G-Minor XCV

[Peets]

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.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!​

Settings:

• Expansion: Brave New World
• Victory Condition: Culture (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Immortal
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Tilted Axis
• Speed: Quick
• Leader: Aztec (Montezuma)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: SV8
• Date: 15th February to 1st March 2015

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

 

[chuckh89]

I would assume "Sacred Sites",...Vadalaz Strategy would probably be wishful thinking on Immortal.

Lets's give it a whirl,...

 

[Bleidraner]

I will go for SS too.

 

[Cromagnus]

I will go for SS too.

I probably won't have time to play this one. (I can only really attempt one gauntlet/update nowadays)

But, if I were to play, I would think that warlike Liberty bomb could outperform SS.

Montezuma is great at culture generation though, so SS could kick in early.

The problem really is Tilted Axis is a horribly random map type. (I hate it only slightly less than Shuffle)

You can end up on your own continent by yourself, or you might have a polar bridge to all your opponents. My last game on this map was diplo if I recall, and there were 3 continents.

So, the problem, as I see it, on Immortal, is that if you need to cross ocean to even meet your opponents, SS isn't going to work very well.

Liberty bomb, however, has a great chance of working, because conquest is reliable, even if it takes you 150 turns to eliminate the competition, and then boom, gift a capital to Alexander and you're done. (So I hear)

Of course, the medal times will be the people who re-roll until they get a connected continent probably. (Or at least shallow waters for scout+optics)

But, that's a lot of re-rolling. So I'd favor liberty bomb. Yes, it might take multiple musicians on Immortal even if you eliminate someone by t50, but an Acoustics beeline + liberty could give you 3 musicians by t150.

I just don't see SS influencing opponents fast enough if you need Astronomy to meet them.

But, again, like I said, re-rolls.

 

[Manpanzee]

I'm trying for combination Domination/Sacred Sites. Conquering the world while completing Piety, basically. I'm hoping to clear the map with Crossbows, but Tilted Axis seems really unfriendly. Large map, and I think I might have unconnected land even though I chose "Pangaea" landmass. It might just be the wrong map, but I'm in deep enough that I want to see what happens.

For policies, I'm trying top-row Liberty then full Piety. A little bit of Composite Bow fighting, but basically trying to do everything with Crossbows + JagSwordsman.

 

[Bleidraner]

@Cromagnus: in Tilted Axis you can choose landmass. I will choose Pangea. I think SS will work, it usually works if you can meet everybody before t120 or so on Standard, 80 on Quick. It will be a tough SS, filling Piety will be easy with Aztecs, the challenge here will be getting the right religion (i.e.2 faith buildings), and of course city spamming without the other guys getting pissed off. A faith wonder will solve the religion challenge, the other, will be tough. I am leaning towards killing my neighbor and then SS.

The total domination strategy with Vadalaz's liberty bomb, will be very tough and also inferior to SS. Yes it is possible to capture all caps in 150 turns standard, but this is not doing just that but also wiping out every city in the world except 2, which will add at least another 20-30 turns, and also this is quick, which in my opinion makes conquest tougher, as movement rate stays the same. So wiping the map will take around 180 turns and the same on quick, and I think SS can win in 150.

I am actually tempted to try CV the old fashioned way, airports and hotels, as tech rate and building will be faster on quick, and see if that can be done in 180 turns, which could be a very decent result.

One other advantage with SS on Tilted Axis is that you can spam the last 10-12 cities in the polar region as there is plenty of space, remember for SS you don't need cities to grow past 1.

 

[vadalaz]

SS should work, but I feel like trying a Futurism rush for a change. Liberty bomb is probably the hardest to pull off here, imo it's unlikely to capture an AI capital on Quick/Immortal before they manage to generate 66 tourism. Though you'll be generating some tourism by the time you liberate probably, since AIs will build guilds and Parthenon... hmmm.

 

[dcruze75]

What exactly is the "Liberty Bomb"?

 

[Bleidraner]

What exactly is the "Liberty Bomb"?

Its a pretty cool strategy Vadalaz came up with a few months ago, based on choosing a Great Musician as your Liberty closer Great Person. Basically, you rush your neighbor's capital BEFORE they manage to generate 100 culture (66 on Quick). You make sure you put Alex in the game. You then proceed to wipe out everybody in the map, leaving just 1 city from Alex. Then you gift that puppetted capital to Alex, he will always liberate it (this has been tested), and you use the Great Musician to do a concert tour in the liberated capital, overwhelming them with your tourism (even if you are producing zero tourism, the concert tour will produce 100 tourism, 66 on quick). Now you are influential with the liberated capital, so you conquer Alex's last city in the next couple of turns and voila, culture victory as you are influencial with all the civs left in the game (just one, the one liberated). Extremely difficult to pull off, but when it works, especially in lower difficulties you win a CV as fast as you can dominate the map, usually with a record time.

There was a culture gauntlet a while back where there were plenty of posts about this, if you are interested in more details.

 

[Cromagnus]

Bleidraner, Manpanzee is right, the Pangaea script is broken on Tilted Axis. I have *never* gotten an actual pangaea. The closest I've come is that once I got 3 continents connected by *long* polar land routes. So, you can waste a lot of turns discovering you need Astronomy. /shrug

I agree however that quick makes this more difficult. In fact, a t180 science-based win might be feasible, but winning wonder races on Immortal isn't a given... Hmm.

It's probably a toss-up between domination and Sacred Sites. In the Sweden Inland Sea Gauntlet, that's how I played it. I eliminated everyone but the person with whom I had the most influence (and best influence accrual) and won via Sacred Sites. It would have taken longer to win by pure SS IMHO. Culture bomb seals the deal on this, so a combo might be a good approach.

Futurism takes too long. By the time you get it, 250 is a drop in the bucket and it doesn't count towards your musician bomb strength. I've wasted a lot of time trying to make that work. ;-)

Just my opinion though.

 

[Manpanzee]

Yeah, I think this map type is no-bueno for Crossbow domination. The map is huge AND has ugly terrain AND isn't actually Pangaea. And it's quick speed. Sacred Sites + Artillery might be viable, maybe with some Futurism mixed in. If you beeline Industrialization to set up a purchasing combo before Artillery, Futurism only costs a policy.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.

 

[Mesix]

The whole idea behind grouping map types for HOF is so there can be a somewhat level playing field for games which are on the same table. These map types which sometimes produces continents, sometimes Pangaea, and sometimes archipelago seem to not fit the bill IMHO.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

Strangely enough, but there is no single submission at the moment for this Gauntlet. Good chance to win a medal with a "mediocre" attempt

 

[Bleidraner]

Well I come back from hols tomorrrow, hols is dedicated to the family so no civ I have a couple of long flights this week, so I will try to get a submission in. And I will submit my science games for the previous gauntlet (finally!). No good for the gauntlet but will be good for VVV. I also have a promising started map I want to finish, I think I am in t30.

I also would like to go back to the Major and try a warry game for diplo, but not sure I will have time for that.

Cro, i played tilted axis a while back, have not had time to play it this time, played 2 games and my land masses were connected through Ice fields in the north. But you guys may be right. We'll see. Anyway, SS in Immortal is difficult, as not only you need to get a religion, but also the right religion, with the right buildings (pagodas+mosques), and that is tough in Immortal.

 

[vadalaz]

First try at Futurism failed. Need to have a very strong start for it to work and aim for like t100-105 Radio I think. The window of opportunity is quite small - at t100 the AIs had just over 1k culture, at t150 Denmark already had 6k and I could only get 4k tourism by then. I'll try one more time, but reroll for a strong coastal start now. Maybe raging barbs could slow AIs down a bit as well.

 

[Bleidraner]

Yep, I rolled a few maps in my crappy laptop, just to see if the Pangeas are really Pangeas. Well on the third try, I spawned in a 20 tiles island!!!! And with low sea level. That's definitely NOT a Pangea. OK, back to the drawing board.

I have made SS work on continents before, but not at Immortal. I can probably try to get to Astronomy by t80, well lets call that t70 because it is the Aztecs, discover everybody by t110 with a little luck...But to make SS work on small landmass you need to kill somebody, probably 2 somebodies. Ummm. Need to think about this. I really don't know how this will go. Tomorrow, I'll roll a few maps on my the gaming laptop and see what's what.

EDIT: the more I think about, the more I believe that the optimal solution is some sort of warry SS or even all out domination. But I am not a strong player at Immortal and Deity domination, even less so on quick, so I may have to find another way, if there is one. Otherwise, I guess I will have to become good at killing AIs at immortal.

 

[Bleidraner]

I have a question, the 250 to each civ from Futurism is still 250 on Quick, or does it become 166 or whatever? And is the 250 affected by the trade routes, open borders, shared religion tourism modifiers for the individual civs?

 

[vadalaz]

It's still 250 on Quick and isn't affected by any modifiers.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

For me it also looks like SS on immortal is quite difficult... So i will play it as another domination game in my opinion it's better to invest in units which you then can use to conquer wonders and holy religion cities - it's now about fast teching and fast units producing what is espicially important on quicjk speed. Also Raging barbs must have here, bacuase that gives double ammount of culture for every barb - i will try full honor as well.

 

[vadalaz]

Question to HOF staff:

I settled a dumpster city that I gifted to Bismarck and then GM bombed him. Problem is, I forgot to choose production in that city and now I'm stuck on this turn. Is there a way to proceed without reloading? If not, is it okay if I reload the last autosave, do everything the same way I'd done before except choose production in that city and send an email with the saves, similar to a crash report?

Spoiler :