G-Minor 135

[Ozbenno]

[img=right]http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/hof/staff/gauntlet.gif[/img]While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

[size=+1](*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!
[/size]​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Cultural (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Warlord
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Ice Age
• Speed: Normal
• Required: One City Challenge, No Tribal Villages
• Civ: Ottoman (Mehmed II)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.003
• Date: 25th December 2011 to 10th January 2012

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker

 

[Manco Capac]

Looks like a tricky one given we have to rely on warlord level AI's (=horrible effiency from them).
PA necessity for sure.

EDIT: To add injury even more, blighting to gain any favorable slots in HoF table, ice age mapscript...ugh.

 

[Bugio]

This looks intersting!
I'm not sure how you force an ai to go culture, will be fun to see what people try.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Choose a PA partner that will very likely pursue a cultural victory. See details in previous OCC cultural victory gauntlet threads. Warlord difficulty will probably add a new twist though.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Xevious]

Well, I tried this, using Asoka as my PA (I didn't assign leaders, just took all random) and that's not working. (I'm at 75k+ and his biggest is only at 18k.) I guess I'll need to do some more reading before trying again.

 

[Silverbow]

Can you culturebomb your PA's cities?

 

[Bugio]

No you can't. You can settle them though. Also seems that AI will culture bomb his third culture city when he is in culture mode and you gift them GAs.
Another thing worth of notice is that allies get all the wonder bonuses you have, so delaying sistine hoping your partner build it it's not worth the risk. Eiffel tower is another good wonder to aim for as all your partner cities will insta get the broadcast tower.

My problem is to get to the point he actually go for culture. I tried this two times, and despite the fact that mine city and his capital were already legendary, he insited going for science. Funnily enough, we were able to outtech other ais even if i was in culture mode, he was still faster . I'm not sure how to force him going for culture. I diligently spread 2 religions to all his cities, he founded a thrid and had the holy city aswell as AP and he was spamming wonders like there is no tomorrow. maybe it has something to do with us being in tech lead?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Asoka is not best PA partner choice for a Cultural Victory.

Choose a PA partner with both Spiritual, Philosophical, Financial, Creative and Industrious traits. Not just one of these traits like Asoka.

Also avoid a PA partner who likes Theocracy.

A PA partner with holy cities also improves chances for pursuing culture, so picking one that starts with Mysticism may also be better.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Silverbow]

This setup is torture. I got a 1981 finish, but waiting for eons for Gandhi to get his together was extremely painful.

 

[Manco Capac]

My thanks, SilverBow for voluntaring as cannon fodder ; now we have a target date.

I have absolutely no experience in regards to letting AI helping us to win cultural victory, but isn't it a bit random given the AI is often stupidly randon when taking decisions?

I still remember a PA with Peter where this idiot decided to switch civics (without GA) one turn before completing the last part of the spaceship. Damn, losing turns due such asinine RNG is quite annoying at some critical moments.

If it was a tight competition, I would've lost thanks to RNG screwing me around.

 

[Silverbow]

I don't know when and how they decide what to do. I've been gifting Gandhi GAs all the time. Probably gave him over 10 over the course of the game. He didn't seem to use them for bombing (at least the first half-dozen of them). He also had all 7 religions and still was extremely slow in pursuing the win.

Of course there's a lot I should've done better/differently (like have better starting spot and not foodless brown-filled monstrosity, leave more wonders for Gandhi & not pollute my GP pool as much or at all...), but the Warlord AI is still a bloody imbecile, and being at its mercy sucks.

Thankfully nobody could even dream of space (well, it's Warlord, outteching the AIs is easy as pie even in OCC). Perhaps because I chose a weird bunch of AIs - Gandhi, Peri, SB, Boudi, Shaka and Genghis. Had Gandhi, Peri and Genghis on my continent, Oracled CS, libbed MT, signed DP with Gandhi and beelined Communism. Gandhi signed PA the moment it was possible. Our continent founded all religions. The other continent was overran by Boudica (with my eventual tech help against Shaka the Loathsome once her vassal SB contacted our continent). And Genghis somehow declared on me at Friendly, and took a city of Gandhi's... which I retook and autorazed...

All in all, an hour of PAIN.

 

[Manco Capac]

All in all, an hour of PAIN.

An hour! Let's see my actual deity game of 20 hours.
And bcool's games are often around ~10 hours and more.
But we are naturally masochistic...that is a different story.

but the Warlord AI is still a bloody imbecile, and being at its mercy sucks.

Technically, even deity AI is a bloody imbecile. I recently read an old thread of two years ago by Vicawoo where Obsolete was ranting how can someone can lose on deity where the AI is a complete idiot shifting between builds without something in mind. For instance, building WB, with something else in-between to end up not working at all the seafood but forested hills.
All this reinforces the idea we are at the mercy of the AI as you just said. Very random although without huts.

Somehow, this gauntlet is where we should familiarize with the AI behaviour and try to pinpoint what are the determinist paths s(he) takes if there is any.

For example, by experience, if philo is not researched yet and Mansa Musa has a GScientist, he will almost 100% bulb philo. This behaviour isn't necessarily seen in other AI's.
Experience with AI is necessary here to take out every RNG impurities.

Maybe messing with the debug function may be advisable to see what the AI is doing before commmencing a true game...

 

[Manco Capac]

Thankfully nobody could even dream of space (well, it's Warlord, outteching the AIs is easy as pie even in OCC). Perhaps because I chose a weird bunch of AIs - Gandhi, Peri, SB, Boudi, Shaka and Genghis. Had Gandhi, Peri and Genghis on my continent, Oracled CS, libbed MT, signed DP with Gandhi and beelined Communism. Gandhi signed PA the moment it was possible. Our continent founded all religions. The other continent was overran by Boudica (with my eventual tech help against Shaka the Loathsome once her vassal SB contacted our continent). And Genghis somehow declared on me at Friendly, and took a city of Gandhi's... which I retook and autorazed...

You really like Boudica I may say...

Anyways, you should take better set of AI's. I don't understand this iron will to maintain random types of AI's. We are in "other side of the forum", so no need to keep the luggages from S&T subforum, otherwise, there is no way you can be competitive unless you have an ace up your sleeve.
I don't know yet what kind of AI's may be advisable, but Mansa Musa as partner seems the best...perhaps.

I am sure your capital went legendary way before any city from your partner. Maybe giving workers would have helpful at some point. You need to find the exact point where the AI and you reach a same point in progress to the victory condition. I may be wrong, so I should read that link...

 

[Silverbow]

I actually selected the AIs. I wanted two guys who are likely to go culture - Gandhi and took Peri instead of Mansa, who while also likely to go culture, would possibly think about space too, especially once in PA. I also wanted a lightning rod in the world (to absolve Gandhi of this role he often plays), and so I took SB. The rest were chosen to war, keep tech rate crap to reduce space thoughts and not interfere. Maybe Shaka and Genghis were overkill, and someone easier to manage like JC would be better.

It simply strikes me as contraproductive to fill the world with peaceful techers, as any sort of decent tech rate and intense tech trading encourages (or I think it does, hard to say with the Artificial Idiocy) space win pursuit.

And yeah, I prefer to play as Boudi, and also find her a very easily befriendable and manageable warmonger and military buffer.

 

[Bugio]

On thing i learned is that you can improve your partner land with your workers once allied. This is painful as he often revert the improvements, but actually help in the end.

My main concern is to get someone to actually go culture. 3 different games and no luck, had to abort since at 1900 they were still going science despite having 1 city legendary already. The partner i chose were capac and pakal, maybe not the best but in those games they happly built all the wonders i skipped and were number 2 in culture after me when PAed. Is it really just random?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Do not give your Great Artists to your PA partner. Settle them in his best two cultural cities.

Also, please look up the old OCC cultural gauntlet. It was played at a higher difficulty level, but it has answers to most of your questions.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Xevious]

Started a second game and this time managed to finish, still had a lot of problems, but it went much better than first game. Finished with Mansa in 2010AD. He started building spaceship parts in the late 1900s.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Previous OCC cultural gauntlets, G-Minor 74 (Prince) and G-Minor 32 (Noble):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=323691

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=254130

G-Minor 32 would probably be closer to the current gauntlet, being only one difficulty level higher.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[HuibertJan]

Such a pain to have warlord ai focus on cultural vic, or anything for that matter.

 

[mc-red]

thanks for the links sun tzu wu. I can still only get 1934 AD finish but found that Hatty does make a better partner than Mansa as it was easier to get her to go 100% on slider. Unfortunately, I used high sea level and she had too few cities to go free speech. So maybe that is one thing i could improve.