Gauntlet Three

[LulThyme]

The funny thing is that in conquest it wasnt even 100 K needed for all map sizes either.
I say we just keep the note and get rid of the number since there is only one type of cultural victory in civ 4 (in civ 3 there were 2, so we needed to distinguish).

 

[DaveMcW]

I ran a comparison of dates across game speeds. There are significant differences in the timeline.

Quick is the best speed to "beat the clock" if you finish before 200AD. Later than that Marathon is the way to go.

The Marathon advantage spikes right around the optimal finish date for this gauntlet, so I don't see how any other speed can compete.

Game progress vs Date


Deviation from Normal speed

 

[MaskedFrog]

I have started a few games but my usual strategey of expansion at Prince Level is not working very well on Emperor. This is my first attempt at Emperor level games. I have found that getting a 3rd city before courthouses generally drops my science % to 20%. Any suggestions on how fast to expand?

I am thinking you need to wait until your initial city is size 2 and then hold at two cities until you can support them.

As for the Tech path, I have been using Elizabeth with the following progression.

Bronze Working, Mysticism, Polytheism, Priesthood, Writing, Code of Laws (Oracle), Alphabet.

Should I really be pushing hard to Oracle or should I spend some time getting improvement techs. Also is Alphabet really worth it that quickly. In the short term it hurts my city development but in the long term, I can trade for the missing techs.

 

[Big_Ben]

I am having a pretty hard time finding a strat that will work effectively for a cultural victory with these settings. I barely ever go for a cultural win normally and when I do I usually try and get 9 cities or so. With being on this small map at emperor settings it seems impossible to get 9 cities unless you war someone. I haven't completed the gauntlet yet, I get to the point where I know I won't succeed and then move on to try something else.

I see a couple of viable strats but haven't perfected them yet. Here is what I have played around with:

Play as Ghandi and go for the 1st 5 religions: buddhism, hinduism, judaism, christianity (oracle), confucianism, in that order. Grab as many world wonders as possible.

Play as Qin and go for a few early world wonders and focus on cottages.

Play as Elizabeth and go for massive GP.

Play as Huayna and rush with quechuas to take out a civ or two. Then you could try and grab up several religions and settle 9 cities.

 

[Big_Ben]

Choosing opponents is difficult as well. There are a couple of options. You could go with spiritual opps so that you can try and leech the religions off of them or you can go with non-spiritual opps to try and found the religions yourself.

I tend to go with the later and choose:

Mao
Peter
Washington

I think it is important to stay away from industrious trait leaders though. Allows you to get a couple of world wonders. However if you plan to avoid world wonders you can pick whomever you want.

 

[Shillen]

Washington bases research decisions heavily on religion from what I've seen. In all my space race games for gauntlet 1 he would grab up half the religions, even with Hatty in the game. Mao also tends to get Confucianism and Islam quite often. I would choose Peter, Cyrus and Victoria. Cyrus and Victoria will once in a while go for Buddhism or Hinduism right away but it's pretty rare.

 

[walkerjks]

I am having a pretty hard time finding a strat that will work effectively for a cultural victory with these settings. I barely ever go for a cultural win normally and when I do I usually try and get 9 cities or so. With being on this small map at emperor settings it seems impossible to get 9 cities unless you war someone. I haven't completed the gauntlet yet, I get to the point where I know I won't succeed and then move on to try something else.

Try it with 4 to 6 cities. You only need 2 temples/cathedral on a small map, so ultimately, you only need 6 cities in order to build a cathedral for every religion in each of your 3 culutre cities.

I say "4 to 6", because sometimes the early natural size is 4 or 5 cities. That isn't a major problem, as long as you can build 1 or 2 additional cities anywhere in the margins around 750 AD. Overlap here is actually good as you can use the new cities to work cottages that are in the fat cross of your 3 culutre cities (since the core cities probably won't be big enough yet to work all their own cottages).

 

[Big_Ben]

Shillen: I agree, Washington does go after some religions pretty heavily. I have loss hinduism to him 1-2 times when i ahve tried for it. Mao has never beaten me to a religion, except taoism. I just select those three out of habit, I will try tossing in Cy and Victoria next game.

walker: I am pretty new to civ 4 and haven't picked up some of the little tricks yet. I had not thought about over lapping excess cities in order to work cottages to get htem to towns yet. Thanks for the tip.

 

[walkerjks]

Found out something new in my current game -

If a city with a foreign national wonder that you haven't built yet flips to you, you inherit that national wonder, which prevents you from building it yourself.

I just flipped a city with The Hermitage

 

[Mad Dog]

I'm going to try with an initial warmonger strat then migrate to culture. The conquest should give extra religions, very nice city sites, and remove opposition. The extra room will give me the 9+ good cities I need to churn out all the temples and cathedrals I'll need to get the culture ball rolling. With a small map, the extra space will be nice. I'll get one city going as a great artist factory.

I'll probably go Inca - Persia's tempting too though, but I think the winner will have the financial trait.

This should be a very interesting challenge.

 

[Masquerouge]

Okay after realizing that what I thought was an emperor win was in fact a monarch (arraaarrgh), I started again, this time with Saladin. What I wanted to try was to grab Buddhism and Hinduism, then wait for a great religious leader to get Code of laws, and then pursue to drama, liberalism, switch to 100% culture and focus on great artists, and see what happens.

I chose peaceful civs, without the industrial trait or the spiritual one to give me a headstart for the early religions : Washington, Cyrus, Victoria.

The first thing I noticed is that you want to be alone on your continent. If not, the best spots are going to get settled really fast.
My opening move was Meditation, Polytheism, Priesthood, then Mining and bronzeworking.
My first city prod was warrior or obelisk, then Monastery once I had meditation, then temple once I got priesthood to start the great Religious leader, then worker. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but if you want an early religious leader then it's the best thing to do, because Saladin does nto have any useful techs for an early worker, and if you go for bronze working first you will get beaten to the early religions.

Anyhow I got Buddhism and Hinduism, then a great leader, then Code of laws.
I founded three cities only, and one of them got judaism so I had a fourth religion to build temples, monasteries and cathedrals.
Everything basically went pretty well right up to the point where I discovered philosophy. I decided to switch to 100% culture and wait for liberalism to be more accessible.
But the thing is, having only religious buildings, librairies and theaters is a bit light to get an fast cultural win.
That, and having the religious wonders is actually a bummer because if you get unlucky (like I did), you can get 6 religious leaders in a row even with 5 artists in the city ! I had a 25% chance of popping a religious leader, and I got it 6 times in a row. Not good
But it would'nt have made any difference anyway, since by the time Washington won with a SS victory in the mid 1800s in was only in the 25,000 culture point per city.

So I don't think a purely peaceful strategy is going to work for that gauntlet. You not only have to get lucky on the great artists (or maybe try not founding any religions so as to get only great artists points in your cities but I'm afraid that will only make matters worse because then your religious cultural buildings will come to late if you wait for your neighbours to convert you), but you've got to cripple the AI.
It's too bad, because from what Firaxis said I was under the impression that a peaceful strategy would be viable on the higher level, but apparently you'll have to do some kicking...

Anyone tried something else ?

 

[Masquerouge]

I'm going to try with an initial warmonger strat then migrate to culture. The conquest should give extra religions, very nice city sites, and remove opposition. The extra room will give me the 9+ good cities I need to churn out all the temples and cathedrals I'll need to get the culture ball rolling. With a small map, the extra space will be nice. I'll get one city going as a great artist factory.

You're probably right. The thing you'll have to watch out for is the Space Ship race. If you leave someone unharmed, they WILL get the SS really quick, too soon for a cultural win, methinks.

And watch out for the financial penalties with 9 cities... I'm not sure you need that much, unless getting Oxford and Shakespeare are vital.
With three cities I managed to get 4 cathedrals.

 

[Big_Ben]

Actually if you are going to get anywhere near the top of this guantlet you are going to need a 1300-1400AD culture win. The other civs won't have a chance to get a SS victory before that.

You will only need 6 cities to win. Since it is 2 temples per city for a cathedral on a small map you don't need 9.

You don't want to be on an island by yourself. You HAVE to tech trade to get some of the infrastructure/improvement techs. That means you need early contact. Also, you need to get several religions. You can't found them all yourself and religions barely ever spread to another continent if your city already has a religion.

I just had an amazing start with Ghandi. Was on a balanced map (pangea may be better) with cyrus, peter, and mao as my opponents. I founded 3 cities and culture flipped 3 more. Worked out rather nicely. Mao took out Cyrus around 900 AD which gave me some breathing room on one of his cities I flipped. I was doing pretty good. My capital was around 35k culture and my next two were around 10k at 1050 AD. Had 10 turns or so left for liberalism. Was going to starting hitting GL hard after that until I got nationalism then go 100% culture while I built the hermitage.

Anyway, was doing great until Peter declared war. I held him off of one city by upgrading the warrior to a pikeman. He sacked 2 more. I would have been ok with a cease fire and leaving it at that, they weren't any of my top 3. But he wouldn't declare peace. It sucked. He had a ton of knights outside my capital so I ended it. Hated to see it go down in flames.

 

[Big_Ben]

Going with Inca and taking out a civ with quechuas in the beginning may be very viable but not sure if it will win out.

I am liking Ghandi right now. I can grab up 4-5 religions if no one else starts with mysticism. I can also get some nice world wonders with him as well. Although I don't know if either of those points are good. Founding religions and getting the early wonders can pump out several prophets instead of artists. Will have to play around with it for a while.

I think the next game I play with Ghandi I am going to pump out a few swordsmen early. Whenever 2 civs war and one is about to lose I am going to try and steal a city or two. If they are better than my top 3 I will keep them, if not I am going to gift them to my closest neighbor to avoid war. May be a decent idea.

 

[walkerjks]

The first thing I noticed is that you want to be alone on your continent.

Try a pangea or balanced game with the tropical setting. Tropical provides more good commerce sites and the AI tends to be slow in settling jungle. So you can usually pick up great commerce sites with your 4th or 5th city.

But the thing is, having only religious buildings, librairies and theaters is a bit light to get an fast cultural win.

Not necessarily. If you get the right city sites, you can get 120+ commerce/turn with cottages and trade routes alone. This can provide the bulk of your base culture. Of course wonders are nice too. Unless...

That, and having the religious wonders is actually a bummer because if you get unlucky (like I did), you can get 6 religious leaders in a row even with 5 artists in the city ! I had a 25% chance of popping a religious leader, and I got it 6 times in a row. Not good

I've quit going for The Oracle in high difficulty games, because even when I get it, the Great Prophets tend to screw up my game. It's a tough call, since a Holy Shrine provides decent culture and obviously a lot of cash. But I personally avoid Stonehenge and The Oracle. I do like great engineers though (you can rush critical wonders and if you get too many great engineers, you can also rush not-so-critical great artist point wonders), so I far prefer The Pyramids as my early wonder.

If you do go with an islands game (or some other variant where you are alone), grab The Great Lighthouse. With harbors, this can mean 2 additional +8 commerce trade routes/city. That's equivalent to 2 towns! Great merchants aren't a disaster either, since you can merge them into your great person city for the incremental cash (always welcome), extra food, and additional incremental culture (if you build Sistine Chapel).

So I don't think a purely peaceful strategy is going to work for that gauntlet. You not only have to get lucky on the great artists (or maybe try not founding any religions so as to get only great artists points in your cities but I'm afraid that will only make matters worse because then your religious cultural buildings will come to late if you wait for your neighbours to convert you), but you've got to cripple the AI.

You don't have to get lucky on great artists if you avoid the "wrong" wonders. Also, late religion is not a problem (as long as it's not in the last 100 turns). While I do try to spread the religions to 6 cities as soon as I can, I generally won't build the religious buildings early at all. When it comes time, I'll spend a number of turns at 0% science and minimal culture (whatever my happiness will support) and buy the buildings. I often buy 10,000 shields or more worth of buildings (primarily temples, cathedrals, and any missionaries for religions that aren't fully spread yet). Delaying 100% culture in order to rush buy this infrastructure has had a very nice affect on my end dates and it's made me far less dependent on actual production values of my 3 culture cities. If I get an all jungle/grassland city (which I've had before), I can happily operate with that 1 shield for the entire game, knowing full well that it is going to be a culture powerhouse when it needs to be.

90% of your culture is going to come in the last 200 turns (marathon speed) of the game. So the actual date that you build a particular culture-producing building doesn't really matter much. If you need a bank or aqueduct more than you need the temple or monastary, don't be a slave to the culture-producing buildings.

 

[walkerjks]

I just had an amazing start with Ghandi. Was on a balanced map (pangea may be better) with cyrus, peter, and mao as my opponents.

Why those 3? Well, I understand you want to grab the early religions. But a combination of Mansa/Hattie/Ghandi (substitute Cyrus for Ghandi in your case) will never attack as long as you are reasonably compliant to their demands and trade techs like a maniac (which you should do anyway). If anyway slips to "cautious" due to a different religion, buy them off with a trade or tech gift.

With a completely peaceful triumvarate of opponents, you can get away without building anything bigger than a warrior for the entire game (and you wouldn't need those, except for the unhappiness that exists when you leave your cities ungarrisoned). That seems like a preferable builder strategy, even if it means sacrificing an early religion (which will probably spread to you at some point anyway, either naturally or through a flipped city).

The one caveat is at the end of the game - make sure you save some great artists for the last turn. I'm not exactly sure where the AI appears to believe that you are actually going to win, but it appears to be above 145K or so in all 3 cities. The AI will attack in this situation. So having a couple of cities well below that threshold that get culture bombed is required for a completely peaceful win.

 

[godotnut]

For what it's worth, I ran through two games on Quick with Qin last night and finished right around 1930 in each. I founded three religions--Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity--and balanced the shrines between the three culture cities best I could (I wish you could pick what cities religions will be founded in!). I built three temples and monestaries in each.

This was a custom continents map with six continents and three opponents: Cyrus, Liz, and Cathy. My (still-operant) assumption is to avoid aggressive civs (for a peaceful game), industrious civs (to minimize wonder competition), and religious civs (so I can found them myself).

I chopped Stonehenge right away for the great prophet bonus. I also chopped Pyramids (with stone), used a great engineer to build the Sistine Chapel, and chopped the Parthenon. After that, the tech bonus that the AI receives at Emporer prevented me from competing in the wonder game.

Observations: I don't think quick speed is the way to go. I'm going to try marathon next to see how the math changes. I also don't think Qin is the best leader: industrious just isn't as useful as philosophical at the high levels, because you will only be in the running for the early wonders anyway, and you can always chop those. Plus with Pyramids, you will gain an engineer or two. I'm going with Lizzy next.

Also, it's really easy to play a peaceful game if you give the AI lots of land to expand into. They won't bother with a measily 3-5 city empire if there is a lot of room to grow already. You don't need to hand pick spiritual civs to do this, and in neither game did anyone attack me, even when I was close to the cultural victory in all three cities. So while it might be a good idea to save some great artists as walkerjks suggests, I personally didn't find it to be a factor in either of these games. Might as well give the AIs their little tributes too. It doesn't hurt you in your single-minded quest for culture.

 

[Masquerouge]

For what it's worth, I ran through two games on Quick with Qin last night and finished right around 1930 in each. I founded three religions--Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity--and balanced the shrines between the three culture cities best I could (I wish you could pick what cities religions will be founded in!). I built three temples and monestaries in each.

You won in 1930 ? How did you avoid the other civs building the Space ship ?

Walkerjks : thanks a lot for the great advice

 

[Big_Ben]

Why those 3? Well, I understand you want to grab the early religions. But a combination of Mansa/Hattie/Ghandi (substitute Cyrus for Ghandi in your case) will never attack as long as you are reasonably compliant to their demands and trade techs like a maniac (which you should do anyway). If anyway slips to "cautious" due to a different religion, buy them off with a trade or tech gift.

I have been straying away from spiritual civs so I could grab the religions, however I may try that combination since none start with mysticism. I have thought about starting as Saladin myself, I don't need the industrious trait and the Phi trait could help more. However Saladin starts with the wheel instead of mining, so I have to research mining get be able to chop rush anything, not to mention before I can research masonry/monotheism. So that is a turn off from him.

Getting ready to make one more run at it with Ghandi and play against Cyrus, Hatty, and Mansa. I enjoy founding the religions in the beginning and getting the oracle which gives me theology. This gives me something to trade with once I get alphabet. Having the religions is easier than having to wait for them to spread, but it may not be necessary.

 

[Big_Ben]

If Ghandi doesn't work out this time I am going to go with either Elizabeth or Qin and see if I can get to alphabet and then music first. If go for that I shoudl be able to get the extra great artist and trade for everything below that. I am also thinking about trying to rush for liberalism and get the free tech. Would let me trade for just about everything up until that point.