G-Major 9: February Vanilla/Warlords Combo

[ori]

So I finally got a victory in this using Elizabeth in 1568 (after losing twice by a couple votes because someone buddied up to another civ and I could not do anything about it ... and of course multiple times because I couldn't build the UN)

 

[uwsublime]

Well, managed to discover Mass Media in 1130AD, but couldn't get the UN built until 1200something, and one of my friends ended up being my competitor and I didn't have enough weight to throw around to change that... Couldn't swing a vote. Getting close to going sub 1200, but not quite there yet.

 

[KMadCandy]

So I finally got a victory in this using Elizabeth in 1568

grats! i'm still scared to try, after mansa's generosity my first time through. i suppose it's odd, him being nice frightened me away.

 

[Dracandross]

Doh managed to get MM around 1150 or so but I failed 2 engineer, lead to score of 1304 which was worse than one before. Damn! I mean 2 times failed, that really hurt. I had very decent spot. 2 gems, wheat, copper, banana on cross and outside pigs and rice too. No stone though. Played with mansa so i had religion on as they asked for it. Gotta give yet another run later and hope that engineer kicks in. Un was about 35 rounds as I skipped 3rd engineer (like never in time even with pacifism) try and went for iron works and traded for iron&coal

-Dracandross

 

[KMadCandy]

tried 4 times, that's enough for me. diety is way too hard. i don't know how you guys trade with them. it's only early on that i have an advantage over anyone, and then as soon as i trade something to one person, everyone else disdains it. "what, did you get that off the discount rack? come back later when you have something real." i'm not used to that. i'll research stuff a bit myself to be able to trade/buy it from them and that helps, but i just can't get any value out of what i have, they're so stingy.

the first 2 times i quit when i thought it was hopeless, the first time really early on. the 3rd time things were a combination of hopeless (last to liberalism, last to physics) but kinda going better than i'd predicted, and i at least researched MM before they launched. then mansa built the UN 2 turns before i'd be done with it. i didn't have democracy so i couldn't buy it. that was frustrating, i'd never thought i could win it but then i got so close! i'd seen that he'd not trade MM since "he had his reasons" but i'd been hoping his spaceship would distract him. not so bad i suppose for being last to liberalism AND to physics haha, but still nowhere closer to QM than i was before.

i never realized the spaceship parts actually sound like they're coming off an assembly line until this case when i heard them, turn after turn, and my turns were just hit enter. that game actually crashed the turn he built it, i never even got the message that i couldn't complete work on it, and i didn't have the heart to load the autosave to see when i'd actually be defeated.

decided i'd try one more time, and liz decides to declare war on me while i'm researching CoL. huh??? she started way south of me, but nobody was in between and she expanded north and i guess she thought York ought to be her town and not mine. i had no trouble with any of them being mean before. but they are too smart for me, and stingy. with exceptions to the stingy ... like when hatty gives me gunpowder and then thanks me for taking it as tho it was a normal trade. yeah sure sweetie, any time!

 

[Pious_Pete]

In my first attempt at this gauntlet, Gandi built the UN 1460.

I was quite pleased since I was "quite close", researching Radio at the time (with a GE in reserve for the UN).

(I should also add that I´ve never yet won on Diety - this was my fifth try in total).

Hopefully - wife and kids permitting - I´ll be able to have another try on Monday before submissions close.

I wondered if someone could give me some advice on which Civ to play, and which Civs to play against.

(In my first attempt I played Vickie against Cyrus, Gandhi, Frederick, Hatty, Mansa Musa, and Roosevelt).

 

[uwsublime]

If you are playing OCC, you should probably use Elizabeth. Your competitors look good, except I'd probably use Washington or Saladin instead of Gandhi as he likes to beat you to the UN - as you found out.

 

[KMadCandy]

well i can't give you any advice on how to play obviously, but i can tell you what i did as far as how to get ideas who to play and who to play against. i went to the HoF tables to see the current top 10 games that would meet this gauntlet. they all happen to be new entries, whaddya know of course they used a mix of different people, but it was interesting to see who they used, and to read the logs to see when then they discovered various things. just an idea. i i even downloaded the saves to peek at their cities ended up, i found it interesting. i haven't been able to use this knowledge effectively myself, but hey.

good luck!!!

 

[Ljdjr]

The game hasn't been accepted yet, but I played it in one session so I hope it meets criteria. After my snafu last week though, we'll see.

The only reason I even came remotely close to winning this gauntlet is because I read all of WastinTime's advice about four times, plus all the great info the posters in his thread and this one gave.
Here's my advice after at least 8 come close but just not enough games.
I would first of all run MapFinder every available minute til Monday.
Go for the riverside grassland gems. Can't beat em.
I kept stumbling by building UN but not have been running US early enough to get the +7. So get Democracy through trades ASAP.

I would also suggest going with Liz and not Vicky. I just won a slow game in 1616, after many many close votes. But I had five coastal tiles total with two clams. With a fish just outside the BFC and a harbor that is +4 health right there, and you get your engineer worry free before Oxford because of the Philosophical trait. Again none of these thoughts are original.
Another thing I noticed is that if you click on writing it takes you through Hunting and AnimHusb which is usually 3 more turns than Wheel>Pottery which gives you cottages right away. My two cents might be somewhere in there.

Oh yeah! Ask around for Defensive Pacts as soon as possible. You'll be suprised when they accept!

 

[uwsublime]

How are you avoiding the "You signed a defensive pact with my rivals" negatives? I never sign pacts in Diplomatic games unless I really need someones vote and the other voters are well beyond what I need to get their votes... Maybe I am missing something. Do the AIs have to be enemies to give you that negative?

 

[Ljdjr]

How are you avoiding the "You signed a defensive pact with my rivals" negatives?

That's a good point and probably shouldn't have said anything as I got sooo lucky to even win my game. I had 7 opponents, lesse: Asoka, Gandhi, Frederick, Mansa, Washington, Roosevelt, and Peter. Everyone hated Peter and kept asking me to break my deals which I couldn't cause he was right to the North and would have walked right over me.

So I had -1 or -2 with most people for not stopping trading, but around +6 overall. But then I got lucky and Peter declared war on the tech leader at the time, Gandhi. Figuring Peter was tied up I accepted the next demand to stop trading with Peter. It was about here I signed Defensive Pacts with Asoka, Fred, Gandhi, Washington, and Roosevelt. This eventually turned Mansa against me as soon as Peter was kaput, but Mansa had even less points that I did at the time.

Before that though, Washington joined in the war and sent about 20 Calvary North through my lands to get Peter. Then as everyone else dogpiled on I even declared war on Peter to get Mutual Military Stuggle.

It then took two rounds of Fredrick being Chairman and electing all the civics to get most of the world into Free Religion which then put me at the top of most people's list. I just had to give Gandhi some gems and sugar which my culture overtook as Washington tore through Russia to my North.

Two or three World Leader votes called by me and I was in.

 

[Thrar]

I have only tried once, and didn't win, so I don't have an entry for this gauntlet. However, in that game, it seemed that you only get DP negatives with those civs you don't have a DP with, too. So I got around them by signing with everyone.

 

[jesusin]

How are you avoiding the "You signed a defensive pact with my rivals" negatives? I never sign pacts in Diplomatic games unless I really need someones vote and the other voters are well beyond what I need to get their votes... Maybe I am missing something. Do the AIs have to be enemies to give you that negative?

In my very limited experience with DPs, nobody is angry when I get my first DP. Then, when I sign the second, everybody else gets a -1.
My experience is limited to games where everybody is everybody's friend, though.

 

[ori]

You just have to make sure that you sign DPs in an order which will allow you to sign with everyone - this makes the DP penalty disappear - obviously you don't need to bother doing this with your opponent in the vote...

 

[uwsublime]

Can you elaborate on that ori? Not sure how you would ensure an order that allows signing with all.

 

[uwsublime]

So I've been alternating between OCC and early military rush to keep things interesting... I've had some horrible luck with both recently...

OCC: I had a 4 gold start so I settled on one of them which was on top of a plains hill... This turbo boosted my early tech rate and I had alphabet around 2200 BC. Oddly, though I got CoL somewhere around 1800BC, I wasn't first. Someone must have slingshotted. But from here out I was just plain flying - I had such a big tech lead that by the time I had education only one person had research philosophy and he wouldn't trade so I had to do it myself. Then I got liberalism before anyone else even had paper (around 400BC) and I took Astro. Nobody had researched PPress yet so I had to do that on my own as well. By this time, all of the extra techs I had to research were catching up to me and I was just about even with the other games I had played for tech rate. Unfortunately aside from the 3 gold tiles my land was pretty poor for research so I ended up being well behind my best games by the time I got to Mass Media. Oh well, I learned that if I have that big of a lead I shouldn't worry about liberalism race and I should gift more techs.

Military (6+ cities): So I put an early quechua rush on GW and removed him from the game around 2600BC. This left me with 3 good cities as I razed one of his crummy ones and I attacked an archer/settler to get the worker rather then letting him found another. This was by far my best start ever. I took a detour through mining (due to 3 gems near capital) before doing the normal Wheel->Pottery->Writing->Alpha, and I still managed alphabet before 2200BC. Normally in these multiple city games my finances become a problem early and I don't get alphabet till about 1200-1500BC. So not only did I already have 3 great cities (would turn to 7 by 1800BC), but I was ahead of my normal tech pace on even OCC games. The crazy thing was, here it was 1800ish BC, and Fredrick already had philosophy. I was about 10 turns out from Civil Service. I had good relations with everyone but Fredrick who just happened to have been friends with GW and just happened to be by far the tech leader and just happened to share a border with me... Uh oh, he declared war a few turns later and my best start ever was over.

So what I've learned is that in OCC you not only need a good start but you need land that will support a good finish. In fact with the cost of the later techs the good finish will be more important. I also learned that a good multi city game will absolutely destroy these OCC times. I was on pace to get Civil Service around 1200-1300BC and I was already pushing ~100 beakers at 1800BC with a sustainable 60% science rate. I think 800AD is possible. The downside of a multi city game is that only about 1 in 10 starts gets you a decent city base, and only about 1 in 10 of these results in good relations with the majority of the AI... You'll probably literally have to play several hundred starts to get the one you need to go sub 1000AD.

Whelp, back at it, hope some of this is helpful!

 

[ori]

Can you elaborate on that ori? Not sure how you would ensure an order that allows signing with all.

well - if all are willing to sign a DP with you you need to look at the attitude modifiers, say A, B, C, D have attitude modifiers of 10, 11, 12, 15 with you I would sign treaties in that order since they will not fall below their threshold (usually pleased, i.e. you must maintain friendly relations) when you sign in that order. If you do D, C, B then most likely A will not sign because he already has -2 or -3 for DPs with rivals...

 

[uwsublime]

That makes sense. Thank you for the tip!

 

[Lexad]

I hope if I launch MF right now it won't be too late RL has really got in the way.

 

[WastinTime]

I've made it over a week without playing. I think I broke the addiction. I doubt I'll try this one again. Good luck. I'm putting the CD away.