G-Minor V

[mlund]

In the end it seems like going with minimal dependency on policies is probably best. I managed to get 176 turns using a semi-aggressive expansion to 3 cities with diverse and redundant luxuries. I kept my forces light and that encouraged China to war on me. Suddenly Horsemen promoted to Keshiks and I showed them what the Mongols Scenario taught me. Demolished Wu taking a coast city with 2x Pearls and her capital, leaving her with one city. Then I went back to building until Rome decided they could take me with Legions and Balista. They were wrong. I never did get around to taking their cities though.

Money, beakers, and hammers are king in this set-up. You don't have to run through the left side of Rationalism for the 2 free techs, though opening it for the +2 Science / Specialist is awesome. You just need to clear the first 3 policies on Patronage to get the job done, and then pop Meritocracy at the end if you need a Great Engineer for the U.N.. Sitting on a Great Scientist and Oxford University should let you control R.A. deployment in conjunction with blocking and sick use of hard-tech with Scholasticism.

I probably lost 10 turns on this game just due to a pair of Research Agreements dying in ill-advised back-stab DoW's against me. On the up side, I got two extra cities and 3 extra sale-able luxuries. If I'd taken a pair of cities from Caesar I think it would've made up for most of his contribution to the delay.

Puppets are awesome. Mongols happen to be very good at making puppets.

- Marty Lund

 

[vexing]

In the end it seems like going with minimal dependency on policies is probably best. I managed to get 176 turns...

sub 120 is possible, with proper policy management.

 

[mlund]

sub 120 is possible, with proper policy management.

Policy management is definitely key, especially long term planning along the Tech Tree. I originally thought things were heading to Scientific Revolution in that game but realized my RAs, Great Scientists, and hard-tech were going to out-pace it. I think in this case policy management is going to focus on minimalism. It looks like it would be quite challenging to hit sub 120 (that means Globalization at ~100 turns) while acquiring both Scientific Revolution and Scholasticism at relevant points.

- Marty Lund

 

[ssjos]

sub 120 is possible, with proper policy management.

You sure? Sounds awefully fast -

I got a quite good game which ended mid 130s. (lost 5 turns in the end because a war broke my final RA)

I can see mid 120 but sub 120 sounds crazy?
Mb with eldorado start?


You running RA strategy or "manual" + CS science strategy?

 

[vexing]

it's definitely possible - whether anyone will actually do it is a different matter.
you need RAs, scholasticism isn't required but sure does help assuming you can afford some allies.

my current submission could have been close to a 120 game but it was pretty much my first run through and in retrospect i screwed up a few things. the only reason it ended up decent is i got extremely lucky with city state quests, having about 4 city states targeting a single encampment.

 

[Mallow]

So far my best result came from 3-city game. Tried also with a single city, but so far I've failed to get anything good.

 

[walkerjks]

you need RAs, scholasticism isn't required but sure does help assuming you can afford some allies.

Agreed. I'm starting to really like the wine/incense start leading to Scientific Revolution approach. 2 extra free techs solve a lot of tech-blocking problems. And the +@ bulbs/specialist more than make up for the lack of scholasticism since you probably won't have many (or any) CS alliances early enough to take advantage of scholasticism anyway.

So far my best result came from 3-city game. Tried also with a single city, but so far I've failed to get anything good.

Edit to comment on this - 3 cities seems right. More cities = more cash, but the main reason to add a city is to pop another GS. It's easy to pop a GS with your first 3 cities. You're probably better off trying to pop a 2nd GS from your 1st city than trying to squeeze out one from your 4th city.

Second edit to remove some misinformation - for those who already saw it - I didn't understand legalism build priority. Still, grrr...

 

[vexing]

i'm starting to doubt sub 120 is going to happen. it's possible but it requires too many things to come together.

 

[mlund]

I've found the adjusted A.I. is a blessing and a curse in these situations. I see a lot more aggressive expansion in my area. That's great for farming puppets but terrible for keeping Research Agreements stable. If I go National College, Stonehenge, and Great Library (Meritocracy) whatever Civ is expanding most aggressively near my borders is going to DoW me. They'll lose, mind you, but they'll DoW and kill one of my early Research Agreements.

I'm going to try to get out an early Khan next time and hook him up with a squad of Swordsmen and try to sack my early-game warmonger. I was holding out for Chivalry at first to do the Keshik hit-and-run plan but that's just a terrible detour from bee-lining Astronomy. I can't afford to ignore Currency so I either have to time a proper block on Chivalry or do without Horseback Riding until the first wave of Research Agreements come through.

- Marty Lund

 

[ras9929]

I've found the adjusted A.I. is a blessing and a curse in these situations. I see a lot more aggressive expansion in my area. That's great for farming puppets but terrible for keeping Research Agreements stable. If I go National College, Stonehenge, and Great Library (Meritocracy) whatever Civ is expanding most aggressively near my borders is going to DoW me. They'll lose, mind you, but they'll DoW and kill one of my early Research Agreements.

This is what I expected to see, but I'm pleased to say in the game I had last night, I snuck in a couple extra warriors early and kept 3 at home (or as settler/worker escorts), and I was pretty please to see that while my expansionist neighbor lined up his troops at my border, he avoided the DoW. When he started prepping the siege weapons, I was easily able to bribe him to direct those tactics on my other neighbor for little more than a loaf of bread (or two horses).

 

[Neuro]

I've found the adjusted A.I. is a blessing and a curse in these situations. I see a lot more aggressive expansion in my area. That's great for farming puppets but terrible for keeping Research Agreements stable. If I go National College, Stonehenge, and Great Library (Meritocracy) whatever Civ is expanding most aggressively near my borders is going to DoW me. They'll lose, mind you, but they'll DoW and kill one of my early Research Agreements.

I'm going to try to get out an early Khan next time and hook him up with a squad of Swordsmen and try to sack my early-game warmonger. I was holding out for Chivalry at first to do the Keshik hit-and-run plan but that's just a terrible detour from bee-lining Astronomy. I can't afford to ignore Currency so I either have to time a proper block on Chivalry or do without Horseback Riding until the first wave of Research Agreements come through.

- Marty Lund

So go with Horsemen. With a 5 movement, Mongol Horsemen can dart in, attack, and get out of city bombard range, and the Khan's +2 heal ability is amazing for rolling the attacks.

And when you finally get Chivalry, just upgrade all but one of your horses and keep on rolling.

 

[Guelph]

Put in a pretty bad game (202 turns). Had Siam and England on my continent, Arabia was on his own, and Japan/Greece/America/Egypt were on the other continent. Built 2 cities and puppeted after taking most of my continent.

Lost some time taking too long getting to the other continents, and mis-timed a couple of RA's which meant I didn't complete one of the tech blocks in time.

Also I don't play diplo often enough, I didn't remember there was a 10 turn wait between building UN and the first vote. If I had remembered that I would've built sooner instead of waiting a few turns to build up enough cash to buy votes.

I just recently started trying the gauntlets, am I locked into my first submission or can I submit a second game and have it count if it's an improvement?

 

[vexing]

you can submit as many games as you want, only the best is counted.

@other posts, i doubt a game involving war is going to win this.

 

[Ozbenno]

I just recently started trying the gauntlets, am I locked into my first submission or can I submit a second game and have it count if it's an improvement?

Just confirming that you can make as many attempts at this one (with different maps each time of course) as you would like.

 

[mlund]

OK, I broke Globalization on a slightly-awkward game at turn 135, but I didn't have a Great Engineer available so 11 turns for the UN + 10 turn count-down = 156 turns = failsauce.

Things I learned:
1.) Be patient enough to cherry-pick opponents. Keeping Gandhi and Rammy off the board would probably have save me from being cut-off to the Oracle and the P-Tower.

2.) Block archery

3.) Settle flatland instead of a hill, just so you can build a Windmill. That extra Engineer slot is critical to get a Great Engineer for the U.N. without compromising your ability to rush science and Great Scientists with your University slots. The slots from Factories come way too late to matter.

4.) Plan your puppets around your happiness capacity. Lost food production sucks.

Next time I got at this I'm looking for a river start - hopefully with Wine instead of Incense. I think I'd take Gold or Silver over Marble too. I don't hard-build more than a handful of wonders anyway, and I don't have much time early to research Masonry so that it would help National College or the Oracle anyway. The extra gold from a Foundry would be awesome, though.

- Marty Lund

 

[vexing]

picking opponents to avoid gandhi and some others is definitely helpful.

i think i'm done with this one. my last submission involved more micro than any other game i've played.

 

[drlucifer]

So I just fired this up and won on turn 161. I got some breaks (inc. a wine + wine + marble river coast start) but lost others, and in particular need to get better at timing my RAs. I did not attack any civs but did have to deal with one invasion + broken RA.

I'm considering giving it another go, this time ignoring the temptation of scientific revolution and beelining educated elite instead. I figure if I can get 1 GS + 1 GE (for the UN) from that, plus get to take four different SPs, it's worth losing the two free techs.

 

[ssjos]

This is so annyoing. I feel like i have a pretty good strat but I cant seem to perform very well.

Always something goes wrong. Now i have had 3-4 games where the AI DOW me (like turn 90-110) quite late and f***ing up a RA. I think i need something to counter this but I cant really see how. I do not build close to thier border or anything.

Do you need military units to deter the AI from attacking? Or do you need to handpick the enemy players?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

This is so annyoing. I feel like i have a pretty good strat but I cant seem to perform very well.

Always something goes wrong. Now i have had 3-4 games where the AI DOW me (like turn 90-110) quite late and f***ing up a RA. I think i need something to counter this but I cant really see how. I do not build close to thier border or anything.

Do you need military units to deter the AI from attacking? Or do you need to handpick the enemy players?

Military units should help deter an AI from attacking, but the following Strategy article could be more helpful:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=409062

Good luck!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[vexing]

Now i have had 3-4 games where the AI DOW me (like turn 90-110) quite late and f***ing up a RA. I think i need something to counter this but I cant really see how.

you have 3 real options:
1) do not rely on an RA with a neighbor at all. if you're surrounded by people this is going to be hard
2) get everyone else into wars with each other
3) have a stronger military than they do

a combination of all three would be ideal but obviously isn't going to be feasible most games. but yeah, you pretty much need to do something to prevent some of your final set of RAs from being broken or have an incredibly isolated start (that's still on a continent with others)