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: Conquest (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Emperor
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Large
Map Type: Lakes
Speed: Epic
Civ: Arabia
Opponents: Any
Version: 1.74.002, 2.13.002 or 3.13.001
Date: 25th May to 25th June 2008
Must not play as Inca.

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

This one will be really hard for me. Saladin is hard for early rush. I'll try this Gauntlets, but I think my chances of victory are slim. I'm trying to make the jump. I have so far two emperor wins: a quick cultural victory and a marathon domination on a small map with Rome.....

The game I'm playing now, it's 130 BC, I could build the Oracle and build another three cities. My research was as low as 10% after my REX but I recovered, now it's 50% without currency or COL. My economy was a caos, I had to alternate between a gold mine and a farm every turn just to give a hope that one city to grow and to research something... I found Buddhism on my capital and I have a shrine and a settled Great Prophet.

Now I'm thinking about getting Literature, somehow archery by trade, and I'll try to rush the GL and build some archers and walls for defense. I have a still heavy forested capital and marble. I didn't chop the Oracle (I couldn't even get BW before it was finished), just few trees for the settlers. I don't think I'm able to go to war before maces/trebs.

Same for me, very unlikely I'll be able to do this one even though I really need a gauntlet at Monarch difficulty or higher (and my chances aren't improved by the fact that I'm off on holiday next weekend). I had a couple of goes on different settings to see what happened - tried high water level, cold and raging barbs to see if it would slow down the AI. It did ... but I was still far too slow with the axe rush. Conquest isn't exactly my forte anyway but I just found that epic game speed instead of marathon, large map and no early unique unit made things *very* slow :( I'm sure someone here will do it in around 1250 BC or something eyepopping :lol: but it won't be me!

I am having a run at this one as well. The current plan is to build the economy before trying to REX. So I my tech path is Agri, Pottery, Writing, BW, Alpha, Currency, Construction, CoL, Guilds. I'm running 2 scientists as soon as the library is built for the academy. I then plan to run only merchants once I have markets built to generate the gold for the army. I am not using an axe rush, I'm planing for swords, cats and phants then Camel archers.

I have gone with Vanilla for the Philo trait to hurry the GP as paying for the army seems to be the limiting factor for this gauntlet. Settings are high sea and temperate. I will be happy to finish with a date around 1800 AD.

The classic cav rush did it for me: just conquered the world in 1655AD.:woohoo:

During BC's I focused on tech; did a Col slingshot for its trading value + extra cash from settled GP was helpfull. Then in the early AD's I took out the closest AI to have critical mass for the endgame.
Once you can use cav against LB, it's all about logistics. At the end I outnumbered the defenders 5 to 1 or so; even redcoats don't stand a change with those odds...:hammer:

That is a great power graph.

I finished a 1480AD game. In my opinion, the key moment is to have war elephants as soon as possible. Mostly it is the question of research, and of course you must have the resource, but it don't necesserely need to be close your capital.

I founded 3 quite good cities before 2000bc. I built an army of (mainly) swordsmen to conquer one of my neghbours, the war started at 1350bc and ebded about 700bc. At the end of the war, I had some catapults as well and I was close to horseback riding (it is wisely to have the construction earlier than HB riding). After that I could easily conquer one other AI with a mixed army, but my strongest units were elephants.

You can have easily problems with economy in that part of the game. I was lucky that I received CoL from an AI when I started really need courthouses, but it needed time to finish the buildings.

If you are able to recupe your economy and have an empire of 3 earlier nations, the victory becomes reachable. War elephants are good units by the time your enemy starts to build pikemen. Of course catapults/trebuchets must follow them.

At the endgame, my army were quite mixed again. I wasn't really satisfied with camel archers, but at least they could be upgrade to cuirassers in a cheap price (65 gold). Macemen and siege units are also important, some pikemen helps you a lot against elephants.

Question: Can you win conquest if you have vasslas?

Like if I vassalize my last AI opponents instead of raze will I still get conquest win?

Edit:Found out in another thread that it was possible.


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Finished in 1570 AD. First attack was with some axemen and catapult+elephant. My start loc was actaully not all that great but I caught a lucky break when I manged to invade asaoka as my first AI and take the Hindu shrine for gold.
After that I was attacked by Mongolia and forced to invade his useless lands :(

I teched elephants+catapult -> elephant+trebuche -> curiassers+trebuche -> mass cavalery

Anyhow all in all I think I might have had a little bit to much downtime between my wars and maybe to much focus on tech.

[QUOTE=ssjos;6926422]Question: Can you win conquest if you have vasslas?

Like if I vassalize my last AI opponents instead of raze will I still get conquest win?

Edit:Found out in another thread that it was possible.]

It is an easier way to vassalize most of AI-s than to conquer them. I destroyed just 2 civs in this gauntlet while all other was my vassal state.

It is an easier way to vassalize most of AI-s than to conquer them. I destroyed just 2 civs in this gauntlet while all other was my vassal state.

Okok I read something about vassals giving extra upkeep for your cities and since Ive never tried it before I didnt want to risk my game.

Anyhow, first time I got conquest victory that was nice, cool video at the end :)

My last game seemed to be going well. I popped four huts in the first several turns getting a scout followed by mining, bronze working, and iron working (on turn 22). I connected up my iron, built three cities and produced units to eliminate my nearest rival (Washington) by about turn 100. I had built up an early lead and had 6 cities (two captured from Washington).

I was able to get a good start and keep up tech wise through the mid game. I built the Great Library (chopping) and ran two additional scientists in that city. After completing the National Epic, I started popping GS on a regular basis. I built one Academy and then bulbed several techs all the way up to Education. Along the way I was able to build the UoS in another city for more additional research.

Everybody but Sitting Bull shared Judism so I did too and made him my second victim. Right as I was about to take his capitol, he became Caesar's vassal :(.

Here is where the game took a turn for the worse. I didn't think it would be a big deal to lose the AP since it would be my religion anyway. Fredrick built the AP, but Caesar became the leader (since Fredrick was the next most hated leader by most of the AI players after Sitting Bull).

Every time I declared war on somebody, Caesar would put up a resolution to "stop war with Mesix!" This would not only stop me from continuing my war, but also give every other player 10 turns of peace with me thus preventing me from doing any conquest. Caesar used the AP to keep me at a stalemate for over 1,000 years while the other AI players consolidated, expanded, and vassalized a few of their opponents.

Eventually my tech lead faded, the GS rate tapered off, and my hopes of finishing a Conquest victory were shattered by the cursed AP resolutions!

I quit playing at about 1600 AD.

I have gone with Vanilla for the Philo trait to hurry the GP as paying for the army seems to be the limiting factor for this gauntlet. Settings are high sea and temperate.

I decided to try this gauntlet once before leaving on holiday. I tried Vanilla for the same reason you did. Also tried high seas.

I have the game in the bag, but have decided not to finish. I am already past kovacsflo's and ssjos' finish dates with one AI to go. I think I would have finished about 1600, but I am simply running out of time before I leave on holiday (and the gauntlet ends while I'm gone).

In hindsight, I think the choice of Vanilla was a poor one... vassalizing saves a ton of time. Also, it turned out high sea had a drawback... one of the lakes had a 2 tile island and an AI settled it. I actually had to build some galley's to clear him out. :lol:

My capital site was excellent (3 gems), but the surrounding land was crappy (lots of jungle). I did CS slingshot easily, but it then it got slow. My 2nd and 3rd cities were pretty poor, and my first several conquered cities were poor as well. I actually teched to cavs, I really never expected to go past camels.

Kind of wish I had time for a 2nd try with a better map, but it is not to be. Of course, a two week holiday is not a bad consolation ;).

I got the impression that vannilla Lakes map was horrible. I tried forever to get a decent start loc but failed miserably.

Once I went back to bts good start locs with food+river+commerce started coming about.

I got the impression that vannilla Lakes map was horrible. I tried forever to get a decent start loc but failed miserably.

Once I went back to bts good start locs with food+river+commerce started coming about.

I don't think it depends on expansion packs. Maybe you left some settings different. As far as I experienced, low sea level gives the most river tiles. Cold temperature gives you big arctic lands where no AI can settle down-and barbs will grow there and help you if you play wisely.

This Gauntlet is complete. Results:

1st Ironhead 400 AD
2nd kovacsflo 1480 AD
3rd ssjos 1570 AD

Congratulations to the winners!