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

[shyuhe]

@Bozso,

I started warring immediately with praets after I had about 3-4 cities. I stayed at war with that civ until I eliminated it about 200-300 years later. By that time, I was warring with cavalry. With cavalry in, I then started attacking another one of my neighbors, but again that war dragged on. I finished off the last few cities with tanks. After I got tanks, I just went on a rampage with air support. I think the only unit that can crush civilizations on its own are conquistadors/knights against civs that don't have pikes. Otherwise, it just takes too long to reach their doorstep.

Wonder wise, Hagia Sophia is awesome with these settings. It gives your workers the ability to build roads in 1 turn instead of 2. SOL is always huge with lots of cities... An early GL is also very nice.

Dense peaks lead to interesting results - you will get one or two tile choke points to other territories, and you'll have to meander around to get to the other civs. While it limits the available food on the map, I don't think it's worth the hassle...

 

[Airny]

I suggest you turn vassals off, cause it makes your land (domination limit) unpredictable.
I also suggest you go for a rapid expansion as described above. I for my part had one city producing military cause I turned on raging barbs.
Once you settled all the available space, think of your first war and prepare it.
From there on you should be at war all the time with small truce perhaps.
You should have key buildings in every city and after that produce military units in them.
When you hit the 30% land mark you should turn all your cities to food-focussed management.
I failed to achieve victory because I stopped war at 48% land, but that was wrong if there are AIs you can't reach directly or were crippled already. Get yourself in a good positions for the final turns. If you have to attack AIs and destroy their cities just to have a clear passage to potential spaceship-launcher.
@Bozso:
I decided for the least landarea (dense clustered with seas), cause pop-points are depending on available food, not number of tiles.
Build as many wonders as possible for score. Decide for one city with ironworks, that should build all wonders from there on.

 

[shyuhe]

wooops. I just hit domination with about 22 turns to go I got a little too carried away and a bunch of cities all came out of revolt on the same turn. That kind of sucked... I think I would have beaten my last score by a good 1-2k too... I was at 9.7k with 22 turns to go and I had a plan to push my pop count really high too. Oh well, no more tries on this gauntlet for me...

I also had the AI controlled in this game. Nobody was even close to a launch with 22 turns to go. Qin was the only civ who had computers, and I pillaged all of his land back into the stone age and killed all of his garrison with gunships. The next most advanced civ had radio, industrialism, and rocketry but nothing else. I should have been paying more attention to the domination limit!

 

[kovacsflo]

wooops. I just hit domination with about 22 turns to go I got a little too carried away and a bunch of cities all came out of revolt on the same turn. That kind of sucked... I think I would have beaten my last score by a good 1-2k too... I was at 9.7k with 22 turns to go and I had a plan to push my pop count really high too. Oh well, no more tries on this gauntlet for me...

I also had the AI controlled in this game. Nobody was even close to a launch with 22 turns to go. Qin was the only civ who had computers, and I pillaged all of his land back into the stone age and killed all of his garrison with gunships. The next most advanced civ had radio, industrialism, and rocketry but nothing else. I should have been paying more attention to the domination limit!

Hi Shyuhe!

Domination limit is a very dangerous thing for time victory. I have some questions to you because I aim this gauntlet too:

- How many hours did you play in this game?
- Did you attacked ALL of your opponents or just most of them?
- Did you ever trade a tech to any of your opponents?

 

[BLubmuz]

I used scattered, thin peaks and seas.
Built all the wonders but Notre Dame and Sistine.
Start warmogering with cavalry then the usual ramp to cannons, tanks, bombers and so on.
Usually i research radio before flight, and rocketry after it, so i can build the Eiffel before start build bombers, then gunships.

I'm finishing my game, but i'm afraid an AI can launch and i can't stop it.
This guy was damn behind in tech and now is researching fusion, as the (former) most advanced AI are... i'm taking care of 2, but he's the 3rd.

Curiuos to see the end.

 

[kovacsflo]

I used scattered, thin peaks and seas.
Built all the wonders but Notre Dame and Sistine.
Start warmogering with cavalry then the usual ramp to cannons, tanks, bombers and so on.
Usually i research radio before flight, and rocketry after it, so i can build the Eiffel before start build bombers, then gunships.

I'm finishing my game, but i'm afraid an AI can launch and i can't stop it.
This guy was damn behind in tech and now is researching fusion, as the (former) most advanced AI are... i'm taking care of 2, but he's the 3rd.

Curiuos to see the end.

Scattered and thin peaks is the best, but seas can result difficult moving. I play with large lakes, this gives you some seafood (not too much) but doesn't make moving harder (only somatimes).

How many time have you spent with your game?

 

[shyuhe]

Hi Shyuhe!

- How many hours did you play in this game?
- Did you attacked ALL of your opponents or just most of them?
- Did you ever trade a tech to any of your opponents?

I think it was at least 10 hours when I hit domination. I attacked all but one opponet (Nappy) who I made too busy warring that he was technologically backwards (he didn't have computers yet with 22 turns to go). I traded for a complete world map once paper got in, then traded my world map for all the backwards techs like theology and music. I think the AI values the world map a wee bit too much on this setting. I did not trade any tech after that, except to bribe civs into war.

 

[Airny]

Scattered and thin peaks is the best

Why should that be so?

 

[kovacsflo]

I think valueness of world map depends on how big part can your opponents explore. And they can't too much with raging barbs!

To Airny: Scattered and thin results that there will be no big mountains, just single or small mountain types. I think, but I'm not sure there are less mountains all in all, or at least these aren't appear in big quantity in a small terrain.

 

[Airny]

@kovacsflo:
Where is the advantage of less impassable mountains?
In terms of score you just need more pop to get the same popscore as in a map with dense peaks.

 

[Bozso]

@Bozso,

I started warring immediately with praets after I had about 3-4 cities. I stayed at war with that civ until I eliminated it about 200-300 years later. By that time, I was warring with cavalry. With cavalry in, I then started attacking another one of my neighbors, but again that war dragged on. I finished off the last few cities with tanks. After I got tanks, I just went on a rampage with air support. I think the only unit that can crush civilizations on its own are conquistadors/knights against civs that don't have pikes. Otherwise, it just takes too long to reach their doorstep.

Wonder wise, Hagia Sophia is awesome with these settings. It gives your workers the ability to build roads in 1 turn instead of 2. SOL is always huge with lots of cities... An early GL is also very nice.

Dense peaks lead to interesting results - you will get one or two tile choke points to other territories, and you'll have to meander around to get to the other civs. While it limits the available food on the map, I don't think it's worth the hassle...

Thank you yesterday I tried this approach to go to war with tanks, but cathrine attacked me with cossacs. (before I got enough tanks to go to war with her) So I will keep going tonight ,but I think I have lost too many turns ti defend agains C.

 

[Bozso]

@kovacsflo:
Where is the advantage of less impassable mountains?
In terms of score you just need more pop to get the same popscore as in a map with dense peaks.

Are you sure in terms of score (POP)?

 

[kovacsflo]

Well, it can depend on your strategy. I don't like if there are 4-5 mountains in my city, however less mountain means a bit smaller map, at least in inland sea (rocky map is a bit bigger, but you have several mountains)

 

[Airny]

@Bozso:
Yeah, I am. Population-score is computed by dividing your pop*2 (=food consumed) over the non-terraformed food available on all tiles.
I posted a link where score is explained earlier in this thread.

 

[KMadCandy]

Population-score is computed by dividing your pop*2 (=food consumed) over the non-terraformed food available on all tiles.
I posted a link where score is explained earlier in this thread.

full confession: i'm on (doctor-prescribed!!!) narcotic cough syrup atm so my thinking is more muddled than usual.

non-terraformed food means? i'm guessing you mean something like 'the food available on all the tiles on the map if no workers had ever done anything?' i'd never known that! and now i'm gonna do what i ought to have done in the first place, go look for the link you referenced...

i found it. that is what it's based on. good to know! thanks!!!

 

[kovacsflo]

Now I have a really good game.

I play with Ragnar (fin/agg). There are three gems, a corn and 6 floods in my capital, and several other commerces close to starting position (for example 3other gems).

Also important that even if I play with raging barbs, I only had to produce a spearman and an axeman against them! The southern part of the map, where I started doesn't really have too much empty spaces. The northern is the opposit. Two of my opponents, well,practically crushed by the barbs. Cathy became a vassal of Peter (!), even if they weren't at war! Another one is suffered serious attacks, losing capital and another city.

Now the time is 1500 AD and I weakened Fred captoring his capital and another city. Qin Shi has just lost his capital as well (contained Chichen and Sankore) and going to lose some others.

So I think raging barbs can be very useful if you are in a lucky situation that your neighbours "help" you not to suffer military! Don't start in North.

 

[BLubmuz]

Finally finished and won for 10414, FT 60.
Pity i has to give away 2 good cities in the last 5-6 turns to stay safe with the dom. limit, plus 2 more some 30 turns before, just conquered from Gandhi.

The game was warmogering, i started almost in a corner (NE) and after all the NE quarter of the map was secured after i eliminated Victoria, Louis, Fred (the most advenced at the time), Napo and Qin, my strategy was: share borders with every civ, so i can attack the most advanced.

To do this, i had to wipe Roosevelt and Asoka, controlling the map E-W.
Then Gandhi, left with 1 city (but i has to give him back the capital and the Islamic holy city to avoid domination).

Then peaceful, with over 130 gunships, over 100 MA and some 70 MI ready.
I was hoping to stop fight, but after some 20 turns of peace, Washington and Lizzy was too close to fusion then, after bribed Cathy against Wash (as i already did against Roosevelt and Asoka) and Peter against Lizzy, i had to fight myself.
Left Wash with one city (4 turns to go i gave him a former Roosevelt one) and conquered 2 cities from Lizzy (1 gave to Peter, kept London with Sistine and ND), i was worried only for Peter, but he started the engine in a non productive city (anyway i has 4 spies ready in place and enough money).

At 40 turns to go all my cities was producing wealth or science.

Never more a time victory, i think that if this was at Noble it was not easy, but a competition between players, this one i was uncertain until the third last turn.

 

[shyuhe]

nice job finishing I think you're the 4th player to submit... The domination victory is very scary towards the end... Nice job avoiding it (unlike me )

 

[Merum]

Ok, can I just take a minute here to say damn, this is the hardest prince game I've ever played! Is there something in the HoF mod that tilts the RNG so one frequently loses battles with 97% odds?

I'm not just losing because I'm getting other victory types, I'm getting pwned, and I generally play on monarch. gah!

*Goes off to try another one*

 

[BLubmuz]

Hi Merum nice to see you here.

I don't think there're any bad RNG in the HoF, but here there's people who knows far better than me.
I suggest this strategy (the one i adopted in my game):
To take my last 2 AI, i attacked with a 2 SoDs with: 40 MA, 40 GS, 1 or 2 MI (medic1) each. After bomb and strike with some 12 SB, this way i didn't care the RNG .
Useless to say, owning the Pentagon, all units was level 3 or 4 at least.

Do you think that with a stack like this we can do something to our southern friend in SG4?

Out of joke, this is an enhaced prince game, due to the kind of opposers, it's a Major gauntlet, remember.

So, you quote the great Who's guitarist (better as composer than as guitarist) ... i got some guesses about your age