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 Colony (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Immortal
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Small
Map Type: Medium and Small
Speed: Epic
Civ: Netherlands (Willem Van Oranje)
Opponents: Any
Version: 3.13.001
Date: 25th June to 25th July 2008
Must not play as Inca.

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

I have never ever had an Immortal Space Colony victory. What are the tips for this one?

Well i've got one and all I can say is fluking it when you mess up a diplo game worked for me :D

but anyone with some serious advice i'd like to know as well

Get the Great Library and the National Epic in a city early on and use A LOT of scientists to bulb.

I tried a game or two and I believe that Immortal is beyond me at this point, but the map seems to make colonies more likely. Maybe it's the opponents I used, but with the little islands AIs like Shaka had about 3 colonies in these games, not to mention vassalizing another AI. I don't even know if those small dinky islands even had resources.

I have never ever had an Immortal Space Colony victory. What are the tips for this one?

permanent alliance

Howsabout a standard deity score game (any civ, any map) for next Major?

I am not happy, attempt 1 with 8 turns to go till the spaceship gets there Liz gets a culture win. aagh. worst part was I looked and she had 10K points to go and I had 12 turns or so till I won, I figured she'd never make it in time.

oh well, I will have another go when i've calmed down

Ok 2nd attempt went much better and despite a last ditch attempt from my PA partner to lose the game by voting Liz in for a diplo win (fortunately the vote failed or I might actually have had a nervous breakdown) I managed an 18xx finish.

So fingers crossed it gets accepted and i'll get to briefly be in 1st place on a major

One's PA partners can do some pretty stupid things, can't they? :lol:

you have to wonder how the AI ever manages to win on its own.

PA games are gay :(... anyhow, PA would defenently be the fastest way considering the settings.

Yea with PA you cant fail but why to shoot for GLib? GPP for popping?

Wonder if I shoulda throw in few bad attempts again. Bit time off from CIV usually helps to motivate.

-D

Played a medicore game with OCC + PA. Finished in mid 1800s AD.

Anyone good with PA???

I have a few questions.
When I form a PA (at higher difficulty) some techs which I dont have and my partner dont have come for free. Is this because of my PA partner bulbing or something?

When I wanna bulb a tech while in PA it would take at least 5 scientists (for endgame tech), does the AI get more science per bulbing than normal player? Can you give Great people to AI and have him bulb?

A more strategic question:
When do you want to form the PA with the AI??, so far ive tried to tech assembly line and combustion before forming the PA, hoping that my AI allie will get Scientific method, communism, and maybe physics/electricity.

Is there any way to make the AI to increase his science spending? If you give him gold, how much does it actually help?

Random tip
You dont have to build any parts of the spaceship yourself. The AI has his buildings massivly reduced in cost so even if you have 60 base production +300% the AI will complete it faster than you.

While playing for a space ship game, I got in a PA with Mansa Musa only to find that he was researching Medicine in about 120 turns. He had three nice Culture cities growing fast, so I'm pretty sure I know where his commerce was going. I ended up losing when Asoka launched his ship ahead of me. I don't think there is any way to influence how the AI spends their commerce or what they will research.

I don't think that the AI gets any bonus for bulbing. Maybe your AI partner traded with another AI player or built the Internet. Just a couple of thoughts.

Played a medicore game with OCC + PA. Finished in mid 1800s AD.

Anyone good with PA???

I have a few questions.
When I form a PA (at higher difficulty) some techs which I dont have and my partner dont have come for free. Is this because of my PA partner bulbing or something?

When I wanna bulb a tech while in PA it would take at least 5 scientists (for endgame tech), does the AI get more science per bulbing than normal player? Can you give Great people to AI and have him bulb?

A more strategic question:
When do you want to form the PA with the AI??, so far ive tried to tech assembly line and combustion before forming the PA, hoping that my AI allie will get Scientific method, communism, and maybe physics/electricity.

Is there any way to make the AI to increase his science spending? If you give him gold, how much does it actually help?

Random tip
You dont have to build any parts of the spaceship yourself. The AI has his buildings massivly reduced in cost so even if you have 60 base production +300% the AI will complete it faster than you.

I don't claim to be good with PAs but I always try to get them asap, i'm not aware of any way to influence the AIs commerce slider or production allocations, as Mesix says if they want to go cultural they are going to go cultural.

Thinking about this some AIs seem more likely to go cultural than others, does anyone else agree?

I disagree about letting the AI build everything,even with their bonuses your one city should still easily be quicker than any of theirs.
it also stops the AI choosing to build a key spaceship bit in a rubbish city

I finished in 1956. I know that won't get me a gold medal, but it is another Major Gauntlet under my belt. I also knocked the Dutch, Medium and Small Map, and Space Colonization VC off my list of Monarch level EQM requirements (Emperor and Immortal too for that matter).

My PA partner was Asoka. I had to build Apollo to get the space race started. He built most of the parts (I think I built 3-4 parts). I also built the Space Elevator to speed things up a bit.

To point out another weakness of the AI, Asoka did not launch the spaceship. He was building the final component (Engine #2) and the mission to Alpha Centauri was ready to commence when it was complete. After awhile I checked and noticed that the city where the Engine was being built was no longer building the engine, and yet the ship had not launched. I cheked the VC screen and we had all the parts sitting on the launch pad.

I probably could have shaved 5-6 turns off if I had been paying attention to his building better. I just assumed that the AI would want to win and launch the ship when the last part was finished.

don't trust the AI to want to win.
It amazes me that they get any victories when by themselves

Thinking about this some AIs seem more likely to go cultural than others, does anyone else agree?
Look at wasting times HOF games at diety level. While those opponents are not the fastest in research I believe he specifically stated that he looked in the code and took the opponents who was most likly to go spacerace.

Mansa Musa is does go for culture quite alot (but he is fastest researcher so there may be some use to have him in game i dunno). Asaoka is Mr Culture himself


I disagree about letting the AI build everything,even with their bonuses your one city should still easily be quicker than any of theirs.
it also stops the AI choosing to build a key spaceship bit in a rubbish city
In my last game I had 55? base production Ironworks factory power forge etc.etc. (about 7 GP settled)

The AI started building all spaceparts before I got a chance.

As for the important parts, apollo program etc. my time for completing the project and parts would have been longer than his.

Forum slow so I'm not using the quote button:

Played a medicore game with OCC + PA. Finished in mid 1800s AD.

Anyone good with PA???

I have a few questions.
When I form a PA (at higher difficulty) some techs which I dont have and my partner dont have come for free. Is this because of my PA partner bulbing or something?

When I wanna bulb a tech while in PA it would take at least 5 scientists (for endgame tech), does the AI get more science per bulbing than normal player? Can you give Great people to AI and have him bulb?

A more strategic question:
When do you want to form the PA with the AI??, so far ive tried to tech assembly line and combustion before forming the PA, hoping that my AI allie will get Scientific method, communism, and maybe physics/electricity.

Is there any way to make the AI to increase his science spending? If you give him gold, how much does it actually help?

Random tip
You dont have to build any parts of the spaceship yourself. The AI has his buildings massivly reduced in cost so even if you have 60 base production +300% the AI will complete it faster than you.

My experience is only with vanilla, but most if not all of this should translate to BTS:

The way the PA mechanics work, the research rates of the team members are averaged. So before the PA, you research at immortal, and they research at noble. After the PA, you both are researching closer to Prince. I can't read the code though for the exact calculation. There is also a team penalty for research (50% I think).

What this means is that as long as you and your ultimate partner are researching different techs, you do not want to be in the PA. On vanilla you can't know what they are researching so I usually beeline electricity since the AI's don't (except ghandi for UN) and then make the PA. On BTS you will have a major advantage in that you can use espionage to see their research and ensure you're not duplicating efforts.

Also, there is a severe penalty for trading after the PA - you won't be able to do it effectively. So this is another reason for delaying it - allowing your eventual partner to retain the AI trading benefit as long as possible.

Bottom line: in BTS I don't think I would ever make a PA until I was ready to research Fusion or maybe the Laser or something (I'm not that familiar with the new BTS space path, but you get the idea).

You can gift Great People and they might get bulbed, but they might also be used for a GA or even worse, saved for a future GA. I'd just settle everybody in my capital.

Forum slow so I'm not using the quote button:

Played a medicore game with OCC + PA. Finished in mid 1800s AD.

Anyone good with PA???

I have a few questions.
When I form a PA (at higher difficulty) some techs which I dont have and my partner dont have come for free. Is this because of my PA partner bulbing or something?

When I wanna bulb a tech while in PA it would take at least 5 scientists (for endgame tech), does the AI get more science per bulbing than normal player? Can you give Great people to AI and have him bulb?

A more strategic question:
When do you want to form the PA with the AI??, so far ive tried to tech assembly line and combustion before forming the PA, hoping that my AI allie will get Scientific method, communism, and maybe physics/electricity.

Is there any way to make the AI to increase his science spending? If you give him gold, how much does it actually help?

Random tip
You dont have to build any parts of the spaceship yourself. The AI has his buildings massivly reduced in cost so even if you have 60 base production +300% the AI will complete it faster than you.

My experience is only with vanilla, but most if not all of this should translate to BTS:

The way the PA mechanics work, the research rates of the team members are averaged. So before the PA, you research at immortal, and they research at noble. After the PA, you both are researching closer to Prince. I can't read the code though for the exact calculation. There is also a team penalty for research (50% I think).

What this means is that as long as you and your ultimate partner are researching different techs, you do not want to be in the PA. On vanilla you can't know what they are researching so I usually beeline computers since the AI's don't (except ghandi for UN) and then make the PA. On BTS you will have a major advantage in that you can use espionage to see their research and ensure you're not duplicating efforts.

Also, there is a severe penalty for trading after the PA - you won't be able to do it effectively. So this is another reason for delaying it - allowing your eventual partner to retain the AI trading benefit as long as possible.

Bottom line: in BTS I don't think I would ever make a PA until I was ready to research Fusion or maybe the Laser or something (I'm not that familiar with the new BTS space path, but you get the idea).

You can gift Great People and they might get bulbed, but they might also be used for a GA or even worse, saved for a future GA. I'd just settle everybody in my capital.

I have never ever had an Immortal Space Colony victory. What are the tips for this one?

permanent alliance

My only immortal space colony is with PA.
It's not so much about the research bonus (which is good, but you tend to get the PA quite late) than for the production bonus + no worries about getting killed.

I don't claim to be good with PAs but I always try to get them asap, i'm not aware of any way to influence the AIs commerce slider or production allocations, as Mesix says if they want to go cultural they are going to go cultural.
Thinking about this some AIs seem more likely to go cultural than others, does anyone else agree?

There are 2 ways to go :
- select your PA partner for not going cultural usually
- have more than one cord on your bow = don't choose too early who you will PA with. The culture thing is quite early and you can see it before you reach communism normally.

If I find time, I'll do this one. Should be pretty easy.

My only immortal space colony is with PA.
It's not so much about the research bonus (which is good, but you tend to get the PA quite late) than for the production bonus + no worries about getting killed.


There are 2 ways to go :
- select your PA partner for not going cultural usually
- have more than one cord on your bow = don't choose too early who you will PA with. The culture thing is quite early and you can see it before you reach communism normally.

If I find time, I'll do this one. Should be pretty easy.

My experience is that Mansa will go for a space ship most of the time. Asoka about 2/3 of the time and Hatty and Darius will always beeline culture.

What about Monty? Does he go cultural or space ship?

What about Monty? Does he go cultural or space ship?

He prefers cultural. Your cultural cities are always his target.

Look at wasting times HOF games at diety level. While those opponents are not the fastest in research I believe he specifically stated that he looked in the code and took the opponents who was most likly to go spacerace.


Right, A better way to say it is: I avoided those AI likely to go culture victory. The biggest reason they go for it is traits (Spir, Philo, Fin, Cre, Ind) Having 2 of those traits makes them almost unstoppable culture mongers. Then having holy cities boosts their chances. Loving Theocracy lowers the chance for culture victory. Aggressive AI also lowers it. The rest is mostly a random chance they try for it.

My experience is that Mansa will go for a space ship most of the time. Asoka about 2/3 of the time and Hatty and Darius will always beeline culture.

I tried a game PAing mansa.
This sucker didn't know what he wanted...
he did run a few turns at 90% culture, but in the end he brought me to space.
The only thing was he didn't have enough production power.
My IW capital outproduced him, which means I had to self build the most expansive parts.
1933 AD for me.
Not very impressive:blush:.
And that is hoping I didn't mismatch the settings.

Carve out a nice space for yourself, keep everyone friendly except for one or two war victims and make Sushi! You shouldnt need PA, Immortal AI isnt that significantly fast in either tech speed or building bonus.

Carve out a nice space for yourself, keep everyone friendly except for one or two war victims and make Sushi! You shouldnt need PA, Immortal AI isnt that significantly fast in either tech speed or building bonus.
Well, I had sushi. Too late probably, and very expensive, but still a big bonus for my big production cities. (+13 food :))

You have to be careful not to trigger a Cultural victory with Sushi. The food bonus is big, but the culture bonus is bigger. With a few modifiers, the cullture produced by Sushi can get crazy!

You have to be careful not to trigger a Cultural victory with Sushi. The food bonus is big, but the culture bonus is bigger. With a few modifiers, the cullture produced by Sushi can get crazy!
yep, but I was very careful with modifiers (not enough though : I have run free speech without a reason, the production bonus from bureaucracy would have been better)

It is difficult to get a good date with these settings. You really need to take over the starting continent. I have started 2 games, one ending in a pleased late Mansa DOW, and the other flushed from not having enough land to finish off the research.

So the plan for this is: war on the presumed 2 AI on your continent, get some caravels out for trade, and build. I'll probably add Mining Inc. to Sushi if I get a chance to finish one of these this weekend.

This Gauntlet is finished. Results:

1st Ironhead 1764 AD
2nd ssjos 1851 AD
3rd bestje 1876 AD

Congratulations!

Hooray my first ever top 3 finish and its in a major as well!