G-Minor LXXXVII

[Manpanzee]

I'm guessing using the Optics GMoV for +gold is the way to go here?

 

[Zebek]

Really stupid question. Have never played Enrico. Thought GMoV were spawned following the same rules as normal GMs, so imagine my surprise when one popped up when I researched optics, late in the 145 game. Too late to do anything with it.:wall bash:

That will teach me to at least read the basics when I try a new civ.

Anyway, I do not want any more surprises. So some really basic questions: How do you puppet CSs with the GMoV? Do you have to travel there? Are there any limitations or preconditions (only allies, or only friendly, not hostile, stuff like that)? Does it cost gold (do I need to save of this, if so how much)? Is there a dedicated icon in the GMoV menu for this, or do I have to some other menu? Do I get any gold with the pupating?

I normally would try to test all this myself, but it is a tough week and will just have the time to try twice more the Gminor, and I really want to make them count.

As the trade missions of the regular GMs, a GMoV need to travel into the desired CS borders. Once there you get a button in the action menu allowing the GMoV to puppet that CS.

No limitations, any state (friendly, neutral, allied ...) thats specially usefull when pupeting your foe's best ally because (s)he can do nothing, denuncing, liberating, you even won't get warmonger penalty. If the CS is hostile or at war take care and don't send the GMoV alone, it can be killed.

You won't get any money for that mission, a free populated city with buildings and their units is enough.


EDIT: what i never tried its to pupet a CS that has TWO cities, one of them due a recent conquest to another player that the CS its at war. Did it anyone? Do you get both cities?

 

[Bleidraner]

Just navigate your GMOV to be inside the borders of your desired CS and select the second item on the GMOV's action menu. No gold cost or gold bonus, and no ally requirement. Haven't tried it while at war with the CS, so can't comment on that, but any other relationship status works.

Thank you Browd!

Run into a problem, did not get the option to puppet, checked my options, saw that I had OCC ticked, guess it was there by default or I had it from the GMajor. Just unchecked it, will try a new game, see if it works now.

EDIT: it worked. I can now puppet like a champ. Lets see whether I can improve finish time with my new found ability.

 

[vadalaz]

A Great Musician from Liberty finisher bombs for 100 tourism if you have 0tpt. You can finish Liberty pretty fast if you use two GMoVs on a cultural CS for 120 influence and 1600 gold. So an idea I had was to try and keep one AI's total culture below 100 for the entire game by conquering it very quickly (t30-35, and that civ must go Piety) and then gifting the cap to another AI so it'd revive the civ (then repeat the process if possible). Does anyone know what influences the AI's decision on whether to puppet or revive another civ's cap? Seems to be random to me but I haven't tested it enough.

 

[Memoryjar]

When a DoF is on, AI liberates over razes or puppets a city. Not a rule, just my experience.

 

[vadalaz]

I see. There aren't any DoFs that early usually though... I suppose I could denounce and demand stuff from AIs as I meet them so they all happily hate me together.

Keeping an AI's culture under 100 might be too tough of a task anyway, I don't know. Under 150 is okay too I guess, but then SS would be better than Liberty probably.

 

[jerbacca78]

Raidandtrade it's a domination game. Kill everybody asap, leaving just one cap, ideally the smallest culture one, and ensure to mess with that one constantly so it is really poor and crippled. As soon as you start to accumulate tourism, you will win. SS just makes it faster. So if you don't do SS, and do Liberty instead, I guess by the time you choose your Great Musician as your liberty finisher and then pop it in the remaining Civ, you will win. If you really don't want to do SS, build Parthenon, build a couple of GW and pop them from great works and do the same with GAs as soon as possible, get your tourism up asap and then pop your great musician to win faster. I guess 150, maybe earlier, would be possible without SS, never tried.

But you really need to do SS. 4 tourism that early, more if you puppet, makes a huge difference.

Using this strategy, is it important to get stonehenge, to get faster tourism, or do you just hope for 1 or 2 religious CS? when do you go for optics + GMoV?

 

[vadalaz]

On a hunch I ran a test game as Attila on a Duel map vs two Greece AIs. It seems Alex will always liberate another civ's cap. It worked 1, 5 and 10 turns after capturing as well as 4 times in a row. I suppose it's because his Diplomacy flavor is highest of all civs, so I'll definitely include him next time I try the Liberty strategy. Maria might be a good AI for it as well.

 

[Bleidraner]

A Great Musician from Liberty finisher bombs for 100 tourism if you have 0tpt. You can finish Liberty pretty fast if you use two GMoVs on a cultural CS for 120 influence and 1600 gold. So an idea I had was to try and keep one AI's total culture below 100 for the entire game by conquering it very quickly (t30-35, and that civ must go Piety) and then gifting the cap to another AI so it'd revive the civ (then repeat the process if possible). Does anyone know what influences the AI's decision on whether to puppet or revive another civ's cap? Seems to be random to me but I haven't tested it enough.

That's very interesting. In my experience, there is no guarantee which civ will be lowest early on, as in the first 30 turns it really depends on what ruins the civs pop. 2 culture ruins and they are over 100 by t30. But if it works, that's a t70 finish assuming you can kill all civs in that time, and revive the poor one. Pretty cool and it could work, but it is pretty map dependent so lots of rerolls. Great strategy though. Really impressive.

 

[Cromagnus]

On a hunch I ran a test game as Attila on a Duel map vs two Greece AIs. It seems Alex will always liberate another civ's cap. It worked 1, 5 and 10 turns after capturing as well as 4 times in a row. I suppose it's because his Diplomacy flavor is highest of all civs, so I'll definitely include him next time I try the Liberty strategy. Maria might be a good AI for it as well.

It isn't reliable. Liberation is based on many factors. Civs will raze or liberate cities they don't want, or if they can't support the happiness. An AI will almost never liberate another civ's *original* capital. But it's not reliable! In the past, Gandhi has almost always liberated non-capitals. In my most recent game, (where I wanted him to liberate) he razed instead. (And puppeted the capital when I tried that)

Luckily this is a quick G-Minor. I wouldn't bank on this strategy, unless you're willing to restart a couple of times. Also, I'm not sure if it would be counted against you in this case, but trading an AI a city and immediately recapturing it is banned in HOF play. So, if he *didn't* liberate it, and you were forced to recapture, it might screw you, delaying your cultural victory significantly.

However, I'm pretty sure that rule is only there to prevent gross exploits in Deity so it might not be considered an exploit here. (The exploit where you can trade cities for INSANE gold, DoW, recapture, trade again to another AI, etc)

Personally, I think the liberation of an AI for the express purpose of winning a cultural victory SHOULD be banned in HOF play. I've done this in the past in non-HOF play on deity, to get a sacred sites win, but I've never submitted a game to HOF where I did it. (to my knowledge)

And this should include cities originally captured by an AI IMHO. For non-cultural victories, it shouldn't be considered an exploit. But it's against the flavor/spirit of the rules IMHO to rely on a civilization being wiped out and reborn to get the cultural victory.

However, it can be so challenging to pull off that I'm not sure it's worth banning. Because, as I said, it's very unreliable.

 

[Bleidraner]

Using this strategy, is it important to get stonehenge, to get faster tourism, or do you just hope for 1 or 2 religious CS? when do you go for optics + GMoV?

Salt start, good faith pantheon, and then hope for at least 2 culture CSs for good finish time. Faith is slightly less important, as there are other ways to get it through your faith buildings, pantheon, piety tree, shrines and temples. So a lot is map dependent, but typically, I first pop a couple of scouts for ruins and CS discovery, then do everything I can to ally the cult CSs, while teching pottery, mining, AH for the archer or chariot archer rush and CS quests. Only once I have my army going I start building wonders and go for Optics, as with SS there is no point in pupetting early unless you have SS and have faith to faith buy your monasteries and mosques. I like to get Stonehenge first, but after the army, shrine, and depending on the start granary, and I usually get GL to get to Drama and Poetry and Philosophy fast but I do this later. I will also build Parthenon as soon as I can for +2 tourism. The key is SS as soon as possible but a making sure you don't screw up the war and have some decent growth so build times are not crazy. My definition of reroll is no culture ruin and no cultural CS in the first 30 turns. Policy is of course straight piety to SS, then situational, typically I close piety and then open Aesthetics, unless I am swimming in culture and can get the liberty free GMoV. But you usually win before that.

 

[Bleidraner]

However, it can be so challenging to pull off that I'm not sure it's worth banning. Because, as I said, it's very unreliable.

I would not ban it in this context. It takes considerable skill to pull it off, and you run a considerable risk, so not comparable with the no skill, no risk exploit that the ban is aimed at.

 

[vadalaz]

@Cromagnus,

I see. I ran another very quick test game as Huns vs Portugal and Greece. Alex consistently liberated Maria, she didn't return the favor even once though (and she has 8 for diplomacy flavor vs Alex's 9; Gandhi has 8 too I think). I trust you that it's unreliable, but I still want to test it with Alex in some different settings.

I don't know if this is against the HOF rules or not, but I agree it's abusing the game mechanics pretty heavily. For me it's more of a personal challenge than a potential HOF entry, I've already submitted my sacred sites game anyway.

 

[Cromagnus]

Very strange about Alex. He's also high on the conquest scale... so you'd think he would puppet. :shrug

 

[vadalaz]

Yep. One more test game vs 6 Greece, conquered 3 of them in different parts of the map and all of them were liberated by each of the other 5. That was Tiny, Prince, Pangaea and very undeveloped cities, just like the gauntlet. It may not be so on other settings but for this gauntlet's settings Alex seems very reliable.

It might require just too many restarts though... Have a non-Tradition and non-Alex civ next to you as well as a quickly reachable cultural CS, ugh. I'll try a few times but I'm not sure I'll have the patience for it.

For some reason these tiny maps all have really annoying rough terrain even on 5bil.

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, you'd think Gandhi of all people (penalty for # of cities) would avoid puppeting a full-size city. (So many turns of anarchy and massive unhappiness)

But the AI isn't that smart.

 

[Bleidraner]

For some reason these tiny maps all have really annoying rough terrain even on 5bil.

Well the high sea level probably has something to do with it.

 

[vadalaz]

Finally won a t91 CV. Could be earlier with better terrain and if Alex didn't choose to build walls in Athens.

Marrakech fell on t31 with 72 total culture generated, Optics&Liberty GMoVs happened to spawn together on t40 (culture ruin helps a lot). Harun and Alex were on the other side of the map, Alex was pretty easy to get to so I sent 3 archers and a scout his way and made sure he wouldn't expand or have any workers. Harun took forever to get to and had pretty annoying to attack city spots as well so that slowed me down. Finished Liberty on t77, but only managed to kill Harun 5-6 turns later. Then Alex built walls so that took away some turns as well... I was pretty excited about this finally working and I messed up in a really dumb way - declared the second war on Alex before gifting him Marrakech. *facepalm* So I reloaded and finished the game properly. Wasn't going to submit this either way, but I just hate making stupid mistakes like that.

A very good game should be finished around t75-80 I suppose. Liberty could be done quicker - I didn't build a shrine. God King pantheon could've been quite useful for example. More efficient war and better terrain also speed things up. Oh well. Not gonna play this again, but still it was pretty fun to win a sub-100 CV without SS.

 

[Bleidraner]

Finally won a t91 CV. Could be earlier with better terrain and if Alex didn't choose to build walls in Athens. Finished Liberty on t77 (cultural CS ally + friend), + travel time for the GM, so a very good game can be done somewhere around t75-80... I forgot to build a shrine, something like God King could've been useful.

Wow. You are amazing.

 

[vadalaz]

Thanks! Edited my post with some details of the game as well as the dumb mistake I made. It almost makes me want to try again for a flawless and clean HOF run but I think I'm done with this G-Minor.