G-Minor III

[Tabarnak]

Made some tests without finishing a full game. Did some scout rushes but they lack of power after the first civ down.

Focused on Germany and his UA. It's as fast at going scouts right of the bat, but with 6 strengh melee units instead, which is a lot better. Best i did is killed a civ before turn 35 and had 2 groups of warriors/brutes going in each direction for turn 40-45, but got unlucky so far with recruitment. If i can manage to have 2 groups of 4 of them before turn 45(instead of 3 in my tests, got under 50% overall from all my games) i can extrapolate like this :

turn 35 --- 1 civ killed
turn 55 --- 2 civs killed
capital build settler for IW discovery around turn 65?
turn 70 --- 2 civs killed, got IW, upgrade
turn 85-90 2 civs killed for a total of 7

It's theorically possible to get 3 warriors/brutes before turn 20 close to another civ, making a bit more time to get a 4th one if needed. First civ can be down before turn 25 with some luck.

If barb camps are on the way, i can recruit more brutes but it can slow down rush if it fails too much times.

 

[iggymnrr]

A person can take the settler in liberty via culture ruins and escort it to a desired point. It may also help to imagine the AIs/player spaced out on 8 points of a rectangle and decide where assets have to be to execute the finish.

Edit: Greece can get both UUs in play by ~turn 65 with no hut luck. I just missed the 100 turn cutoff on a bad corner start before running out of gas. Scouts and hoplites can be used together. If a person can plan out the finale, sub 90 is possible. There is enough cash to buy armies. Barbs can pretty much be ignored.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Warriors are going to stall out in the 50's. You will at a minimum take unacceptable casualties, as the AIs will have multiple cities and multiple defenders.

I think Greece is going to need some hut luck for sub-90. Hoplites are just vicious, though.

I'm surprised that no one is talking about the civs I think are the best for Iron. The Horse candidates are pretty obvious (Alex, Askia, Cathy, Ramesses).

Whose bright idea was it to make War Elephants worthless, anyway? That cost is completely unreasonable; you can build CCs for that.

I had a strong game going with a civ down on turn 30, but I made an error that I won't make again.

 

[iggymnrr]

Turn 100, Greece, 2 pop capitol. Scout took final city. Rivers and mountains were a pain. 1 Culture ruin, bought 1 settler and another from liberty. Settled on gold, sold gold, DoWed everyone else on contact. Peace treaties for doing nothing netted $$$. Sold off many cities, including horsie city. Never used anything but hoplites, scouts and a couple warriors.

 

[vexing]

Peace treaties for doing nothing netted $$$.

i think that might fall under the "gold exploits" clause.

 

[ras9929]

Thank goodness I have work to plan the strategy I want to test tonight.

Believe I need 17 techs and 7 SPs, and used Bibor's doc of the XML for leaders to build an index to help select my opponents.

Think those are all feasbile.

 

[killerloop]

I managing to get IW between turn 55-59 now, via pottery-writing-mining-BW. I'm also able to get 2 warriors around 50 squares away about that time. With Germany I even pick up some brutes that can help. By that tima i'm also manageing a librabry-NC-Barracks-Armory, but the latter games I'm already skipping Barracks & Armory because of lack of time.

Question: Part of my strat is to settle on a gold/silver & build worker to mine the other one. To generate cash I wait for a barb to pillage it, and sell it again. That seems to be in Hof rules right? You're not allowed to pillage yourself is what I understand.

What is killing a sub 100 timeline is iron. If you don't have it in your initial city radius you need conquer it or have a settler. Here of course the double culture hut is a must!
I don't have time to build a settler in the 55 turns, I need warriors and scouts

Hence, my conclusion sofar: to get in sub 100: Iron in capital and/or 2 culture huts for settler and with germany some luck in brute mining.

Best sofar: Germany: 105 turns - building own settler! Mining from hut, below avg Brute mining

BTW: rerolling for gold/silver start location drives me NUTS!

Any tips on Civs to include as opponents (and how to fix this fro re-roll?)? Although I'm skipping this part in Game Setup: too time consuming!

 

[Tabarnak]

Ok i managed to kill 3 civs before turn 45. Got luck with warriors farming (3/4) with Germany. Got 2 stacks of 4 warriors : 2 hard builded,1 from beginning, 3 farmed and 2 rush buyed. I think best is to use free settler to spot an happy mine to support happiness, then hard build another one when IW is discovered. Bad part of that game is : only 2 iron available around!! I lost too much turns for healing too.

But yeah my theory is working. More tries tonight. With this strat i think sub 85 can be done.

 

[vexing]

To generate cash I wait for a barb to pillage it, and sell it again. That seems to be in Hof rules right? You're not allowed to pillage yourself is what I understand.
...
Any tips on Civs to include as opponents (and how to fix this fro re-roll?)? Although I'm skipping this part in Game Setup: too time consuming!

that's against rules.

mainly you're just going to want to avoid certain civs, the ones that focus on warrior construction like montezuma. personally i'm with you - i think time is better spent rerolling for starts / culture ruins, adding in civ choosing is too annoying. can't wait till they finally save advanced settings.

 

[killerloop]

How can I prevent the Barb from pillageing? In this game I send out my units immediately, with only worker in town. typically in this game 2 times a barb pops up and pillages, I cannot prevent, but it's seems intergral part of this warmongering game...., and it's generating cash. Exploit? Should I leave a unit in town, preventing this from happening?

 

[vexing]

i just self enforce - don't resell the luxury until 45 turns are up

 

[Onan]

Just to be clear, is it against the rules to trade luxes to AI then DoW immediately, rinse and repeat? I thought from some posts this might be allowed and even standard practice. Definitely cheesy, of course....

Oh and is it allowed to change map settings (sea level, rainfall, etc)?

 

[iggymnrr]

Just to be clear, is it against the rules to trade luxes to AI then DoW immediately, rinse and repeat? I thought from some posts this might be allowed and even standard practice. Definitely cheesy, of course....

That isn't spelled out. But I avioded that I think. Who knows on immediate DOW and wait. I may or may not have killed the unit that made contact. Settling on lux avoids pillage though.

 

[Tabarnak]

What about declaring war randomly and wait for gold for peace without doing anything? I think this should also be banned.

You can change sea level, but not sure about rainfall.

Lol, in this gauntlet i don't even have time to sell luxuries.

 

[iggymnrr]

What about declaring war randomly and wait for gold for peace without doing anything? I think this should also be banned.

If the unit hung around it got shot at or attacked but sometimes they run away. Unclear. I want XP if possible. The DoW does impact things later though. At any rate GGs were useless to me. Darius has a shot in a GA finish.

I guess I want to keep the AIs in the game if possible to make sure a late lux trade is open. Also the value of my useless horse went down with the DoWs so ... I don't know. But in a gauntlet for domination war it is.

 

[Tabarnak]

I once declared war to steal a single worker to an AI for this gauntlet, and wanted to attack him just 10-15 turns later. What a surprise when he wanted to give me 100 gold and 5 gpt!!! I only stole a worker...

Extrapolate this, and you can have a large amount of money and gpt from multiple civs when declaring war against everyone you see for the first time. Sit down and wait a couple of turns...It really feels like an exploit. For prince level or under, this seems cheesy. Since i want to kill them all before they get a sufficient force, this strategy is clearly overpowered. For domination wins on low levels of difficulty this strat must be banned imo. Being first in soldiers and some other stats may determinate if a civ will give you money or not for a said timeframe.

Sincerely, i don't want to exploit this.

 

[iggymnrr]

I agree it seems cheesey but it is a DoW. No agreements are being broken and it will be hard to police. Personally, I think it says more about the state of the game than anything. It is best for everyone to know this is possible. Who knows what they AI will do. Run to the nearest city to get shot at? I've seen it happen. Even if a person declines gold in the treaty, there is still the XP gains.

 

[Onan]

Okay, so it sounds like people are saying self-police to not abuse DoW after lux trading or for peace offers. Fair enough, as long as these games are excluded.

Tabarnak...I'm not so sure about Germany getting us there. It's possible, but everything has to fall right. I just had a game where I killed 3 civs (no 2nd cities yet!) by turn 92, and a 4th resisted my 4 warriors + general on the weak side. Granted I had only about 1/10 conversion of brutes, and could only settle 2 iron.... This was with Honor for barb farming and GG, later extra exp. Maybe not the best way to go. Germany has potential but it's more of a crap shoot than a chess game.

Might be time for something completely different....

 

[vexing]

to me it seems like declarations for the sole purpose of peace treaties falls under the "gold exploits" clause. it is cheesy, and at this level the repercussions are so minor that it provides a clear unreasonable advantage.

we could use a clear ruling by hof staff.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Mallow's gameplan is pretty clear. 2 Culture ruins, Iron and proper planning should consistently yield that time with the civ he must have used.

If you want to go much lower, you're going to need to gamespam using a civ that requires some luck (hut or Germany) to be successful.

I'd say that declaring just to get an imbalanced peace would fall under the "gold exploit" clause as it's currently understood, but we could use a ruling on that.