G-Minor 80

[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.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Cultural (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Monarch
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Boreal
• Speed: Quick
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.001
• Date: 10th to 25th September 2009

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

 

[Ozbenno]

As suggested by kcd_swede in the gauntlet suggestion thread.

 

[pholtz]

The older major has to come first for me. If I got any time after I get that done, I'll give this a try.

 

[babybluepants]

I think this just has to be Gandhi, for all the worker actions required. I might give it a try next week.

 

[Infantry#14]

what is boreal map?

 

[Ozbenno]

what is boreal map?

Ice and trees, and more deer than you can poke a stick at.

It's not a great map but can be interesting.

 

[kcd_swede]

[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.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Cultural (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Monarch
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Boreal
• Speed: Quick
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.001
• Date: 10th to 25th September 2009

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

Thank you!!!!

Not a lot of cottagable land should make for some interesting adaptations to the more traditional culture game, I think.

This will be fun!

 

[kovacsflo]

I just have submitted a game with 1530 AD victory.

I played with Gandhi, built many wonders, but which really made this game harder is the lack of cottages. I could build only 8 of it in my cultural cities all together. The advantage of boreal is having good GP farms. Insipte of that I had only 9 GA-s, I was very unlucky. I had 12 different non-GA GP-s The average risk of having a great idiot is just 25-30% if I build wonders like stonehenge, great wall and so on. At least I could use 4 great prophets to build a shrine by the middle of the game. Others seemed totally useless. I add that at the end of the game my cultural cities produced 700-900 cultural points each, so it still wasn't a dramatic loss, rather irritating. I can't understand why can't we have a GP system which is not so luck dependent. All cities should collect their GP points dependent on the type of GP point. If your cities have produced enough GP points for have a GA, you would take it, and your great prophet points would be remained until you have enough to produce a great prohet. That would be a similar system as founding father collecting in civ4: colonization.

I think the best available that is about 1400AD by these settings.

Flori

 

[kcd_swede]

Nice game, Flori!

I played as Mansa, and had Lincoln, Brennus, Zara, Charle, Asoka, and SB as opponents. Why? I don't know... I need help choosing opponents for a culture vc. Financial trait was mostly wasted without a lot of cottages, but I settled my 3 legends along a long river so it wasn't totally wasted. I used a really nice GPFarm as one of the legend cities, and even used the capitol (also legend) as a supplemental GPFarm.

To make up for low cottage density, I thought Wonderspam might improve my finish date, and it seemed to work OK. I got about 8 GA plus the free one from music, but a lot of GS (made academy in each legend city, and bulbed Philo to get my second religion).

I only had 9 cities, totally peaceful, got marble and stone and gold. Schwed Paya let me adopt pacifism early, and Parthenon, also had Pyramids. GE used to hurry Sistines. I adopted Brennus religion since it was the first and only spread to me. Brennus was generally hated by all, and this cost me relations with everyone except him (Zara was originally also hindu, but converted to christian and the free religion and started hating us too).

It was about 1100AD and I was headed for about a 1600AD finish, when Asoka and Zara DOW'd me. I got Brennus to join, and that maybe saved my game. By losing Goa, I now had only 8 cities and the final cathaderals being built in legend2 and legend3 were halted (all hammers lost with no compensation???). I was about 1 or 2 turns from having Zara take my legend3 city when I was able to buy peace for techs. I had plenty of space to build a new city, chop 2 temples out, and finish the cathedrals, but this was an unecessary delay.

All the bribing to war and buying peace meant I had to give up my monopoly on Liberalism precursors, and I lost the liberalism race and had to tech Nationalism myself. It meant I missed out on getting Christianity from Theology. Plus the slaving and building units and such... I lost at least 20 turns on my finish date. But at least I won the game and submitted.

To be honest... 1710AD is one of my best finish dates for a culture victory, so I'm satisfied with it. Actually, I'm pretty pleased that I seem to be getting much better at culture victories in general. So... I'm pretty confident I can improve this result if I have time for some more play.

(This was my second attempt, btw... in the first attempt as Willem and max number of opponents... Zara and Cyrus DOW'd me and took two of my legend cities before I quit in disgust. I learned that fewer opponents to enable peaceful expansion on this otherwise large land map is smarter).

Question: Does anyone else think Civil Service is over-rated for culture VC? It seems that unless you get it from Oracle sling, Bureacracy is obsolete in favor of Free Speech so quickly it isn't worth the bother. If CS wasn't on the path to Nationalism you could almost skip it without losing anything, imo.

 

[kovacsflo]

"I played as Mansa, and had Lincoln, Brennus, Zara, Charle, Asoka, and SB as opponents. Why? I don't know... I need help choosing opponents for a culture vc."

OK, so never choose an industrial, agressive or an imperialistic leader for opponent, nor an Indian or a Russian one. I think the prohibition of the 3 traits is obvious. Russian leaders are often attacks you, so I don't play with them, inspite of that Catherine looks so good Gandhi and Asoka are very much focuses on cultural victory: building wonders, researching religious techs, which make your work harder.
I add that since the minor is just monarch, choosing opponents in not a dramatically important question.

"Financial trait was mostly wasted without a lot of cottages, but I settled my 3 legends along a long river so it wasn't totally wasted."

I found that in boreal fin trait is almost totally useless. The problem is not only the lack of grassland rivers, but also the lack of health bonuses. It is hard to build a city with 16-17 population.

"To make up for low cottage density, I thought Wonderspam might improve my finish date, and it seemed to work OK."

Yes, that's the only way since it is just monarch so you have enough time to build many wonders.

"I only had 9 cities, totally peaceful, got marble and stone and gold."

You lucky, gold is very rare in boreal. I have 11 cities, got stone in my capital's river tile (so I didn't need to discover the wheel early). Got marble much later.

"Question: Does anyone else think Civil Service is over-rated for culture VC? It seems that unless you get it from Oracle sling, Bureacracy is obsolete in favor of Free Speech so quickly it isn't worth the bother. If CS wasn't on the path to Nationalism you could almost skip it without losing anything, imo."

I agree with that. I usually use Oracle to discover CoL. Music and philosophy are more important than CS. I add that is only true for cultural victories of course.

Flori

 

[babybluepants]

@kovacsflo: Wow, that's a pretty great time, with only 8 cottages and 9 GA's! Why couldn't you control your GP farm better? Is it just hard to get a good GP farm going on this map (lack of health resources or something else)?

@kcd_swede: Gandhi's brutal in culture games, but I think Asoka's much better than him. The unlucky thing is that you played as your best possible opponent.

Oracling CS isn't that important, I think. It's more important that you get your cities running very early in culture games. CoL is a nice one to take.

 

[kovacsflo]

Why couldn't you control your GP farm better? Is it just hard to get a good GP farm going on this map (lack of health resources or something else)?

I wrote that I was very unlucky in GA producing. Most of my GP-s (except 4 GA-s) came from my cultural cities, which were polluted. But it is brutal that the 25-30% risk resulted so many non-GA Gp-s.

Other cities had 4-7 GA-s, the problem was that these cities produced less GP points than my cultural ones, so they couldn't result more GA-s. More GP farms wouldn't be a solution. I can just repeat: building every wonder can result non-GA GP-s, but you must be very unlucky to have much prophets than you need (shrines are very useful). Other GP-s are hard to use.

 

[babybluepants]

I see. I guess I've never really wonderspammed much before. Given all the non-GA GP's, I guess you were running a long golden age at the end?

If this was largely dependent on hammer rate towards wonders and cathedrals, I wonder if Ramesses could actually beat Gandhi... Probably tough to beat the extra 5-6 GP's and the fast worker, though.

 

[kovacsflo]

I see. I guess I've never really wonderspammed much before. Given all the non-GA GP's, I guess you were running a long golden age at the end?

Yes, it's true. I have 3 golden ages, the first from my first great spy, the second from building the Taj Mahal which continued by a third one from another spy and a great prophet till the end.

I add that I still tried to be careful in wonderspamming: if it was possible, I built a wonder which produced GA points. If not, I built great prophet or engineer giving wonders with only one exception: I had to build the Great Wall since I played with raging barbs.

I wonder if Ramesses could actually beat Gandhi... Probably tough to beat the extra 5-6 GP's and the fast worker, though.

It is the same what I had in my mind after finishing my mentioned game, with the addition that I also counted on Qin Shi Huang because of his pavilions. But don't forget that boreal map and fast game speed makes fast workers extremly useful.

Flóri

 

[karmina]

First try with Gandhi, 1440 AD.

Pretty much standard procedure:
- 6 cities, 3rd became GP farm (6-7 artists, >93% GA prob)
- founded Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity(bulbed) and Confucianism. No others spread. 4 cathedrals in capital, 4 cathedrals + hermitage in 2nd city
- both multiplier cities had some deer/sheep (3-5?), 1 gem, and about 4 towns. I did build more cottages, but too late so that Artists became the better alternative in the end.
- crucial wonders were Pyramids, Sixtine, AP for free hammers, and probably Maussolos + Taj Mahal. I built some more, also prebuilt some for money
- researched Liberalism->Nationalism, then PP and shut down (although the rep beakers brought me to Democracy, filling everything else up by tech trades)

Fun game, and although I played somewhat lazy, I had some luck with late Great Artists (9 total) and with (active) religion spreading. But surely a pre 1400 AD date is possible, since I built 2 shrines which I don't consider necessary at all, and had 1 Great Prophet left in the end. Furthermore I triggered only 2 golden ages (Taj Mahal + 1GE).

Boreal maps can be fun, provided you make use of their benefits: lots of food and tons of forests. Actually I think there is no better map for the temple spamming part .

/EDIT: I should add that I had stone and marble in city 2 & 3. Pretty much mandatory for wonders and cathedrals. Traded horses for copper for cheap conf.caths.
/EDIT2: and Parthenon was the most important wonder, of course

 

[kcd_swede]

Thank you very much for the comments kovacsflo and babybluepants! I'm learning a lot from the discussions.

 

[Fluroscent]

I had submitted a 1480AD game. I played much like karmina, but I played a nine-city game and had trouble with maintenance costs despite running a double shrine capital.

So I tried out a six-city game, and now improved to 1440AD as well, and that in a game with average luck, no real good GPfarm (7+foodsources) and no marble. OTOH I had three good cottage sites.

Let's break 1400 now!

Comments about playing the boreal map

Mapfinder is not very useful.
For the capital, I am looking for at least two plainsforest+deer tiles, with one in the inner ring, at least four total food sources, and a river with at least five cottagable grass/plains tiles.
Gems are nice, but since you usually need bronze before they can be mined, I dont mind not having any in the capital.

Many maps fit this description, but we have to discard many after exploring if:
No good 2nd/3rd legendary sites
No good GP farm
No stone nearby
Also if we miss pyramids or something

I find getting hinduism off the bat is very strong, as building warriors for exploration and hut popping is very nice on a map like this.
Working the 2f2h deer tiles makes up for the later worker.
Teching hinduism and building worker leaves it with nothing to do for a while.

Tech wise, I tend to Oracle alpha or confu, then bulb theo and philo and part of edu. Obviously getting to liberalism->nationalism as quick as practical. Rep beakers should get you anything else desirable (like PP).

 

[WastinTime]

Thanks for the fun idea : Boreal - Culture requires a different style than I'm used to. Nice new twist. It's hard to trade resources for cash on this map.
My game did not have enough workers. I was still chopping at 1000AD. My tech pace was crawling, I should have done an academy. I was still researching around 700 AD--and that was just Lib->Nat and Drama (no PP). I also never got a religion to spread to me. I just had the 3 I discovered.

If I play one more time, my target date will be: 1250 AD, hopefully getting sub-1300. I'm starting to wonder if Boreal is actually a very strong map for culture. Might have to try it on Deity.

 

[jesusin]

I only had 9 cities

Isn't that 2 or 3 too many? In my book, you only go for 9 cities if you have 3 cottage cities.

I want to play this one, I'm trying to find time desperately.

 

[kovacsflo]

This time I played with Ramesses - he was much better choice in this map than Gandhi.

Wonders: 19 all together
Cathedrals: 10
Cottages: 17
Religions: 6 (I founded 5 of them)

Great people:
11 GA (9 borned in my cultural cities)
2 Great prophet (1 at the end, the other built a shrine)
2 Great spy (1 for golden age, the other remained since I couldn't do anything useful with him)
2 Great merchant (both of them at the last few turns)
1 Great scientist (he helped me to discover printing press)

I had stone in my capital and I received marble from my 6th city. I had 2 coppers as well. I had 2 GP farms, but my capital produced so many GP points (50 basic at the end) that I received only 1 GA from my 4th city. I had 9 cities.

My cultural cities all had enough food, plain or grassland river tile, but except my capital hammers were problematic, so I had to fulfill it by chopping trees nearby.

All in all I see that an industrial leader is very useful in this gauntlet, since AIs leave you enough time to build as many wonders as you want. I add that at the last 500 year I only built 2-3 wonders - cathedrals were more important.

Flóri