G-Major 20

[BLubmuz]

I razed a lot of good cities, to stay below 55%.
You must count that 5% as a safe zone, or you'll must give away cities, and sometimes the AI do not accept them.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

What are the dangers like of getting an accidental Cultural victory?

Are we supposed to avoid wonders such as Sistene Chapel and Eiffel Tower?

I've started my attempt for this game and I only want to try it once!!!

I'm going for a cottage economy, wonder how that stacks up. I fear I will be using free speech (100% culture ) for most of the second half of the game...

 

[azzaman333]

Don't go Free Speech if possible, and (in BtS) avoid founding Sid's Sushi and Creative Constructions if you just want the win and don't want to risk a culture victory.

 

[BLubmuz]

I think Mining inc and Standard Eth. are the best corps to found.
It would be nice also Cereal mills, but it competes with Standard Eth., thus it's not possible to run all 3 (and between the 2 i choose the science one).

and, yes pity for the towns, but i think i'll go back to Bureau to avoid a cultural. I need some computing, but i'm afraid i must do it.

I'm playing as Peter, and the Res. Inst rocks. (also the 2 popped settlers in the initial 12 turns)

 

[cabert]

didn't think about the research institutes. sounds good indeed.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

All this talk of getting settlers from huts, makes me think I should restart my game. I only got 2 huts, a map (woohoo) and a tech (can't remember what it was now). 5AD, just got Civil Service, 3 cities only, missed 2 wonders (Oracle, was going for CS slingshot, I don't think it is doable in Warlords with only 1 city fuelling research, need more cities or take CoL instead; and Temple of Artemis, missed after chopping 2 forests as well, at least it gave me loads of cash, would have preferred the free priest). Used 2 great engineeers from Great Wall to build Pyramids, Hanging Gardens. Lost a medic 1 chariot to a barb warrior at 95% odds, the only other unit I built was an extra warrior for the capital. Other wonders built in the capital: stonehenge, parthenon. Was teching my way towards literature for Great Library next.

I might have a go with a civ that starts with a scout instead then I think, lots of people are going for Peter I notice. I was playing Roosevelt for wonder building. No stone or marble nearby though. Also alot of psycho neighbours and most of the civs seem to be on a large landmass (psychos include Monty, Shaka, Isabella).

Time for a restart then I think. Maybe raging barbs this time, since I will be building the great wall again.

 

[bonscott]

My first attempt at a Gauntlet. I figured piece of cake being on Warlord. Wow, been one of my most challenging games ever so far. I'm just starting to do QM in an attempt to spice things up and it already has making me choose civs and maps I normally wouldn't play on. This G20 is no different.

Playing as Boudica and I'm really liking the Charismatic trait. I chose her because I figured I'd be at war a lot to keep the other civs down in score. Well, it hasn't quite gone as expected. I started next to the Dutch and Spanish and I rushed the Spanish with my Gallic Swordsman but I miscalculated and needed 2 more. So she survived and I need to build up again and rush her and finally took her out. But that extra time gave the Dutch time to really expand beyond what I was planning on.

So I'm up to Gunpowder now and just trying to keep up, about middle of the pack score wise but I'm just a couple techs behind the tech leader. So my goal now is to go straight for cannon and Rifles/Calvary and take out the Dutch which should double my size. Then I'll work on a modern military that I can attack and raze anyone with a higher score then me or that threaten to launch a space ship or get a culture victory. I've stopped a rival from getting culture victory before with several well placed nukes so I need to plan for that as well.

So while I could have restarted I wanted to tough it out because it has actually been quite a challenge.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

My second attempt was going pretty well, everyone seems to like Peter so I thought I'd be a bit different and try Stalin because he is Industrious and I wanted to see how many wonders I could nab.

Playing the Warlords expansion, I managed to get the Great Wall, Stonehenge, Parthenon, Pyramids (with an Engineer) and Temple of Artemis before doing a Civil Service slingshot with the Oracle. My capital was inland but I had a coastal city up and running fairly quickly which built the Parthenon, Great Lighthouse (with an Engineer) and the Colossus (and the Heroic Epic later). National Epic in the capital.

Carried on in that vein, was sharing a small continent with just Ramesses, built every wonder I could (Hanging Gardens, Chichen Itza even, The Great Library, Notre Dame).

And then... the game hangs when it is about to play the University of Sankore movie in 1292AD, while I was steamrollering Ramesses to get control of my continent (macemen & trebs vs. axemen and archers). Bah. My first ever crash with CivIV, I blame the new HOF mod version myself And I didn't have it set to "save at the end of every turn" either, I think I will turn that on from now on.

Even so, the situation was far from ideal. No marble or stone, so I am quite amazzed I got all those wonders. I did miss 2, Hagia Sophia (I wanted to build that too, had quite alot of Jungle to clear and not enough workers). Also, there were no non-calendar happiness resources at all (no gold, silver, gems or grapes). Even worse was there were no horses on the continent (might have made Ramesses a bit trickier), but that would mean no Cossacks until I found an Island with horses on. EDIT: Also not ideal was I could only trade techs with Ramesses when he was Friendly due to neither of us knowing any other AIs - and he was only friendly for a bit whil we shared the same religion (Confucianism) until he changed to Christianity, of which I had both holy cities (with shrines). I did manage to get meditation and monarchy off him for code of laws though, then he didn't have anything else to trade, warlord level AI, tsk.

I bet if I have more goes at this I'll keep missing the civil service slingshot... cripes.

 

[shyuhe]

This is at warlords level so if you regen to a gem/gold start, CS should be very much doable (even with warlords/bts). You won't be able to get many extraneous techs and you'll also want to hand select your opponents. Do NOT include Ramses or any other wonder freak and you'll be fine.

 

[FiveAces]

What are the dangers like of getting an accidental Cultural victory?

Are we supposed to avoid wonders such as Sistene Chapel and Eiffel Tower?

I've started my attempt for this game and I only want to try it once!!!

I'm going for a cottage economy, wonder how that stacks up. I fear I will be using free speech (100% culture ) for most of the second half of the game...

You should be fine even with FS as long as you don't spread your wonders/cathedrals amongst three cities. I built virtually every wonder in Vicky's awesome prod capital (175h/turn). Went legendary in 1888AD, but the #2 city, my capital, is only at about 28k with 100turns to go. I'm not running FS but I can't see that making that much of a difference.

I don't think CE is the way to go for this one though - it cuts the max pop in grassland cities by almost 50% and with SE (on 48% land cause of my moronic starting settings) I'm still getting a future tech every 2 turns AND popping GS's left and right. I have about 10 academies now. That's after bulbing to biology and settling a half dozen in the capital before bpt was higher with an academy elsewhere. Most of my points are from pop. I'd have much less under CE. I think Phi/Org is the way to go.

So now 100turns to go, on future tech 84 and stuck at 48% land. Biggest mistakes were before I started - no city razing and extra opponents (wanted the starting positions closer for quicker early rush. That worked, but I'm paying for it now bigtime with lower dom limit). Smaller mistakes were obsoleting a couple wonders (Spiral Minaret, for one) before building them and HE in the shrine city instead of WS. I can fix a bit by capuring the wonder and holy cities (with shrines ) on the last turn if I can get the logistics to work. Or I can just ignore and finish - final score's already under 20k (just) so I don't think there's much I can do for a good result if Ozbenno's prediction of 30k+ is on target since I can't spam settlers.

Any thoughts on what my endgame strategy should be?

 

[Ozbenno]

Well I finally finished. 18,134 points and was up to Future Tech 236. I didn't realise that your final score could be less than your raw score (I had 22,517), so I downgrade my estimate of winning score to 20-25,000 points. Didn't come close to a cultural victory (third city had 47,780/75,000).

Three AI built Apollo and Mao even built a part but didn't come close to researching the end of the tech tree.

I made sure all my cities had grown as much as possible and that I filled in all the spots to settle I could and then pressed enter for the last 150 turns. My main concern was that the AI didn't war too much against themselves and disturb my very close borders (had over 59% area for last 200 turns).

I'm sure I can do better and I'm sure this score will be beaten but not sure I have the time or patience to try it again.

 

[bonscott]

Well, my plan has worked so far. Got cannon and attacked the Dutch and took them out (along with Shaka's main army as he got involved). So now I'm just in consolidation mode and just got railroad and.....NO COAL. You gotta me kidding me. I'm now the effective area of 3 civs and no coal. There is one 3 cities deep into Byzantium territory so I guess I'm going to have to attack them as well. Wasn't really my plan as it's going to leave me vulnerable on multiple fronts instead of the one I have now but I really don't have much choice.

But I'm up to 2nd in scoring so I guess I need more pop and land to take over #1 anyway.

 

[BLubmuz]

I'm goin' to finish my first complete attempt.
I'm now at future tech 200 or some, with some 100 turns left ,and researching roughly 1 FT/turn.
The problem is that Washington is almost at the end of the research path, and he built a lot of parts.
I didn't think the warlord AI could tech so fast.
I'll try to do something with spies, or i need to make another attempt.

Anyway Peter and BtS rocks. The RI + the SE+MI corps. are a wonderful combo.

I i followed my initial plan to destroy all the AI but 1 city i would have been finished passing the dom limit: lesson learned, 50% before start research FT1 is a safe limit.
Second lesson: some early but not optimal GA is better, you got almost no benefits by starting them after FT1.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Sounds like some good results so far from Blubmuz and Ozbenno

When did you guys fit Future techs?

I think I am going too slow in my game, it's 1400AD or so, I have Industrialism (TANKS) and have just planted Mining Corp and Cereal Mills in my Wall Street city. My land % is still under 20% though, but I'm about to invade the 2 most developed civs with tanks vs longbows.

It's a tedius game, I'm kind of enjoying it but it's very hard to know how to optimise things since you need to expand/war/research/grow popn/build infrastructure and wonders all at a frenetic pace to set yourself up for a big score.

 

[BLubmuz]

I don't know if this can be a good result, i'm at some 80 turns to the end, and Wash DoWed me with an impressive army.
I'm researching FT 276 !!!, but i has to give away another city, another was lost to Wash, and i plan to let go a third one.
I can't know if i can stop him, i got almost nothing to stop him.
Well, i can produce a unit/turn or so in some 50 cities, but the game is crippled.

The last 100 turns was a nightmare, i destroyed some 20 SS parts with spies, but has to divert resources from research.
Oh, i was forgetting, Mansa is trying a cultural victory, and i can bet this can be as dangerous and less stoppable as Wash.

So, this is my strategy for the next game:
be quiet until rifle/cossacks (if someone missed it, Peter is the choice), max attack 1/2 close neighbours. Build all the useful wonders, specializing cities (as i did in this one). Avoid Sistine, if someone build it, raze the city.
Wonder i consider useless:
Shwedagon paya (misspelled?)
Chicken Pizza (ehhh)
Angkor Wat (bah)
Sistine (dangerous)
Statue of Zeus (WW? who cares?)
Stonehenge (you don't need it if you run caste)
The GW (bah, i play with no barbs)

If you avoid those, you can better use your resources for structures and military, and the few points you got from them can be took when you conquest them.

Avoid pangea-like maps, too easy to cover useless land.
Avoid vassals, they can win.
As i already said, destroy all AIs but 1 city is the strategy.
And if this tries to settle a second city, well it depends.

Let's try to see the good side of this: i got a path to follow, comparing my autologs

 

[Ozbenno]

Well I checked that my submission was accepted and found that someone else has also submitted a game for the gauntlet and had a higher score. Anyone owning up and saying what the target score is?

I'm a sucker for punishment so may have another shot at this using one of the BtS leaders, maybe Charlemange.

 

[Methos]

Well I checked that my submission was accepted and found that someone else has also submitted a game for the gauntlet and had a higher score. Anyone owning up and saying what the target score is?

That's odd. The individual who is currently showing as first has a lower score than you.

We'll look into it.

 

[FiveAces]

Well, finally finished. 11.9k with only a 52% dom limit. Extrapolating 20% for max limit still leaves it well short of Ozbenno so hats off to him and all high-scoring players.

Some random thoughts:
- I think philo/org is best traits. I played Alex (for LoN) and had to turn down sci to 50% during the 1st expansion (i.e. before FP).
- I warrior rushed 2 civs and got my prod city and GP farm. With popped settler was like an instant REX to 4. That worked really well.
- I built all the WW in the prod city except GL (in GP farm), Parth (in capital) and R&R (aux since needed the and prod was busy with BW). I think that is good strategy.
- Asoka had a double holy city I took in 1st expansion. Should have built both shrines and WS there but I went for the confu one first since it was better spread at the time.
- Was saving Oracle for edu but Mansa built it 5 turns before then. Should have slingshotted.
- I prioritized Biology (good), then computers (also good) but forgot to build SM before obsoleting it (bad).
- Should have gone to MM earlier for extra trade route from UN.
- GS's were well spent. Academy in captial, then bulbed edu, sci meth, phys, bio. Then settled in capital, then academies everywhere bpt was higher than settling in capital.
- No city razing isn't worth it.
- BTS with +6 food and extra wonders is going to be tough to beat. Course in vanilla you are pretty much guaranteed a win. AI built cockpit but that was it, and they won't go for cultural.
- Going to computers then a couple future techs for happy/health then backfilling worked

Don't have time for another go. Good luck to everybody else.

 

[cabert]

I'm trying this for the second time.
This time, I'm going with Peter, playing warlords because I need Russia for the vanilla/warlords LoN and because I want the RI.
I'm having some trouble in planning.
I'm still in the BCs, but I can foresee some hard times.

Where I am :
- 4 cities : capital + stone city + marble city + a coastal iron cow city
- absurdely low on troops (1 axe and 3 warriors, + a scout), with neighbours carefully selected for their propension to attack fast and often
- absurdely high on wonders (stonehenge, temple of artemis, parthenon, oracle (CS slingshot), great library, great wall, a few turns away from pyramids) + confucianist shrine.
- somewhat low on workers.

Hard times I can foresee :
- I'm confucianist, and spain and aztecs aren't. It's time to build a few troops. Is this a hard time? yes in some way, because I don't have construction yet and I'm under caste system and not slavery. Anyway, it's part of the plan, so I'm not too scared.
- How will I avoid a cultural win? capital will be legendary in no time, with many wonders, and city 2 already has the parthenon + the monument from stonehenge while city 3 already has stonehenge + the monument. It's a bit tricky, and except not running FS, I have no idea. Obviously, I won't build the hermitage in city 2 nor 3, but is this enough?

Why am I so scared?
Stonehenge is 16 cpt already.
Parthenon will be 20 soon.
At some point, I'll have the eiffel tower. I'll try to build it in the capital or a wonder free city, but the broadcast towers will be everywhere.
+50% culture.
At some point, I'll have the sistin chapel.
And 4 specialists (1 from mercantilism, 1 from SoL, 2 from RI) at least in all cities, including city 2 and 3. This makes at least 8 base culture.
I can't avoid libraries and universities in those cities, can I?
That's another base 5 cpt.
+ city 2 is the confucianist holy city.

If I keep it low, that's 20k culture only.
But that means I don't :
1) build any other wonder in those cities
2) build temples or monasteries there
3) spread too many religions there

Am I worrying uselessly? Is a fortuitious cultural victory easy to avoid?
What did you winning guys do to avoid it?

 

[Ozbenno]

My third city was 40000 (need 75000) so I think it is easy to avoid. Sistine Chapel might be a wonder to avoid as you'll probably be running many specialists. I didn't do too much to avoid it but did build most of my wonders in the capital and spread the others around a bit.