G-Major LIX

[Cromagnus]

You've changed my mind about trading posts. What's really funny is that I just dredged up an old Time game post I made where I raved about trading posts... apparently I have a short memory... lol

Speaking of mines, they actually produce even less yield, in total, because Statue of Liberty is a non-trivial production bonus. Making it so that the hammers increase from a mine is an even smaller part of your total hammers. So, that pushes trading posts over the top IMHO even without taking flexibility into account.

Of course there's the obvious exception of world's fair and other projects. So I'm still going to switch from mines to trading posts AFTER world's fair/international space station/international games, *if* I make a second attempt.
I'm making about 500gpt from Tithe right now, but that's going up steadily, once all cities are up it should be more like 800-900.

Speaking of short memories, I'm starting to favor Pagodas again. Anything to boost culture is really valuable, and in the end-game, that extra +1 population per city is non-trivial. The only problem is that means you have to take an extra policy in Piety early that doesn't otherwise benefit happiness. So that extra culture is somewhat moot. But in a sense it pays for itself. I think though that it's still hard to keep up, faith-wise. If you assume 6fpt for a city with shrine,temple,pagoda, at 100 cities and growing, you don't generate quite enough faith to place one pagoda per turn. However, at double the happiness benefit, I think it doesn't matter.

Still not convinced about Ceremonial Burial though. 500gpt sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to the 1000-2000gpt from Commerce trading posts if you play it like vadalaz, but money is so valuable, and the extra 0.5pop/city in the end amounts to about 200pts in the end-game, but *only* if you max out population. That extra 500gpt (on average throughout the game) really helps with expansion. It buys you a workshop and a landsknecht every turn, or a coliseum every turn, etc. etc. It just seems like Tithe is more snowbally. I mean, the extra ~50 happiness during expansion is really nice in theory, but there's enough global happiness going around to create a comfortable cushion without it. And once you have market/workshop placed, a new city is breaking even anyway.

 

[vadalaz]

In retrospect I think the choices I made (trading posts on hills, Ceremonial Burial, Pagodas) were good in the context of my 10+ city Liberty opener and steady expansion until World's Fair. For a tall setup Ceremonial Burial is definitely overkill and faith output probably isn't that great for Pagodas, and raw production is more valuable than gold early. With 30+ cities I built World's Fair in 2 or 3 turns, International Games took a bit longer because it's 6000 hammers, but it was still pretty quick.

I think it was a mistake to go 4 policies deep into Aesthetics though, I really should've taken Secularism or some Commerce policies or even Exploration earlier. Aesthetics opener is good for the Great People bonus and Uffizi but other policies in that tree have no real impact on the game in my opinion.

It's best to build CN Tower on turn 499, right?

I'm also wondering if I should start killing non-maritime City-States now. It's turn 350, I'm staying at a constant +100 happiness and have 3800 gpt. I think now is the time.

 

[Mesix]

How do you get rid of unwanted tourism? You can't sell hotels (seems to be about the only building I can't sell). I had some puppets who built hotels before I annexed them and they are generating too much tourism.

 

[Bleidraner]

How do you get rid of unwanted tourism? You can't sell hotels (seems to be about the only building I can't sell). I had some puppets who built hotels before I annexed them and they are generating too much tourism.

You cannot sell hotels? Bloody hell you are dead unless you can raze or sell those cities.

 

[Bleidraner]

OK about to fire the time game, against all my instincts that cry don't do it! I will Trad open, then Liberty, maybe do something with Piety. Wide Liberty start and then take the map around t200. Any advice with settings? I guess the less mountains the better right? And what kind of start should I roll for or does that even matter?

 

[vadalaz]

Mesix, you can gift the city to the remaining AI and then retake it, hoping that the hotel gets destroyed. If it doesn't, do the same thing again. Note that gifting cities and recapturing is within HOF rules, selling cities and recaptuing isn't.

Bleidraner, not entirely sure but I think low sea level generally means more land available. Not sure how world age affects that, I know that 3 billion is more hills and 5 billion is more plains. I personally chose Hot and Wet climate because I thought I'd reroll for a sick Petra capital, but ended up playing a Copper/Stone start. I guess any high production&food start is good really. Salt, desert, wheat, all the usual suspects.

But the best thing about my start was the amount of unique luxuries that I could settle aggressively. That and Mt Kailash in my second city.

--
Okay the turn times are terrible now. I don't know if I'll finish this. The other issues include having to spread religion to the rapidly growing cities in the New World, and low science - turn 353, 8400bpt at 161 cities which is like 900 bpt with one, and I have 18 techs left in the tree to research before I can start picking Future Techs. Not good. All I'm getting is stupid Great Merchants too.

I'm stagnating my best inland cities at 25 pop and the coastal ones at 27 for now. Will probably avoid growth in capital at 55 pop and send the trade routes elsewhere afterwards. Started building bombers to take out CSs. But man, the turns take so long.

 

[Mesix]

Can I give the city as part of a peace deal? It would be a shame because I worked so hard to box him in. But then winning a culture victory on turn 450 would also be a shame.

Decisions...decisions...decisions.

 

[Cromagnus]

What I did to avoid hotels was gift when the city was 1 turn from completing the hotel and then take it back when I was ready to annex. But in retrospect I should have just annexed earlier. /shrug

In your case you'll have to gift them (or give them in peace deals) and hope they get destroyed when you retake them. It might be easier to just start over with that city. It's only one city out of like 160+... think of it that way.

Restarting in a time game is pretty much always a good idea if you're still below 50 cities when you realize you made some giant blunder because 90% of the game is spent AFTER you hit 100 cities. But this is a recoverable error, and unless you're willing to start over, it's better to play on.

Bleidraner, I think you're right, the less mountains the better. Was low sea level an option? I don't recall. If so definitely take that. Wet will result in more jungle which is good because it means less zero-food hills.

Personally I would kill all CS but the maritime ASAP, if I were you. The Maritime I tend to capture on t499... I'd do that earlier but they're in anarchy for a LONG time meaning you can't rush-buy hospitals or medical labs. Losing 4food/turn in every city sucks yes, but the benefit from regrowing those cities, if it weren't for anarchy, would outweigh that. I'd probably capture on t480 if it weren't for that. Yes, CN Tower is a t499 build IMHO. (IE turn of completion)

Heck if YOU are tempted to restart, with your cities planted 80 turns earlier, vadalaz, think how I feel on t430 with a few settlers left to plant. (160 cities down, 10 to go!)

 

[zenmaster]

OK about to fire the time game, against all my instincts that cry don't do it! I will Trad open, then Liberty, maybe do something with Piety. Wide Liberty start and then take the map around t200. Any advice with settings? I guess the less mountains the better right? And what kind of start should I roll for or does that even matter?

In general, you want as many settlable hexes that generate as much food as possible: grassland>plains>jungle>water>hills>mountains in general. The more rivers/lakes the better for irrigation. Adjust settings accordingly.

Cromagnus is right in that you are trying to do everything as fast as possible- science, conquest, AND culture. The beauty of time games though is that you aren't pressured by benchmarks. Everyone will finish at the same # of turns and there are many ways to "skin the cat" so to speak. Feel like you want to build something before a science building? You have the luxury of doing so and still being competitive.

The other nice thing about time games is that you can try some different things. The main tension is between wanting to grow 100+ cities (on standard map) to the max and battling the per city happiness/culture/tech penalties. As you can see in the dialogue between Cromagnus and vadalaz, there can be a difference of opinions on best pantheon/belief/SP/conquest pace/growth pace combo to deal with that tension. I haven't had much time to experiment and chime in, but my choices will probably differ somewhat from both of theirs.

Of course the downside is that once you have committed to placing huge #s of cities, it is not easy to give up on that game in the face of difficulties because of the time you have already sunk into that game. Witness everyone who has chimed in with their game experiences so far pretty much [emoji4] Once your cities carpet much of the map, you are in for the long haul, for better or for worse!

 

[Bleidraner]

Well I am at t108. Started slow, 6 cities Liberty and I have conquered Attila's cap. He spawned too close to me unfortunately and he has 2 unique luxuries I need, including marble. I have not optimized the pattern for settling, I will lose 1 city location by the end of the game as my cap is coastal and I really wanted a Petra city in my first expo also coastal, but that maybe OK. Worse is another expo where I forgot about the 3 titles and settled 5 tiles away, that will cost me another city, but hey between 160 and 158 cities not much of a difference right and it is not as if I will not have the territory. My main worry is that I have lost mosques and pagodas, I will have to do with Cathedrals, Monasteries or happiness from temples. Should I reroll?
EDIT: Also I am not focusing on science and just as much growth as happiness allows (happiness is the main problem I am facing) and getting the one effect wonders. I think not focusing on science is OK right? I means there is plenty of turns, Keshiks come fairly early and I am not in a race for any wonders or anything?

 

[zenmaster]

My main worry is that I have lost mosques and pagodas, I will have to do with Cathedrals, Monasteries or happiness from temples. Should I reroll?
EDIT: Also I am not focusing on science and just as much growth as happiness allows (happiness is the main problem I am facing) and getting the one effect wonders. I think not focusing on science is OK right? I means there is plenty of turns, Keshiks come fairly early and I am not in a race for any wonders or anything?

No problem. Go for the Religious centers (temple happiness) and then either the best happiness belief left or one of the growth beliefs. Both will help you; it depends on when and how fast you plan to expand. Nothing in a Time game is fatal except for accumulating too much tourism or accidentally winning a World Leader vote [emoji4]

YEs. No need to worry about science obsessively on these. You want to play the science game as much as possible like usual but can take detours if you want. Just understand that once the Great Expansion starts, techs and social policies will come at a glacial pace so plan accordingly.

 

[vadalaz]

Losing Pagodas is really unfortunate. The extra culture goes a long way, especially for a wide start. 2 happiness/city is great too... I'd probably take temple and shrine happiness then, I'm not sure the growth beliefs are worth it. In my game it doesn't feel like I'll have any problems growing the cities to the happiness limit, except maybe the snow ones. But trade routes might just be enough to fix that.

Not focusing on science is fine, but the earlier you get an ideology the better. I went the 3-factories route because teching to Radio would've taken forever and I didn't have all the universities needed for Oxford.

Keshiks stay relevant for a really long time on King. AIs seem to slow down a lot when they hit Renaissance.

Playing at a pace of 4 turns an hour now. The lag is brutal. I think I'll retire because at 140 turns left that's 35 more hours at 4t/h, and that's optimistic because the game processes capturing a city-state just as long as going on to the next turn. Plus there's no decision making involved anymore, it's just growing the cities and rush-buying things. Which would be fine if every click didn't take like 10 times as long as it should be. There's no way I'm going to finish this in time for the gauntlet with just a week and a half left. A shame, I thought it was going well overall.

Screenshot

Spoiler :

 

[Bleidraner]

Well I just captured Stockholm, they are the ones that have Pagodas and Jesuit Education. I also took care and captured a GP with 3 religion spreads left. I am not sure how to play this, but theoretically I could spread their religion and get a few Pagodas and Unis or Schools, my fpt is not great but if I try to stay in renaissance for a long time, I can probably spread Pagodas and JE religion to 10 cities and then re-spread my religion, it is not as if I don't have enough turns. It will slow me down a little but I think it is worth doing in the long run.

Any thoughts on RAs? I have been extremely careful and I am still friends with 2 civ. I probably can get a couple in.

 

[zenmaster]

@vadalaz - that is too bad! Strategic view not helping? No production queued, right? It seems like there should be some recourse....

@Bleidraner - on RAs, it is King level, so I would only do RAs if your science is low and your partners are rocking (for AIs that is).

May give you an excuse to keep science low waiting for faith to buy science buildings though.... Interesting call.

 

[vadalaz]

Well, the game hasn't crashed since turn 296 so strategic view is helping I guess. Just not enough.

I do queue production. Else I'd have to choose production in like 60 cities every turn, and each mouse click takes like 3-4 seconds to register so that'd take long. It's probably better to queue despite the turn rollover time increase. Or maybe it's an even trade, I don't know.

Will stay away from Standard size Time gauntlets now, at least until I get a hardware upgrade.

 

[Bleidraner]

Well, the game hasn't crashed since turn 296 so strategic view is helping I guess. Just not enough.

I do queue production. Else I'd have to choose production in like 60 cities every turn, and each mouse click takes like 3-4 seconds to register so that'd take long. It's probably better to queue despite the turn rollover time increase. Or maybe it's an even trade, I don't know.

Will stay away from Standard size Time gauntlets now, at least until I get a hardware upgrade.

I assume you have done everything else, take out audio, reduce video settings to absolute minimum (you'll have to get out of the game and reload it again), take out any display of policies or of resources. It is such a pity. I think queuing is a bad idea, even if you have to click, 60 cities times 4 seconds is 4 minutes, take another minute to think, you are probably still ahead.

 

[Mesix]

Mesix, you can gift the city to the remaining AI and then retake it, hoping that the hotel gets destroyed. If it doesn't, do the same thing again. Note that gifting cities and recapturing is within HOF rules, selling cities and recaptuing isn't.

Bleidraner, not entirely sure but I think low sea level generally means more land available. Not sure how world age affects that, I know that 3 billion is more hills and 5 billion is more plains. I personally chose Hot and Wet climate because I thought I'd reroll for a sick Petra capital, but ended up playing a Copper/Stone start. I guess any high production&food start is good really. Salt, desert, wheat, all the usual suspects.

But the best thing about my start was the amount of unique luxuries that I could settle aggressively. That and Mt Kailash in my second city.

--
Okay the turn times are terrible now. I don't know if I'll finish this. The other issues include having to spread religion to the rapidly growing cities in the New World, and low science - turn 353, 8400bpt at 161 cities which is like 900 bpt with one, and I have 18 techs left in the tree to research before I can start picking Future Techs. Not good. All I'm getting is stupid Great Merchants too.

I'm stagnating my best inland cities at 25 pop and the coastal ones at 27 for now. Will probably avoid growth in capital at 55 pop and send the trade routes elsewhere afterwards. Started building bombers to take out CSs. But man, the turns take so long.

I found a more manageble approach.

The former puppets with Hotels were generating a lot of tourism because they had one (on in once case two) landmark improvements which were generating tourism. By micromanaging the tiles so that these cities would not work the landmarks, I was able to reduce the tourism significantly. I also sold an airport which had been built in one of the cities.

How come I can sell an airport but not a hotel?

Adding insult to injusry, I was in the middle of the bonus of International Games so I had +100% tourism. I was generating 208 tourism per turn before micro managing and was able to get it down to a little over 100. The International Games bonus eneded after a few turns, and now I have only 68 tourism per turn and it will take 176 turns to win a cultural vicotry. I have less than 100 turns to my time victory.

 

[zenmaster]

How come I can sell an airport but not a hotel?

You can't sell buildings that don't require maintenance costs (Markets, banks, stock exchanges, faith-bought buildings like Pagodas, etc.) Without looking it up, I'm guessing Hotels don't have a maintenance cost.

 

[Cromagnus]

vadalaz: I feel your pain. I haven't been saving every turn, and at t420+ I've been multi-tasking, IE walking away from my computer between turns. That allows me to queue production and spend less actual time in the game. But, we had a lightning storm and power outage and I didn't catch it in time to save and quit, so I lost many hours of turns. Probably 20+ turns. I started playing again and 2 hours in the power went out again (!) and my UPS hadn't reset correctly so I lost that progress too.

At this point, I'm tempted to restart, but I'm quite worried I wouldn't have time to finish.

Re: Standard Time games, this is *exactly* why I made the request in the Gauntlet Suggestions thread that Time games not be standard size. Even for a Major, it's just too brutal a time-commitment. One Standard Time game is the time commitment of like 20 other HOF entries. Which again is why IMHO it should have a huge points multiplier in the VVV. This will be my last Standard Time game ever. Even with a top-end computer it's just too brutal once you hit 150+ cities. Which you end up doing as early as possible in a competitive game. 150 turns at 4 turns per hour is just masochism.

Yes, hotels are zero-maintenance, which cost me an attempt on the first Time game I played. Which is why I gift and retake. Also I believe when an AI gets a city it deletes the build progress. So even if you get it back in a peace deal a few turns later, the hotel should start over, build progress wise. But, IMHO, the more I play these games, the more I favor annexing earlier than later anyway. Plan your expansion. Do it in stages/waves.

Stage 1: Self-built cities. (1-4 cities)
Stage 2: Key enemy capitals, gifting the rest to Attila. (3-7 cities)
Stage 3: Remaining enemy capitals. (7-10 cities)
Stage 4: Universal Suffrage expansion (20 cities)
Stage 5: World's Fair expansion Stage (The rest)

On a small map, I favor doing the World's Fair Expansion 10 cities at a time. If you're peaking out at 50 cities, the contribution of trade routes to growth is MUCH higher, so you can get away with planting ten cities every 30 turns, which allows you to do staged bulbing and Golden Ages for maximum benefit. On a Standard Map, one maritime CS = 10 cargo ships..., so trade routes are IMHO only there to help slow-growing cities. (Ice-locked or whatever)

But staging it really helps. ALL your cities contribute value when you bulb a great person. This is key because as you will notice as you expand, you basically *stop getting technologies and policies after you start expanding*.

A "staged" expansion that might work for a Standard game is something like, World's Fair with 40 cities with 1 World Wonder/city, after each city has a broadcast tower for 8 turns. If you're super efficient, you might pull this off by t300, and then plant the remaining 130 cities between t300 and t350. But, IMHO this is just too risky.

This is why super-fast culture and tech is so dang important. You stop getting policies and tech when you expand. You want the best possible value from World's Fair as early as possible so you can expand. Thus you need to have a bad-ass empire with all the relevant culture bonuses by t250ish to pull the trigger on a World's Fair, because otherwise you might not get all the happiness policies, which could slow expansion and limit your final score.

This is the part of the game I enjoy, figuring out that part. Like vadalaz, zenmaster and others, I DON'T like the post-expansion Time game. It's boring as hell. :-(

And I just don't have the free time anymore.

 

[vadalaz]

vadalaz: I feel your pain. I haven't been saving every turn, and at t420+ I've been multi-tasking, IE walking away from my computer between turns. That allows me to queue production and spend less actual time in the game. But, we had a lightning storm and power outage and I didn't catch it in time to save and quit, so I lost many hours of turns. Probably 20+ turns. I started playing again and 2 hours in the power went out again (!) and my UPS hadn't reset correctly so I lost that progress too.

Oh, wow. That's so unlucky.

I tried DirectX 9, lowest settings, no audio and no production queues - still got the same 15-20 minute long turns and HUGE lag when capturing a city-state. Definitely not going to continue. Good luck to everyone playing this.

I'm really not sure about putting 4 policies into Aesthetics. I think full Trad, full Liberty, Secularism, Reformation, Universal Suffrage and whatever I could take in Commerce is what I'd go for pre-World's Fair if I was replaying this. During World's Fair, I'd pick up full Commerce, 2 in Exploration, 3 in Honor, 2 more in Freedom and Patronage opener.