Newcomers are as usual always welcome. Just be advised that HOF Beta Rules (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php) do apply, in addition to these settings.

Difficulty: Noble
Mapsize: Small
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Quick
Submitted on or before: March 24th.
Civilization: You must play as Montezuma
Setting: OCC must be checked.


Victory Condition:
You may submit games for any Victory Condition. As multiple Gauntlet entries per player are allowed, you may submit different Victory Conditions. (Per HOF rules, a game must be submitted for the first Victory Condition achieved. Subsequent victory accomplishments will not be recognized.)

Determining the winner:
As we on the staff approach the construction of the Quatromaster's Challenge, we need a system of ranking game of differing natures (including different victory conditions) versus one another. In HOF-III's Quartermaster's Challenge (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ3/quartermasters.php), the sorting mechanism was HOF table rank first, score second, submission date/time third.

While that system is tested and proven in it's strengths, we'd like to at least consider alternatives rather than maintain the status quo blindly. As such, this Guantlet will have it's victor decided via the following formula:

At the conclusion of the Gauntlet, games will be sorted into the various Victory Conditions and the average turn number finish of each VC will be calculated. Then, the fastest turn finish from each VC will be taken and divided by the average turn finish for it's VC. The number one game farthest above it's class average will be declared the winner.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let the Gauntlet begin!

OCC again!?! Yes!! I'm assuming the high activity of the last gauntlet suggested another OCC game.

Hopefully have more time for this one. Only managed to finish one game for the last one. Looking forward to playing. No clue yet what victory to go for.

This should be a fun one, gl all.

No clue yet what victory to go for.
Go for Domination. It's easy under these settings. :D

At the conclusion of the Gauntlet, games will be sorted into the various Victory Conditions and the average turn number finish of each VC will be calculated. Then, the fastest turn finish from each VC will be taken and divided by the average turn finish for it's VC. The number one game farthest above it's class average will be declared the winner.

Could you dumb that down a bit? i know theres atleast 1 stupid person here that doesnt know exactly what that means ;)

Divided by the average turn submitted for this gauntlet, average for HoF or what?

Could you dumb that down a bit? i know theres atleast 1 stupid person here that doesnt know exactly what that means ;)
No one may actually know what it means just yet, we haven't done something like this before, so my explanation may be lacking.

Divided by the average turn submitted for this gauntlet, average for HoF or what?
Averaged for submissions to this Gauntlet.

Here's an oversimplified example:
We only get SpaceRace and Diplomatic wins for this Gauntlet.
The best Space win is 1800ad, with the average of 2000ad.
The best Diplomatic win is 1900ad, with the average of 1990ad.
Since the Space win is further ahead of the space average than the Diplo is, the Space win would be the Gauntlet winner.

Does that help?

Huh. I'm not certain I like this formula.

Whats to stop me from submitting all my loser games, just to drag down the average and make my Really Good(tm) game look better in comparison? I mean, these gauntlets are largely on the honor system as it is, but I'm not seeing any rule against manipuating the scoring system to help your rank or to hurt someone else's.

- Bill

Huh. I'm not certain I like this formula.
Good! :eek: No, seriously, the whole reason we're doing this formula in this Gauntlet is so everyone can give us their opinions, so please, speak your mind! This is an experiment. Single VC's will continue to be the standard of future Gauntlets.

Whats to stop me from submitting all my loser games, just to drag down the average and make my Really Good(tm) game look better in comparison?
We have thought of at least that. To prevent that, we'll be taking the best game only from each player in each VC, not multiples.;)

Huh. I'm not certain I like this formula.

Whats to stop me from submitting all my loser games, just to drag down the average and make my Really Good(tm) game look better in comparison? I mean, these gauntlets are largely on the honor system as it is, but I'm not seeing any rule against manipuating the scoring system to help your rank or to hurt someone else's.

- Bill

well im guessing they count only the best submission from each player? ...nevermind superslug already answered :P

what im wondering though is what happen if theres only 1 submission for a certain vc ;)




Here's an oversimplified example:
We only get SpaceRace and Diplomatic wins for this Gauntlet.
The best Space win is 1800ad, with the average of 2000ad.
The best Diplomatic win is 1900ad, with the average of 1990ad.
Since the Space win is further ahead of the space average than the Diplo is, the Space win would be the Gauntlet winner.

Does that help?


yeah i was mainly unsure of whered you get the average from

Hmm. Fair enough.

How do you intend to deal with Time victories?

I think this is a good idea in theory, but I think leaving it totally open for all six victory conditions is a mistake. Nobody will ever have any idea where they stand... you would have to provide some sort of system to run the math and show who is actually ahead, every time someone submits a new game.

I think it would be much better to limit this to two victory conditions: one violent, one peaceful. They'd compliment each other and it would reduce the complexity of the "who is ahead?" problem by several orders of magnitude.

However, I'm really not sold on this as a fundimental concept... it means that the winner is determined not only by how well they do, but also by how badly people perform in their category. The alternative is to just cover your bets and excel in every victory condition... but that idea just hurts my head.

- Bill

i dont think its that bad of an idea and i cant see how theres actually 6 vc possible :P

cultural and domination can be ruled out i think. cant imagine anyone getting small enough landmass to win on domination with occ. im guessing score is out too since youre not very likely to achieve score victory faster than the average person.

if anything about this hurts my head its the thought of another ooc gaunlet of map regeneration.

I think this could be interesting. Like pooLarized mentioned, you can't achieve cultural at all with OCC and I don't think you can get domination on anything except Duel sized maps with OCC (will check this later). There is no such thing as a score victory. The score section of the HOF is for the highest score, it won't actually trigger victory. Time victories will all be 2050 AD so I would imagine they are self-excluded. Unless you sort them by score.

So that only leaves conquest, diplomatic, and space race victories. There should be a nice spread of finish times for each of the three conditions. It won't be easy to see how well you are doing in comparison to the other victory conditions but you can see how well you are doing for each victory condition in the thread.

Well, this should be interesting. Failed to submit for the last guantlet due to illness, should be able to try this one. Looks like fun. I wonder if you can win by Domination on a small map.

Hmm, perm alliances should allow for both cultural and dom wins. Its gonna take a lot of work to set up an AI culture win though.

Quick speed should be interesting.

true, i forgot about perm alliances. i guess domination is possible then. if anyone manages to set up a cultural win though, i think that should be an automatic #1 spot ;)

Hmm, I wonder... perhaps Louis as the perm all target, gift him all the techs, since Louis is wonder happy. Rush on to the UN for the civics. Grab evey religion early and spread them ALL to Louis. Winning the guantlet would be completely out of the question, of course, but it may be possible.

I just finished a conquest victory at 320 BC, but I can't submit the games since I don't have the start file. (I forgot that when you regenerate the map, it does not change the automatic save of the start).

Open the autosave and regenerate again until you get the position you used. It seems to create the same positions it did before.

what im wondering though is what happen if theres only 1 submission for a certain vc ;)
The #1 of that VC would obviously equal the VC average. It would automatically fail to beat any #1 from a VC that has more than one submission.

How do you intend to deal with Time victories?
If we actually get any, they'll be ranked by Score.

I think this is a good idea in theory, but I think leaving it totally open for all six victory conditions is a mistake.
It's a one time thing for purposes of testing this formula and gauging reaction to it. Having a single specific victory condition is a centerpiece of the Gauntlets, and that's not going to change!

However, I'm really not sold on this as a fundimental concept... it means that the winner is determined not only by how well they do, but also by how badly people perform in their category.
Couldn't that also be restated as saying the winner is determined by how much better they were than the games in their category?

The score section of the HOF is for the highest score, it won't actually trigger victory.
Correct, while we have tables for Score, it's not recognized as a Victory Condition for this Gauntlet.

Excellent idea trying multiple victories. Too bad they don't have a cultural OCC.

When making the average win date, maybe you want to drop the lowest half. They can throw off a fair average. Example: someone submits a 2040AD conquest.

I want the formula to work, but I don't think it will. Conquest games are in the early BC range. I'm not sure the formula can balance that with a space race. Applause for you effort on this though. Let's see what happens.

Too bad they don't have a cultural OCC.

I haven't actually tried this yet, but I thought the requirements for cultural victory are different when OCC is checked so that it *is* possible. Has anyone out there actually done this?

I haven't actually tried this yet, but I thought the requirements for cultural victory are different when OCC is checked so that it *is* possible. Has anyone out there actually done this?

I'm pretty sure it's not 50,000 points. Maybe no one ever bothered to try, and this victory condition will trigger at 75,000 or 100,000. Can we get an answer from Firaxis?

I got over 50,000 culture in one of my games in the previous Gaunlet so I'm definetly sure it isn't 50,000...

I just finished a 1922 AD diplomatic, #1325. Not as good as you guys are, I'm sure, but its better than my 2038 AD in the last gauntlet. :)

It was fun all around, I had the UN in 1855ish but had to "convince" others to vote for me. Won the vote by the bare minimum 227 needed 227 gotten. 18 Civs, balanced map, seas = high (less land)

I'm pretty sure it's not 50,000 points. Maybe no one ever bothered to try, and this victory condition will trigger at 75,000 or 100,000. Can we get an answer from Firaxis?

I had legendary culture in my game at 25,000.. Its because the game speed was Quick.

Getting legendary culture for one city is easy.

Getting legendary culture for three cities is not so easy.

Getting legendary culture for one city, and two ally cities would be downright impressive. I will try to do that in the next game.

You cannot win a cultural victory with a single city, OCC or no. It has been tried. Hopefully this will change in a patch, but untill then Perm alliances are the only way to go. On that note, the AI is HORRIBLE at generating cluture. >.<

Tried a few more conquest games. The best so far is 1100 BC.

More bad news.
According to the high score table on Noble, conquest:

standard 3560 BC
small 1630 BC
Tiny 3480 BC
Duel 3780 BC

I assume Small map will get a ~3500 BC finish too. This means that Conquest will blow away any other victory condition unless the formula is changed.

This supports my idea of dropping the bottom half of the scores. Example:
If 10 of the 20 entries for conquest are ~3500BC, no one in this group deserves to win. If you average the top ten scores, they won't win because the average will be around 3400 BC. But if you average all entries (even the 1000 AD ones), Conquest wins easily and this gauntlet is over before it starts.

I assume they just turn on Barbarians and hope the civs all die.

Maybe if you forced Barbs OFF, and also consider Island maps or something to delay conquest a bit.

More bad news.
According to the high score table on Noble, conquest:

standard 3560 BC
small 1630 BC
Tiny 3480 BC
Duel 3780 BC

I assume Small map will get a ~3500 BC finish too. This means that Conquest will blow away any other victory condition unless the formula is changed.

Monty starts with scout, so no assoult of one neighbour right away. It takes two techs to get to BW and it is quick speed, so I estimate the best conquest time around 1500 BC

Trying to go for a domination victory.

I've tried two games so far and am not having much luck. The first game I didn't realize you had to check Permanent Alliances. The second game I've done everything in my power to get my "ally" to sign a PA and it just isn't working. He's (Mansa) always saying he doesn't need me. I've tried gifting his opponent (Hatty) tons of techs to give her an advantage, while at the same time using spies to sabotage his resources. And it still isn't working. Not for sure what I'm doing wrong.

:hmm: Maybe I'll try a setting that nerfs the AI's, see if that works.

Any suggestions from those of you who have used PA's before? This is my first time and I haven't found much info on it with the forum search.

the 3560bc finish on standard is due to a map-generation bug. seems like a few hours of fun regenerating on lakes is the way to go to win this gauntlet :P

regardkess, conquest does seem like the obvious vc to go for since it should by far require the smallest difference in turns compared to average.

*edit* conquest is annoying :P. i couldnt get bronze if my life depended on it, and waiting for ironworking to use the UU doesnt seem viable. i thought you were supposed to get bronze within four squares of your starting location on balanced, not four screens.

The #1 of that VC [in which there is only one submission] would obviously equal the VC average. It would automatically fail to beat any #1 from a VC that has more than one submission.

Oh, now this I have to rabidly disagree with.

Among any gauntlet settings, there are Easy Wins and there are Hard Wins. Conquest and Diplomatic are among the harder wins, with Domination and the Space Race being the easist.

On very specific gauntlet settings, some victory conditions are very, very hard to achieve, such as a Cultural or Domination victory with an OCC. They represent a supreme effort that, under this system, would be totally ignored as there is no one to measure it against. Bad idea, here.

Basically, this defines a system where attempting harder victories is actively discouraged -- more difficult conditions will attract fewer games, and fewer games means (generally speaking) a smaller finish-time-spread and thusly a closer average and a lower score.

It seems that the best way to win this gauntlet is to identify the victory type favored most by the lesser-skilled players (Montezuma OCC on a Small map? That'd be Conquest) and focus on that to exclusion of all else. This game type will have the most number of submissions, meaning the most sub-par games (on average). This maximizes the finish time spread, which in turn boosts your composite score.

Beating the tar out of players of lesser skill does not a good player make.

Of course, you could use the idea of dropping the lower 50% of the games... but that just adds another layer of complexity into a system that's already a bit awkward. I think a new scoring metric is needed here.

I'd favor a system where you just declare a multiplier to be applied to the ending turn number of each game for each victory type, then judge the winner by the result. You'd be just guessing to begin with, but you could refine the multipliers as time goes on. As it is, players are already very good at guessing the end dates of the best finishes.

Example*:

Domination Modifer = 10
Conquest Modifer = 7
Cultural Modifer = 1.5
Diplomatic Modifier = 1.3
Space Race Modifier = 1
Time = N/A

* very little thought put into these figures

And you'd judge the winner by picking the best time for each of the victory types, then applying the multipliers.

[ending turn number] * [modifier]

You could even play around with the modifiers based on singular map types. For instance, setting barbarians off reduces all modifiers by 20%. On archipelago, Domination is +10%. Special Bonus: Diplomatic vs Isabella, Alexander and Tokugawa, +40%. And so on. You can encourage any combination of settings to give each gauntlet its own flavor.

- Bill

I don't think the suggested scoring formula is good enough, since the final score depends on the average finish turn, and the earlier average finish has an advantage.

Suppose, we have 5 Conquest wins at turns 50 (1500BC), 57, 70, 82, and 90 (200AD). The average turn is 69.8, and the winner score is 50/69.8 = 0.72.

Now suppose, we have 5 Space Race wins at turns 150 (1675AD), 157, 170, 182, and 190 (1875AD). The average turn is 169.8, and the winner score is 150/169.8 = 0.83.

You see what I mean? An equally good game receives worse score just because the average turn is higher.

So, I would suggest a little different scoring formula, to get rid of this effect. Instead of comparing (dividing by) absolute turns, let's compare the deviates.

That is, we compute the average Ta and the standard deviation D from the average. Then take the difference between the best (lowest) winning turn Tw and the average, and divide that difference by the standard deviation, (Ta-Tw)/D.

In the above examples, the standard deviations are

sqrt( ((50-69.8)^2 + (57-69.8)^2 + (70-69.8)^2 + (82-69.8)^2 + (90-69.8)^2)/5 ) = 14.92
(identical in both cases)

The highest scores are (69.8-50)/14.92 = 1.33. (Unlike the original formula, in this case the higher the score, the better the game, wins the highest score.)

This way, I believe, we can get comparable scores for different Victory Conditions.

good post bill, even if i cant believe you gave diplomatic a smaller multiplier than cultural :P

if anything other than conquest wins this gauntlet i shall eat my nonexistant hat.

OOC conquest sucks!!! :P

Andrei makes a good point about standard deviations being a more accurate measure of most outstanding finish time.

Bah, we're focusing too hard on being declared the arbitraty "winner" of this guantlet. Its still beta, we're all learning about the game, etc. Go try some games, see what we can learn from them, and reflect on the scoring system after the guantlet ends.

Since this is an OCC, the earliest finish will not be nearly as zippy as the high scores on the table. I doubt it is possible to walk across a small map, let alone take everything, before 2000 BC if you're recruiting out of only one city.

Ronald, I assume you just went to IW and churned jags, correct?

cheers,

Marc

Ronald, I assume you just went to IW and churned jags, correct?
Marc

Yes, that's what I did.
Research: mining, BW, IW, wheel
Build: worker, barracks, worker, warrior, jags, jags, jags,.....

you do have a point, fluffy. although i love to compete, even if i dont win, i guess the best thing about these gauntlets is to see the different approach everyone takes. Im convinced this speeds up the learning process considerably and force you to find the flaws in your strategy if you want to be able to compete.

but im sure ill get over my initial disappointment and get going with the playing once some non conquest results are posted :). perm alliance thing seems fun to try, cultural seems impossible though, so i guess id have to go for domination win then.

Just finished another conquest victory.
Same strategy as mentioned above, my opponents were closer this time.
Finishing date: 1600 BC

At the conclusion of the Gauntlet, games will be sorted into the various Victory Conditions and the average turn number finish of each VC will be calculated. Then, the fastest turn finish from each VC will be taken and divided by the average turn finish for it's VC. The number one game farthest above it's class average will be declared the winner.

Division is horribly biased in favor of early victory conditions. You should use subtraction instead.

Since i am very bad at high research games, I gave it a try.
Diplomatic victory in 1675 AD. This time will be probably beaten by some hundred years.

To heck will "winning" this guantlet.

Must. Make. Boorish. AI. Become. Cultured.

Monte + Louis + Hatie + PA + Free Speech + Eiffel + Sistine + Statue of Liberty + Merchantilism + Warfare == Culture win?


We shall see... Or not, actually. I leave on a week long trip on Friday and won't have much time to play, but I want to see if a Culture win is possible. The plan is to rush to fascism for PAs then to all the +50% culture wonder techs so that the allies build em. Once everything is build, start attacking people to trigger war weariness which hopefully makes the AI use the slider, but making sure the foe won't get killed to trigger domination. Grab the Chapel and Eiffel along the way, get the allies to convert to the right civics, and hope for the best. Gift Great People and hope for the best. Max civs so everything is built in the AI capitols, which will hopefully become legendary. Crazy enough to work?

On a somewhat related note, I wonder if a detour for fascism for the research boost from an alliance is ever worth it in a tech game. You can change the AI's tech selections to what you want.

I thought your beakers per tech double when in a PA. So, this would never be a tech boost unless you're playing on Diety.

Of course, you could use the idea of dropping the lower 50% of the games... but that just adds another layer of complexity into a system that's already a bit awkward. I think a new scoring metric is needed here.
- Bill

You nailed it. Keep it simple. However, the rest of your post was so complex I couldn't even follow you. Maybe you were you being facetious.

Anyway, Take a step back and forget about all the formulas and percentages for a minute. Ask yourself, who should be declared the winner.

The winner is the person who can achieve a victory condition and do it farther in front of the others in the same category.

Now, if there were 100 entries in each category, taking the top 50% or top 10 might be good idea, but there are not that many. So, keep it simple. Just count how many turns ahead of #2 you are. Now let's look at how elegant this plays out.

1. As people post their best times you can easily figure out how many turns you are ahead.

2. Submitting really bad (or even bogus) victory years doesn't effect anything.

3. If, for example, you're ahead 5 turns in the Space race, you are encouraged to play other victories and get within 4 turns of conquest, etc.

4. This rewards players for playing the harder win conditions. (Fewer competing entries)

5. It rewards players for playing the longer win conditions. (If conquest can be won in 40 turns, it can probably be won in 41 turns. Neither of these games took much thought or effort and don't deserve to be the ultimate winner. They probably won't with only a 1 turn lead.)

6. If you're the only one to win a culture victory in say 2000 AD. You're ahead of #2 by 50 turns (2050 AD). You will win this gauntlet (and should) unless someone else finishes a culture win too. Let's say someone is currently winning with a 10 turn lead in Diplomatic. It would be smart for them to try to get a culture win.
Now, if only one person achieves a Domination win in 1990AD too, they would win over the single culture person because the year is father ahead of the next (2050).

7. If you're ahead in one victory, you are now encouraged to share your strategy on the other win conditions so that players #1 and #2 finish closely. If someone pulls off a culture win, I can see the message board rallying to get someone else on the score board in culture. It's horrible to say "If you're the only one to win culture, you lose cus you're zero turns ahead of the average."

This could be the most fun/active gauntlet ever if we get it right.
I think this scoring system not only declares the correct winner, but encourages people to play all the win conditions. Sound good? Simple? or did I confuse you?

simple and encourages you to attempt all vc's, especially the harder ones like cultural. thumbs up for that, but how would you rank the rest of the submitted games?

how would you rank the rest of the submitted games?

Simple, all the fastest finishes (sorted by how many turns they beat #2), then all the #2's sorted by how much they beat #3, etc.

WastinTime,

My problem with your system is essentially the same problem I have with the experimental system in this gauntlet -- it takes the critical win condition out of your hands and places it in the hands of your competitors.

You don't win because you do very well in your best victory condition. You win because your best win condition has no players approaching your skill.

This may or may not have any relation to the skill level of the other victory conditions. I mean, imagine a situation where you and I are duking it out for the OCC Space Race crown, and finish up within two turns of each other. Then this other guy waltzs by both of us because neither of us did Conquest (anarchy exploit land as it is) and the field is comparitively much less skilled.

In that situation, you would lose the gauntlet not because you didn't put out supreme effort -- you'd lose because I also went all-in. This results in a system where direct confrontation between good players is actively discouraged, as it would generally ensure that both would lose.

The alternative would be to near-require participation in all victory types. I don't think anyone wants this. Its hard enough maximizing the given victory condition in the given timespan.

Now, as for my idea, I'll give another shot at explaining it. It only deals with comparing the fastest finish across Victory Conditions, so only getting the top spot in a VC ensures you have a chance of winning the overall gauntlet.

1) Take the turn number of the fastest finishes of each VC.
2) Multiply that turn number by a modifier that would normalize the scores.
3) Compare the composite scores, the lowest one wins the Gauntlet.

The modifiers would be assigned fairly arbitrarily at first, but would be refined as data comes in from the Gauntlets themselves. The modifiers would be very high for Domination to reflect its early win dates, and very low for Space Race to reflect its late win dates. All this does is to attempt to accurately compare win dates across the victory conditions.

I threw in a little aside at the end, detailing that you could encourage harder settings (barbarians on, playing with Alexander, etc) by giving special modifier bonuses for these wins. These would essentially be Special Victory Conditions which could change with each gauntlet, and be treated as seperate with its own modifier.

- Bill

I wanted to knock out a competitive conquest before doing space. I don't think I want to mess with diplo, culture, domination tho (perm alliances are a pain).

Pangaea, pressed/tropical, 4 enemies (hatty, asoka, gandi, izzy). I got a 460 BC conquest. Techs were mining/BW/IW/Wheel.

I did want to check that Ronald was doing a quick speed game. I'd estimate that it took an extra ~15 turns because of the geometry, but 1500 BC is only 50 turns into a quick game. What map type can you use that will even let you reach all 4 enemies in 50 moves? To put it another way, a 1500 BC quick finish would be equivalent to a 2000 BC normal and...well, a lot earlier at epic or marathon. I should be able to push it to 1000 BC with a decent set of starting AI positions, but if you really have to get to 1500...

Don't forget. We're not talking about all gauntlets, just a multiple vc one. The whole point of this gauntlet is to play all or most vc's!
The leader has been chosen for you. As well and size, era, etc. Many of the iterations are eliminated. AND its quick speed.

There should be plenty of good competition in each vc.

If I only beat you by 2 turns in the space race, that's not all that spectacular. If you beat everyone by 5 turns in Diplomatic, you win this gauntlet. Seems fair to me.

BlueRenner, your idea isn't bad. However, there is no way to come up with the multipliers. Even after several gauntlets of data and you come up with reasonably good multipliers, those probably won't work for the next gauntlet because the size or speed has been changed. Think about it. If you said the next Gauntlet will be on Islands. Conquest will be MUCH slower. It's multiplier will eliminate it.
Or people will figure out "Oh, with the current multipliers, gauntlet X will be won with conquest. " Then it's just another Conquest Gauntlet. Again, the whole point is to have players go for all VC's. It was smart of them to make it quick speed and force a leader this time too IMHO.

I should point out that after this Gauntlet, most if not all future Gauntlets will be single victory conditions, not multiples. The purpose for testing the formula is not for Gauntlets, but for the Quatromaster's Challenge, where it's necessary to have a way to compare games from any two HOF tables to each other.

I should point out that after this Gauntlet, most if not all future Gauntlets will be single victory conditions, not multiples. The purpose for testing the formula is not for Gauntlets, but for the Quatromaster's Challenge, where it's necessary to have a way to compare games from any two HOF tables to each other.

:( With the proper system in place, I think multiple VC's could be the best gauntlet ever. You should reconsider.

superslug,
I'm assuming that even if you like some of the ideas presented here that you are going to let this one run to the end with "the formula" since it has started already. Can you confirm that? I'll probably be on the sidelines for this one...mostly because of a vacation. However, if you were to change the scoring to encourage attempts at cultural, domination, etc. I'd HAVE to find time for this.

Oh, I think it'd be very easy to come up with multipliers. The Hall of Fame community is already very good at estimating the finish time of various gauntlets, and this estimation ability will only improve as players (and admins) become more experienced. Finding the 'perfect' multiplier set might be flat-out impossible, but we will be able to get extremely close.

The multipliers would not be static, either. As you note, Islands Conquest takes longer than Pangaea Conquest. So, in a gauntlet where Islands are required, you lower the Conquest modifier a bit, based a the estimation of the fastest finish. You guess based on past experience. Perfection isn't the goal here -- just aligning them so the results are somewhat sane. It will be rapidly apparent what works and what doesn't.

Healthy debate revolving around which Victory Condition & Multiplier combo would produce the highest final score will only help refine the process of selecting the modifiers. The system strengthens itself, so long as the person setting the modifiers is paying half attention.

If we really want to force players to go for all VCs, then just make it a requirement that they win with all conditions and then sum the total to determine the winner. This would drive me nuts, but dancing around the idea while trying to artificially stimulate it is worse.

Now, switching gears entirely: A hard-fought 2-turn Space Race victory is not inferior to a cakewalk 5-turn Diplomatic victory. The key concept here is the "Strength of Field", which comes up so often comparing sports teams against one another. If you have a perfect record, but have only beaten chumps, you are not rated as high as someone with a checkered record who goes up against the best of the best.

The problem with just a straight turn-comparison is that there is no way to evaluate the overall field strength. I suspect this is why the original concept delt with averages -- it is a way to get a sense of the median skill within a singular VC. However, I still dislike this for reasons previously mentioned.

- Bill

Are you saying the multipliers are set at the start? or change as scores come in?

I wanted to knock out a competitive conquest before doing space. I don't think I want to mess with diplo, culture, domination tho (perm alliances are a pain).

Pangaea, pressed/tropical, 4 enemies (hatty, asoka, gandi, izzy). I got a 460 BC conquest. Techs were mining/BW/IW/Wheel.

I did want to check that Ronald was doing a quick speed game. I'd estimate that it took an extra ~15 turns because of the geometry, but 1500 BC is only 50 turns into a quick game. What map type can you use that will even let you reach all 4 enemies in 50 moves? To put it another way, a 1500 BC quick finish would be equivalent to a 2000 BC normal and...well, a lot earlier at epic or marathon. I should be able to push it to 1000 BC with a decent set of starting AI positions, but if you really have to get to 1500...

1500bc conquest shouldnt be impossible, i had a 800bc win despite screwing up a bit. i overestimated the AIs ability to defend and waited too long to attack.

i know i could have atleast shaved off 9-10 turns if i had played properly. i did have bronze next to river so i didnt have to wait for ironworking, but the AI were fairly far away and unfortunately the last one snuck away a settler which i didnt notice so that was 5-6 turns extra right there.

and the minimum amount of AI players on small is 3 right? i dont know why youd want to use 4 for conquest.

I'm a total noob.. how come my Jaguar Warriors keep getting killed by archers in my enemy's town? I give some of them +25% city attack and others I give +25% vs. archers. Do you usually wait for 3-4 warriors to pile up into one stack before attacking? Help! :)

Are you saying the multipliers are set at the start? or change as scores come in?

The scores will be defined at the start and then be static throughout the gauntlet's run. After the gauntlet is completed, they can be adjusted for the new gauntlet based on the new information, or the quirks of this new gauntlet.

Changing the modifiers mid-gauntlet wouldn't be the fairest thing to do, I'm thinking... perhaps let them be somewhat fluid for the first three days or so to let the players give input, but certainly no longer.

- Bill

We're going to stick with the originally stated formula. Input is of course welcome on other formulas, as after the fact analysis is inevitable.

I just got a 400 AD conquest win. :) Its not a 1650BC, but a big improvement for me, a noob. That pangea combo mentioned above worked great. I was pretty close to my neighbors, but unfortunately they kept spawning off cities and it became hard to kill them all off. I suppose maybe that is why a 1650 is actually possible: no extra cities.

Well, my conclusion is that PAs... suck. There's a 1 PA per civ limit that I didn't know about. That limit is rather annoying, but you can work around it. Or could except....

It seems your lone PA AI must have ALL THREE legendary cities. Illogical, and makes life much harder. At least the victory conditions doesn't list allied cities in the cultural win condition.

The real problem is the inability to ask the allied civ to change civics or religion. WTF. I can ask to change before the alliance, but afterwards I can't? I hope this gets changed in a patch. No forced Free Speach and Merchantilism hurts culturaly.

This makes a cultural win MUCH harder. I think the only way you can have a chance is a team battleground. Get lucky and have Louis on your side, then feed him tech so he builds all the wonders and pray they all end up in the same 3 cities. Have the other 2 AIs be Alex and Ghengis or whichever AIs are least likely to build wonders (hmm, that would actually be Monte, but we must play as Monte). You'd have to delay the PA till the very end so you can continue to ask Louis to swap to Free Speech and Merchantilism. Meh, makes Dom look positively easy by comparison.

If anyone tries a cultural win, good luck. You're gonna need it. At this point, it appears all but impossible.

I was looking forward to going for cultural too. A few questions/comments:

Do you KNOW all 3 cities must be AI or are you inferring that?

You can't force Mercantilism ever.

I agree that forcing Free Speech after PA should be fixed if you can't do it.
I wasn't planning on making the PA until the last minute anyway. I wouldn't want to drag them into a war. I was thinking wars with the other civs will keep them from building wonders.

Learn anything else about PA's? I was told beakers per tech doubles. Is that also true for building projects like space parts--double hammers?

You can prevent your PA buddy from launching the spaceship by building the last part and never finishing it. So it should be possible to win cultural with enough patience.

I can't remember where I read it, but I recall that it was stated that with a PA tech cost is increased by 50%, not by 100%.

Predictions:

Best conquest, no earlier than 800 BC. I'm getting 240 BC (not 480 as reported, misread the date) with the 4th target somewhat far.
The 1600 BC finishes on the leaderboard are marathon speed, not OCC and quick. I've been using pangaea, tropical, high seas, pressed borders; gandi, hatty, asoka, izzy as enemies. It probably doesn't matter who you pick as long as they don't have an early UU.

Strategy is simple, but the combination of OCC/fast really makes very early finishes extremely tough. Tech is Mine/BW/Wheel, toss starts without bronze, as they won't be competitive. Then development techs as needed (ag, ah, fish, mason, etc.) and IW. Other techs don't matter. Starts will need 4 hammer sources (grass/hills, plains/hills, ivory, stone, marble), one luxury within 3 (for 7 happy), and enough food to support 7 folks.
Build order is worker, barracks, worker, warrior, then axeman (and some jags for assaults on hill cities) until done (thanks for this sequence Ronald; works well).

2 workers early, maybe 3 if you need to develop more tiles or add roads. Send out squads of 4-6 axe/jags to nearby targets, use captured workers as combat engineers (building roads towards targets), and always have at least one worker (preferably 2+) chopping trees for a large radius around the city.
The earliest end will be in the center. You might be able to shave a few turns off if you have extra luxuries to hook up and unusually good hammer sources and/or an enormous abundance of trees.

Best spaceship: I'd bet on no earlier than 1800. Monty is not designed for teching. The best setup is probably the same as gauntlet 6 - great plains, massive food, and a pyramids/specialist setup. The parthenon will probably be needed to make up for not being philosophical. A CS slingshot is entirely doable at noble.

Culture: I think it's a will-o-wisp. Domination and diplomacy (with permanent alliances) will be possible. No idea on the dates, tho.

^^^

You don't need perm alliances to win a diplo victory at all. Diplo is just getting people to vote for you, which isn't hard at all.

Pangea is one of the largest maps out there. Try playing team battlegrounds top v bottom. It is the smallest map in terms of area and you know where the enemies are, basically. A conquest victory before 1000 BC shouldn't be that hard at all. 1500 BC may be possible, I will give it a go and see where I am at 1500 BC later.

I almost won Diplomatic Gauntlet 4 using OCC, so you don't need a PA.

I ran thru one game quick to poke around with PA's. (While doing that I launched 1934 AD) They'll only enter a PA if you've been at a common war or had a defensive pact for a certain amount of time. Not sure how long.

I'll try team battlegrounds, thanks for the tip.

Spaceship looks harder - a trial run got me a 1962 finish, much worse than my pace in the last one. I think you'll need some hard-teching AIs to do better; Monty simply doesn't have the skills for a fast start, even though I did emphasize food and specialists.

Culture OCC

Whom to PA with?
In my test game most said Free Speech "Goes against everything we stand for". I assume these civs won't ever change to that civic. One of these was Louis. Are any of you getting Louis to convert?

Agreeable civs were Washington, Peter, Asoka, and Gengis Khan.

Odd thing is they'll accept any civic, the others none, so it seems to be only this game they have this attitude and it will change from game to game. Or something I did is affecting them? Anyone know how this works?

Best spaceship: I'd bet on no earlier than 1800.
That sounds like a challenge! I'll take it :P

I'm not much of a warmonger, and killing all my oponents before 1AD just doesnt fit my playstyle. I like to build stuff, and preferably not units. If I do go to war I just win by superior tech or superior numbers. So let's see if I can get a space launch. I really enjoyed the previous OOC so this should be fun as well :)

Having tried Team Battlegrounds, I don't think it will be the best map. You get no luxuries, and the playing field is ..too fair. Asoka is a pain, Gandi/Hatty/Izzy are pushovers. I'm trying one of the Americans for the fourth civ. I think Pangaea will be the best map, although it will take some patience to get the right start for the best conquest. You need both a revealed resource (copper or iron) and a good distribution of AI positions compared to you, neither of which are obvious at the starting screen.
The square maps are too big, islands and continents have obvious problems.

>.< Something is wrong with my cookies. My posts don't seem to take.

World builder test indicates that the F8 screen is wrong, both PA civ's cities count toward the win. Oops. Got a culture win with world builder. F8 screen only listed Tenoich and Paris as legandary in different collums on the turn before the win. No other cities were listed in Louis's collum. PAs need more work in new patches.

No clue who will take Free Speech, prolly depends on the cost of swaping to that tech via other options. I was counting on using the PA to get them to swap. UN might be needed, but that causes more complications. Holding off for too long can cause "We're doing fine on our own" problems. Louis was chosen for obvious wonder building reasons + creative. This aspect of AI behavior is poorly documented.

I failed to not exactly how much tech costs changed.

Couldn't get 2 PAs in one game again. Could just be bad luck, but the other civ was friendly + long term def pact with both me and my partner civ. PA was good to go before I signed the first one. =\

Dave, main problem with culture is running out of time. The AI builds culture VERY slowly.

In case anyone is hanging about waiting for a definitive answer, I just ran an OCC up to 520,000 culture for giggles. No victory. That's on Normal speed.

- Bill

Just got an 880bc conquest on Team Battlegrounds. Had Asoka Ghandi and Washington. I have no idea how anyone could get 1500bc.

In case anyone is hanging about waiting for a definitive answer, I just ran an OCC up to 520,000 culture for giggles. No victory. That's on Normal speed.

- Bill

Are there any more border expansions after legendary?

I keep trying to play OCC and keep getting my ass handed to me. It seems like unless I have my entire perimeter fortified with six level five longbowmen per square, the AIs just take turns pounding on me.

No.. it goes Legendary to nothing. All the 450,000 extra points of culture did was to secure my absolute control of all those tiles within the Legendary radius.

- Bill

1300bc conquest, some minor misstakes but its pretty obvious that the best time is going to depend on how close to the ai you start and if you get lucky enough to have bronze pop up next to you.

good thing about this gauntlet is that theres no need to regenerate the map for an halfhour, and if you would happen to get a great map you can just go for cultural, diplomatic or spacerace instead of wasting it on a conquest game where youll just end up using one or two squares anyways :)

ohio, the required number of ai opponents are 3 not 4, thats probobly why earlier than 800bc seems impossible for you. Your requirements for starting position seems a bit off too. all you really need is a bunch of forests and a plains/hill square to put your city on, turns spent building mines are turns that could be spent chopping.

1300bc conquest, some minor misstakes but its pretty obvious that the best time is going to depend on how close to the ai you start and if you get lucky enough to have bronze pop up next to you.


Location of the AI is the most important one, so you need to play the smallest possible map to increase your chances.
Bronze is not important at all. By the time you connect it you can only build about 2 axemen, then you have IW and go for jags. Instead of the two axemen I prefer building my second worker. So I have one for chopping and one to build a road to the AIs.

Location of the AI is the most important one, so you need to play the smallest possible map to increase your chances.
Bronze is not important at all. By the time you connect it you can only build about 2 axemen, then you have IW and go for jags. Instead of the two axemen I prefer building my second worker. So I have one for chopping and one to build a road to the AIs.

bronze is perhaps not as useful as i first thought but its still pretty damn good to have. i would however chop a 2nd worker before hooking it up. if i can get 2 workers and 2 axemen before IW then thats a pretty big advantage. every turn counts :)

I keep trying to play OCC and keep getting my ass handed to me. It seems like unless I have my entire perimeter fortified with six level five longbowmen per square, the AIs just take turns pounding on me.

You should not get attacked ever--even with just one warrior defending if you're playing a peaceful builder game. Remember you can choose your opponents and give them tech to keep them happy.

If you're doing conquest, you should not have longbowmen and take the war to them earlier.

Is anyone else going for a domination win? I'm having trouble with it. At first I went with minimum opponents but I always got the "We're better off alone" comment. I've switched to between ten and sixteen opponents to keep them weak enough to want to sign a PA.

So far I've been going for the Pyramids everytime, but I believe that's a waste of hammers now. I'm going to start skipping the Pyramids and just wait for the Globe.

BTW, I have yet to finish a game before I quit due to foolish mistakes.

Is anyone else going for a domination win? I'm having trouble with it. At first I went with minimum opponents but I always got the "We're better off alone" comment.

I might give it a try, but I'm not sure.

I just did another diplo game. This time I finished in 1400 AD.

Hey guys,

Just finished a 760 BC conquest. How are we doing on this victory condition? Map was a plum, the AIs didn't defend themselves at all, and I caught 2 settlers right before the act of settling.

1932 dom win. Fun game. Time should be beatable by quite a bit, since I went with low seas and only 9 AI.

....I caught 2 settlers right before the act of settling.

How did you do that without a starting warrior? Did you get one from a hut?

1932 dom win. Fun game. Time should be beatable by quite a bit, since I went with low seas and only 9 AI.

Did you go with 9 AI so you'd have more choices for a Perm Alliance?

Whom did you get the PA with?

I assume the game plan is get a perm alliance as fast as possible and then be all set up to kill the others a couple turns later. Once you know who your partner is, you could pick off a few of them early.

Did you feel that you raced to the PA ASAP? If so, about what year did you get it?

How many turns did you have to spend if a defensive pact? It was like 50 turns for me.

I just got a 1050 BC conquest win. Map was best yet, walked straight through all enemies as if they weren't even there.

Copper.. irrelevant
Iron.. irrelevant
Forest chopping.. relevant
Jaguar building.. relevant
Road network.. relevant
Capping settlers.. vital

No particular reason for any of the map choices. I wanted a cramped world, to have better odds of a good start location. It also lowers the dom threshold and reduces the number of troops each AI has. Also giving the AI some expansion space lets me build my wonders.

I think having the partner conquer is faster than having them settle, since they don't settle as quickly while at war.

Overall, it was a very suboptimal game. Missed the oracle by 1 turn, due failing to swap to Buracracy imidiately. PA took a long time, wasn't sure how many turns though. Anyone know how many turns of def pact/mutual war are needed for a PA? Fascism sometime in the 1600s, PA some time later. Sorry, it was a test game and I didn't take notes.

Cathy seems to be the obvious choice for a PA partner. Went with her.


Attempt number 2: 1900AD. Fascism in 1450, PA in 1530. AI swapped religions just before I got Fascism. >.< Conquest was horribly slow, 65 turns till domination. Perhaps I should declare war on more nations at once. Lack of horses slowed down conquest quite a bit. Only one herd of horses on the whole map! I've only tried Pangaea, perhaps GP is better. I've started to dislike Balanced due to the lack of marble.

For conquests, multiple cow and some hills (with gold perhaps) can be used instead of forests. After all, you can produce max 1 unit per turn. And you can build roads instead of chopping...

I am struggling to get a early conquest. By the time I get BW and send my axeman out most of the other civs have already got a second city or at least a settler on the way out. I can maybe destroy one civ before they settle a second city but struggle to get any where near all four.
I have been using pangaea, pressed, high seas and asoka,gandi,izzy and hatsep as opposition. Any ideas to what Im doing wrong.

I am struggling to get a early conquest. By the time I get BW and send my axeman out most of the other civs have already got a second city or at least a settler on the way out. I can maybe destroy one civ before they settle a second city but struggle to get any where near all four.
I have been using pangaea, pressed, high seas and asoka,gandi,izzy and hatsep as opposition. Any ideas to what Im doing wrong.

I don't see why people here like Axemen at all. It requires a resource, and their 50% melee bonus is pointless. Every opponent defends with archers. Go for Jags (+archer exp bonuses) on a tropical map, move intelligently (through jungles, forests, hills) and you won't be stopped.

In both my early conquests, I knew within 10, perhaps even 5 minutes of playing that the map was good or bad. Sole decision is how close my enemies were to each other and not necessarily to me. Both games took less than 40 minutes.

Also, why are you fighting 4 opponents and not 3?

well you are going to want a mine on the bronze anyways. the main use of bronze is if you can get 2-3 axemen to the first city before they get so many archers up. its not uncommon to find the first city defended by only 1 archer and 2 warriors.

but bronze is more of a bonus than a requirement like i first thought. some kind of commerce resource is required though.

The real problem is the inability to ask the allied civ to change civics or religion. WTF. I can ask to change before the alliance, but afterwards I can't? I hope this gets changed in a patch. No forced Free Speach and Merchantilism hurts culturaly.
I was suprised to find this out myself. I was trying to do a PA cultural win and my PA kept sitting on theocracy/vasalage. Not helping much if you want a cultural victory. I decided to just go with Domination, but since I wasted half the game setting up for culture I ended rather late (somewhere around 1910)

I hope this is a bug and they'll fix it because it doesn't make sense that you can't change the civics from the AI who likes you the most :s

Crayfish what map, settings and opponents are you using for conquest?

CULTURE VICTORY !!!! :king:

1968 AD

I take back what I said about Firaxis forgetting about us OCC players. They did put cultural victory in the game, and it was a lot easier than I thought. It was so much fun too. I got to stroll along up the tech tree for a change instead of racing through it. I purposely avoided all religions so the others would found them. So many new tactics. I'll be able to discuss this game but cannot play for a whole week :(

What was cool was my PA partner actually went for it hard. Started building cathedrals, Broadway, and switched to Free Speech. It was "Against everything we stand for" just a few turns before the PA (I tried for the switch, but no go.) As you know, you can't make them switch after the PA.

I imagine I could chop off 50 years but this game went pretty well. Both of the last two cities achieved legendary on the same turn, 1968. I went legendary while researching fascism. Felt lucky at times, but it was my first try, so 50 years should be doable.

well you are going to want a mine on the bronze anyways. the main use of bronze is if you can get 2-3 axemen to the first city before they get so many archers up. its not uncommon to find the first city defended by only 1 archer and 2 warriors.

but bronze is more of a bonus than a requirement like i first thought. some kind of commerce resource is required though.

I still don't buy the Axemen argument. Think about it, even if what you say is correct, is a Jag is going to have a problem with a warrior who defends at what 2? I know I said take the archery +25% bonus, but there's been times where I sprinkle in a +20% city bonus attacker.

And Commerce? That seems irrelevant. Who cares about money, you'll get 2-3 goody huts and you need to research only 4-5 techs the entire game. Money is pointless after that. All you need is a capital city that spits out a Jag every 1 or 2 turns. Like a fire-hose of Jags, all you have to do is guide them in the right direction, hoping that you send enough Jags to each opponent.

CULTURE VICTORY !!!! :king:

1968 AD


I believe it, I'm just about to finish a cultural myself, but after 1968. I never believed it to be impossible. Some AIs (Louis, Ghandi) just love cultured cities. They build all the culture buildings and have artist great people.

The down side is that they're usually slow in tech development. But who cares about tech development if you're into culture. All you need are the techs that allow culture buildings and wonders.

I think the best combo would be to pick 2 techy AIs, 1 culture AI, and yourself. Then, trade with the techies all game, and then give all your techs to the culture. Don't trade with the techies, only the culture, keep your religion the same as his, and a PA with him at the end game is garunteed.

And Commerce? That seems irrelevant. Who cares about money, you'll get 2-3 goody huts and you need to research only 4-5 techs the entire game. Money is pointless after that. All you need is a capital city that spits out a Jag every 1 or 2 turns. Like a fire-hose of Jags, all you have to do is guide them in the right direction, hoping that you send enough Jags to each opponent.

without commerce IW takes like 12 turns. personally i think its a small sacrifice to have your worker mine gold or gems in order to be able to start pumping out jags a few turns later. i guess having roads make this less significant so maybe youre right.

on another note, nice work getting cultural victory. ive never actually seen the AI win that way, or even come close, so i wasnt expecting anyone to pull that one off.

I just upped my own record by 100 years (2 turns). I just wiped the pacifist-threesome off the map at 1150 BC.

I'm beginning to believe 1650 BC as possible, which originally I thought was not likely to be true. If I had the same map as this one, and actually capped 2-3 settlers, it may actually be feasible.

This time I did little mining, I started off with tons of forests. I actually managed to grab one copper, and with city size 4, I was churning Jags out one every 2 turns.

without commerce IW takes like 12 turns. personally i think its a small sacrifice to have your worker mine gold or gems in order to be able to start pumping out jags a few turns later. i guess having roads make this less significant so maybe youre right.

I see your point now. In that extra time, I build workers.. as many as I can. Usually it ends up being: worker, barracks, worker, worker (and maybe worker), jag, jag, jag, jag,....

The heck with building warriors, who cares about defending your capital. That's wasted time you could be building workers with.

I snag Wheel right after IW, its not clear to me doing anything but Mining, BW, IW makes sense. You couldn't do Mining, BW, Wheel, IW cause you wouldn't have the workforce to take advantage of early roads.

I think the 1650 BC victory is just about sending the optimal # of Jags, and capping settlers. To build a Jag once every 2 turns is pretty easy on any tropical map.

i prefer waiting a bit longer to build barracks. youre not going to have any improved land to work so my guess is that getting workers out faster is the better option here.

btw if you build extra workers in that time youve got to have like 10 by the time you hit IW? any forests left when you start training jags? :P

*update*
1650bc conquest and theres still a few turns improvement possible. i got 2 workers from invading alexander who was right next to me, but i screwed up and didnt use them the best way.

What is the best way?

I had a 500BC conquest on the cards but a few Barbarian cities ruined my change when they were in my pathway to the last Civilization

All I have got is 880BC so far. Playing arid lakes maps, so that laying down roads is easier.
I am planning for a Charriot conquest next time.
I wouldn't produce more than 3 workers, I prefer doing Warriors and then upgrading them to Jaguars.

team battleground is the smallest map and conquest win on these settings its all about being able to attack your enemies as soon as possible.

chariot conquest seems tough. theyre just not good enough against archers. combo might be useful. start with jags and then when jags wont get to the destination in time switch to chairots.

i guess upgrading warriors is an option, but can you really produce 1 jag every turn? if you cant then having an extra worker would pay for itself in a few chops.

team battleground is the smallest map and conquest win on these settings its all about being able to attack your enemies as soon as possible.

I played team battleground, but it put water between my city and two of my opponents. Obviously this can't be the quickest way to win.

Regenerate and you'll see that everyone's on the same continent. Also, did you choose top vs bottom and start together?

1650bc conquest and theres still a few turns improvement possible.

So finally my 1600 BC is beaten. Now I have to try a few games and look if I can improve the date.

What settings did you use?

left vs right puts water between, top vs bottom does not. i played top vs bottom, start anywhere. does it really makes a difference if you choose start together or start anywhere? theres no teammates to start together with anyways.

no barbarians of course

no barbarians of course

No barbarians? heh, I put on raging barbarians. They are 3x more likely to kill an enemy settler or unit. They sometimes attack enemy cities or draw them out of their capital to fight, leaving the capital with less defense. Who cares about your capital, just keep an eye on it every once and a while..

No barbarians? heh, I put on raging barbarians. They are 3x more likely to kill an enemy settler or unit. They sometimes attack enemy cities or draw them out of their capital to fight, leaving the capital with less defense. Who cares about your capital, just keep an eye on it every once and a while..

too much of a random factor. only one of the AIs got a 2nd city up in my game and it was defended by 2 warriors so i easily took that one out. im not too worried about the capital but i dont want my units to get hurt or killed on their way to the enemy. having to worry about my workers being killed by animals is not fun either.

dont think theres enough to gain from having barbarians to justify the number of games theyre going to ruin.

I agree, no barabrians is the way to go. I have my workers chopping, the danger that one of them is destroyed by a barbarian is too high

having to worry about my workers being killed by animals is not fun either.

Aww, what's wrong? Don't you find those animals fuzzy and cute? :)

My best so far is 1AD for conquest. Trying a Diplomatic now but already up to 1950 and have yet to build united nations.

In order to avoid confusion and complexity, I've decided to change how this Gauntlet will be ranked. There will be at most six winners, basically the top game for each victory condition. If one single player wins more than one victory condition, they'll be ranked higher in the top six. Ties will be broken by submission date.

As stated before, multiple victory condition Gauntlets will be rare if not nonexistant in the future, so this decision doesn't represent permanent HOF policy in any way. I just think it'll make it easier for this competition than the initially proposed formula.

I got 2150BC with chariots on Cold Team Battleground. Tenochtitlan was built on a plains hill with horses and cattle in the city radius.

Thanks superslug. With a "distance above average" scoring system you were penalizing people for sharing the best strategy.

Aargh. Was playing for a cultural win with frederick and things were looking good, and the game crashed on me. I reloaded and it crashed again. Tried again, crashed again. :(

Don't think that game will be allowed IF I ever get past that crash point. It seems to crash when my city builds the UN. Cultural is really hard. Tried several times, but it's nearly impossible to get the AI to keep Free Speech long enough for his cities to reach anything near legendary. Had a bit of luck this game as Frederick stayed with Free Speech for quite some time before converting back to Bureaucracy. Long enough for the Eifel Tower to finish it off (or at least I hope so).

It's fun seeing that with a good game, you can easily win either with domination, conquest or space race, once you get a PA. Diplomatic and cultural still are quite challenging :P

Diplomatic and cultural still are quite challenging :P

Why is Diplomatic challenging? You get to pick you're opponents. Simply build the UN and win the vote a few turns later. I'm looking forward to a Diplo gauntlet that actually requires diplomatic skills.

I'm looking forward to a Diplo gauntlet that actually requires diplomatic skills.

I'm not sure what you're looking for here.

I mean, you could spec out the opponents, and have Caeser, Isabella, Tokugawa, Montezuma, and Alexander on an under-sized map, but beyond that...

Hm. Well, that might be all you need, frankly. You'd be all but required to eliminate one or two civs, and rally the rest under your religion. Would be interesting.

- Bill

I also think something like "No tech trading" would make it harder for them to like you.

Is anyone submitting a time victory?

Just won a cultural victory in 2007 AD. :D

It's difficult preventing the AI from building the Space Ship, so spies were crucial in my game. I spend over 20.000 gp in total on sabotaging the opponents ;)

I also think something like "No tech trading" would make it harder for them to like you.

Hmm. As far as I know, tech trading is only strictly tied to the "+X You have shared your technological advances with us." perk. You can still hand over gold and cities and such to get the "+X our trade relations have been free and fair." perk. It'd make things more of a challenge, certainly, but its a surmountable barrier.

- Bill

You get to pick you're opponents.
For general HOF games, sure.;)

I did find time for one more run at cultural. 1936 AD, not bad, I played so much better, but the AI was so much worse. I had trouble getting the 3rd city caught up. My city went legendary back in 1835.

This is quite fun. I gifted some engineers so the AI would build wonders. Any religion I got I spread so cathedrals could be built. Sadly no cathedrals went up this time. Last time I think he built 4 of them.

I should try a few other win conditions. Not much time left.

I did find time for one more run at cultural. 1936 AD, not bad, I played so much better, but the AI was so much worse. I had trouble getting the 3rd city caught up. My city went legendary back in 1835.

This is quite fun. I gifted some engineers so the AI would build wonders. Any religion I got I spread so cathedrals could be built. Sadly no cathedrals went up this time. Last time I think he built 4 of them.

I should try a few other win conditions. Not much time left.
I did the same but it took me way longer to get the AI to legendary. Which AI did you PA with?

I did the same but it took me way longer to get the AI to legendary. Which AI did you PA with?

Both times now I chose Roosevelt. Not sure if he's good or just happened to work for me. I try to pick someone who is building wonders.

I cranked out a quick Diplomatic victory. I lost the first vote and had other problems, so it felt a little lame, but still not bad....1500 AD finish.

Wow, post count really slacked off when spring break began. Guess everyone went on vacation.

I'm learning a lot about Perm. Alliances. I'll have to write up something official.

1906 culture victory.

I'm learning a lot about Perm. Alliances. I'll have to write up something official.

Yes, definitely please. And of course give us a link.:)

Man, Domination is slow work. And I don't play a lot of conquest in general. I did finally get Cyrus to take enough land to win by Domination in 1960 AD. Is anyone else trying this? My plan was to kill all but one defender and then have Cyrus take the city. He usually keeps it, but was razing the ones that were too far away. I think there is an option to not allow razing. I shoulda checked that.

I also planned to PA with a creative civ. Border expansion is key. I coulda chose Cathy, but she didn't have any horses and I planned to do a lot of cavalry.

Fun gauntlet. Too bad I only had about 2 days total to play it. Can't wait to see the results.

I got 1450BC with copper in the capital. I sent 1 Axe to the farthest civ to cripple them while attacking the others. Considering Dave's result, I have needed only 40% more turns; I must be a great player!

My chariot attemps were no good, I always changed to Horse Archer, which are too expensive to produce.

I have learnt something interesting too, if you connect copper when a Warrior is about to be produced you don't get a Warrior, as you'd hope, nor an Axeman, as you 'd like, bur a Spear!

Very fun gauntlet. It also has helped me to play more quickly.

I started a guide to Permanent Alliances.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3853417#post3853417

The Gauntlet is closed. Congratulations to WastinTime for the win, having submitted the best game for two different victory conditions. Ronald, fluffyflyingpig, DaveMcW and Drool rounded out the victor's list (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=bg7).

We on the staff really weren't expecting any Domination or Cultural submissions for this Gauntlet. I always focus first on objectively judging legality of submissions first and foremost, but once some of these games get cleared, the actual brilliance of the achievements really boggle my mind sometimes. You make us all very proud to be running your Hall of Fame. We're honored by what you've done with this Gauntlet.

Hahaha, I guess my time held up. I forgot to put on no city razing and did not use the "please attack x city" diplomacy option, which added over a dozen turns. Most amusing part of the gauntlet: thanks to Sistine + Eiffle + Statue of Liberty, Cathy's cities were getting enough culture/turn to border pop twice the moment they came out of resistance.

Very fun guantlet. Lots learned about PAs. The 1904 culture win is impressive WastinTime, nice work.

and Drool rounded out the victor's list (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=bg7).


I had a time victory with higher score than Drool. How did I not win? Check out #1384.

I had a time victory with higher score than Drool. How did I not win? Check out #1384.
It was close, but Drool got a slightly higher score than you. See this page (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=1402|1384).