http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/hof/staff/gauntlet.gifWhile the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php) BEFORE playing!


Settings:

Victory Condition: Score (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Chieftain
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Any
Speed: Epic
Civ: Any
Opponents: Any
Version: 1.74.002, 2.13.002 or 3.13.001
Date: 10th to 25th April 2008

Must not play as Inca.

The highest score wins.

Minor? Are you crazy? This will take forever! This is like a double-major.

1 million is the goal. Probably can't be done with the Cheiftain score penalty.

BTS is the only way to go. Massive score difference from Vanilla.

I won't be doing this one, but I hope someone (Killercane) gives it a good try.

Why will this take so long? It's only a standard map on Chieftain difficulty. Sounds pretty minor to me.

It's score on Epic meaning you have to play the full 750 turns for BTS.
But at least it's one I can do easily.

Its not a time victory rather its done on your final score when you win. You can win via any victory and the games will be sorted by score. Domination will very probably be the highest scoring condition. It will take ages to try and compete as the level of MM and milking required will be immense.

Score... hmm you need to milk being very close to the dom limit.
I guess Darius can be a good choice.
Probably the best map can be Great plains.
Minimum 2 settlers and 1 worker from GHs, or better regenerate.
Never tried to maximize score, can be interesting.

Oh yeah, forgot, it's score not time. So domination and milking and when your 'score by winning this turn' starts dropping, finish it unless you can tech at a high enough pace. I think.

Great Plains? I think water maps score better.

Also population growth is the key, not tech pace.

So I guess score is determined by the percentage of the land (and coasts), not the sheer amount of tiles? (and wonders and tech of course)
Or do you reckon you get more food with water maps?

Minimum 2 settlers and 1 worker from GHs, or better regenerate.

Are you serious? How can you ever get 2 settlers and a worker from huts? In one game? I don't think I've ever had more than 1 settler and no workers in ALL MY GAMES EVER put together.

That's chieftain right there. :)
Before CIV crashed to desktop not long ago, I got a worker and a settler after popping 3 huts. With a warrior so I reckon it's even better with a scout, on average.
You wouldn't happen to know the answer to my question above would you? :rolleyes:

it is %, not total land tiles.

Or do you reckon you get more food with water maps?

It's just that water tiles don't count towards the dom limit.

Ok then, actually not something I didn't know (I feel noobish now for asking). I was thinking of doing a high sea level pangea for this and perferably a creative civ; I chose Louis for now for quicker wonders as well. Don't know the impact of population off hand but cre/exp seems to be the 2nd choice in that case. Which is Suryavarman, yes, I just love that fella, he reminds me of a classmate. :lol:

Are you serious? How can you ever get 2 settlers and a worker from huts? In one game? I don't think I've ever had more than 1 settler and no workers in ALL MY GAMES EVER put together.

This is a very reasonable minimum. You must not play much Settler/Chieftain. The odds are 1 out of every 5 huts gives you a settler/worker. You pop 1 worker or settler, then use that to pop more huts. You will meet that minimum fairly easily.

EDIT: I forgot Harhourboy, your version of Civ IV has a 0.5% chance to pop settlers. Where'd you bootleg that copy anyway?

I was thinking of doing a high sea level pangea for this and perferably a creative civ; I chose Louis for now for quicker wonders as well. Don't know the impact of population off hand but cre/exp seems to be the 2nd choice in that case. Which is Suryavarman, yes, I just love that fella, he reminds me of a classmate. :lol:

Population is most important for score, then I think: land, tech, and lastly wonders.

Are you serious? How can you ever get 2 settlers and a worker from huts? In one game?

During bug testing I popped three settlers in the first ten to fifteen turns once.

Are you serious? How can you ever get 2 settlers and a worker from huts? In one game? I don't think I've ever had more than 1 settler and no workers in ALL MY GAMES EVER put together.Darn serious.
In one of my last games has 6 settlers and 2 workers (warlord difficulty) a record. Pity the map wasn't so good, i saved and left to another game, to try a better map: arrived roughly at the same turn i compared the autologs of the 2 games and the second was better, despite only 2 settlers and 2 workers. The map was far better, and i managed to warrior rush 2 civs with great starting points.

@Wastintime
I thought that for milk the cows was better :)

BTW if i'm not wrong, you don't participate to any SG: do you like to join us (Fifth Element) for next one? we need a player like you!

During bug testing I popped three settlers in the first ten to fifteen turns once.

22 turns now, 3 settlers, 1 tech. :)
Stalin's capital only a warrior rush's distance away too.

Just submitted my 1st try, a 89k domination in 1610AD, on a high sea level pangea as Suryavarman. I tried to milk the score as long as I could but it kept hovering around 92k. I used Cereal Mills corporation to help population growth but score wouldn't increase fast enough to increase the victory score. I was around 60% land (64% is the limit with minimum civs) and I decided to finish the game, score dropped a little because population growth slowed.
Next time 100k or more.

Goin' back to my post #18 in this thread, now i remember why i left the game with 6 settlers: i could have warrior rushed Asoka, but i didn't being concerned of the maintenance costs.
He managed to build Oracle in 1300 BC, beatin' me for some 5 turns.
In another game, always warlord difficulty, Asoka (i stopped to use him) he built the Oracle in 1360 BC.
At this level, a safe date is usually 500 BC.
Goin' with my first attempt. 2 settlers 1 worker in the first turns, one more settler a bit late, no warrior rush 'cause horses in capital BFC (btw together with 1 gem, 2 wheat, 3 cows and 1 iron - i've rarely seen a so powerful capital), and i'm playin' as Darius :D great plains, prolly my favourite map.
So, immortal rushed 2 early, another AI some late, score about 90K in 100 AD, far from the dom limit.
I think i'll build some settlers, hit the limit and stop.

Darius power is insane, i think he's my favourite leader.
Now Persepolis is producing wealth and this is enough to run science @100%.
I could have researched Edu in 4 turns, but wait 'til the first GS popped from the GLib.

I just finished a time game (I thought it was time, not score); this reminded me why I hate time victories - I set the game up at around turn 400 (max cities, max land and max pop), then spent 3 hours hitting 'enter', with 25 turns to go my 5 opponents (all vassaled to Alex) declared war on me - too bad one of my cities was building advanced tanks and blew thier armies away :D

EDIT : My score was 9119 :lol: I challenge anyone to get LESS :goodjob:

I just finished a time game (I thought it was time, not score); this reminded me why I hate time victories - I set the game up at around turn 400 (max cities, max land and max pop), then spent 3 hours hitting 'enter', with 25 turns to go my 5 opponents (all vassaled to Alex) declared war on me - too bad one of my cities was building advanced tanks and blew thier armies away :D

EDIT : My score was 9119 :lol: I challenge anyone to get LESS :goodjob:

it doesn't have to be a time victory, any victory and highest score wins

Completed my first attempt, domination in 1090 for >118k.

And this is the 3rd out of 10 :sheep:

Can anyone poast the score to beat?

Perhaps i made some mistake in the late game, i could have avoided to settle a couple cities and started my last war sooner.
Not easy to find the balance between in-game score and final score.

@CliftonBazaar
You're no longer also the only Warlord EQM, still you're in first place (but be worried).

I'm definitely going to give this one a whirl. I can eliminate many Quatro categories here.

Also, I'd been quite puzzled myself how you get a Score victory, for Quatro purposes. I still am a bit. Do you have to do anything different, to get a Score victory, vs any other? I realize for this Minor, we are just looking at the score, no matter what type of victory, but how do you get a "Score" victory?

Another question....I've been looking in the Info Center, but cannot find a listing of what civs/leaders start with an explorer vs a warrior. Not in the Civilopedia either.

I'm definitely going to give this one a whirl. I can eliminate many Quatro categories here.

Also, I'd been quite puzzled myself how you get a Score victory, for Quatro purposes. I still am a bit. Do you have to do anything different, to get a Score victory, vs any other? I realize for this Minor, we are just looking at the score, no matter what type of victory, but how do you get a "Score" victory?

Another question....I've been looking in the Info Center, but cannot find a listing of what civs/leaders start with an explorer vs a warrior. Not in the Civilopedia either.

Just win by the means that will give you the highest score which is most likely to be domination with a highly developed pop.

Civs that start with the hunting tech normally have a scout - Greeks Khymer French Russians Ethiopians Vikings Germans Aztecs Mongolians Persians I recall - maybe one or two others.

I'm definitely going to give this one a whirl. I can eliminate many Quatro categories here.

Also, I'd been quite puzzled myself how you get a Score victory, for Quatro purposes. I still am a bit. Do you have to do anything different, to get a Score victory, vs any other? I realize for this Minor, we are just looking at the score, no matter what type of victory, but how do you get a "Score" victory?

Another question....I've been looking in the Info Center, but cannot find a listing of what civs/leaders start with an explorer vs a warrior. Not in the Civilopedia either.

A Time victory is really a Score victory.

Civs that start with Hunting get a scout.

Also, I'd been quite puzzled myself how you get a Score victory, for Quatro purposes. I still am a bit. Do you have to do anything different, to get a Score victory, vs any other? I realize for this Minor, we are just looking at the score, no matter what type of victory, but how do you get a "Score" victory?
For highest score we ignore the victory condition and just use the score. Any victory condition counts.

Understood, as I said in my post. But, then, for HoF and Quatro standings, how does a Score Victory work, when you win by other categories? I'm sure this isn't as confusing as it seems:)

Edit: Also, I thought I knew how to see the current standings of an ongoing gauntlet, but I see no entries for 41. Thought I read earlier in the thread that others had posted games and seen rankings already? Am I missing something?

Every game you submit to the HOF counts for a score victory. It ranks the scores for every game in the same 'map size/difficulty/speed' by score, regardless of victory condition.

I can see 11 entries in the G-Minor table here (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=minor), with my own EQM filling Sitting Bull one in 7th.

Understood, as I said in my post. But, then, for HoF and Quatro standings, how does a Score Victory work, when you win by other categories? I'm sure this isn't as confusing as it seems:)

Edit: Also, I thought I knew how to see the current standings of an ongoing gauntlet, but I see no entries for 41. Thought I read earlier in the thread that others had posted games and seen rankings already? Am I missing something?

I think if you submit a game then you will see where you are in the standings. It doesn't show anyone but you and your place. That way you know if you are not the the top score which for however brief a moment in time is me. [party]:dance::woohoo:

Hmmm....maybe that's it... I recall seing it before but there's nothing there now, or when I opened Ozbenno's link. So, it must not be until you get a game accepted.

As far as the Quatro goes, so then maybe if you submit a game that qualifes under no other victory condition, it'll be counted as a score victory? So, if I already have one domination, and submit another, it would count under Score?

I started a game as Tokuguwa(sic?), and had abysmal hut luck. Did take out the Chinese's unoccupied city/civ, but not one settler or worker. Firstly, had the warrior, instead of explorer. Second, only found two huts, one barbarians and one a warrior.

I may restart........not sure. I played Pangea, and do have a very nifty civ area, as far as resources, and land. But, my score may suck.

Probably will stick with it, I guess, as at least I'll scratch off some Quatro stuff.

The easiest way to start this game - well it is sort of boring still - get to the initial screen - if you have a reachable hut on screen - pop it - if no settler regen the map til you get one that pops a settler. At least that way you are assured of one settler to begin. Additionally it may just be my observation but GH pops seem to be a bit serial - whatever you get on the first one you will often get on the next one or two.

Its an advantage to use a scout civ to improve your GH popping and i dont think the civ it self makes to much diff beyond that initial thing. :dunno:

The easiest way to start this game - well it is sort of boring still - get to the initial screen - if you have a reachable hut on screen - pop it - if no settler regen the map til you get one that pops a settler.

Its an advantage to use a scout civ to improve your GH popping and i dont think the civ it self makes to much diff beyond that initial thing. :dunno:

You mean regenerating in-game? So that's allowed after you popped a hut? Also when you built a city? I'm always quitting to the main menu is these cases, afraid of the game being rejected due to replaying.

Very well possible that the 1st pop determines something, I got 3 settlers in a row right from the start as I mentioned earlier.
In another game I tried, I popped a settler which settled near a hut popping a worker. Thank you! :crazyeye:

You mean regenerating in-game? So that's allowed after you popped a hut? Also when you built a city?
Yes, if you do that on the first turn (before hitting end of turn) AND if you don't meet any neighbors.

You can create a 'model' game with all the proper settings, and save it at 4000BC, then reload + regenerate every time you need another map. This way you can make several turns in the beginning, scout the map, even meet the neighbors, etc., and if you're not satisfied, simply load your model, and regenerate for a new map.

You mean regenerating in-game? So that's allowed after you popped a hut? Also when you built a city? I'm always quitting to the main menu is these cases, afraid of the game being rejected due to replaying.


U:faint: umm thats not quite what i meant. What I meant is you can regenerate the map before you end the first turn. So the map is always new every time - you do not scout the map then reload from a save. Thats replaying the same map which is not allowed. :nono:

The process is you create the game - the map appears - is there a hut that gives a settler -
if yes ok lets play this map and see how it goes.
if no regenerate the map for a new try.

I don't build a city right away - that settler can find huts too. Like a fragile scout - but you arent normally going to see anything hostile for a few turns so its safe to run around with a settler. Plus you get to see the land a bit and see where you want to plop down down. On epic a couple of turns before settling is not going to matter a great deal unless you're fanatic about getting buddhism or something.

Might take a bit sometimes to get the desired result but overall its quicker i think.

Hmmm....maybe that's it... I recall seing it before but there's nothing there now, or when I opened Ozbenno's link. So, it must not be until you get a game accepted.

As far as the Quatro goes, so then maybe if you submit a game that qualifes under no other victory condition, it'll be counted as a score victory? So, if I already have one domination, and submit another, it would count under Score?



A game can qualify under more than one category. A highest score is in another category by definition depending how you won the game. So highest score win by domination is a "score" and a "domination". Seems to be the same for Quattro since the games i have listed for "score victory type" were actually domination wins.

Right so about 50K seems to be the bottom of the table. I submitted a score of 51000ish which is currently sitting in 10th out of 11 submissions. I never milked any score on that effort just went straight for domination. Currently working on my 2nd attempt. Going alot better, upto about 70K and climbing.

I find sometimes the RNG is very streaky when it comes to settler/worker hut pops. I can get 10 straight huts with only maps and gold, or get 2 settlers and 1 worker form 5 huts. As far as corps, any high water map with generally give you more food with Sushi, of course all that culture can trigger domination too early unless your careful. Cereal Mills is much safer route.

I don't really like playing for score, but I used this "open" gauntlet to check a map and a civ for V/W QM. Map and version weren't most favorable (Oasis, WL) but leader had its uses. Mehmed has good UU and UB, expansive also a welcome trait for pop growth. A domination in the 1000's for >118k.

I had been following the 500K+ score thread and was wondering all along if a smaller-than-huge map, or lower difficulty could score that well. The Vanilla high score was on Warlord difficulty I believe. So this gauntlet came along at just the right time. I'm giving it one run to see how it feels. For a real high score try, you'd have to play marathon. Chieftain gets a 0.6 score multiplier I think. Where Immortal gets 1.8 and Diety 2.0. So, a 500K score on this gauntlet would be like over 1.5 million at a high difficulty. And this game is severly handicapped by Epic speed. It will take a week to finish, but I'm over half way. The goal, as you might guess, is 500,000.

Since I don't really know how to approach a game like this, I'll be happy with 400K. I know some people aren't trying to milk the score. Has anyone gotten a good effort completed yet?

I'm busy with my second real attempt. I used the initial settler for scouting and one or two workers and 2 settlers I popped as well. Then I settled in 3 different area's of the map and considered each city as a seperate empire. I'm trying to get land more quickly this time with either war or settlers.
Currently the score is 52k @ 50BC, 48% pop. 36% land, in-game score of 1360, does that ring a bell to anyone? I'm curious to what I could achieve from this. I can compare my previous game @ 850AD.

Well, 730 AD and I'm on 61.4% land and 69.8% pop. Not entirely according to plan, this will probably end in a domination soon. Score currently stands at 78k. So then I've been too fast and too slow in my attempts at this gauntlet, next time I have to get it right. :)

I'm playing Catherine btw, creative...maybe I should drop that trait too, gives me more control.

Population is most important for score, then I think: land, tech, and lastly wonders.
In my game I found this to be completely true. In the last turn, I had some 52% land (limit 56%, max opps). I then founded like 15 new cities that turn, all getting full BFC instantly so I went to 75% land next turn. However, score had only a rather modest increase, IIRC from 112k to 118k (and there was a new tech learned and several old cities also grew).

I once heard something wierd like you have to own the land for a while before it counts for score. If true, then capturing a ton of land on the last turn is not a good plan. Can't recall where I heard that.

Maybe if you artist bomb the new land it would count?

You're right, and I guess it was in the GMajor20 discussion (time victory). BTW, most of the land I grabbed last turn was empty before and dispersed around the map (did I mention I hate Oasis?), so an artist bomb would have made a limited effect at best.
p.s. just checked log and noticed pop went from 400 to 427 and land from 52% to 76%.

Yeah, there is a time lag before new land will count towards your score. Can't remember where I got that info from though... sorry. I think it was something like 12-20 turns.

IMO land is not that important, since any milked game will be at the % threshold anyway. For a score game it is all about population and early victory (e.g. fast Biology and Sid Sushi), and for a time game it is a mix between population and future techs.

The best thing you can do on the final turn is capture all of the remaining AI cities except for one. Also, building the Hanging Gardens on that last turn would be ideal.

I'd be tempted by this gauntlet if I had a bit more time to play.

One question I have about the best map to use is whether anything depends on your RAW pop and land score or if it is only the RATIOS shown at the right hand side of the screen that matter in the final calculation. For example, a large land map such as Great Plains or Inland Sea might help if RAW score is important. But if only the RATIOS are important then some kind of sea based map where you can settle 1 tile islands combined with Sid Sushi would be better. (I.E maxing your population count without having to increase your land area by much).

@Jimmy: Ratio is all that matters.

I was way off my prediction of how my game would progress. I was at 250,000 score and gaining 7K per turn. I figured the 7K would go down gradually and I'd end around 400,000. Not true. Before I knew it I was at 350,000 and gaining 10K per turn. Now I'm at 500,000 and still cruising at 10K per turn. I'm finally near the Dom limit...about 40 tiles to go. I think I'll get around 700,000.

Problem: How do you get the city governer to work the food tiles? "Emphasize food" doesn't work. It'll assign 20 scientists and work zero tiles. Pretty sad.

I'm also having happiness problems. I don't have a military unit to keep the peace in every city. That's a lot of units to build. I think it's the unhappiness that caused the city governer to try to halt growth.

Bah. I have still never ever ever seen a settler pop from a hut. I only ever get gold and maps, plus the occasional very rare tech. I usually have about 400 gold by the time I've cleared the huts, but never a settler or worker. My version of Civ IV blows big time!

I kinda screwed up my 2nd attempt. I kept my land around 410-415 (limit 421) but my score started to dwindle. Corporation came too late, or at least it didn't spread fast enough, so from 110-112k max. score dropped below 100k. I had to sacrifice happiness to set up an attack a.s.a.p. to eventually take 2 cities and re-demand a city on tundra I donated to Asoka. End score only 97k. :(

How are you calcualting how many tiles til you reach domination - is there a civ 4 utility that does that? I know there used to be one in earlier versions but its been so long i forgot what it was called.

How are you calcualting how many tiles til you reach domination - is there a civ 4 utility that does that? I know there used to be one in earlier versions but its been so long i forgot what it was called.

Just set the domination warning on the options screen to 10% (or more). Then every turn it will show in red the number of tiles.

Just set the domination warning on the options screen to 10% (or more). Then every turn it will show in red the number of tiles.

Thanks :goodjob:

I was off again. I didn't realize how fast the score would deteriorate once I had to stop making new cities. I figured turning my tech back on would make up for that, but no. Every tech was only 1 turn to research, even Future Tech. I didn't make it to 700K. An educational gauntlet. Not as tedious as I thought it would be. I may have to try for 2 million on Diety, but not for a while.

A few stats:
Around 170+ cities. 166 with the new "Burger King Sushi Restaurant".
72 Sushi resources (36 food).

I played "the Burger King", and his Rathaus saved me 5,000 gold per turn more than a courthouse would! To be clear that's 15,000 gold/turn maintenance cost reduction. A regular courthouse would save only 10,000.

Finished late: 1520 AD. My score was still going up a bit, but not for more than another couple turns. I couldn't risk my system crashing again, so I pulled plug.

My population was 350% of the map's pop value.

I got 15 future tech.

I was able to build the Hanging Gardens on the last turn (for about 15K-20K score boost)

Very impressive. :goodjob: What map did you use?

Very impressive. :goodjob: What map did you use?

I'm impressed with your question. Trying to get one of my biggest secrets? I spent at least an hour (or two) examining maps and tuning the options. Mostly because I enjoy the process of map selection. I decided on "Big and Small". It gave me a nice land mass to get started on and plenty of islands.

I'm using Global Highlands.

That was an adventure I shall not repeat again.:crazyeye:
I have no skill or temperment for milking.
Just under 200000, and at the end I could not click the button fast enough.:(
Inland Sea, it teched well got to democracy ~400BC, but then I tried to build everywhere and milk it and it all went sour.:cry:
I should have just teched like stink, built an army once I was into future techs and crushed everyone in two turns.
I probably would have got a better score, and it would have been my kind of game.:)

I did enjoy seeing all of the movie clips for all the wonders I never build.:cool:

I think I'll go try a space race.:)

I'm the one in 16th place out of 18 so far, with 49,542 points in 1600AD.

Im in 13th with about 80,000.

You made me check :)
10th with 97440 points in 1595AD. Not going to try anymore.

4th with 140,000+ (was in 2nd a week ago)

The number of cities you need to score high with this seems to make my system very erratic. Its as much a roll of the dice on how many turns til crash as to how the score will go :crazyeye:

This Gauntlet is Finished.

Results:
1st WastinTime - 604528
2nd Andrei_V - 219296
3rd Rain - 197679

Congratulations!