Hello again!

As I mentioned in this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=261105) thread, I have devised a plan to achieve all the requirements for four of the six legs of the Elite Quattromaster Challenge.

I will try to post a thread around every two weeks with the game conditions, and then some highlights of my game, and encourage others to do the same. I also open the floor to discussions of strategy, as the regular HoF'ers never cease to amaze me with their insights into the game.

Round 8: Gminor 42a!

As I mentioned in the Round 7 thread, Denniz seems to have gotten a copy of my list, as Gminor 42 had the same speed, leader, and win condition as this round. The only thing different is that we will be playing on an Ice Age map (although you can select islands in the options ;))

"Required" Settings:
Expansion: BTS
Era: Ancient
Civilization: Vikings
Victory Condition: Conquest
Game Speed: Quick
Map: Ice Age

Although all maps except duel are eligible for EQM, all the submissions for the Bindy challenge so far have been small or standard, so I’m going to concentrate on those two. If you’d like to try on another map size, it’s perfectly valid, but I probably won’t notice the submission unless you tell me.

Quick conquest is a bear. I don’t honestly know what I was thinking when I chose this. :crazyeye:

Here again are the opponent requirements for various map sizes.

Mapsize Minimum Maximum
Tiny 2 4
Small 4 7
Standard 6 10
Large 8 14
Huge 10 17
Remember, Duel Maps are definitely ineligible for the Elite Quattromaster Challenge.

Ragnar is Aggressive and Financial. Aggressive is certainly a benefit in a conquest situation, and Financial is an excellent early boost on ice age maps, which tend to have a lot of seafood, which mean 5-6 food and 3 commerce on those tiles after trading posts, which are his UB (lighthouse). They also promote water units built in the city to Nav1, which is good for getting to your opponents that much quicker. His UU, the berserker, is a maceman that can attack across water without penalty. I’m thinking of trying a small island map to make this come into play more.

Ragnar starts with fishing and hunting, which in most cases would be a :rolleyes:, but at least on an Ice Age map, there are lots of hunting and fishing resources.

If you're interested, the current best dates for a small map are:

Deity No Entry
Immortal No Entry
Emperor RobertTheBruce 1395 A.D.
Monarch No entry
Prince jodok 1924 A.D.
Noble erikthecelt 560 A.D.
Warlord Drool 680 A.D.
Chieftain Thrallia 1060 B.C..
Settler pholtz 1960 B.C.

and the current best dates for a standard map are:

Deity killercane 1760 A.D.
Immortal No Entry
Emperor RobertTheBruce 1635 A.D.
Monarch No entry
Prince karmina 1740 A.D.
Noble cabert 1820 A.D.
Warlord Alsark 1735 A.D.
Chieftain Mantalo 200 A.D.
Settler Hindi 265 B.C.



Results:

bestje won on a standard map on Prince in 1972 A.D. (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=12090)
ruff_hi won on a tiny map on Monarch in 1770 A.D. (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=12101)
Bindamel won on a standard map on Monarch in 1970 A.D. (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=12135)

I'm going to pass on this one. I played the last gauntlet and found it very annoying. Good luck to those brave souls who give it a go.

Well, as 8 is even, this game is for me. Quick! The one speed that I haven't got yet. I think this will be a nasty game as by the time my state of the art units get to the cities, they will be several centuries out of date.

Quick! The one speed that I haven't got yet. I think this will be a nasty game as by the time my state of the art units get to the cities, they will be several centuries out of date.

lol thats very true, going to be a tricky one for me to do at monarch anyway.
might have to step down a level

tried a OCC type approach, teching to my UU and then swarming isabella this morning. didn't work - she had a zillion cities and it would have taken ages to take her down. Going to try a city spam, ICS (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=267595) next.

what difficulty are you trying ruff?

monarch - the only level I play (unless I try something cheesy at a higher level)

Just to clarify, but this is an Always War with technology trading? I've tried this gauntlet a number of times with various strategies, but I die in medievil times by falling behind in the tech race. I've tried with the Pyramids + Great Library + SE which helps, but all my other cities are busy pumping out defensive units all game. I can't for the life of me make any head way attacking (or even harassing) either of my neighbours.

So, for everyone else, does the game quickly degenerate into 5 different enemies throwing stacks at you?

If "No Technology Trading" is checked, I'd have a shot, but as it stands I feel like this is "impossible" (for my skill level ;-)).

Whoops, mispost (wrong through -- meant Gmajor 47)

Just to clarify, but this is an Always War with technology trading?

:wow: It is? I'm having enough trouble with it without Always War! :faint:

Whoops, mispost (wrong through -- meant Gmajor 47)

Oh, phew! :cooool:


Look guys, a lurker! Get him! :run:

Lol, i said these would turn into unofficial gauntlets

very glad it isn't AW, i'm already thinking of stepping down to prince

well managed to get a win, did play at prince in the end.
1970s finish, the years just fly by at quick speed

was sharing a continent with Alex and mansa, with HC on a nearby island
then on the other side of the world were sal, hammurabi and gilgamesh.
so not the ideal bunch of people to try and conquer

started really close to Alex so stole his copper and axe rushed him before he could find any more, he took 2 wars to finish off though because of his huge stack of archers

then had a really long war of attrition with Mansa before he would vassal, the difference was I was slowly advancing and taking his cities so his research tailed off more than mine. started that war with cats and axes and ended it with rifles and cannon. it got really hairy in the middle when he got knights and i didn't get muskets till a few turns later

after that i built a fleet and invaded HC who was rather primitive and his longbows didn't stand up too well to my amphibious promoted rifles, yet he still took ages to capitulate

at this point I find out I have no oil and will have to demand it off mansa, once i'd given him the required techs and he'd actually built the well

then set off to invade sal, who was in 2nd place for pop and score. didn't notice he had a defensive pact with gilgamesh though :blush:
didn't make any difference except somehow gilgamesh snuck a city and a load of cavalry into the ice above me and i lost one of the old greek cities
this war was a lot easier as by this point my empire was basically 4 lots of core cities and my unit production was insane.
the massive tech lead may have helped as well. i had tanks and no one else ever got anything better than infantry.

sal, hammurabi and gilgamesh all vassalised much quicker once their huge obselete stacks were destroyed and they'd lost a few key cities

my only real worry at the end was hitting the domination limit before gilgamesh capitulated.
I went 2 tiles over when he did and was worrried i might get domination instead of conquest. which after 5 hours of play would have been really annoying

177114

this is the end game power graph, which is insane. i think i have more than everyone else put together

177115

and this is Ragnar's icy frozen world.
so in summary quite a fun game to play, but after mansa was conquered winning was never really in doubt

Game Over. Played a tiny monarch game v Isabella and Ottoman (I hate him). Tech pace was crazy ... went wonder mad and really only declared when I could draft rifles. I could have drafted berserkers but wanted to hold off. Lucky me had the biggest land mass and the early sea wonders (Colossus, GLight) made sure that each city paid for itself.

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7046/Bindy8-0052.jpg

The above was just before I declared on Ottoman. The city off to the top left was just to get some Marble.

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/2681/Bindy8-0053.jpg

Oops - where did he go? Anyone seen Mr Ottoman?

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5890/Bindy8-0054.jpg

Now Isabella is missing. I didn't even bother with siege, bombed down with frigates or just attacked with cavalry.

Power ...
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/6130/Bindy8-0056.jpg

We have a(nother) winner!

After about a dozen starts with no strategic resources within early settling distance, I finally got a start with iron nearby:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/earlycapitalwithtokandmansa.jpg

Two neighbors nearby as well! :run:

Speaking of which, my biggest concern was being outteched, so I picked neighbors who would be less than friendly with each other: Toku, Monty, Gandhi, and Isabella. It worked out rather well, really.

Monty beat me to a sweet spot with gold and gems, so I killed him.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/montygone1.jpg

Sweet, infighting ;)

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/gandhitokyo.jpg

What you can't see in the fog of war there is actually an annoying shaped "Y" in the continent. It was constantly being settled, blocking my troops path. Eventually I settled my own city there, and made it my marshalling point for my troops in the final war.

Anyhow, as I progressed towards rifling, I chewed through Gandhi and Tokugawa, eventually ending up at war with them both silmultaneously.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/gandhigone2.jpg
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/japangone3.jpg

I went to war with Izzy with mostly War Elephants and Rifles, for some reason:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/horseslate.jpg

Izzy was the only one not on the same landmass as me. She had a decent continent and several large islands settled. I took out a few cities on other islands, and then deployed my full force at the heart of her territory (The screenshot is a little misleading, ignore the list on the far left, it's just a copy of the one on the right):

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/Firstmainlandlanding.jpg

As I approached one of her last large cities, my first glimpse of her stack suggested that I would need reinforcements, but upon closer inspection:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/Izzysboats.jpg

They escaped the capture of the city, but I never saw them again. :D

I checked every time I captured a city, and finally, when she was down to two, both with my forces outside their walls:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/IzzytheQuitter.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/BEQM%208/1970Conquest.jpg

So small map, 1970 A.D., on a game that I was having second thoughts about regarding the victory condition/speed combo.

well done!
thats definitely a scary spanish SOD

I've done a couple of quick conquests.
1) you need to go down 1 or 2 levels from your usual level
2) small and standard are (self explanatory) easier on this speed
3) even so, I never managed any good finish date

last one was a small monarch with montezuma, which got excluded :-(), but finished in 1914 AD
other than this I have a budica tiny noble one which was quicker 1660 AD, but I used a medieval start on a highlands map (double speed for guerilla 2 swords :))
same for Gmajor 21 (I think) which was a deity quick conquest, starting on the modern era (1894 AD for me, widely beaten by the good players out there)
personnal best is a shaka standard noble finished in 1820 AD, played on terra (why? because on terra, half the map is for barbs, meaning it's a lot smaller than the same sized pangea)

Results:

bestje won on a standard map on Prince in 1972 A.D. (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=12090)
ruff_hi won on a tiny map on Monarch in 1770 A.D. (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=12101)
Bindamel won on a standard map on Monarch in 1970 A.D. (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=12135)