G-Minor CXLVI

[Denniz]

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: Culture (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Chieftain
• Map Size: Small
• Map Type: Great Plains
• Speed: Standard
• Leader: Celts (Boudicca)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: SV8
• Date: 18th June to 1st July 2017

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

 

[dinanipedro]

I guess this:

Spoiler :

 

[Zlither]

After a couple of attempts, my feeling is you'll want to be on a hill, but at least closer to the edge of forested east. It takes too many turns to get units out of the forest.

Happiness was never an issue (production focus after pop 3), so I tried for gold/diamonds/silver if it was there, but any hill will do.

Guess: being in the center of the map, with no civs deep into the east will probably get the best times. Maybe add in horses for later chariot archers. Large bonus for Mt. K. (maybe in 2nd city??)

If you do get religion, I was going for 100$/15% production.

I guess this:

Spoiler :

 

[dinanipedro]

After a couple of attempts, my feeling is you'll want to be on a hill, but at least closer to the edge of forested east. It takes too many turns to get units out of the forest.

Happiness was never an issue (production focus after pop 3), so I tried for gold/diamonds/silver if it was there, but any hill will do.

Guess: being in the center of the map, with no civs deep into the east will probably get the best times. Maybe add in horses for later chariot archers. Large bonus for Mt. K. (maybe in 2nd city??)

If you do get religion, I was going for 100$/15% production.

kilimanjaro speeds up liberty finisher massive

 

[Denniz]

Gauntlet Results:
G-Minor CXLVI - Culture, Chieftain, Small, Great Plains, Standard, Celts (Boudicca)
1st zenmaster - 1520 BC T-62
2nd dinanipedro - 1200 BC T-70
3rd zlither - 1040 BC T-74

Congratulations!

 

[finminer]

Still blows my mind how fast these get done. The best I can get is low 200's. How many cities? Are you doing peaceful or just killing everyone?

 

[Zlither]

Still blows my mind how fast these get done. The best I can get is low 200's. How many cities? Are you doing peaceful or just killing everyone?

Two cities - original and the free settler in liberty. Scout, monument, archers (plain, composite and/or horse)*n. Maybe one or 2 more scouts if needed to capture multiple cities w/i a few turns of each other. Tech: archery, AH, Construction.

Use Vadalaz's Greek Liberation: Kill off everyone but Greece, gift the first-killed capital to Alex just before finishing him off. He'll resurrect the civ, but they'll have no culture. Use Liberty finisher to culture bomb that civ. On Std speed, must kill first civ (the one that will be gifted) before they hit 100culture.

D's and ZM's time were impressive as they beat any earlier culture win on any setting (std speed; small/normal/large size; any civ) in the charts, at least if I looked them up right. Congrasts dinadipedro and zenmaster.

 

[finminer]

Thank you! I'll give it a shot!

 

[finminer]

Not quite as fast as the experts due to some inefficient movement, but I get the strategy and did it on T98! Thanks again!

 

[JoeSham]

Tried Greek liberation for the first time, nice strategy @vadalaz! T-61 on my first try, could definitely be improved quite a bit. I didn't realise culture is going to be the bottleneck here until like T-40, so in the end I had to wait 4 or 5 turns just to pop the Great Musician. At least luckily I had 2 cultural city-states on the map and both gave me a barb camp quest. Also didn't have enough civilian units around the capital to force popping the GM 1 hex closer, which could have shaved off another 1 turn.

Btw 1 thing that surprised me a bit: when you gift a city (normal, not a puppet), the culture cost of the current social policy doesn't go down, it stays the same.

 

[vadalaz]

Thanks, personally I have mixed feelings about it though. It feels good when you execute it well, but it's still a HoF-only gimmick that depends entirely on rerolls and Alex being in the game, unlike Sacred Sites which works on just about any map on Emperor and below.

I believe the game remembers the maximum number of cities you've ever owned (annexed or founded) and that number doesn't go down if you somehow lose one of those cities. Science penalty for having a puppet does go away if you lose it though, which is useful in a warlike diplo game where you capture cities and immediately gift/sell them to Attila to avoid increased tech costs. Yet another gimmick.