k big Ben democracy combo in the end securing the last 5 scientists.

 

[Sumorex]

I've started about 5 games trying to get a feel for England and I've been a bit bewildered at the randomness of the continents script.

One game was a single land mass which I think with good play would yield the fastest time.

I've had one start where I was on a single small island (3 or 4 cities max) which I'm sure would yield the slowest time.

My current game I'm on a large land mass with only one continent so I couldn't swell my army by conquering or settling. I did share that land mass with 4 other civs. One was on their own small continent. The other three were all on the western end of a snaky land mass. A fourth land mass was completely unsettled except for La Venta which I was the first to contact after 1 AD. I'm guessing this game will wrap up in the low 200's... I'm a bit unsure of the tech / civic paths still.

 

[Sumorex]

Sloppy Turn 222

 

[whacker]

Turn 164 SV.

I changed up my gameplan a bit. Lots of conquering again, almost no settling this time (built 1 settler for the whole game). Start position was even worse than last time, but absolutely perfect city states (4 mercantile including Zanzibar and Amsterdam, 3 scientific with Stockholm and Geneva, Toronto, Brussels and Hongkong. I had to free Geneva and Toronto from Scythia though.) The layout of the continent was pretty decent and although i did not settle it myself, the AI`s did a good job. No religion this time.
With divine spark pantheon and Stockholm my GSP were really high as soon as i got up 2-3 campus districts.
I tested a bit with 2 high production cities, one with Zimbabwe, the other with Ruhr Valley. This turned out to be a mistake as the Ruhr Valley City was still so much inferior. Still i don`t think i lost more than 1-2 turns for it.
I focused even more on chopping than i usually do and it just seems to be the better way in comparison to improving tiles, especially if the tech tree advancement is fast.
Pyramids, Colloseum, Zimbabwe and Big Ben as always, Ruhr Valley for a change.
The english UA was almost useless this time because my starting landmass was one continent.

 

[Sumorex]

Sweet finish time! Looking forward to taking a peek at it. Do you start conquering with archers? Any chance of a 4000 BC save?

 

[whacker]

I usually start conquering with archers once i got ~6 slingers out. I always try to get a classical/medieval era GG because swordsmen and xbows with a GG will be able to conquer cities for the entire game. Again i have to admit that i did not save t1, sry for that.
I have two t1 saves that i only played for around 20 turns and then abandoned these games. Everytime i keep playing a game i seem to not save t1. I promise that if i will do another run i save the game.

 

[Kruncha]

Here's a T163 win (phew, just made it!). Had a great start: capital was on a fault line (unusual for these settings), and Gandhi settled at my doorstep right at the start. After conquering him and Hojo on the "other" continent, I ended up with about ten cities and a massive archer/swordsman army by turn 60. I couldn't find a spot I really liked for Great Zimbabwe and there were four commercial city states, so I ended up skipping it, though I regretted it later as money was tight at the end. I decided to take the Big Ben gamble for the first millenium AD victory and finished it a little early to see if the two space race scientists showed up first. They didn't of course

I also went way overboard on conquering and ended with 45 cities (had to stop myself from getting an accidental domination victory). England's UA with Redcoats is absurdly powerful; a single Redcoat can easily take a city from a civ with classical units (which is many of them) in a few turns, and you can pretty quickly have them swarming the continent. I think a good timing push with sending a few settlers over to the other landmass to settle right when Military Science hits could actually get a lot more cities up and running early enough (with chopping) to make a significant difference for science victory.

 

[WillowBrook]

Here's something for those who have not yet mastered this game to beat: T222 victory.

It's not a bad start, but I'm no warring expert and only had 13 cities by T100. I finished the spaceport T200. I didn't manage my great person acquisition well, finally getting Sagan just in time to finish the last two modules; Kwolak was just behind him and never claimed.

I'm curious what a better player could do with this one, if any of you sub-200 players are interested. I won't disclose anything more so you could play blind, but there are some quite good aspects and some not-so-good for a fast science victory in this save.