G-Minor 183

[shulec]

[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) CULTURE BY ESPIONAGE DOES NOT QUALIFY.
• Difficulty: Deity
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Small
• Speed: Epic
• Map Type: Any
• Required: No Tribal Villages
• Civ: Greece (Pericles)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.003
• Date: 10th January to 10th February 2014

Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

 

[shulec]

Culture via espionage will not be accepted for this gauntlet.

Also note that G-Minor gauntlets are running 30 days, not 15!!!

 

[neilmeister]

I think I will give this a go, I am in a culture mood. Though with jesusin & WastinTime prowling about, I doubt I will post a competitive date.

 

[neilmeister]

Arrrrrrgh!!!!

Just finished my first attempt, and it beats the current HoF #1 by the slimmest of margins.... but came here to post about it and now read.... No Tribal Villages! Crap!

Edit: just fired up mapfinder again, this time without huts. I had crazy stupid luck from huts, got 5 techs by t26, including HBR, which i leveraged to maintain a tech lead for ages.

 

[WastinTime]

thx for pointing out the huts option. I probably would have made the same mistake.

 

[pomthom]

I want to be cocky and try Deity culture to kick yo' ol' timer butts

Wish me luck?

 

[neilmeister]

Good luck!

I just submitted attempt #2, this time without huts and I beat my first attempt (though that had huts on) by a decent margin. I doubt I can do much better!

 

[lymond]

I tried this on a Great Plains map. I tried Pangaea at first but it was just ridiculous how close the AIs were to me on a small map. I mean...bam..3 AIs box me in with their 2nd cities, in the first few turns, leaving virtually no room to expand without war.

GP allowed me much more room to expand. I was hoping for a spot in the East but tried this pretty good starting spot in the West. Ofc, this meant that most of my other cities were rather food poor over there. Still, 1570AD is not too bad - considering the lack food, missing out on Sistine, and Epic-phobia - though not going to shine among this bunch. (I did quite well tech wise but had no marble)

Curious which maps you recommend for this one or have tried.

 

[neilmeister]

I used Inland Sea, you can expand to 6 cities pretty easily.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Inland Sea is also very good for early foreign trade routes with AIs that prioritized Sailing.

Sun

 

[pomthom]

I tried Pangaea as well and experienced lack of room very quickly. So I tried Pangaea with low sea level and had more room, but Inland Sea or Lakes might be better.


I tried a go with only low high peace weight AIs and was faced with a runaway unstoppable Mansa who was close to Lib at 500 BC while I needed 20 turns to research Civil Service with 3 gold mines... was it bad luck or should I mix the AI croud a little?

 

[lymond]

Yeah, Inland Sea sounds good. Those foreign trade routes will get the religions spread quicker.

Avoiding religion early hurt me as well not having OR. I got Lib in 325AD but took some time getting all the requisite buildings in. OR is pretty huge. I did get Taj, but not having Sistine really hurt. I may shoot for stone next time to get up Mids and try for an early engineer.

Pom - I avoided Mansa in my game for that very reason. However, he can be great for constant tech trading which was a problem in my game as it progressed. Yet, he can go culture often, and if not, still get the culture stuff before you. Oh, by the way, Mansa has a good peace weight but he can still DOW you at Pleased. Interestingly, I went with Justy, Joao, Hatty and Lincoln. All pretty easy to get to pleased and don't DOW then, but Just and Joao have a touch of militaristic to them. Just Dow'd Hatty 3 times..ha.

I realized after the fact that I don't need 9 cities on a small map..ugh.

 

[pomthom]

Yeah I think I'll leave Mansa out this time. And add a low peace weight dude for early conquest maybe (hello De Gaulle)... works well on Epic.

I realized after the fact that I don't need 9 cities on a small map..ugh.

Are you saying Cathedrals on small maps require only 2 Temples?? that would be very crucial information indeed...

 

[lymond]

I believe so. I expanded to 9 cities - settling a few crap ones for temples - and was confused that I could build Cathedrals in all 3 L cities before completing all the temples.

yeah, I threw De Gaulle in some of my initial rolls on other maps. I may try him again and maybe Gandhi instead of Justy or Joao. I basically wanted one or two religious nuts and then a couple of dudes who don't care about it. Ha...but De Gaulle founded Hinduism in one game.

 

[WastinTime]

Yea, back in the day, I would do culture games on Small with only 4 cities! That was enough for cathedrals in 2 cities. The 3rd legendary was just the NE/GPfarm and you culture bomb that one, so no cathedrals needed.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

All high peace weight opponents will probably work best.

I'm trying three high peace weight opponents (Mansa Musa, Gandhi, Sitting Bull) and Montezuma just to make things interesting. I'm hoping that I have Mansa Musa and Gandhi as neighbors that can supply religions. Montezuma was added so they have someone to hate more than me. Sitting Bull may be useful to sell technologies to to keep either the slider at 100% research or culture.

I'm using Inland Sea with low sea level.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[lymond]

I think it was Tachy that mentioned once that there's a pattern to how you can set up AIs and their proximity to you. I've never known what that pattern is. I assume it may be impacted by the type of map and number of AIs. Anyone know this?

 

[pomthom]

I have very little experience on Epic and I'm having huge problems with expansion, I settle my 3rd city when the slowest AI is at 6/7 (~2000 /1900 BC)!! Don't know what I'm doing wrong I really don't have that kind of problem on Normal speed....


EDIT: in hindsight this may have to do with the fact I have chosen starts with high commerce low food resources...

 

[jesusin]

Yea, back in the day, I would do culture games on Small with only 4 cities! That was enough for cathedrals in 2 cities. The 3rd legendary was just the NE/GPfarm and you culture bomb that one, so no cathedrals needed.

In Vanilla I would recomend 4 cities on a small map.
In BTS I always go for cathedrasl in all 3 Legendary cities.

What do you all think about this? Honestly, at the moment I really don't know if BTS has something to recommend going for cathedrals in all cities or if it was just my taste that changed.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

In Vanilla I would recomend 4 cities on a small map.
In BTS I always go for cathedrasl in all 3 Legendary cities.

What do you all think about this? Honestly, at the moment I really don't know if BTS has something to recommend going for cathedrals in all cities or if it was just my taste that changed.

If one of the three cultural cities is the great artist farm, it likely would have difficulty building the National Epic, much less any cathedrals. Surely, you aren't building cathedrals there without the resource multiplier; even so, doing this requires two more cities for a total of six, which is probably not justified for the Great Artist Farm.

The question is four or six cities in general faster for a small map. In my opinion, four cities is usually faster. There should be more than enough Great Artists to bomb the NE GA farm city to Legendary. There should also be enough to bomb the second cultural city to Legendary. The capital should nearly be able to become Legendary on its own or need one Great Work.

Sun Tzu Wu