Yeah to me, org rel is very difficult to use unless SPI. Definitely should try to find some double swap opportunity, otherwise I don't think it's worth it.
Shadow gauntlet start
- Thread starter valergrad
- Start date
I played first 70 turn of your save. I can post short writeup once you reach your T70 if you want.
I figured one problem with these settings, though. I think, you really want "no vassal states" here. Colonial maintenance cost will be a problem otherwise.
I figured one problem with these settings, though. I think, you really want "no vassal states" here. Colonial maintenance cost will be a problem otherwise.
I've got some different views on playing to the settings. Not things you'd do just to try to win normally, but optimizations towards this particular challenge.
1) A HOF game below Monarch means a warrior rush is usually best. The AI usually pops out a worker on the t18-19 interturn so you want to have two warriors there to attack. The odds of winning the 2v1 are OK (not great) but needs must, and this gets you 2 cities + 2 workers faster than anything else.
This is motivation for maximum AIs + No City Razing + Snaky Continents.
(N.B. For a space victory - on Pangaea or Terra - I would look for a much more extreme rush but Archipelago and a Hunting civ both make that more difficult.)
2) There's an art to rushing the AIs on the cheap. Even better if they "forgot" to research bronze working for Slavery, or Archery.
It's very definitely worth it if you can manage it since you get workers, religions, and sometimes granaries for free.
You wouldn't want to bull-rush an AI with 7 axemen though because that's quite expensive.
3) I'm not a huge fan of Oracle->Civil Service (although it is good practice if you're just trying to improve).
The game is a balance between very wide expansion, and teching to Sushi.
The main sources of research will be commerce tiles (in the very early game), internal overseas trade routes, coast tiles (FIN + colossus) and great people.
This means the priority wonders are:
4) I agree with a lot of the comments here about prioritizing Settlers and Workers over Granaries and Lighthouses until the initial wave of expansion is done - but the more successful your initial rush + expansion is, the faster this switchover comes (and the more wonders you can afford to build too).
1) A HOF game below Monarch means a warrior rush is usually best. The AI usually pops out a worker on the t18-19 interturn so you want to have two warriors there to attack. The odds of winning the 2v1 are OK (not great) but needs must, and this gets you 2 cities + 2 workers faster than anything else.
This is motivation for maximum AIs + No City Razing + Snaky Continents.
(N.B. For a space victory - on Pangaea or Terra - I would look for a much more extreme rush but Archipelago and a Hunting civ both make that more difficult.)
2) There's an art to rushing the AIs on the cheap. Even better if they "forgot" to research bronze working for Slavery, or Archery.
It's very definitely worth it if you can manage it since you get workers, religions, and sometimes granaries for free.
You wouldn't want to bull-rush an AI with 7 axemen though because that's quite expensive.
3) I'm not a huge fan of Oracle->Civil Service (although it is good practice if you're just trying to improve).
The game is a balance between very wide expansion, and teching to Sushi.
The main sources of research will be commerce tiles (in the very early game), internal overseas trade routes, coast tiles (FIN + colossus) and great people.
This means the priority wonders are:
- The Great Lighthouse (obviously)
- Colossus
- Everything else (probably Pyramids, MoM, Great Library and Oracle are on a similar power level).
4) I agree with a lot of the comments here about prioritizing Settlers and Workers over Granaries and Lighthouses until the initial wave of expansion is done - but the more successful your initial rush + expansion is, the faster this switchover comes (and the more wonders you can afford to build too).
Yes, probably for HOF record this is what you should try.
But as a shadow game - what if you starting with '2 warriors' build and then see that you're actually only one on the whole island?
What if your 2 warriors lose 2v1 battle?
I mean, as a shadow you probably would play something more stable... something that can't end badly because of bad luck.
But yes - for Gauntlet I see a new submission from nocho where he destroys Shaka at T24 and have GLH at T66, Sushi at T174 and with total 440k.
This is something I not even hoping to beat.
Previously top score was 237k and it looked like something totally beatable even for me.,
I really like Colossus too on Archipelago. But if we go for Metal Casting first, we probably would not manage to get Oracle Civil Service.
And if we go for Oracle Metal Casting - it looks like such a waste of beakers. I mean, CS costs 1056 beakers, Metal Casting - 594. Earlier Colossus will compensate probably some of them, but can't imagine that it will compensate 450 beakers. And later you'll have to learn Civil Service anyway.
Also, I am little worried to face with one of this maps where you need an early Astronomy just to continue expansion ( this is what happened in my first attempt on this map ).
I think, it would be perfectly fine if you start a map, play first 20-25 turns for yourself (they should be pretty straightforward) and post T25 here if you were lucky enough to capture capital
As a huge fan of Oracle -> Civil Service I have to say we have different opinions on that. But I have to admit that I have only Warlord-Terra-Space experience, not an Archipelago-Prince-Score. Still, I can hardly imagine how fast Colossus could be better than fast Bureuacracy (of course you will get both eventually)
Also, looked at nocho's run. Wow
. We have completely different views on how this game should be played 
Link, screenshots or something?Also, looked at nocho's run. Wow
For Space? Yes absolutely. You need the big Buro-Oxford-cottages capital to power through the renaissance and industrial era techs while the rest of the empire is getting up to speed.As a huge fan of Oracle -> Civil Service I have to say we have different opinions on that. But I have to admit that I have only Warlord-Terra-Space experience, not an Archipelago-Prince-Score. Still, I can hardly imagine how fast Colossus could be better than fast Bureuacracy (of course you will get both eventually)
Also, looked at nocho's run. Wow
But the capital is lower-quality on Archipelago, and you can turn off tech after Sushi. You'll work coast tiles instead of cottages and can do it in essentially every city. You probably build more settlers/workers there instead of growing every single population you can squeeze under your happy cap.
It's not that bureau is bad - but the cost is researching Myst-Med/Poly-Priest-CoL and that's a lot of beakers to spend on not that big of a boost.
But maybe I'm talking myself back into the idea that the capital should still be as large as possible and early Buro is best?
In as many words - yes it's on to the next map if you don't find an AI, or you lose the fight, or if the AI city is bad. You get to keep more maps than you'd think* - but I take your point about the shadow game and it's not reliable to use in a one-off game.
*and then throw it away when your starting island is too small or doesn't have enough AIs or you don't have xyz other requirements within your first few cities...
You will get CS eventually anyway - be it Oracle T65 or selftech T95. So late game capital potential is irrelevant here - you will be at Bureau at this point one way or another. The question is about turns 65-95.
I agree with all of that. Actually, I have built exactly one cottage (on the floodplains) outside of capital in my space run even though it was terra map. That was a mistake, fwiw.
Curiously, all of that leads me to the opposite conclusions.
Building Colossus too early slows down you expansion. I don't like to work coastal tiles in the expansion phase because they are foodhammer neutral. Food resources are good, obviously, but even LH lakes are on the edge (and I'm talking about 3
4 
tiles here!). The only reason to work coast is to wait for proper size to whip a settler/worker/galley. So I expect to get about 10-15 from Colossus at this point.CS comes here as the cheapest source of commerce in terms of FH. You work coast in capital and whip it in every other city.
There is also +50%
in capital. This should not be overlooked. This is the only hammer multiplicator you can get this early, and it speeds up expansion greatly, especially if you don't chop forests before it.After a lots of thinking I've concluded that I have to try to go for Judaism. Why? To build GLH.
It seems that Nidaros would be busy with Oracle, so GLH has to be built by Haithabu. But Haithabu has only 1 forest in vicinity before popping borders, so it needs 10 culture. How to get them? One option is to build a monument.
I don't like this option tbh...
The thing is, that we definitely will want Org religion + Bureacracy double switch later, so we will have research Monotheism anyway. And why not now in that case? I mean, i thought a lot and looks like right now it doesn't slow anything.
We are going for long Priesthood - Writing - Mathematics - CoL chain, so if we paste there 2-3 turns delay because of Monotheism - I believe it doesn't matter. If we will get Oracle around T75, it will be still a huge spare.
But there is a good chance ( actually exactly 50% ) that Judaism will be founded in Haithabu. Actually 45%, as looking on timings for Judaism, it seems we will get it with probability around 90%.
And after that there is a non-zero chance that Judaism will continue to spread in other cities. CoL will be around 20 turns later, so Confu will have less time for spread. And if get both, then we can choose - which religon spreaded better (i.e. converted better cities ) and convert to that religion.
And if we will not get Judaism or it will be not in Haithabu - we can switch to plan B with building monument.
It seems that Nidaros would be busy with Oracle, so GLH has to be built by Haithabu. But Haithabu has only 1 forest in vicinity before popping borders, so it needs 10 culture. How to get them? One option is to build a monument.
I don't like this option tbh...
The thing is, that we definitely will want Org religion + Bureacracy double switch later, so we will have research Monotheism anyway. And why not now in that case? I mean, i thought a lot and looks like right now it doesn't slow anything.
We are going for long Priesthood - Writing - Mathematics - CoL chain, so if we paste there 2-3 turns delay because of Monotheism - I believe it doesn't matter. If we will get Oracle around T75, it will be still a huge spare.
But there is a good chance ( actually exactly 50% ) that Judaism will be founded in Haithabu. Actually 45%, as looking on timings for Judaism, it seems we will get it with probability around 90%.
And after that there is a non-zero chance that Judaism will continue to spread in other cities. CoL will be around 20 turns later, so Confu will have less time for spread. And if get both, then we can choose - which religon spreaded better (i.e. converted better cities ) and convert to that religion.
And if we will not get Judaism or it will be not in Haithabu - we can switch to plan B with building monument.
I believe, chances are proportional to city sizes. Capital and cities with religion get huge penalty, but I don't know exactly how big this penalty is.
Writing first allows you to get huge 3
trade routes, so you may consider it first. This might be risky in terms of Judaism, of course.Played till Oracle... almost.
What happened between T45-T70?
1. Founded two more cities ( at spots C1, C2) and built 3rd settler.
2. Founded Judaism. It spreaded between all cities except Uppsala that got Hinduism too early.
3. Researched Masonry, Monoteism, Writing, Agriculture, Mathematics and CoL - in that order.
4. Next turn will get CoL and Oracle. GLH has just 42/200, but at the same time 3 woods can be chopped even this turn to make it 132/200.
5. Scouted south pole. It is totally useless: just one deer and one marble.
Currently: 5 cities, 3 granaries, 2 lighthouses, 3 workers.
Opponents: Monty founded 2nd and 3rd city, and his 3rd city he settled on stone. Boudica still seating with 2 cities and without religion ( but she having some galleys already )
Now some problems to think.
1. Where to put 6th city? What do you think about spots D1, D2, D3?
2. Need to convert to religion. 4 out of 5 my cities are Judaism, but Monty and one my city are Hinduists. What are you usually doing in such situations? I mean setting the same religion as an opponent?
Or setting the correct religion, as anyway war with Monty is inevitable? We can try to convert Monty to our religion, but for that we need somehow become pleased even with different religions. Should I give him city on the south pole?
If we choose Judaism, then I could set Judaism and Bureaucracy + Org religion next turn, delay chopping for now, and after 2 turns get 111 hammers from 3 chops instead of 90 for GLH.
Then one worker whip - and GLH is ready.
3. What do you think should be next tech?
Currency? For +1 trade route.
Metal Casting? For forge and Colossus.
Iron Working? For elephants, bananas.and overall growth of jungle cities.
4. Plan for the next wonders? I can try to whip Pyramids in capital and Colossus in Haithabu.
What happened between T45-T70?
1. Founded two more cities ( at spots C1, C2) and built 3rd settler.
2. Founded Judaism. It spreaded between all cities except Uppsala that got Hinduism too early.
3. Researched Masonry, Monoteism, Writing, Agriculture, Mathematics and CoL - in that order.
4. Next turn will get CoL and Oracle. GLH has just 42/200, but at the same time 3 woods can be chopped even this turn to make it 132/200.
5. Scouted south pole. It is totally useless: just one deer and one marble.
Currently: 5 cities, 3 granaries, 2 lighthouses, 3 workers.
Opponents: Monty founded 2nd and 3rd city, and his 3rd city he settled on stone. Boudica still seating with 2 cities and without religion ( but she having some galleys already )
Now some problems to think.
1. Where to put 6th city? What do you think about spots D1, D2, D3?
2. Need to convert to religion. 4 out of 5 my cities are Judaism, but Monty and one my city are Hinduists. What are you usually doing in such situations? I mean setting the same religion as an opponent?
Or setting the correct religion, as anyway war with Monty is inevitable? We can try to convert Monty to our religion, but for that we need somehow become pleased even with different religions. Should I give him city on the south pole?
If we choose Judaism, then I could set Judaism and Bureaucracy + Org religion next turn, delay chopping for now, and after 2 turns get 111 hammers from 3 chops instead of 90 for GLH.
Then one worker whip - and GLH is ready.
3. What do you think should be next tech?
Currency? For +1 trade route.
Metal Casting? For forge and Colossus.
Iron Working? For elephants, bananas.and overall growth of jungle cities.
4. Plan for the next wonders? I can try to whip Pyramids in capital and Colossus in Haithabu.
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Does founding Judaism spawn a missionary? Serious question.
Nope, it is not. But Confu does.
I believe, chances are proportional to city sizes. Capital and cities with religion get huge penalty, but I don't know exactly how big this penalty is.
Writing first allows you to get huge 3
Got two +3, all others are +2.
Certainly not D1. Need to wait until IW and Calendar. Also, maybe Monty will settle it for us?
It is a close call between D2 and D3, and they should be next cities in some order anyway.
Do you have worker nearby? You need to farm rice or chop workboat in the new city asap. Perfect scenario would be finish chop/farm on the turn you settle
I usually adopt religion with my first GA around 1AD and I have never played HOF with Monty
. Maybe you have to take risks in such kind of games anyway?Not IW. You should trade for it. BTW, you don't need it to camp elephants. In fact, you should do it asap.
I would go for either Currency-Alpha or Alpha-Currency.
Actually, that bunch of forests near deer looks like future wonder.
Oh, btw. You need to build scouting galley for circumnavigation. You will get some TR from it, so consider this an economic investment
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