Gauntlet Three

I have never built a marketplace in this gauntlet. The things I use for happiness are:

1) Temples & Cathedrals
2) Theaters
3) Culture Slider

In that order. With the happiness resources I recieve in trade, its usually more than sufficent.

On a completely unrelated note, this Gauntlet has greatly realigned my perception of the "Creative" civ trait. Before, I had rated Creative as the 2nd best trait, right behind Financial. However, playing with Elizibeth so much has taught me how to deal with the no-culture cities initially, and how to push back at Creative civs. In all, my estimation of this trait has greatly diminished.

Goodbye Catherine, we had good times together, no?

I'm giving both Mansa Musa and Victoria serious looks for being my Civ of choice, now. I can't decide, I can't decide...

- Bill
 
Forgot to mention, you can play this successfully with Lizzie or Mao. Lizzie is good if you have 2 cities on the coast to benefit from the extra gold while working coastal tiles, Mao gets the reduced civic cost and that helps out a lot when you aren't using any cottages.

Have you tried Mao already ? From my imaginition i would say going without cottages and Financial trait will bring you nowhere close to the best finish dates.
 
Orca said:
Have you tried Mao already ? From my imaginition i would say going without cottages and Financial trait will bring you nowhere close to the best finish dates.
For a pure artist strategy, Mao might be better. Normally, you build cottages early to jumpstart tech growth, and then when it is time to go with specialists, you replace the cottages with farms. So losing financial means you lose some early tech growth, but you gain a monetary bonus throughout the game due to organized. Which is better probably depends on when you switch over to farms (as soon as you get Code of Laws, or sometime much later, such as right before Biology).

For what it's worth, I tried a pure artist strategy today with Liz on settler difficulty. It was pretty cool to have a city that supported 16 artist specialists without starving (one city was producing 200+ great people points a turn at the end), but nothing led me to believe that you could pull a pre-1200 Emperor level victory off using artists only.
 
Yeah Orca, it would Mao would only work with a pure specialist strat. Mao outperformed Lizzie when I played with him, but the opponents you have to play with to go the tech route I want and get the wonders are pretty hostile. I doubt it will be sub 1200, but I haven't been able to acheive sub-1300 personally. So it is worth a shot for me.

On a side note, I just had a great start with Lizzie. I figured since it was the last day I would go all out and try the Oracle-Philosophy jump. I hit Drama with 4 turns left to chop the last for the Oracle. I only had 2 workers chopping. I got beat by 2 turns. If I would have sent my other two over there to finish up chopping I would have had a great game. What does make me feel better is that Civ locked up right after that. Not srue what it was, first time it has ever happened, probably a video card problem, screen went blank but comp still worked. I would have been SUPER pissed if I would have gotten the jump and then locked up.

No worries though, I have time for 1 more full run tonight. My goal is simply to get sub-1300 and I will be happy.
 
1182 AD.

I guess I should check the boards first. I keep thinking I beat the best year only to find a newer low when I return here :-(

This, my third attempt, was hindered by the fact that I had no marble. If there were time to play again, I'd make sure I have marble.

I tried that Balanced/Tropical map everyone seems to prefer, but there were way too many jungles on mine. Couldn't chop as much as I'd like.

I hit liberalism again around 275AD, but went on to research printing press. I always get Nationalism free...gotta have the Hermitage! Even if you don't have marble, it's the same as 2 cathedrals, but you don't need the temples or the religion spread around. With marble it's 1/2 price! Traded for banking a while later and bought banks -- which I hadn't considered before.

I went with Elizabeth this time, but just missed getting my 17th GP.
I didn't have the Parthenon (no marble).
Again, I put all the the Great works in one city and used one early artist as a super-specialist my 400% city.
I'm still not sold on Elizabeth. She generates too many non-artists early because you have to build the Pyramids and Oracle first (or at least I do.)
I think I had the exact same number of GA's when I played China (but then I had the Parthenon.)

If I had the time, I'd like to try building only artist wonders in one super city. Run about 5-6 other Artist factories and produce 19 Great Artists + the free one at Music. Put 10 great works in each of two cities. Then you'd only have to build around 3 cathedrals instead of 8+. And only 6 temples instead of 16. Furthermore, you might be able to build most of those yourself instead of rush buying. I waste 50-100 turns generating cash. If only there was more time to try again....but lucky for me there is not, because my obsession with this gauntlet can finally end. I need a nap.
 
Yeah, I wanted to play this gauntlet one more time. I had to choose between going out with friends and playing 1 more round. I am glad I went out, but wish I would have played one more :(
 
BlueRenner said:
Mm.. I don't buy it.

Artist Specialists -- even Great ones -- cannot approach the culture producing power of a set of cathedrals.

HA! I'm not selling it, just pointing out the additional elements of this strategy. I tried this last month for regular old hof attempts and came to the conclusing that cottage generated culture is still stronger (as opposed to farms and lots of specialists).
 
Smirk said:
HA! I'm not selling it, just pointing out the additional elements of this strategy. I tried this last month for regular old hof attempts and came to the conclusing that cottage generated culture is still stronger (as opposed to farms and lots of specialists).
It's definitely worth keeping in mind for large-map, high-difficulty cultural wins. I suspect on a large, deity game, for example, that using Roman praets to pound your enemy and then using the best food cities for artists might be a quicker win than commerce strategies.
 
Gauntlet Three has closed, with congratulations to BlueRenner for taking 1st and 3rd place, and to walkerjks for 2nd. Beta Gauntlet Four is now open.
 
Hey,
I submitted in the evening on the 24th. Was I too late? or maybe rejected for some reason? I thought my 1182 comes in 2nd.

walkerjks, was 1184 your 2nd place entry or did you submit a better one?
 
Methos said:
Is there a finish date list of the winners? Other than those found in posts in this thread? I'm curious what the top three dates were.
See if this link works for you. You should just be able to scroll down to the Emperor table, as it's pretty much filled with BG3 submissions.
 
mdbill said:
Hey,
I submitted in the evening on the 24th. Was I too late? or maybe rejected for some reason? I thought my 1182 comes in 2nd.

walkerjks, was 1184 your 2nd place entry or did you submit a better one?
1184 was the "2nd" place entry, which seems incorrect given your game.

In any case, nice standard size deity win.
 
walkerjks said:
In any case, nice standard size deity win.

Thanks! I'm happy you noticed. That was just one attempt at cultural on Diety. I'm sure if it were a gauntlet, someone would blow me away. I sharpened my Diety skills running a lot of OCC (One City Challenge) and managed a Space Race and Diplomatic Victory on Diety OCC. I couldn't submit it to the hall of fame because I had "No tech trading". That option actually makes it much harder since you can't make friends by giving away tech and you can't get techs you didn't research until the Internet is built. It was funny to learn Agriculture and hunting from the internet wonder.

Anyway, my Diplo skills should be sharp for Gauntlet 4. We'll see. Have fun everyone!
 
I thought I was going to be way behind not breaking 1400. Actually impressed at myself for getting 2 in the top 10.

Congrats to everyone.
 
Back
Top Bottom