Haven't gotten into this one yet, but the three characteristics of Boreal maps to keep in mind.
1) As Bleidraner has found experientially, Boreal maps always place civs far apart in general.
2) No desert or grassland, so river hexes and plains are the most fertile tiles you can get basically. And don't count on a Petra start! [emoji2]
3) Small seas at best, so the usable map is larger than most standard maps.
My initial takes going into the gauntlet?
-- Any strategy involving taking AI caps quickly with an initial rush is likely hamstrung by distance, terrain, and difficulty level.
-- Given the terrain, I think that one has to redefine what a good city location is. You will need an expansion city or three at least to up your unit limit and expand your luxury/conquest footprint. Deer & of course salt rock in the Boreal forests.
-- I suspect all medalists will be ones who find a way to beg, borrow, or steal their way to Dance of the Aurora, in addition to playing a great game otherwise. Every edge helps at the higher levels.
-- Poland allows for some outside the box thinking when coming up with your initial strategy. Can get to Artillery much faster than usual on this map with TradLibRation etc. if you are going to turtle and play nice initially. Can go heavy for CS alliances with Patronage to offset happiness and growth issues from the map and level. Can dip into Piety to get Aurora and try to max help from religion, and of course Honor never hurts in a domination game. Now of course initial map conditions may dictate your above choices, but I'd still have one basic strategy in mind when picking AI opponents. (eg. If you are planning to lean on CSes for sure, don't pick high Diplo AI etc.)
-On higher levels going for domination, I generally avoid AI civs with good Unique Units; Having China in the mix for example means you will most likely be facing Cho-ko-nus. Why do that if you don't have to?
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That is what I have in mind going in. I will be doing a 2 or even 3 scout start to explore well as luxes AIs & CSes need to found quickly on this map I think to choose expansion spots, allies, & conquest paths. Luxes willing, get 2 to 3 expansion cities out ASAP and see how the AI landscape is looking. Then either try to unit rush and get a win before artillery is needed, snipe a couple AI caps early and turtle to tech better weapons, or turtle until artillery/aircraft.
Hope outlining my thoughts is a help to some, to get people thinking about this one if nothing else.
Haven't played many high level standard land domination games, so this should be fun!
While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.
, but it should be at least sub-200.
