G-Major 14

[ParadigmShifter]

265252859812191058636308480000000 is your lucky number??? (30! or 30 factorial = 30x29x28x...x1).

Yes, I am bored and have a list of factorials in a book close to hand.

 

[Harbourboy]

It could well end up being that many attempts, by the time I am finished!

Attempt number 30 is underway. First milestone of founding Philosophy has been achieved, but not sure whether I have the optimum geography to pull off the win. But given that I am still not 100% convinced on exactly what the optimum conditions are, I will carry on, in case something unexpected happens (like Mansa and Frederick destroy each other in a bloody nuclear war that wipes out their spaceships).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

My top tip of the day: don't try this on a pangaea map unless you are playing the Incans and want to rush a city early on. You just get boxed in immediately. By the time I got my first settler out an AI had nicked a spot 2 away from where I wanted to settle and the only land left was in the jungle not on a river and a stretch of coastline with desert and mountains in the fat cross, and no resources.

On Inland Sea maps, I can get 3 cities out no problems but they tend to have 1, maybe 2 tops food resources and still have unworkable tiles in their fat crosees.

Where are all the bananas and 2 other food resource 2nd city sites? Not in my games, that's for sure. Any good start and good second city site is ruined by someone DoW'ing on me before I have traded alphabet to everyone.

 

[Harbourboy]

I never got anywhere good when playing on Pangaea, but I guess it depends how many enemies you play with. I have been on Inland Sea - Medium Sea - Temperate - 6 Enemies (Hatsepshut, Cyrus, Frederick, Mansa Musa, Roosevelt, Saladin) for the last 20 attempts at this. There is still an annoying amount of desert in this map, plus I hardly ever find any seafood.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

6 opponents is the minimum so I go with that. You get a bit more space with low sea level, less seafood, but there is still a lot of desert.

I tried 2 goes at Great Plains, once I was in the east, with a bad start so I didn't carry on. The second time I was in the middle with huge amounts of cows, a river, floodplains and a fish. And some iron. No health resources available to trade at all, everyone wanted my fish and no-one wanted my cows.

I play with the same opponents as you except I have Asoka in there instead of Saladin. He tends to win the sapce race every time though. I assume we are both playing as Liz?

I've had a bit more tech success by going wheel, pottery, writing, alphabet (trade for agri/AH/mysticism/maths/BW), meditation, priesthood, code of laws, (lightbulb philo), civil service, paper, education (1 lightbulb for about half this tech), (beaten to) liberalism. I pick up other techs needed in trades along the way to get polytheism, literature, drama, music.

 

[Thrallia]

I tend to follow jesusin's idea of going to 0% research right after finishing alphabet and trading for agri/ah/myst/bw...switch to slavery, trade for meditation/poly/priest...sometimes get math also.

But everything's going so fast at that point, that I only seem able to lightbulb education 1x and have to self-research philo.

I also think that I'm switching from slavery to caste too early. I think next time I attempt this gauntlet, I'll stay slavery until I pick a religion and convert to pacifism and caste at the same time.

 

[Harbourboy]

Random comments:
- The AI never researches Drama, even after Liberalism and Nationalism have been and gone. So I always have to research it myself.
- I get some odd situations sometimes. Sometimes I am really late to Liberalism, but find that nobody else has it either. It's as if they give up once they lose the race.
- In my last game, I did not get to Liberalism until 900AD. But I still managed to get within 3000 culture points of winning. So I don't think that early Liberalism is the be-all and end-all of this game.
- I have learnt now that you don't have to trade your new tech to everyone immediately (as I have often been told). These opponents seem to not like trading with each other that much because sometimes they take forever to pick up techs that everyone else has.
- I have had my best results from starts with gems in them. Riverside gems seem to be better than gold because you can still get some food from them. Not sure if this is true, but my best games have been with gem starts.
- I think the multi-GP farm is the way to go. The real question is whether both GP farms are also legendary cities. It is all fine to say that you don't want to waste the culture from the artists, but you also don't want to waste the culture from that city with the three dyes in it either. Could you have one big GP farm, and another pseudo-one that had a bit of commerce as well to sustain itself so that it needed less bombs than the main one?
- If you blow two GPs on scientists, then that leaves you with about 14 left. If you need 8 for the main GP farm, that leaves you 6 for the other one. That means you still need to find 9000 culture from the city itself. If you budget for about 60 turns of real culture that means you need an average of 150 per turn over that period. That would be a bit challenging from a city that was also contributing GPs itself. Maybe you need a third GP farm to provide another one or two artists because the commerce/GA farm 2 can only pop you 4 artists? I guess this all depends on what the map gods give you.
- I wonder how long I can keep up interest in this gauntlet.

 

[Thrallia]

well, I'm playing my SGOTM, then switching over to the BtS gauntlet for a bit. Plenty of time to let myself get beat up some more on deity later in the month

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I agree about the losing interest bit. I just can't seem to get any sort of decent start and hardly ever a decent GP farm. At least it will make me better at pursuing cultural wins on other levels though.

If I do lose interest the first thing I am going to do is move down to chieftain or warlord level (missing those from HOF - and emperor and above too of course) and out culture everyone for a resounding win.

Positives so far: I have survived on deity to lose via space on 2 occasions (that I played through to the end), so it isn't as scary as I expected it to be (but it is bloody hard). I've also learnt how to get to liberalism far earlier than I normally would even consider it via this gauntlet's beeline which will help immensely in future (peaceful) games too I think.

 

[Harbourboy]

At least it will make me better at pursuing cultural wins on other levels though.

You see, I'm not sure that it will. The tactics that work on Deity are SO specialised that would almost certainly not be optimal on other levels. For example, we are getting so in-tune with the rate of AI science in this game, that we'd be all out of synch on other levels when micro-management ideas like 0% science after alphabet would be less useful. Also, on lower levels, you should be able to make better use of wonders. Not to mention the fact that I have completely forgotten what a military unit is or what you do with them.

 

[WastinTime]

In case you missed it, I was not first to Liberalism in my 1335 AD game. Forget about the GS strategy and use those 15 GA's to win the game. If you're aiming for 15xx AD, then 16 or more GA's should come your way, so just cottage the capitol and bomb any other 2 cities.

Harbourboy, you have a lot of good instincts and observations. I too have been having trouble getting them to research Drama, so I rebuilt my list of opponents to include more music-lovers. England, Hatty, etc.

Yea, once they lose the race to Lib (or Music, or even Literature I think) they give up. I wonder...If you research Literature before CS or even CoL, and didn't play against any music-lovers...would that keep people away from Lit, and let you get music 1st very late...hmm.

Gems are fast starts, but you might be a little short on hammers if you're not careful to get an elephant or marble, horse, copper, etc.

Gems are also located only on the far left or right of the inland sea...as I'm sure you know. I think you get pinned in faster there and the sea is closer. Starting up in a corner with gold might be better.

 

[WastinTime]

me again... Try just once creating a GA as soon as you can (use caste as soon as you get it...or build the Parthenon.) Bomb your 2nd or 3rd city and see how nice it feels to grab all their resources/land, even flip a city early enough to use it. Don't forget all the forests you get to chop now too! On quick speed (and only quick) borders will expand one extra level with just 1 bomb. Do this and you will break that nasty GS habit.

 

[Harbourboy]

It's funny, because I never had a GS habit until I started this gauntlet and got fixated with the "You must have Liberalism by 1AD because this gives you more time to grow culture" challenge.

But if we are saying we want over 40k of our 75k culture to come from Great Works, and if our capitals are traditionally the ones that reach 25k first, then the Free Speech culture phase is not necessarily the most important aspect of this gauntlet. 16 Great Artists vs 13 Great Artists is pretty significant in terms of strategy.

By the way, what is the most number of GPs anyone has managed to get in this game so far? I'm haven't even been counting mine, to be honest.

 

[Thrallia]

I think the most I've gotten is 10, maybe 11.

 

[jesusin]

Do this and you will break that nasty GS habit.

Hey! This is becoming personal!

I am happy with this Gauntlet, we are having a lot of talking and we have come to agree on a lot of things, the optimal number of GS is the last point open, maybe. I think we all have already learn a bit on this one.

I want to try the 3GS thing and draw my own conclusions.

 

[jesusin]

By the way, what is the most number of GPs anyone has managed to get in this game so far? I'm haven't even been counting mine, to be honest.

22. It was that 1450AD game I farmed everything. Great Plains map, lots of corn-on-a-FP.

 

[Harbourboy]

30th attempt ends with Saladin invading in 620 AD.

 

[Harbourboy]

31st attempt ends a frustrating 8 turns short of victory. Frederick (again) launches in 1670 AD.

 

[LowtherCastle]

On quick speed (and only quick) borders will expand one extra level with just 1 bomb. Do this and you will break that nasty GS habit.

How much culture do you already have in one of those cities and how many more levels of expansion do you get?

 

[Harbourboy]

In game 32, I took a completely different approach. I beelined for Music and managed to get that free early Great Artist. Whoever it was that said that an early Great Work is spectacular wasn’t kidding. You can clear out a huge swathe of land for yourself by bombing that bad boy early. I only went for one Great Scientist in this game and I got Liberalism late (around 800 BC). But I still managed to get Corporation and Democracy and I still managed to get within 8 turns of success.

I even managed to flip a food-rich Arabian city that then produced three more Great Artists.

Plus, this was another Gem capital start.

So I am now more convinced that Gems rule and that a Liberalism beeline is not that great. My best games have been with Gems and when losing the Liberalism race. But I still haven’t won a game, so my views and tactics are clearly still not right.