G-III Tau

[Tone]

Congratulations go to AutomatedTeller for the narrowest of victories in Sigma, finishing in the same year as Chamnix but clearly winning on points.

After a Sid game I guess that there is only one way to go with the difficulty level. It might be a bit fast and furious with a much smaller map as well, but it's time to dominate the opposition again.

• Mapsize: Tiny
• Difficulty: Monarch
• Condition: Domination

Have your submissions in by November 14th, and good luck.

By the way, you might remember the very first gauntlet was Tiny Emperor Domination. Dave McW showed us all how to do it with style once the competition was completed, so you may want to check out that thread.

Thread Dave's game post

Edit: I've just noticed that I cannot spell tau! Sorry guys, I've obviously got confused with my SGOTM team leader when getting this thread started.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Are you going to join the fun, Tone? You were all over that original gauntlet

question: Is Aztecs in PTW/Vanilla better? or is it better to have all agricultural/industrious opponents so you can take more cities? Perhaps expansionist to get free settlers/towns from barb huts?

I think seafaring civs won't be very useful. Commercial and scientific seems underpowered, though the SGL chance might be good for those who have the patience

 

[Tone]

Are you going to join the fun, Tone?

Just try and stop me! I'm forever in Mistfit's debt for kicking that one off. I've not been around much since I moved house in early August but I now have decent internet access again and all the boxes are unpacked so I'm looking forward to getting back to civilised life again.

I'm sorely tempted to try the (PtW) Aztecs, although maybe I'll end up using my usual friends the Egyptians or the Celts. OTOH a Tiny map shouldn't need anything too powerful so maybe the Gallics will be overkill.

 

[Marsden]

Inca might be a good choice. Or Iroquois, MW are hard to beat.

 

[Chamnix]

I was thinking about trying the Mayans - on monarch level, I think you will need to build more cities and won't be able to get as many through conquest. Maybe no religious tribes, get a Ceremonial Burial SGL, and rush the Pyramids for a very early GA? We'll see how it works out...

 

[Niklas]

Played a game in PtW as Aztecs, domination win in 1100 BC.

The Jags helped me capture Madrid early on, but other than that I would have had a lot more use of an Agricultural civ. Settlers were the limiting factor, Madrid, Barcelona and Salamanca were the only towns I captured. I also razed Toledo and Seville since they refused to grow or expand their borders. And America, who had the best (and most distant) start of all the AIs, never built a settler.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

really? a monarch AI didn't send out a settler in 75 turns???? Wierd.

 

[Niklas]

Well, doh. As I handed in the game, turns out it was on chieftan. Don't ask me how that happened, as I went back to check PtW afterwards it was set to Monarch.

Back to the drawing board I guess. Though I'm pretty sure my end date would have been better if the AIs had been just a bit better.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, that places 9th on the Chieftain table!!

 

[Tone]

Though I'm pretty sure my end date would have been better if the AIs had been just a bit better.

I agree. A half decent AI can build some towns that you can take over rather than having to build the cities all yourself.

 

[Niklas]

Well, I just played a game that was quite the opposite. Playing Maya against all Agri opponents, and warfare was the bottleneck. I could outpace the AIs to a point, but then I had to go to war. And the AIs all like to whip their towns down to 1, so it's a rare occurence that you get to capture anything. Next try will be Celts against no Agri opponents, to try to find the balance.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Got one: Egypt - 975BC - 12.5K points

I had a four cow start and decided to build a settler first to make better use of them. Then a granary with the help of forest chops. First city in ≈2500BC. Horses were two diagonal tiles away from my capital.

Research: Traded Pottery from the Iroquois after only a handful of turns while researching The Wheel -- > Mythicism -- > Polytheism; Traded for Warrior Code; --> Monarchy. I had a proper government in about 1500 BC and did no more research after that. I got some techs in peace treaties though.

My oponents were Iroqouis, England, and America. The rationale behind that was to have Expansionist civs who do not start with free Spearmen.

The war against the Iros was quick, swift and minimalist. England was a bit tougher, but not much of a problem either. The American capital Washington turned out to be a tough nut though: The fact that it was founded on a hill and defended by three spearman made my first attack an utter failure. The successful second attack won the game.

I did not build a single barracks.

 

[Tone]

Nice going. What was your domination limit, Lord Emsworth?

Also did you get the Pyramids or ToA in your game? I would imagine not unless you got lucky with an SGL-the AI was unlikely to build them for you.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Nice going. What was your domination limit, Lord Emsworth?

Also did you get the Pyramids or ToA in your game? I would imagine not unless you got lucky with an SGL-the AI was unlikely to build them for you.

I honestly do not have the slightest clue about the dom limit. I am on MacOS 9 and atm I use no utilities. And I am still stuck with Vanilla where there is no ToA or SGLs.

I had a few elite wins but did not get a leader. The game was totally wonder-clean as nobody even started to build anything.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

My first effort: 710 BC (which obviously won't win the gauntlet, but would be good for 2nd on the current board!).

Dom limit of 274, 1 cow.

Opponents: celts, france and Maya. Idea was to get civs that expand fast.
Horses were on the other side of a jungle, which meant it took a little while to hook them up. I think I made too many cities.

Interestingly, the AI got wonders - Maya built oracle (1150 BC), celts built pyramids (975 BC)

I ended up taking out france, taking all but 1 mayan city and all but 1 celtic city. Nice thing about egypt is that you can poprush temples in captured cities pretty easily by merging in captured worker.

 

[Niklas]

Finished a game in 390 BC, now at least I have a game submitted. Playing PtW as Aztecs, started with a FP wheat, dom limit 311.

The main problem in the game was the massive jungle belt that covered much of the main continent. I took London early on with 4 Jags, that gave me room to expand quite a lot while building up horsemen and Jags. The attack was a bit too slow though, so maybe using Egypt and Chariots is preferable, though on this map they wouldn't have been able to move much.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

woohoo!! 3 games so far!!

c'mon, guys!! This is a fun little game, and doesn't take very long. Great exercise for anyone wanting to better their MM skills early in the game, too.

 

[Chamnix]

I'm pretty sure I'll be submitting a game eventually - I just haven't liked any of my starts so far. For now at least I've given up my Maya strategy and have started running all new maps with the Aztecs.

 

[Niklas]

My first game as Egypt saw me with a domination win in 875 BC, a lot better than the Aztec game. Two cows for the capitol, one for the second town. Dom limit 308, opponents Iroquois, Russia and America.

Russia and America had an early war that weakened both of them, so taking them out was really easy. I could run my capitol as a 10+30 4-turn pump, I researched to TW and IW, then shut of research to hoard gold for warrior->sword upgrades. When I hooked up iron I had enough to upgrade 7, and those 7 took care of both America and Russia.

After that point I switched to building only WCs, and they were really good at overrunning the Iroquois lands fast, so I really think Egypt is the way to go despite not being Agri.

 

[PrinceMyshkin]

I've submitted a pair of games with the Iroquois at 730BC and 825BC. I'm going for the Republic slingshot fishing for SGL's for the ToA. No luck so far as I've had the ai down to one city before 1100BC twice. Gifting Republic to the ai's keeps me from autorazing their towns and rushing MW's is easy with research off.