[BTS] G-Major 191 - Celts, Monarch, Cultural - Deadline October 28th 2024

[Noble Zarkon]

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While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Cultural (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Monarch
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Large
• Speed: Normal
• Map Type: Great Plains
• Required: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Civ: Celt
• Opponents: Must include America (Franklin Roosevelt), Arabia (Saladin), Carthage (Hannibal), Egypt (Hatshepsut), Germany (Bismark), Greece (Alexander), Mali (Mansa Musa), Netherlands (Willem Van Oranje)
• Version: 3.19.005
• Date: 3rd August to 28th October 2024

Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

OK, I'll put my neck on the line, one of the goals for September is to submit a descent entry in this Gauntlet. So my question is where will I find the best advice on how to get a result?

At Monarch level is it still 'worker first' or do I steal them?

And what is Mapfinder looking for?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

At Monarch level is it still 'worker first' or do I steal them?

The AIs won't start with Workers but will build them fairly quickly so I'd be looking to steal, watch out for the AI's wandering Archers though! Really for HoF it's steal a worker or restart I guess.

And what is Mapfinder looking for?

Some kind of Commerce because the Celts are weak in that area.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

At the moment the only gold I'm finding is surrounded by hills and lacks food.

I've had 4 attempts so far each ending with an unprovoked attack by Alexander. I'm currently in the 1600's and yet again the Greeks (despite being at the bottom of the table) have attacked! I'm still 50+ turns from a win; the sensible thing to do is quit but I've invested a whole morning into the game and would like a result.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

I've thrown the towel in ... even with a dun and castle fortress my muskets & longbows were no match against Alexander's knights ...

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Oh wow, that's a shame.

 

[antimony]

You should open some great plains map on World Builder. The eastern part is full of grass, forests, and most importantly two resources (deer,fur) that work with the Celts starting techs.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

You should open some great plains map on World Builder. The eastern part is full of grass, forests, and most importantly two resources (deer, fur) that work with the Celts starting techs.

I guess it makes sense; Workers have something to do which allows researching Medication first followed by Monotheism. I will see what Mapfinder turns up ~ 4+ fur with deer & stone in the "fat cross", what could possibly go wrong!

At present I'm trying a 'beefed up' start, i.e. an abundance of cow, which worked well for Catherine in a Space game I submitted the other day. I'm at 500 AD but the map lacks marble meaning some Wonders are an age to build.

 

[antimony]

There are so many cows on this map script! Sometimes you get oddities like forest cows or hill cows too. The middle of the map could give you a cows + floodplains + gold start which would be nice, it's always a tradeoff between having some production for the wonders but also enough food/rivers for a large bureaucracy capital.

I might try that in the next weeks, don't usually do HoF competition but Cultural games tend to be shorter.

I'm not sure it's worth rushing the early religions at the expense of development. Code of Laws and Philosophy are easy to get and don't require sacrificing your early game. And on a map like great plains, you tend to meet lots of neighbors and the other religions will come to you eventually.