G-Major 14

[Harbourboy]

I struggle to settle 4 GOOD cities quickly. I always find that it is hard to get optimum sites in time. Finding the perfect GP farm (that isn't the capital) is especially challenging.

I'm wondering if MapFinder isn't half the problem. By specifying such great conditions on the capital, the balancing effect seems to result in the rest of the nearby countryside being rubbish (too many plains, deserts, or mountains). I had a two food, three gold capital (great) and there were no other food resources for miles around (bad).

 

[Harbourboy]

OK, I need a critique of my overall approach to this gauntlet, given that I always end up falling short, yet Jesusin feels a 1400 AD victory is a poor game.

So, I follow a cookie-cutter formula, given that every game is virtually the same set-up other than geography and AI tech pace.

1. Settle in place, with two food and at least one gold in start
2. Research agriculture and build worker
3. Research animal husbandry and build warrior
4. Build farm, gold mine, and pasture
5. Build Settler
6. Research writing then alphabet
7. Build library in capital
8. Search desperately for another two food site to be GP farm. If none nearby, settle the most cottageable looking site close to capital.
9. Trade writing and alphabet for stuff like bronzeworking and religious techs
10. Switch to Slavery
11. Next turn, trade for all the other techs that are now available, like Maths and Iron Working
12. Build worker in city 2 and maybe another one in city 1
13. Research drama
14. Build another settler
15. Run a scientist or two in capital to get GS.
16. Settle 3rd city. Hope that this one can be GP farm if 2nd one wasn’t
17. Hopefully start scientists in GP farm if set up.
18. Hopefully some religions have spread so maybe can start building religious buildings
19. Research civil service. Use first GS for Philosophy.
20. Switch to Bureaucracy and Pacifism and Caste System
21. Research paper then education. Stop trading techs at this point in vain attempt to slow the AI from getting Liberalism.
22. Use next GS to help with Education
23. Build another settler
24. Build 4th city in best place I can find, but probably won’t be ideal spot
25. AI builds Liberalism with 7 turns left to go for me
26. Hold garage sale on Paper and Education as they are now worthless. Earn stack of gold that can finance 100% research or culture for the rest of the game.
27. Switch to maximum Great Artists in GP farm (between 4 and 8 depending on how good the GP farm is), which should have National Epic by now (but maybe not, given that GP farm has no hammers and builds very slowly)
28. Get Liberalism and sell it off. Start Nationalism.
29. Halfway through Nationalism, switch to Free Speech and 100% culture.
30. For rest of game, build religious buildings, Hermitage, missionaries etc and use Great Artists to bomb the crappiest of the culture cities
31. Suffer endless ill-health in all cities
32. Usually flip one AI city to end up with 5 cities or maybe 6
33. AI launches space ship around 1500-1600 AD. At this point I have an average of 15-20k of culture in each city, earning around 400, 200, 100 respectively per turn. Sometimes capital reaches legendary, whilst other two are short by about 5k.

So, what is the crucial thing I need to do differently, because, to be honest, whilst I can see that this can be possible, it’s a bit silly to expect that I will magically become successful by continually doing the same thing over and over that does not quite work.

 

[Padraig]

27. Switch to maximum Great Artists in GP farm (between 4 and 8 depending on how good the GP farm is), which should have National Epic by now (but maybe not, given that GP farm has no hammers and builds very slowly)

In the little bit I've tried this gauntlet I think this seems a little late. The National Epic needs help being built with either some chops, mines, or a combo. Then I run as many artists as possible from the get-go except to grow the city to it's optimal size at the given time.

Another item to look at is how soon you're cottage spamming your non-GA city and getting them to work those cottages...lots of forest grasslands are great for this city so you can chop culture buildings(temples, theatre, library, university, etc.) while cottaging. It's your best choice if the city doesn't have food resources in the BFC to support Artists.

If you have health issues it might be worth giving Peter a try.

 

[Ozbenno]

I haven't won this yet, so my advice is somewhat dubious but it looks like you're building your 3rd and 4th cities too late. I look at having 4 by about 1000BC (3 legendary and 1 either for production or GA farm).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'm thinking a seafood start might be better for Liz. She starts with fishing, and you could probably skip agri/AH going wheel/pot to writing and alphabet (it's cheaper). Then trade for agri/AH. Just get a production city 2nd, even if it isn't going to be legendary, and just use that to spam workers and settlers. It'll probably end up being the city which founds Taoism though, which wouldn't be great (not too bad though since you could spam missionaries from it then?).

Mainly I have been doing exactly the same as Harbourboy with similar results so far (although I tend to quit [still have saves so I can go back and try them still] when getting beaten to liberalism so early and can't seem to get enough settlers out early enough).

 

[jesusin]

15th game is not going so well. Only 62 CPT in cities 2 and 3 at 1000 AD. Just can't seem to build cathedrals fast enough there.

I think it is cottages what you are missing. Only my humble opinion.

 

[jesusin]

I liked the names for your cities though - 01, 02, 03, 04, 05 & 06!

I think this is easier in vanilla becasue you don't need maths for civil service.

I am applying scientiphic method to the game and this is just an experiment

I always have maths before CS, I trade for maths in the alphabet-trading phase. If you go for Oracle before Alphabet it could be different, though, easier in Vanilla.

 

[jesusin]

Winning the race to Liberalism is not actually essential to victory here though, is it? As opposed to making sure you get there soon after 1 AD? Or is picking up Nationalism for free an essential element in victory?

You are right, it is not esencial for winning. The only effect is you will win 8 or 10 turns later (the time it takes to research Nationalism the old way).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Why is getting Nationalism important if you don't win the liberalism race? Just because it is an expensive tech that you can trade away? You don't seem to tech to Constitution/Democracy in your games to go representation/US so I don't see why it is important except for trade purposes.

EDIT: Unless you want to build Taj Mahal but that seems unlikely.

EDIT2: I think you should use more descriptive city names Jesusin, uno, dos, tres, etc.

 

[jesusin]

OK, I need a critique of my overall approach to this gauntlet, given that I always end up falling short, yet Jesusin feels a 1400 AD victory is a poor game.

Please, don't take it personally. I have the goal of sub 1000AD finish in mind, every game is a bad game compared to that goal.

I don't know what's your big mistake yet. I have two candidates: bad tech trading and not enought cottages.

Small things that I would change in your plan:
-forget about AH (unless you have something to pasture).
-research pottery before Writing. A few cottages should be up by 1000BC.
-have at least 8-10 cottages in your cottage cities.
-aim for 4 cities 1000BC, 6 cities 1AD. Doesn't need to be exactly that.
-forget about drama. When you win the liberalism race easily, than try to fit drama in again.
-ideally you don't run scientist in your capital, but in other cities. Sometimes you have to, though.
-don't trade CS or paper or Educ in order to win the liberalism race. You can trade philo if you don't have a monopoly on it.
-don't keep researching liberalism after you have lost the race. For example, you could research PP, and trade it for Liberalism and Nationalism.
-don't go 100% culture if you haven't finished researching.
-the turn you go 100%culture, trade away of your happiness resources for health ones and for gpt.
-keep the tech-trading game going.When you stop researching after Liberalism and nonetheless you get to know Corporation and Chemistry at the end of the game, then you can say you know how to trade techs.

I hope that helps. Keep your hopes high!

 

[jesusin]

Why is getting Nationalism important if you don't win the liberalism race? Just because it is an expensive tech that you can trade away? You don't seem to tech to Constitution/Democracy in your games to go representation/US so I don't see why it is important except for trade purposes.

EDIT: Unless you want to build Taj Mahal but that seems unlikely.

EDIT2: I think you should use more descriptive city names Jesusin, uno, dos, tres, etc.

You want Nationalism for the Hermitage.
It is really sweet when you get to build TajMahal too.

 

[Lexad]

Why is getting Nationalism important

Hermitage.
Edit: beaten to it

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Thanks, I'd totally forgotten about Hermitage requiring Nationalism.

I'm not sure about skipping Drama for fast liberalism, you have to hang around to get meditation, mysticism, priesthood in trades to get code of laws then. Everytime I go through Drama I can get to civil service quicker it seems.

EDIT: Saw something else weird in my last game. I popped Bronze Working from a hut on the first turn, didn't change to slavery because obviously capital was pop 1 and I wanted to switch 2 civics at once if poss, then a popup happened at the beginning of the second turn saying "I think you might want to review your available civics options" or something similar. Never seen that before, is it a new HOF mod thing?

 

[Airny]

@Harbourboy: Your writeup was a good idea. It seems to include the important things.

10. Switch to Slavery

Why would you do that? Am I the only one who doesn't use slavery? Perhaps it is not so bad of an idea. You don't have enough happiness for supporting your growing population, but I wouldn't switch for slavery only, switch it with bureaucracy.

That's all I can add, jesusin already pointed at the cottages. Not having pottery until alphabet is researched can be risky, you need gold to compensate for that.

 

[Ozbenno]

EDIT: Saw something else weird in my last game. I popped Bronze Working from a hut on the first turn, didn't change to slavery because obviously capital was pop 1 and I wanted to switch 2 civics at once if poss, then a popup happened at the beginning of the second turn saying "I think you might want to review your available civics options" or something similar. Never seen that before, is it a new HOF mod thing?

This option appears if you have any civics options available on the first IBT of the game. If you play non-ancient era starts it always comes up.

Popping BW first turn would be great (well popping it before you have a worker anyway).

 

[Lexad]

Slavery IMO is a must if you plan to build Cathedrals. You will always be low on pop rushing religious buildings, and temples would give you he same hippiness you lose for rushing them - except it would remain forever. Rushing missionaries would also speed up your transition to 100%-culture stage.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Well popping bronze working first turn didn't do ME any good.

Just played my first one through to the end to see how far I'd get. Asoka launched 1495AD. At least I survived till the end.

Culture cities had 11596 (423cpt), 12203 (200cpt) and 15552 (148cpt) at the end. Not nearly good enough. Only got liberalism in about 590AD anyway. I only got 6 Great Artists but 2 were due in the next 5 or 6 turns. Lots of cottages though. Only had 4 cities most of game and flipped one at the end (it had an airport so I would have been able to fly my warriors about!).

 

[Lexad]

I turn huts off in Warlords. They give AI with their 2 scouts too unfair an advantage; I will get more from trades if AI would have less.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Made a few big mistakes in the game anyway. Switched to slavery and didn't whip much, should have waited for beureaucracy I think.

Changed to caste & pacifism next but didn't pick a religion until one of the AIs had spread to my capital, that was a waste. Picked a religion a bit later on.

Then changed to beaureaucracy. That's when I should have changed to pacifism I think.

Another change to free religion later on.

Didn't get my cathedral built before Asoka launched. Wasn't ready to start building Hermitage (went for it in the capital it had some production capacity) as soon as Nationalism was researched.

National Epic took ages to build in GP farm.

Happiness wasn't much of a problem though I had 3 elephants and 2 fur so I could trade with the AI early on.

Didn't have a very good capital (lots of cottaged flood plains) but no gold or gems or anything like that. I really need to use MapFinder if I am going to take this seriously.

No huts sounds like a good idea. I got agriculture from one I think but it only had 4 turns to go. You do get a bit of cash from them though which can help early on. I also got a scout. Once you have met all the AIs there is no point scouting anymore so I bring the warrior or scout back home or delete them.

I didn't get drama before civil service this time (researched it a bit when trading for myst/medit/priesthood though). Still nowhere near getting liberalism first. Gold & gems needed I think.

Can some people win deity with less than optimal starts? I think you need a great start for a culture win anyway. The AI tech speed is ridiculous!

 

[Harbourboy]

Noooo!

Check this out:



Note the Great Artist that just arrived in Hastings, which would have been enough to bomb that third city to Legendariness. But Frederick launched that turn.

So I missed out on victory in my 16th game by one turn. How heartbreaking is that?