G-Major 16

[ParadigmShifter]

No... it's not that bad. I am building a library in 2 cities (maybe 3 now) plus I have already built terraces in a few. I lost quite a few Quechua finishing off Cyrus (his last city was on a hill). Once my economy went downhill I moved to civilian builds.

My big problem I think was parking some Quechua outside of Cyrus' last city, I should have moved them out of his culture to save on maintenance and discourage him from building more archers to defend. It was on a hill and there was a CG1 archer there so I needed quite a few to take him on. I needed to finish Persia off because I was getting +2 unhappy in his former capital.

EDIT: I'm playing on Pangaea. I think Terra would be better, yes. I did start on a plains hill though.

 

[IglooDame]

Well, that's heavy. So, all 5 or 6 of your cities are busy building Quechua? No wonder your economy is ruined.

2 cities building Quechua are more than enough, the rest can build anything. Oracle, Pyramids, GLib, whatever.

Try Terra map, 10 opponents. In most cases, you won't hit Domination, so just kill them all for Conquest. Leave one last city for a while, milk the score, then capture it.

In the beginning, move your initial Settler close to an AI capital, find a place on Hills/Plains, with a 3H tile nearby. Then build like 3 Quechua, and capture the AI capital. Most likely it will be guarded by a single Archer.

Then build more Quechua in both cities, go capture another one. And so on.

One quick question - why milk it? Won't an earlier win mean more points than a bit of milking on a slightly later win?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You get lots of points for land and population. So you want to increase your population as much as possible, build the hanging gardens after plopping down loads of settlers, and then win. Ideally.

EDIT: Basically you want to win at the time when your milking increasing the score faster than the win bonus has just run out of steam.

 

[Andrei_V]

One quick question - why milk it? Won't an earlier win mean more points than a bit of milking on a slightly later win?

Well, of course, you should start milking as soon as you can. But usually in the end you capture quite a lot of new cities that can be milked, too.

Actually, you need to check 'score by winning this turn' by hovering mouse over your nick. As long as it grows, you're fine. Once it stops or goes down (most of your cities no longer grow), finish the game by capturing that last city.

 

[Andrei_V]

My big problem I think was parking some Quechua outside of Cyrus' last city, I should have moved them out of his culture to save on maintenance and discourage him from building more archers to defend.

If you park a Quechua, move it away for some 6-8 turns before attacking the city. You can also leave one of your nearby cities undefended, so you know exactly where the bunch of Archers from that city will go. You can either intercept and kill them on their way for more XP, or simply ignore if this is indeed their last city.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Well it's only my second game doing a Quechua rush and marathon speed so if things don't go well I'll have learned alot for the next attempt.

I also stupidly attached a Great General to a chariot with flanking I/sentry. Didn't get enough XP to get medic 2 even, oops. I thought you could get medic with flanking instead of combat... maybe you need flanking 2 for that or I may be way off.

I don't fancy taking on Kublai who is the next natural target if he gets horseback riding and has horses either. Stalin was looking like next to go but he has several CG2 archers in his capital by now and his other 2 cities are on hills, one with a CG1 archer. There is a barb archer on the way to one of his cities though. I need open borders with him however because he built that city on the supply line to my other cities. Boo.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I'm still up in the air about whether a low-tech settler spam fast domination victory will be better than a biology beeline slow domination victory in terms of score.

Any experience from others so far?

I got a 180k score from low-tech settler spam fast domination victory so far.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

The high scoring games on the HOF seem to be quickish wins so no biology I expect.

Given up on my 2nd attempt at this now, 1000BC looks to be the end of the useful life for Quechua (I wasn't expecting Kublai to have a spear thwarting my Quechua and chariots - I pillaged what looked like his copper mine but by then it was too late so I had to get a peace deal, and put the game on probably permanent ice after that).

Going to try a Terra map with the minimum number of opponents (8) next I think. Got some new tips to try out anyway. I still can't bring myself to turn barbs off but with the massive amount of time it takes to build improvements on marathon this is probably a bad plan.

EDIT: I think vanilla players will win this gauntlet anyway. On Warlords they love to put cities on hills and most cities have 2-3 archers defending (maybe this is because I play with barbs on), and the AI doesn't fall for sucker tactics to lure archers out (especially the workers can't move after being captured, and workers are executed if you use them as bait - unless the worker was built by the civ you are baiting I think).

EDIT2: Assuming Inca marathon Quechua rush domination flavoured milk will win of course. Which I think it will.

EDIT3: Assuming I tech up to BW next game, how long does whip weariness last on marathon? 30 turns? I suppose that isn't too bad with the time it takes to actually raise the pop in a city by 1.

 

[azzaman333]

One quick question - why milk it? Won't an earlier win mean more points than a bit of milking on a slightly later win?

Depends on your milking abilities. Personally, milking would probably result in a worse score.

 

[FiveAces]

I'm still up in the air about whether a low-tech settler spam fast domination victory will be better than a biology beeline slow domination victory in terms of score.

Any experience from others so far?

I got a 180k score from low-tech settler spam fast domination victory so far.

What year did you win? I'm at ~550BC and think I need 4-5 more settlers and 1 border expansion in all the new cities, unless there isn't enough land on the continent. Then I'm screwed. Assuming I'm ok though it will make for a good comparison as to how significant the finishing year is.

 

[Alan_of_Dale]

Two days so far, with two sleep breaks, Large Marathon sucks.

Am at 1170 AD, 3 civs eliminated of 9 total, plus 2 civs permanantly crippled to offshore cites. Using Julius Caesar in vanilla on terra map. All civs were on the main land mass which doesn't look big enough for domination victory. Have 38.7% population of 38% needed, and 30.5% land area of 58% needed which is always the harder ask. One city's border has not popped yet and have artists and am building a few libraries/theatres in the cities with significant land gaps. Artists give +4 beakers and +4 culture with Repr so not too much of a concession to run them instead of scientists briefly. Score around 2000+ for a win on this turn score of 112,582.

Only world wonder built was Great Library. Civic changes were HR/CS, then Vassalage/Theocracy, then after capture of Pyramids have gone to Repr/Merc for a boost of over a hundred beakers. Managed to stay at 60%, but now 50% research with 30 cities for 450 beakers. Didn't raise any city. Did the usual Caesar thing, built four cities this time while researching important techs. Built an initial stack of 9 Praetorians and then went to war one after the other resting only to heal wounded and transport army. Lots of cats and upgraded all CR2 or greater Praets to Maces. Will do the same when get Grenadiers, have lots of cash ready. Have a few Knights and Elephants as well. Opposition has Maces. Knights will start showing up as well, so is tougher going now. CR3 Grenadiers and cat stacks will do the trick though. Other pleased civs have 5 or 6 cities total (loaded with units), but can outproduce them significantly. Favorite building, courthouse, having built 26 out of 30 so far, and I built the Forbidden City of course.

Am researching Liberalism at the moment, with two other civs a few turns sooner to Education so may not get it. Decided to go for Lib rather than usual beeline to Grenadiers so as to have the option of earlier Astronomy (an expensive tech) for other continent settler spam for easier victory.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Aren't all civs always on the main land mass in Terra maps Alan?

 

[Alan_of_Dale]

Aren't all civs always on the main land mass in Terra maps Alan?

I wasn't aware of that. Good to know if that's the case.

Actually, Alan is my middle name, but since my first name Dale is also the description of a place I reversed the order for my long time gaming handle. So it confuses me a little bit to be referred to as Alan. Prefer AoD instead as a shortcut, but will still respond to Alan.

AoD

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I am 99.9% sure the civs all start on one continent... the map description is something like "all civs start out in the old world". I suppose the "Old World" could be split into 2 or more parts (reachable by galleys I guess), but I have never seen that before. The "New World" is only reachable by caravel.

I'm thinking the minimum number of civs isn't good for a Terra map (the map is larger than normal large maps), so I'm going to up the number of civs to 10 I think. I might go high sea level too to bunch them up a bit more, and it should make settler spam easier.

Annoyed after just quitting a game where 2 of my Quechua's failed to damage Louis' archer at all. I wasn't expecting to win (18.5% chance) but no damage twice... tsk. He was in the tundra anyway. It wasn't even on a hill. He is creative but that doesn't matter until defence reaches 40%.

I'm not seeing 1 archer defending capital cities at all in Warlords. If they have 1, they produce another as soon as I declare war, and are protective and on a hill. Most of the time they have 2 and produce another before the attack.

Dale, I hope you haven't got a brother called Chip.

 

[Perugia]

I'm playing this for fun under vanilla 1.74 and have chosen a quick, classical start as Toku using an Ice Age map and the max 14 opponents (randomly selected).

I have never played Ice Ace or Classical before so am looking forward to it. We start with a settler, worker, archer and scout so get lots of exploration on the first turn which is 32.

Research path will be CoL to hopefully snag Confucianism then CS for Bureaucracy. Then I'll switch to the bottom of the tech tree to snag iron and machinery so I can build Samurai and the real fun begins.

Settler started on river plains hill on first map generation with cows, wheat, stone, silk, extra hills & forests plus small river with access to the coast and both gold, stone & 2 horses nearby needless to say I have settled in place.

Judaism spread to Kyoto so switched to that and Organised Religion (and slavery though don't intend to use it) and have chopped a second worker and am steaming towards the pyramids at +125% hammer production.

Meanwhile I plan to chop out settlers to hook up second & third cities spot to snag nearby resources. Pyramids will allow switch to representation as soon as we have FP farm ready. Will try to avoid HR if possible.

GP's will mostly be added to Kyoto to take full advantage of Bureaucracy.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Latest attempt is going alot better, will be a win unless something drastic happens.

Incas again, Terra map, high sea level. Killed off 4 civs (Cyrus, Julius, Ragnar, Vicky) by 2000BC again but my economy wasn't as tanked as before. Currently 300BC, way ahead in land, score and tech, about to build Great Library before anyone else has literature. Wandered with my settler until I found a nice marble plains hill to settle on, pumped out Quechua. It was a lousy capital (just in a good central location with lots of production available) so I moved my palace to the former Viking capital, which is about to build Great Lib (it has stonehenge already).

I'm hoping Ramesses builds the Pyramids before I finish him off in the next 30 turns or so after I get catapults. No-one even has monarchy yet so I'm not worried about longbows yet.

Still to kill list is Qin (he's next I think, he won't open borders and my free missionary from Code of Laws can't escape), then Cathy (had a brief skirmish before when she was about to settle in an annoying place), then take on some of my soon to be ex-chums (Saladin 2nd in score, Wang Kon, and Washington).

Even if I don't get a good score I'll still get a major gauntlet result anyway, and I'll probably never have to do marathon again! Yay! Although it does make things very easy with Huayna (2 rushes easily, Quechua then Axes before construction), if you don't get too carried away and take more capitals than you can really afford too early.

EDIT: Interestingly, I can still build Quechua even though I have copper, iron, and hunting. Warriors normally go obsolete after hunting and bronze working (with copper hooked up), is it different for Quechua?

 

[Mad Professor]

EDIT: Interestingly, I can still build Quechua even though I have copper, iron, and hunting. Warriors normally go obsolete after hunting and bronze working (with copper hooked up), is it different for Quechua?

Yes - Quechuas don't go obsolete until you get macemen! A nice trick to try with Capac is to time the builds of several quechuas just before you get the CS/Machinery combo so that they change into macemen builds just before they finish

 

[Alan_of_Dale]

Research path will be CoL to hopefully snag Confucianism then CS for Bureaucracy. Then I'll switch to the bottom of the tech tree to snag iron and machinery so I can build Samurai and the real fun begins.
...
GP's will mostly be added to Kyoto to take full advantage of Bureaucracy.

I guess you trust the game engine more than I do. As one who plays Caesar quite a bit, I need iron as well. However, the game engine does not always give iron, or even copper to conquer iron, in one's local area and so iron needing civs become useless. So I like to find out relatively early whether I have at least got copper before I invest a large amount of time in an iron requiring civ game. I may hook up food first, but iron will be an early research priority.

I'm running Vassalage (and Theocracy) instead of Bureaucracy in my current game in order to get CR1 even without a barracks, and CR2 with a barracks. I weighed up switching to Bureaucracy when it became available (didn't build Oracle and got Feudalism first for military priorities), but decided that the free units from Vassalage would count for more than my food/production poor smallish capital. Am staying with Vassalage even far into AD since number of free units keeps going up with city number I think and who can afford a 4 turn anarchy period.

 

[Alan_of_Dale]

Two days so far, with two sleep breaks, Large Marathon sucks.

I took the day I wrote this post off, and the following night I watched TV. Last night I played this game some more. I did get Lib first for expensive Astronomy in order to be the first to exploit the second continent on the Terra map (high sea level). Two galleons with 2 settlers, 3 workers, and 1 longbow are on their way there. Used a caravel with a missionary to start exploring it in advance. G-Hut popped a scout and warrior over there so far. Several more settlers in production.

Took four large cities from the next strongest civ Gandhi, then gave him peace treaty. His other two small cities were widely separated and not near my main army and not worth much anyway. Got Versailles for maintenance reduction, and Sistine Chapel for +2 culture per specialist which is great since I am running mercantilism/Caste, so borders will expand faster. It took about 15 turns to heal and transport the army to Gandhi's border for this 15 turn war due to him being on the opposite side of the continent from my other conquests. Fortunately, the remaining three untouched civs are all close to my main army, with 4 large cities each on the main continent.

Am at least 2 techs ahead of everybody. Am the only one with Gunpowder and Astronomy and am two turns from Chemistry with 2500+ gold to upgrade maces to grenadiers and my caravel to a frigate. Used a GS to get PP cheap and then traded it for Economics, (and that religion tech I never research just for the points). Will definitely stay with Merc/Caste although it is a heavy micromanagement burden with 35 cities so far. Have 617 beakers/turn at 50% research, 60% population, and 34.75% land area with three captured cities still needing to border pop two times. My win this turn score is 127,275 points at 1294 AD. For reference, I got about 14k points for Gandhi's four cities even though it was about 15 turns in between the previous war and there was a 1000 point decay during the interval. With the remaining 3x4 large nearby cities I could get over 170k points for this game hopefully. This installment of the game was 124 years.

 

[Alan_of_Dale]

I am 99.9% sure the civs all start on one continent... the map description is something like "all civs start out in the old world". I suppose the "Old World" could be split into 2 or more parts (reachable by galleys I guess), but I have never seen that before. The "New World" is only reachable by caravel.

I'm thinking the minimum number of civs isn't good for a Terra map (the map is larger than normal large maps), so I'm going to up the number of civs to 10 I think. I might go high sea level too to bunch them up a bit more, and it should make settler spam easier.

<snip>

Dale, I hope you haven't got a brother called Chip.

Your last comment implies you are not young, mate.

As for the map description, sounds logical, never noticed that. I did high sea level, too. Have 9 AI civs (one more than the minimum number of civs) in my current marathon game. Not sure I'll want to play this Gauntlet twice as Caesar as he/they are later era civs and take longer even on smaller maps.