G-Major 13

[Ozbenno]

I'm hopeful of completing this, have started and if I have enough time (and luck) I'll get it done. I'm on an island with enough land for domination (I think), still well in the BCs and I've just axed-annexed Frederick.

 

[Harbourboy]

This game is very hard. I'm an intelligent person. Why can't I work this out as easily as some people around here seem to be able to. I just don't see that there can be that many different (i.e better) ways of doing things.

 

[Padraig]

This game is very hard. I'm an intelligent person. Why can't I work this out as easily as some people around here seem to be able to. I just don't see that there can be that many different (i.e better) ways of doing things.

You're a little hard on yourself considering thus far there has been only one successful submission. I'm not worried about what year I complete it in...I just want to complete this bad boy and fill my Emperor slot with a cheese-free quality win.

One way to look at this gauntlet is a call-to-arms for all those who don't like the association given the HOF with cheesy wins. This is a true test of your ability to play the game rather than a race to see who can use the same strategy most effectively.

I am on my 3rd attempt which looks fruitful. I got minimum 4 AI on my continent (still exploring), I got to alphabet before anyone else got writing (after beeline to pottery, then BW), I secured a copper and ivory in addition to foods, and I got Izzy to the south with a polar start and she's putting the hate on me.

 

[erikthecelt]

Compared to Moonsinger's games where she has taken over 4 AIs at this point, I have basically gone nowhere in this time. What should I have done differently?

What should I do from here? Or have I already stuffed it so badly I should give up?

I think you've missed some of the techniques that HOF players use.

I would have regened the map from looking at the start. For this gauntlet I would be looking for an inland capital and food resources. The map I picked had 2 gold mines, marble, wheat, cows, clams and then I got horses in the fat cross. I settled on a plains hill beside the wheat/gold/marble heaven. It's a great location because I can switch between a growth, tech or production depending on what I want to do. The gold let get ag and ah before teching to alpha.

Big difference between GOTM and HOF is you get choose the opponents and the map.

I haven't finished the game yet but I only had 2 civs on the continent. I teched to BW found copper then built one settler to work the copper I found.
I took Quin's capital and then made peace for a tech. Took the other capital and made peace. I started the war with a stack of six axes. I stopped building axes when I had enough to take both capitals. I whipped graneries and then libraries when my cities got unhappy.

It won't be a fast finish because I think the continent is too small for a domination win but I will probably finish the game anyway if I can find a small island to invade.

Choose a good start with something you can work early. Build a worker then plan the first war and go for it early. I look for two or three food sources for a capital for a good start but gold is real treat.

The other thing you should think of is who you want to fight/trade with. You have some tough customers there, you should look at selecting more peaceful, trade oriented civs.

 

[Harbourboy]

Thanks, erikthecelt. I am on to my 4th attempt now and I am focusing more closely on micromanaging the capital, really choprushing the first settler (this level is much less forgiving of slow settlement) and making sure the second city is placed somewhere really good (not just any old place to fill in some space).

I think I have STILL been struggling to throw off the old Civ3 habits of just settling jigsaw style to make sure each tile is used in a city.

But I like to assess by turn 100 whether I have made a good start or not, because I'm not good enough yet at this level to be able to recover if things are suboptimal at turn 100. I would be interested to know what sort of position other people are at at turn 100, so I can benchmark things like city numbers, tech, builds etc to see if I am still going too slowly.

 

[Harbourboy]

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting something different to happen.

So for my sixth attempt at this, I am changing my plan completely. I am going to modify Moonsinger's quechua rush into a warrior rush to attempt to slow the AI down enough until I can bring Axes and Swords into the mix.

So far, the plan is working much better than the old Pyramid chasing plan. Elizabeth has only two cities, no improvements, and I have 8 swordsmen headed her way. I may soon actually be able to wipe out an AI civ on Emperor in the BC years.

The challenge of this Emperor gauntlet has forced me to learn some new approaches to the game.

 

[Padraig]

I'm wondering about a couple of settings and whether they would make this gauntlet easier or harder. Thoughts?

Aggressive AI: I've never used it. Would this make the AI more likely to war each other, or more likely to have a larger army for you to have to wade through?

Minimum vs. Maximum AIs: Which is better. Fewer means fewer needed to defeat, but does more make each individual ai smaller and therefore easier to defeat. Also, having more means more potential trading partners...

Sea Level/Climate: Are there preferencial choices for the circumstances? Higher Seas=Less Land should be a quicker victory, no? Tropical allow better cottage span for our Civ?

My current attempt (still 3rd) is going alright, all but eliminated Spain, now I have to decide whether I can fight Asoka's longbowmen with Hwacha's and War Elephants or wait until I can upgrade my veteran axemen to Macemen. Should win Liberalism race.

 

[The-Hawk]

There is ugly...

Then there is butt-ugly...

Then there is the game I just submitted...

I made several huge mistakes:

- On my initial axe rush of Ghandi, he had a big stack in his capital. I thought I had a big enough stack to take him out. Oops... didn't succeed, after a couple of bad luck rolls, I needed to rebuild my whole army (and he got to promote several surviving defenders). Since I only had 2-3 cities, this took forever.

- Once I was about halfway to domination, I was blocked by Brennus who was a powerhouse. However, I had more production than he did, so I spent some time building up a sufficient army. I decided to switch religions so I could run Theocracy in my main prod cities. This pissed off Izzy, who attached through Brennus' lands. I didn't have a hard time beating her armies, but it cost me a significant part of my army. This meant more time lost to rebuild.

- Then, I got greedy. I was still behind Brennus in power, but decided to attack. I was banking on being able to beat him via better war tactics. However, our shared border was a curve and he was on the inside. My broader front meant my weaker force was also spread. After grinding away most of my army, I had one city to show for it. So, time to rebuild my army again!

Each of these blunders cost me centuries. Hence my final domination was way late (using cavs)... 1770 AD.

I had contemplated abandoning after my Ghandi fiasco because I knew I was in for a slow game. However, as Moonsinger was alone on the leaderboard, I thought I should finish and post a score. This way, her time is no longer the last place time!

I've started another game, pretty sure I can improve on my time . Two concerns in this game. So far, no religions have been founded on my continent, so I'm not getting any culture for border expansion. Second, I'm not 100% sure the continent is big enough. We'll see...

 

[Harbourboy]

At last, some more people in this thread. Hawkie, can you give me some tips for this one? Clearly, this is a walk in the park for you if you can win it whilst making lots of blunders. I seem to run into one of two problems:
1) Either I knuckle down to go for Pyramids and Great Library, but even if I get them, the other AIs have huge armies and loads of land and I can't compete militarily; or
2) I rush 'em from the start, but by early mid-game, my economy is down the toilet and I'm so far behind in technology, it's swordsmen vs musketmen. Then the galleons start showing up from the undisturbed behemoths on the other continent.

How do you balance these challenges? This level is so unforgiving. You give the AI an inch and they take a mile. Any advice welcome please. I am enjoying the challenge of this, but will give up soon unless I can see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[The-Hawk]

Of course, happy to help a fellow Geezer! First to answer some questions:

Clearly, this is a walk in the park for you if you can win it whilst making lots of blunders.

Not at all, this is not easy. I've had a couple of abandoned games before I won. Wang's traits are useless for this scenario, although I do like those Hwacha's. Once you get ahead of the AI's, it is easy to win (even if it takes forever). However, getting ahead of the AI's is not easy.

1) Either I knuckle down to go for Pyramids and Great Library, but even if I get them, the other AIs have huge armies and loads of land and I can't compete militarily;

I don't build wonders. It takes too long and uses up too many hammers. By the time you've built it, the AI's are long gone. I think the key to this scenario is focus. If you want to do an early axe rush, then build axes early and often.

2) I rush 'em from the start, but by early mid-game, my economy is down the toilet and I'm so far behind in technology, it's swordsmen vs musketmen. Then the galleons start showing up from the undisturbed behemoths on the other continent.

In my current game, economy is a big challenge as well. This is a tough balance to maintain in a domination rush. I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel now, but at one point, I was within a turn of starting to lose units. Luckily, a couple of AI's had currency, so I was able to trade some techs for cash (until I could take a few more cities and get the cash bonuses from them). I am depending on some of my captured cities having cottages underway.

Now some general comments on my strategy to date:

• I am playing with maximum AI's and high sea level. At emperor, I know the AI's will out-expand me, so I'd prefer they run out of room quickly. I also want some... umm... volunteers to join my empire very close by. More AI's also lowers the land domination limit.
  
• I am looking for a start with at least one gold, preferably two. Gold mines allow me to continue to tech while building axes.
  
• I am building minimum settlers. They are also a distraction from building early military. I let the AI's build my cities for me. In the game I submitted, and in my current game, I built zero settlers because I found copper in my initial fat cross. If copper is not in the fat cross, I'll build 1 settler to get it. If there is no copper, I abandon.
  
• Tech order has been: a worker tech based on any resources nearby (Ag, AH), Bronze, Wheel, Pottery, writing, beeline for construction for early Hwachas, then CoL for courthouses. In my current game, I'm needing to follow that with a detour for music so I can build culture. After that, CS to make my capital rock.
  
• Build order: worker, 1 or 2 warriors, barracks. Then settler if needed. If not, axe, axe, axe, axe, axe... Once I have 5-6 axes, I go after a neighbor. Build order for captured cities: barracks, axe, axe, axe...
  
• Once I have construction, my build order changes dramatically: Now it is hwacha, hwacha, hwacha...
  
• Once I have CoL, I take a break from military to build courthouses.

I'm not sure this strategy is optimal. It certainly is risky. If I can't get out axes quickly enough to expand, I will fall behind with no hope of catching up. On my win, I built granaries and a library or two, this current game, I'm trying to skip those. Again, if I fall behind, I will regret this choice. We'll see!

 

[Harbourboy]

Cheers, Hawkmeister. About what date do you usually get your first neighbour's capital?

 

[killercane]

Oracling Construction or CoL is not a bad way to go. I have found that it is easier to get to domination limit landwise than population wise with the other continent growing and growing while you whip units and build settlers after the initial conquer em all phase. Maybe this can be solved by having max AIs? Anyone know?

 

[Infantry#14]

In all my attempts so far, only my first attempt has yield me any copper in the fat cross, and I was stucked in the small continent w/ 2 ai.

In my current game, with max ai, I started next to a horse and 2nd city w/ 3 ivories. I declared war on Alex and G khan early to steal a worker each and manage to delay them from settling on my ivory city. Now at 100 ad, I manage to take out Alex w/ elephants and hwacha. Probably too slow. The warmongers at my continent are pretty slow in tech, while the peace civ are relatively advance. I am worry those peaceful civ are running away w/ tech.

 

[Harbourboy]

That's what I struggle with. How to keep up with the runaway civs that aren't your neighbours.

 

[Infantry#14]

i guess next attempt for me is to put more warmongers than peaceful ones. In my current attempt, I have 5 peaceful ai and 5 aggressive ai and my starting continent has 4 peaceful and 3 aggressive ones. That means Mana Musa at the other continent is stuck w/ 2 warmongers (I think the are Ragnar and Peter). I wish good luck to him as I turned off vassal state (since I dont like unexpected backstabs and the ai have to fight longer, more wars btw ai = better winning chance). However, w/o vassals, I will have to do all the fighting myself and takes longer for domination to take place.

 

[The-Hawk]

Cheers, Hawkmeister. About what date do you usually get your first neighbour's capital?

In the submitted game, my first DOW was 775 BC. Took me a long time to get the capital due to the miscalculation I mentioned in my last post. Second DOW was in early AD because of all the lost time.

Current game in progress: first DOW 1510 BC, second 370 BC, third 326 BC (finishing off the first CIV, I had made peace to get his techs), 4th DOW 170 AD. Moving along much faster than my submitted game. I'm at 305 AD, 2 civs gone, the third is hurt badly. Starting to bog down though, the 3rd civ got longbows. It takes a pretty good stack of Hwacha's to clear out those lb's.

 

[Moonsinger]

I had contemplated abandoning after my Ghandi fiasco because I knew I was in for a slow game. However, as Moonsinger was alone on the leaderboard, I thought I should finish and post a score. This way, her time is no longer the last place time!

Thanks for thinking about me.

 

[Harbourboy]

I've been experimenting with a more Moonsinger style war approach - namely going at a neighbour really early (with warriors) to slow them down a bit while I get the axes online. Seemed to work OK, but then I blundered the actual axe rush at the capital, and then collapsed after two other civs attacked me.

That's the problem with this for me is that I need to get EVERYTHING right in order to get anywhere. As soon as I make one mistake, it's curtains.

Plus, I seem to always get the annoying bit where I am about to finish off someone, but then they vassalise to the top dog (whom I had previously cultivated a healthy friendship), who then attacks me out of the blue with waves of superior mounted units.

 

[Infantry#14]

I've been experimenting with a more Moonsinger style war approach - namely going at a neighbour really early (with warriors) to slow them down a bit while I get the axes online. Seemed to work OK, but then I blundered the actual axe rush at the capital, and then collapsed after two other civs attacked me.

That's the problem with this for me is that I need to get EVERYTHING right in order to get anywhere. As soon as I make one mistake, it's curtains.

Plus, I seem to always get the annoying bit where I am about to finish off someone, but then they vassalise to the top dog (whom I had previously cultivated a healthy friendship), who then attacks me out of the blue with waves of superior mounted units.

Your solution may be to turn off vassal state

 

[Harbourboy]

turn off vassal state

Wow, can I do that? That would eliminate the problem of having to finish off each enemy completely, meaning I could turn my attention to the next target once I'd weakened one enemy sufficiently to longer be a threat. I am taking too long to take the last few cities, leaving everyone undisturbed growth to pull away.