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 13: Japlomination

(Japan + diplomatic + domination)

Monty and Toku are about the unfriendliest AIs on the planet, so that's why I made both of their games diplomatic victories :lol:

"Required" Settings:
Expansion: Vanilla/Warlords
Era: Ancient
Civilization: Japan
Victory Condition: Diplomatic
Game Speed: Quick
Map: Archipelago

Although all maps except duel are eligible for EQM, most of the submissions for the Bindy challenge so far have been small or standard, so I’m going to concentrate on those two.

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

Tokugawa is Aggressive and Organized in Vanilla, which when combined with his maceman UU, the samurai (two first strikes!), make this game a good candidate for "diplomination". Don't forget that samurai require iron. Warlords players lose Organized for the likely useless Protective, and gain the equally useless UB, a Coal Plant that gives an extra 10% to production.

Toku starts with fishing and the wheel so a coastal start might be in order. This is probably the biggest strike against the early rush, as you're two techs away from either AH or BW.

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

Deity WastinTime 1130 A.D.
Immortal Misotu 1250 A.D.
Emperor Misotu 1310 A.D.
Monarch Jean d'Eath 1630 A.D.
Prince Jean d'Eath 1550 A.D.
Noble Gosha190 590 A.D.
Warlord sanabas 1555 A.D.
Chieftain Grrahnbahr 1650 A.D.
Settler WilliamOfOrange 1310 A.D.

and the current best dates for a standard map are:

Deity WastinTime 1190 A.D.
Immortal Misotu 1190 A.D.
Emperor Misotu 1355 A.D.
Monarch ozbenno 1475 A.D.
Prince denze 1710 A.D.
Noble Infantry#14 1810 A.D.
Warlord sanabas 1595 A.D.
Chieftain LangeGeschichte 1435 A.D.
Settler archphoenix 1130 A.D.

I'm guessing that there was a small noble diplomatic gauntlet at some point. :D

Results:

ozbenno won in 1670 A.D. on a Monarch small map (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=13059)
bestje won in 1770 A.D. on a Monarch small map (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=13026)
Bindamel won in 1870 A.D. on a Monarch standard map (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=13117)

If you play a large map it will be eligible for the current G-Major!

I'm not sure whether to play this as a multi-city Monarch/Emporer game or OCC Immortal/Deity. Archipelago might help the OCC more but the easiest date to beat in the tables is the Monarch/Small.

This game and a modern start will have all my boxes ticked for Monarch EQM (vanilla edition).

Had a go at Deity OCC and abandoned after Asoka built the UN about 5 turns before me. Probably would have won the vote but Washington might not have voted my way as he and Roosevelt had a war going and I had some negatives from not joining in and trading with worst enemy (he was at +8 so borderline).

Found some interesting facts about changes made between Vanilla and Warlords that I can't find documented anywhere. Basically I chose my opponents in the game as peaceful civs (Washington is now to get the boot after declaring on someone in 2 of my last 3 games) with different civics I'll adopt, according to the BtS manual (and confirmed in a Warlords game I played for the latest G-Major). I had Asoka (Free Religion), Washington (Free Speech), Roosevelt (Mercantilism) and Frederick (Universal Sufferage). Imagine my surprise upon gifting Liveralism to Asoka and paying him to adopt Free Religion when I get no diplo bonus for shared civics. When I looked at the Vanilla manual, all 4 leaders have Universal Sufferage as their fave civic.

Why and when was this changed???

You should be able to check the Civilopedia for their favorite civics. That is the best way rather than to check the manual or the forums. The Civilopedia should be updated for any changes from patches/expansions and give you the info for the game as it is currently installed.

with the HOF mod, you can get that information in game, in the foreign advisor screen. Favorite civics, what civics they are in, what their state religion is...

Found some interesting facts about changes made between Vanilla and Warlords that I can't find documented anywhere. Basically I chose my opponents in the game as peaceful civs (Washington is now to get the boot after declaring on someone in 2 of my last 3 games) with different civics I'll adopt, according to the BtS manual (and confirmed in a Warlords game I played for the latest G-Major). I had Asoka (Free Religion), Washington (Free Speech), Roosevelt (Mercantilism) and Frederick (Universal Sufferage). Imagine my surprise upon gifting Liveralism to Asoka and paying him to adopt Free Religion when I get no diplo bonus for shared civics. When I looked at the Vanilla manual, all 4 leaders have Universal Sufferage as their fave civic.

Why and when was this changed??? I'm not sure I understood which version of the game you were playing, but in a game I just played for the current G-Major (in Warlords) those leaders had as favorite civics the ones you mentioned. The otherwise very useful XLS available from CFC has it wrong, though - it says all of them have US as fav civic in WL (and all versions).

@Bindy: cool setup, I'll try to submit a game for this round if I find the time. OCC plays faster but it seems a waste of the Org trait in a map where cheap ch's/lh's would fit in nicely. Obviously we should be playing vanilla.

I was playing Vanilla and they all had US as their fave civic. That changed in Warlords but I can't find anything that mentioned the change. I picked them based on their warlords/bts fave civics.

2nd attempt voided after Roosevelt declared on me while we had a defensive pact together! Mansu had high 30s% of the pop so might not have won that one.

Well I abandoned Deity and went chasing the 1630AD small Monarch date. Tried multi-city as well.

Started here.

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5651/civ4screenshot0000nn7.jpg

Opponents were Frederick, Mansu, Roosevelt and Elizabeth.

All went fairly well, except that Monarch AI just can't tech fast enough and I had to research Democracy, Compass and Optics myself (normally would trade for these).

As I built the UN, I had these diplo bonuses against the AI

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/8677/civ4screenshot0001ng1.jpg

Mansu was probably going to be my opponent, so I didn't try as hard to butter him up as the others.

Vote came and I won in 1690AD.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/2781/civ4screenshot0002tj1.jpg

Missed the #1 spot by 6 turns.

I also went chasing the small Monarch date but was a bit slower than Oz with a 1770 finish.

opponents were Liz, Asoka, Rosevelt, Mansa, Monty and Fred though I managed to get a continent to myself and tried a little ICS

Mansa ended up being my opponent and the first few votes I didn't have enough votes to win but a few DPs and a little provocation and this happens...

185003

I love Monty's predictability he's willing to attack someone who has DPs with everyone else, a tech advantage and then he attacks at the best defended point.

A war which caused this to happen a few turns later

185002

I love shared war relationship bonuses, though I accidently got MM involved as well.
All in all not too bad from me, especially as I was playing in a bit of a rush

bestje, why did you overcrowd the map? It hampers the opposition but I find trying to get them to keep up enough to be helpful one of the problems in getting a fast score.

It wasn't ideal strategy but I was playing under a time constraint and only had one shot at winning the game and I was trying to stack the odds as much as possible

It is also in some respects helpful for diplomacy games as you don't need every single possible AI to vote for you but honestly just wanted to make winning as likely as possible

Monarch, standard map.

Heh, 1770 was my first vote for Diplo victory:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/beqm/beqm13/100yearfrust.jpg

Only took me 100 years to delicately explain my idea for world diplomination to everyone.

I can't remember the last time I founded this many cities:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g221/Bindamel/beqm/beqm13/citylist.jpg

Amazing what organized can do, I don't think I ever went below 60% research.

Here's a map of the area I had to expand into. This was a Vanilla only game, as I picked up that northwesternmost city very early to keep it from Julius. There's iron just off screen NE of it, my only metal at the time. In BTS, someone would have settled in the space between that city and mine before I could get all the cities in, or Julius would have declared, I suspect.

Oh, and I let the computer pick the opponents, in case you're wondering why such interesting folk as Cathy and Mao are in there. :eek: I find that when I get into HoF mode, there are certain AI I never pick, so I thought it might be interesting to try some variety.

Bismarck, who didn't even share a land boundary with me, was the only one who declared on me. I razed one city and took Frankfurt, and then made peace with him. He didn't vote for me, for some reason. :lol:

I gifted Mao communism, and bribed him to switch into State Property. You can see how useful that was too. :mad:

Anyway, another leg of the journey is done, we're about 1/3rd of the way through!

And $Deity spake, and the firmament trembled:

"Three games shall there be,
Kingly victories
from three disparate centuries,
but that which binds them,
will be dates that end
in three score and ten."

ozbenno won in 1670 A.D. on a Monarch small map (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=13059)
bestje won in 1770 A.D. on a Monarch small map (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=13026)
Bindamel won in 1870 A.D. on a Monarch standard map (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?entryID=13117)