G-Minor III

[Tabarnak]

Right after a nice and easy exam done this morning, i wanted to give a try with Japan. This civ is THE perfect civ to go through sub 90 turns and WITHOUT lucky ruins. First roll of map with this civ too

Won turn 92. But here is some pics why it made me lost 5-7 turns.

Here you can see west of map a nice wall of city states and mountains.

Spoiler :

Here is the left of my capital, after i have throwed my second army. Many 1 tile turns and a damn well placed barb camp.

Spoiler :

I lost a turn to settle on gold. Got a money ruin and a culture ruin, but when i popped a free settler he waited in capital for almost 20 turns. So culture or not it was my strat to pop a settler for turn 60. With an extra monument from the first conquered city, i would have got that settler in time.

100% attack when damaged is perfect for city attacking and you can gather more insta-heals when you don't want to lose time for last turns, when swords are about to kill the last civ(s). Well it was a part of my strategy.

Part of credits goes to walkerjks. Thanks dude, great plan. Sub-85 is possible with this civ, even more if you get eldorado.

 

[Martin Alvito]

@iggymnrr: You're trading speed for consistency by doing that. I'd much rather have an extra Warrior on the ground attempting to transform itself into an Immortal via ruin in the early stages. The cost is time spent rerolling, which is unfun but effective.

@Tabarnak: Japan's main advantage is the ability to suicide bomb the last wave of cities without healing up first. My sense is that France is going to outperform Japan in an Iron game.

 

[vexing]

sshhh, they're busy focusing on fast swordsmen

 

[Tabarnak]

You're trading speed for consistency by doing that. I'd much rather have an extra Warrior on the ground attempting to transform itself into an Immortal via ruin in the early stages.

Well i popped 2 spearmen. Forgot to say that..they are very important in the beginning. But an extra warrior or 2 are needed to have enough of them for later upgrades.

Edit : Sry, this message wasn't for me lol, but still relevant.

 

[vexing]

Japan's main advantage is the ability to suicide bomb the last wave of cities without healing up first. My sense is that France is going to outperform Japan in an Iron game.

they gain turns in every city taking by taking less damage and doing more damage, so when other civs occasionally require three rounds and wasting an instant heal to take a city, japan can pretty consistently take it in two.

 

[iggymnrr]

@iggymnrr: You're trading speed for consistency by doing that. I'd much rather have an extra Warrior on the ground attempting to transform itself into an Immortal via ruin in the early stages. The cost is time spent rerolling, which is unfun but effective.

Dull, but boring. The above gives me an idea. The turn 3-5 settlement often gives $ from city states too as well as being closer to an AI. Buy a warrior??? Maybe. Never considered a second upgrade. Also saw iron once. Had no workers, just barbs around Percy.

 

[Onan]

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.

...and the flexibility / ability to compete is only there when the 2nd tier civs get lucky with ruins...but they could never compete with 1st tier civs who also get lucky with ruins. Ruins luck ruins luck ruins competitions. Unless, of course, you're playing cards. Which is kinda what this is like. But let's just be honest about that.

 

[Martin Alvito]

they gain turns in every city taking by taking less damage and doing more damage, so when other civs occasionally require three rounds and wasting an instant heal to take a city, japan can pretty consistently take it in two.

If you send enough force and juggle the promotions right, this isn't a problem.

Buy a warrior??? Maybe.

I don't see why you wouldn't, given your plan.

...and the flexibility / ability to compete is only there when the 2nd tier civs get lucky with ruins...but they could never compete with 1st tier civs who also get lucky with ruins.

Not really. Each civ has a set of necessary conditions that must obtain to achieve a fast win. The ruins help a culture-limited civ with a useful UA like Persia.

 

[Onan]

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.

Best flat map I've found seems to be 5 BYO, hot and arid. This seems to yield lots of floodplain starts though, which seem not so useful.

Related note: I'm curious to know if others use 'disable start bias' and find that useful at all?

sshhh, they're busy focusing on fast swordsmen

Are you being coy about a faster horse contender? One pipe dream I tried a few rolls with last night was a 3+ cow start with Russia, getting horses too in cap, and buying a stable.... With the flat map settings I was using (too many FP)...I don't think I saw one cow in any of my starts.

 

[Onan]

a set of necessary conditions that must obtain to achieve a fast win. The ruins help a culture-limited civ with a useful UA like Persia.

"a set of necessary conditions that must obtain to achieve a fast win" = luck.

Persia needs hut luck.

Does not France do even better with hut luck?

Simple point is that ruins introduce more luck into competition. And it doesn't level the playing field by having them. That's fine if you want a competition based (at least in part, and possibly by the deciding factor) on luck.

Luck luck luck.

 

[ras9929]

Best flat map I've found seems to be 5 BYO, hot and arid. .

So hard not to use a mom joke here...

But has anyone tried a Civ that has a warrior UU? Doing some estimates here but if the next level unit takes twice as many hammers as a warrior, won't two warriors attacking out-do 1 of the higher units. I guess there's a limit on scale (cities with only 4 attack points might suck with warriors, but given the time constraints, I wonder if this isn't a good approach

 

[iggymnrr]

But has anyone tried a Civ that has a warrior UU? Doing some estimates here but if the next level unit takes twice as many hammers as a warrior, won't two warriors attacking out-do 1 of the higher units. I guess there's a limit on scale (cities with only 4 attack points might suck with warriors, but given the time constraints, I wonder if this isn't a good approach

Like Monty and upgrade to sword? Toyed with it.

 

[ras9929]

Like Monty and upgrade to sword? Toyed with it.

Actually I was mistaken; UU replaces swordsmen

Thought occurred to me....
Try to generate a forest world with Iroquois
Forest = Good for Chopping, Fast for Iroquois
Maybe start warrior spam the upgrade to mohawks

 

[Martin Alvito]

"a set of necessary conditions that must obtain to achieve a fast win" = luck.

Persia needs hut luck.

Does not France do even better with hut luck?

The increase in Persia's speed from the ruins is much greater than France's increase. IMO, the Liberty tree is so powerful these days that France would win most combinations of settings and victory conditions if the ruins were off.

Even if you turned the ruins off, luck would still decide this thing. 8+ Iron in the capital is probably your winner whether the ruins are on or off, with a +/- turn 30 kill and double kills every 15 turns thereafter.

@ ras9929: Mohawks won't help you. Monty isn't bad, but I don't think you don't kill enough units on this difficulty to justify the pick.

 

[Tabarnak]

IMO, the Liberty tree is so powerful these days that France would win most combinations of settings and victory conditions if the ruins were off.

Not really. Japan beat France any day. Japan has the ability to kill civs with fewer units in place. Japan is definitively the ''luck-proof'' civ for this gauntlet. Yes France can get iron faster, but you need the money and your warpath must be already pretty advanced to get an advantage from it.

Japan has the unique ability to kill 5 civs before turn 65. Not France. I killed 4 of them before that turn in my game, and with a faster throw of my 2nd army and less juggling in the 1 tile turn sector, i would have killed 5 of them, giving a good chance to achieve a sub-85(or 80???) game.

@ras : Japan's UA is more powerful than any UU in this game.

 

[Martin Alvito]

A lucky France game will be faster than a Japan or Persia game, but you're correct that you'll have more good games with Japan and Persia. France isn't just the fast Iron, it's also the fast Worker.

 

[Tabarnak]

A lucky France game will be faster than a Japan or Persia game, but you're correct that you'll have more good games with Japan and Persia. France isn't just the fast Iron, it's also the fast Worker.

Hmm settling on a luxury mine is awesome to let down a worker for many turns. I've got my first one from the 2nd civ killed. I built a worker in my capital because he had nothing to do. After 50 turns, my capital is useless

 

[Martin Alvito]

No doubt about the capital becoming obsolete in a hurry. I also settle on a luxury that can be mined.

Starting in the corner is ridiculously important. You are completely screwed on ruins if you spawn in the middle, due to the way the ruin spawn rules and city-state spawn rules interact.

 

[Denniz]

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.

We have decided not to ban this. While nobody is really happy with the balance of the peace deals, opening that particular can of worms does not seem like a good idea. The deals are weighted by your power and/or how badly you are beating on the AI. You have to invest something to get such a deal. It helps that the higher difficulties don't benefit as easily.

Let's not go back into debate mode on this here. If you absolutely must discuss it more, please start a new thread. No need to clutter the gauntlet thread with this.

____________________________

I hope to put up a revised Gold Trading Exploit rule this weekend that includes all the examples that we have ruled on so far. I will also use that as a starting point for a thread where people can ask for rulings or report potential exploits.

We need to hear about these things and what the experts can tells us about them so we can make informed decisions. Whether you agree or disagree with a ruling, it may not be apparent for a long time whether we choose wisely. But by making a choice, we hopefully get everyone on the same page when it comes to HOF Submissions. As hopefully a few of you can atest, just asking us if something is legal is fairly painless and much less time comsuming for everyone.

 

[Tabarnak]

We have decided not to ban this. While nobody is really happy with the balance of the peace deals, opening that particular can of worms does not seem like a good idea. The deals are weighted by your power and/or how badly you are beating on the AI. You have to invest something to get such a deal. It helps that the higher difficulties don't benefit as easily.

Let's not go back into debate mode on this here. If you absolutely must discuss it more, please start a new thread. No need to clutter the gauntlet thread with this.

____________________________

I hope to put up a revised Gold Trading Exploit rule this weekend that includes all the examples that we have ruled on so far. I will also use that as a starting point for a thread where people can ask for rulings or report potential exploits.

We need to hear about these things and what the experts can tells us about them so we can make informed decisions. Whether you agree or disagree with a ruling, it may not be apparent for a long time whether we choose wisely. But by making a choice, we hopefully get everyone on the same page when it comes to HOF Submissions. As hopefully a few of you can atest, just asking us if something is legal is fairly painless and much less time comsuming for everyone.

Understood. I know it's not easy to balance everything, but a beta HoF is the best way to know if you ban, accept or adjust laws concerning this competition. I reported it, but i don't want to debate much more. It's an exploit, a minor one, and for specific settings. It's not that bad...