The Hall of Players

[elitetroops]

Only ever played one quick game, can't help you with those questions.. But quick large sounds like a nightmare indeed. Respect if you can handle that. Oh, and awesome date in the gauntlet as well!

Spoiler :

Anyway, here's an interesting start..

Spoiler :

Deity/epic/small/conquest. De Gaulle is still out there somewhere, haven't met him yet.

I think Asoka should go first, his holy city is threatening my gems. Or would it be better to wait and see if he builds a shrine? I'm hoping the game will be over so fast that it doesn't matter.

Edit: meh, abandon game. Asoka built stonehenge and stole gems. Then I lost 9 units trying to take the city from him, even though it was only defended by 2 archers and an axe. For the sake of it I reloaded and attacked one turn later with same units, same defenders. Took city with only 2 losses. RNG really makes a difference for the first attacks...

 

[Seraiel]

Nice to see you playing Deity too now . Didn't even notice, that the Deity / Epic / Small / Conquest slot has so few submissions. GL on hunting the #1 .

 

[elitetroops]

Nice to see you playing Deity too now . Didn't even notice, that the Deity / Epic / Small / Conquest slot has so few submissions. GL on hunting the #1 .

Played mostly for the challenger series, didn't think Ottoman's could be competitive with the current no1 Persia game. (I actually suggested an Ottoman Deity/Epic/Standard/Conquest game for the challenge series to push you off your #1 slot , but it was bumped down to small.) But based on the game I just finished, I think Ottoman's could very well beat Lexad's Cyrus game. Especially if you manage to peace vassal one or 2 AI. Might give it another shot later, if someone beats my date.

 

[Seraiel]

Played mostly for the challenger series, didn't think Ottoman's could be competitive with the current no1 Persia game. (I actually suggested an Ottoman Deity/Epic/Standard/Conquest game for the challenge series to push you off your #1 slot , but it was bumped down to small.) But based on the game I just finished, I think Ottoman's could very well beat Lexad's Cyrus game. Especially if you manage to peace vassal one or 2 AI. Might give it another shot later, if someone beats my date.

Very good, so my agreement with the HoF staff to not choose any of my games for competition is still active, thx shulec!

The Standard / Epic / 990 AD Conquest . I think it'll take a lot more time, 'til that one will be beaten, or I might be wrong? Don't know, I played a weak civ in it and went for Elepult instead of HAs, but I oracled Civil Service, played a micro-Pangaea and even won the Domquest coinflip .

Didn't notice how good the date for your challenge game was, only saw that the slot has few submissions, and that the #1 game even is non-Incan, so I didn't see it was by Darius. 215 BC could be harder to beat then you think, but the greater question is, what the fuq did people submit for that slot? Kaitzilla and STW with AW-games? kcd_swede with an OCC + PA game? The games of Kaitzilla and Sun Tzu Wu I even think I remember, those were the legendary Deity-AW games in one of the previous challenges.

Did I tell already that it's awesome to have that treaty with the HoF-staff?

 

[elitetroops]

Didn't notice how good the date for your challenge game was, only saw that the slot has few submissions, and that the #1 game even is non-Incan, so I didn't see it was by Darius. 215 BC could be harder to beat then you think,

Well, if I had managed to peace vassal Gandhi, it would have been a 50BC victory, I think. And that was with a 2 city elepult breakout (2nd city complete crap) and I missed oracle by one turn, so definitely room for improvement. Not to mention it was my first deity military victory ever. I think someone with more experience could certainly do much better. But sure, it would be tough to beat 215BC. Not easy to get double the land of anyone (for peace vassaling) on a micro pangaea with so few leaders.

but the greater question is, what the fuq did people submit for that slot? Kaitzilla and STW with AW-games? kcd_swede with an OCC + PA game? The games of Kaitzilla and Sun Tzu Wu I even think I remember, those were the legendary Deity-AW games in one of the previous challenges.

I looked at Kaitzilla's AW game before playing. Crazy stuff! KCD's OCC was for the challenge series. He likes OCC PA.

Did I tell already that it's awesome to have that treaty with the HoF-staff?

I'm not in on that treaty, might still come after you!

 

[Seraiel]

I'm not in on that treaty, might still come after you!

Ever seen a game of you rejected without reasons?

 

[elitetroops]

Ever seen a game of you rejected without reasons?

Nope, never. Not with reason either. Don't think you're the only one who has a secret pact with the HoF-staff.

 

[Seraiel]

Nope, never. Not with reason either. Don't think you're the only one who has a secret pact with the HoF-staff.

Thx for making me laugh .

 

[Seraiel]

Seriously, how hard is it to get a micro-Pangaea that has Horses in the BFC? I'm even playing a CRE civ, so they could be in the 3rd ring, and I'm accepting a start that has one good source of food and one source of commerce. Stop resisting to be driven out of the HoF frenchies!

 

[Seraiel]

I needed to take a step back from driving the frenchies out of the HoF, because I didn't get 1 map that was Micro Pangaea and had Horses in 2 days, so I changed the game to a Spacerace, in which I don't need such extraordinary starting criteria. Would almost have chosen Louis as a leader because I still lack a 2nd game in EQM with him .

 

[Seraiel]

Stuck again...

Playing a Spacerace on Normal speed. Conquered Frederick and most of Brennus early, and now all other AIs are my friends, so I could use them to help me researching, but they got so many resources for Mining and Sushi, that I've made a major effort on planning to conquer them, and I don't even know if that is the right move. Questions like Cuirrs (for which I could get the tech for free) or better Cossacks or Cannons + X are already almost impossible for me to answer. Have decided for Cannons + X for the moment, because Cannons are probably the strongest unit in the game, and at least they're on the way to Mining, for which I don't even have a GE although having Mids + HGs and being PHI.
Missed Liberalism and Economics, because Mansa has gone crazy having twice as much GNP as the rest, how I love the usual GLH-enabled runaway-AI .

Not sure what is the right move now. Somehow Cossacks attract me, because with them, I could have the remaining cities faster, and speed is a big factor on Normal as all of you know. Maybe I should just play peacefully, conquer the rest of Brennus with my remaining forces and settle the new world.
Thankful for any kind of advice, even if it may come to late to still influence the current game. It's the standard questions of what is better, a friendly Deity-AI or getting the territory of it, and then the usual difficulties in warfare, with Cavs being the better units, but they're also a lot more expensive than draft-Rifles and Cannons are stronger. Still, getting cities earlier is a big factor as all of you know and maybe that alone makes up for the higher cost of the Cavs, then less defenders and cities that are probably even a little larger.









Tia.

 

[Seraiel]

I know it's only been an hour since I posted, but I really hope someone will give me advice on that situation still in time for this game. I'm currently thinking of cancelling my plans to go for Steal, and get Rifling instead, to build Cossacks. It's a really odd choice, because those are two techs not on the way to Corps, instead of one that helps getting Mining earlier, but the advantage of getting the cities earlier just seems too great. I plan on conquering 15 cities, so I guess that I'll get the last ones at least 10T earlier with Cavs, that's so much production, that's way above what Cavs cost more, if there only weren't those 2 techs, but RP is even a useful one, because I have some WMs.

How important are lower costs and staying on the optimal tech-path in a Corporations-spacerace, that is on a faster speed and hasn't gone 100% optimal?

 

[Seraiel]

I always hoped this game would become easier with knowing more about it, but it actually becomes more difficult .

 

[Dhoomstriker]

You have a special case here... Mansa is WFYABTA, while multiple other AIs are Friendly and seem to stay ahead of you in techs.

Most of their land doesn't look great, either.

I mean, I'm not seeing a ton of Size-17 Cities for you to capture.

I'd keep most of and probably all of those Friendly AIs around, at least as long as they are contributing toward the tech race.

Some of them can also trade with Mansa, meaning that Mansa's techs can become your techs via those Friendly AIs.


Maybe try to bribe Mansa into a Mutual War, to bring him up to Friendly.


I'd focus on settling the New World.


Maybe take down backward Elizabeth, as long as doing so won't bring you out of Friendly status with other AIs, and if it will, see if you can first bribe her into a Religious Civic, to see if others will hate her for running Buddhism/Taoism.

 

[Seraiel]

The tech-pace in this game seems somehow crazy to me. It's probably because of the christian love-feast, the AIs sometimes seem to get techs out of nothing, they don't even trade, it seems as if they gift them to each other. I'm quite relaxed though, because I can bring Mansa to friendly everytime I need by bribing him into my religious civic and I have developed my economy really well, after having been at 1/3 of Mansa's GNP already, which was a really difficult time.

It's impossible to bribe Lizzy into a religious Civic because Free Religion is her favourite Civic, so the only possible mean would be espionage, I can take the diplo-hits though.
What's ridiculous is, that she's not friendly yet to trade Military Tradition to me. I traded her 5 resources and thought this would get me the +2 for "we appreciate the years you supplied us with resources" in 8T thinking it needs 20 resource-turns for every +1, but it seems that bonus takes 50 resource-turns for +1! I googled complete CFC for info when she didn't switch on friendly when she was supposed to, I didn't find a single post telling the exact number of turns that bonus needs to build up! Even in the SGOTM-posts of you, no answer!

The problem with taking over Lizzy is, that she suffers cultural pressure from Asoka, who suffers cultural pressure from her, and Roosevelt suffers from both while they suffer from him too, which imo means, that if I take over one, that I must take over the other two too. I've build up quite a few Knights and just checked this thread again right before upgrading my Catapults to Cannons, which would have been quite costly. Now I'm not sure what to do. I think that the AIs will contribute well to my advance for quite a while because of the crazy tech-tempo, and it's not long before I'll have Lizzy on friendly too, but what shall I do with those 6 Cats, 1 Treb, 10 Knights and 10 Axes? Shall I use them for guarding my cities and send all Warriors to the new world? ^^ I can sacrifice some on Brennus remaining 3 cities, then I also wouldn't need to upgrade them. I unfortunately disabled Vassals when creating the game, so peacevassaling the three smaller AIs is no option, getting enough military for that would have been very difficult otoh though.

Thx for your advice already Dhoomstriker. The land of the AIs is btw. what led me to wanting to conquer them, Lizzy + Asoka + Roosevelt would give me 17 Sushi and Mining resources, and that's a lot for a small map! Really don't know what to do know. Would be sad to ruin a good game.

 

[Seraiel]

The AIs have power-ratios of 1.0 and I'm paying 70 GPT in pacifism for my army . I'm also not sure anymore, if the three smaller ones really can keep contributing, Roosevelt needs 5T for Corporations, for which I would only need 3T, I'm in a GA though. Also Asoka has the MoM, isn't that enough reason alone to conquer him? Could become difficult because all are so far advanced, but I can't take them serious if they only got 1.0, I've already conquered civs that had 50% more power than me.

Here are some new screenshots:

The territory of the three smaller AIs, really a lot of resources imo. They're also currently so nice to research 4 different techs which I need all .



Showing the current tech-situation:



Diplomatic relations, Lizzy is also short before becoming friendly:



[EDIT]

Forgot a screenshot of my military:



Not too great, with all the Axes, but Elephants were available late. Definitely too big imho, to not use it. The upgrades will suck, but I got a lot of currently and I began production of two GMs, because burning is np with Corporations. Not sure if I can conquer all three with Cuirrs / Cossacks / Cannons though. Their power-rating is weak, but with the tech-speed being so high I doubt I can conquer all of them before one reaches Rifles. Maybe I'll be lucky though.

Pay attention to the losses of the Axes btw. if you want to know how good Axe-rushes on Deity really work. I got about the chances that the odds predicted, against an amazing amount of 3 (!) cities which I conquered with them really early, so before Cats .

[EDIT2]

Did anybody pay attention to the names of the cities btw.?

 

[Seraiel]

Decision has fallen. Sry that I can't take your advice of playing peaceful Dhoomstriker, but I found that the AIs are just too weak with their 1.0 powerratings, so I completed the research of Steel, upgraded the Cats to Cannons (1100g) and Lizzy thankfully got friendly on the same turn, which allowed me to get Military Tradition from her, so I upgraded 15 Knights, Elephants and even a Chariot to Cuirrassiers. At least I got so much military now, that the AIs were bumped down to 1.3, so I can maybe get a little money from begging .
I have to figure how to keep the research going fast with having little gold left (400) , but wanting to win at least one of Physics and Communism. I'm still not sure if it really was the best decision, but I think I'm gonna be thankful once I got those 15 cities and 17 resources which almost tripple my city-count and more than quadruple my Mining and Sushi-resources.
Also have to figure out how to keep Mansa as a friend with expecting -3 to -4 diplo-hits, bribing him into war against Brennus is not easy, as he still got a tech-lead over me Can probably keep Mansa friendly through sharing his favourite civic Free Market.

Not really the easiest of all games, if I ever get into a similar situation again, I'll probably take the peaceful settling the new world variant. Thanks again to Dhoomstriker for replying, getting advice always helps to clear the mind, even with not following it ^^ . The game seems to be really good though, I compared saves with my 1545 AD Spacerace with Catherine, and I'm on par atm. , and I expect a way better developement in the end because of all that endgame training I recieved in the current Gauntlet. It's actually amazing, how good a game can still be with missing Liberalism, Economics, the Taj Mahal, the GLH, with having no good UU or even Elephants and so on and so forth. I need to make sure this streak finds an end with the SoL and the Kremlin though, those two are really too important imo. In the beginning of a game, as WastinTime also already said once, being late sometimes makes for a faster game, when one gets a tech more for free. It's really the endgame where one really races to Space where it's decided if it becomes a 15xx, a 16xx or a 17xx Spacerace. I'm not sure there are any 14xx Spaceraces on Normal speed, but maybe I'll take a stronger leader next time and try.

And sampsa, I saw that you read the thread and didn't reply. Bad sampsa!

 

[sampsa]

Sorry, had nothing intelligent to say. Can't even see the city names.

 

[Seraiel]

Sorry, had nothing intelligent to say. Can't even see the city names.

I renamed all cities after famous Vodka-brands .

 

[sampsa]

So Finlandia and... Can't think of the others.