G-Minor IV

[walkerjks]

Turn 261 on the test (not worrying too much about initial map, SP order, etc) game. Here are my initial thoughts:

1) This gauntlet might be about gold production. Shame, if true, as that is drivern by rerolling maps. But, the pace of RAs might drive the finish date more than any other factor. 4 easily obtained luxuries should beat 3 hard-to-obtain luxuries. In the 261 game, I had 2 pearls and 1 marble. And while marble is nice, all 3 luxuries are "hard to obtain", at least compared to mineable or calendar stuff.

2) Low sea level. Just do it. Small continents seems like a burden. Yet, I had 3 other AIs on my "small continent". At least 1 of those was purely due to low sea level.

3) Astronomy (after philosophy) is the early tech goal. You need to find AIs and CSs. And, of course, you need to open Renaissance. If you really end up on a small continent by yourself or with 1 other AI, I think you might be toast.

4) Two cities might work. Given that we are stuck with Japan, it is a balance between culture, production, and luxuries. I could see a great luxury site (gold is king for a lot of the game), or a great production site, leading me to settle a second city, even if the culture isn't quite there. That said, the 261 turn game is 1 city - no obvious second place to settle.

 

[mlund]

I had a great start last night - three incense and marble out of the gate, a cultural CS on my continent, and two city-states blocking the path up to my part of the continent from Wu and Caesar. Research Agreements were slowish, but I tech-blocked effectively.

And then at around turn 90 or so I realized that while I'd changed the difficulty and map settings correctly, I forgot to set the size up from the default "Small" to "Standard."

/ seppuku

After that I also remembered that I had to set all the AI manually, otherwise Spaniards or Danes might show up mid-game to disqualify me. That made setting up subsequent games time-consuming, and none of the maps that came up after that had wine, incense, or so much as a river. The map generator was all like, "Hey, how about some Cotton or Ivory resources? No, seriously, take a look at this cotton. Have you tried the cotton? Could I interest you in some cotton? No, I have some lovely whales over here? No, I don't have any wine, but this cotton is really nice ..."

At that point I decided it was enough disappointment for one night and quit to Windows. :sigh: I not asking for 3 culture ruins, river-hills, and marble - but I at least want a primary luxury something I can use with a monastery.

I used up all the good rolls with that first map, I guess. It wasn't perfect (no second salable luxury, no culture ruins, no river) but it was all I could reasonably ask for.

Hm, I'm definitely going to have to consider a low sea level for a helpful option. Maybe a two-city strategy would be more viable to keep economics rolling. I definitely see the RA situation as being critical. On my screwed-up first attempt I was being held back by a cash-crunch on my island. If I had enough money it meant Caesar and Wu were broke. There was definitely enough room on my part of the continent to build a second viable city with 2 incense. Ah, well. If that'd worked I'd be crying in my coffee even worse this morning over the mismapping.

- Marty Lund

 

[Mallow]

After that I also remembered that I had to set all the AI manually, otherwise Spaniards or Danes might show up mid-game to disqualify me. That made setting up subsequent games time-consuming, and none of the maps that came up after that had wine, incense, or so much as a river.

- Marty Lund

There's a way to disable the DLC content. You can move DLC code from Your DLC directory (which is under program files\steam...)

 

[ras9929]

Playing around with Dynamic's worksheet

Settling a Great Artist is worth about 4-5 turns as you approach a 250 turn games
- This makes me want to think that using Meritocracy to get an early Great Artist (btw I did this is my trial game) is less of a good idea than using it to get a GE to rush the Oracle (estimating 20 turn value)
- Also makes me wonder if using the spawned Great Artists to start a golden age to accelerate culture building or culture wonder production should be worth it until the # of turns in that golden age goes down pretty significantly.

 

[sir_toast]

After that I also remembered that I had to set all the AI manually, otherwise Spaniards or Danes might show up mid-game to disqualify me. That made setting up subsequent games time-consuming, and none of the maps that came up after that had wine, incense, or so much as a river. The map generator was all like, "Hey, how about some Cotton or Ivory resources? No, seriously, take a look at this cotton. Have you tried the cotton? Could I interest you in some cotton? No, I have some lovely whales over here? No, I don't have any wine, but this cotton is really nice ..."

i can't tell you how many times that has happened to me!

on another note, i'm going to try this gauntlet- my first go. any special rules i need to follow other than the ones listed in the rules section?

and this may seem a noob question, but what is tech blocking? does that mean RAs will NOT give you a certain tech? thanks for the help!

 

[Mallow]

You should check this out:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=407683

 

[sir_toast]

i had a suspicion that the RA's worked like that! beautiful

 

[mlund]

There's a way to disable the DLC content. You can move DLC code from Your DLC directory (which is under program files\steam...)

And Steam promptly replaces those files when you sign on, so that would only work if you disabled online connections to Steam. I'm not sure that's allowed by the Hall of Fame rules ...

- Marty Lund

 

[Ozbenno]

And Steam promptly replaces those files when you sign on, so that would only work if you disabled online connections to Steam. I'm not sure that's allowed by the Hall of Fame rules ...

You don't have to be connected to Steam for your games to be OK for the Hall of Fame. As long as you are playing with the latest patch, that's all that we ask, you can play your games off-line if you like.

 

[vexing]

And Steam promptly replaces those files when you sign on, so that would only work if you disabled online connections to Steam. I'm not sure that's allowed by the Hall of Fame rules ...

- Marty Lund

there are instructions on how to bypass this floating around, i think stickied somewhere.

 

[Mallow]

And Steam promptly replaces those files when you sign on, so that would only work if you disabled online connections to Steam. I'm not sure that's allowed by the Hall of Fame rules ...

- Marty Lund

I'm not sure that's true. Steam replaced my files when the new patch was available, but not before or since.

 

[mlund]

I'm not sure that's true. Steam replaced my files when the new patch was available, but not before or since.

It looks like I was pulling the wrong files. I got it figured out and it worked.

I actually managed to make a very good start out of a mediocre position with 2x Wine and 1x Fur last night - no river or Marble but plenty of hills and plains. I made a big mistake buying into cultural city states too early when I had excess cash instead of hording for future RAs and a mass-buy of allies after Scholasticism. I think I timed Scholasticism wrong too. The end result was grinding too many turns at the bottom of the tech tree to get steel -> gunpowder -> chemistry -> military science to open up Steam Power. I was even buffered from neighbors by City States, got Oracle, Stonehenge, and Great Library, and had Coal - and I squandered it.

I wound up hitting Telegraph with only like 4 policies left to buy, and by the time I hit Radio I was already building the Utopia Project, making Broadcast Tower a moot point. I think the projected winning turn was like 310 or something. That's definitely not the pace the first 150 turns were dictating. One thing I learned is even if you can't work the tile within 3 rings of a city you can still add the luxury or strategic resource to your pool by improving it if it is within your cultural boundaries. It won't give you "Kyoto has Marble" or anything like that, but you can get coal for your factory or extra luxuries to sell off. I wish I'd known that earlier and snagged the 3rd Wine out on the 4th Ring for an extra 1200 Gold over 120 turns or so ...

I think I let my population lag due to staying in Production Focus to clear so many buildings in my queue. I don't regret taking an early Great Engineer with Meritocracy and settling him, but I think putting him on a Hill was wrong when I could've dropped him on my only Grassland tile instead. Those 2 extra food would've repaid the two hammers easily with the extra citizens they'd have provided. I spent something like 50-75 turns hovering at 9 population, grinding out wonders and culture buildings during my RA frenzy up through Archeology, before a combination of policies started growth up again. I think slow-playing Legalism for the Opera House or Museum wasn't worth it because it delayed Landed Elite. I should've just taken a free Monastery and gotten +2 Food, +15% growth as soon as I could stop an Aqueduct on Kyoto. Maybe buying a Maritime City-state in the mid-game before the big Cultural CS push comes online would help there too. Staying at 9 population so long was a long-term killer.

Ah well, live and learn. At least I'm not spending 3-4 minutes rolling each map anymore. Now I know how to grab extra resources, to max RA's even when they give you 6 turn techs instead of 20 turn techs, and not to neglect city growth in the mid-game.

- Marty Lund

 

[sir_toast]

power cut out halfway through a major campaign!
but i guess its good that i find this out now- my autosaves were turned off! lol good runthrough though- only one wine and one incense but had 4 cows and a bunch of river tiles- great growth and production. i was always either broke or low on happiness because of the lack of resources... midway through i connected up with 4 more wine and took a persian city with 3 ivory so things started looking up there for a bit!

time for another go at it

 

[stupiduk]

I just finished a two city 251 turn game, a big improvement over my first try.

In many ways it was the perfect two city start: turn 5 culture rune, skilldorado, two incense in first city (+pearl) and 4 incense in second city (+marble).

But two things kinda killed me:

Spoiler :

First, of the 7 AIs, 3 were seperated by lots of dark blue water, and of the remaining four, two had poor start locations, little room to expand, and got owned by barbarians. So I had to do most of my dealing with only 2 civs until well after astronomy, which was a problem especially sitting on 6 incense. In hind sight I shoulda bought a warrior to help out the gimp civs.

Second, the city locations weren't great, especially the second city: it had 19 worthless desert tiles, 3 worthless ocean tiles, 0 plains, and only 4 hills. This worked out alright because I could buy the museum/brodcast tower from all those resources and had lots of specialists (meaning lack of tiles wasn't a big issue), but was still far from ideal. Also my capital had 0 deer/wheat/cows/sheep, wasn't on river, and was slightly lacking in hills.

Some things did go well though... perhaps the highlight was completing oracle right after astronomy and having two cities with wonders getting 100+ total culture at turn 105. If I either had another civ within shallow water range or two of the close AI weren't gimp, and if I corrected some strategy mistakes, I think a 230 finish would have been in reach.

IMO one city will win this challenge. I think two is only competetive if you get a lucky start (skilldorado or double culture rune) with a great second city location. But the benefits of this are way smaller than the benefits of getting good AI/RA luck, and because good one city starts are so much more common, I think they are more likely to get the RA luck you need.

 

[walkerjks]

IMO one city will win this challenge. I think two is only competetive if you get a lucky start (skilldorado or double culture rune) with a great second city location.

I'm less convinced of this. And it's not really about culture, in the end - it's gold and production.

I suspect, but I haven't proven this yet, that a second city that fails to contribute it's proper portion of culture might still be competitive if it adds enough resources to sell and is high production.

My thought process is this:

1) You need resources to sell in order to maximize RAs. This is a lesson from the chieftan/science gauntlet (G-Minor II) - your opponents can be poor and way behind in science eras as long as you can sign an RA (with a big premium) and immediately turn around and sell them a resource to recapture the premium. A second city should get you, at a minimum, 2 extra luxuries (and perhaps 3 or 2 luxuries + 1 strategic).

2) A high production city adds to your ability to slip in an extra wonder. Maybe Porcelain Tower, maybe Sistine - wonders that aren't absolutely essential to win, but are still really really nice (as in shave off 5 turns or so). Plus, you potentially gain a couple turns on Utopia with a second city due to Iron Works + Railroad in your 2nd city, rather than your capitol (which can't get the railroad bonus). This can offset losing a couple turns from a lower culture site.

3) A 2nd city should get you an extra GA, regardless of where you place it. That might only save a a few turns, but again, this helps offset the 2nd city SP premium.

4) More cash = more (or earlier) cultural CS alliances. So while your 2nd city might not produce 1/6th of your civs culture directly, the extra cash might lead to an extra cu;ture CS alliance, which is as significant as a weak monastery. Of course, this depends a great deal on how many cultural CSs are on your map.

I'm guessing turn 230 or so as the over/under for winning this. It shouldn't be as fast as G-Major I as the difficulty level, civ choice, and map choice slow this down. It will be in the ballpark, however. The winning game might be 1 city, with the right start. But I think a second city does have some serious potential due to difficulty level.

 

[sir_toast]

i agree with walker on this one- a second city is desirable if there is a darn good spot for it. in the one i'm working on now, my second city has four wine and pearls. very necessary for me to have a second city in this one, and i built my whole strategy around having the two cities because my start city had only one wine and one incense (but otherwise a really good production spot). nabbing this second city enabled me to have many more resources to trade AND cornered the market in the world on wine

 

[sir_toast]

well, 310 turns- i'm sure its not a winner... perhaps a better start location and a puppet empire instead. but i had just learned about tech blocking and used it somewhat inefficiently and started halfway through the game.

still, i managed my best culture win time yet on prince!

on another note, i really like the variety of smileys this site has! thanks to the staff

 

[stupiduk]

I think I just figured out a better strategy for RAs than the one I was previously using. Before I was signing as early as possible, even paying the non-classical penalty if I had the cash. Instead I think it's worth it to wait a bit. Here's my logic...

The turn that you get Astronomy on is the most important goal of your early RAs. If you sign RAs quickly from the start you will be forced to let an RA pick up Theology because much of the time you won't have enough turns to block it and everything else, and even if you do you might not be able to clear it fast enough for education's RA. With an early NC start you can really bang out those early techs, and if you have a bit of extra time you can hard tech Theology saving an RA.

Once you have optics/theology there is a clear 4 RA path to Astronomy that requires no extra blocking. So what really matters is the turn you sign your fourth RA, not the 1st/2nd/3rd. Waiting longer gives the AIs more time to get to classical for cheaper signings, and it also means you will be in classical longer (your first RA usually brings you out of classical) and you might be able to squeeze an extra RA in before you exit the era.


I also think I like going manufactory instead of rushing Stonehenge (I like the meritocracy rush). This allows an earlier NC and sets up your production all game. Early culture doesn't seem to matter nearly as much as how soon you can set up the super culture production of late game. If you delay stonehenge by 30 turns, that's 240 culture. But this is less than the effect of getting hermitage/broadcast tower a few turns earlier, not to mention the extra mid game development you can do.

Less culture early can also be sort of a good thing. If you get to astronomy early on and complete Stonehenge not long before, you will be popping new policies very quickly at this point. If you let your culture per turn get high very early and then level off a bit, once you get to astronomy your policy costs will be higher and it could still be a number of turns until you get the all important Constitution/Free Speech. Every turn you delay these two polices is a lot of culture.

 

[stupiduk]

Following the advice of my above post can get sticky if playing a two city game, so I'd like to address that real quick.

First, a second city can seriously delay the NC unless you have the cash to buy a library in it or you delay the city until the NC is done. This is a pretty big obstacle for a two city approach. If you wait too long on the city it can be hard to get it up to speed and with a wonder. Not sure what the best way around this is unless you get skilldorado.

Second, in a two city game you are going to be getting meritocracy significantly later (if you go straight to free settler, which I did but may not be best). In my two city game I decided to rush Stonehenge in my second city so I could be sure I would have +100% culture from constitution. This may have been bad as I locked myself into my second city being my main culture city, but that is a different topic. I still think it might be right sometimes to use the GE in this way (rushing a wonder to ensure +100% culture in both cities, not specifically SH in second city) instead of a manufactory in main city, but I'm leaning against it.

 

[walkerjks]

One possibility on the 2 city approach is to get a GE from Meritocracy and use it immediately on The Oracle (which is usually a better use of the GE than on Stonehenge, anyway). Use the free SP on a free settler. This gets you a settler somewhere between turns 50 and 60 after NC is already built. And since The Oracle is about the 4th most important wonder, you are going to want it in any case.