G-Major XLII

[Moriarte]

I picked small lakes, scattered and thin as highland's special options, if i remember right. Not too sure about small lakes being most optimal.. Maybe "seas" option can work too, with generally less land, but as you mentioned, you can get blocked pretty badly. Then again, seas just require optics.

 

[Cromagnus]

Ok, that makes sense. I was wondering if you were just getting lucky hehe.

By the way, playing on this map reminds me how annoying lakes are. They're totally nerfed in BNW, inferior to every other tile. You can't boost their food output, you can't improve them or put roads on them... The only good thing about them is that you can farm next to them on tiles that you otherwise couldn't, which admittedly is awesome. But lakes and mountains are the two worst tiles to have inside your 3-tier radius, aside from the aforementioned benefits and the possibility of an observatory. Basically they're killing your growth in the mid-to-late game. And almost every start position in Highlands has multiple lake tiles inside the radius.

However, I've been thinking that Denmark could be more effective than you might think on a highlands map just because of all the lakes. It wouldn't be reliable, but you could easily end up with most cities having a nearby lake that you could use to enter bombardment range and attack on the same turn, despite all the nasty hills.

 

[Cromagnus]

3 straight attempts, and I've failed at the very first bit, as an AI has built Pyramids on turn 40. I was even on track for a religion in the last one. 2nd game, and 6 pantheons had been founded by turn 40. 3rd game, and there were only 2, one of them mine thanks to meeting a CS and doing a quest for them. That game just started off strange. Move settler on top of the mining lux, and the first ring only has a solitary food on a furs tile, the others are hills/mountains/desert. But 2nd ring has 3 wheat. Turn 2, found city, warrior pops goodie hut, and I get a +1 pop. Turn 3, my city starves back down to size 1.

I had decided to take a break from Honor... Liberty just gets you set up so much better, it's not comparable. Even without the Pyramids. Which is a good thing, because I'm 0 for 3 like you, gone by t43 all three times I decided to play past turn 0.

One thing I've really noticed that hurts on Highlands is the worker steal is harder to pull off and it takes forever to get them back.

I think because the map has no sea ice or water, the civs start out more spread out. I have not had one instance where even one civ's first expo was within 10 tiles of me. I've been struggling to get one worker home by t40 whereas I can usually get two by t25. Which makes ALL the difference for Honor, which is a build that struggles to get going.

I'm actually having to hard-build workers even on Liberty because of losing the Pyramids, and because it really matters to get those workers early, I've been taking the free worker first, and hard-building my first settler, which sucks, but unless you get insanely lucky and can settle all your expos on unique hilltop luxes (in the relatively sparse luxuries of highlands) then you have a bunch of cities with no workers and no happiness.

I'm curious to hear (after the Gauntlet concludes) how Moriarte adjusted his strategy for highlands. He's obviously the expert at the Liberty domination start, and playing this HOF game has reminded that I clearly am not.

 

[Moriarte]

Well, we can talk now, with 2.5 weeks to go, my memories will surely fade .

You're right, of course, early workers are critical. Bought two workers in my last game. Got one extra from city state. The highland map (as any other map which you can't circumnavigate) is rich with ruins. So, it's scout, monument, scout, granary. Plus, initial warrior and one archer kept exploring until around t.60. With 4 units exploring the map you get tons of stuff from ruins. Plus, early bronze working helps. With resources to sell and a bunch of generally peaceful AI's gold flows in nicely.

I also didn't steal from AI, everyone was far away from me, and by the time i got to them it made more sense to stay friendly. No beaker caravans, so i built library in the cap. earlier than i normally do.

I go straight for free settler, but sometimes (pyramids) it is worth delaying settler production slightly. I am planning to finish pyramids before t.45. If you do it later, hard built settlers come too late to contribute. By the way, some AI's rarely go liberty. You want more of those.

Apart from hardcore scouting i didn't adjust the strat. much. Except, maybe, the issue of loooong roads (and prebuilding those to remote locations) is something that needs good planning to keep the momentum rolling. You want to connect everything you own with roads, eventually, and that is normally a pain on highlands. My last map was particularly heavy on long roads, where GE for Machu helped, i believe.

 

[Cromagnus]

Might try again next week, i need some rest from Shaka's war music.

Ohhhhh Shaka, OHHHHHH SHAAAAKAAA, OHHH SHAAAKAAA... Man, seriously. I'm so sick of it already haha.

EDIT: Adding response to your post to avoid adding so many replies.

It might be the civs I'm playing with. I went basically all Wonder whores.

So, I'm 0 for 4 on Pyramids, all 4 times it went before t45. If I start building Pyramids early enough to get it, I can't build archers or even a granary. The map is too spread out to avoid building archers because barbs are everywhere. If you use your upgraded scouts for defense you can't explore the map. Really not sure how you get away with sub-t45 Pyramids without luck. How do you afford buying multiple workers and still do 4 CB upgrades? Are you just relying on a perfect start with ideal ruins and friendships to sell resources? Are you just not upgrading to CBs until you get to Machinery?

My best attempt on Liberty was my 4th and last try, and I still missed the Pyramids (t40) despite buying a worker. I got two CS culture allies due to lucky barb camps, got 3 free techs and 2 growth from ruins, 2 faith CS for immediate early pantheon, all the luck went my way... and I still found it hard to pull off some of the numbers you post!

I ended up completing Construction on t52, founded a religion on t60, Philosophy on t70, Liberty finisher t72, rush-bought library in my 4th city for immediate NC, Civil service on t85, would have had Machinery on t100 except I screwed that game up and had to retire... Seriously lucky roll. But I still have no idea how you're building 6-7 cities, happiness-wise! Was that just a flukey map where you were able to secure a lot of luxes and you weren't swarmed by barbs?

Here's my problem... just the sheer number of workers I need to keep my happiness and growth going, and the sheer distance between cities if you secure unique luxes, and the sheer number of units I need to defend them from all the barb camps (even without raging barbs)... man I just don't see any way I could be building roads. Even in an ideal game, the distances and sheer number of turns to put up roads are crazy... I'm averaging 7-10 tiles between cities if I go for unique luxuries.

And this was BY FAR the luckiest roll I've ever gotten with Liberty. I could have finished the game probably with a decent time despite missing the Pyramids, but sadly, but I made a huge mental error, DoWing the wrong civ by accident on t92. I got confused with my previous game and attacked one of Pacal's units to start the war... when my target was Korea and all my units were over there. Meanwhile Pacal is MY FRIEND, and located on my undefended flank providing all my trade route beakers... I moved a settler 15 tiles to get all that going.. for nothing.

ARGH. Sloppy mistake from restarting so much and maybe staying up too late. Maybe HOF rules aren't for me.

Anyway, I went back to Honor because it feels like a better fit for this particular scenario. And with the civs I chose, capturing Wonders is a better plan. Someone is hell-bent on the Pyramids in every game. I'll open Liberty if I capture the Pyramids.

IMHO, the separation and rough terrain negates the benefit of connecting cities with roads until later in the game... which takes away the happiness from Liberty. Most of my cities are going to be puppeted for a long time, which takes away the rest.

The extra barbs from all that separation means you get through Honor fast even without raging barbarians, and makes it easy to secure CS allies. The scarcity of unique luxuries and distance between cities makes a 2-city NC feel like a better starting plan, especially since you need a happiness buffer for city capture.

This is all maybe a stronger argument for Tradition than it is for Honor, just because Tradition is awesome and Honor sucks, but I feel like Shaka is perhaps the best-designed civ for Honor. Honor is all about early melee UU. His spearmen qualify because of the Ikanda boosts, and the Impi are even better. Upgrading all those spearmen to Impi and all those archers to X-Bows makes Honor shine. Plus, range CBs really help in the rough terrain. So, it just feels like, even though most games might suck with Honor, my chance for a *crazy* low time with a lucky start is best with Honor because without the Pyramids, Honor rolls over people faster than Liberty does. I think.

I'm actually tempted to go Liberty->free worker and keep re-rolling until I get the GL, just because on this map, with all the ruins, your chance of rolling free Pottery + culture ruin + 2 pop ruins is high, and without trade route beakers, GL + early NC is actually significant. Not a reliable plan in most cases, but if you're re-rolling anyway... ;-)

 

[sanabas]

playing this HOF game has reminded that I clearly am not.

Neither am I.

I need to explore more. I need to restrain myself when attempting to steal workers if it's going to mean I can't get a peace deal, or I'll need to dedicate a scout to escort it back (which didn't work anyway, as it ended up killed by barbs). I need to figure out better build/tech order at the start. I need to pick better city locations. Founding an isolated city to grab a lux may seem good, but when it's not on a hill, and a deity AI decides it's too close to you, shows up with 6 warriors & a couple of catapults/CBs, it's going to end in tears.

Have just made 2 attempts, first one I was about to get free settler, had great location for it, Pyramids set to complete on t40, and ragequit when the AI built them on t40 too. Instead of 2 free workers, I got 184 gold, enough for 60% of a worker.

2nd attempt looked good to start. Moved warrior, and saw Mt Fuji. So ended up settling next to it on t3 or so. Explored, and just the other side of a CS was Kilimanjaro. 2nd city went up there. Even managed to found a religion. But lack of luxes made growth slow, stealing a worker from Greece turned out to be a bad idea, made even worse when Persia, my northern neighbour, decided to sneak attack. I was treated to a strange sight, as after Persia got my 3rd city, a CS took my 2nd, which actually gave me 100 gold as the drop in size meant it adopted my religion.

 

[Cromagnus]

Neither am I.

I need to explore more. I need to restrain myself when attempting to steal workers if it's going to mean I can't get a peace deal, or I'll need to dedicate a scout to escort it back (which didn't work anyway, as it ended up killed by barbs). I need to figure out better build/tech order at the start. I need to pick better city locations. Founding an isolated city to grab a lux may seem good, but when it's not on a hill, and a deity AI decides it's too close to you, shows up with 6 warriors & a couple of catapults/CBs, it's going to end in tears.

Have just made 2 attempts, first one I was about to get free settler, had great location for it, Pyramids set to complete on t40, and ragequit when the AI built them on t40 too. Instead of 2 free workers, I got 184 gold, enough for 60% of a worker.

2nd attempt looked good to start. Moved warrior, and saw Mt Fuji. So ended up settling next to it on t3 or so. Explored, and just the other side of a CS was Kilimanjaro. 2nd city went up there. Even managed to found a religion. But lack of luxes made growth slow, stealing a worker from Greece turned out to be a bad idea, made even worse when Persia, my northern neighbour, decided to sneak attack. I was treated to a strange sight, as after Persia got my 3rd city, a CS took my 2nd, which actually gave me 100 gold as the drop in size meant it adopted my religion.

Yeah, city location (and timing) is everything, and so, as a result, scouting is everything. I like to have the area around my city explored in a 10-tile radius by the time I spawn my first settler. Which isn't hard, but it limits your ability to explore across the map. Especially if you're killing barb camps, or stealing workers, etc.

NWs are particularly tricky. You often have to sacrifice a luxury to get them, or delay getting the lux because it'll be third-tier at best. My favorite way to get NW is to use a great general to steal them from a CS after planting my city nearby. Gotta do something with all the generals I get with Honor!

But that doesn't help you get a pantheon/religion, because it comes too late. So if I see a nearby Mt Sinai, it's really hard to resist the urge to settle a 1-pop stagnated city next to it for the immediate faith. But really, if it isn't a good city site, you just gotta walk on by. It's all about the fast start and the snowball effect, and you can't afford a dead city like that.

I might have to change up my opponents. I *never* get DoW'd, but everyone's a Wonder whore, and Pyramids is always gone by t40. Because of the great distance between unique luxes and other civs in highlands, I gave up on Liberty for a while, and I've been doing Honor instead, but it's such a frustrating tree.

The requirement that you keep a unit in a city for the culture is real problem. Unlike with Liberty or Tradition, there's no immediate local culture, so cities don't acquire ANY tiles until you finish building a monument unless there's a unit in that city. Which means you *gotta* have a unit in that city. You need it to burn through Honor, and you need it to claim tiles.

Shaka's reduced cost for maintenance is all well and good, but that doesn't increase the "supported # of units" that you get from population. (Which I believe is 3/city + population size)

This has been my biggest dilemma. I need two scouts out exploring the world because the AIs are so far apart on highlands. I need a minimum of two archers to deal with barbarians because, again, you start so far from the AIs that barbs are everywhere, and well, with Honor, you need the culture from constantly killing barbs.

And on top of that I need units in my cities for culture! This is a big reason Honor is gimped. With 3 cities, culture w/o garrisons = 7cpt. With garrisons = 13cpt. You just can't afford not to have garrisons if you want to get the barracks discount early enough to get benefit from it. (T50 max IMHO, so that I'm done building barracks by t55 and have spearmen by t60 for my CB rush..)

But, this means I quickly hit the unit cap if I only build 1 city... with workers, and especially caravans and great generals, I hit the cap before I get construction, so I can't just attack to get my second city. I think they didn't take caravans or GG into account for unit limits, and the recent boost to # of GG they give in Honor shows they didn't think this through very well. Honor is already unit-cap limited early.

Even if I build the second city by t40, I'm at the cap, especially if I build caravans or have anywhere near the workers I need. Also, I'm frequently having to sit on my hands with a full health unit in a city despite there being a nearby barb camp to kill, because 2cpt is better than the time investment of one barb kill.

It's the unit cap that's the issue. I can build a big army fast. But Liberty ends up being superior because 4 cities supports 12 units + population. Sigh.

Here's my current build order: scout, monument, granary|worker (granary first if I have wheat/deer/bananas, worker first otherwise), archer, settler, settler, caravan.

You'll note I don't build a shrine. It's too much of a gamble... the benefit comes late (usually t40) and it's 1gpt. I try to get my pantheon from scouting. If not, oh well.

This assumes I can steal 1 worker and buy/steal a second. Usually I can get one from a barb camp. If not, I'm forced to DoW both a civ AND a CS. Not ideal, but honestly, with everyone so spread out and the passive civs I chose, it hasn't been a problem.

This also assumes I rush-buy one archer EARLY to get culture. In order for the math to work out on rush-buying an archer, a worker, and CB upgrades, I just re-roll if I can't start my city on a hill lux mine. (2gt much sooner than I could work that tile otherwise, + 7gpt when you meet a rich AI, usually sooner than I could have worked that tile, gets your monument out on turn 10-11 instead of turn 15-17, it ends up being at least +150g)

I try to plant my second and third city ASAP after I get Military Caste, so I go from 3 culture/turn + barbs to 9 culture/turn + barbs, and have 13 once my monuments are done. So, two settlers built and planted by t40 ideally, which requires forest to chop. This gets me to Professional Army in time to build Ikanda on t45... usually.

One of those cities exists for the sole purpose of generating trade routes with someone I won't attack, so that I can forego libraries/NC until later. So it's animal husbandry, luxes, archery, the wheel, bronze-working, construction, writing, civil service, philosophy, machinery, and squeeze in sailing if there's an opportunity for a second trade route. I'm not building libraries until after Ikandas/spearmen, and I'm not building NC until after I have Impi.

I haven't decided whether this is the way to go yet though. If I rushed Philosophy before any of this, and built NC before Ikandas, I might hit Machinery faster... but I'd be delaying getting my caravans out, and caravans > libraries, so I don't think so.

Basically, success with my build is entirely predicated on getting 12bpt from trade routes. If I can get that from external trade routes, one or both of my caravans goes to food, and just hope one of my first city captures has a happiness wonder, otherwise the growth is a problem. Last time, I captured Thebes right after he built Notre Dame. I made a tactical error after that, or I would have had Petra and the Pyramids too by tt10... sigh. Had to retire that game after some poor unit tactics. :-(


So, that means one expo near a "friend", preferably Venice, and one expo in between to avoid having my cities super far apart. Still too far for roads, but not indefensible... entirely.

Still not nearly as effective as Liberty or Tradition... I can feel the palpable difference.

But Shaka is the perfect Honor Civ damn it!!! Reduced XP cost combines so well with +50% XP. The total effect is 2x faster upgrades. Example base cost: 120. Shaka's cost is reduced 25%, so it's 90. With Honor, you get 90 in the same amount of time you'd normally get 60 XP, so 120 > 60, or 2x faster! Combine that with the +15% bonus to adjacent melee units, +15% production of melee units, +50% production of Ikanda, 33% cheaper upgrades to Impi... reduced maintenance cost of units... it's just an ultimate synergy... Until you hit the wall of slowth growth limiting your unit counts and tech... :-(

 

[Cromagnus]

My victim list: (work in progress)

Venice - Makes sense. I try to be friends with him until he has at least 4 cities.
Byzanthium - Why?
Maya - Makes sense. Peaceful wonder whore who won't go after the Pyramids.
India - Why?
Morocco - Makes sense. Love being his trading partner.
Denmark the Huns - Why, because battering rams make for crappy defense, or because other civs hate him, making an easy target for denouncement? ;-)
Egypt Ethiopia - Why, because Egypt goes for the Pyramids? Also why would you ever want to face Ethiopia? They're beefy on defense...

Venice - Good long-term ally.
Morocco - Same.
Maya - Wonder whore with no significant UU to interfere with CB/Impi/XBow/Artillery.
Egypt - Same. He tends to have a lot of knights because he upgrades war chariots, but Impi own Knights. :-D
The Dutch - Good trading partner, not as dangerous on land maps.
Polynesia - Nerfed on land.
Korea - Easy if I can catch him before he gets hwaacha, otherwise first artillery victim.

Basically, all friendly wonder whores so I can make early friends to trade with and capture juicy capitals.

The big question marks are:

1) Egypt because of Pyramids contention... not a problem if I go Honor, but otherwise annoying.
2) Korea because he can runaway if left untended.

One of these two is often the leader. And the leader must go!

I might sub in Portugal for one of those two. She always wants to trade/be friends and isn't very effective. Might sub in one warmonger... with this list I can often build Statue of Zeus. I don't bother unless it's still around after I capture my first capital and no one has opened Honor yet.

 

[sanabas]

Yeah, I'm about ready to give up on random opponents. Not sure exactly who I'll put in. I know it won't be Persia. Nor Greece.

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, I'm about ready to give up on random opponents. Not sure exactly who I'll put in. I know it won't be Persia. Nor Greece.

Never Greece! I don't like Siam, or Austria. I only tolerate Venice eating CS because he's a good trade partner. He makes a metric ton of trade routes. ;-)

 

[Moriarte]

Venice - Makes sense. I try to be friends with him until he has at least 4 cities.
Byzanthium - Why?
Maya - Makes sense. Peaceful wonder whore who won't go after the Pyramids.
India - Why?
Morocco - Makes sense. Love being his trading partner.
Denmark the Huns - Why, because battering rams make for crappy defense, or because other civs hate him, making an easy target for denouncement? ;-)
Egypt Ethiopia - Why, because Egypt goes for the Pyramids? Also why would you ever want to face Ethiopia? They're beefy on defense...

Hey, Cromagnus!

I am in a middle of a terrific game with Arabs, so i'll answer this bit before going into detail with the rest of your post later on.

So here is my intel:

India - Easy. Goes tall, never goes beyond 3 cities (hence - easy to capture), wonder whore. (less units to deal with) Very friendly. Sell him some gems and he is your friend.

Morocco. Slow expansion. Using his kasbah's after he's dead is fun too. Very friendly and easy to DoF.

Huns. Yes. Both. He is my favourite contract killer, and rams Are useless. Harald is useless too, even more so. So it's one or the other, but Harald might be difficult to bribe. Depends. Both these guys can become your friends when everyone else hates you - that's the thing i noticed with natural born killers.

Venice. 1-2 cities to kill. Last in tech always. Perfect candidate. Friendly.

Maya - Very friendly. Wonderwhore. Atlatlists are a joke. Easy to deal with at any point, as he usually goes tall.

Ethiopia - same reason as India. Wonder whore, 3 - 4 cities max. He is strong, but small. Take couple of his cities and forget. He'll never recover. Can runaway though if he is on the other side of the map. Friendly.

Egypt - probably not worth it. Then again if you spawn right next to this guy (or close) you're set for a wonder pack once you kill him. Chariots are hard to kill before crossbows. Not friendly. (at all)

Byzanthium - Extremely friendly. (and cute) Wonderwhore. Goes tall. Spawning next to her can be painful. Cataphracts are insane and she can spam them.

So here is my criteria basically: tall civ, easy to DoF, wonder maniac, no devastating UU's

I think some of the civs you mention are good too: Portugal (loves wide though), Netherlands (tall guy), Korea (if you kill him before Hwacha's).

Disagree about Polynesia. He is extremely expansive and settles in random places everywhere. Easy to DoF. Even easier to start hating you. Sensitive. Just my experience..

 

[Cromagnus]

India - Easy. Goes tall, never goes beyond 3 cities (hence - easy to capture), wonder whore. (less units to deal with) Very friendly. Sell him some gems and he is your friend.

Morocco. Slow expansion. Using his kasbah's after he's dead is fun too. Very friendly and easy to DoF.

Huns. Yes. Both. He is my favourite contract killer, and rams Are useless. Harald is useless too, even more so. So it's one or the other, but Harald might be difficult to bribe. Depends. Both these guys can become your friends when everyone else hates you - that's the thing i noticed with natural born killers.

Venice. 1-2 cities to kill. Last in tech always. Perfect candidate. Friendly.

Maya - Very friendly. Wonderwhore. Atlatlists are a joke. Easy to deal with at any point, as he usually goes tall.

Ethiopia - same reason as India. Wonder whore, 3 - 4 cities max. He is strong, but small. Take couple of his cities and forget. He'll never recover. Can runaway though if he is on the other side of the map. Friendly.

Egypt - probably not worth it. Then again if you spawn right next to this guy (or close) you're set for a wonder pack once you kill him. Chariots are hard to kill before crossbows. Not friendly. (at all)

Byzanthium - Extremely friendly. (and cute) Wonderwhore. Goes tall. Spawning next to her can be painful. Cataphracts are insane and she can spam them.

So here is my criteria basically: tall civ, easy to DoF, wonder maniac, no devastating UU's

I think some of the civs you mention are good too: Portugal (loves wide though), Netherlands (tall guy), Korea (if you kill him before Hwacha's).

Disagree about Polynesia. He is extremely expansive and settles in random places everywhere. Easy to DoF. Even easier to start hating you. Sensitive. Just my experience..

You know, I wasn't thinking of tall as a good thing until my last game, where (coincidentally) William went WAY wide, and I needed to chew through 3 of his cities to get to his capital. It really slowed me down, and forced me to continue the war so long that I lost the advantage. Capturing only one city is WAY better than having to puppet/raze/sell 3. So, after 2 straight games going wide as the points leader, I'm done with William. I only had him in there because he'll trade you luxuries even when he's down to 1. He charges an extra 50% for his last resource, but sometimes it's worth it for the happiness, and no one else takes the deal. But, after watching him build the Pyramids yet again... I think I'm done with him.

Egypt is such a mixed bag. I agree if you get him late he's tough, or too early, but if you get him right around t100, Impi dominate and he's usually a wonder pinata by then. But then he always takes the pyramids if he can.

I might try Attila instead. I'm going off this awesome pic for info about who to put in my game:

Spoiler :

Gandhi and Venice are both a 3 for expansion, and the 4's are Nebu, Dido, Maya, Byzantium, Ethiopia, Sweden and Morroco. William is a 6, so that explains a lot. He's out! Hehe.

So: Gandhi goes in. William goes out. Byzantium goes in. Egypt can stay, because he's only a 5. Polynesia is out. (8!)

I'm reluctant to put in Dido or Nebu because they're not as easy to fight early if you land next to them. I hate those elephants.

Sweden I think I'll leave out. He's an 8 for building units, which is as bad as Bismarck, Japan, Assyria and Poland.

The civs who build the least units are: Gandhi, Egypt and Pedro. (3)

I'm toying with replacing Sejong with Pedro but I don't like his jungle bias.

As far as wonder whores, the biggest are: Egypt (8), Nebu, Maya & Inca (7)

Gandhi, Theo, Venice and Sejong are 6's, and the other 6's are people I don't want to see in a game.

Inca is out in this game for obvious reasons. I mean, I suppose it's fine if you fight them with bombers, but otherwise I want no part of them in Highlands. ;-)

Anyway, for now Egypt stays in and Attila stays out, despite the obvious reasons he's nice to have in a game, because I just love capturing Thebes around t100. It's won me a few games. If he starts thwarting me too much I'll give Attila a try. Thanks for the tips!

 

[Moriarte]

Pedro sounds like a great choice. He will definitely be in my next try. Instead of Haile or Attila, probably.

EDIT: Just realised that Pedro actually goes liberty from time to time, so ..

As for the rest of your posts, here is my view on it:

As you mentioned, distances are a huge problem with highland map, plus, generally rough terrain make construction of anything a time consuming endeavour. So, liberty's worker bonus + the pyramids is the good recipe to overcome that. Honour's happiness bonus is completely unsuitable for domination play, as it is completely dumb. Why would anyone want to keep their armies in cities during non stop domination campaign? Anyway, my view on it is that units do promote very fast with Shaka as it is, there is no need to bend the stick even further in that direction, it's better to use the power of culture to fix your production, economy and, eventually, a great engineer for early NC, for example. There are other schools of thought, of course, and i can see a domination grandmaster going honour with 2 city NC and finishing before turn 200. (like glory did, effectively during latest Bismark DC) I know, i'm not that good, i need liberty, as it gives me consistent start, even when i throw pyramids out.

Another thing is luck, and that is why it's not that important when you unlock machinery, provided it will happen before turn 110. You can still finish close to t.200. If civ's placements are good and the amount of cities to take is small you will go through civs like knife through butter. For example, during my last game i spent 20 turns trying to kill a single moroccan city and another 12 turns just to get from Ethiopia to Venice corner without roads. (Instead of building fancy stuff i should have constructed 4 arties, connected a road, rushed 4 cavalries and synchronised venice with Ethiopia) A large aspect of it all is diplomacy. Attacking cities with little or no defence is a direct consequence of diplomacy.

So, i suggest to not re roll much, but play almost every map you roll, as opportunities/conditions i mention are pretty random and with careful management you can snowball your way out of almost any situation, so to speak.

 

[Cromagnus]

Pedro sounds like a great choice. He will definitely be in my next try. Instead of Haile or Attila, probably.

EDIT: Just realised that Pedro actually goes liberty from time to time, so ..

As for the rest of your posts, here is my view on it:

As you mentioned, distances are a huge problem with highland map, plus, generally rough terrain make construction of anything a time consuming endeavour. So, liberty's worker bonus + the pyramids is the good recipe to overcome that. Honour's happiness bonus is completely unsuitable for domination play, as it is completely dumb. Why would anyone want to keep their armies in cities during non stop domination campaign? Anyway, my view on it is that units do promote very fast with Shaka as it is, there is no need to bend the stick even further in that direction, it's better to use the power of culture to fix your production, economy and, eventually, a great engineer for early NC, for example. There are other schools of thought, of course, and i can see a domination grandmaster going honour with 2 city NC and finishing before turn 200. (like glory did, effectively during latest Bismark DC) I know, i'm not that good, i need liberty, as it gives me consistent start, even when i throw pyramids out.

Another thing is luck, and that is why it's not that important when you unlock machinery, provided it will happen before turn 110. You can still finish close to t.200. If civ's placements are good and the amount of cities to take is small you will go through civs like knife through butter. For example, during my last game i spent 20 turns trying to kill a single moroccan city and another 12 turns just to get from Ethiopia to Venice corner without roads. (Instead of building fancy stuff i should have constructed 4 arties, connected a road, rushed 4 cavalries and synchronised venice with Ethiopia) A large aspect of it all is diplomacy. Attacking cities with little or no defence is a direct consequence of diplomacy.

So, i suggest to not re roll much, but play almost every map you roll, as opportunities/conditions i mention are pretty random and with careful management you can snowball your way out of almost any situation, so to speak.

Good points. Yes, I feel like the happiness and culture benefits from Honor are fundamentally broken for Domination, which is the only VC it's good for. I also agree that the fast XP is overkill with Shaka. It's fun getting all those promotions, but it isn't game-changing unless you focus on getting your CBs to Range + Logistics ASAP, which goes against Shaka's flavor and UU's.

And the melee bonus is ill-timed. You can't generate enough spearmen early to make an early attack go better with 2-3 archers + spearmen than it would with 1 spearman and 4 CBs. On my best attempt, I got my first Ikanda out on t40 and had time to build maybe 4 spearmen by t55, which are totally inferior to 4 CBs at that time.

Ranged > melee. It's that simple. So the Ikanda and melee bonuses from Honor aren't the great synergy I was hoping for. However, if you start your attack run at Impi, I find that things work better.

So far with Honor, my best attempts are as follows:
Option 1: CB rush) Ignore Ikanda and spearmen, and just focus on getting 4 CBs + a cover warrior to an opponent's city on the earliest turn possible.
Upside: *Easier target. If you don't cap before t65, city capture is inefficient at best until you have XBows. Even with Impi. *Empire growth. Honor has stunted growth, so early capture of a juicy city really helps. Chances are, that captured city has more acquired tiles and improvements than your capital.
Downside: Capturing this early may require you to attack your only Trade Route partner. They probably haven't had time to build Wonders. You're trying to finish Honor, which requires killing barbs and sitting in your cities. You don't have enough units to attack a city and do all that. The diplo hit is worse this early. You don't have as many good friends, so a denounce is less effective.

Option 2: Impi rush) Focus on tech and growing your 3 (IMHO) cities until Civil Service and attack with CBs and Impi.
Upside: AI has more Wonders by then. Impi dominate every other unit available on t90. X-Bows come soon after you take your first city, and attacking with Impi and CBs lets you take full advantage of Impi before the enemy gets musketmen. By now, you've finished the Honor track, so you actually don't care about keeping units in cities, so it's a good time to attack. In fact, it's very convenient to finish Honor and then intentionally slow down culture gain rate until you hit Medieval, so that you don't waste a policy pre-Medieval. After you take a city or two, your population will support enough units to leave units in the cities after conquest for happiness/culture, so you can continue the war indefinitely. Shaka's UA makes it completely feasible to have half your units sitting cities, and once you hit Artillery, those Impi are mostly useless anyway.
Downside: The AI has had more time to build expos between you and their capital. On Highlands this can lead to a very slow campaign.

Option 3: Artillery rush) Completely blow off Shaka's UU's, and just focus on getting to Artillery as soon as possible. Then watch the cash roll in when you start getting 30g+/kill.

None of these options IMHO will lead to as fast a finish time with Honor as Liberty could give you. But, attacking with Impi is very fun and satisfying. They can capture a city almost entirely without ranged support. One medic speeds up that process a lot. Everyone attacks, everyone heals, then charge to the next city. Rinse and repeat. But it's masochistic to run with Honor on Deity... Liberty is just SO MUCH MORE effective. The tile improvement and free workers are just so powerful. My best runs with Honor are always the ones where I get lucky and steal/rescue a ton of workers from barb camps/civs. And I really feel the pain of having to build NC by hand. At least with Tradition you don't have to build monuments or aqueducts, which makes up for building NC. And the value of NC is WAAAY higher with a Tradition capital than with Honor.

Back on topic: I've found that the luxury distribution with Seas is WAAAY better than Small Lakes. Just FYI. I get much better starting locations and expos now that I've switched.

 

[Cromagnus]

Since this map is so spread out, I may try some good old peaceful Liberty play. (IE play peaceful until artillery) Why? Because you can expand as much as you want on Highlands, barring lack of unique resources. I keep having a peaceful game by accident because the terrain is so rugged and the distances so great that I struggle to keep a war campaign going. Maybe I should include some more warmongers.

For example, I think I started 7 cities on this map and I could easily have started two more cities with unique luxuries without pissing off anyone. The only downside would have been that those cities would have been 12 tiles from my existing empire. Most of the cities you see near me were settled after turn 140.

Also, yes, my beakers suck for such a big empire, but happiness is the limiting factor, and I didn't start playing peaceful until war weariness kept me from continuing my XBow push. So, it's looking like I probably won't get Artillery until T185.

Spoiler :

I probably won't keep playing this one, because I went Liberty/Commerce, and ended up not getting enough war momentum pre-Artillery to accomplish anything that a pure science build couldn't have easily beaten. The cheap roads in Commerce do help, but... did I really need 7 cities? ;-)

Anyway, aside from the huge difference that pillage-healing undeniably makes, I really miss Tradition's border expansion, and I never get Guilds early enough to get Machu Picchu anyway, so I might try a mixed build from now. Either mixed Tradition/Liberty or mixed Tradition/Honor.

Honor is easy to mix because on this map type there are so many barbs you can finish Honor by t80 without even getting a CS ally, t70 if you do, and taking the Tradition opener to start hardly even delays the finisher. And there's just so much value in the border expansion. I *hate* the amount of money I spend on tiles with Liberty. Makes me really appreciate Washington's synergy with Liberty!!

So, yeah, I'm pretty much always taking Tradition opener first from now on.

And I'm really struggling with early war much more than on a normal Deity map. Even when I complete Construction on t50, it's just such a long damn hike to my neighbor's lands, and they often don't have improvements to pillage-heal, and it's all hills that I can't shoot over... blah. I hate Highlands.

Speaking of Highlands, I've adjusted my strategy a bit to compensate for the distances... it's making a HUGE difference.

I'll post what I've been doing after I finish my current game and have time to put it into words. I think this one will be a competitive finish time!

 

[Cromagnus]

Ok, unfortunately, I both haven't had much time to play, and my awesome Honor game fell apart due to bad planning on my part.

I got Artillery on T175, which is not awesome, true, but pretty damn good for an Honor start. I was #2 in tech by T200. It was all going my way, but I got forgot to attack multiple civs at once, and I put all my friendship eggs in Korea's basket, who then backstabbed me. This triggered a chain-denounce. I went from 3 friends & 3 haters (because I had their capitals) to 7 guarded opponents all at once.

I lost multiple lux/lux trades at once, and on the next turn, my ideology went from Content to Dissidents, and suddenly I was at -20 happiness. I didn't have enough policies in ideology to make the switch back and get above -12 happiness.

It went downhill from there, and despite 1k beakers/turn, Korea started pulling away in tech!! He got nukes and was 10% ahead in tech even though I was #2. I could possibly have pulled off an SV just because the AI is that dumb, but I have no interest in playing out that map to t300.

So, I'll just have to start again. One more try with Honor and I'm going back to Liberty. I just want the bragging rights of a t250 HoF Honor Deity finish, since I'm betting there won't be many of those.

 

[tommynt]

I tried this today and when i finaly got a decent map I got invited to a mp game - played only 15t or so - 15-20 min.

Rules say sessions should be longer - is there a problem if I play on this with longer next sessions?

 

[Peets]

I tried this today and when i finaly got a decent map I got invited to a mp game - played only 15t or so - 15-20 min.

Rules say sessions should be longer - is there a problem if I play on this with longer next sessions?

From the FAQ

Session length

Play sessions should be at least half an hour in duration. Submissions with play sessions less than half an hour risk rejection.

It is a risk but if the next sessions aren't below 30 minutes then the chances are very slim.

 

[Cromagnus]

If I understand the reasoning behind it, it's because each time you start a new session it's a load, which could be a reload. So if you save at a crucial time like the early game, you could reload until you got a faith ruin on t20, changing your actions slightly each time until the random number generator went in your favor. So, the longer your play sessions the less chance of abuse. This is my first HoF attempt, and I've already had to scrap two very promising starts because I dow'd with an archer. (Which does a range attack instead of capturing the worker)

This is a bug IMHO, you should never be able to attack a worker with an archer... And a harmless mistake IMHO as well, so I would normally reload from the auto save. But for HoF you either have to play through or start over. In both cases my archer died because he stopped his turn where he attacked instead of moving like I intended. So I didn't play through. Oh well. I think this particular HoF is doubly frustrating because of how tough the starts generally are. If you get a good start it's really annoying to waste it on a mental error like that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tommynt]

well in end my start proved not sooo good.

I played one long session yesterday and everything went pretty well - kill 1 civs very easy and my teching is good aswell - but what hurts now is that my start is on 1 edge of the map meaning just moving dierctly towards last cap takes me like 40 turns ... and obviously some fighting have be done in between.

If i d start in middle of map game d be over 30t faster I guess...

But is it even possible to start middle of map?