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: Diplomatic (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Emperor
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Continents
Speed: Normal
Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians
Civ: Any
Opponents: Must include Byzantium (Justinian), Celt (Brennus), India (Asoka), Khmer (Suryavarman), Persia (Darius), Spain (Isabella)
Version: 3.19.001
Date: 10th September to 10th October 2009
Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

Now this one is an attempt to make the diplomacy a little bit tricky.

Normal speed hopefully limits diplomation (victory by domination), continents means you won't meet some of your opponents until later in the game somewhat limiting +ve diplo bonuses.

The opponents are handpicked, anyone want to guess why these 6? :mischief:

Anyway, you are all better at playing these games than I am at designing them so I'm sure you won't have any major problems here. :lol:

The opponents are handpicked, anyone want to guess why these 6? :mischief:

My little finger says me that it will create three blocks of AIs... :mischief:
2 OR, 2 theocracy, 2 FR

edit: corrected the initialy wrong info from my little finger...

Incidentally, Vanilla needs to be removed from the version listing. These 4 of the 6 are not available in 1.74 (unless there is a mod I'm missing?).

My little finger says me that it will create three blocks of AIs... :mischief:
2 OR, 2 theocracy, 2 FR



What a smart little finger you have

Incidentally, Vanilla needs to be removed from the version listing. These 4 of the 6 are not available in 1.74 (unless there is a mod I'm missing?).

BtS only, corrected first post.

What is the max number of opponents on standard? Cept for darius all of these love religion. At normal speed with barbarians this is probably doable as an OCC. Due to continents coastal is almost required which means Elizabeth will likely outperform ghandi for OCC.

10 is the max allowed on a standard map. I always found OCC less effective at Monarch due to the lower AI tech rate, meaning you have to self research a lot, will still be doable as an OCC but I think multi city will be best.

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

Woohoo... a major gauntlet I think I could handle! I'm a little weak at diplo... didn't need hand-picked opponents to make it harder. I predict this will take me 3 attempts to get one proper submission.

Diplo isn't that tricky if you take out 1-2 civs and then align yourself with a block based on favorite civics.

Actually, enough attempts should let you make it using FR. Don't tech mono or theology and you can stay in FR without having the others request you switch. From there:

+4 fair trade
+2 open borders
+2 resource supply
+1 years of peace

You only need a net +8 for diplo win votes, so conceivably you can just rush straight for the UN with these leaders as long as you only piss 1-2 off. With some luck diplo can actually be straightforward here.

I've tried a few non-war One City Challenges, but no success yet. Because of the disparity in relation factors of the compulsory opponents, it is a massive challenge to avoid a -4 Trading with Worst Enemy penalty from pretty-much everyone. A war-oriented start to the game, to take out the obvious trouble-makers, may be the best solution.

I'm sure there is a list somewhere on this site (but not sure where...) of hidden modifier-adjusted requirements for the Diplo vote - i.e. the required relations for Leader X to vote the human to a Diplo vistory. IIRC Gandhi and Zara are the only 2 leaders who vote on +6, a few others vote on +7, most vote on +8, and some require +9 or maybe even +10. I don't remember the required relation for any of the compulsory AIs in this game.

I suspect the winner of the Gauntlet will have taken Radio from Liberalism, as that is the biggest tech on the required path that cannot be accelerated by Great Scientist bulbing. On a typical Emperor game, the best AIs will get to Liberalism around 1100AD-1200AD, so it is a massive challenge to tech such a long way by then. A Philosophical leader is a must, as lots of Great People are needed.

seems like a shared religion solves all your problems.

Don't tech mono or theology and you can stay in FR without having the others request you switch.
Ooooh... I'd never thought of that. Thanks! I'll have to try it out.

I didnt get a very good date - 1685AD - but managed it by choosing a different kind of diplomacy. I'll write more about it later but right now I am seriously delinguent on some schoolwork.

I had a nice military diplo on the way (est finish date about 1700AD) when I suffered a game crash. I've started anew, but don't know if I'll finish in time. I'll prioritize it.:mad:

I can't remember last time I submitted a gauntlet game, but this one definitely suits my tastes. :goodjob:

I experimented a couple starts with WorldBuilder allowed to see if I could figure out a pattern for AI distribution on home and overseas landmasses based on team number assignment (like there is on Hemispheres) but Continents is much more random: 1 of the 2 tries I got an isolated start, 6 AI on the other landmass, so I dumped the idea and just started to play a random game (no mapfinder) with the required settings/opponents.

No regens, let's see what I can get with 5 seafood in my coastal capital (playing as Pericles). Lots of room to expand, only met Isabella by now, and just built the GW. Obviously not optimal, but looks like a fun game, I'll try to play it out.

I had another late-game crash, and a third game where I got DOW'd and killed pretty bad (nice diplomacy, eh? :lol: ). I give up on this one. :(

I noticed that we have only 2 submissions so far for this major, so thought I'd give it a try even though more than half the time is gone.
Haven't managed a success yet, and I must admit it is quite a challenge.
I've tried a warlike approach - taking out the nearest AI - but that lost me too much time and there was no way I was going to win the race to MM.
I've done quite well in a peaceful approach. Using FR and choosing carefully who I traded with, I was able to get 4 AI up to friendly and also got to MM first and built the UN even without having popped a gt eng (tho I tried...) But then the voting got the better of me.
It became obvious that one of the friendly civs would be my rival for the UN, and it turned out to be Isabella. The other 3 friends voted for me as expected, but while that was enough to get me UN secretary, it wasn't enough for a win. I needed one of the 'unfashionable' civs to vote for me, but these were Brennus and Surlyman - who were disliked by all and who could not be persuaded into liking me. I gave up when it became obvious that I couldn't get the majority I needed for victory.
So I'm left puzzling over whether this is the best way to win this one (peace, FR, careful cultivation of friends). Anyone have any more theories? (I have read what everyone has said above)

I noticed that we have only 2 submissions so far for this major, so thought I'd give it a try even though more than half the time is gone.
Haven't managed a success yet, and I must admit it is quite a challenge.
I've tried a warlike approach - taking out the nearest AI - but that lost me too much time and there was no way I was going to win the race to MM.
I've done quite well in a peaceful approach. Using FR and choosing carefully who I traded with, I was able to get 4 AI up to friendly and also got to MM first and built the UN even without having popped a gt eng (tho I tried...) But then the voting got the better of me.
It became obvious that one of the friendly civs would be my rival for the UN, and it turned out to be Isabella. The other 3 friends voted for me as expected, but while that was enough to get me UN secretary, it wasn't enough for a win. I needed one of the 'unfashionable' civs to vote for me, but these were Brennus and Surlyman - who were disliked by all and who could not be persuaded into liking me. I gave up when it became obvious that I couldn't get the majority I needed for victory.
So I'm left puzzling over whether this is the best way to win this one (peace, FR, careful cultivation of friends). Anyone have any more theories? (I have read what everyone has said above)

instead of giving up, is there any hope of getting brennus / sury over Izzy as the other candidate such as DoWing & letting them have some of your cities. All you need at this point is the UN city anyway, right?

instead of giving up, is there any hope of getting brennus / sury over Izzy as the other candidate such as DoWing & letting them have some of your cities. All you need at this point is the UN city anyway, right?
Hmm...that is a useful thought, but probably won't work on this occasion. I think it may just be that the cards fell badly in this game, though it generally went well.
I'm on a continent with Justinian and Asoka, and we've got on very well. The other continent had evidently split into two factions before I met them, with Isabella and Darius on one side, Brennus and Sury on the other. Issy & Darius had got the upper hand in their conflicts, leaving Brennus and Sury small and generally disliked.
The trouble is that gifting cities to either of the small civs will probably not be accepted - (no, it won't, I just checked) and would be unlikely to make either of them larger than Isabella.
Part of the problem is that my empire is very small - just the 6 cities.

However, thanks for the suggestion. It made for an entertaining little extension of the game, as the world basically descended into warfare as soon as I declared on Sury :lol:. Unfortunately, no-one could do enough damage to tilt the balance of power in the voting, and Sury certainly wouldn't consider accepting any of my cities.
It did show me that there was another way out of this, if one of my friends and Isabella had both destroyed the small disliked civs, then I might have got a big enough share of the vote.

I think I need another game like this one - but with some small but significant differences.

Hmm...that is a useful thought, but probably won't work on this occasion. I think it may just be that the cards fell badly in this game, though it generally went well.
I'm on a continent with Justinian and Asoka, and we've got on very well. The other continent had evidently split into two factions before I met them, with Isabella and Darius on one side, Brennus and Sury on the other. Issy & Darius had got the upper hand in their conflicts, leaving Brennus and Sury small and generally disliked.
The trouble is that gifting cities to either of the small civs will probably not be accepted - (no, it won't, I just checked) and would be unlikely to make either of them larger than Isabella.
Part of the problem is that my empire is very small - just the 6 cities.

However, thanks for the suggestion. It made for an entertaining little extension of the game, as the world basically descended into warfare as soon as I declared on Sury :lol:. Unfortunately, no-one could do enough damage to tilt the balance of power in the voting, and Sury certainly wouldn't consider accepting any of my cities.
It did show me that there was another way out of this, if one of my friends and Isabella had both destroyed the small disliked civs, then I might have got a big enough share of the vote.

I think I need another game like this one - but with some small but significant differences.

or perhaps you could have absorbed both of them yourself

or perhaps you could have absorbed both of them yourself
Next time, maybe.

I wasn't geared up to conquer anything.

I'll be having another go today.

I finally got a win, playing a peaceful One City Challenge and beelining to Oxford Uni from the start.

The key was for the opponent in the election to be one of the "trouble-makers" - i.e. not someone who would have voted for me anyway.

I needed ~25 games from ~5,000 Mapfinder Maps, to FINALLY get this one victory.

My game was far from optimal - my One City was settled on a 1-hammer tile (not a 2-hammer tile), and I had to settle for taking Electricity from Liberalism (not Radio) due to lack of Great Scientists (unable to bulb Electricity).

However, as I won the Diplo vote at the very first attempt, my finish date was ultimately quite strong......

I managed to make it work out, but I think my submission will be looking up the table at the rest of you.
I tried overloading the AI this time - as several of you have been discussing. I added 4 extras (Mansa, Elizabeth, Hammurabi, Augustus) and played as Ragnar (slightly strange choice, I know, but his financial trait helps plus he starts with a scout).
The biggest factor in my victory though, compared to previous attempts, was that one of the 'unpopular' civs became the one with the largest population and my rival for the UN. Brennus. This made the gathering of votes onto my side of the contest a whole lot easier than it had been before.
Not sure if I'll have any time for another attempt (unless I've messed up and this one isn't accepted) so I'll just be contented to have got my name up on the board.

Results:

G-Major 59 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=major&gauntlet=184) - Diplomatic, Emperor, Standard, Normal on Continents (Barbs ON)
1st ProRock 1320 AD
2nd Misotu 1380 AD
3rd ianw1610 1615 AD

Congratulations!

Congrats to ProRock :) :goodjob:

I came to this quite late and didn't have any dramatic thoughts on strategy that weren't already posted here. I played OCC like ianw1610 but I chose Liz rather than Peter. I could perhaps have improved a little if I had held off and taken radio instead of astronomy from liberalism. I didn't have time to play around with this - I thought perhaps the early observatory, early ability to trade resources and earlier Printing Press (given 12 cottages!) was a better bet than taking a later tech - but maybe not :)

I'd be interested to hear what ProRock's strategy was ... better than mine, clearly :lol:

This was a good fun Gauntlet - thanks to Denniz and Ozbenno for setting it up :thanx:

Well done to all who played. I never had the time to recover from a blown hard drive to play this one but was intrigued at how it would pan out.