G-Major XLII

[Cromagnus]

Yes, you can start in the middle of the map. It's WAY better if you do, because you can get trade route beakers much easier in the early game and can do multiple fronts much easier as well.

I'm starting to really hate highlands. I'm having my best Honor game yet though. I finally had time to play again and I think I've got the hang of dealing with this map type. Basically all the things you come to expect from Deity are wrong on Highlands. For one thing, because of the sheer landmass, it's like playing on a Standard Pangaea with 4 civs. This, combined with the hills and natural barriers, basically triples the amount of travel time. I don't like it at all, but it is interesting.

You can't really go old-school Liberty because Highlands has crap for unique resources, but if you can get a religion going and enough faith to drop pagodas, etc., there's room to keep planting cities all the way to t200 if you wanted. What I've been doing is forward-settling cities on unique resources early, and backfilling once I get religious buildings from my neighbor's religion. My cities are sometimes 20+ tiles apart. It's the only way to get decent trade route beakers.

My current attempt I've got t107 Machinery, my XBows are all promoted, time to DoW Morocco! I'm friends with Venice and Ethiopia, I'll kill them last. Hopefully no tactical goofs this time to kill my momentum...

EDIT: Sigh. That was a weird game. Tactical goof #112 -> I never bought an embassy from Morocco. When I Dow'd I easily took his nearest city, and the one after that, and the one after that. At which point I realized he had settled 4 times towards me, and his capital was almost on the other side of the map!! By the time I chewed through 4 cities and all his units, I was too spread out. Both Morocco and Ethiopia had 12 cities by t110. Neither of them usually expands, especially in Highlands. Ah well, I learned something anyway. I'll give this map one more try, and if it doesn't work out I'm going back to complete one of my first attempts, a game that I'd decided was going to have too late of a finish time.

 

[Peets]

submit your games
We have only one at this moment!

 

[Moriarte]

It's a weird map. I decided to start another one yesterday and spawned in south west. Was kind of puzzled not to find anyone for 30 turns or so. I kept exploring only to discover 7 civs stacked together with minimal distance between themselves at the other side of the map. No way i am building a road That long.

Given terrain irregularities i think i'l do a quick NC start for my next one, just to be sure on the scientific side. Maybe 3-4 city super early NC (t.70?), while training archers a bit. Try to reach machinery earlier and kill as many as i can with xmen. Ideally, an early civ to harass and get promotions. Too many conditions ..

 

[BWS]

I've made the same mistake of trying to capture a worker with an archer and attacking it instead. I think you can avoid it by explicitly pressing the move button to move your archer, instead of simply right-clicking on the worker (which unfortunately bombards instead of capturing).

 

[Cromagnus]

I've made the same mistake of trying to capture a worker with an archer and attacking it instead. I think you can avoid it by explicitly pressing the move button to move your archer, instead of simply right-clicking on the worker (which unfortunately bombards instead of capturing).

Yeah, it's just a pain to move units that way. After wasting 2 great starts in HOF this way, I think I've finally made this mistake enough times to not make it anymore.

 

[Cromagnus]

submit your games
We have only one at this moment!

I'm trying. I'm so busy I hardly have time to play, and I won't be able to play over the 4-day Thanksgiving weekend.

Whether I have time to finish a game or not, I will *never* play Highlands again though. It's completely unbalanced.

1) The luxury resources are so sparse compared to a usual map. It's all deer and cows!!! What luxes there are are too spread out to consistently get 3-4 cities up without huge distances between them. The sheer amount of empty space means that barbarians will harass you endlessly if you DO space them out.
2) The Civs are waaay too spread out. It allows the AI to spread like wildfire while the player struggles to find decent spots to start in. Only an extremely lucky start affords you any TR beakers. It's hard to sell your luxes when you've met only one civ.
3) The terrain makes everything a giant slow pain in the butt.

It's Deity++. Pangaea will feel like easy mode after this.

 

[tommynt]

didnt find map as hard as u describe ..

Starting position makes a huge difference imo - IF u start kinda middle of map u ll have meet all civs turn 30+-

Selecing huns and assyira as civs will make ai have wars .. delaying their teching and expanding.

And yes it seems like usually u ll have 1 lux very often, but with trading it for other lux its not too bad ..
I could fullfill like 10 barb camp quests, thats pretty unlicky on other deity maps. Also u ll usually pop lots of huts. All thsi gives a kinda nice start ..
Land is pretty good for LIb&Trad mix imo.
For full tradition map is too big for full liberty map is too big too.

 

[Cromagnus]

didnt find map as hard as u describe ..

Starting position makes a huge difference imo - IF u start kinda middle of map u ll have meet all civs turn 30+-

Selecing huns and assyira as civs will make ai have wars .. delaying their teching and expanding.

And yes it seems like usually u ll have 1 lux very often, but with trading it for other lux its not too bad ..
I could fullfill like 10 barb camp quests, thats pretty unlicky on other deity maps. Also u ll usually pop lots of huts. All thsi gives a kinda nice start ..
Land is pretty good for LIb&Trad mix imo.
For full tradition map is too big for full liberty map is too big too.

Yeah, I think it was a mistake to select only peaceful tall civs. I removed Babylon and Ethiopia and replaced them with Portugal and the Huns. Mostly because Portugal just seems to usually suck. I'm nervous about putting Assyria in the game. They can become a runaway.

I agree re: Lib/Trad mix, but the important of early settlers makes me reluctant to open Tradition first, and I feel like opening Liberty first is less effective. Even taking one point of Tradition delays that first settler. And since you need that worker for pillage-healing in time for your CB rush, you basically have to take 3pts liberty to start... I dunno. Mixed Honor/Liberty works pretty well because there are so many barbarians.

Hopefully I'll get another chance to play before the end of the submission window.

 

[Cromagnus]

This is why I hate Highlands with a passion. I finally had a moment to play, and I get basically this exact start 3 times in a row:

Spoiler :

The only lands I've found are Venice, (It's always Venice) and only CS within 10 tiles is behind a GD mountain. I still managed to do 2 worker steals from Almaty, (14 tiles away) but that's only a minor consolation. I'm in the middle of nowhere!

Venice is 17 tiles away, but even were I to forward settle on him, I can't cap Venice because of the Extreme diplo hit for taking someone's only city. My only close neighbor is ALWAYS Venice GDI.

I don't even have other neighbors to forward settle on for trade routes. Which is a massive waste of the otherwise *awesome* start. It's T39. I'm about to complete Pyramids on T40. I got Calendar & Bronzeworking for free. I've got 3 workers, 3 archers and enough money for upgrades already. Everything's coming up roses except it's all *pointless*. My t30 settler is heading towards the nearest expo spot with unique resources, which is *15 tiles from my capital*, and even in the best case scenario, I'm going to get crappy beakers because of a lack of TR. If this were a normal Deity map, I'd be *set* with all the lucky ruins I've had. (2 archer upgrades, 2 population ruins, culture ruin, 2 tech ruins)

But on this map? There's not even a point in playing it out if my goal was a CB or XBow rush. Yes, I can play long ball and go all-out science, but that's no fun with Shaka.

EDIT: On the other hand... better to win that way than to give up. Bleh. One more try. Just. One. More. Turn....

 

[Peets]

There is a setting (can't remember the exact name) something with biased starting locating. If you turn it on then you might have other start positions.

 

[tommynt]

I do think that one USUALLY start in that sw corner - thats why I asked if middle of map starts are even possible ..

Now if u rool 5 times and 4 times u start in edge but not in 5th thats sucks a lot allready ...

Apart that u should switch your scouting sheme I think - in star lines away from cap,
For some reason u scouted the south and west map end allready - u can still do that later - like now

Also I m not sure why u didnt get a pantheon ... playing without religion just blows.

 

[Moriarte]

There is another way to play this. Set: Cool for climate and the thing will be 90% tundra. roll until you get dance of the aurora.

 

[Cromagnus]

I do think that one USUALLY start in that sw corner - thats why I asked if middle of map starts are even possible ..

Now if u rool 5 times and 4 times u start in edge but not in 5th thats sucks a lot allready ...

Apart that u should switch your scouting sheme I think - in star lines away from cap,
For some reason u scouted the south and west map end allready - u can still do that later - like now

Also I m not sure why u didnt get a pantheon ... playing without religion just blows.

I actually relaoded to scout the perimeter to demonstrate how far away my nearest neighbor was, and to show that I was in the corner. My actual save I had continued playing for a while, and the nearest neighbor other than Venice was REALLY far away. 30 tiles from my capital was Byzantium. I put a city next to her for TR beakers and because there were no other unique resources closer, and she DoW'd me for it. Up until that point it went pretty well because of all the TR beakers. I was on pace to hit artillery on t165 before she totally owned my expo. It was totally cut off, stuck behind CS that were her allies.

And, I do agree with your scouting scheme. It's generally how I do it. I was just demonstrating the suck. Also, I didn't get a pantheon because, as is often the case post-patch, someone enhanced before t40 and I didn't hit a faith ruin in time.

@Moriarte: Agreed. I played around with that for a while... I just hate the low-food starts that you get with tundra. And the best solution for that is +1 food from camps, which you can't take if you want the tundra faith. Kinda defeats the purpose. Also, the AI always goes for that pantheon on that map.

@Peets: I think start bias is already disabled on this map type. I played around with turning that off, and it didn't seem to affect anything. Zulu get a plains start bias if I recall, so I don't see how turning that off would help. /shrug

 

[sanabas]

@Peets: I think start bias is already disabled on this map type. I played around with turning that off, and it didn't seem to affect anything. Zulu get a plains start bias if I recall, so I don't see how turning that off would help. /shrug

It'll mean Morocco won't automatically get a Petra start, and that Venice/Portugal might not be on the few bits of ocean. Not that will really make a lot of difference. I have start bias disabled by default, usually.

I've got one game going fairly slowly that I think I'll go back and finish. Don't think I have the energy to try another one from the start.

 

[tommynt]

playing this till end atm

t143 2 civs to go

 

[tommynt]

Won this finaly turn 163.

Think basicly I did everything pretty good - without a middle of map start things arent possible much faster ...

For some reason my horse unit moved around a caravan and was therefore stuck to catch last cap in turn before .. oh well

Arties are totaly unneeded. All fights been pretty easy in fact. I did just overpower AI with MASSES of units. I alwlays had so many that i could just move in and caps went down in 2-3 turns of shoots while knights and impies cleared all else

For some reason citites usually focus fired on impies .. I think trick is to have them a little bit damaged so they get focused

my cap and 3rd city had salts and 2nd city had urulu and 5th had el dorado.
So basicly many good spots. Ah and 4th got Petra eventually ...

But really all this good stuff wasnt really needed ..
Plan:
Pump out cities basic buildings (Munument, shrine, granny , barcks, and then units only - not much ai can do)

Pyras I built pretty late in 3rd city - dont see the point of getting them superearly - better to pump out basic buildings, settlers caravans and scouts early imo

SP: full liberty into full honor. With the honor gold I could keep me going but in fact even this teching wasnt needed .. impies and xbows is everything u need ..

I spent most of gold on Citiy stats focusung allways a bit on the ones near my targets to get some "distraction help"

 

[Moriarte]

Did you really "need" impi's though? Sounds like any civ can do similar xbow rush on deity Pangaea.

Congrats on winning this gauntlet. And thanks for sharing. We all have much to learn.

 

[tommynt]

well u r right impies arent needed - the faster leveling of xbows kind of helped thu. The jump from logistics to 3 range was pretty ridic - felt like 3 times 2 rounds of shoots .. guess its been 4 or so

whats really nice of impies is the 3 tile movement - it helps really pretty much when there is rough terain

btw was my 2nd roll - so I went in pretty "clueless".
But really every1 and every civ can do what I did there - if u get cities up fast and build from like turn 50 on really ONLY units ai just cant do anything.
I had in end 20-25 units on 2 fronts when 10 d have done job aswell
I think main mistake some make when going domination is building useless things like libraris or workshops.

 

[Cromagnus]

Crazy finish time. Mad props!

I don't see the value in going full honor after full liberty though. By the time you're getting gold/kill the game must be almost over. You missed out on all the barb culture. You got cheap upgrades after you upgraded to machinery. You got cheap barracks after you built them. I don't get it at all.

I can see mixed honor/liberty, taking liberty opener, honor opener, liberty to free settler, honor to cheap upgrades, liberty free worker, finish honor, finish liberty... but full honor second? Maybe it didn't matter which tree you took second with a t163 finish.

Uluru in 2nd city is completely ideal and OP. Don't discount the benefit of all those faith buildings. I like how you forward-settled like mad. That's what I've been doing, but with less success because until recently I was trying to finish the Pyramids by t40 to avoid losing it.

I wish I had time for another gauntlet attempt before it's over but I'm on family time now.

 

[tommynt]

I don't see the value in going full honor after full liberty though. By the time you're getting gold/kill the game must be almost over. You missed out on all the barb culture. You got cheap upgrades after you upgraded to machinery. You got cheap barracks after you built them. I don't get it at all.

well thats kind of right - but as written before all those "boni" just arent needed .. all one have to do is getting cities up and getting them rolling to pump out units - and there honor is just no help.

Also I roaded to EVERY civ so the faster roads from worker is just "needed" if one dont want have a 20 unit army moving through rough terain without roads ..

The lvl up honor policy came in maybe a slgith bit late but still soon enough to have 3 range 2 shoot units xbows for last 3 or 4 civs when they were kind of "needed"

The gold/kill kind of helped in end to make me able to buy CS and avoid having unit disbands. And the garnison thing helped to keep me happy - no fun being unhappy when fighting ..
Its just no good when one have to fight CS on way to ais or move around em or whatever - better to have them alied and "helping".

And all other trees just suck ass for conquering ..