G-Major 118

[Sun Tzu Wu]

There is usually Copper in the south where the player always starts on Oasis. The Iron is always in the middle desert region and sometimes hard to reach or taken by the AIs. Thus, you must find Copper and claim it early so you can build Axemen and later build Macemen. You may need to capture Iron like I did in my current game. Horse is always near the northern coast on an Oasis map.

Of course you may regenerate the map for all HoF games (includes gauntlets and challenges). You will get better maps faster using the HoF MapFinder that's included in the BUFFY mod. There is also a MapFinder app used to review the maps found.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Bugio]

I'm thinking a different strategy here, Oracle feudalism, Longbow rush north to get horses, then straight to guilds for knight stomp. Unfortunately i'm on vacation with no access to civ till 20th, so i doubt i will be able to test the strategy, maybe someone will elaborate though.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I'm thinking a different strategy here, Oracle feudalism, Longbow rush north to get horses, then straight to guilds for knight stomp. Unfortunately i'm on vacation with no access to civ till 20th, so i doubt i will be able to test the strategy, maybe someone will elaborate though.

This is definitely original and may result in a very good game, if Guilds can be completed well before the AI can muster Longbowmen (doubtful), Macemen or Pikemen (both these should happen much later than the player's eariliest possible completion of Guilds). In this case, Knights would face typically Def 40 and Def 20 cities with Archer, Axeman, Swordsman, Crossbowman, Longbowman and Spearman defenders. Many Knights will be lost, but the cities will be captured very quickly.

An alternate would be a War Elephant and Catapult rush to also secure Horse in the north. This has the disadvantage of needing to research to Construction, before Feudalism and Guilds. Civil Service would still be the technology to oracle for Bureaucracy, or Feudalism can be oracled instead (not sure how this could happen while teching to Construction though).

I am a bit concerned that any strategy that omits Civil Service Bureaucracy) early with have a slower tech rate that will make it difficult to keep ahead of the AIs while keeping large numbers of cities.

I may try a Longbowmen rush after completing my current game.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

I oracled feudalism in one of my attempts but I was largely unimpressed with the power of the longbow and early vassalage. Now I may not have used them as well as you might, but teching is hard in this game since there is a large maintenance for the large army. So I'm not convinced it is worth the cost of skipping the civil service slingshot.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I also agree that Civil Service for Bureaucracy may be superior, but ignoring seige entirely greatly reduces the technologies required; one needs only the technologies required to complete Guilds and access to Horse and Iron (Always War further requires Animal Husbandry and Iron Working, since trading for these two resources is impossible).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

I improved my game to 1300 AD.

I started in the middle of the map with a gold, 2 river corn, and ivory and several floodplains.

I was able to get Civil Services from Oracle then immediately teched iron working but no iron! and no copper!

Never fear, I teched construction and horseback riding and very very aggressively whipped out war elephants and catapults. War elephants turned out to be very efficient (hammer wise) at killing off the enemy AI. Early conquests fueled research through metal casting and machinery and guilds. I eventually got a great engineer from the hanging gardens and running a engineer specialist which bulbed engineering relatively late.

Also early conquest allowed me to take out all of the AI before they researched engineering themselves and all but 3-4 AI I believe died out before they got feudalism.

The early war elephants (many of whom survived) were very effective. They allowed me to take the fight to the AI significantly earlier. And starting in the center of the map gave me early access to plenty of target AI cities and a shorter path to horses than many gems starts.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Congratulations on improving your game, bcool!

I also thought that a beeline to Construction with Ivory would result in a very effective War Elephant and Catapult offensive versus the nearest AIs.

In my current game, I plan to oracle Feudalism and beeline Guilds for Knights, skipping Civil Service.

I'm really enjoying this gauntlet! Lots of different effective strategies to choose from.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

In my current game, I plan to oracle Feudalism and beeline Guilds for Knights, skipping Civil Service.

I gave it a try in my first game staring in the south central area near gold, iron, and stone. All previous games started in SW or SE corner.

Oracled Feudalism t70. I even secured Horse with my 2nd city. Started building Knights t136. However there were too many AI stacks and too many WEs, and was stymied through t150.

Conclusion, this strategy might still work, but those that oracle Civil Service for Bureaucracy are probably better.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I also thought that a beeline to Construction with Ivory would result in a very effective War Elephant and Catapult offensive versus the nearest AIs.

I plan to try a variation on my Oracle Civil Service strategy where Construction -> Horseback Riding is bee-lined after Civil Service to start a War Elephant + Catapult rush. Also, plan to start in the southern E-W middle of the map again. All my other starts were from the SW or SE corner of the map, including the one I finished several days ago that was in 1st place briefly.

I'm not sure any strategy can gain enough oracling something other than Civil Service for this gauntlet, Bureaucracy is just too powerful around t70 and after Machinery, one can build Maceman with either Copper or Iron.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

I wonder who's gonna win this one

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Not likely to be me. I somehow thought that Aggressive AI would be good to use (correction: It is a required gauntlet option). In my current game, I spent more time and hammers fighting off several SoDs from up to four Civs at a time. I'm already close to my previous best date, and still have five Civs to kill. On the bright side, I'm less than 8t from Steel in this game.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

Aggressive AI is required.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Aggressive AI is required.

Sorry, Aggressive AI is required.

I selected "No Vassals", so the AI could not vassal each other.

I also selected "Cultural Flip after Conquest" so cities under cultural pressure will flip back to the original owner.

I don't believe that either of these had any effect in my games at least.

In my current game, I probably didn't settle cities early enough. The result was my first SoD was tied up defending my capital and 2nd city from near constant attack by several AI stacks for about 20 turns.

In any case, Aggressive AI probably does make this gauntlet more difficult. On the other hand, when the AI is at war, I'm not sure Aggressive AI has any discernible effect. They just won't start building more units until they meet the player and player automatically declares war on them.

In my best game, I started in the SE corner and had plenty of room to expand and did not contact AIs as soon as in my current game.

In my current game, I completed Guilds very early (~t115) but did not connect Horse until about 100t later. I completed Steel on t215 and still had four AIs with power ratings from 1.0 to 1.5 to eliminate. It is now t219 and I have built seven Canons and upgraded one Trebuchet. I plan to upgrade another seven, but my research slider is 0 at nominally 0 Wpt. I will have to build Wealth to in most cities for about 10t or send Knights to pillage AI improvements. I will probably use both and may be able to upgrade one Trebuchet each turn.

I only got one centrally located start and that did not go as well as planned.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Denniz]

Results:

G-Major 118 - Conquest, Monarch, Ancient, Small, Normal, Oasis, Spain (check options)
1^st bcool 1300 AD
2^nd Sun Tzu Wu 1520 AD

Congratulations!

 

[Kaitzilla]

Congratulations Bcool on the win!

Elepault is a fine choice again.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Congratulations bcool!

Very well played game!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

Thanks to Sun Tzu Wu who inspired me to make several additional attempts.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Thanks to Sun Tzu Wu who inspired me to make several additional attempts.

Glad you enjoyed this gauntlet enough to make several additional attempts. Note that my best game was the winning entry for one day. You play amazingly fast.

Right now I'm just 25 experience points from 300 that will provide my tenth Great General. Sadly, I have lost a lot of them, because they became the stack defender and worse they were usually the only stack healer.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

With this game I often split the 20 xp from the GG into 2 units. One unit ideally to upgrade from warrior to macemen and another macemen. The GG would become eventually a supermedic with a bit more xp usually, and the other sometimes became the backup (woodsman III) or perhaps a CR III unit. Seemed to work well.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I ocassionally tried spreading the 2nd and later GG's 20 XP with an existing C1Med3 WL unit with the goal of more quickly generating a C1Med3Wm3 unit which heals 40% (25% + 15%) in the plot where the WL unit is.

Sun Tzu Wu