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: Time (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Noble
Starting Era: Any
Map Size: Huge
Map Type: Any
Speed: Epic
Civ: Any
Opponents: Any
Version: 1.74.004, 2.13.004 or 3.19.001
Date: 25th August to 25th September 2009
Must not play as Inca.
The highest score wins.

Empty slot in the tables. We haven't run a time gauntlet for ages so its time to do it all again. :p

Woohoo! I'm glad my graphics card has blown up so I'm stuck playing scrabble and NetHack.

Enjoy ;)

Great! This will will my last Gauntlet blank spot so it will help my score. Also I've been working on Noble Future starts, Time victories, and was surprised to find them competitive. A Modern Prince Dual Time game I just turned in, in fact took the number one spot. But then I've only been working on Dual and this game is Huge. Going to be much more work. I think I'll try a Future start first just to get into the swing of things, and to get a legal entry in, then move the starting time back.

Ummm, I think the date needs fixing. Ending 25th September?

Fixed end date and updated first post.

Huge size is cruel... Running with 200 cities through the ages... and try to avoid own Domination and Cultural victories...

Noble time? That isn't even hard (if you don't consider the fact that you have to avoid winning by yourself), it is just soooo slow (and imo boring).

noble+epic+time...

Nope, too bothersome

it's any era.
just go with a future start, kill em' all but one city (preferably an iceball), win

Or, if you have too much time on hand, a crashsafe computer, you can go for supercrazy cereal mills festival from ancient.
There is an advantage in playing big and small (useful to get loads of resources and still a few of those 1 tile islands) IMHO.

Industrial or earlier (possibly even modern?) might get you enough time to conquest everything and spread a corp competitively.

Still doesn't strike me as a "major" in terms of difficulty, ultimately it just boils down to huge noble conquest that pulls up at the end :/.

Still doesn't strike me as a "major" in terms of difficulty, ultimately it just boils down to huge noble conquest that pulls up at the end :/.

Major doesn't just refer to the difficulty, the time taken to play a game comes into consideration as well.

Major doesn't just refer to the difficulty, the time taken to play a game comes into consideration as well.

Makes sense. Nothing like one marathon time game to teach me that "difficulty" can be added in doses via boredom :D. Epic is much kinder here, as is the starting era.

Yay, I got the # 1 spot!!!

OK, I've also got the only entry, but I got to enjoy it while I have it as I'm sure it won't last. It wasn't a very good score, as it was a Future Era game. I had just done some future/modern games on a Duel map and the strategy didn't match up too well. On the small map I avoided all fights as I was able to expand to the domination limit without any. In my Modern game, the only fight was a surgical strike to prevent a space victory. But part way into this one, I noobishly realized that the fastest way to expand the number of cities was to conquer them. I now have visions of mechanized infantry rushes similar to warrior rushes, but that will be another game. I also tried an archipelago map which probably didn't help.

So now that I have a legal entry accepted, I need to think about what era for my next try along with which map and leader :)

does building spaceship parts or world projects increase the score?

does building spaceship parts or world projects increase the score?

Nope, your wonder score comes from world wonders, national wonders, shrines and corp HQs only.

Incidentally, the Internet has swung me a last minute time victory before. It would be the only project that cannot be hurried by an Engineer that *can* contribute points to your score.... That is you will hopefully end up stealing oodles of tech with it.

It was really disappointing to watch my computer crash twice (on consecutive turns) in the modern era just as I was about to "unleash the fury" on my competitors that had the nerve to start building spaceship parts... Maybe it's a sign that my 5-year-old laptop (that might catch on fire any moment) can't handle a "huge" map... On to the GOTM! Best of luck to all of you with better computers!

Glad to see some other games being submitted (and approved). My 'Future' game is now #2 out of 3. I'm working on an ancient start, but it's going to be a while :D

I've got an ancient start game underway as well, I've completed half the turns but currently at war with two civs so the turns take an eternity to complete. Will have it done in a week or so!

I've got an ancient start game underway as well, I've completed half the turns but currently at war with two civs so the turns take an eternity to complete. Will have it done in a week or so!

I've been at war, it seems forever, with very few breaks. 3 Civs are dead. I've fought two others, then watched them become vassals of a third. Just took out another civ, all but one city, which is on a separate small continent, that I plan to leave alone.

I am playing on a Terra map, I hope to completely take over the original continent, so that I'll get all the starting cities. Also forcing all the AI's to a sub continent will severely cripple them, so I don't think I'll need to worry about a space launch, or culture win.

I've been refusing all vassal's as I think I'll end up with a higher score if I don't have any. But now I get to go after the second biggest AI which will mean fighting both it and the two vassals for a while.

I've been refusing all vassal's as I think I'll end up with a higher score if I don't have any.

I had the same thought so turned vassals off ;)

Playing Global Highlands for no apparent reason, 3 AI dead and 4 crippled beyond repair. Of the last three, Joao is no risk but Washington and Asoka might just eek out a win and have a DP. I'm importing heaps of resources for Mining Inc and Cereal Mills from them so don't really want to destroy them so might spend a few turns assessing how they are faring and getting my land borders stable to see how close to domination I am (currently about 8% short with 5-6 mcities to come out of revolt).

I had the same thought so turned vassals off ;)

Dang, wish I would have thought of that :lol:

Very gald to see my accepted game in there at (currently) #1.

Industrial start, .40 under the dom limit, all farmed and running cereal mills, future tech 80 odd i think at the end, had to raise 2 Pacal spaceship capitals, very close to losing on the first space ship, couple of turns or so. End score 14k odd, easy to beat.

1744

Cathy is not so great any more. Something happened I had never seen before. Cathy had a vassal, Suleiman. I went after Cathy and took over 1/2 of her cities, and then was surprised when she accepted a peace that involved her giving me a size 10 city. The AI is usually doesn't want to give up cities. I was fighting Longbowmen and Knights with Cannon, Infantry and Calvary.

The strange thing was that the turn I sued for peace, Suleiman broke free of Cathy, then on the same turn, Cathy became of vassal of Suleiman. I think it reset the normal 10 turns of peace, because I think it was only 5 or 6 turns later that I was able to declare on Sulieman and just about finish Cathy. She now has only 1 or 2 cities and is no longer a factor. Never had to fight Sulieman, but he gave me plenty at the peace talks anyway. I got very lucky with Cathy. The turn I declared the second war on her, she finished Versailles. So I got that Wonder, in a good location, without having to build it.

So that's my largest opponent removed, but now for the toughest, my ally Ragnar. But it will be "Shock and Awe" :D. I've recently starting building tanks and he has only Cuirassiers I think. Haven't seen any Cannon. His area is right in the middle, and I surround him on 3 sides. I plan to place all my tanks for a quick kill. They will probably be attacking without artillery softening up, so it will go quicker. I can afford a few tank losses in exchange for speed. It will take me a bit to set up the attack, giving me time to finish spreading Mining Inc. and get Cereal Mills a bit more widespread, as I had just got that company going about 10 turns ago.

My other closest ally is Tokugawa of all people. He started on the opposite side of the continent from me, and when he starting fighting I would declare war on his opponent. A few shared wars and he got very friendly. But even with my help he is still an also ran and should be easy to stab when the time is right. Suleiman will be my next victim, after Ragnar. I also have Justinian to finish off, but his growth was stunted a while ago when in our first big war when I along with, Ragnar, Tokugawa, and for a short while Hannibal, took on the rest of the world. Ragnar took several of Justinian's cities and Byzantium never recovered. (Hannibal later foolishly back stabbed me. He is now down to one city, off of the main continent.)

It has been non-stop war for a long while, but it looks pretty good. By the end of the Eighteenth Century, I should be pretty well set up with all my opponents weakened. Then I it will be mainly saturating the map with as many cities as I can place without going over the domination limit. That's the plan anyway.

I found this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=258452) thread about the last time we did a G-major time victory. At least it's the last time I remember as I think it was just before I went on a couple year break from CIV. Interesting how much more active the thread was then. Probably more people needed a major gauntlet victory. I'm not sure if my research into the end of the game time/domination/conquest problem is applicable any more with all the patches since then.

I'm pretty sure that the order has changed. Since Time victories take so long I never risk another victory.

It's 1812, any war that is worth the name is over. I'm sure I'll have minor clean up wars. But I did something a bit weird, hope it doesn't cause any problems.

I took a look at the map, went through all the cities and played around with maximizing science to see how far I was away from 1 FT/turn (not too close :undecide:). So I had the map open for 40 min or so, I think, didn't make a move, but did lots of reassignments on the city screen. I saved the new game and will start from there tomorrow. I still need to do a few more calculations, to make sure I won't have a Culture problem.

Now the balance act is to cut into science/turn now for more later. Not sure where the line is especially when the increase in science is minor (eg. adding an industrial park to get a bit more science from the free Engineer, at the cost of 2 - 4 turns of much lower science if I would just 'build science'.)

But I did something a bit weird, hope it doesn't cause any problems.

I took a look at the map, went through all the cities and played around with maximizing science to see how far I was away from 1 FT/turn (not too close :undecide:). So I had the map open for 40 min or so, I think, didn't make a move, but did lots of reassignments on the city screen. I saved the new game and will start from there tomorrow. I still need to do a few more calculations, to make sure I won't have a Culture problem.

So long as you saved the game and restarted from that save you should be fine.

So long as you saved the game and restarted from that save you should be fine.

Great. I was just afraid that for some reason, having a session where no turn was done would raise some kind of flag.

1843 and wonder of wonders. I saw the solid green line advance in the research bar as I gained an FT. So up to 1 Future Tech per turn. I know I'm at least 2 centuries behind what the top players could do but even so, I'm not positive I can keep it up. I couldn't get the next FT done in one turn, so I went and backfilled communism which I had never discovered, using the over flow on that to then get the FT done in one. I found myself with a Great Spy. I burned him for a Golden Age, and I hope that I can build all the science buildings in the still undeveloped later conquest cities so I keep one FT / turn going after the Golden Age is over.

So, I was reminded on the update that a RoA submission does not count towards any map or civ requirements. I have a question about gauntlets like this though. Since it is Any Era, does that mean it counts for both Gauntlet and RoA? In the case of these gauntlets, do they only count for gauntlets or do they count for civs, map and everything else? Or just gauntlet and RoA? Or just gauntlet? Thanks. :goodjob:

So, I was reminded on the update that a RoA submission does not count towards any map or civ requirements. I have a question about gauntlets like this though. Since it is Any Era, does that mean it counts for both Gauntlet and RoA? In the case of these gauntlets, do they only count for gauntlets or do they count for civs, map and everything else? Or just gauntlet and RoA? Or just gauntlet? Thanks. :goodjob:

This is one of those murky areas for EQM (qualifies for everything in QM of course). If you use ancient start, this game will be acceptable in all categories but if you don't use ancient start, it will only count for RoA, not gauntlet.

This is one of those murky areas for EQM (qualifies for everything in QM of course). If you use ancient start, this game will be acceptable in all categories but if you don't use ancient start, it will only count for RoA, not gauntlet.

Now I'm totally confused. It says in the settings "Any Era". Also I have submitted a future era game that is listed in the gauntlet results. And you are saying the game won't count towards the gauntlet???:confused:

Edit: reread what you had, are you saying a Future Era start counts towards the Quattromaster Gauntlet, but not towards the Elite QM Gauntlet? Weird.

Edit: reread what you had, are you saying a Future Era start counts towards the Quattromaster Gauntlet, but not towards the Elite QM Gauntlet? Weird.

Yep that is right.

1890 Something and still plugging away. I'm in the process of spamming settlers to fill in every hole I can find and the UN-paving over of the world, as cottages, villages and towns get replaced with farms. Future Tech is almost 70. I've been giving techs to the poor AI's and it finally paid off. I got a tech in trade. First time that's happened for a LONG time. I think I still have three techs other than Future techs. Computers can finally be researched as the loss of the wonders won't hurt me any more. I'll see if I can get the AI's to research them though.

A few questions:

I get more than the required science to get a FT/turn, is there any reason for me to build science buildings in the new cities?

Same with money. My income is more than sufficient. In fact, is there any reason for me to build anything in the cities now other than supermarket?

Assume two cities. Would I get different or the same number of points if one city was size 5, the other size 15; or if both were size 10. The first would give me a higher 'population' in the report, but any difference in the score?

In fact, it looks like I can relax a bit, as if the game creates a priest, scientist or a merchant or whatever when a city expands it doesn't make much difference. Only the cities that might spawn a GP need to be watched?

You probably want Granary, Lighthouse, (grocer), supermarket.

Cities 5 and 15, or 10 and 10 give the same score.

Question: I'm not reattempting this one by any means (too long *yawn* and I never planned to get #1 in the first place) but I think pholtz brings up an issue for me that has been pressing.

I've never really milked a game for points (AKA pop and future techs) so I'm not sure how it works, but doesn't future tech get progressively more expensive?

I'm pretty sure I've experienced diminishing returns, because where future tech cost me 1 turn, the next tech it cost me two, and so on and so forth until I just figured I'd rather have the gold to rush buildings.

Question: I'm not reattempting this one by any means (too long *yawn* and I never planned to get #1 in the first place) but I think pholtz brings up an issue for me that has been pressing.

I've never really milked a game for points (AKA pop and future techs) so I'm not sure how it works, but doesn't future tech get progressively more expensive?

no

I'm pretty sure I've experienced diminishing returns, because where future tech cost me 1 turn, the next tech it cost me two, and so on and so forth until I just figured I'd rather have the gold to rush buildings.
there must be some kind of reason, but it's not about FT getting more expansive.
Maybe you had a very large beakers overflow or something like that.

Well, this was a big waste of time. Taught me I need to learn more about getting a Time victory at higher levels, though. Lost to a Tokugawa space win with 4 turns to go. I pretty much figured I was going to lose when he launched with 22 turns to go.

The thing I don't get is how he launched on me. I was prepared as he was leading the space race, and had a bunch of spies infiltrating him. I ruined his docking bay with maybe 25 or so turns to go. I figured I'd be good, and he built it back and the engine, in just 3 turns. I guess I've got a lot more to learn about espionage. I did learn more on it, in this game, so that's good.

This took me forever, even as a Modern game, so I doubt I'll be trying again. Still need a Time victory for both QM and EQM, so I'll use what I learned here again sometime.

Well, this was a big waste of time. Taught me I need to learn more about getting a Time victory at higher levels, though. Lost to a Tokugawa space win with 4 turns to go. I pretty much figured I was going to lose when he launched with 22 turns to go.

The thing I don't get is how he launched on me. I was prepared as he was leading the space race, and had a bunch of spies infiltrating him. I ruined his docking bay with maybe 25 or so turns to go. I figured I'd be good, and he built it back and the engine, in just 3 turns. I guess I've got a lot more to learn about espionage. I did learn more on it, in this game, so that's good.

This took me forever, even as a Modern game, so I doubt I'll be trying again. Still need a Time victory for both QM and EQM, so I'll use what I learned here again sometime.

I haven't played Modern in awhile, but I am going to guess that Modern means your ability to cripple your opponents technologically is significantly handicapped by equalization at the start. Congrats on the effort though! I know in GOTM they take failures and medal them. Too bad about Gauntlet, XD.

Yeah, too bad I didn't even do the "next turn"..I just quit. I'm more interested in the QM than the Gauntlet, anyhow, and I know I wouldn't have fared very well, either.

Still working on this. Its 1934 I think, Future Tech 110. I'm on a pace for 330+. I am still spending lots of time building more cities, trying to fill in a 3x3 like grid as much as I can. Also still bulldozing the towns, no danger now of not making 1FT/year. Been busy this week so not much time to spend on the game. I'll hopefully finish it this weekend, or at least get close.

I've noticed a few entries after the HOF update, so we can't see how you did :confused:. Anyone want to fess up to one of the top scores?

Well, its 1986, I'm over 200 FT's and I had my first crash.:( I was at war, I guess that's bad, but I so overpower the AI that even if a battle goes against me I just retake whatever I lost, up my production a bit ( I am sooo over the 1FT/turn limit and have cash in the hundred thousands) and continue with the war (In fact I had lost a city a few turns ago, and just retook it without any problem the next turn. This was before the crash and did not affect it). It was just a small spoiler war to weaken someone who had build the Apollo program and had a small chance of completing it before the game would be over. Even if they managed to launch a ship late in the game I would have plenty of warning and could raze the coastal capital without taking any more land. But since I am still well under the domination land limit, I was opening up a bit of land to settle in. There was no reason for me to do anything silly so I hope the game is accepted. It scares me considering the time I've put into this thing.

I wish there was a way for me to send in the crash saves now while it is fresh in my mind and I could answer any questions, instead of having to play another 10-20 hours THEN send it in.

^^ I am trying a game... but I have no ideas on how good it will be... The bad thing is Global Warming already started (I am in 1732), and I haven't turn "Rising sea" option on :( I am currently loosing 2 tiles every 3 turns or so, I hope I will resist this massacre to finish this game. I am making 2 FT every 3 turns, and got started on those in 1702 iirc. I have 84 cities, but I haven't started the "satellites settling" phase... though I am agressively spreading mining and Cereal corps. I've got about 90 workers now... there are quite annoying, taking most of my time :lol:

Hope I have the time to finish this by friday (unless the GW event get ride of me)...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

edit: we posted at the same time, and i was replying to your first one! I guess you can send a mail to the staff to see if the game has any chance to be valid at the end?

Another person complained about global warming, and I haven't seen it at all. I have no idea what I did differently, although when I saw the problems the other person was having I did build recycling centers. I don't know if that helped or not.

Perhaps because I played the Terra map and even to this point, much of the map is not settled? I'm approaching the dom limit in the old world only.

Perhaps recycling centers help... I build gra -> court -> forge -> factory -> biblio -> obs -> uni -> lab -> grocer -> supermarket in my cities. I read from another thread that perhaps this is too much polluting buildings. Bad part is that once the event started, I believe there is no way to stop it :(

I've not seen any GW in both my games.

Was on course for a 25K score, then after an annoying little war with Washington with 7 turns to go, i get a bloody, stinking Domination victory. 23 odd hours of hard work, down the drain.

Pity i was out of pocket until this gauntlet has some 10 days to go :(
But i think that a Huge time is much for me too.

Guys, you have lot of things to learn. Take a look on my time victories in the HoF, read the player log and you'll be in good shape.

No Global warming for me either, and I was building lots of dirty factories etc. Does anyone have any information on what triggers global warming? I can't find any entry in the Civilopedia. I suspect that playing on a Terra map, and having parts of the new world still unsettled at the end of the game help prevent it.

recycling centers reduce pollution, thus reduce GW
Last time I played for time, I made sure to get those everywhere before factories.

:cry: 28 hours played and it was only 1983. :mad: I had about 100 cities and was gifting some ice and tundra cities back to severely crippled owners and about 2% under the dom limit. I had built corporations in cities needing the culture and then was gifting resources away when the culture was getting close, then because of a culture vacuum created by Pacal capturing some of Asoka cities, I get a dom victory! :mad::cry::sad:

28 hours!! As Flanders would say. "Son of a Diddly!"

While it was not perfect, I was loving this game despite my computer lagging bigtime. I was playing as Darius and didn't have horses anywhere for an Immortal start, but kept going because of the sweet start for a financial civ. My city planning and the events that unfolded on tiles was great. I had built most of the very early and late game wonders and captured the ones in the middle. The only one I didn't have with Sistine Chapel (and two shrines). All but one corporation. I was on pace for about 260-270 FTs and had 100 cities!

Lessons learned:

1. Cripple all opponents equally. I spent too much time on other civs and wiped out others for fun which lead to fighting Asoka's high culture when taking his cities. I swept in easily enough, however the culture battle needs to be less vulnerable to chance.

2. D'oh! Took me a while to figure out and then remember that gunships actually kill workers!

3. I got global warming plenty of times. I switched the cues to prioritize Recycling Centres and it stopped for a bit, but once the conquered cities started with factories and getting larger it happened again and I had to build more RCs.

4. Having free engineers to help the building is not worth the extra GEs when trying to collect GSs.

5. I was under the impression that you had that turn to gift away a city or something. However, it seems that on the triggering turn you can't.

Wonder if I will have time for another. I doubt it! Maybe a terra map would work better than lakes. These gauntlets are nice to complete a major requirement, but if you screw up, all that time is lost. This is EXACTLY why I don't play epic or huge maps normally. It takes way too much time and if you screw up, it really sucks.

IMHO a continent map is better, because you can avoid getting your feet on the other continent altogether, and if your continent isn't large enough for dom, you don't risk anything.
then again, it's harder to cripple the AIs.
This being said, I didn't try this gauntlet at all, so I can be wrong.

Tried finishing it, but I got in too late and don't have enough time to do the last 160 turns in 2 days. I was also rusty in large-scale modern wars, and just how important artillery is when the enemy Railroads a stack of 20+ units to your border. I was definitely gonna have trouble crippling the other races, as I conquered moderately (due to money problems) and they were already researching the Apollo Program in 1870 AD.

Last week I submitted my first attempt, which was with Gandhi on a rainforest map. I really like that combination for Time victories, because you can get some insane city population from cereal mills, a philosophical leader, and Gandhi's workers are just awesome on that map.

I made alot of mistakes, for instance I settled over 20 great merchants for the 1F, before I realized just how little that improved my score. So I was hoping to have time for another try, but I never did get started with another game.

I've submitted a game with 317FT, and 187 cities with cereal mills giving +36F to each city.

Well, my game of 66 plus hours was rejected :(. It was because of a wartime crash. A war where I outnumbered my opponents 200 cities to 20 (I could produce units with more than 1/2 of my cities if desired and still get 1 FT/turn), where I was just reducing the chance of a spaceship launch (which was never really a threat) and gaining a bit more ground (I stayed well below the domination limit, I was about 3 % below the limit at the end). My final score was 27760, and even that was lower than it could be because I was limiting my actions at the end because of the crash problem. :aargh:


:badcomp:

That sucks pholtz... :(
I won't be able to submit my game: still about 300 turns to play :lol:. I am on turn 450, researching FT75, making something like 28k bpt... GW is less than expected (a tile every 4/5 turns now), but I just don't have the time to finish this... I expected to finish at FT375 but oh well...

PS: I will post a pic of my WS city later as it's prolly my biggest one ever... it would have been even crazyer by the end game... edit: done
[http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/oo58/RRRaskolnikov/Civ4ScreenShot1066-1.jpg

I thought last night was the 25th! I aborted a decent game cuz I didn't think I have time. I will try for one now. 12 hours....going to be tough!

EDIT: 10:30 pm. I give up. Terra map had them all too close and everyone was Buddhist but me. I took out civ civs early, but was repeatedly dogpiled

Results:

G-Major 58 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=major&gauntlet=183) - Time, Noble, Huge, Epic - Any Starting Era
1st phanc 28,461 pts
2nd KingMorgan 14,390 pts
3rd donsig 7111 pts

Congratulations!

Great job everyone. I might have been third if I hadn't triggered domination. :(

I also had a question for phanc. Why did you choose a rain forest map. Any particular reason? Thanks.

I also had a question for phanc. Why did you choose a rain forest map. Any particular reason? Thanks.
I choose the Rainforest map because it's very food rich. Especially all the rice resources, that boosts Cereal Mills. I checked my final save, and at the end I had 96 rice (some imported), so Cereal Mills gave +36F to each city.

The bigest drawback of the rainforest map is the time it takes to clear all the rainforest, but that isn't really an issue when going for time victory. And Gandhi's fast workers helps alot too.

I'm not sure it's the map type that supports the largest population, but I can only think of Terra that would beat it (from the larger landmass).

I'm not sure it's the map type that supports the largest population, but I can only think of Terra that would beat it (from the larger landmass).

That would be Archipelago. My 125k score was on a Tiny map and had over 100 cities. Each city had +59 food for sushi. Water tiles give 2 food and do not count toward domination.