G-Major 29
- Thread starter Denniz
- Start date
unclethrill
Why am I up right now?
I have never won the race to liberalism
unclethrill
Why am I up right now?
It Boreal not arboria and boreal is legal.
unclethrill
Why am I up right now?
1010 Religious loss to Mansa Musa. This was the best start yet for me. Stone, Gold, 5 FP. Got Mids. Marble in second city. Parthenon, GE for TSC and Angry Wat (only wonder available). 4 cities 4 religions. I was really rolling and danged if the AI didn't give in after the 5 time MM proposed the win as the only candidate.
On to the next mapfinder save ...
On to the next mapfinder save ...
Winning liberalism if you get philo before any other AI start researching it is not too hard.. At that point in the game you should have two pretty good cottage cities up and running so lib should be done in 6-10 turns itself for completion somewhere between 1 ad and 200 ad(depending on the AI tech speed). If you aren't winning the lib race odds are you either fail to get an academy in capital(academy + burrecracy + tons of gold from AI to run 100% research is VERY powerful) and bulb something or you just don't work enough cottages(or maybe overexpand).
If you read my earlier posts you can see me suggesting to use arboria as that map is quite good giving tons of forest grassland and loads of deer. This is obviously not deemed balanced against the other maps and as such it is not legal... I was not confusing it with boreal i just didn't read the rules properly...
this is due to Lincolns favourite civic being emancipation, if the game goes long enough and he might eventually vote for mansa or another AP candidate.. Quite annoying when everyone are friendly to each other...
Pious_Pete
Warlord
Before this gauntlet, my strategy was to build 6 cities like you, and like you I struggled to get the culture slider up above 80%.
However, following the advice in this forum, I´ve switched to founding only four cities, and it does seem to work well.
Again, this describes me before this gauntlet started. The key is to have a dedicated GP farm early and an auxillary GP farm. And by "dedicated", the GP farm should have nothing superfluous that doesn´t contribute to GPP production (e.g. courthouses).
It´s probably worth going back in this thread and looking at the advice given in response to my questions.
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
One of my Rule Groups is:
Terrain Groups: Jungle (Max 0)
Combo Types:Gems on Grass Land (Min 2)
In generally only get one or two maps from this particular rule set when letting map finder run for a few hours, but there are four other rule sets that provide decent starts too. I am by no means an expert...I just started using Map Finder a couple days ago.
I just let it run for two hours and generated 23 maps. Three of them are 2 gem starts without jungle.
Pious_Pete
Warlord
Before this gauntlet I always played Gandhi. For the first 10 games of this gauntlet, I played Gandhi. Then someone pointed out the folly of my ways and I switched to Asoka. This was a bad move since it was more of the same. After 5 games I learnt my lesson, and switched to Washington instead. With Washington, I didn´t have any defeats before 1700. Before that, I didn´t have any games that lasted as long as 1700. I´m sure that Washington is a better opponent to have than either Gandhi or Asoka.
For the record, my other opponents are Cyrus, Hatty, and Mansa.
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
If you ever have one of those unbeleaveable starts and you are thinking..."There is no way to possible mess this up"...let me assure you that I can find a way.
To sum the game up, I had a great start. I set it up with five opponents and allowed PA so that I could team up with the top dog late in the game. I was able to chop the Parthenon in my capitol. I missed the Sistine Chapel in my second city. I got boxed in really fast and only built 3 cities. One of my cities was culture flipped by about 800AD and I quit having just been the last to research Liberalism. I guess I could have played it out and got my capitol to Legendary and PA someone with two legendary cities, but I would not feel that the victory was legit.
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
To sum the game up, I had a great start. I set it up with five opponents and allowed PA so that I could team up with the top dog late in the game. I was able to chop the Parthenon in my capitol. I missed the Sistine Chapel in my second city. I got boxed in really fast and only built 3 cities. One of my cities was culture flipped by about 800AD and I quit having just been the last to research Liberalism. I guess I could have played it out and got my capitol to Legendary and PA someone with two legendary cities, but I would not feel that the victory was legit.
ShannonCT
Deity
The big problem with that start is the lack of any good food resource. Suggest you look for a 2 gems start with corn or wheat. With freshwater corn instead of plains cow, you could have grown twice as fast and gotten to size 4 much quicker, allowing you to build settlers quicker.
And five opponents is only a benefit if you're lucky enough to get good second and third city locations.
Settling on the Plain hill to the north west of the loc you used would have been sooooo superior. Plainhill for production bonus is more or less a must have.... and you would have gotten another cow as well. 3 gems is nice but 2 is enough., and like someone else said, use less oppoents to get more space
Q: How can you not have any settlers our by the time you get alphabet?
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
The second cow and the third gems to the west were not in view until after I settled.
A: The settler came a couple turns later. After completing a worker (turn 15) I let the city grow to size 3 to work the gems tiles before building a settler. If there had only been 2 gems tiles, I would not have been tempted to let it grow past size 2.
A: The settler came a couple turns later. After completing a worker (turn 15) I let the city grow to size 3 to work the gems tiles before building a settler. If there had only been 2 gems tiles, I would not have been tempted to let it grow past size 2.
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
I have another start with 2 corn and 2 gems with five opponents that I will try next. The only reason I tried this start was because it also had marble. There were 2 gems, 1 cow, and 1 marble visible in the starting screen.
I have also generated 11 possible starts with only 4 opponents with PA enabled. I have not looked through them yet to see how good they may be (although all five rule sets I use produce good maps...one actually produces no maps so make that four).
You really do need an agriculture resource and you need to settle on plainhill (or in rare cases, quarry/food resource). This will help you extremly much. Its ok to move the settler one turn and probably even 2 turns before settling.
Anyhow, you need to settle on +prod or +food tile and you need 1 agriculture resourse or possibly 1 floodplain + one animal resource (not as good). Start by researching Agriculture and building worker (followed by AH if needed). Access to a few flood plain is always a bonus.
No other starting methods are viable, or so I think at least. (I have not done extensive thinking/testing on sea start).
Also, as you may have relized 1 commerce resource is more or less a must have on diety. If you go for a good time, depending on your strategy, a minimum of two may be prefred(however if its gold, make sure you have enough food resource/FP to work them and still grow)
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2007
- Messages
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Which Map type are you using?
A start with two commerce and two food resources shouldn't be too hard to find with map finder. Try searching for just one commerce tile; I think it will exclude plantation resources which are useless for an early research boost. Otherwise, just search for either Gems, Gold, Silver or Fur. These are all the Commerce resources that require early Technologies (either Mining or Hunting) to improve.
Two commerce and two food resources are more likely with some map types and less likely with others.
Great Plains may provide such a start; The east side of this map has forested grasslands which is a good place to build cottages. The forests can be used to chop the first part of a Cathedral and Slavery can easily do the rest, especially if you have the Cathedral's production multiplying resource. Great Plains also seems to have plenty of Marble, if I recall correctly.
I've looked at all 18 BTS HOF (12 of them are available in Warlords and maybe Vanilla too) approved Map types for this gauntlet, but they all have drawbacks. Although Inland Sea has the best dates so far, I think it is only because the best players are using it almost exclusively. Other Map types may be better.
Any Map type that doesn't have a single land mass where all Civs start should not considered seriously, since that would severely restrict trade, even to nothing if you are on your own continent with no access to others Civs until Astronomy is researched, tall ships built and new lands (Civs) discovered.
Whether in the Capital Big Cross or 3-6 tiles away, you also want to find at least Marble. Copper and Stone (within a 6 tile radius) would be good to find too. Some Map types have twice as much Marble, Stone or Copper than others. This may have more of an impact than having only 1 Commerce or 1 Food resource in the Capital site. Some Map types have 2-3 times as many Marble, Stone and Copper resources as others. Highlands for example seems to have plenty of all three of these strategic resources.
If you choose option "Choose Religions", you can pick the Religion of any Technology that provides a Religion from a list of those yet to be found. Obviously, you should pick a Religion matching the production multiplying resource you have. This means you might be able to research Theology and found Islam which has Marble as its "Cathedral" production multiplying resource.
The most important consideration for Map type may be the need for grassland s and floodplains on which to spam Cottages in the two Cottage cities and spam Farms on the main (Culture) GP Farm and and any secondary GP Farms.
More riversides for the Cottages is a secondary consideration for Map type choice as well.
Sun Tzu Wu
Yes, and if it was a GOTM competition your settling choice would have been certainly justifiable. But since it's HOF where you have theoretically unlimited starts, when you have an start like that you move the settler to the PH and cross your fingers. And if that location turns out to suck, you simply choose another start. At least if you want to challenge for the #1 spot anyway.
The tone of this post is probably much more condesending than I intended, but I've been at a company "function" for the past few hours
so I'm having difficulty with teh subtelties of posting - please be assured my comments are intended to help your future efforts and not to criticize.
Jimmy Thunder
King
Dang, with immortal GOTM just finished and two Deity GOTMs underway, there's no way for me to participate in the tournament
Yeah two deity gotms can very quickly take up your play time. Good fun though
(and I haven't even finished the first!)
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
I think I figured out my biggest mistake.
I have been beelining Alphabet (Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet) and using it to trade for all the other early techs. My thought process was that the 9 turns for Agriculture and 15 Turns for Animal Husbandry were longer than reaching Wheel and Pottery and I also want to get Cottages up and running ASAP so that they grow.
By researching Agriculture first you not only work those resources for earlier growth (and Settler production), but you can also build a Granary while your city grows to further speed up the early game.
I will try detouring from my beeline to take the food techs on my next game and see how it works out. I think that getting Writing via Animal Husbandry vice Potter is only a 4-5 turns longer (and might actually be shorter if the city grows faster to work more commerce tiles).
I have been beelining Alphabet (Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet) and using it to trade for all the other early techs. My thought process was that the 9 turns for Agriculture and 15 Turns for Animal Husbandry were longer than reaching Wheel and Pottery and I also want to get Cottages up and running ASAP so that they grow.
By researching Agriculture first you not only work those resources for earlier growth (and Settler production), but you can also build a Granary while your city grows to further speed up the early game.
I will try detouring from my beeline to take the food techs on my next game and see how it works out. I think that getting Writing via Animal Husbandry vice Potter is only a 4-5 turns longer (and might actually be shorter if the city grows faster to work more commerce tiles).
Mesix
Obergruppenführer
Yes, and if it was a GOTM competition your settling choice would have been certainly justifiable. But since it's HOF where you have theoretically unlimited starts, when you have an start like that you move the settler to the PH and cross your fingers. And if that location turns out to suck, you simply choose another start. At least if you want to challenge for the #1 spot anyway.
The tone of this post is probably much more condesending than I intended, but I've been at a company "function" for the past few hours
2 grassland gem starts are not unlimited. I try to make the best of them when mapfinder rolls one up for me to play.
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