G-Minor XXVI

[Ozbenno]

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:

• Victory Condition: Science (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Prince
• Map Size: Tiny
• Map Type: Ice Age
• Speed: Standard
• Leader: India (Gandhi)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: SV8 (1.0.1.511)
• Date: 1st to 15th April 2012

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

 

[S.K. Ren]

This is way harder than the G-Major. Way fewer RAs assuming everyone doesn't war with you right off the bat. Gandhi is terrible for early expansion so you need to have multiples of your first lux, and keep one. Anyways I finished at Turn 362, ugh.

In my game I had an amazing start... but that's about it. Had lots of sugar so I could support my second city and soon my third. I got two, count 'em, two +1 pop ruins so I built an early settler for my second city which I settled to the west and rushed for HG. I decided to skip GL thinking someone else would get it first with my detour and ended up shooting myself in the foot. It didn't get taken until turn 112 iirc. I built my 2nd city sometime after turn 100.

They all had plenty of space to put Farms/TPs. And then the wars started. First it was Suleiman, then Darius, then Catherine, then Suleiman and Darius again, then Catherine three times. But by this point I had teched to far past them that all I had to do was sit back and micro my Siege units in my cities to kill them off. Thus began my Peace Deal Economy. I would just wait for them to surrender and give me their economy to supplement my own large economy. So I could at least buy things in my cities. Couldn't buy CSs though until the end cause they all had been allies with the terrible trio.

 

[Lord_Bubu]

Just had one try in which I did many mistakes...
Had El Dorado, but could only get two of the AIs for RAs. Alex always declared war, maybe because I took 2 of his cities very early
Finished on T313. To get best times, I think you need to get RAs from all 3 AIs on the turn they are available.

Still not sure, whether you want low sea level or not.

 

[S.K. Ren]

The real questions are A) Do you go for HG and B) Islands or Continents?

 

[Tabarnak]

Continents.

 

[krakedhalo]

T281, with quite a bit of room for improvement. Wide continents, normal sea level.

Early GL and NC before second city. Second city founded T64, and actually increased happiness substantially because I had the Fountain of Youth nearby (by far my biggest break in the game). Finished by bulbing the last 13 techs I needed (10GS). Usually had enough gold to have two RAs going, occasionally all three.

Drawbacks: no coal available, and no one else discovered it until I had nearly finished Apollo, so only the capital ended up with a factory. Did have aluminum. Only one maritime CS, who I didn't even bother with - friended them late, never allied. Gold was better spent on RAs. Got beat to HG, and pop was very low throughout - capital just barely hit size 14, of my three other cities, only one >10.

In retrospect, I should've saved the Oracle for Rationalism opener. It's probably worth bulbing Astronomy if you can get Rationalism right before an RA or two. The "wasted" bulb isn't coming off your last tech, remember, it's coming off the earliest tech you would've bulbed at the end, which is saving maybe 7 turns.

 

[Tabarnak]

Tiny makes this game interesting and pretty fast too. Tried a game, very first roll. 4 luxs around, seems like a nice start.

I played like a cow boy in this game. Stole a worker from a cs protected by Darius. Captured a cs later for coal. Harun turned hostile the turn after we met the first time. Fortunately, i signed a RA before that. Still, they are only 3 guys and an hostile civ really %@$& for RAs.

I finally found a deal...

Spoiler :

I will reach industrial era in 1 turn, i barely got coal from a captured cs...i hope it will not make mad these guys even more...

Spoiler :

I used 2 ge for HG and the PT in capital. West city hard built the GL and CI and will finish ND soon. South city built Colossus to please a cs. Capital built Oracle and Taj.

 

[S.K. Ren]

Krakedhalo: Bulbing Astro is only worth it if A) You have a ton of RA's due and the median is at late Medieval/early Renaissance. Otherwise that GS is only worth the RA's +Astro and it's not typically worth as much as the final techs. If you have the PT that's good enough to start making RA's, just hard tech Astro for the second wave. Also 281? Nice. I just got done with a 312.

*looks up at Lord_Bubu's turn count*

lol, squeezed by ya there Also I got Skilldorado on my map... on turn 140. I went narrow continents and got stuck on an island that had two nice spots. 1 on Marble with a lot of hills and a few river spots for farms and coast spot with 5 Fish, 1 pearl and Offshore oil. SCORE!!!

Attached is a pic of my Capital and Mumbai.

Lately I've been going hard HG->GL->Oracle. This fortunately leaves me free to build whatever until HG. Unfortunately this gives me nothing to build until HG Usually its scout, worker, and if I haven't popped a culture ruin, monument or if I have a settler. Then I get an archer and build scout/sell scout until HG is up. Policies I go Straight for Landed Elite, Monarchy, Aristocracy and finish with the Oracle. I then have 1-2 policies until I hit Medieval for Rationalism. Does this sound like a solid plan?

I seem to take Commerce and either Naval Tradition for islandy maps(like my last one) or Liberty/Patronage depending on whether I forsee lots of puppets or I have a few CS allies up and want to conserve influence.

 

[krakedhalo]

Krakedhalo: Bulbing Astro is only worth it if A) You have a ton of RA's due and the median is at late Medieval/early Renaissance. Otherwise that GS is only worth the RA's +Astro and it's not typically worth as much as the final techs. If you have the PT that's good enough to start making RA's, just hard tech Astro for the second wave.

It's true that it's probably not worth bulbing Astro in terms of beakers, but what I was trying to say earlier was that that's not really the point. If you compare the number of beakers you get for Astronomy vs. a mid to late IA tech, it's obviously substantially lower. But your beakers per turn is much lower too, so measured in terms of turns it's not nearly as bad a deal. Also, in the late game you're more likely to have more gold available for RAs, and it's not uncommon for me to end up with an "extra" RA (which is really just poor planning on my part). That "extra" RA can fill in the tech you miss from the GS used on Astronomy.

 

[S.K. Ren]

Why would you bulb a late Industrial tech? I usually get about 7-9 GS so I bulb all of the Modern Techs+the two Future Techs (9 Techs total)... o.k I can see your point. Maybe I will bulb Astro in my next game.

 

[krakedhalo]

I said late IA because I usually have enough bulbs for all 7 of the MA and both FA techs, between GS/Sci. Rev./Oxford, plus at least most of the last tier IA techs.

 

[Tabarnak]

Tiny map makes less useful gs burning for a larger median(like the popular refrigeration tech). Less RAs available. Better to keep them all for the last big jump.

 

[TyfoonTurk]

t309 on first try, bulbed 11 gs for the last final jump (+oxford en sci revolution). now that's what i call an eureka moment. only 3 ra's.

went liberty, because the free worker and settler are too good to compete with tradition (even with ghandi).

only room for three cities (bc of happiness) on this map with ghandi i thinks.

 

[krakedhalo]

Got it down to T265, with no FOY this time. 4 cities (plus a fifth very late for aluminum), only two of which were really productive. Signed one very early RA that fired before education, let alone astronomy. Had IT but not Rationalism for 2nd and 3rd RA. Russia DoW'd with about 2 turns left on a later RA, so that upped my time by 6 turns or so. I didn't find Hiawatha til after I had caravels, so that also kept me from at least 1 more early RA. Again, only one far away maritime CS - I didn't bother, and didn't miss having them. SP path was Tradition opener (via culture ruin on T5) -> all Lib -> Rationalism, with Sci. Rev. coming as I finished up Apollo. I got the second city out much faster this time (took the Lib. settler before Lib. worker, having already built 1 worker), and was able to complete a library there the same turn the capital made GL, leading to an early NC.

I'm not sure what happened with my screenshot such that all the labels are gone, but you can get the gist of the empire. Delhi is size 19, Mumbai NW near the oil is starving at size 12 to spit out 3 boosters in 16 turns. The other two cities are ~ 10 but have very low production. NE city literally has 4.8 hammers.

 

[Tabarnak]

Finished mine at 249. Extra ga turns from CI helped me to buy factories and elevators in time.

 

[Lord_Bubu]

Haven't found a good plan for that map yet. Finished another game at T309.

 

[S.K. Ren]

Im not seeing how people are getting sub 250. What time are you building the NC and when are you planting your 2nd and 3rd cities? Just as bench marks. I want to know what Im doing wrong(I think going for HG after NC is one of them)

 

[krakedhalo]

Im not seeing how people are getting sub 250. What time are you building the NC and when are you planting your 2nd and 3rd cities? Just as bench marks. I want to know what Im doing wrong(I think going for HG after NC is one of them)

In my T265 game, my capital built Scout -> Worker -> Granary -> GL (T62) -> NC (T75). I got an early culture ruin, then took Tradition opener, Lib. opener, Lib. settler. City was founded T53 and city was able to build a library on the same turn the capital finished GL, so I went right into NC. Third city ready to found as soon as NC is built. I usually sign as many RAs as possible right before getting GL, then take either Theology or Civil Service depending on the number of water-adjacent farms I have. It might be better to build a simple library in the capital for even earlier NC and a later free GL tech, but it always seems like kind of a waste if I'm going to get a free library from the GL. Maybe I'll try that in the next game.

 

[junkets]

man, Tabby&#8230; how do you do that?!

Playing cowboy I see you got a bunch of puppets and whatnot, playing aggressive seems the way to go at this level. But, +267 beakers at turn 181? Damn dude. Only just building a public school and ND? Two longswords and one crossbow left? Five spare GSs and one turn to industrial era? &#8230;I'm peeing my pants here! Enlighten us!

 

[Tabarnak]

Ok ok...here is the start i made :

capital built : monument-scout-warrior until 3 -settler-granary-Oracle-library-NC(finished around turn 90).

policies : Liberty opener-free settler-free worker-Tradition opener-20% discount on wonders-rest of Liberty-3 Rationalism policies(left side)-Freedom opener-Scientifi revolution

2nd city : monument-GL-granary

3rd city : monument-granary-library-Colossus

I got a free culture ruin that helped me to get out free settler and worker pretty fast. 3 cities and 3 workers as fast as i can in other words. Settling on a happy mine is nice to counter -9 happiness. Then i built some other wonders thanks to the discount policy and growed my cities.

I allied a cultural cs early to finish Liberty around turn 90(by that turn i had 8 policies). I used a free ge form Liberty for HG and used free ge from GS for PT. I upgraded some warriors to swordmen before turn 80. France declared war on me with warirors and archers. With 2 archers, 1 UU and 2 swords i captured his capital and made peace. Fortunately, no other wars occured. Harun stayed hostile most of the time but i managed to sign 2 important RAs from him despite his hostile status.