I am of the opinion that, in the Hall of Fame, games that begin in an earlier age should automatically replace those that start in later ages, regardless of the actual times and scores involved.

For example:

a 1600AD Space Race victory starting in the Future Age

would be beaten by

a 1800AD Space Race victory starting in the Modern Age


I freely admit this is purely out of personal bias against later-age starts. I think they rip out huge portions of the game, enough to have penalties arbitrarily slapped on them.

- Bill

Hmm, could this be targeted at me?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=155397

Anyway, if your main concern is that you are taking something away from the game by having later era starts; let me rebut with the argument that you are taking more away by not allowing them.

Part of the HoF games is picking the best settings for the slot you are trying to win. A later start is not the best setting for every victory and knowing which era works best for what victory is part of the game. Take away that choice and you take away part of the game.

Also, you are making the (incorrect) assumption that it is always harder to win when starting earlier. Yes there are games where Future era is an advantage (Space), but there are games where ancient is more of one. Frankly, anywone who could win a domination victory with a future start deserves to beat any ancient era Dom win, IMHO. It is much, much harder to win a Dom on Deity in any year with a future start than it is to win it with the Preat rush, that is so popular these days, on an ancient start. Should we then also bump the ancient Dom victories and replace them with Industrial and Modern ones? No, becuase the player used their knowledge of the game to go, "Hey I want a Dom win, so I am going to use Julius and start in the ancient era on a balanced map!" All choices that are part of the game. Are we also going to replace all Caesar victories with Issabella wins causes she's harder to play than Julius and therefore you are taking away from the game by using Caesar

As for penalizing them, the penalty is built in: You start at a later year. A future era start will never have a win before 1440 AD becuase that's the first year you play on. An ancient start gets 700+ more turns, that's a huge penalty.

Oh well, just my 2 cents.

Oh well, just my 2 cents.
I think we got our money's worth with those 2 cents ;). I agree that it's far from obvious that a non-Ancient era game will get a better date. If it was obvious I expect we would have had more submissions with later era starts to exploit that!

Chris,

There are only two scenarios under which the Future Age start gives a clear, and in my opinion insurmountable advantage on higher difficulties: The Space Race and the Diplomatic Victory.

I would not be suprised if a human player in the future age would be able to at least match the performance of a player of the ancient age in the more violent victories, strictly turn wise. The computer is highly predictable and fights very, very badly.

For cultural victory, I expect the turn-count to be almost identical in both Ancient and Future ages. On one hand, you don't have to tech, on the other, you have more time to build. I expect they roughly cancel out.

But, obviously, these things are beside the point. As you note, the future age carries the pentalty of starting very late in the game, which all-but-precludes future age starts from the scoreboards.

However, the same is not true of the Space Race.

If you look at Gauntlet One, played on Prince difficulty, you'll see that the victory times bottomed out in the mid 1300s. I have a very hard time believing this can be even remotely matched on Deity, given the tactics employed, and no alternate strategy has emerged that I am aware of.

Diplomatic Victory suffers from the same problem, though I do not have a gauntlet to point to as evidence. They are both tech-heavy victories.

Now, to come down to it, I flat-out don't believe that anyone starting in Deity Ancient Era can match your time in the Future Era, on the Space Race. I believe that starting in the Future Age with the intent of going for a Spaceship victory reduces the game to a caricature of its previous complexity and generally strips out huge elements of the game that Ancient players have to struggle with.

I would go so far as to bar everything but Ancient Era starts from the Hall of Fame. When you remove all teching from the technology victory, something has gone seriously wrong.

Given that this is still the Beta, I might as well say something now.

- Bill

I tried one future age game once. It wasn't even a contest. The AI does not know to spam settlers like crazy at the start. It's busy building 2-3 units for defense for all its cities instead of grabbing as much territory as possible. I think I played on noble with default number of civs and ended up with 3x the land of the next best civ.

Bill,

So where do we draw the line on what tactics remove too much of the game and should be excluded? If you are worried about players not having to build cottages to farm tech then we clearly need to exclude Inca wins since tech isn't researched past Bronze Working. And Roman should go too since they stop at Iron Working. These both provide "insurmountable advantage on higher difficulties:" for Domination and conquest wins with ancient starts. If we follow your arguments through, these must clearly be banned since they can't be beat by other tactics and remove tech advancement from the game.

Also, I am sure Moonsinger could beat my time with an ancient start if she wanted too. Her Dom victories have been earlier enough that she could easily milk them to very early spaceships if she wanted too. Even LordCoppenhagen's wins without the anarcy exploit were early enough to beat my time if they had wanted to.

As for it helping on Diplo; your just wrong. Try it out. Future starts also eliminate most wonders and buildings from the game. Many of the structures you need to get a diplo win just aren't there. I would love to see you pull off a Future era diplo if you can. I seriously doubt it is possible.

-Chris

Shillen,

Try it on Deity. The easiness came from noble, not future. Everything is easy on noble.

Two things.

1) I accept your challenge. Future Age, Diplomatic Victory. Care to set any other parameters, or are they left up to me?

2) In certain victory types in the Ancient Age, certain leaders have overwhelming advantages due to their Unique Units. This is why I advocate breaking down the Hall of Fame tables to leader-level, so you can look up who has the best Settler Domination Victory with Mao.

I also believe you're slightly missing my point. If Caesar doesn't research anything beyond Iron Working, it bodes very poorly for his Space Race victory. However, if Caesar starts in the Future Age, his failure to tech is a strength. Not teching is a strength, on the technology victory. I look at that and feel slightly ill.

The same thing comes up with Vokial and his 10-turn Conquest victory on Deity, which he won without a single battle. It just ain't right.

If you insist, I could compromise and expand my dream Hall of Fame so that you can look up the best Settler Domination Victory with Mao in the Classical Age, however I think it might be a bit of a waste.

I think I smell a poll coming.

- Bill

Given that this is still the Beta, I might as well say something now.

Absolutely! One of many reasons I decided on doing a Beta. ;)

Barring anything but Ancient age starts is decidedly a possibility should this prove a problem.

The later Era starts are flavor for MP, where there isn't enough time to get through an entire game in most cases. I don't see them as valid SP games from a HOF standpoint unless kept in their own seperate categories.

Not to start in Ancient age looks simply silly to me. I havent tried yet, however from my imagination it will take away fun and skill.

Shillen,

Try it on Deity. The easiness came from noble, not future. Everything is easy on noble.

The game was won in the first 50 turns. That's not the case on regular noble. I'm positive even on deity I'd get more land than the AI's. Try doing that starting at the ancient age without warring. Not going to happen. Generally on a small map the AI's will have 5 cities each and I'll have 2.

1) I accept your challenge. Future Age, Diplomatic Victory. Care to set any other parameters, or are they left up to me?

Deity of course, rest up to you. :) I look forward to you proving me wrong; I love to learn new things.


2) In certain victory types in the Ancient Age, certain leaders have overwhelming advantages due to their Unique Units. This is why I advocate breaking down the Hall of Fame tables to leader-level, so you can look up who has the best Settler Domination Victory with Mao.

You actually have a very good suggestion buried in here: Why not break the HoF down by start era? There are a lot fewer eras than leaders so you don't overwhelm the slot count. Anyone who doesn't want to have to play the Preat rush to get on the boards, can start in Classical or later, still requires major cottage building, but avoids most of the overpowered special units. It also adds a lot of game dimensions that don't exist right now. Frankly, the only good military strategy games require a later era start. The AI is terrible when it is limited to archers, axemen, and swordsmen; but, Have you ever tried for a military victory when your opponent is defending with mech inf, SAMs, and jet fighters AND is attacking with actual offensive units like armor, gunships, and stealth bombers. This is a true tactical challenge and is best experienced by starting in modern or future era. Industrial can be fun too, if you want a retro war game with riflemen and cannons ect.


I also believe you're slightly missing my point. If Caesar doesn't research anything beyond Iron Working, it bodes very poorly for his Space Race victory. However, if Caesar starts in the Future Age, his failure to tech is strength. Not teching is a strength, on the technology victory. I look at that and feel slightly ill.

But he doesn’t have to research anything until after he has beaten his opponents and is just milking the map. What’s the challenge in research when you have 1 mortally wounded AI to deal with? It’s like turning off all the AIs and I’m as opposed and disgusted by that strategy as you are by mine, but I don’t try to stop anyone from using it; I simply went out and found a slot where one of my preferred game styles is the advantages one and played it. My favorite games will still never be on the boards even though they are much harder to do then the ones that are there. (Dom wins on future/Deity maps are a lot of fun, and if you really think all future starts are easy try this on a standard map with the default # of AIs).


The same thing comes up with Vokial and his 10-turn Conquest victory on Deity, which he won without a single battle. It just ain't right.

Come on, that was hilarious. Lighten up!

If you insist, I could compromise and expand my dream Hall of Fame so that you can look up the best Settler Domination Victory with Mao in the Classical Age, however I think it might be a bit of a waste.

I think breaking down by leader creates too many slots and is a bit of a waste, but breaking down by start era is a Great idea IMHO. I’d love to get some actually military wins on the boards. Bring on the pole! Good suggestion Bill!

I'm positive even on deity I'd get more land than the AI's.

Try it out and post your results.

Not to start in Ancient age looks simply silly to me. I haven’t tried yet, however from my imagination it will take away fun and skill.

Ok, if you are going to try and argue that it isn't fun or that it is too easy:

YOU NEED TO TRY IT FIRST!!!

The whole point of the original post was to get people to TRY THIS OUT and see what they could do with it. If it's so easy then prove it! Put your money where your mouth is. Fill up all those unused slots on Deity and immortal with these "easy" wins.

So far the only person willing to step up to the plate is BlueRenner and I really hope he wins; but I am sure it isn't going to be nearly as easy to get a quick time as he thinks it is and he might just change his mind once he has done it.

For the pole, any chance we can limit the voters to people who actually submit a future, deity, small or larger map win? It would be very sad if people who never even bothered to try something were able to ban it because of preconceptions.

EDIT:
Oh, just had an idea. Can one of the upcoming gauntlets be:

• Difficulty: Deity
• Mapsize: Standard
• Victory: Conquest (though ALL victory conditions must be enabled!)
• Starting Era: Future
• Speed: Any
• Opponents: Default (forget what default # is on Std)

Once the gauntlet is complete have the pole and only allow people who submitted a winning game to vote.

I disagree that you have to try everthing out to have a solid opinion about it.
Whats the point to do a Space race Victory starting advanced ? It just doesnt make sense to me at all to take away almost everthing of the game and reduce it to an optimize X turns with a Build Order game. How can that actually be fun ? The no skill point im refering to isnt about if you can actually be faster as with Ancient start, i just say it will always be the same game, you will always do the exactly same things no thinking required just dull Build Order play with no adaption required.

Orca,

How can you possibly know if you haven't tried? Try it! If it is soooo easy, and so unthinking then do it. It shouldn't take much time to do something so simple.

Until you do, shoo, shoo

Done.

As expected, it was absurdly easy. The computer fights incredibly poorly, and makes mind-blowing blunders that a human player can easily cut through.

Setup:

Small Temperate Team Battleground (TvB) Deity Marathon, Future Era
Montezuma VS Asoka, Isabella, Saladin, Mansa Musa
Victory: Diplomatic, 1628

I might also add that it was my first try. However, that might be seen as bragging.

Attached are a pile of save games if you'd like to examine them.

- Bill

@Chris : I play for fun in the first place and wont play a game with settings that look silly to me just to proof something that I know anyway. However its good that BlueRenner takes the time to do it.

Bill,

Wow, that was fast. I'm impressed. :)

I have to wait til I get home to open the saves and see how you did it, but I'm guessing from the message that you pummeled the AIs then voted yourself a win without any other support? Not what I was thinking when you said Diplo win, but nicely done even so.

How did you get through the Jets so fast? They always slow me down to a 1700s ish Dom win. Though I usualy play larger maps, but 100 years is a lot of turns even for a couple map sizes.

If you insist, I could compromise and expand my dream Hall of Fame so that you can look up the best Settler Domination Victory with Mao in the Classical Age,
- Bill

Why stop with the leader level? Why not go all the way to map sub-type? I want to know who won the fastest spaceship classsical start on immortal using Mao on an archipelago tiny islands map!:lol:

Yes, it was an offense-based strategy where I paused after conquering half the world (after 56 turns) to focus on population growth and building the UN. Victory came on turn 94, after a wopping 38 turns of peace. If I had been going for Domination, I would have won much sooner.

Here's my turn log.

http://www.bridgekeeper.net/turnLog.html

As for Future-age fighting, I think you overestimate the difficulty against the computer. The AI is, at its very best, partially retarded. They were still defending their cities with SAM infantry (18 power) in an age of mech infantry (32 power) and modern tanks (40 power)! Pure idiocy. Their production bonus is more than negated by the fact they don't have the first clue what to do with it.

As for jets, they have a very simple counter: ignore them. All air units are rendered absolutely useless with the advent of Mechanized Infantry -- and you start the future age with three of them! The computer won't attack mech infantry with airpower, due to the chance of loss. I just made sure all my stacks had a couple mech units in it and the jets never left the enemy airfield.

Though they did knock out my explorers real quick. Oh me oh my.

May I consider my point made?

- Bill

YOU NEED TO TRY IT FIRST!!!



I tried it in Civ3, what has changed to make it different or fun? The game is about civilization, this isn't simcity or starcraft.

My only problem with it is when it becomes forced because there is no other way to compete.

It should be pretty obvious that a tech game begun in future will obviously be a tad bit easy. The only question them becomes what date you start and whether that date makes it possible to be beaten normally.

On a completely different topic, there appears to be something wrong with the Score parsing of the above game I just submitted. The Hall of Fame shows that this game scored 5040, yet my local Hall of Fame says I scored 20713.

- Bill

On a completely different topic, there appears to be something wrong with the Score parsing of the above game I just submitted. The Hall of Fame shows that this game scored 5040, yet my local Hall of Fame says I scored 20713.

- Bill
You have spotted something there. I checked a couple other non-ancient age games an there is some discrepency there too.
Welcome to the Beta HoF. :D

We will have to wait for morning in the UK to find out more.

We will have to wait for morning in the UK to find out more.
Make that evening in the UK ;). I don't know off the top of my head, so it will require some investigation.