G-Minor III

[Martin Alvito]

Edit: Darius needs 1 culture ruin to have a shot at sub 90. But there is another combination of ruins that would make him a runaway favorite.

Uh huh. France is for medals, and Darius is for gold. But you'll only get a few shots with Darius regardless of how much you game spam.

We're damned if we do, and damned if we don't with ruins. Turn them off, and the civs with early Culture bonuses will dominate. Turn them on, and we get some flexibility in civ choice but the game reduces to who can roll the best ruins.

@ TMIT: I'm happy to move the discussion to PMs, but I'm not going to continue it here given mod comments.

 

[Peets]

I just played 45 turns, and I'm feeling like I can't even get around the inland sea fast enough. I don't play a lot of Epic and I'm now highly discouraged that I could come anywhere close to 91.

I know, I will never come close to the gauntlets but a lot of others are playing that also aren't that good. That way you still have some sort of competition

Also I'm going for high scores.

I even have a fountain of youth and I'm around turn 150 and have defeated one opponent so far.

 

[iggymnrr]

Uh huh. France is for medals, and Darius is for gold. But you'll only get a few shots with Darius regardless of how much you game spam.

I'm content with 89. There is something about the interface that puts a certain combination in mind. 2 culture pops, a pop increase, an upgrade and BW does NOT contain the combination. Okay so it is not as good, minor point.

 

[walkerjks]

Well i really got no luck with ruins. No culture ruin in last 6 tries. I try to find a way to have nice starts with less luck factor. Germany UA is highly related to luck. Unfortunately, i couldnt push an enough good start(after 4-5 civs killed) to finish strong enough. I need 75% rate of barbs recruitment to keep enough units in the field for each side.

I take a lot of risk. I can lose units when RNG says that i will survive with 2 hp...keeping promos to the limit to keep the most insta-heals possible. Remind me my super level 3 spearman with 3 accumulated insta-heal lol

In last games i begin to play with Wu Zetian.

Since you have more time than I do, try Japan. Nothing special on the UU for this gauntlet, but the UA should allow you to do more with less. 4 warriors or 2 swords can take done an undefended/unwalled capitol without losses.

I've been playing around with Japan in a 1 city (until IW) and it seems to work ok.

1) Reroll until you have a starting location with a mineable luxury and at least 2 (preferably 3) good unimproved tiles (3F/0H, 2F/1H, 1F/2H in a reasonable combination).
2) Settle the luxury. Trade it when you have a chance to an immediate neighbor (immediate neighbors will be knocked off late, so there should be no exploit issues).
3) Go straight for IW. You should get this in the early 60s if you are at a spot where you can get some pop growth.
4) Build nothing but warriors. Steal a worker for the capitol. Yes, this comes late.
5) Go for the free settler. You need 1 culture ruin to make this fast. You don't need a culture ruin for turn 68 or so (too slow to win this, but ok otherwise). Free settler settles iron.
6) Get an army of 4 warriors in place to knock off a distant civ on turn 50 or so.
7) Get an army of 2-4 warriors in the other direction under open borders for the swords upgrade.
8) Keep 2 warriors around for a swords upgrade to knock off immediate neighbors.

Admittedly, I haven't pulled off sub-100 yet, even in a test game, so I don't know if this can challenge 91. I've come very close to 100. Biggest randomness is availability of iron. But even with lower attack values, Japan's UA removes a lot of randomness from attacking. Who you can sign open borders with is also random. It's critical to move things into their proper places by the time you hit IW. It's also critical to sign any open borders agreements before you knock off that first civ with the warrior army.

 

[iggymnrr]

^
Good points. I prefer random opps. The dangerous one haven't been dangerous. It's the pushovers that seem to be the problem.

 

[ras9929]

Had a good run going last night with Alex
2 Culture Ruins, 2 Pop Ruins, and Skilldorado...
Close to killing my 3rd civ by turn 40...

and then I realized something was wrong...the map didn't make any sense...
DANG forgot to switch off continents!

Oh well....

 

[iggymnrr]

Had a good run going last night with Alex
2 Culture Ruins, 2 Pop Ruins, and Skilldorado...
Close to killing my 3rd civ by turn 40...

and then I realized something was wrong...the map didn't make any sense...
DANG forgot to switch off continents!

Oh well....

Yeah. I tried again and got BW the moment mining was in, second straight time. Location of the AIs stunk to high heaven. Only one culture ruin. Slow, slow, slow.

 

[Tabarnak]

@walkerjks : I don't have much time to play these days. I'm pretty busy. I have an exam this morning in less than 2 hours and i hope it will go well . Played maybe 5 hours since 4 days, and 20-40 min each session, not finished a game over 80 turns because i want something specific until then. I pretty follow the same path you suggested. Japan is a good contestant for this kind of play i agree. I should try this civ this week-end.

@Martin Alvito : I don't think that France get a huge bonus to not having ruins enabled, at least for this kind of game. For long term games like culture, diplo and science victory, there is no doubt about it. +2 culture on epic when you can finish a game under 110 turns is not game breaking. You need at least 2 policies to get a full effect.

 

[Martin Alvito]

@Martin Alvito : I don't think that France get a huge bonus to not having ruins enabled, at least for this kind of game. For long term games like culture, diplo and science victory, there is no doubt about it. +2 culture on epic when you can finish a game under 110 turns is not game breaking. You need at least 2 policies to get a full effect.

Bulbing Iron nearly twice as fast doesn't seem strong to you? Turn 30 Iron doesn't suck. Turn 45 Iron when no one else can get it before 65 would be even better.

@ walkerjks: Yes, the three army model seems to be the way to go, given the time constraint.

@ iggymnrr: A bunch of (different) Mining luxuries and FoY will yield the fastest Darius time. Good luck rolling that and the ruins you need, though.

 

[iggymnrr]

Is the FoY even on the map? The two-tile one is common. Rolling an 89 is easy.

Edit: Never mind. Next roll was El Dorado and a bunch of mining lux. Are you psychic?

 

[Martin Alvito]

El Dorado might be sufficient because of the buff from working it. Hadn't thought about that.

 

[iggymnrr]

Neither had I, didn't play the map. AI cities were nestled in rivers in the shape of the leaders they are. Didn't like the idea of dancing around for 15 odd turns a pop. I'm looking for less with better landscape.

Edit: You're not thinking sword with Darius? Immortals can do a sub 90.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I'm thinking that if I had the pieces for Sword with Darius that I could do it faster than Immortals. The Napoleon gameplan executed by Darius would yield a better time, because you can get the third army up and running sooner that way. Unfortunately, you need a stupid amount of luck to have all of that come together. That's why I'm saying you only get a few shots at it.

The luck factors are bad enough as it is. There is serious tension between settings that give you good starts and settings that give you good finishes, which means that maximizing speed requires repeatedly rolling maps with settings that are likely to produce good finishes until you get the rare good start.

 

[iggymnrr]

Yeah. Depends how fast a finish a person is aiming for. I chuckled when I saw "rare good start." That concept has been expelled from my mind. Don't know about random opps. Flavor make them all too unpredictable.

 

[ras9929]

I agree with Martin on the importance of the start.

Rerolling is such a 5-10 minute pain on my laptop (since I barely meet the reqs).
Going to make this an even tougher one to compete in.

That said, for the next gauntlet when my liquid cooled i7-2600k w/gf580 and 8 gig ram from Digital Storm arrives, we can reroll forever.

 

[iggymnrr]

Decent 2 or 3 pop capitols are a dime a dozen.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Forest count matters, luxury count matters. I can adjust the settings so that I get those without much trouble, but then moving around the map becomes much slower. The result is that reroll spamming to fill those needs on a flat map will save turns.

 

[ras9929]

The result is that reroll spamming to fill those needs on a flat map will save turns.

I've been trying to find the flat map as much as I can.
In my mind, that's probably the most critical factor (although the other ones you mention are probably close.

 

[lawofqr]

Is the FoY even on the map? The two-tile one is common. Rolling an 89 is easy.

Edit: Never mind. Next roll was El Dorado and a bunch of mining lux. Are you psychic?

You keep mentioning 89, what is it?

 

[iggymnrr]

You keep mentioning 89, what is it?

Turn 89.

Forest count matters, luxury count matters. I can adjust the settings so that I get those without much trouble, but then moving around the map becomes much slower. The result is that reroll spamming to fill those needs on a flat map will save turns.

Having played settler HoF civ iv so much, the last thing that would cross my mind is founding the capitol at turn 1. Tech can't be popped until a city is settled. For the cost of a scout, culture pops from ruins easier. Duh! I only need a second city and BW. That's it. What's the rush at turn 1?

That's the interface thing: culture accrues without a city, no loss there.