G-Minor CCIV

[aafritz17]

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:

Expansion: Brave New World
Victory Condition: Science (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Settler
Map Size: Tiny
Map Type: Shuffle
Speed: Epic
Leader: Spain (Isabella)
Opponents: Any
Version: SV8
Date: 1st to 28th February 2023
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

@Blake00 @The_J

 

[zenmaster]

Spain Settler Science gauntlet? Evidently you want us to push the boundaries of how low this can go.

The Tiny map does restrict max city sprawl and city-state bonuses somewhat, so records might not be set, but with Spain, who knows?

 

[billybgame]

Completed this one....1908 and turn 497. If there is secret sauce how to do way earlier, would like to hear it.

Had one civ with me on larger continent. But was limited a bit with snowy area at southern part of it. Had settlable island nearby so got two more cities there. After eliminating my neighbor Theresa as early as I could, had maybe 12-15 cities......and was peaceful...though my inferior opponents on the other continent were annoying most of the rest of the game. I set aside my desires to wipe them off the map.

 

[Valasynthia]

Turn 319
Had a lot of fun with this one, tried a liberty start a few times with 6 or 7 high population cities for extra faith bonus but found that the early game was quite painful(couldnt get national college under 100 turns) so once getting a pretty ridiculous start on a non-archipelago style map(settler from first ruin to settle kilimanjaro pre turn 20 I believe into finding great barrier reef while also having an observatory capital)
I decided to try for a tradition start with 3 cities into great library into national college rush, then settling 2 more cities for a total of 5, maybe could have gone for more but not too familiar with the multiple city science debuff so thought id play it safe, then I left my cities on science production unless there was a science, production or faith building was tempted to go for a stupid amount of wonders but resisted and just built the science wonders plus sistine chapel, globe theater and collosus(had no desert for petra) to fill out the policy trees

got an early militaristic state so thought it might be a good idea to puppet some city states with 2 catapults and a few spearmen then fill them with trading posts for the science, this got a bit sketchy towards the end as I think I almost got a diplo victory by accident, the ai cities had very little population but I puppeted them anyway a little later for a tiny sci increase. This helped with public schools, research labs and late game production buildings as I could just purchase them with excess gold
I chose to go with order for the factories produce science and spaceship parts can be finished with engineers tenets, later thought the liberty spaceship purchasing might have been a decent strategy as well if production had been an issue

 

[zenmaster]

Completed this one....1908 and turn 497. If there is secret sauce how to do way earlier, would like to hear it.

Had one civ with me on larger continent. But was limited a bit with snowy area at southern part of it. Had settlable island nearby so got two more cities there. After eliminating my neighbor Theresa as early as I could, had maybe 12-15 cities......and was peaceful...though my inferior opponents on the other continent were annoying most of the rest of the game. I set aside my desires to wipe them off the map.

Sounds like a fun game! On Settler level, you showed great restraint in not wiping more competitors off the map.

On Settler, it is so tempting to go with double digit cities, but there is some point where using your capital and production to expand rather than grow hurts your science rather than helps it. On standard speed, I find expanding after turn 75 or so results in diminishing returns for your empire, so I think at some point after 7-10 cities (depending on how fast you laid down the cities), you should just focus on growth.

 

[zenmaster]

Turn 319
Had a lot of fun with this one, tried a liberty start a few times with 6 or 7 high population cities for extra faith bonus but found that the early game was quite painful(couldnt get national college under 100 turns) so once getting a pretty ridiculous start on a non-archipelago style map(settler from first ruin to settle kilimanjaro pre turn 20 I believe into finding great barrier reef while also having an observatory capital)
I decided to try for a tradition start with 3 cities into great library into national college rush, then settling 2 more cities for a total of 5, maybe could have gone for more but not too familiar with the multiple city science debuff so thought id play it safe, then I left my cities on science production unless there was a science, production or faith building was tempted to go for a stupid amount of wonders but resisted and just built the science wonders plus sistine chapel, globe theater and collosus(had no desert for petra) to fill out the policy trees

got an early militaristic state so thought it might be a good idea to puppet some city states with 2 catapults and a few spearmen then fill them with trading posts for the science, this got a bit sketchy towards the end as I think I almost got a diplo victory by accident, the ai cities had very little population but I puppeted them anyway a little later for a tiny sci increase. This helped with public schools, research labs and late game production buildings as I could just purchase them with excess gold
I chose to go with order for the factories produce science and spaceship parts can be finished with engineers tenets, later thought the liberty spaceship purchasing might have been a decent strategy as well if production had been an issue

Wow, going tradition only and order, this is an extremely impressive game!

I am surprised how quickly you got all the parts built with order. Very well done!

Yes, lower level games are almost always a lot of fun, as you can usually shape your empire-building however you wish. Spain is especially crazy with the extra wonder production. Your wonder discovery outshone mine for sure. Looks like you took excellent advantage.

On Settler level, as long as you have a couple cultural city-states on the map, culture is so easy to come by that you are usually best off going Liberty first down to Collective Rule for the free Settler before launching into Tradition. You can usually even finish Liberty later for a Scientist or Engineer as the finisher if you need to. I was poised to do it in this gauntlet if needed, but did without it.

Puppeting city-states seemed to work out OK for you. Interesting strategy. I was a bit surprised you conquered Ragusa and bullied the other Maritime city-state. Allying with them for food for growth is usually best, especially on Settler, where happiness issues are almost non-existent.

You put up two excellent gauntlet games this month. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Valasynthia]

Thanks for the tips was very unsure what the optimized path was for the policy tree and city layout but that makes a lot of sense.
I definitely should have allied the maritime city states haha don't usually think about maritime states, considering how much unspent gold I had towards the later eras and how little population some of the cities were it would have been a lot better for the food

I will say I got a bit nervous with the order decision towards the end as I was unsure whether I'd be able to get the spaceship parts out quickly enough, but I had a bit of a lull in science while researching towards the last part in particle physics maybe due to a lack of great scientist production if I had a few more cities and a bit more optimization

 

[zenmaster]

Thanks for the tips was very unsure what the optimized path was for the policy tree and city layout but that makes a lot of sense.
I definitely should have allied the maritime city states haha don't usually think about maritime states, considering how much unspent gold I had towards the later eras and how little population some of the cities were it would have been a lot better for the food

I will say I got a bit nervous with the order decision towards the end as I was unsure whether I'd be able to get the spaceship parts out quickly enough, but I had a bit of a lull in science while researching towards the last part in particle physics maybe due to a lack of great scientist production if I had a few more cities and a bit more optimization

There have been some extremely high level players who have sworn by Order over Freedom for Science games, but I have never felt able to swing it to my advantage. I can plan for and control gold much more easily than I can production, so that always wins out for me. I would wager that on some game settings, the factories and buying buildings ability of Order can outproduce the Freedom tenets, but I have not set myself to ever figure out the details of which settings would be best for Order.

 

[aafritz17]

The following are the results of G-Minor CCIV. The settings are at the bottom of the page:

	Rank Player Date Turn Score [IMG alt="Gold Medal"]https://hof.civfanatics.net/civ5/images/gold.png[/IMG] zenmaster 1270 AD 274 7277 [IMG alt="Silver Medal"]https://hof.civfanatics.net/civ5/images/silver.png[/IMG] zlither 1410 AD 302 6280 [IMG alt="Bronze Medal"]https://hof.civfanatics.net/civ5/images/bronze.png[/IMG] aafritz17 1718 AD 369 5373 4 keg 1863 AD 453 3465 5 superman32870 1878 AD 468 3280 6 billybgame 1908 AD 498 4181 7 AusCG 1932 AD 522 1995

Settings:

• Expansion: Brave New World
• Victory Condition: Science (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Settler
• Map Size: Tiny
• Map Type: Shuffle
• Speed: Epic
• Leader: Spain (Isabella)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: SV8
• Date: 1st February to 1st May 2023

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.