my late game was pretty weak, in the end it was turn 169 victory, didn't record it though, i think i will start a new game with aztecs which i will record!
G-Minor LXXI
- Thread starter Peets
- Start date
my late game was pretty weak, in the end it was turn 169 victory, didn't record it though, i think i will start a new game with aztecs which i will record!
Patrick Dark
Chieftain
Never played for speed before, so figured I'd give this Gauntlet thing a shot. I played as Iroquois to avoid Sejong and because I haven't played them since I got the achievement. Nice start, but I fail-finished on turn 256.
Think I spent way too much time building stuff I didn't need like Archaeologists, Brandenburg Gate, and the World's Fair.
Think I spent way too much time building stuff I didn't need like Archaeologists, Brandenburg Gate, and the World's Fair.
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
I usually end up with an extra prophet who I leave in the capitol as it prevents conversion. Sometimes I buy an inquisitor to place in other cities depending on my faith flow.Better faith *alone* would have allowed me to finish the tech tree by 160. Secondly, two neighbor AI went insane with prophets like I've never seen, fighting over my cities with 4 prophets, converting them every turn. This took away my swords into plowshares belief in three of my cities including my capital for most of the game. Also they don't update the text for quick: it's 66 gold when a city converts, not 100.
Cromagnus
Deity
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I had virtually no faith in this game: 6/turn from late-settled Uluru. I barely enhanced before industrial. So no extra prophets. And just one faith GS. I did end up with reasonable fpt late game (+2/wonder) but it took a long time before it was meaningful. So I had enough faith for 1 GE left over to finish a part, but couldn't afford a second GS.
Memoryjar
Emperor
T169. Hard to beat, in my opinion.
Late game is my main issue. I lost too many turns in spaceship parts building. I need to try Freedom. 25 % of science seems not necessary.I always have enough GS.
Never played for speed before, so figured I'd give this Gauntlet thing a shot. I played as Iroquois to avoid Sejong and because I haven't played them since I got the achievement. Nice start, but I fail-finished on turn 256.
Think I spent way too much time building stuff I didn't need like Archaeologists, Brandenburg Gate, and the World's Fair.
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
few comments here.
when playing HOF, just reroll for mountain capitol start, should not be more than 4-5 rolls, it will be faster even in the time it takes to complete a game.
i can see that some of your cities could be placed on coast and mountain, you should probably go for that, mountain and food ships are nice!
maybe you should reroll when you are isolated, no easy CS allies.
Iroqouis is a weak civ for this game, try spain/maya/babylon/korea/siam/aztecs/poland
why would you build brandenburg gate? your production is better off in units for demand, or research, or gold buildings, or even settlers perhaps.
Worlds fair is definately worth it.
just my opinion
i'm pretty sure someone will beat this time. At least reading cromagnus' posts he seems like a good strategical player
. In my games it always seems that science is the bottleneck, im very surprised that its not like that for everyone
Patrick Dark
Chieftain
I just replayed as Rome for the construction bonus and won on turn 199. 57 turn improvement. Thinking I could have gotten it down by at least ten turns if some mistakes had been fixed. Maybe I'll try Korea or Babylon next.
Tried Interfaith Dialogue for the first time. Nice change of play style. Build the Great Mosque of Djenne (something I never build) and missionaries instead of prophets (ditto; I never use missionaries) and convert the same cities over and over for 20-250 science a pop. Then rejoice when other civs send missionaries and great prophets into your territory. I started converting my own cities with stolen missionaries to speed things along.
I forgot about Babylon's ability... I'll have to try that.
Didn't build it this round.
Tried Interfaith Dialogue for the first time. Nice change of play style. Build the Great Mosque of Djenne (something I never build) and missionaries instead of prophets (ditto; I never use missionaries) and convert the same cities over and over for 20-250 science a pop. Then rejoice when other civs send missionaries and great prophets into your territory. I started converting my own cities with stolen missionaries to speed things along.
Yeah, I had that this round. Hills on three sides and a mountain within two tiles. I also ignored the game suggestions this time and built nothing but mines on them; no trading posts. It also had two marble, which is what I'm usually looking for.
I figured that out this game. I started using caravans for gold then realized I was better off using them all for food to fill out the specialist slots.
I was purposely avoiding Korea. Not sure how I can do much better without playing them though.
I forgot about Babylon's ability... I'll have to try that.
Being stupid. I'm a completionist.
Didn't build it this round.
I didn't build it this time. I was head of the World Congress and ended up selecting it because there was nothing else I wanted, but when it came time to vote, I voted against my own proposal because I didn't want to waste production on it. The other two international projects never even came up for a vote.
Cromagnus
Deity
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- Sep 11, 2012
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World's Fair eats up a lot of production because you're building it solo. But the 2-3 free social policies you get speed you through rationalism and order. Freedom is only worth it IMHO if you have ridiculous gpt. On deity you could trade your gpt for gold to rush buy parts, but on King you need to generate all that cash yourself.
Regarding science not being the bottleneck, the challenge is definitely to keep up with your science, yes. With early education, scientific theory, and plastics, you need the production and gold to put out science buildings quickly. I definitely struggle with this sometimes. Basically it usually comes down to, in my experience, not getting cities out fast enough or workers out fast enough. The people who go for 2-city NC and then place more cities later and rely on trade routes to "catch up"... I think they end up with cities that haven't had time to build things, IMHO and they've left growth on the table. Rome is probably the only civ without this problem because of how quickly satellites can catch up. But still, your border growth is behind your growth when you're using good caravans to prop up a late city. It has its uses but in general you gotta get cities out fast!!
The big dilemma for me, because of this, is whether to build GL. If you don't get writing from a ruin, you can still build GL on this difficulty, but is it worth it to delay getting your settlers/archers/etc out? I think only if you get a ruin. Half the reason Spain is awesome is early settlers. That should tell you how important it is. Also, another thing that can make science not be the bottleneck is not having enough workers. Mines, roads, etc, productive tiles help you build markets etc faster, and IMHO you need at least 7 workers to keep up with good beakers science unless you open liberty. So, great city placement and lots and lots of worker steals, early settlers, and some luck on the map. 4 observatories in great spots for growth make a huge difference. But you need to think long ball too: each city needs 21+ good tiles that are a mixture of good food, good production and good gold... For competitive times anyway. So yeah, a fair amount of re-rolling or luck is involved.
My best efforts have only landed me 1k beakers roughly ten turns slower than klaskeren's time, so I still have a lot of work to do. My biggest problem so far is getting lulled into a sense of success by quick's turn times... I think I'm doing great and then I'm like crap... 4 cities out by t50 is horrible! Education by t75 isn't fast! Sigh.
I'm tempted to play blended tradition/piety with Poland for Jesuit Education. 100 faith per university/160 for public schools... Takes a lot of pressure off the build queue and cash reserves!
The Maya are great at early science which is very important but man, all those free GP that *aren't* GS are a problem. I tried them last night, and I used GL slingshot to get theology before the t48 baktun, and I totally regretted it. The GS is fine, the GE for Pisa is fine, although better to hard build IMHO... because the GE, the merchant and prophet waste tons of GS points. The general is useful later, the admiral is useful only on continents, but basically I feel like all of them come too early. It's counterproductive to get early theology in a science game, which is weird.
Still a powerful civ, no doubt, but I like them better for liberty domination.
Regarding science not being the bottleneck, the challenge is definitely to keep up with your science, yes. With early education, scientific theory, and plastics, you need the production and gold to put out science buildings quickly. I definitely struggle with this sometimes. Basically it usually comes down to, in my experience, not getting cities out fast enough or workers out fast enough. The people who go for 2-city NC and then place more cities later and rely on trade routes to "catch up"... I think they end up with cities that haven't had time to build things, IMHO and they've left growth on the table. Rome is probably the only civ without this problem because of how quickly satellites can catch up. But still, your border growth is behind your growth when you're using good caravans to prop up a late city. It has its uses but in general you gotta get cities out fast!!
The big dilemma for me, because of this, is whether to build GL. If you don't get writing from a ruin, you can still build GL on this difficulty, but is it worth it to delay getting your settlers/archers/etc out? I think only if you get a ruin. Half the reason Spain is awesome is early settlers. That should tell you how important it is. Also, another thing that can make science not be the bottleneck is not having enough workers. Mines, roads, etc, productive tiles help you build markets etc faster, and IMHO you need at least 7 workers to keep up with good beakers science unless you open liberty. So, great city placement and lots and lots of worker steals, early settlers, and some luck on the map. 4 observatories in great spots for growth make a huge difference. But you need to think long ball too: each city needs 21+ good tiles that are a mixture of good food, good production and good gold... For competitive times anyway. So yeah, a fair amount of re-rolling or luck is involved.
My best efforts have only landed me 1k beakers roughly ten turns slower than klaskeren's time, so I still have a lot of work to do. My biggest problem so far is getting lulled into a sense of success by quick's turn times... I think I'm doing great and then I'm like crap... 4 cities out by t50 is horrible! Education by t75 isn't fast! Sigh.
I'm tempted to play blended tradition/piety with Poland for Jesuit Education. 100 faith per university/160 for public schools... Takes a lot of pressure off the build queue and cash reserves!
The Maya are great at early science which is very important but man, all those free GP that *aren't* GS are a problem. I tried them last night, and I used GL slingshot to get theology before the t48 baktun, and I totally regretted it. The GS is fine, the GE for Pisa is fine, although better to hard build IMHO... because the GE, the merchant and prophet waste tons of GS points. The general is useful later, the admiral is useful only on continents, but basically I feel like all of them come too early. It's counterproductive to get early theology in a science game, which is weird.
Still a powerful civ, no doubt, but I like them better for liberty domination.
Cromagnus
Deity
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As an addendum to the "early settlers is really important" point, just the fact that 6 turns moving a settler is equivalent to 9 is a big problem. If you run into a barb and have to stop to fight them before your settler can move on, that can add huge time to getting that settler out. Etc etc. Just the fact that you need to scout the map fully (ie find all CS) by t50 instead of t75 (arbitrary number) puts a huge amount of pressure on your early build queue. I feel like you need 3 scouts because of this. I've stuck with two but I really wish I had three every time. Meeting people on t60 is *late*.
World's Fair eats up a lot of production because you're building it solo. But the 2-3 free social policies you get speed you through rationalism and order. Freedom is only worth it IMHO if you have ridiculous gpt. On deity you could trade your gpt for gold to rush buy parts, but on King you need to generate all that cash yourself.
Regarding science not being the bottleneck, the challenge is definitely to keep up with your science, yes. With early education, scientific theory, and plastics, you need the production and gold to put out science buildings quickly. I definitely struggle with this sometimes. Basically it usually comes down to, in my experience, not getting cities out fast enough or workers out fast enough. The people who go for 2-city NC and then place more cities later and rely on trade routes to "catch up"... I think they end up with cities that haven't had time to build things, IMHO and they've left growth on the table. Rome is probably the only civ without this problem because of how quickly satellites can catch up. But still, your border growth is behind your growth when you're using good caravans to prop up a late city. It has its uses but in general you gotta get cities out fast!!
The big dilemma for me, because of this, is whether to build GL. If you don't get writing from a ruin, you can still build GL on this difficulty, but is it worth it to delay getting your settlers/archers/etc out? I think only if you get a ruin. Half the reason Spain is awesome is early settlers. That should tell you how important it is. Also, another thing that can make science not be the bottleneck is not having enough workers. Mines, roads, etc, productive tiles help you build markets etc faster, and IMHO you need at least 7 workers to keep up with good beakers science unless you open liberty. So, great city placement and lots and lots of worker steals, early settlers, and some luck on the map. 4 observatories in great spots for growth make a huge difference. But you need to think long ball too: each city needs 21+ good tiles that are a mixture of good food, good production and good gold... For competitive times anyway. So yeah, a fair amount of re-rolling or luck is involved.
My best efforts have only landed me 1k beakers roughly ten turns slower than klaskeren's time, so I still have a lot of work to do. My biggest problem so far is getting lulled into a sense of success by quick's turn times... I think I'm doing great and then I'm like crap... 4 cities out by t50 is horrible! Education by t75 isn't fast! Sigh.
I'm tempted to play blended tradition/piety with Poland for Jesuit Education. 100 faith per university/160 for public schools... Takes a lot of pressure off the build queue and cash reserves!
The Maya are great at early science which is very important but man, all those free GP that *aren't* GS are a problem. I tried them last night, and I used GL slingshot to get theology before the t48 baktun, and I totally regretted it. The GS is fine, the GE for Pisa is fine, although better to hard build IMHO... because the GE, the merchant and prophet waste tons of GS points. The general is useful later, the admiral is useful only on continents, but basically I feel like all of them come too early. It's counterproductive to get early theology in a science game, which is weird.
Still a powerful civ, no doubt, but I like them better for liberty domination.
you dont need to be faster than my plastics time, because you can catch me lategame
Cromagnus
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2012
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- 2,272
you dont need to be faster than my plastics time, because you can catch me lategame
Not unless I stop making so many goofs myself in the late game. I think I get lulled to sleep by clicking next turn and then I start making mistakes. This is much less of a problem for me in domination games. I just get... bored.
On most maps sure, but if you can get Spain with Lake Victoria or Great Barrier Reef in the capitol I'd guess Spain will come out clearly ahead.
Cromagnus
Deity
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I agree. With infinite re-rolls, Spain is stronger. But Poland has the potential for some sick combos. I was going to wrap up my Maya game (t110 public schools... Too slow!) but I got double-dow'd. Someone paid someone off, grr, and I had just rush-bought public schools, so I can't upgrade my atlatlists. Yes yes I know, I got dow'd for having atlatlists in the industrial era... Sometimes I forget King is lvl 5.. ;-)
Also, worthy to note: the AI appears to calculate "building cities too fast" based on number of cities built in the last X turns, not "since t0". As a result, I had everyone angry for planting 2 expos at once. I think even a few turns difference would have helped. Or maybe they forgot to adjust that calculation for quick? In any case 3-city NC seems to be the sweet spot for not pissing off the AI. Another reason Spain rules. Getting a second city out before you meet people... Stupid Quick mode. I'm never playing quick again after this challenge.
Also, worthy to note: the AI appears to calculate "building cities too fast" based on number of cities built in the last X turns, not "since t0". As a result, I had everyone angry for planting 2 expos at once. I think even a few turns difference would have helped. Or maybe they forgot to adjust that calculation for quick? In any case 3-city NC seems to be the sweet spot for not pissing off the AI. Another reason Spain rules. Getting a second city out before you meet people... Stupid Quick mode. I'm never playing quick again after this challenge.
Memoryjar
Emperor
Dutch is not a good option. T196. Maps didn't offer me room for more than 4 cities. :/
Let's try Austria.
Let's try Austria.
dinanipedro
highlander
got a t184 with liberty korea, 6 cities no mountains and quite low pop since i skipped tradition - oh but deer and tundra faith is pretty good
observatories sure seem to make a difference a bit more on quick, def going to give an attempt with a tradition approach
babs, poland, maya, spain all with their advantages
observatories sure seem to make a difference a bit more on quick, def going to give an attempt with a tradition approach
babs, poland, maya, spain all with their advantages
Cromagnus
Deity
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- 2,272
T175 Maya.
Decided to finish that Maya game after all, because I remembered... I was the *only* one in the industrial era. Hahaha! Deity habits die hard. Anyway, I pulled it off... it was easy, sadly. With a little encouragement, Attila conveniently DoW'd William and wiped him off the planet. I think William sent one pikeman in and that was it before he got swallowed by a horse archer horde. Sweden was behind some allied CS, so his troops never made it to me.
I made tons of *new* mistakes in this game, but overall this was one of my better science victories. Despite not reaching public schools until t110, I made up for it later. I hit 1k beakers at t140, but 1500k beakers by t160.
I lost about 5-10 turns at the end due to the following:
* Traded away aluminum to Washington on t149... stupid! Had to DoW to get it back.
* Built a 6th city (totally unnecessary... just ended up being a drain on finances/beakers/happiness. Had to halt my capital growth a few times until I could spend an ideology policy on happiness to fix it, delaying Worker's Faculties)
* Took Interfaith Dialogue. This was cool at first... 80-100 beakers per use seemed cool until I was getting 1500/turn later and that number wasn't going up. Also, and more importantly, it REALLY pissed off the AI. I got triple-DoW'd by *friends* despite having the #2 military and having no prior hate from them. To supplement Interfaith Dialogue, I also took Holy Order. Another mistake... would have been better off with a religion spreader. Or anything really.
* Bulbed 3 of my GS too *early*. I thought I was going to peak around 1k beakers. So I left about 4k beakers on the table there.
* Bulbed my last GS 5 turns too *late*. I completed Particle Physics with 1 whole free tech to spare.
* Could have used that last (expensive) GS to buy 2 additional GEs and finish my last two parts 3 turns sooner.
* In total, between the Order finisher and faith GE, I bulbed 3 GE on parts. It could have been 5. Which is an interesting way to play it... With enough faith, you can basically avoid building spaceship factories or nuclear plants or ANY of that stuff, and just bulb a GE on EVERY part.
* I didn't realize that the Order science finisher bumped the GS points counter. I was 20 pts away from a free GS when I took that policy... suddenly 220.
* I forgot that CS can't gift you coal until *they have Industrialization tech*. So, I was counting on having coal for factories and didn't. Ended up having to use a GG on my own CS ally to get the coal.
* I was at war for 30 of the last 50 turns due to being DoW'd two times and having to DoW washington to get my aluminum back. As a result, I lost 30 turns of 15% growth.
* I let the WC vote an embargo on Pearls... not realizing that 3 of my cities wanted pearls, including my capital. Then, I forgot to suggest repealing that on the next go-round. So for 50 turns I couldn't get king days.
As you can see, my growth suffered:
Despite all that, t175. With a slow science start. That tells you where the upper bound is, I think. On a perfectly played game, you can probably hit t155 maybe?
EDIT: Oh, and that 7th city on the map was from Washington gifting me it in a peace deal 1 turn before victory... I had so many CS allies he was making peace with I never noticed it or I wouldn't have accepted it.
Also, this was my second try with the Maya. First was a GL slingshot to Theology... total mistake. This time, no GL, 4-city NC Tradition, intentionally delayed Theology... worked out MUCH better. So, I take back what I said about the Maya. If you order your GP perfectly, they're awesome for SV. But, only if you resist the urge to go for super-early Theology. IMHO. Getting that GS ten turns earlier isn't worth delaying critical techs and it forces you to waste baktuns on GP you don't need. IMHO.
Decided to finish that Maya game after all, because I remembered... I was the *only* one in the industrial era. Hahaha! Deity habits die hard. Anyway, I pulled it off... it was easy, sadly. With a little encouragement, Attila conveniently DoW'd William and wiped him off the planet. I think William sent one pikeman in and that was it before he got swallowed by a horse archer horde. Sweden was behind some allied CS, so his troops never made it to me.
I made tons of *new* mistakes in this game, but overall this was one of my better science victories. Despite not reaching public schools until t110, I made up for it later. I hit 1k beakers at t140, but 1500k beakers by t160.
I lost about 5-10 turns at the end due to the following:
* Traded away aluminum to Washington on t149... stupid! Had to DoW to get it back.
* Built a 6th city (totally unnecessary... just ended up being a drain on finances/beakers/happiness. Had to halt my capital growth a few times until I could spend an ideology policy on happiness to fix it, delaying Worker's Faculties)
* Took Interfaith Dialogue. This was cool at first... 80-100 beakers per use seemed cool until I was getting 1500/turn later and that number wasn't going up. Also, and more importantly, it REALLY pissed off the AI. I got triple-DoW'd by *friends* despite having the #2 military and having no prior hate from them. To supplement Interfaith Dialogue, I also took Holy Order. Another mistake... would have been better off with a religion spreader. Or anything really.
* Bulbed 3 of my GS too *early*. I thought I was going to peak around 1k beakers. So I left about 4k beakers on the table there.
* Bulbed my last GS 5 turns too *late*. I completed Particle Physics with 1 whole free tech to spare.
* Could have used that last (expensive) GS to buy 2 additional GEs and finish my last two parts 3 turns sooner.
* In total, between the Order finisher and faith GE, I bulbed 3 GE on parts. It could have been 5. Which is an interesting way to play it... With enough faith, you can basically avoid building spaceship factories or nuclear plants or ANY of that stuff, and just bulb a GE on EVERY part.
* I didn't realize that the Order science finisher bumped the GS points counter. I was 20 pts away from a free GS when I took that policy... suddenly 220.
* I forgot that CS can't gift you coal until *they have Industrialization tech*. So, I was counting on having coal for factories and didn't. Ended up having to use a GG on my own CS ally to get the coal.
* I was at war for 30 of the last 50 turns due to being DoW'd two times and having to DoW washington to get my aluminum back. As a result, I lost 30 turns of 15% growth.
* I let the WC vote an embargo on Pearls... not realizing that 3 of my cities wanted pearls, including my capital. Then, I forgot to suggest repealing that on the next go-round. So for 50 turns I couldn't get king days.
As you can see, my growth suffered:
Spoiler :
Despite all that, t175. With a slow science start. That tells you where the upper bound is, I think. On a perfectly played game, you can probably hit t155 maybe?
EDIT: Oh, and that 7th city on the map was from Washington gifting me it in a peace deal 1 turn before victory... I had so many CS allies he was making peace with I never noticed it or I wouldn't have accepted it.
Also, this was my second try with the Maya. First was a GL slingshot to Theology... total mistake. This time, no GL, 4-city NC Tradition, intentionally delayed Theology... worked out MUCH better. So, I take back what I said about the Maya. If you order your GP perfectly, they're awesome for SV. But, only if you resist the urge to go for super-early Theology. IMHO. Getting that GS ten turns earlier isn't worth delaying critical techs and it forces you to waste baktuns on GP you don't need. IMHO.
Patrick Dark
Chieftain
I read that the Interfaith Dialogue bonus is fixed; I think it's 10 faith per foreign follower. I got 250 after my capital was hit with a foreign Great Prophet and I used a missionary on it, but was mostly getting 50 to 70 from converting Poland's capital and city-states lying between our two capitals.
While you get diminishing returns, I was able to save several turns when the missionaries advanced me by a tech that had one turn left on it. If you leave part of the tree behind and have a bunch of single-turn techs or get a tech boost, this can help you advance more quickly.
I had this almost happen with Poland. I accidentally turned the religion of one of his smaller cities and took a diplomatic hit. I posted two archers in front of the nearest city, built walls, and entered Defensive Pacts with two allies (America and Ethiopia) and was able to avert war. Then, America asked me to declare war on him sometime later and I obliterated him.
(Kind of hurt me though since America declared war on Ethiopia right after the American pact expired which prevented me from using American Research Agreements.)
I went with Defender of the Faith (+20% strength bonus near friendly cities) so I could dispatch any invasions without building units. There wasn't much value in the alternatives given a lack of need to spread religions.
Don't recall seeing Holy Order, so it must have been taken. I considered the Missionary conversion strength enhancer, but it didn't seem as worthwhile as Defender given that I didn't want to bother building Walls or Castles.
KingMorgan
Deity
I always thought it was 2 civs need to have researched it, is this not or no longer the case?
