G-Minor XCII

[zenmaster]

To those trying to get in a game at the 11th hour, here are some Heathen Conversion observations.

Generating your own prodigious faith is super important not so much for getting missionaries out fast but for cash flow. Fast initial missionaries actually cramp your army a bit if you go converting full scale immediately. You are getting generally crappy units and your unit limit penalty balloons to 70% quickly such that composite bowman/chariot production crawls to a stop. Big faith (I'm getting 14-18 a turn) shines when you can get a missionary every 8 turns and send him to perform Initiation Rites for 100 gold a pop. That solves your deficit issues long enough to win. Gems and Tears of the Gods trumps faith wonders even, I think, for faith production in this one. Gems generally come in clusters, give you good production, great gold, and even food if unimproved on a forest. All good things you need asap.

As for Follower beliefs, I went Shrines for +1 happiness and then Holy Warriors. Big faith actually makes a late game unit faith purchase or two viable if needed. In the other Heathen conversion game my faith generation was poor, so I skipped Holy Warriors for +1 food for Shrines as to eke out a bit more production. As Vadalaz mentioned, other Follower beliefs are nigh useless for this one. Your cities should all have shrines, and most captured capitals do as well. I generally tried to kill all weak barb units and strong ones not near my missionaries. The Honor opener can hopefully give you enough culture from those kills to finish Piety quickly enough to nab the missionary 30% discount enhancer. Paying 110 for missionaries as opposed to 160 is huge! That's also why I would NOT choose big religious AI civs in this gauntlet, unlike Chuck. They love that 30% discount to spam their own missionaries. While you can steal missionaries for conversion purposes, you need your own for Initiation Rites cash.

If you are min-maxing like a fiend, warriors generate 5 gold when you delete them in your own territory(other units pay more). If you convert them close enough to a city it pays to move them there before deleting. They also have served me as short term scouts when I convert them in the unexplored hinterlands. Don't forget for those CSes you killed a barb camp for, you can gain/regain/retain an alliance with them by gifting units.

Hopefully a few helpful tidbits from my tries here. No time to write them up now, but I will do short ones soon.

 

[zenmaster]

Let me review the thread and get my save games from that gauntlet. I knew nothing back then so I may have been wrong. What is true is that in small the diplo calculation is slightly off so if you do nothing, you have to get all three. I will need 24 hours to check.

Sorry to trouble you; take your time. It's just that getting up the gumption to play a Marathon Boreal game may be a fleeting thing-- I fear I may lose my resolve if I don't start relatively soon!!

 

[Bleidraner]

Sorry to trouble you; take your time. It's just that getting up the gumption to play a Marathon Boreal game may be a fleeting thing-- I fear I may lose my resolve if I don't start relatively soon!!

Not a problem. And yes Boreal Marathon, the things we do for work. Oh...wait a minute...

Not gonna make it on time for this gauntlet, need to learn a lot more about HC and high level domination, so no medal this time, but lots of learning!

 

[Cromagnus]

As is the usual (it seems) these days, I'm going to end up playing this after the Gauntlet expires. I should just stop focusing on the VVV and do the gauntlets, because I end up doing them all anyway, but too late, so without getting a chance at medals...

But I digress. Point being, I just rolled up a quick map to reacquaint myself with Boreal, Immortal and Poland.

Here's how it went:
* Picked a spot with 2 forested deer, settled on gems,
* opened Honor, then opened Liberty to the free settler
* spawned 2 scouts, a monument and and two archers
* planted the free settler on 4 horses on t35, (thanks culture ruin x2!)
* Spent the money I'd saved from meeting CS/etc. on 2 chariot archers, built 1 more, bought 1 more by selling my gems on t40.

4 horse archers by t44. First capital down by t50, spawned another tank and 2 more scout. 3 scouts out scouting, 3 archers defending territory and killing barbs until I finish construction on ~t65.

Unfortunately, I didn't scout effectively, (ignoring my own advice!) so I'm scrapping this run. I sent my whole force in one direction, and it turned out to be a mountainous dead end.

Point of all this being, I think if anyone out there is having trouble with t120ish finish times, they need to focus on "First capital down by t50"... This is how you get the ball rolling. If you can just get that part to work, everything starts to feel *much* easier after that. But scouting is paramount. I think 4 scouts is necessary for fast finish times. (barring heathen conversion, which totally changes everything)

And yes, chariot archers are still the key, even on Boreal. Unless you find Mt Kili, they're slightly stronger archers on mountain/forest, and waaaaay better everywhere else. I think a plain composite bow rush is going to take 120 turns or more due to map size. (Barring ideal map layout) Even if only half the tiles you move through are flatland, you're still moving 1.5x faster with chariot archers... If you handle everything else right, it's a simple math equation. You can't move fast enough to finish as fast. (without chariot archers)

 

[Cromagnus]

Oh, and regarding HOF finish times... for every entry you see in the HOF there are many more that weren't entered in the HOF. There's game of the month, games where a few turns were reloaded, etc. Just because you only see that one t111 entry doesn't mean all that much. In my case, it's because I hardly submit any domination games anymore because I'm working on VVV and my domination score is capped.

So it's not because those kinds of finish times are rare. On that note, if I recall, klaskeren pulled off a sub-t100 deity domination pangaea run using OCC which he never submitted, but there's a video of it.

Anyway, just saying that the HOF has a ton of gaps in it. Especially in Deity and Immortal, because most HOF games are gauntlet entries, and gauntlets are rarely done at that difficulty level.

 

[Bleidraner]

Oh, and regarding HOF finish times... for every entry you see in the HOF there are many more that weren't entered in the HOF. There's game of the month, games where a few turns were reloaded, etc. Just because you only see that one t111 entry doesn't mean all that much. In my case, it's because I hardly submit any domination games anymore because I'm working on VVV and my domination score is capped.

So it's not because those kinds of finish times are rare. On that note, if I recall, klaskeren pulled off a sub-t100 deity domination pangaea run using OCC which he never submitted, but there's a video of it.

Anyway, just saying that the HOF has a ton of gaps in it. Especially in Deity and Immortal, because most HOF games are gauntlet entries, and gauntlets are rarely done at that difficulty level.

I agree. I am fairly new to this, and only a middling to good domination player (now, used to be terrible) but not on your or Vadalaz's league, or Glory7 or Acken. When I finished the 152, which will not even medal this gauntlet, I checked the HOF and was amazed there were only 6-7 faster games in the HOF between Immortal and Deity. Something seriously wrong there, considering how long HOF has been going on now and the quality of some of the players. Really weird. And it is a pity, as it could be a useful tool if it had more data, to benchmark and help you pick/discard strategies - you are not going to go for an arty domination if the turn time you are trying to hit is in the 140s.

As for the build CAs first strategy, i have tried it a couple of times in this gauntlet and the problem I am encountering, apart from the fact that some of the maps do not lend themselves to it, is that there is no good promotion path, and you cannot take the 4 caps you need to take with this army just with CAs, as the moment you encounter a 23 defense city with 2-3 CBs and a couple of swordsmen, which happens around t70-75, 3rd cap for this army, it takes 10-12 excruciating turns to take the city, between stealing the worker (your own cannot keep up), then positioning the army and after that worker baiting the units out one by one.

My most successful attempt, a t143 that I could not bring myself to submit as I had 3 crashes (by the way, thank you, the moment I stopped tabbing in and out it, the crashes stopped) was with first army CBs + 1CA which I used to help scout, second army 2CBs + CAs, which gave me time to send CBs, melee and workers ahead of it, as the CAs had no problem catching up. Of course the map Gods smiled on me, or at least they did not frown, which seems to be the best that you can expect in Boreal.

I have no experience in early domination in Immortal or Deity, all my domination wins are arty wins at that level (well now that's not the case any longer at immortal), so I cannot compare, but this map feels to me as if it is adding at least 15 turns to pangea times, due to map size and terrain.

 

[zenmaster]

My 2 Heathen Conversion games finished T136 then T124. Better faith trumped better culture and map. The 124 could have been faster with better map. Given Vadalaz hit 120 on his 2nd try, I'd wager a very good AI/map setup could see times 110 or under.

Quick recaps:
T136 --

Religion: Gold/Silver Pantheon. Faith was slow. Missionaries were late. Beliefs: Initiation Rites, Shrines +1 happiness, Feed the World, Some lame enhancer belief because 30% off missionaries had been nabbed.

SP: Full Piety with a sidestep for Honor Opener early on. After Piety, went Great General and got +50% XP near the very end.

Conquest: 3 AIs spawned really lose including the Huns. Other 2 gave me trade routes; I attacked Atilla as soon as manageable. With only 2 cities he still had approximately a zillion units to wade through before conquest. That slowed me down at least 5-10 turns, maybe more considering the snowball effect. Sent that army westward and milked the trade routes while building army #2. Army 1 destroyed central Ai civ leaving far NW and far SW civ for Army 1 to take. While Army 2 mopped up the 2 nearby civs, Army 1 headed NW while the plan was to send all the converted Heathens SW. Spared 1 Composites from Army 1 to head south; Got a gift Heathen Conversion of 3 Composite Bowmen up North, so split a few more Comp Bowmen down south a bit later.
Last to fall was that SW city. Was suiciding with horsemen, archering it, etc. It was Venice with a 34 defense and a composite bowmen. Wore it down by weight of 2numbers and finished it when last bowmen arrived from the North. T136.

T124:

Religion: Similar to above except Pantheon was Tears of God, so Faith was much better. Also chose Holy Warriors as 2nd follower belief and actually faith-bought 2 chariot archers late and a composite bowman when there were rebels in a brief window of unhappiness. Bought a bunch of missionaries at 110 with 30% discount enhancer belief. Made at least 1000 gold off them from Initiation Rites and converted the heck out of the whole map.

SP: same as above

Conquest. Very early conquest of Maria Theresa who had made early GLibrary. Didn't hurt. Army 1 traveled west again while the eventual army 2 headed east. Sweden actually built Statue of Zeus this game so it was a nice bonus when I conquered its cap out west. Was going to do that 2nd but Sweden asked to fight Ethiopia who was way out west so I held off and nabbed the isolated Venice way up in the NW in an ice plain first. Then down to Sweden. Easetern army took out central Portugal and then had to root out Holland and Morocco hiding behind a long mountain range.

What could have gone better? Could have beat Vadalaz' 120 with a slightly nicer map but had to cross sea and hills to get from Sweden to Ethiopia which was the last to fall. Holland was a pain also as it had expansion cities surrounding it and a mountain range to boot. And the Great Wall! Actually slogged through that and got to Morocco first (conquered on T119) while the Western army was traveling great hilly distances to get to Sweden and then across the small sea to Ethiopia. The only capital that chariot archers would have made faster was from Austria to Venice-- The rest? Had to cross 3 rivers to get to nearest one, Austria. Had to go through forest to get to Portugal. Forest, then Mountain pass and fight through expo city to Holland. Fight through Holland to get to Morocco. Mountain pass with 2 rivers between Venice and Sweden, Small sea, expo city, and river between Sweden and Ethiopia; Chariots may seriously not have saved me any time, as my warrior would still have had to foot it to Venice that early before converting much.

In our small sample size, Heathen conversion seems more reliable on this map than trying a "standard" conquest with these specific settings. I'm not gainsaying Cromagnus' assertion that he or others can pull off a sub-110 chariot archer fueled win on this map. With infinite map rerolls, varying AI configs and behavior and great player skill, I don't say anything is impossible, just more improbable than it is made out to be sometimes. I am saying that if you are playing with HoF rules, your time is better served trying to engineer a Heathen conversion win with these settings, especially if you are doing it in the gauntlet time window. Without the greatest of setups or much experience, times in the T120 range are happening with heathen conversion as opposed to what good players are doing with more standard conquest modes with these settings. I think a very good map setup and skillful play can definitely go under 110 with Heathen conversion. I look forward to see how well Cromagnus can get his chariot rush to work on this. I have no doubt that he can, but the question is how much time will it take? Cromagnus' advice has been awesome as always, and the best part is that he leaves you with something interesting to think about after every post.

Congrats to Vadalaz on a great T120 finish!

 

[Denniz]

Gauntlet Results:
G-Minor XCII - Domination, Immortal, Standard, Boreal, Standard, Poland (Casimir III)

1st vadalaz - 125 AD T-120

2nd zenmaster - 225 AD T-124

3rd benzol23 - 580 AD T-139

Congratulations!

 

[Bleidraner]

Congratulations Vadalaz, Zenmaster, Benzol! Fantastic finish times. I still have a lot to learn, so much fun!

 

[Bleidraner]

This post is very slightly on-topic as it is about a former Boreal gauntlet I mentioned in a previous post(Persia Marathon Small Diplomacy) A milestone game as it featured Bleidraner's first forum posts (and 1st gauntlet submission?) Congrats on his hard earned silver medal! I would necro that thread and ask there but my Tapatalk cannot get to that thread somehow and I won't be home for a long time.

To Bleidraner (or anyone else versed in small map Diplomacy games) I followed that thread and saw how the World Congress vote on small and tiny maps is screwed up a bit, requiring Forbodden Palace, World Religion AND World Ideology to get the needed votes to become World Leader after 2 sessions. Bleidraner claimed that Venice annexing City-States actually helps get the needed vote total without World Ideology -- In standard games Venice annexing CSes hurts your ability to get needed votes; does it really help you in Small maps? I can't even start my game without knowing whether or not I need Venice in it...

@Zenmaster: I checked my save games and the thread, apologies it took so long. Yes the count is off for small, you need 35 votes, 24CS+2host+4membership+2forbidden palace+2World Ideology =34, you are one short and thus you also need World religion. As for my comment about Enrico, I think I did not know what I was talking about. It is true that with 2 CSs taken out of the game by Enrico, the count needed to win was 32, but that actually almost makes it worse and not better. So no need for Enrico, in fact should avoid him
Knowing what I know now, that gauntlet is perfectly winnable, even Thorak's time is relatively easy to beat. You just need a LOT of patience and hope hat the Tradition nerf from the patch does not affect the tech rate too much.

 

[Cromagnus]

@Zenmaster: I checked my save games and the thread, apologies it took so long. Yes the count is off for small, you need 35 votes, 24CS+2host+4membership+2forbidden palace+2World Ideology =34, you are one short and thus you also need World religion. As for my comment about Enrico, I think I did not know what I was talking about. It is true that with 2 CSs taken out of the game by Enrico, the count needed to win was 32, but that actually almost makes it worse and not better. So no need for Enrico, in fact should avoid him
Knowing what I know now, that gauntlet is perfectly winnable, even Thorak's time is relatively easy to beat. You just need a LOT of patience and hope hat the Tradition nerf from the patch does not affect the tech rate too much.

If you're playing AS Venice, the needed votes should be reduced by 2 per CS you acquire. Otherwise, Venice is quite nerfed for Diplomatic Victory. But yeah, I generally avoid putting Venice in my diplo games on any ocean maps or difficulty levels > warlord. And I never put Austria in my games. It makes the game unnecessarily hard. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, is always a good thing for recapturing the CS he conquers. However, this can still bite you... when suddenly you're at negative happiness because he conquered a CS that was giving you +11 happiness... and you need open borders treaties to even recapture... Not that this has ever happened to me.

 

[zenmaster]

@Zenmaster: I checked my save games and the thread, apologies it took so long. Yes the count is off for small, you need 35 votes, 24CS+2host+4membership+2forbidden palace+2World Ideology =34, you are one short and thus you also need World religion. As for my comment about Enrico, I think I did not know what I was talking about. It is true that with 2 CSs taken out of the game by Enrico, the count needed to win was 32, but that actually almost makes it worse and not better. So no need for Enrico, in fact should avoid him
Knowing what I know now, that gauntlet is perfectly winnable, even Thorak's time is relatively easy to beat. You just need a LOT of patience and hope hat the Tradition nerf from the patch does not affect the tech rate too much.

Thanks so much for your time and hard-won expertise!

You are more sanguine about the prospects of beating Thorak's time than I am -- The growth-averse nature of the Boreal map and the probable lack of cargo ships seem to make tough sledding. I think conquest will not be hard nor science once the ball really gets rolling, but the tricky part will be getting to Printing Press in a timely manner and keeping growth/science up while diverting a lot of early resources to CSes as you MUST win those votes... Will give it a go soon. Many thanks again!

 

[zenmaster]

If you're playing AS Venice, the needed votes should be reduced by 2 per CS you acquire. Otherwise, Venice is quite nerfed for Diplomatic Victory. But yeah, I generally avoid putting Venice in my diplo games on any ocean maps or difficulty levels > warlord. And I never put Austria in my games. It makes the game unnecessarily hard. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, is always a good thing for recapturing the CS he conquers. However, this can still bite you... when suddenly you're at negative happiness because he conquered a CS that was giving you +11 happiness... and you need open borders treaties to even recapture... Not that this has ever happened to me.

Gracias. I knew this was true for standard maps and up, but didn't know if Venice/Austria worked the same with the somewhat screwed up vote tallies needed in Small and Tiny maps. Genghis and Attila can be great helps in achieving your goals, but both can bite you when you least expect it sometimes too .

 

[Cromagnus]

Gracias. I knew this was true for standard maps and up, but didn't know if Venice/Austria worked the same with the somewhat screwed up vote tallies needed in Small and Tiny maps. Genghis and Attila can be great helps in achieving your goals, but both can bite you when you least expect it sometimes too .

I'm not saying that's how it works, actually. I'm just saying it *should* work that way. I don't think it actually does. I seem to recall it only reducing the needed votes by one even when you play as Venice. On Standard maps, that means you can only afford to capture 2 CS if you want to finish in one cycle. IMHO this is an oversight in the design of Diplomatic Victory. Venice can "ruin it for everyone else", which was probably not the intention of the "You can't liberate CS that Venice puppets" rule.

 

[Cromagnus]

Well, after two domination attempts that both went past t120, I have to concede that it just takes too long to get your melee units across a Boreal map. Too long to medal anyway. Both of those games were winnable, but even with two 4 chariot archer armies, it takes too long to get spearmen across a map. I might change my tech order to prioritize horseback riding sooner, because obviously horsemen do help, but then you're facing spearmen and pikemen with only horse units.

So, I decided to give Honor/Piety mix a try. 1 pt Honor, 4 pts Piety, then +15% to adjacent in Honor. First roll was crap. The second didn't have enough horses, but otherwise was too juicy to pass up. (salt + kilimanjaro ftw) So, I rolled with it. T120 exactly. I came one ranged attack shy of capturing Venice on t119. Sigh lol. But, wow, even more broken than I thought.

I have a few ideas about how to improve the time. For one thing, I made the mistake of converting too many weak barbs too soon, crippling my economy. For another, I should have been leaving camps alive near my enemies. I ended up clearing some camps that I could have used for support. It's all about having the right units in the right place at the right time. But, I hate Boreal, so I probably won't make another attempt.

Oh, and major luck in this game. I captured Delhi (which was surrounded by hills) on the same turn Gandhi completed Great Wall.

 

[Cromagnus]

Side note: I just tried a Piety game on Large/King/Lakes, but got horses so fielded a chariot archer army. By the time I got a missionary (t75ish) I had like 6 capitals. I ended up winning t101 before any of my converted army could reach the front. (Because my missionary was playing catch up)

The key difference in this game was that I was *very* careful about troop movements. I sent melee units towards the far-away capitals many turns ahead, so that they would have a head start. With a little luck and great timing, I think you can outperform Heathen Conversion, mainly because there's a conflict in the build queue. If you just pour out units, I think you can get better results. Depends on the map. So, take my previous comments with a grain of salt. Pure Honor Chariot Archer rush may still be faster if you play it perfectly.

 

[zenmaster]

Side note: I just tried a Piety game on Large/King/Lakes, but got horses so fielded a chariot archer army. By the time I got a missionary (t75ish) I had like 6 capitals. I ended up winning t101 before any of my converted army could reach the front. (Because my missionary was playing catch up)

The key difference in this game was that I was *very* careful about troop movements. I sent melee units towards the far-away capitals many turns ahead, so that they would have a head start. With a little luck and great timing, I think you can outperform Heathen Conversion, mainly because there's a conflict in the build queue. If you just pour out units, I think you can get better results. Depends on the map. So, take my previous comments with a grain of salt. Pure Honor Chariot Archer rush may still be faster if you play it perfectly.

Nice game on the Lakes! On Lakes, I think you are 100% right, but I still think Boreal maps are a different beast altogether .

 

[Cromagnus]

Nice game on the Lakes! On Lakes, I think you are 100% right, but I still think Boreal maps are a different beast altogether .

Ok, you're right. I think Large Lakes is roughly the same size as Standard Boreal, but I forgot one major reason why Lakes is faster: It wraps.