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: Warlord
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Great Plains
Speed: Any
Civ: Germany
Opponents: Any
Version: 1.74.002, 2.13.002 or 3.13.001
Date: 10th to 25th July 2008
Must not play as Inca.

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

I assume that the German Panzers will not be a factor in this game.

Not for the best times anyway.

Best HoF Date is currently 2860 BC ... anyone knows a cheat to get Panzers right from the start?

This one is fast. 2440BC so far.

So what's the general strategy here?

Optional parameters: Since you can choose speed: Marathon. Min opponents. No opponents that are protective.

Does Germany start with warrior or scout? What's the main rush? Warriors? Axemen? Chariots?

How can the top game be played in less than 20 mins?

Thanks for any help.

So what's the general strategy here?

Optional parameters: Since you can choose speed: Marathon. Min opponents. No opponents that are protective.

Does Germany start with warrior or scout? What's the main rush? Warriors? Axemen? Chariots?

How can the top game be played in less than 20 mins?

Thanks for any help.As Andrei_v noted, this is a really fast game, so start playing and develop your strategy from game to game. I just give one hint

As far as I analyzed the 2860BC HoF-leader-game the player never founds a 2nd city and raced nearly all conquered cities. He only built warriors and archers

Probably another stupid question but.... What are minimum required opponents? Same as standard Hof? Or can we just pick 1 opponent. 2440 seems unbeatable already with 6 opponents... :D

The basic algorithm is (assuming Fred, Marathon, BtS):

1. Regen until you have a 5-hammer start (on hill/plains with a forested hill/plains)
2. Build them Warriors.

The first city most likely will be empty, the next 3-4 will have only 1 Warrior. The last two may have 1 or 2 Warriors. If the city is on a hill, bring 3x + 1 Warriors, otherwise, 2x + 1.

A good idea maybe to check "No city razing", so the captured cities can also build a few Warriors, to speed the things up.

Another good idea maybe to research BW, pop a Settler from a GH, build a city on top of Copper, upgrade 3-4 Warriors into Axes, and send them in different directions.

As far as I analyzed the 2860BC HoF-leader-game the player never founds a 2nd city and raced nearly all conquered cities. He only built warriors and archers

He played babylon. Obviously he used the unique babylon unit, Bowman, (archer with +50% vs warrior), and rushed out the competition before they got any military tech.

I highly doubt this rush will work with normal archers so I guess there may be need for chairiot or axemen rush, but i dunno.


Another good idea maybe to research BW, pop a Settler from a GH, build a city on top of Copper, upgrade 3-4 Warriors into Axes, and send them in different directions.

Is there any restriction to upgrading warriors to axemen? In an earlier game I had both warriors on the field, bronseworking, bronze in capital and I still couldnt upgrade them( was bts).

The city where those warriors are standing must be connected to the capital, or have another stand-alone source of copper.

Just build a city on top of Copper and bring your Warriors there for upgrade. If for any chance that city is connected to your capital by a river, you'll be able to upgrade Warriors in the capital as well. However you will no longer be able to build Warriors, which sucks.

I guess there may be need for chairiot or axemen rush, but i dunno.
If you stop by building Workers, connecting to resources etc, the AIs will have time to grow their cities, research Archery, and connect to metals.

If you simply fight them with Warriors, they won't have time for that. They'll barely have time to finish their first Workers, and will be busy building Settlers. :)

I am confused by something - why marathon? I thought everything took longer on marathon, no? what am I missing?

I am confused by something - why marathon? I thought everything took longer on marathon, no? what am I missing?
Everything but unit movement. You still spend 1 turn per tile, that is, compared to Normal, you move 3 times faster. This also means you have a good chance to reach the most distant civs before they build up their military.

The trick with upgrading Warriors into Axes worked wonderfully.

3010BC. Built 12 Warriors, killed 8 Warriors, lost 1 Warrior. 6 active Axes (4 upgraded, 2 built by forest chopping.)

Half the trick is tracking down that pesky last opponent on the great plains map.

I just finished a game at 2845BC - and this could have been done faster:crazyeye:

I started on plains-hill with adjacent forested-hill and started building warriors at 6 turns. The scout was moved by hand until all opponent territories are found (popping huts of course when reachable). Research is set to BW. 1st Warrior immediately rushed to Augustus and found an empty capital :). The next 2 warriors directed to Roosevelt and at that point I popped a hut with BW :) and got copper in BFC :lol: and the next hut popped a worker :D. So with the worker setting up the mine I sent most warriors home to get updated (setting research to 0 for the gold). I then made the "mistake" of fearing to be confronted by the 1st archers and tried to reach the rest opponents with 2 axes at the same time (what I had in previous tries with the last remaining civs). But this time I only see warriors and even Liz, the last civ, had only 1 warrior in her city:lol:

Well, this is what I'm talking about. :)

A single Axe can conquer 2-3 civs. Even without any CR promos it attacks Warriors on hills or across the river at something like 96%. It barely suffers any damage and can attack on the next turn again if there are 2 Warriors.

There is a small chance an AI pops Archery from a GH, but other than that you should not expect any Archers before 2000BC.

Settling popped settler on bronze and upgrading 3 warriors are enough to get a 3070BC victory ... It is of great help if you start in the middle of the map :)

It's all a matter of logistics now. :) 3130BC. I popped BW from a hut as well, but had to spend like 5 turns on finding that freaking Copper.

Starting in the corner is still ok, just move your Warriors toward the middle of the map in advance.

2965 BC - not gonna place, but that was fun.

It's all a matter of logistics now. :) 3130BC. I popped BW from a hut as well, but had to spend like 5 turns on finding that freaking Copper.

Starting in the corner is still ok, just move your Warriors toward the middle of the map in advance.

Thx for the hint with placing the copper-city in the center and sending the warriors there in advance. I'm now at 3190BC and I think this was my final try (Hint for all: As soon as you got BW, by own research or by popping it from a hut, immediately set research to 0% and collect as much money as possible to upgrade your warriors to axes)

All right, 3280BC.

All right, 3280BC.You won, I won't do another try, the last submissions was based on so much luck, I don't expect to get it again ...

I don't get it - why can't you play as inca?

I don't get it - why can't you play as inca?If you ever made a rush with Incas you know why Incas are forbidden! To make a long story short, they are too strong in early rushes

Cause quecha's rip apart archers. a reasonable plan for Inca is to settle one city, build a rax and build quechas. Each quecha will get the promotion vs. archers, so, vs. archers, a quecha will be at 135% (actually, 3.3 vs. something like 2.0). The AI can't handle them unless they only use warriors for defense or until they get axes, so quechas just rip apart early AI civs all on their own. And, of course, they promote so get drill or combat II and are just even better as they go.

Inca doesnt matter on this level; so the question may be why Inca when they dont have any unfair advantage on these settings.

Because you have to play Germany. It is difficult to play Inca when you are playing Germany, no?

The cannot play Inca line is included on all Gauntlets. When the player has a defined civ to play, it is redundant information.

I believe I watched a discovery special about how German General H. Cupac was vicious on the South American front during WWII.
:lol:

Well, my first effort at this on my midnight shift last night left me thoroughly disgusted:

I had what I subsequently found was very good fortune to get placed more near the middle of the map. I found a hut with a worker, and another with a settler. Trust me, there the luck of others I've read here then ran out. Had to go the whole tech route to get BW, but copper landed pretty close to my capital so was able to plop the 2nd city right on top, and my warriors were close by, so presto I had 3 axemen.

Before I go further and forget, this was not my last effort, and I've yet to see one city undefended. Guess I need more shields in that capital to start on my warrior builds.

However, I easily took out the 1st 4 civs as my army of axemen swelled to over 10. I had not even found the last two, far to the west, and had my two scouts and my wave of axemen head west for the hunt.

First found was the British, right on the edge of the screen in the middle of a forest, on a hill with an Archer. Nice. But, with 3 axemen at her doorstep, I figured we could handle it. Nope. Couldn't even get 65% to go my way, and that was a waste of hundreds of years, as three other of my axemen were taking out the Americans to the South. This would have been around the 2700 ADs,

By the time 3 reinforcements got there, we tried again. The AI was building archers at what seemed a way to fast rate of speed for Marathon and Warrior difficulty, though. They stupidly sent one out to attack my scout. So, got rid of that archer, and attacked the city with my three axemen. Took out the archer, losing yet another axemaen, and barely surviving with the second, with a sliver of life. So, my 3rd axeman had the measly warrior backup defender to take out. 96%, and the game was over. But fortunes were, not on my side:mad:

All told I lost 11 axemen to this one city! Unbelievable. I am persistent and kept trying but I had no razing on, so my finances were in the pits and I started losing axemen as I was approaching. Finally gave up in disgust. True disgust.

I'm so disgusted, I'm not sure I have it in me to try again. I did a bunch more last night, but invariably got the eastern edge of the map. I do not use cheesy map helpers.

Well, there's my sad tale...........

As far as I know, Quechua were banned mostly due to disproportions between Vanilla and Warlords. This ban is hardwired, so it appears in all Gauntlets, even those ones where you play as Germany (or any other specific civ), on lower levels where Quechuas are no different from regular Warriors, or on Archipelago/Tiny Islands.

The AI was building archers at what seemed a way to fast rate of speed for Marathon and Warrior difficulty, though.
You were very unlucky, since this AI obviously got Archery from a hut, and maybe BW, too. Once they do, they start whipping Archers every other turn until city size 1.

I have submitted a couple of Warrior-only games around 2400 and 2300BC, and I did not see any Archers. However I had a couple unsuccessful attempts with Archers appearing around 2800BC.

Just try again. Don't regenerate to get a "perfect start", you can always move your initial Settler to a place with at least 4 hammers (e.g. two hill-plains), set your research to 0% from the very beginning, and try to pop both BW and a Settler from the huts.

If you fail to do this within, say, first 15-20 turns, restart. Every unsuccessful attempt takes no more than 5 minutes.

Oh, and don't use "no city razing", it would be useful for Warrior-only games, but not in this case.

I didn't see any archers in my game.

Pretty obvious many of you guys got way luckier than me. I decided to keep tryng. Must have made over 10 efforts, including last night. 4 more today, until I finally got luckier.

Still only that early effort was near the center. Every single other effort in the eastern edge or northeast. But, this last and finally complete time, I finally popped my first settler since that other full effort. Seems pretty unlucky to me to only see two settlers in all those efforts. Not once did I pop BW, as well.

2335, so pretty awful compared to others. My initial city did not have a good resource setup, so that slowed me down. Still, had to get that settler, too, and that took a lot of hunting, then shepherding back. But, the 34 turns for BW had to be done first, too. One that was done, this one was easier.

However, 3, yes 3, of the opponents had archers. One before 3000AD. The other was in the 2800s.

With the scores I've seen you must have popped BW. I don't think I'm going to keep trying until that happens. At least I completed it and pared of some QM stuff. Never having done an axeman rush, I learned some things,too. Got my high score on my Hall, too, believe it or not!

I think I popped a settler but researched BW, not sure.

I started near the top of the map, not really in the middle, i think.

Is it possible you picked opponents that had scouts? I know I picked opponents that didn't start with hunting, just so it was harder for them to get to archers, and so they had a harder time popping "my" huts.

With the scores I've seen you must have popped BW. I don't think I'm going to keep trying until that happens. At least I completed it and pared of some QM stuff. Never having done an axeman rush, I learned some things,too. Got my high score on my Hall, too, believe it or not!From my experience I can say, you require BW and a Settler from huts and start at a 5-hammer position (2 from capital, 3 from tile) to reach a 3000BC or better victory. All my tries where I had to research BW myself ended with 2xxxBC. So use MapFinder ("settler on PH") and start playing several rounds and try to get at least one settler from a hut, build a warrior (at no city-growth) and conquer the nearest civ with this warrior, now you have 2 cities building warriors (at no growth) during your pray-time for a BW-hut :lol:. If you researched BW by your own, you know, you can't beat 3000BC - your axemen have to travel too far to reach that date. So here's the plan in short:

- settle on plain hills and work the 3-hammer tile - non-stop warrior production
- set research to BW
- use the scout to pop huts in circles around your starting city. Celebrate if you get BW and a settler. A 2nd scout, gold or a worker is nice too.
- use the 1st warrior to conquer the nearest civ
- send additional warriors to the center where you expect bronze to appear
- use the popped settler to explore the center of the map hoping to get bronze there.
- as soon as you have BW, set research to 0%, build city directly on bronze and upgrade all nearby warriors to axes.
- send all the axes directly to the remaining civs, praying for no archers
- you got it :goodjob:

I played my games against Asoka, Elizabeth, Justinian, Isabella, Peter, and Washington.

Out of these only Peter seems likely to get Archers early. I guess it has something to do with him starting with Hunting.

I don't have MapFinder, and agree with some on the cheesiness of it's use. I highly doubt I'll ever download it, let alone use it. Just doesn't seem fun to me that way.

Guess I feel ok about my old fashioned score then! 7th place, for the moment.

Now if I can just figure out how to win an Emporer game, and get my first Major Gauntlet racked up. Off to do that...................

Edit: Just thought of something I meant to ask. Where the heck do you find which civs start with scouts and which with warriors? I can rarely remember, and I've looked, but cannot find that info.

I played my games against Asoka, Elizabeth, Justinian, Isabella, Peter, and Washington.

Out of these only Peter seems likely to get Archers early. I guess it has something to do with him starting with Hunting.My opponents were Augustus, Justinian, Napoleon, Suleiman, Roosevelt and Ramesses, so the opponents don't start with a scout, don't get culture, financial, protective or aggressive bonus.

I don't have MapFinder, and agree with some on the cheesiness of it's use.
I used it once a year or so ago, but not anymore. It's definitely not very useful for this particular Gauntlet, since you don't need a start with 2 Gold 2 Pigs. It's a lot easier just to save your first game at 4000BC under a different name, then simply reload it, and regenerate for the new map. Just don't forget to save your new (regenerated) game at 4000BC, because the autosave will contain the original (not regenerated) one.

If your initial location is not good enough, move your Settler to find a better one. Spending 2-3 turns on this won't affect much your final date.
Edit: Just thought of something I meant to ask. Where the heck do you find which civs start with scouts and which with warriors? I can rarely remember, and I've looked, but cannot find that info.
The civs that start with Hunting, have Scouts. The rest, Warriors. You can find this info from the menu on top of this page, go "Civilization IV" -> "Info Center" or "Warlords Info Center" -> Civilizations (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info#Empires). In the game itself there is a "Civilopedia" button.

I gave this several tries but due to some weirdness with my installation (random files appear to have been modified) my first successful game won't be accepted. But that's okay, I've learned a lot and once I get my install back in order I'll try again. (It wasn't great anyway ~2100 BC)

I stumbled onto the pop-a-settler and then settle on Copper strategy on my own. I happened to pop two settlers and a worker this game. Upgrading to Axemen is the best way to do it. Two axemen took out four civs handily.

Bad things:

I was choosing civs that started with scouts/hunting so the last two civs got archers either via research or hut-popping. I won't do that again.

No city razing suggested by someone earlier in the thread is a very bad idea. My economy was thrashed by the time I build my two free cities and took four. Fortunately, I was able to mine gems to save myself, but it stopped my upgrading capability.

Barbarians were mostly animals and only a threat to my workers/settlers. I'll turn them off next time too.

Things I'll try next time:

I never did get a five hammer start but with four hammers I was normally swimming in warriors that I couldn't upgrade or send out due to cost. I think a gem mine (with an early worker pop) could compete with popping BW from a hut. And the worker would be critical if you had copper in your original city. Ideally, though, you'd pop settler, worker, and BW, so you can hook up Copper ASAP. I think 3-4 warriors is sufficient. I don't think that taking out one undefended civ with your first warrior is a requirement, as the nearest civ is usually on the way to another one.

Also, a second scout is probably best for the first hut as it increases the amount of huts that can give useful things.

Those are my thoughts, and I think they line up mostly with what others seem to be doing.

I never did get a five hammer start but with four hammers I was normally swimming in warriors that I couldn't upgrade or send out due to cost.


More is better - you can use the warriors as backup for the axe or take a second civ before getting BW. Turn off research after BW you should have plenty of gold.

I think a gem mine (with an early worker pop) could compete with popping BW from a hut. And the worker would be critical if you had copper in your original city.


It takes too many turns to mine and road the copper. It's faster to settle on the copper.

Ideally, though, you'd pop settler, worker, and BW, so you can hook up Copper ASAP. I think 3-4 warriors is sufficient. I don't think that taking out one undefended civ with your first warrior is a requirement, as the nearest civ is usually on the way to another one.


Taking the first civ out saves time and reduces the amount of time required to research BW if you have to. I haven't had a game yet where I have popped BW but I always have a better result from taking out the first civ. It's just important to have enough warriors ready for upgrade when the BW arrives.

1 axe per remaining civ is most efficient.


Also, a second scout is probably best for the first hut as it increases the amount of huts that can give useful things.



Settlers are always better than scouts. They have the same movement and later they can settle on copper. My best time in this gauntlet came from popping 3 settlers. I settled 2 on the same river system as an AI. Took the the AI out. I used the other 2 to explore until BW was a few turns from coming in. I settled one on copper in the east and one on copper in the center. Split my warriors in between the 2 cities for upgrade.

The best time requires popping BW early but I never settle until I have popped a settler. I use my first settler to pop as many huts as possible to get that second settler. If it doesn't happen in the first five turns now, it's a regen.

Man, I´d love to try out this one...but the computer is packed and I am traveling around only to occsassionally log in and see the fun gauntlets that I am missing. Sniff....play a few more for me!

My 1st attempt was a 2860 finish. Had eliminated 2 AIs and popped several huts w/o getting BW. Finally started to self research it, before I finally popped from a hut only to find I had no copper close by. Luckily my 3 warrior rush of a defended Paris worked (barely) and I got copper.

I had a western start the last 3 civs were all eastern, so a middle map start with 5 hammers and popping BW would definately be the optimal strategy.

My 1st attempt was a 2860 finish. Had eliminated 2 AIs and popped several huts w/o getting BW. Finally started to self research it, before I finally popped from a hut only to find I had no copper close by. Luckily my 3 warrior rush of a defended Paris worked (barely) and I got copper.

I had a western start the last 3 civs were all eastern, so a middle map start with 5 hammers and popping BW would definately be the optimal strategy.To reduce you required luck by 50% use your scout to pop the 1st hut hoping for a settler. If you fail - regenerate map. With your scout and your popped settler you can explore the map and pop huts like crazy. If you got BW then settle your 2nd settler directly above bronze and send all your warriors from your 1st city to here and upgrade to axes. This should give you a 3xxxBC victory.

It takes too many turns to mine and road the copper. It's faster to settle on the copper.

I was talking about mining gems in in your first city for faster research mostly. Your right that its faster to settle on copper. But if you get an early worker pop, you are going to be building a mine on a hill for more warriors, (I still get more warriors than I can possibly upgrade even after getting money from taking cities,) or building a mine for commerce. I haven't had a chance to try this yet, though so I don't know if it would be a good substitute for popping BW from a hut. Though I guess popping would always be superior...

Settlers are always better than scouts. They have the same movement and later they can settle on copper.

Agreed. I hadn't thought about using them that way until I turned off barbarians.

I managed to improve my date to 2560BC using the above tips. (Regen until settler pop mostly, and using Civs w/o hunting) Unfortunately, I picked Julius as one civ and I he turned out to be farthest away and got archers right before I arrived. (The key for best times seems to me to be getting to the civs before archers.) He had three archers by the time I got two axes there so I waited for a couple more to take him out. Probably would've ended around 2900 had I risked my first axe against the archer and won.

AI choice seems to be critical in avoiding this early archer syndrome. The spiritual civs seems to be working out great for me. Justinian, Isabella, Asoka, Gandhi, Hatty I've never seen get archers yet before I arrive as I think they tend to focus on the early religious techs. Popping BW would speed things up, but I haven't played a game yet where that occurred.

I think on popping a second settler+worker. I would settle near gems and try to mine them for the extra commerce to get that BW research down since I can't seem to find it in a hut.

Fun gauntlet. I've been learning a lot.

I had the ideal start ... and then blew it :mad:

I popped a settler first turn. Settled second turn, started BW and it turned out I had settled on the tile next to copper :mischief:. I settled the second settler on the other copper I could see that turn - so turn 2 I have my capital on a plains hill and my copper city and my research is turned off. It should have been a cake walk.

Instead, it turned out I was in the Northeast corner and I should have scouted for a more central location, having to walk north before going south slowed me right down.
In the end, I find Saladin with 2 warriors and an archer in his city, I have 3 axes surrounding the city. The 3rd axe died on the second warrior at 3000 BC. I quit because I already had a 3010 finish without popping BW.

I did two things worng. One - I settled the copper city too soon - should have scouted more, popped a few more huts, found a more central location.
Two - I popped an early worker so I sent it to mine the copper beside Berlin and road it. Then I switched to building axes instead of warriors in the capital. This took longer than building warriors and promoting them. I had the eastern side of the map all cleaned out because I sent the first 2 axes in that direction. Saladin was hidden in the south western mountains and after the worker had popped I did not get any more units from huts so I had 1 scout who went east to find the farthest AI.

I'm playing vanilla only because my comp is crashing on BTS (and warlords an vanilla sometimes).

My 2890BC submission puts me currently in 6th. In my several starts I could never get BW from huts, so I suppose it can't get much better than this. Off to BOTM now.

I could only improve mine to 2905BC. Couldn't get BW in most of my attempts. However in 2 of them I managed to pop AH and built chariots but the dates weren't any better because of no upgrades.

This Gauntlet is complete. Result are:

1st Andrei_V 3280 BC
2nd HolyHandGrenade 3265 BC
3rd Rockin_T 3040 BC

Congratulations!

This Gauntlet is complete. Result are:

1st Andrei_V 3280 BC
2nd HolyHandGrenade 3265 BC
3rd Rockin_T 3040 BC

Congratulations!
Only 1 turn behind :mad: Seems I am focused on getting the 2nd place. Nevertheless, congratulations to Andrei, your game must have been perfect :goodjob: