G-Minor 32

[pholtz]

2. Once you have a PA, you can just missionary spam your ally`s two cities and they will eventually build cathedrals and stuff

What do you mean by this? You can only send so many missionaries to a city, once you have used up all you can make or all they will convert to what do you do with them?

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Well I just got a 1947 victory. Ghandi (Warlords) was my infuriating partner this time. A couple of dates I took down:

1280 B.C. C.S. from Oracle
540 A.D. Military Tradition from Lib. Signed DP.
1290 A.D. PA. At this time I had already generated 5 GA and immediately settled them.

I feel I could improve upon the date, but sitting there watching the Ai's stupidity is getting very annoying, so I doubt I will try much more.

 

[jesusin]

Second attempt, no Oracle, no GLIB, Lib+MilTra+PA in the BCs. I have done my work, now it is your turn, Gandhi. What? It's 1000AD and you don't have built a single granary??? Why do you think I gifted you Pottery 4000 years ago? All the buildings in your Hermitage city are thatre and barracks???? You insist on building settlers and forges????

Ok, finished the game and won in 18xxAD. 14GP, 12 GA. 825-800cpt in 1800AD. I have learnt that GoldenAges are not shared with your PA partner. And that UN is a very dangerous thing to play with:
- It is very long to reach, I should have been prioritizing GA instead
- Getting FS passed is just random.
- Another AI can get elected later on.
- That AI can pass Diplo Victory just 5 turnss before you win (shudder). It is as bad if the AI wins as if your partner wins (double shudder).
- If I hadn't passed "no nuclear weapons" previously, the AI would have probably chosen that instead of the Victory.

I loved the simplicity of OCC and the balance between your research and your production. I hated looking what the AI was doing.

I chose Gandhi because of his name. He had 3 cities while the other 2 AI in the continent had 7. He ignored SH even when he was the only one to have stone. Changing horses in the middle of the race didn't seem like a good idea, so I told to myself "much better, he will concentrate his wonders in those 3 cities". I was wrong, he kept building settlers in the capital for centuries.

Did Gandhi build a lot of cathedrals in the 2 cities? Yes.
Did he understand why? No, he distributed his cathedrals among 5 cities!
Did Gandhi pop GA? Yes
Did he understand why? No, he bulbed them while always keeping 1 in store for a GoldanAge.
Did he build the Eiffel's? Yes.
Did he understand why? No, he was building towers all around at the same time! He even finished one!

The key to win the Gauntlet is early GAs. Choose a crazily fooded start, maybe with 1 gems to give you a good start techwise. Prioritize science buildings over anything else, prioritize techs that help science (Educ->Oxford, etc) in the beggining of the game, till you reach MilTra. Then farm it all (maybe you should wait to MM to farm it all, I am not sure) and prioritize GAs, settle them asap. You have to be Philo and you have to build Parthenon. Everything else is optional, really.

Good luck everybody.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

What do you mean by this? You can only send so many missionaries to a city, once you have used up all you can make or all they will convert to what do you do with them?

Sorry, I can't quote myself....check my post 2 or 3 above.

What I mean is, if I have 5 religions in my city and my target civ only has 1, I sent 5 missionaries each to my two target cities. We want them to build cathedrals.

I recommend building monasteries so you can get into Pacifism pronto, like Jesusin suggests, but still build missionaries if you need too. I was just thinking, why not spam all your rivals and see who is best to partner with?


Jesusin: Thanks for the info...your recount of Gandhi's bumbling was quite humourous and also helpful.

 

[pholtz]

Gah, so frustrating. Ok, my numbers aren't as good as Shoot the Moons but they are much better than my first game.

I had a DP by 1550 and a PA in the 1700's I think, forgot to write that date down. My first game I didn't have a PA until the 1900's. Even then I was only 6 turns short of winning with Ramesses. But this time for some reason I chose Elizabeth. She seemed most friendly. Wrong move, as soon as I looked at her cities.. I knew I was in trouble. Even though I had 9 GA's saved up and sent them her way, and I don't know how many more during the rest of the game it was too little. Her cities were so pathetic that with even 200 more years than the first game I couldn't get as far.

Don't pick Liz!

 

[Shoot the Moon]

I loved the simplicity of OCC and the balance between your research and your production. I hated looking what the AI was doing.

My exact sentiment. I keep coming back to this gauntlet because of the former, and keep saying I won't do it again because of the latter. I just want to give it one try where I get more than 2 AI on my continent and have Ramsesses as the PA partner.

 

[WastinTime]

Fredrick and I (Liz) just won in the mid 1800's.
Liberalism was very late 580 AD, so my PA was also late 1280 AD.
But it was nice to see Frederick doing +250% in a 2nd city already. (Free speech, Hermitage, Cathedral all built by 1280AD). Of course he dropped Free Speech after a while, but took it up again later.

I didn't use the UN at all. No one built it. Sadly, he built RockRoll, Broadway, Hollywood in a 3rd, 4th and 5th city. I think a partner with fewer cities would be better at grouping these in the 2 culture cities.

I almost forgot to finish my own culture. I had to chop out the Hermitage, and then I went legendary the same turn has Fred's capitol. The 2nd city went 2 turns later.

15 GA, 2 GS, no others.

Culture per turn was never much higher than 700 in any city...even in the end, so jesusin must have gotten a better date.

 

[yDiamond]

Interesting. Last time I tried to convince Frederick to adopt FS, he said "It's against everything we stand for". I figured he just doesn't like it in general and started to ignore him. Finished in late 1800's with Gandhi.

 

[pholtz]

I know I'll probably have one of the worst times.. but I consider it a success that I managed to win at all. Third try's a charm.

Finished playing Liz with Hatty as a partner in 2018 AD

Some lesons:

1. Learned how to use the Map Finder then made lots of mistakes in it, e.g. searching for hills 3 or greater but less than 1. I finally figured it out but probably took less than an optimal position. Hope I did it right, I saw something about second start??

2. I think Vanilla Civ is better suited for this desired result.

3. I took all the Cultural leaders as my opponents/possible ally. Catherine was a mistake, she declared war on me after I was in a PA. I had left way too few troops in my city, she probably thought I was weak. I barely survived the assault by trading Hatty for my iron back, building a cannon, paying to upgrade my warriors to Redcoats and changing government to draft a few more Redcoats. After I beat off the initial assual Catherine seemed to lose interest and offered peace for a tech. I readily agreed. The whole thing probably only cost me 5 turns or so, I saw Hatty building military, but then the AI's do that lots during peace time anyway.

4. I got a bit smarter about tech trading. But the whole tech order is probably the main reason I fall behind the veteran players. I did finallly learn not to trade for techs i don't need in the end game, giving the players going for the Space Race the techs they need.

5. oh yea, I finally ignored the UN, someone else built it but too late to have an effect on the game.

Oh, and thanks William for the missionary explanation. It does seem to help, if the AI gets another religion I guess it opens up the possiblity for them to create religious (culture generating) buildings

 

[jesusin]

1. Learned how to use the Map Finder then made lots of mistakes in it, e.g. searching for hills 3 or greater but less than 1. I finally figured it out but probably took less than an optimal position. Hope I did it right, I saw something about second start??

The HOF Gauntlets are competitions in which you can play as many different maps as you want. Simply play each map only once.

Map Finder is just a (great) tool to help you select starts.

EDIT: Oh, and congratulations on your win, it is not easy to convince AIs to cooperate in a culture victory

 

[cabert]

I still need to find how to use map finder
Finishing this one once is enough for me, but here are my ideas :
- your only city needs loads of food
- you need no wonders
- getting nationalism from bulbed artists is doable, thus getting military tradition from liberalism should be doable. Is it useful? I found that letting the AI partner tech to MT by himself is good enough (you need to help him though). Is it possible to get communism from liberalism? I don't think so. Possibly scimet on the way.
- Vanilla gandhi is probably the best PA partner.
- Selecting peaceful leaders for the rest of the AIs is a garantied peceful world. Is it the best way? quite doubtful.

 

[jesusin]

- Selecting peaceful leaders for the rest of the AIs is a garantied peceful world. Is it the best way? quite doubtful.

I thought the same. Killing at least 1 other AI would have been very easy in the very beginning and would have given Gandhi more space.

 

[pholtz]

I still need to find how to use map finder
Finishing this one once is enough for me, but here are my ideas :
- your only city needs loads of food
- you need no wonders
- getting nationalism from bulbed artists is doable, thus getting military tradition from liberalism should be doable. Is it useful? I found that letting the AI partner tech to MT by himself is good enough (you need to help him though). Is it possible to get communism from liberalism? I don't think so. Possibly scimet on the way.
- Vanilla gandhi is probably the best PA partner.
- Selecting peaceful leaders for the rest of the AIs is a garantied peceful world. Is it the best way? quite doubtful.

I'm sure I don't know the answers. I never thought of using the total food option. You need some production for basic buildings, to increase your health if nothing else. I always produced some wonders. But fewer in the later games and only those that gave artist GP points. I tried to concentrate on those that would help my partner once we were allied, like the Sistine Chapel.

So I tried to pick a starting position with plenty of food, but also at least 3 hills for production. I would switch my working squares back and forth depending on how much I needed production. I never used Science specialists which is maybe a mistake. Perhaps you should use scientists until you get a DP then switch to artists?

The first game I went total religious hog. I tried to found every one but missed out on Christianity which caused me problems. I found in my later games that founding religions was not that important. In fact, if you do start one, you may want not want it as your state religion until you are sure that won't allienate your potential partner. It is better to have no religion than the wrong one.

Also in most normal games you have to think about generating culture. In this game you won't have any problem in getting your city Legendary, you need to generate GA's and other items that will get your partner legendary.

Edit: oh, there is one wonder you absolutly do need, the Globe Theater. Luckily its a National Wonder so no one else can take it from you.

 

[cabert]

I'm sure I don't know the answers. I never thought of using the total food option. You need some production for basic buildings, to increase your health if nothing else. I always produced some wonders. But fewer in the later games and only those that gave artist GP points. I tried to concentrate on those that would help my partner once we were allied, like the Sistine Chapel.

So I tried to pick a starting position with plenty of food, but also at least 3 hills for production. I would switch my working squares back and forth depending on how much I needed production. I never used Science specialists which is maybe a mistake. Perhaps you should use scientists until you get a DP then switch to artists?

The first game I went total religious hog. I tried to found every one but missed out on Christianity which caused me problems. I found in my later games that founding religions was not that important. In fact, if you do start one, you may want not want it as your state religion until you are sure that won't allienate your potential partner. It is better to have no religion than the wrong one.

Also in most normal games you have to think about generating culture. In this game you won't have any problem in getting your city Legendary, you need to generate GA's and other items that will get your partner legendary.

Edit: oh, there is one wonder you absolutly do need, the Globe Theater. Luckily its a National Wonder so no one else can take it from you.

You can build all the national wonders, no problem here.
It may be beneficial to research "wonder techs" and gift them to your targeted PA, rather than building them yourself.
The national wonders will give you enough culture without world wonders.
Hermitage + globe theater + national epic are most welcome .

 

[WastinTime]

I thought the same. Killing at least 1 other AI would have been very easy in the very beginning and would have given Gandhi more space.

I think more space is a curse not a blessing. Your best partner will have just 2 good cities, 6-8 total cities. Any more just causes problems. My last partner had about 8 cities, but only one was good. The rest were in the ice, the tundra, or on the coast with no food. It'd be fun if we could settle a city and gift it to someone.

 

[jesusin]

I think more space is a curse not a blessing. Your best partner will have just 2 good cities, 6-8 total cities. Any more just causes problems. My last partner had about 8 cities, but only one was good. The rest were in the ice, the tundra, or on the coast with no food. It'd be fun if we could settle a city and gift it to someone.

Maybe you are right. All thing considered, my game is in the #1 position and I chose a 3-cities Gandhi. On the other hand, you surely can understand my desperation every time the capital finished the previous build and started working on a settler .

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Maybe you are right. All thing considered, my game is in the #1 position and I chose a 3-cities Gandhi. On the other hand, you surely can understand my desperation every time the capital finished the previous build and started working on a settler .

And let me guess, thats while the third city is building a cathedral?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

1. Learned how to use the Map Finder ... I saw something about second start??

Actually, you saw something about a "second session", not a "second start".

Every time you resume a HOF game by loading the current save file, you start a new session. (When you save your position and exit Civ4, your session ends.)

When you use map finder, you will always start with session 2, because the map finder save is always session 1 (turn 0 with no units yet moved).

You may notice that HOF rules require that a session be at least 30 minutes long. This rule does not apply to session 1 that was created by map finder.

Sun Tsu Wu

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

It takes several times for me to get my 1st success. I alway use Liz in Warlords.

1st try was with Roos,Ramses,Mansa and Huanca with no marble around. Conclusion: You NEED marble to win.

2nd try was with same opponents AND marble. Works really well with one exception. Rames won't sign a defensive pact at +8. He was Jud. and I had no chance to switch and spreading Hinud to all his cities didn't work because all
his cities already had Judaism. So I signed def.pact with Roos - he is willing at
+6 but was pressed in a corner and had no chance to grow. I aborted 100 turns before end because his 3rd city won't reach legendary.

3rd try I choose Roos,Ramses,Mansa and Saladin + Marble. I had Roos and Ramses on my continent and Mansa and Saladin on the unreachable other. I directly choose Roos as my partner and this worked very well. His captial reached legendary without any help (with the exception of spreading all my religions to him). After PA I infected all my stored GA's to the 3rd city and this gives at least +483 culture. I had no chance to get him to FreeSpeech
But I finally got a 1970AD win.

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

4th try: same opponents as above and a new behaviour. Several turns before PA Roos decided to cancel Def.Pact and attacked Ramses. After his war he immediately agreed to a new DefPact but from now on never agreed to a PA. Even at +20 relations I only get the message "I am doing fine at my own". Grrrr