G-Major 10: The one you've been waiting for?

[BLubmuz]

No problems, shyuhe a discussion is always welcome, and i posted to see different opinions.
My point of view:
organized is important, philo too, but the only phi/org is Fred, and he's busy (?).
Then the choice for others organized leaders: in Warlords (if i'm not wrong) you got only the roman leaders, so i prefere AC for his creative trait not only you're sure any city will quickly expand its borders, but a cheap library is welcome, especially in this game, probably more than a cheap university (philo). The UU (one of the best, IMHO) can't be at his best with a med start, too soon AI arrive to LB, unless you're VERY close to an AI.
Another important thing, the UB: forum is one of the best, IMHO.

No philo leaders free in warlords, so in Vanilla: Saladin (but not organised), pretty good UU spiritual trait can in some way compensate the minimum 3 turns of anarchy, revolting to multiple civics at a time.
Toku is org (vanilla), but i like best JC (perhaps 'cause i'm italian?), but you don't have UB to play with.
A good reson for vanilla can be the vassal state, but you're allowed to flag "no vassal states", and probably i'll do this for another start.

 

[shyuhe]

azzaman, while that's a valid point in most normal games, you actually want more cities in a time game. You want to be working every single tile in your cultural borders if possible to maximize the population score that you'll get in the end.

I do see the merits of creative libraries, but I wanted to play in vanilla in hopes of a slower tech speed (the AI is marginally slower in vanilla compared to warlords on prince). Since that eliminates Augustus, I just used a different leader instead (the other creative leaders weren't available or sucked for this gauntlet).

 

[BLubmuz]

You're right, but first of all you have a "free" borders expansion, without waste pruduction on missionaries, and you want spread your religion if you own a shrine (not so easy to pop a GP with all that GS around), and this is a way to optimize city placement.

But you're damn right about vanilla, and despite my last try looks promising (only a date: CS in 230 AD, philo in 530) thanks to 2 grassland gems in capital FC and edu and PP already learned thanks to 2 GS from GL i'll probably try vanilla with Saladin or JC.
Now i stopped to deal with RL commitments, but i'm pre-researching lib after nationalism in 1235 AD, hoping to grab demo... lady liberty is one of the best wonders.
Farmer's gambit for now (only 2 barracks and a praet built on the military side, far last in power), let's fight with bombers and tanks.

EDIT:
after some turn i was (forced by Gandhi with edu) first to liberalism for MT, lost the Economics race to Gandhi, but - worst - 2 civs DoWed me in about the same turn, razing a good city... perhaps i pushed too much my gambit.
Time to try with Saladin, in vanilla.
But IMO JC or Isabella (+3 health in vanilla) are interesting, health is a problem, and the best land is with jungle and flood plains.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Well I won by domination in 2045. Very frustrating, can't finish the gauntlet because I was greedy.

No one could finish the spaceship. I had destroyed most AI's and Vicky wouldn't finish the engine until 2057. Destroying most of the AIs also meant I was pushing borders against some newly founded AI cities. With Statue of Libery, Eifel Tower, and Sistine Chapel plus built up cities; I just couldn't stop pushing out borders. I was giving away cities but I put 3 AI cities into revolt on the same turn. Next time I won't be greedy and stay so close to the domination limit. I should have revolted out of Free Speech to slow my culture but I was trying to grow cities.

 

[Airny]

poor guy.

What was your score?

 

[Jean d´Eath]

i know how frustrating this is... as i said i got beat by 3 and 10 turns by the AI in this gauntlet...

 

[RobertTheBruce]

poor guy.

What was your score?

I had a base score of about 9300 and final score a bit over 12000. The game had too much warfare to try again. (I didn't realize a quick game could be so long.) I wasn't going to win the gauntlet but I did want to finish it. I don't usually play quick or highlands or medieval starts or for time victories so I made some bad choices (Slow initial expansion, raging barbs, not farming early enough, etc)

I'm curious why Organized and Creative are such popular traits. I played warlords and went with financial and charismatic (Hannibal). There were so many windmills on the map that I thought financial would be a better choice than organized. Is the civic maintenance enough on prince to make organized a better choice? Charismatic and great generals let me build level 5 tanks and modern armor. I built a lot of them to disrupt AIs as they neared Fusion. Are cheap courthouses and libraries the key to high final scores?

 

[Airny]

I'm in da club man!

I've just lost my game to Peter 4 turns before finish.
I didn't expect him to be so fast and when my spies came there they failed.
But not enough:
The way was so long, that it took 4 turns to get from my nearest borders to his. So I nuked him like hell, but with 1 turn to go for the Engine and 2 for Stasis Chamber there were not enough nukes (approx. 15) to stop him.
Anyway it was fun and I learnt alot about late warfare and large empire management.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

btw: Peter was the small piece in the bottom right corner, access only from top (Frederick).

 

[KMadCandy]

I'm in da club man!

I've just lost my game to Peter 4 turns before finish.
I didn't expect him to be so fast and when my spies came there they failed.
But not enough:
The way was so long, that it took 4 turns to get from my nearest borders to his. So I nuked him like hell, but with 1 turn to go for the Engine and 2 for Stasis Chamber there were not enough nukes (approx. 15) to stop him.
Anyway it was fun and I learnt alot about late warfare and large empire management.

ouch what a club! the only time victory i've won so far was one i stacked the deck from the start: settler/duel/one opponent/OCC. took care of domination for me right there.

on the bright side, you had fun and learned a lot. and your screenshots made me laugh even while i sympathized with your pain, seeing those barbs so late in the game!

i'm learning from reading the "dang, almost made it" posts too. not that i want to to encourage more games that result in such posts, i wish you all luck in actually winning! but this is a thank you to the folks sharing even the "almosts".

 

[Airny]

Sharing the experience and opinions with the community is why I play the events of civfanatics.
And it makes you think about your game before you continue.
So please dear readers, write reports yourself and have fun.

KMadCandy kind of encouraged me to write this, I don't wanna be guilty/responsible myself! ^^

 

[Dracandross]

Ouch, youve had some really good runs ruined in the end. Sadly I didnt even bother to try as game woulda been damn slow in the end. Maybe next gauntlet time victory wont be on huge/large map. I think that Huge/mara woulda been easier for computer as chief&mara it woulda been quite easy to exterminate all opposition and therefore get rounds go faster.

BTW those non anc starts really give something to gauntlets as they are not the way to go on HoF otherwise (well future deity is different thing).

-Dracandross

 

[jeremiahrounds]

This just takes to long to finish. I stayed up all night last night... ALL night and i am on a good run but.. just takes forever.

I do have some advice that I am sure by practice is almost certainly very solid though for any nonpros attempting this.

Its this:
-It is basically impossible to totally crash your economy in a medieval start like it is in an ancient start.

I turned off barbarians and goody huts (take out luck). I dont recommend leaving barbarians off, but it made it less intricate to test huge expansions.

For this I choose a +2 culture civ for the free borders expansions. This helped alot in carving out an empire I think.

What I did was cycle the map and until I got a pretty looking center location. Then I made a worker, then I grew the city to two while working two resource squares, then I set the capital on settler and didnt stop till I had pumped out about 10 settlers. The number was more about pretty city squares then my economy. Shortly later realized I hadnt pushed it hard enough and made 3 more.

Upon setting down I immediately made a worker in the new city. The worker worked the 1 to 2 nearby resource squares then set about making cottages. And my economy never really crashed. I had been planning to expand until my slider was at 0 research because I figured that I had all essential techs for recovering my empire. And I think thats the key of what I mean by cant crash your economy.

No matter what you have the key ancient techs to recover. When you crash your economy before you have ancient techs you are missing essential techs to recover easily. And it ends up circular. No techs to recover. Cant get techs because you dont recover. That doesnt happen in a medieval start.

As it turned out even though my slider dipped into 40% research I never really fell behind on tech. (40% of very large can be as big as 100% of small) So anyway thats my advice:
"rules" for ancient early expansions dont apply to medieval early expansions. And what you gain for carving out a huge empire at the start is insane power later on without having to fight for it.

I ended up with massive industrial capacity. My stack of doom is actually making my game slow down its crazy. I have more units in this game then I have ever had with 75 turns to go =/ Actually in abotu 4 turns im going to divide it up into two stacks of doom because its to much stack of doom its being wasted. There is only so much doom you need in a stack. And thats why you do this at the start.

When you turn barbs back on youll have to pay alot of attention to making units after that worker which is cool. I mean when the barbarians finally do stop coming youll prolly have a crazy army to unleash on some poor neighbor if you please. On the upside since your expanding towards AI borders, aggressively, barbs will disappear sooner. Though I have no doubt it will be worse for you before that happens having so much empire. Maybe not I should try it =)

I prolly wont finisht though. Takes to long to make attempts. And even though I am sure this is the way to start, it doesnt imply "win"

 

[shyuhe]

I have to slightly disagree with this approach. Teching is more important than setting up a strong industrial base for this gauntlet as the key determining factor of your score is going to be how many future techs you accumulate and how large you can grow your population. If you can out tech the AI to tanks, and later to mech infantry and MA, you will be able to take more than enough land as those combined with an air force can conquer very fast, even on a large map. I think it's more important that you set up a strong research base so that you can hit the key military techs faster.

 

[BLubmuz]

I'm a bit "down" becauseof this, but some thoughts about my last game:

I'm playing as Saladin in vanilla, this time no farmer's gambit, i'm far away in tech, #1 in score (twice+ over the best AI), and probably there's an AI that can launch... no problem, i'm conquering the civs to arrive at the borders, and if this goeas close to launch... i don't think my army is beatable, and my railroads network, plus some airport surely helps to speed the troops movement.

I will happy to finish with 2 FT, but as the winner, not a SS lost.

Map: the "bald land" bug, so no forests, jungles, nor (i discover this later, of course) dyes, silk, sugar and gems in all the map.
I was hitting "alt+G", but i saw this:

and, trust me, 3 free workers after 20 turns are a good bonus, plus seafood, iron and marble ata hand (and lately stone and copper) helps a lot wonders and research.
I had cavalry before guilds, so i never built my good UU, but i always owned a far military superiority (liberalism for MT), then the economics route to be first, then 2 GE burned for lady liberty, and so on.
If i'll loose this, i'll stop to play Civ, granted.

 

[The-Hawk]

I finally decided to give this a go... my first submission in almost a month (RL is infringing on my game time).

Given the settings were so unusual, I decided to play a test game with a so-so start. Figured I'd get behind, abandon, then try again with a better start. I decided on Saladin, thought Philo would be good for GP's (since I was going to play a SE).

Didn't go according to plan... the whole game I thought I might still win, so I never abandoned. At the end, three civs were very close to launching. I knocked two back with nukes and spies. The last, Qin, was a problem.

With about 15 turns to go, he was maybe 7 from spaceship. Although he was more powerful than me (I had just come off a long war after Cathy bushwacked me) and my armies were not in place, I needed to beeline to his engine city. I managed to raze it with 2 turns to spare... and he simply moved production to a different city (which I couldn't reach).

I got two spies there... when there was 6 turns left (5 to engine), the first tried to sabotage and was caught. With 5 turns left (4 on engine), the second spy was successful (IIRC, the odds were something like 20-50%). When the clock ran out, he had 2 turns to go on his engine.

I didn't score well, especially after the late war with Qin. He ended up taking 8-10 cities from me and pillaged me to the extreme. Just over 7000 points. However, from the so-so start and with many mistakes because I didn't have a feel for these settings, I was happy with a win.

This was one of the most enjoyable games of Civ I've ever played, an absolute nail biter. I might try again, although I doubt I can finish a second game before the 9th.

 

[Methos]

This was one of the most enjoyable games of Civ I've ever played, an absolute nail biter. I might try again, although I doubt I can finish a second game before the 9th.

Congratulations on the game! Sounds like it was an exciting one!

 

[Dracandross]

I have to slightly disagree with this approach. Teching is more important than setting up a strong industrial base for this gauntlet as the key determining factor of your score is going to be how many future techs you accumulate and how large you can grow your population. If you can out tech the AI to tanks, and later to mech infantry and MA, you will be able to take more than enough land as those combined with an air force can conquer very fast, even on a large map. I think it's more important that you set up a strong research base so that you can hit the key military techs faster.

Actually it seems like most people are getting close by time wins, that would lead to conclusion that wiping them out mostly before 2000 AD would lead to major FT increase as you dont have to worry about losing. And on prince you can still outtech AI quite easily. Also pros for strong industry is that as game is fast you need to get those units on the other end of the map quickly. That means you have to start flowing that way early.

Also each FT is worth few pop. If Im right Wastin Time is somewhat top end on this gauntlet. 50 (or what was it) FTs isn't that much that it makes lots of difference if you get more area / population). Technically you can get a lot of land/pop if you can land last turn settlers/captures or mass capitulation. And they should easily outdo few FTs you lose.

But in the end what do I know as my comp won't go for this game well enough.

-Dracandross

 

[shyuhe]

vassals are risky business.... They may push you over the domination limit and you can't control where they'll settle. I'm on my second run of this gauntlet, this time as JC. I have about 30 turns to go and I've already reached 50% land (I'm just gifting the crappier cities to OCC AIs and screwing them with maintenance costs). If you hit tanks fast enough, you can take all the land you want in a span of about 50 turns or so (since you don't really need to bombard unless it's a city on a hill). The worry in my current game isn't losing, but rather accidentally winning via domination. I've crippled the AIs in order of technological advance, so that there is only one civ left that has a reasonable number of cities and has industrialism. I might start up one or two more wars to cripple the last two AIs that haven't faced my wrath yet

I also start farming over everything towards the end to increase the population count and I don't need the extra beakers. You can't do better than one FT in a given turn Unless you get enough GS to bulb an entire FT just from GS (I think you need 4?). I've been hitting a future tech a turn for a while now, and I'll end at 68 or so if I've counted correctly.

The nail biting aspect of this game does suck though... I'm always worried that I'm going to go over the domination limit when I hit enter...

 

[kovacsflo]

I think for these settings, the best leader is Ragnar (Fin/Agg).

You can research faster and produce military units better, while berserkers can be useful when you ready to increase your empire (and weaken some of your opponents).

I tried the game with J. Ceasar, but it wasn't too good. Without financial research and tax is quite complicated, even if you can build courthouses cheaper. Praetorians are only good when your opponents doesn't have axemen.

 

[Bozso]

vassals are risky business.... They may push you over the domination limit and you can't control where they'll settle. I'm on my second run of this gauntlet, this time as JC. I have about 30 turns to go and I've already reached 50% land (I'm just gifting the crappier cities to OCC AIs and screwing them with maintenance costs). If you hit tanks fast enough, you can take all the land you want in a span of about 50 turns or so (since you don't really need to bombard unless it's a city on a hill). The worry in my current game isn't losing, but rather accidentally winning via domination. I've crippled the AIs in order of technological advance, so that there is only one civ left that has a reasonable number of cities and has industrialism. I might start up one or two more wars to cripple the last two AIs that haven't faced my wrath yet

I also start farming over everything towards the end to increase the population count and I don't need the extra beakers. You can't do better than one FT in a given turn Unless you get enough GS to bulb an entire FT just from GS (I think you need 4?). I've been hitting a future tech a turn for a while now, and I'll end at 68 or so if I've counted correctly.

The nail biting aspect of this game does suck though... I'm always worried that I'm going to go over the domination limit when I hit enter...

So your tactics is to go to war only with tanks. So You do not attack with cavalry and artilery (cannon) or even with Maceman/cannon (trebutchet).

I have tried the early war but Iwas always beaten in SS race.

In this "tank" approach ( it is a good idea as you do not need slow moving units) do you still need spies?

Fro everybody: What settings are you using? (Dense peaks or low peaks, clustered or scattered?)


Which wonders do you build?