G-Minor XCVII

Peets

Emperor
Hall of Fame Staff
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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: Diplomacy (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
  • Difficulty: Emperor
  • Map Size: Standard
  • Map Type: Lakes
  • Speed: Standard
  • Leader: Assyria (Ashurbanipal)
  • Opponents: Any
  • Version: SV8
  • Date: 16th March to 1st April 2015
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.
 
Lakes is a really good map for fast conquest, and we play as Assyria... Warlike diplo all the way - aiming for a sub-180 game. The biggest challenge will be staying on positive happiness.
 
Lakes is a really good map for fast conquest, and we play as Assyria... Warlike diplo all the way - aiming for a sub-180 game. The biggest challenge will be staying on positive happiness.

I guess raze as soon as you conquer? Keep the cities you need at 1 pop, destroy the rest. Never played Asur, so it will be interesting.
 
Unless a captured city is huge to start with, annexing and razing down is a net happiness loss, and if it's huge enough that it is a net +happiness to raze it down, the sudden unhappiness from annexing could be crippling. Not to mention the turns of anarchy affecting science/culture/etc.

When I do warlike diplo, I have to constantly remind myself to resist the temptation to keep juicy cities. It's almost always counterproductive even if the city has wonders.

There is really only one way to approach warlike diplo IMHO unless you're not concerned with finish time. It may seem like there are multiple paths to victory, but not really.

Approach 1) Multitasking: Your goal is to get maximum beakers, production & growth, while simultaneously eliminating AIs ASAP. This means starting conquest as early as t40-t50.

When approaching it this way, the challenge is that everyone hates you, you can't trade for crap, (except in peace deals) and it's hard to keep the war machine rolling without sacrificing science.

Approach 2) Peaceful with a violent end. You play it totally peaceful until *after* Printing Press, at which point you either rush-buy or upgrade units and rely on tech advantage to wipe out the map in ~30 turns.

The challenge this way is that you now have to capture way more cities, your opponents have higher technology levels, more troops, etc. The advantage on Emperor would be the money you could get from peaceful trades, and the possibility of capturing cities with Universities, etc.

Ultimately though, #2 is a dead end. There just isn't enough time to capture all those cities if you start late. And the turns of anarchy cripple your science if you keep them. If you start capturing when you get Printing Press, you have 1/3 the time to capture almost triple the cities... There are exceptions on certain combinations of difficulty/civ, like settler egypt, but in that case there's no trade benefit to delaying conquest because your opponents research & improve so slowly and have no money. So, in the end, #1 is the only way to go, and therefore the only viable approach is to maximize your unhappiness-to-beakers ratio. Captured cities with Universities aren't going to happen if the world is at war starting at t50. Maybe you'll get lucky and get Chichen Itza, Notre Dame, Petra ToA or something, but most cities, no matter which Wonders, are not worth the cost to your science/happiness to puppet, let alone the cost of annexing.

There are occasional exceptions. Any city you capture before t70-t80 *can* add value, but it better be a great city spot. Remember, ultimately, in the end-game, you need big cities with lots of great tiles, and all your cities need to be adding value by the time you research Printing Press. For a competitive finish, they need to be adding value by the time you get Education.

The exception to this of course is expansive liberty science, but this approach is not *nearly* as viable on Emperor as it is on lower difficulty levels or large/huge maps.

So, really the winning approach is Tradition with 3-4 settled cities, +1-2 additional cities either captured or settled early. (And those extra cities only add value if everything works out perfectly... they can't delay NC, they must have great immediate tiles and long-term potential, etc.)

The key to all this IMHO is Attila. He never liberates, he only keeps cities or razes them. Trading him open borders for a city is pretty much the best way to keep the warpath going. No science/culture/happiness penalties, and you get to heal in his borders. This is pretty much how I've managed all my best diplo victories. Of course there are many other factors, but Attila alone can make a big difference.

I agree with vadalaz, Lakes will make for fast finish times. The real twist here is Emperor+Assyria though. This would *definitely* change my tech path.
 
The key to all this IMHO is Attila. He never liberates, he only keeps cities or razes them. Trading him open borders for a city is pretty much the best way to keep the warpath going. No science/culture/happiness penalties, and you get to heal in his borders. This is pretty much how I've managed all my best diplo victories. Of course there are many other factors, but Attila alone can make a big difference.
When you play like this, what's the correct option to pick when you capture a city before gifting it to Attila, is it raze city? The tech/culture/national wonder cost increase is permanent in case you choose puppet/annex right?
 
@Cro: Thank you for the tips, 70% of my progress in diplo is thanks to the advice you have posted over the last year or so. I echo Vadalaz's question on the mechanics of gifting to Attila.

I have no feel for Asur..., I need to do a test game and see how the free techs affect the pace of the game, also, they will play havoc with the careful diplo calculations. I am kicking that off, will report.

EDIT: Oh the Lakes map wraps!!!! Wow, that makes it a different game!
 
Definitely puppet. If you puppet and then gift, your tech costs will remain the same as they were before capture. Culture is unaffected because you never annexed.

If I recall, annexing permanently raises your *max* city count by one, both for tech and culture costs, and those costs don't go back down if you later gift that city. However, if you then capture another city, they don't go up, because your *max* city count hasn't gone up.

Razing is a weird special case... I don't know the answer to this one, but in general, if you interrupt razing, you pay the culture/tech price of annexing permanently, so I would worry that gifting a city being razed would interrupt the razing process. I can't say because I've never tried. It might *actually be advantageous to do this if it didn't count as annexing though, because you could sell a building first. (Yet another thing to micromanage!) :p

Also, I've never checked the National Wonder costs to see how a puppet->gift affects it. Now I'm curious!

Re: Assyria & Techs - I love Assyria, and I used to play them a lot on Deity, because the free techs the AI get make Assyria's UA ridiculously OP on Deity. You can be #1 in tech by t130 while going full warlike. It's almost absurd. Now, on Emperor it's not so extreme. You'll be #1 in tech by t100, earlier if you roll over opponents quickly, and on Lakes, you can roll *quickly*.

This makes it a little bit harder to manage. You'll end up *not* getting free techs if you're not careful because the AI won't have any. This is the real reason it changes my tech path, more than anything else. Choose your opponents wisely, and choose your techs wisely, and I can't stress this enough: Time your capture of cities with tech completion so you don't get a "free" tech that was 90% researched.

Anyway, Assyria is really fun, I'm glad it's on Emperor. Assyria is nerfed on low difficulty gauntlets. This should be a fun little gauntlet. I do wish it were Deity, because by the time you research Printing Press, the AI won't have *any* techs you don't have, so it can't influence the turn-of-victory nearly as much as it would on Deity. On Deity you could easily beeline PP and then *steal Acoustics/Banking/Architecture and maybe even more, boosting you to an Oxford Sci Theory within 3-4 turns of Printing Press... Like I said, on Deity, Assyria is *ridiculous*. :D
 
Well I just had a quick first peaceful 100 turns try to get familiar with Lakes. Build only one city, sent a couple of scouts out to check the map, and tried to grow it like crazy while wonder whoring, by t80 I had the tech lead (solid not transient). Settled on t4, built monument, granary, shrine, GL, HG, NC, ToA before t80, with 2 wheats, 2 deers, 2 gems, 2 horses, some hills and a mountain and only one city with full tradition the growth and production were amazing, especially after my food from camps pantheon. Sent 3 settlers out and planted by t92, not great spots. Hit Edu 101. Crap game of course that is not going anywhere, as peaceful with small expos is not the way to go, but I seriously have never grown a mountain city so high so fast, it was fun, if I had a river and the expo spots were better I would be tempted to play it out peacefully see what I can get. I will retire it any minute now. Just..one...more...turn...:)

EDIT: i realized after re-reading that my perception of how much fun is to build all that stuff so quickly may be seriously affected by having played like 10 Marathon games in the last 15 days.

Anyway, I must be doing something wrong with the lakes settings, as there are woods and jungles everywhere. I chose Arid and Cold, and small lakes in the settings. Any map setting advice to make conquest faster? Love the fact that the map wraps.
 
What happens to the votes requirement when only 2 civs are left at Atomic? Do you need all the City-States? All the City-States AND Forbidden Palace?

I have a nice run going. 3-city Liberty into Composite Bow + Siege Tower rush. I'm at turn 120, just picked up Secularism, and only have two civs/four cities left to take. Then it'll be only me and Attila til the end of the world. I'm going to have some interesting decisions soon. I have happiness/food/science basically worked out and don't need to build more units. Lots of wonders on the table, and I can actually think about building some. Nice change of pace from Deity.

Im kind of Addicted2Liberty and would be playing it even if was clearly worse than Tradition, but I'm not so sure that Liberty isn't close enough for this type of game. The Pyramids really are sooo great for warmongering. I also like the early Academy, and Representation is nice for tearing through Rationalism.
 
You need 40 votes to win on Standard size. I believe you get 4 from membership, 2 from being the host, 32 from CS and you need 2 more from either Forbidden Palace or World Religion.
 
What happens to the votes requirement when only 2 civs are left at Atomic? Do you need all the City-States? All the City-States AND Forbidden Palace?

I have a nice run going. 3-city Liberty into Composite Bow + Siege Tower rush. I'm at turn 120, just picked up Secularism, and only have two civs/four cities left to take. Then it'll be only me and Attila til the end of the world. I'm going to have some interesting decisions soon. I have happiness/food/science basically worked out and don't need to build more units. Lots of wonders on the table, and I can actually think about building some. Nice change of pace from Deity.

Im kind of Addicted2Liberty and would be playing it even if was clearly worse than Tradition, but I'm not so sure that Liberty isn't close enough for this type of game. The Pyramids really are sooo great for warmongering. I also like the early Academy, and Representation is nice for tearing through Rationalism.

I also like Liberty for warry diplo, same reasons. But I admit that may be because my Tradition play with war is subpar. Peaceful, no problem. My first serious try will be liberty.
 
I don't love Liberty for Science-based games on Prince+, because the happiness/population/science penalty math works out in favor of Tradition. I'm not saying it can't compete, I'm just good enough at maxing out growth that I'm typically happiness-bound. However I do have to admit it simplifies warmongering in the early game, and for a diplo game, the extra production is quite nice, and there's not as much need for a faith-bought engineer. Although it does come in handy... if you have 1000 faith left over after you buy GS, that's a free PT or whatever, and that relieves a lot of pressure in the build queue.

Still, it does create a dilemma. If you do finish Liberty early, which you need for happiness/social policy bonuses to get a GS, you're affecting GS point costs. And you really don't want to plant him*. If you *don't* use him for a GS, now you're further at a disadvantage from tradition, science-wise.

*Exception: If you're super-good at the last 50 turns, and are trying to go for a record time, then planting him might help you achieve Printing Press earlier. But otherwise, you need to save those beakers for *after* Printing Press.

There are a few exceptions I can think of. On the right map, beelining Commerce for Petra and rush-buying with a GE can be incredibly powerful. But without at least one point in Tradition, you're limited by your cultural boundaries and/or the cash you'd spend to expand them. On a water map, a Great Admiral can be key in achieving earlier World Congress.

Not to start a liberty/tradition debate. But I think I'll be playing Straight Tradition for my first try. I'm always tempted by Liberty/Jesuit Education though. ;)
 
Pretty good result for a training run. I'd never actually done the whole "trigger World Leader vote before first congress" thing before. I ended up with two more Great Scientists than I needed, but it's unclear if I could've actually founded Printing Press earlier, since they both spawned in my last two turns before needing to enter the Atomic Era.

My capital was nice but not exactly OP -- just a solid food/hammer city with lots of freshwater. It does seem that tons of irrigated farmland is the key for the capital, given the timing of your science push. My capital's borders were created with the use of Great Generals. Good substitute for the Tradition opener ;)

I'm gonna re-roll for a truly legendary start and see what I can come up with.
 

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Pretty good result for a training run. I'd never actually done the whole "trigger World Leader vote before first congress" thing before. I ended up with two more Great Scientists than I needed, but it's unclear if I could've actually founded Printing Press earlier, since they both spawned in my last two turns before needing to enter the Atomic Era.

My capital was nice but not exactly OP -- just a solid food/hammer city with lots of freshwater. It does seem that tons of irrigated farmland is the key for the capital, given the timing of your science push. My capital's borders were created with the use of Great Generals. Good substitute for the Tradition opener ;)

I'm gonna re-roll for a truly legendary start and see what I can come up with.

Well done Manpanzee! That is a great result. So your PP was 156ish. Did you plant your Liberty GS?
 
I played a quick test-game to 125, (that I may finish) and this combo is actually pretty interesting.

On Emperor someone else will likely build a wonder you'll want for a fast finish.. certainly GL is tricky at best. So if you try to start peaceful-ish (IE build cities, granaries, monuments, libraries) instead of going all-out units, by the time you conquer, you'll lose some of those wonders, (because you can't afford to annex) but with good play and a good start you can still (obviously) hit sub-t110 education.

On the other hand, if you go all-out military from the beginning, and prioritize Mathematics over Philosophy, and units over National College, you'll tech slowly, so it's kind of a self-fulfilling deal.. you end up *needing* to steal techs, and *maybe* it evens out, but here's the catch. This increases the luck required, because now you're relying on lucky tech steals, lucky timing of captures and so on. You're also hoping that the cities you capture early (IE close to your capital) have good wonders, good dirt, etc. Another big luck aspect is having a convenient CS tribute circuit.

In my test game, I got Archery from a ruin, got Currency as a stolen tech, and also got Drama & Poetry, which is about as lucky as you can hope to get, I think. Both of those are equivalent IMHO to winning the GL race. (Which I didn't even try for... a lucky thing, it went on like t32) But, I didn't end up with super-early Education (T111) because I had to build Courthouses to stay ahead of my happiness issues, and my growth was less than it would have been had I delayed my conquest. Decisions, decisions!

One advantage of playing peaceful until you *naturally* (timing-wise) tech Mathematics is that the AI's you first conquer are more likely to have techs/wonders you want, but unless you've been playing OCC up to this point, you likely can't afford to absorb the unhappiness of annexing those cities, unless you've been lucky with Mercantile CS quests.

In my test game I built zero settlers, went full Tradition, and went for the bonus to wonder construction before the free momuments and *intentionally* didn't ally cultural CS or build a monument until I'd captured 3 cities. This way I got 4 free monuments and 4 free aqueducts. (3 in annexed cities) I focused heavily on culture after that, resulting in ~T125 Secularism. That worked out well, because otherwise I would have had to build those monuments instead of courthouses... and finishing Tradition earlier without ~t95 Education would have likely delayed Secularism. But, hard to say.

Word of advice: In my experience, puppeted cities won't get monuments, but annexed ones will. You must annex them *prior to getting the policy*. You won't get a retroactive building when you annex. Oddly, puppeted cities *do* get aqueducts. Or maybe it's buggy... because it seems inconsistent? Either way, annexing ensures you get them.

So, all out conquest or science-first? This is a hard decision. Waiting until after you get your empire growing to start conquest means giving up a LOT of peace deal money & luxuries from the AI. So, I think if your game goes *perfectly*, it's faster to go all-out conquest and build at most one settler. But if *anything* goes wrong you'd have been better off with a traditional Diplo warlike approach (science = first priority, build 3-4 cities yourself, war = second priority)

This is certainly the easiest approach with Assyria. Even on Emperor, even late, he wades through opponents with those siege towers... so you *could* get away with starting the conquest after you plant expos. But, that way you surpass the AI in tech quickly, and get very few free beakers... and I hate not taking advantage of the UA.

There IS a path to super-early Education through conquest, but it's a tricky one at best. Maybe the trickiest thing to navigate, IMHO, is whether or not to take cities in peace deals, and who to attack first. By t80 in my test game no one had any techs I needed anymore. I'd been avoiding taking cities in peace deals so as to get more free techs, but clearly I should have started taking some in peace deals earlier.

If this were Deity, it would be different... Assyria's UA remains relevant MUCH longer. Interesting. Fun map. :D
 
Well well well. Not sure how to play this.

I have tested three runs, none of them satisfactory. First one Trad almost OCC to t80, planted my 4 cities on t92, t101 Edu, looked OK but retired the game then as I was not doing well with money and expos were too small to hard build Unis. Played this basically to get familiar with the map,

Second one, another Trad, to test Asus's UA, all out war, war was over by t150ish, but I still had another 15 turns to PP, and my science was not rolling due to late secularism (140ish). Amazing how powerful the Siege Towers are, feels like warlord when on the warpath. Retired, as I could do better peacefully so what's the point.

Third, again Trad, mix of the 2, first growth and GL/ToA, better but still not great, took a couple of cities to make up my 4, doing well on science, but again not as fast as if I just played a pure science game, and Edu around 115, feels late.

I am running out of time to get a proper try in, so I think I am going to revert to a 5 cities Liberty, 2 planted, 3 taken, which I have a lot of experience in for warry diplo and get a t230 in, which I think is easy, and then go back to experimenting with Tradition, see if I can do better.

Assur makes the game really different. You really want to use the UA and UU, but the AIs do not tech fast enough, I would need to be able to steal either a renaissance entry tech or at least something like Edu or Machinery or Guilds to really keep up with peacefullish, but by that time, the AIs are behind or dead. Maybe I need to turn raging barbarians off, that will help them, but then I will have to wade through a sea of cities. I agree with Cro, this guy would be truly scary at Deity or even Immortal, but on Emperor is a little bit meh, especially on a diplo game where you really want to get stuff going fast.
 
Well well well. Not sure how to play this.

I have tested three runs, none of them satisfactory. First one Trad almost OCC to t80, planted my 4 cities on t92, t101 Edu, looked OK but retired the game then as I was not doing well with money and expos were too small to hard build Unis. Played this basically to get familiar with the map,

Second one, another Trad, to test Asus's UA, all out war, war was over by t150ish, but I still had another 15 turns to PP, and my science was not rolling due to late secularism (140ish). Amazing how powerful the Siege Towers are, feels like warlord when on the warpath. Retired, as I could do better peacefully so what's the point.

Third, again Trad, mix of the 2, first growth and GL/ToA, better but still not great, took a couple of cities to make up my 4, doing well on science, but again not as fast as if I just played a pure science game, and Edu around 115, feels late.

I am running out of time to get a proper try in, so I think I am going to revert to a 5 cities Liberty, 2 planted, 3 taken, which I have a lot of experience in for warry diplo and get a t230 in, which I think is easy, and then go back to experimenting with Tradition, see if I can do better.

Assur makes the game really different. You really want to use the UA and UU, but the AIs do not tech fast enough, I would need to be able to steal either a renaissance entry tech or at least something like Edu or Machinery or Guilds to really keep up with peacefullish, but by that time, the AIs are behind or dead. Maybe I need to turn raging barbarians off, that will help them, but then I will have to wade through a sea of cities. I agree with Cro, this guy would be truly scary at Deity or even Immortal, but on Emperor is a little bit meh, especially on a diplo game where you really want to get stuff going fast.

Yeah, it's hard to beat the initially peaceful game, transitioning into warlike over time. Going all out war from the start is a gamble, but it can yield great gains.

Liberty makes it easier at first, but runs into issues later on. Liberty's initial production bonus and the free settler to get a second unit-producing city out are great, it gets your warpath going fast, but, is it fast enough to offset the eventual happiness issues?

What I saw in my test game is that I'm happiness-bound rather quickly. Tradition's +1/10, +1/2 in capital ends up being pretty significant by t100. By that point I was getting +5 happiness/-8 unhappiness for a net 13. Liberty would have had me at +5 (cities) and -3 (from population) for a net 8.

The problem is the damn courthouses. You need to annex to get universities up, but boom that's like +12 unhappiness empire-wide, using up your Tradition bonus and exceeding your Liberty bonus. You need courthouses to fix that, and that's 20gpt and a LOT of hammers wasted.

If you go peaceful 5 cities Tradition you get 13 extra population for free. If you go peaceful 5 cities Liberty you get 8 extra population for free.

And by free I mean you pay for universities *instead of courthouses*.

However, I would argue that very early conquest (and resulting free techs/wonders/etc) make up for it *if you get lucky*. And in the extremely lucky case, it can vastly outperform a peaceful start. By t110 in my test game I had 3000g saved up, enough to buy 4 universities outright.

So, jury's still out as to whether Assyria's UA is worth it... I think so, but it requires some pretty mad skills.
 
Well done Manpanzee! That is a great result. So your PP was 156ish. Did you plant your Liberty GS?

Yes, I planted the GS. I think it's generally the way to go if you're going to do Liberty. It makes the push to Education/opening Renaissance for Rationalism go much smoother.

I had another pretty amazing game going (Salt start + found Skill Dorado on Turn 3) that would have been I think a Turn 187 victory if I had pulled it off. I miscalculated and came up 2 turns short on the last GS I needed. I took a Writer from LToP, thinking I would naturally spawn one more Great Scientist in time than I would if I took a Scientist, making the Writer "free". Pretty bad mistake, although I'm not 100% sure I would've won anyway. My gpt was merely ok and I had a lot of CSes still to buy.

Details of my failed game: I started out building Worker first (because of the Salt, not sure if this is a reasonable choice in general), and used the Skill Dorado money to buy a Scout and a Monument. This resulted in a VERY early Collective Rule (turn 22!) and a quick four cities. I built a fast Temple of Artemis and then pumped out a bunch of Archers (putting that oft-forgotten +15% production to good use). Started conquest pretty early, taking my first capital on turn 63.

The Assyrian UA gave me something like: Sailing, Optics, Trapping, Horseback Riding, Currency, Iron Working. I got a similar payout in both games. My approach to early game science both times was to delay Libraries and instead build an army while picking up Mathematics/Construction. This lets you start conquest early enough to get something out of the UA, and I think the free techs do a lot to make up for late Libraries. My second game I didn't finish the National College until Turn 90, and still got Education on Turn 102. First game was similar, with I think earlier NC and later Edu.

The big thing I tried differently in my second game was religion -- instead of picking my standard Tithe, I decided to break out the ol' Ceremonial Burial. It feels pretty feeble, but happiness is incredibly crucial, and I would be comfortable continuing with that if I kept trying this gauntlet.

But I think two full games is enough. I've had my fill of this gauntlet and will leave it at one submission.
 
But, planting the GS can also lead to being one GS short, as you were. However, given the benefits of completing Liberty (culture & happiness) I wouldn't delay that, and well, it's hard to beat an early planted GS for total value. Still, IMHO you can reach Education via Tradition just as fast, without planting a GS, so I favor it on Emperor.

With El Dorado especially, you didn't need Liberty. You could have had a second city out almost immediately, and that would have been more beneficial in the long run than the Scout/Monument. And then you don't need Liberty. Early 2 city Tradition kicks serious ass.. the primary city can beeline GL or NC while the secondary city pumps out units or caravans. I dunno. I think at that point the cheap Liberty settler is overkill on Emperor. On lower levels 4 early cities is more beneficial, but you're happiness bound. :shrug:

On a related note, I think I may have cracked the code on how to take best advantage of Assyria's UA, but we'll see. It's pretty much the opposite of what my build queue would normally be. Libraries? Who needs stinkin' libraries!
 
Well enough testing. I have decided. 3 cities NC tradition, strat the war around t90 and hope I do finish on time. If I always do Liberty, I will never learn warry tradition. Not sure how I will deal with the happiness, will spam units and send them to different parts of the map, trust the CSs. Now roll for an epic start!
 
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