Gauntlet Two

[madmaven]

That makes sense. But I think there might be another twist that hasn't been mentioned. I'm trying it out now to see if it gets me anywhere close to a respectable finish date.

Something else: I wonder if more civs are better or worse. I played one game vs 5 other civs and so far they each seemed much weaker and more spread out than the 18 civs I tried against last time. A lotta civs are good because it basically eliminates barbs, but each civ is competing for space and has to defend itself and keep up with other civs. They each seem a lot more solid than when there are fewer and they are busy spamming out settlers and workers as fast as they can.

 

[Orca]

You are allowed to turn off babarians - only five enemy civs is best.

 

[Gazaridis]

Gave up on that Incan game - much fun at the start but towards the end it just went into a quagmire, as I had to wait aaages for my army to cross the entire world. So I started a new one, as Persia against 5 civs and won in 205 AD (although I captured last city in 200). Basically I just founded a couple of cities, then went straight for producing Immortals (they're not as good as they seem on paper) from barracks. I started in a little corner with Napoleon and Frederick, and then went on from there. The only cities I captured and held were Berlin and Tehnoctitlan (right at the end). Final score 41,418 (587 pre-bonus).

1350 BC: Declare War on Napoleon
1120 BC: Declare war on Frederick
710 BC: Germany Destroyed
400 BC: Declare war on Gengis with 23 Immortals
360 BC: Genghis declares war on Victoria!
210 BC: Mongolia destroyed.
50 BC: Declare war on Victoria
30 AD: England Destroyed
95 AD: Declare war on Montezuma. SOD 35 Immortals
200 AD: Victory!

 

[madmaven]

Thanks for the tip about turning the barbs off, Orca. I didn't know that. That would have taken many turns off my last game if I didn't have to stop and fight them off.

I'm in agreement about the five civs being easier too.

200 AD is a nice game. I kind of figured to win you'd have to conquer everything around 0 AD. I think immortals are a good UU for this one.

I haven't had much luck with Incas now that archers are harder to take down.

 

[panzooka]

kublai khan seems viable
research animal husbandry right away.
if no horse appears in easy reachable position, restart.
if there is good horse, research archery and horseback riding.
dont bother build settler, just take rival's capital and use it your own
when you got keshik, destroy rival's copper mines, how? mines on flat land is obviously a copper mine before u got bronze working, and mines on hills that have an archer guarding it. u dont want them to roll axeman and spearman
take rival's capital and raze all other cities.

its stupid that immortal are horse riders and doesnt have to research horseback riding, while keshik uses spears and they need to research archery

keshiks are good because they ignores terrain, so its faster to get from 1 end to another.

btw what map u guys uses. i now think flat maps are bad idea, because you cant go from one end to another

 

[Orca]

btw what map u guys uses. i now think flat maps are bad idea, because you cant go from one end to another

Maps like Great Plains or Team Battlegrounds are very small though.

 

[Quantum7]

Indeed a boring Gauntlet. Still, it made me finish my first Conquest (got to see the movie, woohoo). A decent result as well.

And these Conquests take *ALOT* less time than the space race, I can do one of these in 4-5 hours, while the space race takes me 20 .

 

[Tall German Joe]

Maps like Great Plains or Team Battlegrounds are very small though.

I dont know about Team Battlegrounds, it seemed kind of big and seperated to me, but Great Plains, Balanced, and Pangea are pretty good choices; I think Great Plains would average out to be best, but you might be able to get really lucky on a Balanced or a Pangea map.

Just got a 520 B.C. victory, but I think I can break 600!!

 

[Tall German Joe]

Gave up on that Incan game - much fun at the start but towards the end it just went into a quagmire, as I had to wait aaages for my army to cross the entire world. So I started a new one, as Persia against 5 civs and won in 205 AD (although I captured last city in 200). Basically I just founded a couple of cities, then went straight for producing Immortals (they're not as good as they seem on paper) from barracks. I started in a little corner with Napoleon and Frederick, and then went on from there. The only cities I captured and held were Berlin and Tehnoctitlan (right at the end). Final score 41,418 (587 pre-bonus).

1350 BC: Declare War on Napoleon
1120 BC: Declare war on Frederick
710 BC: Germany Destroyed
400 BC: Declare war on Gengis with 23 Immortals
360 BC: Genghis declares war on Victoria!
210 BC: Mongolia destroyed.
50 BC: Declare war on Victoria
30 AD: England Destroyed
95 AD: Declare war on Montezuma. SOD 35 Immortals
200 AD: Victory!

Did you encounter anything besides archers defending in cities? I can see Immortals being the best for a fast victory, but I was worried that a single non-archer, non-warrior unit would completely much halt my war machine.

 

[Orca]

Havent seen anything but archers in my games yet.

 

[Denniz]

Did you encounter anything besides archers defending in cities? I can see Immortals being the best for a fast victory, but I was worried that a single non-archer, non-warrior unit would completely much halt my war machine.

I had a Persian game going with 10 opponents that I abandoned as it was past 200AD. I scouted the opponent before attacking. I preplaced Immortals close to their copper/iron and took those out first. You can keep attacking against Axe, Sword, Spear, etc. as long as you are willing/able to sucide Immortals. Building a few axe/swords helps for some of the tougher cities, though. I found my casulties against Archers were pretty high, though.

 

[madmaven]

I dont know about Team Battlegrounds, it seemed kind of big and seperated to me, but Great Plains, Balanced, and Pangea are pretty good choices; I think Great Plains would average out to be best, but you might be able to get really lucky on a Balanced or a Pangea map.

Just got a 520 B.C. victory, but I think I can break 600!!

That's a good game!

 

[madmaven]

I had a Persian game going with 10 opponents that I abandoned as it was past 200AD. I scouted the opponent before attacking. I preplaced Immortals close to their copper/iron and took those out first. You can keep attacking against Axe, Sword, Spear, etc. as long as you are willing/able to sucide Immortals. Building a few axe/swords helps for some of the tougher cities, though. I found my casulties against Archers were pretty high, though.

Archers are tough now. I've had many fights where the odds were in my favor and archers pulled it off.

 

[Quantum7]

My first try got a 650 BC win . Strangely enough I used horse archers lol.

 

[Grega]

Hi,
it think that u can win very quick and with litle trouble by choosing romans, in my first game a finished 1220 B.C. on maraton speed. There for I think (based on first gauntlet-space race) the best players will finish this one even 100 turns before me. BTW my strategy was choping wood like crazy for praetorians (a had around 30 in the and) so I send on 4 or 5 on each opponent (I have 5 of them).
P.S. What is the best score?

 

[Orca]

Best score as in best finish date yet ? The points seem to be a little odd with conquest anyway. I did some games where i go for the same playstyle and approx same finish date but the score of one game is like half of the other's - very odd. Furthermore an early finish date looks contraproductiv for high scoring

 

[madmaven]

Hi,
it think that u can win very quick and with litle trouble by choosing romans, in my first game a finished 1220 B.C. on maraton speed. There for I think (based on first gauntlet-space race) the best players will finish this one even 100 turns before me. BTW my strategy was choping wood like crazy for praetorians (a had around 30 in the and) so I send on 4 or 5 on each opponent (I have 5 of them).

Preatorians are nice becuase each one can take out an archer in a city and still be left at more than half strength. The only issue i've had is moving them around the map fast enough. But it seems like that wasn't a problem with a 1220 BC win.

 

[Grega]

Orca I ment what is the best finish date. Btw my score is 90k(which is the highest I got, my second best score-77k was space race)but I did not play for high score but to finsh as soon as posible.

 

[Orca]

My best finish date is 2000 bc yet. I suspect that this might be the fastest overall also ... but who knows.

 

[drjones]

HI, I had sucess with Frederick on a terra map with 13 foes and had 2 last citys left in 1310 when I slipped over the domination limit It took me 4 days to get there and I find conquest tedious (I quit once it is obvious I will win) so I am not going to try again. It was nice to be able to take a city before a tech revolution hits but it made it pretty easy really, once I had an advantage in techs I would declair on someone with an inferiour army and they had pretty much no chance to catch up in tech.

I razed a lot of cities to keep maintenance down and got courthouses before I expanded much at all. I also captured the holy city of the most popular religion so I made a lot of money from that. I still had mantenance issues until state property.

-drjones