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: Space Race (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Prince
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Large
Map Type: Fractal
Speed: Normal
Civ: Any
Opponents: Any
Version: 1.74.002, 2.13.002 or 3.13.001
Date: 25th April to 25th May 2008
Must not play as Inca.

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker

I dont know about this, but isnt BTS space race not compatible with vanilla and Warlords, because you have to wait like 10-20 turns for the SS to reach alpha centurai? Also, the SS casings cost just much as the thrusters in BTS.

Agreed.
Also I wonder whether the major and minor have been mixed up, this is also suggested in the minor thread. This gauntlet here is easier for sure than the minor one.

I fixed the dates. :blush:

Just mixing things up a bit. ;) Major and Minor are somewhat about playing time as well as difficulty. The idea is to try some something you wouldn't do normally. Plus, people playing for EQM need a chance to play all the difficulties in both Major and Minor.

sorry just want to ask for confirmation that we can play this in any version as BTS is different?

sorry just want to ask for confirmation that we can play this in any version as BTS is different?

Version: 1.74.002, 2.13.002 or 3.13.001

In BTS arent they categorized as Space colony and not Space Race. I realize the ingame victory has the same name but they go in different categories in HoF unless im confused even more than normal.:confused:

So not to :deadhorse: the issue, but won't there technically be two categories of victory?

In BTS arent they categorized as Space colony and not Space Race. I realize the ingame victory has the same name but they go in different categories in HoF unless im confused even more than normal.:confused:

So not to :deadhorse: the issue, but won't there technically be two categories of victory?Yeah, you are right. I wasn't thinking there. :blush: You can't use BTS for this one. I'll fix the the setup.

What? No BTS? I am 3/4 of the way to a great game with Joao!! Boo!!

I was busy with a BTS too, already in the modern age. I chose Willem van Oranje btw. The start was great, 4 gems and 1 clam/corn in the capital, another 4 gems in my 2nd city. Most on flat grassland. It was an island though, which I didn't conquer until 1650AD (Capac and Yakob were with me). CE with 1300-1500 on science (actually not impressive, I had 13 cities on my island, I never bothered to invade other continents), several dikes built in fairly high production cities. Wasn't going to be a fast time but that wasn't my primary goal anyway. Not yet.

Well, going with Warlords then. :(
I agree on the decision though. :)

well i'm glad i guessed the right way, not set a particularly great date though

Ok, so I had to revert to either Warlords or Vanilla. Well, after reinstalling, patching, reinstalling again and a dozen errors I got Warlords to work. Started as Elizabeth on a tropic high sea map. Got me plenty of fish/clam in the capital, so I thought I'd go for slavery, which I hardly ever do. Though I think I'll restart again to get a good slingshot going. :/

No idea about a finish date yet, I'm thinking pre-1900 for myself and about 1400-1500 for the winner (no idea really).

Hmm ok well playing on the wrong map size is bad :rolleyes: Lets try that again:hammer2:

Man, things were looking pretty good with me slowly getting up to highest score even though I was not most advanced. I was playing against Nappy, Alex, HC, Peter, Vicky and Hannibal. A few peacemongers in Hatty and Gandhi rounded out my opponents. oh, and Quai Gon Jin of China. I spent a lot of resources trying to wipe out Gandhi with an an successful Skirmisher rush. I also DWed early on Incas to steal workers. I eventually vassalized Gandhi and almost had Vicky. One turn, after severely weakening her, she still wouldn't capitulate, but the next turn, or what seemed like the SAME turn, we were at peace when she went running bloody nose and all to Alex. Good thing he didn't go to war with me. At the time he was the highest score and quite powerful. I was hoping to get a PA with him or someone else, but they wouldn't even trade with me.

Throughout the game, all AI's eventually dropped the open borders. I got a lot of negative modifiers for either trading with their enemies (even after just meetings the ones one the other continent) or declaring war on their friends. So, after taking an Incan city by culture, HC was getting pretty upset (and powerful). With two component techs left to research he DWed me and massively bombed my infrastructure. I was losing resources and the great deals with the other AIs left and right. I missed all the good wonders like Oracle, Pyramids, GL, to name a few by one turn! Each of them!! Any way to stop that? Whip it even with 1 turn left showing? Then again, you never know. I was really struggling with Health and happiness throughout the game as some of my cities were huge. After the AI gets Democracy it's even tougher! I had cathedrals in many cities, but to no avail.

I managed to hold out with my IW city too far south to be hurt by pillaging fighters. My capital, a powerhouse in it's own right was decimated while finishing the 2nd last component. Hell, HC even nuked Timbuktu and other great cities, but I was able to scrub up quickly so they the capital could finish the piece.

I held in there and it feels great to have the 1st place position for now. I expect other to beat me out in the next week or so, but I am a happy camper! :D

lol....bumping me down did not take as long as I thought, but I am not surprised.

Oh, well, sorry about that. :)

1730AD as Cyrus. I killed 3 AIs on my continent with Immortals, then cottage spammed a little. My continent was not exactly the best for cottage spamming, so I think much faster finish is possible, like 1500-s.

1st succesful attempt, 1967AD as Mansa Musa. The start was awkward as I started 3 tiles away from Brennus (well, high seas with max civs does that ;)), he started this game of Prince difficulty with two...scouts. What a help that was to him. Only took 3 warriors to take his city. Monty was next to him and I axe-rushed him shortly after.
Later on I got surprised by a sneaky vassalage by Mehmed of Hannibal, whom I was at war with. Worst back stab (litterally, he was on the opposite end of my empire) I got in a long time, lost a well cottaged city to him, and he pillaged 2 more cities of cottages. It was Knights/Riflemen vs. Knights/Macemen so he had an advantage, plus he outnumbered me in that area. Drafting in panic didn't really do me any good, though it may have saved a city in the end. So basically 3 cottaged cities down the drain around 1600AD. I also had only 1 decent production city (53 base hammers) and 2 of 39 and 36 base hammers, the rest were hybrids and only 1 real commerce city of 120 base commerce (total 12 cities). Lots of happiness/health problems during most of the game.
So, lot of room for improvement.
But it's only my 1st complete game on Prince. :)

I think that a pyramid/specialist game will be faster at normal speed. I just finished a pretty good cottage game in 1685, although I wasn't aggresive enough.

I have never run a specialist space race game but I'm going to try one (I think I'll keep my capital in cottages though).

I have never run a specialist space race game
It's not so good on large maps, especially after 6-7 AIs switch to Emancipation.

Pyramids is very helpful, of course, even in a cottage game.

Oh well ...

Submitted my 1st try, a 1935AD-victory with Wang Kon. No good game: warring took me way too long, from 325AD - 1824AD.

I tried a 2nd time with Mansu Musa. Went ok I guess, still the date kept ticking away to 1914AD (I thought it was 1 year per turn already, but no). Early tech was great (3 grassland gems), managed to get Civil Service in 1240BC. During the mid game the development of my science didn't increase quickly enough. But I managed to found 4 cities on a small island fully cottaged and they got to towns rather quickly under emancipation.
In the end I built the Space Elevator which only helped the last 4 parts I was building at the same time, but I could micromanage the city that was to finish last. I turned 1 farm into a workshop which caused starvation but it went slow enough to finish the part. I even managed to just get another turn off by using 4 workers to build a workshop on a 7 food corn resource for just 1 turn and rebuilding the farm the turn after. The part was built without any overflow whatsoever and at the same turn the city lost 1 pop through starvation. :D

Dunno how you guys get all these gems to start :eek:- I have even tried using map finder on this fractal thing and gems never show up:sad:. I did find one manually regening but generally speaking its not happening. Did you alter the rule set or something? :scan:

Finally got a game finished on the correct map. :woohoo: Was a bit odd as I was isolated on a continent. In fact looking at the map post game it was very terra looking with me in the new world. Nothing special but currently 4th. :hmm:

Also I noticed you all do a lot of war mongering which i studiously avoid. :crazyeye: Between this large map game and my erroenous standard map game game i have fought uhh 1 battle. Even that was very late game angst on Isabella's part. Sort of suicidal since she invoked like 4 DP's when she attacked.:eek:

Well I've regenerated some games 2 dozen times before I either give up and go do something else or get a decent start. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I used a tropical setting every time.
Anyway, that 2*4 gems start I had was very lucky, and I couldn't even reload it because I got some error about protecting assets or whatever. But usually gems come in patches of 2 or more with the standard rules. Same thing with other tropical resources like dye and silk. And gems are generally rare I think, only 1 or 2 area's on a map that contains them.

I got problems too trying to generate a good start: sometimes it happens, but with orrible surroundings, or lack some strat resources (thing that i discover after alpha, usually).

Once I has a decent start, but i needed to war my neighbours, and a war takes forever in normal speed.

Definitely i don't like fractal.

And i like less Normal Speed!
submitted a 1933 (shame) finish with Augustus Cesar, never more on normal.
Oh well, it's good for my EQM
And definitely i prefer BtS for Space.

1960ish on mine using Liz, same issue as above....good start, good tech, then Toku and Isabella decided they didn't like me and I got back to back stacks of Conquiestadors and Samurai at my doorstep every 20 years or so. Slowed me down greatly. Not sure if i'll have time to submit another or not. GG

[QUOTE=Andrei_V;6779810]It's not so good on large maps, especially after 6-7 AIs switch to Emancipation.

Hadn't thought of that:blush:
Couldn't do it anyway, I can't seem to stop myself from building cottages:p.

Another half dozen tries,
Beat my score by five years

Woppie!:crazyeye:

I agree that there aren't too man decent maps found on fractal. Found a decent gold/flood plains combo eventually and went with that. Problem was that the countryside wasn't very good and I had no near neighbours so by the time I was able to acquire some territory it was later than I would have wanted (used samurais, wanted axes). Took over two AIs and managed a 1850 finish.

1947, OCC with no-PA. Was fun. Didn't know if that was possible on Prince or not.

I arrived somewhat late for this one, but I thought a 2nd GMajor and the 18th civ for my V/W QM quest wouldn't hurt! Played as Mansa in a crowded map, low seas. I had to take a couple neighbours to get a half-decent cottageable land. Late 1600's, but not enough to beat AAA's game.

I'm no good at space, obviously.
first game with india (vanilla gandhi) with PA with someone I can't remember, finished in 1914.
second game with ragnar (warlords, obviously) with a PA with hannibal finished in 1874.

First try was a specialist run with a lot of wars, second try was a totally peaceful (at least on my part) cottage heaven. No war = not enough land (although I was fist in score from the get go, with a lot more cities than I normally build).

I learned that :
- I need more workers!
- I need even more workers!
- A few free cities from the AI couldn't hurt.

(edit: Let's hope I manage to get a valid submission!)

IMHO a PA at prince level does more harm than good when going space - techs become more expensive (40%?), so if you have already expanded like you should, your partner won't contribute to your research efforts enough to offset the PA penalty.

I am having a lot of trouble tackling this on Vanila. I have become too spoiled by the new features/civs/leaders in BTS. I played three games so far with no luck. I get a good start, but there is always someone nearby who wants to take me down a notch.

Initially I was planning to go pro Perecles of the Greek to get bonuses on both libraries and universities...oops, he's not available in Vanila. I have been trying as Elizabeth. Maybe there is another leader who would work better.

I think I will give it a break for today. I'll try again tomorrow or the next day. I think that I will take a spiritual leader to rush a religion early and get the shrine to help out my economy/expansion. No revolt on civic/religion change will be a nice benefit too.

The time I have spent on this G Major quest is cutting into my ability to tackel the other tasks to the QM. I had hoped to finish as many as possible before the update.

1820AD for me, with Elizabeth ...

Nearly a totally peaceful game as well, but I was quite lucky with the land. With my 2nd and 3rd city (best science and best production city for the whole game), I was able to seal of a part of the land that allowed me to settle 12 cities, heavily cottaged!

Unfortunately, I didn't have Coal or Aluminium, so I attacked my neighbor Gandhi (with Marines and Artillery vs. LBs :D), conquered 2 border-cities that gave those 2 resources ...

But I still wouldn't have been much faster than ~1800AD :(

This Gauntlet has finished. Results:

1st AAA 1680 AD
2nd Conquistador 63 1695 AD
3rd Andrei_V 1705 AD

Congratulations! :goodjob: