G-Minor LXVI

[tommynt]

cromagus - maybe just believe the player who finishes so much faster then u can?
I mean OBVIOUSLY I know how to play this game ..

HG: 6 food is really no big deal when u want cap be +40-80 food soon. And GL+NC+HG usually isnt possible - so either skip HG or try build it in another city - JUST DONT PRIO IT

Temple is nice but on this setup conquering it is just way most clever - its nothing with u need early - its more like something I want have at civil service time when tradition is finished, when the REAL grow starts.

Well pillaging tiles from a razed city sounds reasonable but well - again you can never have enough workers to work your tiles ... Also I think u exagerate the pillage gold money - its more like 5-30 for me on average something like 12 with 2 upkeep for worker - ah whatever why discuss pretty obvious exploits?

Also when being war happy - you waste 15% grow all game - if u want play efficient u really have to cut down war turn times (I often try to simu dow multiple civ)

 

[BWS]

Regarding mass pillage & repair of unowned tiles for gold farming:

It does however make every turn a *boring as hell* click-fest, but there's no doubt in my mind that it's worth investing in that.

It may be low-risk, but it certainly isn't easy to mass-pillage like this. The required investment (Liberty, Pyramids, units, conquest, razing) and the sheer amount of boring labor involved makes this seem less like an exploit than a silly thing you can do if you have nothing better to do with your time. I don't see anyone rushing to do this, and I frankly can't imagine that it's worth investing my time in that kind of scheme. It's certainly not the sort of thing I would waste time “fixing” as a developer, and it's not the sort of thing that usually gets banned in HOF.

 

[pkf]

cromagus - maybe just believe the player who finishes so much faster then u can?

have to second this, sorry cromagnus. it is honorable that you are trying to think outside of the box in a way that would grant large improvements, but one needs to focus on the smaller ones.

thanks to tommy for some detail, interesting stuff. what do you think about buying libraries instead of grannies in most cities? obviously depends on city spots and you wanna buy one granny in satellite asap for 2nd trade route. but for fast NC i usually let cities slowbuild (eg grow max) grannies and buy libs..

oh yeah and upload the vid please, unless you wanna win the next 10 gotms with 30 turns difference too :/

 

[tommynt]

hanks to tommy for some detail, interesting stuff. what do you think about buying libraries instead of grannies in most cities? obviously depends on city spots and you wanna buy one granny in satellite asap for 2nd trade route. but for fast NC i usually let cities slowbuild (eg grow max) grannies and buy libs..

actually I USUALLY do it exactly as u describe - but in this planing shead was kinda easy and that all 3 libaries finish kinda same time as gl was planable. So I just went for buy the grannies asap. Buying libraries is actually more money efficient - but well granny speeds grow and starts the snowball ...

Also on higher difficulties growth might be happy limited what might favour a granny build and work new settled lux meanwhile.

part1 uploaded.

 

[Peets]

Lots of warriors, Tommy.
Having many CS early is more important then I guessed.

 

[Arshile22]

Ug First foray into the gauntlet after having recently acquired the wi-fi technology. Posted first effort in the 400s (Hey, at least I made it off the ground for victory) Happy to have read this forum as I have never approached the game in such a stream lined approach- although I have achieved victory in the game before on Emperor following a mostly reactionary strategy. I thank everyone for contributing to this post, I should be able to shave off a huge chunk of turns in my second attempt. I imagine learning from your strategies will improve my game vastly on higher difficulty lvls.

 

[joshua43214]

Thanks Tommy for uploading the video - please upload more

I wonder if you think the extra warriors are still worth it since you only got 1 tribute demand, 1 scout can do the work of 2 warriors on these maps...

 

[Peets]

Ug First foray into the gauntlet after having recently acquired the wi-fi technology. Posted first effort in the 400s (Hey, at least I made it off the ground for victory) Happy to have read this forum as I have never approached the game in such a stream lined approach- although I have achieved victory in the game before on Emperor following a mostly reactionary strategy. I thank everyone for contributing to this post, I should be able to shave off a huge chunk of turns in my second attempt. I imagine learning from your strategies will improve my game vastly on higher difficulty lvls.

Every game gets points now (except gauntlet points)
The better you do the more you get!
Good luck and welcome!

 

[Cromagnus]

have to second this, sorry cromagnus. it is honorable that you are trying to think outside of the box in a way that would grant large improvements, but one needs to focus on the smaller ones.

thanks to tommy for some detail, interesting stuff. what do you think about buying libraries instead of grannies in most cities? obviously depends on city spots and you wanna buy one granny in satellite asap for 2nd trade route. but for fast NC i usually let cities slowbuild (eg grow max) grannies and buy libs..

oh yeah and upload the vid please, unless you wanna win the next 10 gotms with 30 turns difference too :/

Look, my issue with most of tommy's comments are not that he isn't right, but that he doesn't bother to explain his reasoning. (most of the time)

Blindly following "just do this" won't make you a better player. You have to understand WHY something is a better idea, because no two games are alike.

For example, someone might say "Send your scouts and warrior in straight lines away from the capital" as the best scouting strategy, but hey, along the way you see a CS boundary or a ruin... if you blindly follow that advice you'd walk right by them. That's a stupid example, but take it a step further. Right after you meet a cultural CS, they offer up a barb camp kill quest. You can keep exploring, or you can bring the warrior over and, with the scout, kill the camp. Or, you run into a civ, and they leave a worker undefended in the third tier... You could risk having that worker walk home past a barb camp undefended, or you could escort him back with the scout. So should you keep moving in a straight line from the capital or not? You have to be able to weigh the pros and cons.

So "maybe just believe the player who finishes so much faster then u can?" is about the most useless thing you could ever say. No offense, but seriously. I ask why he suggests to not put HG in a city with a river and not in the cap because I honestly don't see how that's a good idea. "Just believe me" is well, typically tommynt, but completely useless advice. I know he's better at the game. That doesn't help me get better.

However, the video IS useful. Thanks for posting it Tommy!

 

[Airny]

After tommynt's guide, I am afraid of loosing my bronze medal.
@tommynt: Did you already submit?
I might have to do another game...

 

[DogmaDog]

I went for a wet world to get lots of jungle tiles. My capitol had 3 or 4 jungle tiles in its radius, but my 2nd and 3rd cities were almost completely surrounded by jungle, and next to mountains. I got the pantheon that gives a culture bonus to jungles, and built universities as soon as possible...eventually, each jungle was worth 3 science, 2 or 3 gold, 2 food, and 1 culture.

I stayed at 3 cities for a long time...probably too long. Tech advances were cheap, and I got lots of policies, but I probably could have outstripped the tech cost increase with some more cities. I had to NOT vote for world leader in order to hang around long enough to get the science win shortly after turn 300.

This was my first attempt at the HOF, so it went pretty well. Maybe next one I'll try a harder difficulty.

 

[The Keeper]

[*]Map Type: Arborea

A potentially stupid question:
I decided to try to play this one - first time I've actually played one of the gauntlets. I don't have this map type. I do not have G&K, only BNW. Is that the reason?

 

[Cromagnus]

Checked out your first video tommy... I found it somewhat encouraging that you made the exact moves with your warrior and settler that I would have done on the first few turns. At least I'm doing SOMETHING right.

I did however conclude one thing: That was an epic Petra start. The sheer amount of re-rolling it must have taken to get that start... multi-river desert hills mountain mining lux start with cerro de potosi nearby for a nice observatory expo... I count at least 7 desert hills including the cap location, for +7 food, +7 hammers from Petra, not even counting the yucky Stone tile. Also at least 15 river tiles for +15 hammers from Hydro Dam.

Must be nice... On Arborea 99% of my starts are nothing but forest/jungle for 10 tiles in every direction from my start location. I know it sounds like sour grapes, but maybe you should start out your guide with:

Step 1) Reroll 50 times until you somehow get desert floodplains, mountains & cerro de potosi on an Arborea map.

Step 2) Win.

Not to discount your insanely efficient play. Just sayin'.

Also this might explain why I went for more wonders... You had mostly desert, and I had mostly forest. I had a ton of workers and had to chop virtually every tile around me to make farms anyway, so I had lots of hammers for wonders. Hence building ToA, HG, GL, Oracle AND NC.

On a more serious note, I noticed you immediately pledge to protect. If I recall, a pledge to protect gives CS a +10 to their resistance to bullying... why not wait until they have a quest for you? It only takes 5 turns to get the full benefit, so usually by the time you actually kill the camp you're at 5 already. Or does your own pledge not count towards their resistance? Hmmm. Anyway, not sure if that's how it works, but maybe that's why bullying wasn't working so well. /shrug

Also, does anyone know what the rules are for "nearby military presence"? Is it "military in LOS of the CS or its units", or "military within X tiles of the CS", or maybe even "military adjacent to the CS boundaries"?

 

[joshua43214]

@ Crogmagnus
Set your advanced settings to arid or normal rainfall, age 3 billion years, and hot temperature and you will have no trouble getting plenty of desert, hills, and mountains. Also, manually select the other civs so you get rid of wonder whores and expansionists, and do not select Arabia (gets the best desert and builds the Petra) or Babylon (makes a mad dash for the GL). Pansies like Askia and William are good to have around

 

[DogmaDog]

OK, My game submission was "excluded". I don't know what that means, specifically, or why it might have been excluded. Is there a way to find out?

DD

 

[tommynt]

I did however conclude one thing: That was an epic Petra start. The sheer amount of re-rolling

I swear that it was my 4th or 5th roll
with arid climate desert start isnt that unlickly.
With desert often come mountains aswell imo.

And i d gladly take 3/4 of other nw instead of cero - wasnt even working it sometimes.
Other cities kinda lacked overal tiles to use and espacially river.

I mean obviously overal land was pretty good - but not like special good imo.
Its just the desert/fp thing - was made a bit op by developers

apart that thanks for positive comments on my strat posts.

 

[Cromagnus]

I have it set to arid/hot already. Maybe I just got unlucky. Like I said, just bitter about my own rolls. ;-)

I'd be much more curious to see how you play a thickly forested start where your only good food tiles are deer. I'm pretty clear on how to handle desert/fp/mountains starts.

Also, josh, I haven't had a problem with wonder whores beating me to wonders, my list is: (if I recall)

Maria (Portugal)
Ahmad
William
Gandhi
... forget who else, basically I picked all the 7's off the friendship willingness to get faster friendships. No wonder whores like Egypt.

But there's no question good *river* desert hills Petra + floodplains leads to insane production later. It completely changes the game from a "normal" start. As does your first lux only requiring mining, as opposed to say a start with jungle citrus and woods furs, which requires Bronzeworking AND Calendar just to get one lux, and Trapping (totally off the Construction/Philosophy path) for your second.

I think I may try to roll up a start to propose as a challenge map, where the challenge is literally all about finding a way to make lemons out of a lemonade start. I think we'd all learn a lot from how people approached it.

 

[Airny]

@Cromagnus: The rules for tribute were (it's not what I see for me):
+100 for leading the demographics Soldiers scoreboard, then 2nd gets 100*#players-1/#players and so on
+100 for having 3x "the military" of the CS in the vicinity (which is within 5 tiles)
You can look it up somewhere, dont remember where I found that.
I got only +75 from being 1st in demographics Soldiers

@tommynt: Thanks for your guide!
Demanding tribute never occured to me.

Two things I wonder about:
1. If you rely on caravans for food to the capital, why dont you pick a coastal start?
2. In your video I see you tech for AH and BW before going towards Philo. Is it just because you have enough time for that before starting GLib?

 

[sanabas]

OK, My game submission was "excluded". I don't know what that means, specifically, or why it might have been excluded. Is there a way to find out?

DD

Yep, check your email. We always send one to tell you why we excluded a game. I sent one to you earlier today.

 

[tommynt]

Two things I wonder about:
1. If you rely on caravans for food to the capital, why dont you pick a coastal start?
2. In your video I see you tech for AH and BW before going towards Philo. Is it just because you have enough time for that before starting GLib?

1. well capital need many good tiles to use - there d not have been 30 good tiles at coast - I do think one could allready expect that tile lack of the coastal spot in turn 0.
2. My plan was in like turn 0 to get gl for philo - so I can get other nice techs without having to worry about NC tech.
I like bronze fast a lot - it should come before building settler and a 6 tile sells for more gold overall as a lux

the distance unit for tribute demande is 8 tiles not 5.