G-Major 11

[jesusin]

yay finally won a game!

i moved my palace when it became pretty clear that my original capital would beat my second city, so i figured the palace might push it along.

Hey, I never thought of that!
Is it cost efficient? How many hammers is a Palace? How many monasteries could you have built instead with those hammers?

 

[KMadCandy]

jesusin, i'd already built all the religious buildings i could build there, so it wasn't a choice of whether to build the palace instead of a cathedral or anything. it was at a point where there wasn't another obvious building to put there, so i'd have been building culture or praying for an AI to send a missionary. rameses did send me a missionary later, so i built the conf buildings too . well, built and bought, after begging some money from my buddies.

the game i have open right now is at normal speed, so you'd have to adjust it for the right game speed of course. the palace in this game is 160 hammers. a catheral is 300 hammers base cost. the city i'm looking at has production of 31 hammers, palace takes 8 turns to build there, taoist pagoda takes 9 (i do have copper for it), the stone/marble caths take 15 turns since i don't have those resources. so it's a bit cheaper than the ones you have the resources for, and way cheaper than the ones you don't, but it's a big investment, comparable to caths not monasteries. of course you can only have one palace, not one per three cities. then again, you can always move it somewhere else if you change your mind . i've moved my palace in non-culture games too; i'm kind of more nervous about placing forbidden palace and versailles. my palace i'm like yeah, let's try it here, since i can move it back if i don't like the view at the new place .

it feels to me like it's worth spending the time to build it, if you have decent production or the cash to rush part of it, to get the +8 commerce +2 culture for the rest of the time while you're building culture or whatever, in cases like that. but i haven't studied the math, it might not be. at least it made me feel like i was doing something *giggle*. i had good production in that city, too much production and too little commerce, so i wanted the palace for the +8 commerce, the +2 culture was just a freebie. it had silk tiles for example, i needed them for trading, and they had some commerce which is good, but they don't keep getting better like towns do, so it needed a bit of a push.

 

[Airny]

I played three games before the last update, where I tried spamming GAs and achieved a CS-slingshot and got 1732AD as best result.

Then I took a look at AAAs 1382AD-victory and tried Inca myself.
I needed some games to get the into the brain of my Quechuas, finally managed a 1541AD victory.
This seemed quite a big difference to 1382AD until I looked at the turns:
I'm only 30turns behind him, so I guess this was my last try.

My conclusion: I'm a bit surprised that this time there are not so many different ways to win as usually in civ.

 

[Thrallia]

I finally won my major gauntlet with Hatty in 1819AD.

It appears all my mapfinding, civ-picking, and overall game customizing was for naught. This Hatty game was the second game I tried, and I went back to it just now when I got tired of attempting cultural games from scratch(gandhi, cathy, louis x6, izzy, mansa). So I went back to what was at that point my most successful game, I was at 1600AD and already had 9 cathedrals and was at 100% culture.

I only managed 4 GAs, I am not very good at creating GP farms, apparently, because this game could have ended much faster if I had more GAs. My Legendary cities were my capital and my 3rd and 6th cities. They were at 650-600-700 cpt at the end, but went legendary in reverse order of cpt(600-650-700) thanks to me using my only two stored GAs near the end in my last two cities.

It was a very peaceful game for the most part despite my being located next to Brennus....until the last 50 turns, that is. At that point I've got a few rifles(thanks Vicky for gifting me rifling, then giving me rifles in the cities I flipped!), mostly longbows and maces, and every Vicky, both Americans, both Germans, and Gandhi all have SAM Infantry and Artillery...and Washington declares war on Brennus. Soon, Gandhi, Roosevelt, and Vicky chime in, so I feel safe enough to agree to stop trading with Brennus. I've got a DP with Mansa for protection. After Brennus loses 4 cities to Washington and 1 to Gandhi, Bismark acts like an idiot and accepts Brennus as a vassal outside of war, causing Gandhi, Roosevelt(vassal of Washington), and Washington to declare war on Bismark as well. He took a beating, and after losing 4 20+ size cities to Gandhi, Washington, and Roosevelt(who during this war leaves Washington and joins Gandhi), lost Brennus as a vassal, who then vassalized himself to Washington. Finally, Bismark vassalizes to Gandhi, giving me a bloc of Gandhi/Bismark/Roosevelt and Washington/Brennus to my East, Vicky to my north, and Frederick and Mansa to my West...they were never a factor in the game at all....except for the most crucial part of my game, at the end. With 12 turns left until my last city goes Legendary, Mansa cancels our DP...so I sign one with Gandhi. I figured, I'm last in power, everyone except me and Brennus have Mech Inf., and Gandhi is #1 in score and power, so I figure I'm safe there.

ERRRR...WRONG ANSWER!

3 turns after signing the DP, Washington declares war on Gandhi, causing me to declare war on Washington and Brennus...and me being so far behind in tech and with little cash, can't convince my friend Vicky to close her borders to Washington. So with 8 turns left of the game, I find Navy Seals, Artillery, and Tanks invading me from the north...I lost two cities to American Raiding parties, and killed a single Artillery. Brennus sent a single pillaging infantry into my lands...and Washington had a tank and Seal 2 spaces away from Heliopolis(already legendary). Thebes goes legendary. I'm pretty sure if a legendary city gets razed, I don't get to count it toward my 3 legendary cities...So I'm hoping...I sacrifice a leftover missionary to draw them away...I sacrifice a worker the next turn...and finally washington is willing to talk peace!!...but he wants Elephantine...my last legendary city. Not a chance! I see that he's willing to take Canterbury...I click, hope that he's willing to make peace for that alone, and he accepts!

Three turns later, I win a cultural victory! I built 7 or 8 cities, flipped 5 English cities. I flipped a Celtic city the same turn I won the cultural victory lol. Not a great time, perhaps I'll make it better during the next major, I just hope it isn't a cultural victory again, because I'm tired of them lol

 

[Bozso]

I played three games before the last update, where I tried spamming GAs and achieved a CS-slingshot and got 1732AD as best result.

Then I took a look at AAAs 1382AD-victory and tried Inca myself.
I needed some games to get the into the brain of my Quechuas, finally managed a 1541AD victory.
This seemed quite a big difference until I looked at the turns:
I'm only 30turns behind him, so I guess this was my last try.

My conclusion: I'm a bit surprised that this time there are not so many different ways to win as usually in civ.

You aren right inca is too powerful

 

[Misotu]

@ The_Hawk: I agree. I'm a dreadful Quecha player but thought I'd try them for novelty. Fell over a nice second city of Washington's and, whaddya know, took his archer with my Quecha on something like a 23% chance. Cor, free city, thought I. How handy.

Vastly encouraged, and feeling quite smug, I stationed three Quecha on forest or forest/hill around his capital - and lost everyone to storming armies of archers. No suicide missions at all. How disappointing ... just when I thought I'd cracked it <grin>

 

[Airny]

You aren right inca is too powerful

"aren" confused me a lot. I guess the "n" shouldn't be there.

 

[KMadCandy]

grats thrallia!! i seriously hope i never have quite that level of action and suspense in a cultural game myself, i'm such a wimp. i'm so glad you won!!

 

[Murky]

Congrats Thrallia. Sounds like it was an exciting game. DPs are risky when going for cultural but I did have 3+ DPs in my game.

Played Saladin and finished in 1811 AD. Just went with vanilla 1.61. Built the Pyramids and Great Library early in the game. I only generated 9 GAs and got the free one from being first to get Music. There wasn't a whole lot of warring in my game. Only small skirmishes between relatively equal rivals. There was a few cities that got captured, thankfully none were mine. Whenever a civ demanded money or a tech I just gave it to them to avoid conflict. I played the diplomacy game as well as I know how. By the end, most of the AI leaders were at friendly or pleased status.

If I had more time I would probaly try it again with a different leader. Saladin is strong for this but others might prove better.

 

[Methos]

1754 AD

Here's my starting location:

Spoiler :

I decided to move N and take the two gems. Later, my exploring warrior found stone to the left of the marble. Talk about sweet! My starting builds were:

Worker -> Warrior (until size 2) -> Settler -> Finish Warrior -> Worker (once at size 3) -> Settler

Second city settled near the marble/stone and my third city moved to an excellent GP Farm site. The bad thing was, that Mansa had a city three tiles from my GP Farm location. I wasn't worried, as I knew my GP Farm would easily push it back. What I didn't notice was that Mansa's city was the Hindi Holy city. I started off with only two workable land tiles (fp and gold plains hill) and I fought like crazy for every land tile until the early AD's. Lesson learned, next time make sure the bordering city isn't a holy city.

I stuck with three cities until about the time I was ready to up the slider. I built three more cities and than flipped the other three later. It felt nice flipping Mansa's Hindu Holy city!

I only had two religions for the longest time, so that didn't help me. I got my third religion late and my fourth from a flipped city. I've always been hesitant about turning the culture slider off to setup the fourth religion, but I used the culture calculator to see if it was to my advantage. Indeed, it was. I was able to shave off quite a few turns, both times I did it. Prior to the first time I shut down my culture I expected an 1814 AD win. After the first adjustment it bumped it down to around the 1780's and the last time obviously brought it to 1754.

I could have won several turns sooner, but Hatty had to pass the Emancipation civic, meaning I lost Caste System. I was pulling a Jesusin and was starving cities to get those two additional GA's until Hatty had to screw it up.

BTW, I only teched up to Liberalism (took Nationalism) and stopped. I believe that was in the 800's.

@WastinTime: Apparently I don't have your method down, as I tried something you mentioned previously. My capitol was the only place I built cottages, second city was combination production/GP Farm, third city GP Farm, and all the other cities were minor GP Farms. I typically use cottages for my culture games, but figured I'd give this a go. Apparently, I did something wrong. Later, I ended up keeping all town tiles that were sucked into my border.

Time now for the G-Minor!

 

[KMadCandy]

grats murky !

I stuck with three cities until about the time I was ready to up the slider. I built three more cities and than flipped the other three later. It felt nice flipping Mansa's Hindu Holy city!

I could have won several turns sooner, but Hatty had to pass the Emancipation civic, meaning I lost Caste System. I was pulling a Jesusin and was starving cities to get those two additional GA's until Hatty had to screw it up.

grats!!! sweet start! and wicked cool on flipping the holy

i can't imagine having only three cities before you shut off research. the AI would take all the land spots, the way most of my games go. two games ago (the one where i can so very much relate to your emancipation agony), washington and freddy settled cities in between my cities where i hadn't yet backfilled. i'm confident i can flip cities like that. but i'm not confident enough in the AI's placement patterns to count on using those cities for anything other than temple builders. since i do like to use a satellite mini-GP farm to get GAs from, i want a really nice spot or two with mucho food reserved for that, even tho it's not a big-three city. i settle spots like that early if i can before i lose them.

i read about people finishing with awesome dates using only 6 cities or sometimes less, and i'm impressed but know i could never do it. hearing about all the different ways that work is so fun!

 

[WastinTime]

@Methos: Here's a little trick you might be missing. Once I have my target date, say 1400 AD. I chop out culture buildings (NOT cathedrals) until ~400AD. That way these buildings will double their culture (after 1000 years). Buildings constructed much after 400 AD will not contribute double. Cathedrals don't double, they're just 50&#37;, so start on those around 400 AD.

 

[Harbourboy]

Sorry - what's all this about doubling culture after 1,000 years? What does that mean?

 

[WastinTime]

Take a look at your city screen. Things you built 1000 years ago have double culture. Oracle is 16 instead of 8. Monasteries are 4 instead of 2, etc.

Oddly, the Adademy doesn't double.

 

[Harbourboy]

I've never heard of that before! Is that in the manual, or the Civilopedia?

 

[Gosha190]

I've never heard of that before! Is that in the manual, or the Civilopedia?

That is in current tread))

I'v finished my second game... it is better than my 1-st game, but I cannot beat AAA resalt - 1382AD. I believe that all I did was right. It seems to me that my lands were not good for culture.

 

[jesusin]

BTW, I only teched up to Liberalism (took Nationalism) and stopped. I believe that was in the 800's.
…
I've always been hesitant about turning the culture slider off to setup the fourth religion, but I used the culture calculator to see if it was to my advantage.

I don’t understand why to turn the culture slider off. Or maybe you had built the Pyramids and you wanted to rush-buy things?

I was pulling a Jesusin…

I don't understand this either. What the heck were you doing to me?

I have looked it up in my dictionary, I couldn't find it , could you recommend a good dictionary online?


Now, seriously, I don't think sticking to 3 cities for so long is such a good idea. I try to have 3-4 cities by 1000BC and 6 cities by 1AD. With only 3 cities you save a few coins while you are researching, true, but you have to build the missionaries for the new cities in your legendary cities. In addition, the new cities have to quickly build their granary and their temples... while their are doing so, your legendary ones are not working on cathedrals.
Another reason is that AIs will take the good city sites. Didn't you find this problems in your game?

 

[Gosha190]

It may be interesting for some players - log of first part of my second game:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/87269/Gosha.rar

At 1000BC I got 6 cities. At 5AD my research was 420 bulb. I got Nationalism at 65AD.

My 6-th (and last) religion is Theology. I got it in 565BC.

 

[jesusin]

I have taken a look at your log. Congratulations, what an amazing game!
Thank you for sharing it, I had a great time.

I believe that all I did was right.

But that is going a little too far! I will try to propose some changes to your game that I think would have improved it. Please, feel free to disagree. Please, keep in mind that I don't have Warlords and that I wouldn't be able to play such an outstanding game on my own. Anyway, I would like to see these points discussed, so here I go:

1- BW before Alphabet.
Maybe you could have traded for it, what was the hurry? Maybe you needed chopping urgently?
2- Pyramids and slavery.
There are 2 ways of getting additional hammer for building your missionaries/temples/cathedrals, pop-rushing and rush-buying (under US). You seem to have used both. Was that necessary? I see two different ways of playing here:
Either skipping Pyramids, so that you save all those hammers and could have used them on the NE (wasn’t it built before 65AD or doesn’t it show on the log?).
Or skipping slavery, going directly to Caste System. It would have added the benefit of skipping SH too, since you have your artists for border popping.
The more non-artist-wonders you skip, the better your artist probability will be.
3- GP control.
You allowed your Oracle and/or SH city to spit a GProphet as your first GP. I would have sacrificed growth in one of my cities to force a GS or a GA (with caste system) instead, avoiding the prophet to be born, as previously suggested by WastinTime in this thread.
4- Late Academy.
I assume that you used the 340BC GS to create an Academy, although it could also have been used towards Education. I try to have an Academy earlier.
5- Temple of Solomon.
Why create a shrine? It will further decrease your GA probability.
6.- GLIB.
Why? It will further decrease your GA probability.

As you see many of my ideas are related to GA probability. Would you tell us how many GP were born in your game and how many of them were GA? That info could reinforce/disqualify many of my points.

 

[Methos]

I don’t understand why to turn the culture slider off. Or maybe you had built the Pyramids and you wanted to rush-buy things?

Yeah, I had the Pyramids, so I cash rushed them. I set everything up first and than turned off the slider. I'm not sure how many turns it was off, but using the culture calculator I found I did manage to shave off some turns by doing it.

I have looked it up in my dictionary, I couldn't find it , could you recommend a good dictionary online?

Sure, it's called the HoF dictionairy.

What the heck were you doing to me?

I was attempting to use a tactic you stated you use in your games, that is starving cities to get those additional GA's. With Caste System I figured I could get at least one and maybe two more GA until Hatty had to pass the Emancipation civic. So by saying I was "pulling a jesusin", I was stating I was using one of your tactics.

Now, seriously, I don't think sticking to 3 cities for so long is such a good idea. I try to have 3-4 cities by 1000BC and 6 cities by 1AD. With only 3 cities you save a few coins while you are researching, true, but you have to build the missionaries for the new cities in your legendary cities. In addition, the new cities have to quickly build their granary and their temples... while their are doing so, your legendary ones are not working on cathedrals.
Another reason is that AIs will take the good city sites. Didn't you find this problems in your game?

The location I was in kept some decent enough spots for me to build my other three cities (bringing me up to six). The remaining three I planned on using those that flipped to me (as I didn't have room to build those three ).