I know. Barbs like to pop onto your luxuries out of nowhere and pillage them. AIs hate you and screw you over as much as they can on this level pretty much. Hang in there! Good luck!
G-Minor XCII
- Thread starter Peets
- Start date
I know. Barbs like to pop onto your luxuries out of nowhere and pillage them. AIs hate you and screw you over as much as they can on this level pretty much. Hang in there! Good luck!
Try to get a lot of money. It helps a lot.
So you can keep buying units.
I mostly try to keep up with science. Use faith to get a lot of money and spam units.
Also, AI isn't that good in strategic fights. Try to use that benifit.
So you can keep buying units.
I mostly try to keep up with science. Use faith to get a lot of money and spam units.
Also, AI isn't that good in strategic fights. Try to use that benifit.
chuckh89
Prince
There is grassland, BUT extremely scarce. My most recent game, I actually founded on a grassland stable, so that I could get Stone Works in the surrounding quarries.
Yes, I always try to select enemy Civs without early unique units, unless it is part of your Strategy (Attilla for example). Seems like a "No Brainer" IMHO...
Which leads me to a question,..Why does everyone normally use Gandhi (India) as a AI Civ? I hate dealing with Indian War Elephants, yet I see India on a majority of the gold metal performances. Curious if they have a unique strategy against them that I am overlooking,...Vadalaz, your a big fan of India...Why?
I remember reading a post that gave expansion "numbers" and other information on AI civs....Where do I find this information?
Cromagnus
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2012
- Messages
- 2,272
My plan for expansion and science is to do neither.
Everything is a trade-off right? The snowball effect can take multiple forms. Early investment in growth, culture & production leads to science. Early investment in units leads to domination. The quicker you can take cities, the less cities there are to take, the less units you face, the less time they have to build walls, the less time they have to fill in the gaps.
Aside from 1-turn worker repair (2 policies + pyramids) Liberty is only worthwhile if you intend to have a lot of cities. Tradition is only worthwhile if you intend to have a high population capital.
If you concede that you don't need more than a few social policies or technologies to win, then virtually all you need to build is units. The faster you build units, the faster you take cities, and thus the faster you win.
So, if you want a super-fast finish, play it like you only get 3-4 policies. Assume you won't even get past medieval techs. Plan your tech order around the things that immediately benefit early conquest. Now, Poland changes things a bit. You're going to get enough policies to complete a tree, or to go hybrid and partly invest in two trees.
So, you can get real creative. Maximize your production, gold, and unit count. Don't be afraid to be running with a negative economy, or negative happiness, or a -70% production penalty from being over the unit cap.
But, above all remember my rule of thumb for domination:
Movement rate is *everything*!
Bleidraner
King
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 640
T172 win. Many mistakes but I understand now what I need to do. It's like the lower level rushes but substitute archers for CBs and CBs for Xbows. Full liberty with 3 in Honor, patronage opener and 3 in Commerce. There were a couple more policies as I played so many turns, but mostly irrelevant.
More later, have to rush.
Opened Liberty then opened Honor. Finished Liberty tree. Put 3 in Commerce, to have cheap roads and rush buy cheaply. Science wise I just beelined Machinery, just detouring for luxes and essential stuff like Iron and so on.
1st army captured Delhi with CBs, and Mecca on t90, 2nd army captured Addis Abbeba on t88, also CBs. Machinery on t100, and everybody upgraded as I had been saving money (that came from peace deals and a little of tribute from CSs). Lisbon fell to 1st army on t114 with Xbows. After that it was slow going, as the right side of the map was full of choke points and hills. Second army went on to conquer Marrakesh, but stalled a little and had to be helped by rush bought landsknechts. My warmonger, Mongolia, fell to first army after a long battle, followed by a great peace deal, and I thought hey I am going to beat Vadalaz, then realized that one of Mongolia's cities was on my way to Venice and the detour was huge, so DoW him again, razed the city and passed through, but wasted many turns.
Lost a couple of Xbows at a time when it mattered by being impatient and did not explore well the East end of the map, so I did not plan my late campaign properly. Lost at least 20 turns in different mistakes. I will try again. I think Vadalaz 158 is a good result, but with the competition I am seeing here I think winner will be around 145. Not sure whether I can finish around 150, but hell I will try HARD, so prepare for competition.
Happiness is probably the biggest problem as there is very little variety in luxuries in the whole map. Nobody seemed inclined to take my bribes, not even Mongolia, but I finally managed to get him to DoW a couple AIs but it was late in the game. It helped a little though.
HOF Staff: Tried to play through in one session as I usually do, but had a crash on t80. I took a screenshot of the crash report and then loaded the last autosave (80), replayed the few unit moves I had done on that turn and remembered them exactly, so no issues. I have kept all of the 172 autosaves anyway.
More later, have to rush.
Spoiler :
Opened Liberty then opened Honor. Finished Liberty tree. Put 3 in Commerce, to have cheap roads and rush buy cheaply. Science wise I just beelined Machinery, just detouring for luxes and essential stuff like Iron and so on.
1st army captured Delhi with CBs, and Mecca on t90, 2nd army captured Addis Abbeba on t88, also CBs. Machinery on t100, and everybody upgraded as I had been saving money (that came from peace deals and a little of tribute from CSs). Lisbon fell to 1st army on t114 with Xbows. After that it was slow going, as the right side of the map was full of choke points and hills. Second army went on to conquer Marrakesh, but stalled a little and had to be helped by rush bought landsknechts. My warmonger, Mongolia, fell to first army after a long battle, followed by a great peace deal, and I thought hey I am going to beat Vadalaz, then realized that one of Mongolia's cities was on my way to Venice and the detour was huge, so DoW him again, razed the city and passed through, but wasted many turns.
Lost a couple of Xbows at a time when it mattered by being impatient and did not explore well the East end of the map, so I did not plan my late campaign properly. Lost at least 20 turns in different mistakes. I will try again. I think Vadalaz 158 is a good result, but with the competition I am seeing here I think winner will be around 145. Not sure whether I can finish around 150, but hell I will try HARD, so prepare for competition.
Happiness is probably the biggest problem as there is very little variety in luxuries in the whole map. Nobody seemed inclined to take my bribes, not even Mongolia, but I finally managed to get him to DoW a couple AIs but it was late in the game. It helped a little though.
HOF Staff: Tried to play through in one session as I usually do, but had a crash on t80. I took a screenshot of the crash report and then loaded the last autosave (80), replayed the few unit moves I had done on that turn and remembered them exactly, so no issues. I have kept all of the 172 autosaves anyway.
Bleidraner
King
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 640
My plan for expansion and science is to do neither.
Everything is a trade-off right? The snowball effect can take multiple forms. Early investment in growth, culture & production leads to science. Early investment in units leads to domination. The quicker you can take cities, the less cities there are to take, the less units you face, the less time they have to build walls, the less time they have to fill in the gaps.
Aside from 1-turn worker repair (2 policies + pyramids) Liberty is only worthwhile if you intend to have a lot of cities. Tradition is only worthwhile if you intend to have a high population capital.
If you concede that you don't need more than a few social policies or technologies to win, then virtually all you need to build is units. The faster you build units, the faster you take cities, and thus the faster you win.
So, if you want a super-fast finish, play it like you only get 3-4 policies. Assume you won't even get past medieval techs. Plan your tech order around the things that immediately benefit early conquest. Now, Poland changes things a bit. You're going to get enough policies to complete a tree, or to go hybrid and partly invest in two trees.
So, you can get real creative. Maximize your production, gold, and unit count. Don't be afraid to be running with a negative economy, or negative happiness, or a -70% production penalty from being over the unit cap.
But, above all remember my rule of thumb for domination:
Movement rate is *everything*!
I think Liberty is essential for fast win turn, as a great man I know once said "movement rate is everything"
and in this horses poor map the Liberty/Pyramids super workers can build really fast roads. Anyway, it will be interesting to see the different approaches.Bleidraner, can you send a crash report?
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ5/rules.php?show=crashes
http://i.imgur.com/Hm6la2R.png
Bleidraner
King
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 640
Done. Thank you Peets.
Bleidraner
King
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 640
Not sure why Vadalaz chooses them, but I always chose India as they are extremely peaceful, very likely to DoF reaaally soon (so before you start conquering cities, that's early money) and you can trade with them to make their gpt zero so they don 't tend to build many units and they always play tall and they are likely to go Piety, which helps to get Pyramids. Once you get to machinery War Elephants are not an issue and if the spawn next to you they you can conquer them with CBs and 1 spearman before they get more than 1-2 war elephants, which you can lure with a worker.
Cromagnus
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2012
- Messages
- 2,272
I use India as an opponent when I want someone who won't found a lot of cities or spawn a lot of units. But yes, his elephants are among the more annoying UUs to face, depending on when you execute your domination, and he can sometimes go wonder-whoring, which will often interfere with my strategy, unless, for example, I'm going for mid to late-game conquest, and *want* someone else to build my wonders for me.
To tell you the truth I have never played as many domination games as I do now, so I'm still trying to figure out my perfect opponent list. Right now I'm choosing mostly peaceful AIs with low expansion bias, so there are less units and cities to click through. I want to experiment some more with the aggressive civs now though, as Attila proved to be a valuable asset last time...
Gandhi's elephants are annoying yes.
Gandhi's elephants are annoying yes.
Bleidraner
King
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 640
Yes extremely annoying, those elephants.
Just had another crash. Fortunately really early at t30, so I will just reroll another map. This is the first time in months that I crash twice in 24 hours with a standard size map and before t100. Must be the Boreal map or something.
Just had another crash. Fortunately really early at t30, so I will just reroll another map. This is the first time in months that I crash twice in 24 hours with a standard size map and before t100. Must be the Boreal map or something.
Yes, I was going to amend my earlier statement. I actually got 1 grassland hex on the entire map in my 2nd try. A veritable Garden of Eden!
I'm not a big fan of Gandhi mostly for the reasons Cromagnus stated. Only games he's good for are domination games where you need to squash civs really early. Even then, I find he likes to get his first 1 or 2 expansion cities just as fast or faster than other civs before turtling. He's a royal pain with the wonders and culture if you are not careful in longer games.
Peets already posted the gif to print out or for when you're offline, but here is a link to an Interactive Version that you can click on to sort values. It is easier to read as well as the civ names stay fixed at top when you scroll. Hope it's helpful!
Bleidraner
King
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 640
Ah and talking about India, let's not forget how nuke happy he is. Its a riot to find yourself playing a tall science game and find a nuke up your rear. Ghandi!
chuckh89
Prince
My games only crash when I have an awesome game going! The AI and my CPU are clearly in cahoots together, it is their fail safe defense to make sure I don't achieve Gauntlet medals
Thanks for the earlier responses guys.....I learned a lot,...Thanks Zenmaster/Peets,...That AI Intereractive Bias Chart is a great tool.
Tried a pure Honor game, it was pretty fun at first but I quit when I saw the map had some really annoying chokepoints. The AIs teched much faster without Attila bullying them as well...
I think Honor can work very well on a friendly map. The -33% upgrade cost is great, I upgraded 12 archers into CBs in the early t60s and took the first 3 caps very quickly... I wonder if raging barbs would slow the AIs down as much as Attila does? I'll probably regret trying, cos barb horsemen can be a nightmare, but who knows.
I think Honor can work very well on a friendly map. The -33% upgrade cost is great, I upgraded 12 archers into CBs in the early t60s and took the first 3 caps very quickly... I wonder if raging barbs would slow the AIs down as much as Attila does? I'll probably regret trying, cos barb horsemen can be a nightmare, but who knows.
Bleidraner
King
- Joined
- May 23, 2014
- Messages
- 640
Tried a pure Honor game, it was pretty fun at first but I quit when I saw the map had some really annoying chokepoints. The AIs teched much faster without Attila bullying them as well...
I think Honor can work very well on a friendly map. The -33% upgrade cost is great, I upgraded 12 archers into CBs in the early t60s and took the first 3 caps very quickly... I wonder if raging barbs would slow the AIs down as much as Attila does? I'll probably regret trying, cos barb horsemen can be a nightmare, but who knows.
Just tried pure honor myself, quit when I realized I was not going to beat your turn time and barely my own finish time, works well but not as good as liberty. IMO, there are 2 policies in honor that are next to useless and one that is only partially useful in a quick domination games:
- useless: you have plenty of great generals, you only train 4-5 mele units in total (not counting scouts), combat strength for melee not very useful as you don't really have many of those
- half useful: happiness and culture, you get more from patronage opener
- useful: quick promotion, honor opener for culture and some early gold and barb quests, and cheap upgrades, but if you are warring well you have plenty of gold from pillage.
2 Honor/full liberty, 2 in commerce mix I think is the way to go, and the policy order essential. All 5 liberty policies are great, and the closer is awesome, while putting just 3 in honor gets rid of the most useless ones, and landknechts are just great to get you out of trouble in the end game.
I will beg to differ on the uselessness of any honor policies in any quick domination game. The Great General policy, like several other seemingly underpowered social policies, is mainly useful for WHEN you get him. Assuming you go left side first to get quick promotions ASAP, you will have a Great General for your first conquest, which can possibly speed you up/save a little damage thus getting you to your next conquest quicker in a snowball effect. Extraneous Great Generals are great for grabbing luxuries on cities' outer edges with citadels. The melee unit production bonus is huge in naval conquest games for building triremes and still provides a benefit in land games. In concert with the Garrisons policy, it is nice to build cheaper spearmen/pikemen to garrison conquest cities in high level games as opposed to scouts which cannot defend against raiding barbarians. (Like in this challenge) Also, if you are horsestarved especially, having at least 2 melee units per army is great for a few reasons: using the melee adjacency policy bonus, having a failsafe in case you screw up and get a melee unit killed, and letting the army push forward at speed without needing to wait for a melee unit to heal.
Also the "half useful" garrison policy is a sure thing vs a Patronage opener which is dependent on getting the right CSes and quests. Those quests also take your units away from the conquest path often which slows you down. The garrisons are not so much a must have policy but a real nice policy on the way to cheaper upgrades and gold for kills!
All that being said, I will agree that Honor is not filled with all extremely useful policies like Liberty is. If you want your own expansion along with conquest, Liberty is the way to go. On this gauntlet I did go full Liberty before going into Honor, for the expansion and the Great Scientist to get to Machinery faster as I only built a library in my capital. Couldn't even justify an early Honor starter like you did as I felt I couldn't delay that GS and I was AI conquest focused early on, pretty much ignoring barbs.
I must say that your dipping into Commerce was inspired. How did the Landsknechts come into play for you?
Given the roads you ideally build in this gauntlet and the units you have to support, those Commerce policies are super useful here. Very cool if you have the Culture to get them.
Building all those roads and managing all those conquests a few times has sapped my will to try this one again. I may try again in a few days using your policy choices to see if I can better my time as your plan seems great. I have been culture starved in my games so far so I will see how your SP order goes.
Thanks for sharing your experience; Good luck on your attempts!
I'll agree this policy is better than it seems at first, especially as Poland. You get a free policy when you grab Construction, which is a really good timing for the free Great General, since that's when you want to start your real attacks anyway. Ideally it will be your second GG, so that both armies have one immediately. Training the archers on a CS (or a neighbour) as you tech to Construction plus barb hunting could allow you get the needed XP in time. I didn't think of shooting a CS in my first Honor game but I'll definitely try it next time.
edit: barb xp doesn't seem to count toward GG progress. Odd, I was sure it did... it definitely did in some of my previous games. Oh well.
edit2: seem like XP from ranged attacks on barbs does count, but melee doesn't.
