G-Minor XLVII

[Salomo]

right. so you need to reroll 20 times to hit a good desert start, then if you don't hit a culture ruin you still need to scrap it.

Well, for HoF there could be a simple fix: Ban Petra from HoF?

 

[g0ldfinger]

or at least disable the ruins for the gauntlet...

 

[vexing]

i moved three turns to get this location. it might be the winner.
settled upon marble, 8 irrigation hills, 4 sheep hills, 4 other hills, 8 flood plains for growth, cerro de potosi.

Spoiler :

 

[Xger]

i moved three turns to get this location. it might be the winner.
settled upon marble, 8 irrigation hills, 4 sheep hills, 4 other hills, 8 flood plains for growth, cerro de potosi.

Spoiler :

Must have gotten decent ruins too...

 

[Woodszilla]

i moved three turns to get this location. it might be the winner.
settled upon marble, 8 irrigation hills, 4 sheep hills, 4 other hills, 8 flood plains for growth, cerro de potosi.

Spoiler :

Wow. How many times did you reroll for that? I've rerolled like 50 times and haven't found a start close to that good.

Are you rolling with 3mil year world age, hot and arid?

 

[vexing]

Must have gotten decent ruins too...

a culture ruin around turn 10 or so. not exceptional ruins, but my luck with culture CS was really good. i had aesthetics around turn 85 i'd guess.

Wow. How many times did you reroll for that? I've rerolled like 50 times and haven't found a start close to that good.

Are you rolling with 3mil year world age, hot and arid?

do you look around when you're in desert? where i started wasn't nearly as good as where i planted city.
for this gauntlet overall i'd estimate >150 rolls, played through the start of about 8 games, and this was the 3rd i've played through completely, by far the best starting position too

yes for 3 billion, yes for hot, i'm not sure if i chose arid or not

 

[Woodszilla]

do you look around when you're in desert? where i started wasn't nearly as good as where i planted city.

Yea I look around but I don't want to use more than 3 or 4 turns moving. Thanks for telling me you've rerolled >150 times, makes me feel a little better about how much I've been doing it! Now I just have to play well to not make it a big waste of time =x

 

[Jinbe]

i moved three turns to get this location. it might be the winner.
settled upon marble, 8 irrigation hills, 4 sheep hills, 4 other hills, 8 flood plains for growth, cerro de potosi.

Spoiler :

Faithful sheep that is

 

[HideInLight]

i moved three turns to get this location. it might be the winner.
settled upon marble, 8 irrigation hills, 4 sheep hills, 4 other hills, 8 flood plains for growth, cerro de potosi.

Spoiler :

Hm looks fine, but doesnt look like a spot to get Theo pre T-51. Although the settled marble is a solid help... So did you go for fast theo or did you rush petra instead?

 

[vexing]

Hm looks fine, but doesnt look like a spot to get Theo pre T-51. Although the settled marble is a solid help... So did you go for fast theo or did you rush petra instead?

i knew it wouldn't get a turn 51 theo but it was too pretty to pass up - i beat my former 2nd place time by 4 turns, which is hopefully enough to be ahead of you.
i went for the 61 cutoff, so turn 62 scientist, turn 73 petra.

 

[Salomo]

I wonder what the best detailed strategy was in the ed, Could the winner of this post the strategy?

Some questions I have are, for example:
Oxford for Astronomy?
City set to growth focus?
Accidental prophet pre-industrialisation avoided how? (You mentioned up to 4 GP from faith, vexing)

 

[KingMorgan]

So does 150 re-rolls taken longer than playing the actual map?

I hate to be *that* guy but having to re-roll multiple times just to have a chance to compete really annoys me, there have been a few HoF games like this recently and I find it off putting and frustrating. I have been under the impression that the HoF was to test different strategies to achieve the VC not who can roll the best map or hit the best huts. (I know this is a well thrashed issue and I can disappear off to the GOTM if i'm not a happy camper)

At least on Civ4 you had Mapgenerator to get you those 3 gems.

Anyhows, well done vexing, your re-roll patience and undoubted skills should stand you in good stead for a medal.
/rant

 

[vexing]

Oxford for Astronomy?
City set to growth focus?
Accidental prophet pre-industrialisation avoided how? (You mentioned up to 4 GP from faith, vexing)

yes, i got astronomy around turn 95 and rationalism that same turn

i always use manual city control with production focus. i did take irrigated 3 food 3 production tile over a 4 food tile, but i did try to fill up all the 4 food tiles before going for the raw desert hill trading posts, and at the end i'd fill a non scientist specialist slot before as i grew beyond the irrigated land. i had 0 wltkd luck and got to 36 pop before the final science push

avoid an extra great prophet by paying attention and buying missionaries. you should be buying at least one, probably 2.
first, i think the best beliefs are:
faith from desert (obviously)
2 faith for each foreign city
15% growth while not at war
1% production per follower
50 faith per great person expended
if you have time you can possibly build great mosque before renaissance and buy a missionary for 200. generally other things will take precedence, but that's okay.
wait for the 500 prophet to pop, and then finish the hagia sophia. my mayan calendar choices in order are scientist, engineer, admiral, general,
prophet. that prophet will hit before one pops and puts you at 1700 faith for next.
unless cities are close enough to convert on their own, you're probably best off using a couple of the extra prophets to convert the rest of the map. each prophet can convert >5 cities and that's >10 faith vs the +6 for planting, and as a bonus sharing your religion improves relations with non religion founders, and it will keep spreading on its own granting even more faith. i didn't think of this till afterward, so i had just planted my last game.

the only other thing not heavily discussed was RAs. you want as many as possible. it's probably better to sign a few on the turn you oxford astronomy before choosing the tech so you're in medieval and build the observatory. if you did sign 3 there, they'll get you to public schools at least 9 turns sooner.
you also want a few to push to research labs, and a few more that'll fire 6-7-8 turns post research labs. pick your finish turn and work backwards to figure out the turns to sign those

 

[Xger]

yes, i got astronomy around turn 95 and rationalism that same turn

i always use manual city control with production focus. i did take irrigated 3 food 3 production tile over a 4 food tile, but i did try to fill up all the 4 food tiles before going for the raw desert hill trading posts, and at the end i'd fill a non scientist specialist slot before as i grew beyond the irrigated land. i had 0 wltkd luck and got to 36 pop before the final science push

avoid an extra great prophet by paying attention and buying missionaries. you should be buying at least one, probably 2.
first, i think the best beliefs are:
faith from desert (obviously)
2 faith for each foreign city
15% growth while not at war
1% production per follower
50 faith per great person expended
if you have time you can possibly build great mosque before renaissance and buy a missionary for 200. generally other things will take precedence, but that's okay.
wait for the 500 prophet to pop, and then finish the hagia sophia. my mayan calendar choices in order are scientist, engineer, admiral, general,
prophet. that prophet will hit before one pops and puts you at 1700 faith for next.
unless cities are close enough to convert on their own, you're probably best off using a couple of the extra prophets to convert the rest of the map. each prophet can convert >5 cities and that's >10 faith vs the +6 for planting, and as a bonus sharing your religion improves relations with non religion founders, and it will keep spreading on its own granting even more faith. i didn't think of this till afterward, so i had just planted my last game.

the only other thing not heavily discussed was RAs. you want as many as possible. it's probably better to sign a few on the turn you oxford astronomy before choosing the tech so you're in medieval and build the observatory. if you did sign 3 there, they'll get you to public schools at least 9 turns sooner.
you also want a few to push to research labs, and a few more that'll fire 6-7-8 turns post research labs. pick your finish turn and work backwards to figure out the turns to sign those

What about he +2 faith per world wonder belief? I have been using that, and usually managing 2-3 faith scientists and an engineer.

 

[vexing]

What about he +2 faith per world wonder belief? I have been using that, and usually managing 2-3 faith scientists and an engineer.

3 faith scientists + engineer is easy without that, so i guess if you can get another 3-4000 faith for the 4th scientist it'd be worthwhile, and it's probably doable.
i like the % production bonus, but as someone said earlier with petra it's probably not needed...

 

[Xger]

3 faith scientists + engineer is easy without that, so i guess if you can get another 3-4000 faith for the 4th scientist it'd be worthwhile, and it's probably doable.
i like the % production bonus, but as someone said earlier with petra it's probably not needed...

With a size 30 city and a GE, the UN is one turn anyway, and the times I've gotten toward the end most wonders are 3-6 turns anyway.

You mentioned using the +2 faith per foreign city, that seems very map dependant, which is more what I was aiming toward.

 

[vexing]

You mentioned using the +2 faith per foreign city, that seems very map dependant, which is more what I was aiming toward.

if you buy 2 missionaries to avoid a late prophet, that's +12 faith per turn, plus however many more cities the 3 cities each end up spreading to. also you can use the extra 2-3 great prophets to convert 5+ cities each. this can make it pretty map independent. i also chose high sea levels to increase density and ease religion spread

i like the production bonus because you only want to produce however many wonders, and you mostly want them done sooner, and then you'll probably want to just produce science sometime after public schools are up. getting the better wonders done earlier is more turns of science.

also, it's 30x pop + 300 for ge, and un is 1500. 30 pop = 1200, so you'd need to bank up overflow.

 

[vexing]

i ran the #s for my game and estimate the 2 faith per wonder would have netted about 2200 faith prior to last UN building, though some of that would need to go into missionaries prior to industrial and it's not accounting for the slower wonder production.

 

[Xger]

if you buy 2 missionaries to avoid a late prophet, that's +12 faith per turn, plus however many more cities the 3 cities each end up spreading to. also you can use the extra 2-3 great prophets to convert 5+ cities each. this can make it pretty map independent. i also chose high sea levels to increase density and ease religion spread

i like the production bonus because you only want to produce however many wonders, and you mostly want them done sooner, and then you'll probably want to just produce science sometime after public schools are up. getting the better wonders done earlier is more turns of science.

also, it's 30x pop + 300 for ge, and un is 1500. 30 pop = 1200, so you'd need to bank up overflow.

I thought the UN was 1200 . I hadn't considered just leaving it on science for an extended period, so that makes sense. As for which gives more faith, my consideration was that you would get more faith earlier although at a slower pace late.

 

[HideInLight]

Just played a last try of this one, could have been my new best and possibly even an overall winner if my last RA partner India didnt decide to not renew friendship because they didnt like one of my other friends at T-142

Could have been T-184 finish... In the end it was only T-194, still good but nothing special.

Anyway, at least its a proof that mass salt start (5 salts) can compete with a heavy dessert start.