G-Major 14

[Alan_of_Dale]

Well I tried the Mao settler spam method I mentioned above with warrior grow to size 2 and then settler, settler, ... in my capitol. Had 6 cities and 4 workers from my second city which had resources but not much potential for growth at 405 BC and all the best resources in my area. Ended up with the largest land area as I could spread out a bit. But I only got alphabet that same turn even with a beeline to it via meditation (w/out AH). This strat really is more appropriate for the warmongering I usually indulge in where all you need is cats. I played it out just to see what I could do. Still managed three trading events, as there was still some stuff left for Alphabet, and LB of Philosoply, and a couple of AIs hadn't gotten Liberalism yet. Lost in the mid 1500s. Research just too slow and although GP farm had rice and cow, it had no FP, just green rivers so it was limited to NE and 6 artist specialists. And capital could only manage 400 cpt as it had been hamstrung in growth to only 13 pop and the cottages hadn't all matured yet. Plus, they were not Liz cottages.

So really with Mao/phil/org/mine/agr you need to play like Liz for cultural victory games. With gold/FP/PH start I guess it really pays to get the worker first to build the gold mine as the warrior build grows capital to size 2. Then a settler or two from the capital before the granary for example for maximum capital growth. Guess you really don't want to burdin the capital with all the settler building unless it is just amazing in production. In the several other games I've tried on this gauntlet so far I built the worker first and had a closer result, the best being about 3x20k in culture. The biggest improvement came with being very generous with my trading to get everyone pleased so that they didn't DoW me, and letting them in with open borders gives plus signs, too. Very counter my militaristic instincts. May try Mao again just to be different, but founding two early religions with Saladin is very nice now that I have learned to be generous and open.

 

[jesusin]

Once I stop researching and turn on all culture, I start estimating how long my cities will take to reach legendary at their current levels of cpt production. I count them as being worth 20-22 turns because that's how many turns it saves off of the regular rate of culture production. Sure, it doesn't save any time off the cities that are ahead of it, but since you don't win until the last one is finished, it is still speeding up the process by that many turns.

Ok, you are right. But let me put it this way:

Imagine you have an infinite number of GA ready. The first one saves you 22 turns. The second one, another 22... till you are only a couple of turns of normal culture from Legendary. How many turns does the next GA save? If your other two cites are already Legendary, only 2 turns. If your cities are 1,2 and 3 turns away from Legendary, then a new GA would only save 1 single turn. If your 3 cities are 1 turn away from Legendary, then 2 additional GA are of no use at all. You get the idea.

That's why I say that, given enough GA, the last GA is worth some 3 turns.

Ahhh, time for a beer......

Yeees, well done! Congratulations.

At 230 AD (free sp) cpt ( 228 - 74 - 52)
At 1000 AD CPT (724 - 208 - 168)
…
1235 AD finish with only 14 GAs.
…
I did not have marble at all, and I had to trade to get Copper for 10 turns.

Hmmm, so for you a final turn is worth 3 200AD turns. And a GA is worth 2.5turns. A GS would save 6-8 early turns, a GA 2.5 late turns which equals 7.5 late turns... it is a close thing, but you wouldn't have been better off with a GS.

I am glad you didn't have marble, that means 1235AD record won't last long!

 

[jesusin]

I couldn't get Mansa to trade for Philo, so I figured I needed a research boost and built a GS. Yes, I feel dirty.

Ahaha! Now that you have tasted it, you won't be able to stop!

 

[Harbourboy]

I tried to build the Sistine Chapel in one of my games, but I never got close.

 

[Lexad]

Tried a couple of peaceful starts - haven't done it since New Year - got consequently beaten by 1 turn to Oracle and PArthenon, having 3 excellent sites. Cruel cruel world.

 

[WastinTime]

Hmmm, so for you a final turn is worth 3 200AD turns. And a GA is worth 2.5turns.

Not true. There is a flaw in your calculation. Around 200 AD, if I delay the switch to FreeSp and continue 100% research. I'm still generating culture. probably around 100 cpt. So saving 1 late turn is something like 5-6 turns at 200 AD, not 3 as you suggest.

 

[jesusin]

Not true. There is a flaw in your calculation. Around 200 AD, if I delay the switch to FreeSp and continue 100% research. I'm still generating culture. probably around 100 cpt. So saving 1 late turn is something like 5-6 turns at 200 AD, not 3 as you suggest.

Oh my! I ignored the initial culture, approaching it to zero. But it is relevant, if you haven't built any multipliers it is half of your culture just after FreeSp.

I am enjoying this so much. I want to learn more and more!!!!


Back to the numbers, and thinking in terms of culture, not turns. A GA gives 2680. A GS gives 7 turns of double culture when culture is 175-260. A GA always wins.


Then zero GS (if able to win the Liberalism raze anyway). Then my argument "Academy is nor worthy because with 3GS there is no time for it to be useful" is not valid anymore. Which take us to the same chat we had 6 months ago, "Academy or not Academy, that is the question".

Back then I never had Academies, they will never give as many beakers as a lightbulb. You convinced me to try and I had a leap forward in my game. Was that when I started winning the Liberalism race. I can't remember. Maybe the leap forward was not directly related to the Academy.

Why did you stop doing Academies anyway?
What do all of you think, people? 1GS for Academy or no GS at all?

 

[FiveAces]

What do all of you think, people? 1GS for Academy or no GS at all?

Well I would say if you can complete your research in 90turns and be first to Lib without it, it would seem to be much less useful than otherwise. I think the optimal solution depends on what the critical path to the switch to FS is. If the critical path is research (e.g you will already have 2 caths when you get Lib), build the academy to finish tech quicker. If it's construction, then you don't need it; you need the GA to offset the additional turns you will spend running beaur. The trick is figuring out what the critical path is going to be when you start running specialists.

Me, I've been having research difficulties since I started trying Saladin, so I'm gonna build one in my next game and see if I can get back to researching Lib before 200AD like I could when I played Liz. Might also hold out for the 2 gems start Harbourboy likes. That seemed to work ok for WastinTime too.

 

[WastinTime]

Oh my! I ignored the initial culture, approaching it to zero. But it is relevant, if you haven't built any multipliers it is half of your culture just after FreeSp.

Back to the numbers, and thinking in terms of culture, not turns. A GA gives 2680. A GS gives 7 turns of double culture when culture is 175-260. A GA always wins.


Then zero GS (if able to win the Liberalism raze anyway). Then my argument "Academy is nor worthy because with 3GS there is no time for it to be useful" is not valid anymore. Which take us to the same chat we had 6 months ago, "Academy or not Academy, that is the question".

Back then I never had Academies, they will never give as many beakers as a lightbulb. You convinced me to try and I had a leap forward in my game. Was that when I started winning the Liberalism race. I can't remember. Maybe the leap forward was not directly related to the Academy.

Why did you stop doing Academies anyway?
What do all of you think, people? 1GS for Academy or no GS at all?

Well, I got you leave the dark side, but there's still a problem with your calculation. The culture (with no mult.) before freesp. is not half. That would only be true if your culture slider was 100%, but you're still researching. Since you probably have a couple cathedrals, it might be something like 1/3 or 1/4 more likely since most culture in diety games comes from commerce instead of wonders and buildings.

Lightbulb vs. Academy:

If you're talking LB education vs. Academy, that's a no-brainer. Academy (around turn 50-55) will not only get you the same (or more) beakers, but it also gives 4 culture. The most important thing to note is that the beakers come earlier and we all know that 1000 beakers bombed into Edu. is not the same as 1000 which come earlier. You get CS and Bureau several turns sooner, you can make it to music 1st. You can trade techs earlier, etc. Saladin again is better than Liz because he can flip on Caste for a few turns to get the Academy sooner in case you want to build a settler instead of a library or get the GS from a city other than the capitol.

The real question is LB for Philo vs. Academy. Now your LB is giving you the beakers sooner than the Academy. More importantly, you're getting a religion, a holy city, a missionary, and have more tech to trade. I think Philo can be traded for and Sal gives me enough religion to have something to build early so I don't do Philo LB. If I were Liz, I might.

So the really real question is NO GS vs. Academy. My capitol can make legendary with only 2 religions, but that cuts it close. If I assume I'll have 3 religions (at least) when that "perfect game" comes around, then my capitol does not need any culture boost at all, so the +4 for Academy is wasted. This is the main reason I tried with no GS, but I'm going back to Academy for a while for the other benefits of faster research.

 

[jesusin]

Well, I got you leave the dark side, but there's still a problem with your calculation.

If I continue to listen to you, you will end up talking me into not generating any GA and any GS!

Then the pre-FreeSp, pre-100% culture is almost negligible, I would say 40cpt, not 100. Ok, I'd better shut up my mouth till I have made up my mind on this subject.

 

[WastinTime]

If I continue to listen to you, you will end up talking me into not generating any GA and any GS!

Then the pre-FreeSp, pre-100% culture is almost negligible, I would say 40cpt, not 100. Ok, I'd better shut up my mouth till I have made up my mind on this subject.

I was saying 100 with a few cathedrals.

Realizing that the culture is smaller, like 40 cpt, tilts the argument back towards using a GS because now the cost of late research is around 150 cpt.

 

[Dracandross]

Just finished Inca Mara at 1376 and there was still ALOT to improve. I had 2 religions spread and few spread later. Not enough cottages. Built about 12 caths. Got about 2 GS and 6-8 GS (cant rememb now). Stonehenge (cap produced gs faster with that extra gpp and did get one extra too later when i tried to squish few extra turns but that was surely worth it as theres nothong to build with inca in the begining when you have already enough workers and cap needs to grow & Taj. Cap had nonoptimal place but captured 2 cities were decent. I think its possible to shave that 100 years as i suggested before easily. Ended research 320bc. Lost conf for 5 turns and it didnt spread until the very end. Ill give you stats when this is over, ill try to improve quick now it takes so long to play...

-Dracandross

 

[RickWJ66]

You guys are intense. Or just insane. Your posts make it sound so "matter of fact" easy to win a deity level game. After probably 40 tries, I finally did it. 1650 AD win. Probably last place, but I don't care. I never won (or even tried to play) a deity level game before. I used the archipelago/snaky continent maps, which sufficiently slowed down the AI to allow me to squeak in a win with Liz. At least one of the AIs was only one part away from finishing the space ship, and I was biting my nails and kept thinking about all of the posts of people who lost by only one or a couple of turns (well before 1650, I am sure).

There were plenty of inefficiencies in my play. I had six cities, one religion, 2 cathedrals. After researching Alphabet, I then researched drama while I was waiting to "trade up" to researching CoL. (To my surprise, I was only beaten to CoL by about four turns -- had I really focused, I could have founded Conf.) At the same time, I was using science specialists in my capital to get a GS, which allowed me to lightbulb Phil first and found Taoism, my one religion. I also managed to get to Liberalism first, which was about the first time I was able to do that in my 40-some tries. I realize now that in prior games I was not sufficiently cottaging up my cities early on, which was why I was not able to win before.

Prior attempts included a variety of leaders (Liz, Peter, Saladin, Huayna) and various strategies suggested in earlier posts. I made a few tries with the Quecha rushes at slower game speeds, but could only wipe out a couple of civs early on, not good enough for an ultimate cultural victory. I made numerous attempts using the inland sea map, but the archipelago did seem to work better, and a recent post made me decide to try it again tonight. There were a couple of times before where I felt "on track" towards a possible win, but was then DOWed every time, as I was too sloppy to make sure everybody was happy with me. It was tempting to quit, but Harbourboy continues to be an inspiration to not give up.

Anyway, there does seem to be a certain "cheesy" aspect to this type of strategy. You have to leave yourself so under-protected at Deity level -- some of my cities were only defended with one warrior -- the AI should really NOT let you get away with that (and, my understanding is, it no longer does in BTS -- why aren't I playing that rather that obsessively trying to play this vanilla gauntlet??? I am making no sense here!) It seems like you can only win by exploiting a significant defect in the AI. Can anybody pull this off in BTS? (Uh, oh! I probably should keep my mouth shut.)

However, this exercise will clearly improve my playing skill at lower difficulty levels, and taught me a few tricks. Much thanks to everybody who posted hints and suggestions. This has been exhausting!!! Now on to Charlie for the BTS beta minor (well, maybe this weekend . . .)

 

[jesusin]

After probably 40 tries, I finally did it...

I never won (or even tried to play) a deity level game before...

I realize now that in prior games I was not sufficiently cottaging up my cities early on, which was why I was not able to win before...

It was tempting to quit, but Harbourboy continues to be an inspiration to not give up...

this exercise will clearly improve my playing skill at lower difficulty levels, and taught me a few tricks...

All the quoted sentences make me happy.

This Gauntlet is being a success in many an aspect, even though we might not reach the 1000AD threshold (come on, people, we can do it!).

Congratulations on your win, RickWJ66; it is not an easy task.

 

[Alan_of_Dale]

Congratulations RickWJ66 on your win! Presistance pays off. Excellent first deity win!

As for your comments on BTS being harder in peaceful games, I noticed myself that even in Warlords, it seems much harder to get the AIs pleased. Don't know if anyone else has noticed. Tried a couple games as Gandhi in Warlords and I couldn't give the AIs enough to avoid DoW. Gave up on Warlords for this challenge.

Seems surprising that Sid Meier would shift his peace oriented game by not letting you play in peace.

 

[Harbourboy]

Good work, RickWJ66. 40 games is an awesome effort. Your date is pretty similar to mine so we might be fighting it out for last place.

You are right that winning this does exploit several serious defects which are completely unrealistic in a normal game, such as the peaceful opponents and ridiculous starts.

By the way, I did play this on Vanilla, because that was the original restriction on this game.

 

[markh]

Even in Vanilla I find it difficult to not being dowed, although I play with peaceful AIs. Each time I found confucionism, taoism and am well on my way getting lib first in a good timely manner I am being dowed, although I have not adopted any religion and the aggressor is pleased with me. Each time I get a great map it is like this.

 

[Harbourboy]

This is DEITY level, not tiddlywinks. What do you expect? It's supposed to be hard!

 

[FiveAces]

This is DEITY level, not tiddlywinks. What do you expect? It's supposed to be hard!

Hmm.. This got me thinking, it's not just hard because it's Diety, it's extra hard because we need a cultural victory, which is one of the harder ways to win Diety because of the early launch. For same reason, Ancient Diety Space Race is hard too, and one strat that has been proven to work is the PA strat (there's a thread on this somewhere). Would that work here as well? You build your capital, maybe a 2nd city, to legendary same as always, but instead of bombing your own cities for the other(s), you bomb your PA friend and because his/her cities don't need as many GA's since they've got all the wonders.

I'm curious if anyone thinks it might work. I'm assuming you can bomb another civ's cities if you're in a PA with them, otherwise it's a non-starter. You would also have to play on Marathon to ensure enough turns for DP and PA (I think?), and you would need a pre-1400 PA to be near the top of the table. Not sure if this is possible either. Thoughts anyone?

 

[WastinTime]

I'm curious if anyone thinks it might work. I'm assuming you can bomb another civ's cities if you're in a PA with them, otherwise it's a non-starter. You would also have to play on Marathon to ensure enough turns for DP and PA (I think?), and you would need a pre-1400 PA to be near the top of the table. Not sure if this is possible either. Thoughts anyone?

There is a whole thread on this, but you can't bomb your PA cities. You can, however, gift them GA's and hope, or add them as specialists. (vanilla civ--may have changed in Warlords or BTS)