G-Major 2

[superslug]

Welcome to the second Major Gauntlet of the CivIV Hall of Fame!

Be advised that HOF Rules do apply, in addition to these settings.

• Difficulty: Deity
• Mapsize: Standard
• Starting Era: Player discretion
• Speed: Player discretion
• Submitted on or before: August 9th.
• Victory Condition: Culture (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Map Type: Player discretion
• Opponents: Player discretion
• Civilization: Player discretion
• Version: HOF Mod 1.61.004 (1.61.003 will have been phased out by the time this Gauntlet ends.)

All other settings are at Player's discretion within HOF rules. Games are to be submitted as normal HOF submissions; final rankings will be sorted by fastest finish date with score as tiebreaker.

We're currently doing some minor upgrades so this Gauntlet may not appear on the actual HOF website for a day or so!

 

[dwarrior]

deity.. gulp

 

[WastinTime]

Ah Diety, this will be fun. Does anyone think that the re-balanced timelines in 1.61 will matter (giving faster speeds a chance) or is this going to be won on marathon speed?

 

[Kalleyao]

Godotnut's favorite.

 

[Thrar]

Difficult, but may prove very interesting. Good thing that there's such an excellent guide on the topic, I'm looking forward to trying this.

 

[godotnut]

Yes!!!!!!!

Thank you, Gauntlet moderators. You had to know that I would like this...

BTW, I love the new features to the HOF display. Those little icons for opponents faced are a most welcome addition.

@WastinTime:

My experience is that Marathon offers a slight advantage if pursuing a Quecha rush; otherwise, not so much. My standard map, Deity cultural win from the current update was at Epic, which is what I'll be trying this one at.

 

[dwarrior]

If im able to win, I'll dedicate my victory to you godotnut! Read that guide last week and been thinking of trying it, and this just makes it a good reason to try

 

[godotnut]

Thanks dwarrrior.

This one is totally doable. It seems to me that this is the perfect place to hone one's Deity skills. I'll bet the discussion in this thread will be really enlightening too. I'm psyched to read how others' approach this.

I really hope that normal non-Deity players aren't put off by the difficulty level. The cool new mapfinder makes it easier, too. Give it a try people! I'm certain someone will crush my current HOF date in this slot.

 

[WastinTime]

I'm thinking religions are the most important thing to found. That way you get the cathedrals. I don't think you can just hope religion spreads. So many options for religion grabbing. You can probalby get the three "copper" religions and combine that with the Oracle Slingshot to Code of Laws. Or, I like the "Stone" religions because that leads to the pyramids and sistine chapel. Sadly the Chapel requires marble though but you could use the engineer for it. Four religions is the most I've been able to get -- the 4 stone/marble religions.

Fun to be playing Diety again. I forgot they can build the Pyramids in 2500 BC.

 

[godotnut]

I didn't found any religions in any of my six HOF Deity games. They all came to me by the time I needed them. I received an average of 4-5 religions. One game, I received all of them.

This was on a Pangea map with open borders with everyone.

 

[WastinTime]

I didn't found any religions in any of my six HOF Deity games. They all came to me by the time I needed them. I received an average of 4-5 religions. One game, I received all of them.

This was on a Pangea map with open borders with everyone.

I haven't had any spread yet, but I'll trust you, cus there are soooo many better things to worry about than founding religions.

 

[godotnut]

there are soooo many better things to worry about than founding religions

That's for damn sure.

It sometimes takes a while for the religions to spread, which can be nerve wracking. The AI will eventually build a strong network of roads, which helps a lot.

I had a terrific game going, and I was close to being finished. Then Frederick decided he wanted to go for a domination victory and crushed everyone but me (we were pals). He beat me to a victory by about five turns. Still, it was cool to see the AI behaving so intelligently.

As a side note: since on a standard map it takes nine cities to allow for three major religions, I'm thinking the map favors early aggression (as opposed to a smaller map, where you only need six cities).

 

[Moonsinger]

It sometimes takes a while for the religions to spread, which can be nerve wracking. The AI will eventually build a strong network of roads, which helps a lot.
...

As a side note: since on a standard map it takes nine cities to allow for three major religions, I'm thinking the map favors early aggression (as opposed to a smaller map, where you only need six cities).

If you wants all six religions, why not just capture and keep all six holy cities? If you are not a warmonger or if you are a warmonger who doesn't like getting your units killed needlessly in combat, there are a couple easy ways to dominate the world with as little as 12 Quechua on a standard map (i.e. 2 quechua per each AI civ). I'm going to explain in depth about this someday, but not today. However, I will share with you the following clues:

1. It doesn't matter how many cities the AI have, just camp 1 quechua right next to each of their cities. This would prevent their workers from improving the land and hooking up resources. They usually will stuck with 2 cities producing archers like forever which give us plenty of time to do whatever we please.

2. You will notice that the AI will keep exactly 2 archers defending each of their cities. Every now and then, they will finish producing the third archer. Guess what they will do with the third archer? They send the third archer on a suicide mission with less than 10% chance of success against your fortified quechua. If you camp your quechua in the forest/jungle/hill, it doesn't talke long for your quechua to get 3 or 4 promotions by just standing there. Btw, even if your quechua is at half strength, don't worry, stand the ground because the other 2 archers would not dare to attack. By the time he heals up, another third archer will come out to die.

3. Once in a blue moon the AI may get lucky; so you may want to send out an extra quechua or two just in case. If you have a worker, you can use him to lure one of the archer out then you would have only 1 archer to deal with. You may already hear people saying that the worker baiting trick doesn't always work, but it does work 99.99% for me.

Note: The secret is to camp just 1 quechua, not 2 or 3. If you camp more than one, the AI may abandon their suicide mission. Once they have changed their minds, it will be tough to convince them otherwise. They might be a suicide fanatic, but they aren't stupid. If you have more than 1 quechua, don't stack them.

 

[godotnut]

I'm already on it Moonsinger. My recent standard and small map HOF Deity games were Quecha games.

Yup, it makes it easier in a lot of ways (landgrab!). The thing is, this is a race to see who can finish fastest, and the more you waste on military, the slower you tend to finish in in a culture game, in my experience. It's all about the cottages, imho -- lots of 'em and as early as possible.

Quecha work, because you can stop your early aggression quickly without wasting too much time.

Actually taking the time to capture and hold all six religious cities would be impossible with only a Quecha rush, wouldn't you agree? You can get one or two, though.

But I'm guessing that if someone can do this peacefully with Elizabeth, they will log in a faster time. Check out Bluerenner's terrific 1140 AD finish at Emporer on a small map (Beta HOF); or, if you want a more precise comparison, I managed a 1458 on a Deity standard and a 1402 on a Deity small map (also beta).

Of course, with chopping nerfed, it's a lot harder to go this route. But not impossible.

This Gauntlet is really interesting because it's challenging enough that the "ideal" path to the fastest finish may be so hard to do that it's best to hedge your bets and go with the easier Quecha route.

I'm interested in finding out if a peace-monger or war-monger wins this one. Also, can we break 1300AD at Deity? 1200? Even earlier?

I'm really psyched that great players like you and WastinTime are competing here, and I hope that others -- DaveMcw? BlueRenner? Walkerjks? -- will also give it a shot. We'll see...

 

[Moonsinger]

Hi godotnut,

Since you are the expert on culture victory, may be you can help me out here. On my current game, I have 3 legendary cities of at least 80K of culture (see screenshot below) and still haven't triggered Culture victory. What's going on? How much more culture do I need?

Thanks!

 

[Methos]

On my current game, I have 3 legendary cities of at least 80K of culture (see screenshot below) and still haven't triggered Culture victory. What's going on? How much more culture do I need?

Thanks!

What speed are you playing? Each speed indicates how much culture is required.

Quick- 25k
Normal- 50k
Epic- 75k
Marathon- 150k

I'm guessing your playing on marathon speed.

 

[godotnut]

I remember the first time I realized I need 150K at Marathon. It was sort of like the feeling I had in the last minor Gauntlet, when I realized my 11,000 point score was really a 7,000 point score.

Couple general things:

If you haven't checked out the conversations in the Beta Gauntlet III, you may find them interesting when attempting this one.

Also, people here may be interested in O.H. Dog's superb Civ IV Culture Calculator Spreadsheet. It really helps in planning out your end game.

I think I'll have time to give this one another go tonight.

 

[Moonsinger]

Thanks to both of you. Yes, it was on Marathon speed. 150K is really a long way to go. I probably will die of old age before I finish this game.

 

[Big_Ben]

Had one of the most amazing starts I have had so far for this gauntlet. Managed to settle 6 cities, 3 REALLY good ones and 3 good ones with multiple food resources. Wasn't really encroaching on any borders either so I thought I was set. Was going really good. Then lost the pyramids by 5 turns due to trying to produce an extra worker before switching to pyramids. I was thinking about playing it out and seeing if I could get my tech pace far enough ahead to tech to democracy. Didn't work

 

[godotnut]

I played a game for a little over a half hour, then tried another one. Now I want to go back to it, but I forgot to copy the start save from my "auto" folder, like I normally would.

But I had checked the "Create Starting Save" option. So if I have the "Create Starting Save" option checked, does that mean the most recent start save in relation to my current game in my "single" folder is the correct start save for my game, should I want to turn it in?

BTW, my own approach is to try to get a Quecha win under my belt first, then go for the more challenging all-peace Elizabeth win, which I'm guessing will earn a lower finish date if I can pull it off again (we'll see).