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: Emperor
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Any
Speed: Epic
Required: Raging Barbarians
Required: Always War Checked
Required: OCC Checked
Civ: Any
Opponents: Any
Version: 3.19.001
Date: 25th September to 25th October 2009
Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker

Ooo, now this is an interesting one. I'm thinking archipelago to slow down the AI. Of course that still leaves the question of what civ to play... Standard assortment of Oxford, NP, GT, IW, NE seems like the obvious choice.

Yay, thanks for picking my suggestion as major!

This might prove harder than your typical hand-picked deity game, but after some quick tests I'm confident that it is winnable...


There are a lot of different well-suited leaders and maps for this challenge. Let me outline some ideas:

- To make use of raging barbs, more land is better. With some luck, 1-2 AIs can be destroyed by barbs. But if you wait too long, the others will become unsurmountable...
- I'm not so sure about archipelago. Barbs aren't a serious issue here, while your great wall loses its power.
- If not cornered by mountains or sea, or if you don't have the luxury to settle directly on stone, you will need archers before building the great wall.
- A lot of initial resources are tempting, but I'm pretty sure these mean a reduced chance for the important strategic resources. Alas! balanced resources are not allowed.
- To avoid an accidental AP defeat, stay in Theocracy or build the AP.
- Try not to contact all AI's asap, as only then they will prepare for war.

- Augustus on Terra, the obvious choice. Prepare for an early and massive onslaught of all AIs. Not sure if this is even possible on a standard size emperor map.
- Ramses on Terra for cheap wonders and serious pillaging with war chariots. Though you'll probably need maces and cats to actually win.
- Boudica on Highlands
- Toku for aggressive, protective, and samurais.
- The Chinese crossbowman really shines when facing large stacks, as you will.
- Justinian, beeline to guilds. Furthermore you'll get tons of GGs. Or Saladin with camel archers.
- Gunpowder might be the last that can be researched before severely falling behind, so Suleiman or Zara could be an option, too.

If I may qoute the Fall From Heaven intro: The first goal is survival. Well, the second as well :D

Good luck everybody!

My first serious try as Justinian on Inland Sea failed miserably. My neighbor Zara got destroyed by barbs pretty early, and I managed to get horses and iron with 7500 culture. 1 gold/ivory/cow/wheat, 2 flood plains, 6 hills. No stone, no marble, missed CS slingshot by a couple of turns.

Built some 40 cataphracts starting at about 1450 AD. Despite killing some 200 units, they stood no chance vs. Frederic, who already had 35% of land and 2 vassals. In the end everyone came with Knights, and a huge amount of War Elephants and Pikes. Looks like the BtS AI adapts pretty well to your army composition. I had the chemistry monopole, but was behind overally. Fred was researching corporations.

Lesson learned: Cataphracts need to come a lot earlier. CS sling is mandatory (and GW/Mids obviously).

Yay, thanks for picking my suggestion as major!


I meant to say I was using your idea but this was done in a rush so sorry (and thanks) :blush:

This will be hard. I think an archipelago might be the easiest but you need to know you have iron and oil or uranium for a decent late navy. In SGs that use these settings someone WBs in these for the game, not an option here :lol:

I like Qin for this actually but we'll see how we go. I'm currently without means of playing (laptop got fried) but hopefully will get a chance in the next month.

Would a persian leader on terra not work well? It should be possible to kill them all with immortals if you can keep all metal pillaged. Some luck with the barbarians is probably required.

Otherwise, playing on a flat land based map "hiding" in a corner with great wall seems the best choice. A SoD of trebs/maces with stackdefending pikes/Xbows probably to start killing with minimum casualties, and hope no AI gets a sweetspot (safe from barb pillaging).
This strategy won me a similar prince level game a while ago in warlords.

I would probably say IND is mandatory. So maybe Augustus(IMP) for more GGs, De Gaulle(CHM) for more promotions or Stalin(agg) for the free C1 promo. Either one should help making the stack more efficient, which is very very important in a game like this. The AI are likely going to have some tough promoted defenders from all the barb attacks.
I tried a game with Ramesses, but found SPI near useless as I did not find time to research the techs for orgrel/theocracy, or found a religion for that matter. Also didnt have iron, only copper, which is probably not good enough.
Next I am going to try DeGaulle, planning to get to gunpowder to help supress the stronger AIs that are too far away to be the first target.

Obviously chose AI's that dont have an early UU or are agressive/protective. Also avoid high culture civs or ones that build a lot of units if possible. That way they should be hurt more by the barbs.

Either way it is likely that it will require many attempts to get the required settings, and then it is still going to be very hard.

Would a persian leader on terra not work well? It should be possible to kill them all with immortals if you can keep all metal pillaged. Some luck with the barbarians is probably required.

Of course it would, or at least I am tempted to try this approach, only how am I ever going to finish League of Nations if I keep using Cyrus for G-Majors.

Currently playing as Ramses, and I think I'll win. Haven't started the offense though...

My empire is completely weird: Not a single strategic resource, and just 1 hill (tundra gems) :eek:
Working 7 food resources and 1 gem. Production comes almost exclusively from 11 Ankor Wat priests and the AP (8 base hammers). Got Biology from Liberalism, the NP allows me to run 20 specialists. Settled 2 GS, 2 GM, 2 GA, 1 GP, 6 GG. Killed some 500 units within my cultural borders. My army consists of about 25 higly promoted Grenadiers, Muskets and Longbows. Just got Rifling, the plan is to get Physics in 11 turns, then Steel->Artillery and attack. Unless I find uranium, this is my only chance - because gunpowder units and artillery (beside bows/cats/trebs) are the only units in the whole game that don't require resources.

Atm I'm facing knights, maces, oromos and cuirassiers (and tons of trebs/cats); but the AI is close to rifles and cavalry which will be the main opponents on my campaign.

I'll keep you posted...

Are you playing boreal or something? Strategic resources are pretty scarce there.

Are you playing boreal or something? Strategic resources are pretty scarce there.
Sure I play boreal, the one and only map to slow'em all down. But from what I can tell, most or all AI had access to both iron and horses.

Anyway, I didn't continue that game (yet), but started another as Suleiman...and won! :king:

Again no metals nor stone nor marble, but at least horses which helped me to speed things up a bit in the end with cavalry. The main campaign consisted of 30 Janissaries, a handful of cats/trebs, and later Grenadiers. I started in a protected corner of the map, and contacted most AIs when my army was already standing. I guess that beside the crucial decision to play boreal, luck - and AI choice - played an important role with raging barbs: In this game the AI had pikes, but no muskets, and iirc not even maces until the end.

Finish date is 1770 AD - pretty late for muskets, even though I missed the oracle.

Very impressive!

Boreal is a good idea, I think I am going to try out rainforest. There should be better starts available+hopefully the AI will have a hard time.

A couple of unsuccesful attempts at rainforest. The AI were not nearly as troubled by barbs as I had hoped.

Then tried Suleiman and boreal, and managed a win 19xxAD. Phew, that was intense.

Start with 6 deer, sheep, stone. Lower mid location, with noone to the west, and a blocking mountain range east, to make the AI come from one direction only. Met one AI early. CS-sling ~300BC, early game went extremely well in general.
But I had no luck to keep the AI from meeting me before I was ready, so I had to contend with six AI flooding me with units for most of the game. Never got an attacking force of janissaries goin. Was able to start conquering when I had a solid choke of highly promoted janissaries and rifles.
The AI had tons of horse archers and catapults mainly. They got maces about 1300AD, Knights soon after.
I cleared half the map with trebs+rifles, losing most of my initial force to grenadiers, the last three AI got rifles as well, and two of them were english.
But I managed to stay just ahead in techs for the rest of the game, and actually ended up with mechinfs+tanks vs infantry, fighters and SAM's.

For AI, I used Elizabeth, Victoria, Washington, Lincoln, Cyrus and Frederick. Avoiding anyone with PRO, AGG, CRE, IND, and religion whores seemed like a good idea.

I learned some techniques like clearing forests in an arc, to prevent the AI from having any defensive terrain, manipulating approaching stacks by leaving certain tiles open and of course learning to use some of the many army management features I had never considered :rolleyes:

I tried with DeGaulle, but he's too slow through education and there's too much forest to really take advantage of the musketeers extra move.

Then switched to Suleiman but somehow, I am not getting any GG points :confused: The bar just stays at 30??? Has this happened to anybody before? Did I accidentally change a setting or something to turn them off?

Quick question -

Am I allowed to turn on "no city razing" in this gauntlet?

-- manic

Quick question -

Am I allowed to turn on "no city razing" in this gauntlet?

-- manic

I'm fairly sure that I checked that BUFFY handles this option correctly in OCC but to be safe best to leave it unchecked.

I'm playing around with a Genghis game after checking the availability of horse in the map first (planning to use Keshiks, then Knights to wreak havoc) but haven't been able to get a decent start with horses yet to see if it will work :mad:

Improved to sub 1600AD.

Very nice corner location. Gems+stone+3xwheat+2xsheep. No strategic rescources for the whole game, but played as suleiman. Only used janissaries+trebs to conquer.

Met two AI early, the closest kept to one city by barbarians. There were no AI in the middle or to the immediate west, so plenty of room for the barbarians to roam.

Notable dates
Great Wall 2375BC
Mids 1525BC
Academy 925BC (2nd GP)
Oracle-CS 700BC
Education 200BC
Gunpowder 70AD
First city razed in 715AD

When I first saw the Gauntlet suggestion, I thought it was a joke. I am amazed that some are actually succeeding at it!

I'm beginning to think after more failed openings that stone is the crucial resource in this game, for Great Wall (especially) and Pyramids. Even going 3 x warriors out of the bat, I'm getting crucified by the barbarians.

Nice work Fluroscent - very impressive times. I've been trying some inland sea games to keep the number of contacted AI low. That does seem to work, but the Barbarian effect wears off pretty quick and by the time I start to conquer they are already getting pretty advanced. By the late 1500's I had a good force of riflemen but it was just taking me too long to clear everyone off and the farthest civ was starting to get good troops. Sounds like the Boreal games are much worse on the AI.

The issue I had with Boreal is starting position: there doesn't appear to be much commerce and you didn't use a financial leader, yet you got to education quite quickly. How did you do it so fast, and did you bother to build Oxford? What about the +100% military building (forget the name)?

I had both but I still couldn't produce enough troops even winning much more than 90% of the time. I made a bunch of mistakes though (I'm out of practice - haven't played for a long time). My early game was very good - played the Inca, researched masonry first, and then straight to the wall (sometimes built another warrior first). The Inca are really good because their special unit (I won't even try to spell it without looking it up) starts with +10% and is +100% versus archers so it is great on both offense and defense against the early Barbarian archer/warrior units. Usually I need to kill ~10 units (often without losing anything) before the wall gets up, and sometimes much less if I'm in a corner. For the gauntlet I've been using Mansu Mansu since he has good traits and an early special unit. Still, no victory for me and I don't have enough time to keep trying. Great gauntlet though.

-- Manic

Quoted from OP:

Must not play as Inca.

;)

:lol: I had the same thought but saw this

For the gauntlet I've been using Mansu Mansu
-- Manic

^ I missed that. It's the better choice... I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Musu Musu's Early Special could take The Unit Which Cannot Be Spelled in a fight.

Okay, on the board, basically by copying some of the posters and using Suleiman the Magnificant and Boreal. I never realized how much tech and production you can get with specialists, pyramids, philsophical on a map with many food resources (such as deer). I'm dead last on this one, but that is currently good enough for third :lol:

Well I finally got a good run. Suleiman on boreal, as usual. Not only janissaries, but the 2 :) from the hammam is a huge early boost to growth. Coupled with rep and gems/forge it meant I never had to build globe to stay happy.

No stone or marble, but 2 gems, 6 deer and later copper showed up so I could build maces. Isolated corner start, which is probably essential.

Slowbuilt the GW at the start, ended up having to popush it to avoid some improvements being pillaged since my defenses had been dented - I think I was down to a lone warrior in the capital :eek: Also built (chopped) pyramids, oracle (CS-sling), great library (this one was very helpful). NW built NE, HE, Oxford (late and not needed).

Research wise I went hunting-archery-mining-masonry-BW-pottery-writing-math-myst-poly-ph-col-CS(free)-MC-aesth-lit-const-mach-engr-paper-edu(2xbulb)-gp-theo-chem-ms-guilds.

Unfortunately 1st couple gpersons were spies, I just settled them. Then got 3 GS for academy and edu bulbing. Settled all the rest I got.

I had 3 main armies. The first consisted of cats/maces and a couple trebs and was moving around 600AD - I think I took my first city in the early 700's. The second was janissaries and trebs and started moving maybe around 900AD I think. I made it to grens and the earliest ones helped take like 2 cities, but weren't needed. The third army of grens and trebs went on a wild goose chase for the "final" AI and never reached the front.

Also I was helped by the ineptness of the AI. The CS-sling was very late - like 400BC or something. IIRC the only wonder the AI built was SH. Only Liz got to longbows, and she only managed to build about 4 of them. Nobody built HA's (very weird). Roos had only 2 cities, Izzy had only 1 and lost it to Lincoln at some point (maybe barbs first). Lincoln had the most cities, but his capital had 10 or so ice tiles. Not sure if it was more the barbs or the map, but it wasn't really difficult once the conquesting began - it probably would have been possible with just trebs and maces.

I finished in 14xx.

Okay, got a much better game this time. I think I've figured out the secret to this gauntlet: find a game where the AI does poorly. Early on I briefly got warnings about how my pop was exceeding the dom limit. This meant to me that the barbs were working over the other AIs and indeed this was the case.

In my game I followed my usual strategy: worker, warrior and then great wall. Next the pyramids (which are needed to go to representation, which is needed to get good tech from specialists which is the only way to tech in a boreal map), then a library and then the oracle to get civil service. I had trouble timing it but it worked out okay. Instead of going paper->edu for the tech I got macemen and started attacking with cats and macemen, later upgrading to janissaries. I've found you can get the great wall fast enough to avoid having to build many military troops.

In my game the AI was pretty far behind and I mostly just needed to find them. Only two civs did well, and one was right next to me so I was able to kill it before it really expanded. Asoka was far away and it took me a while but my main field army was finally able to kill him.

So if you get lucky I don't think you need big guns for this one. I finished sub 1400 for 1st place.

-- Manic

I think I've figured out the secret to this gauntlet: find a game where the AI does poorly.


I finally had a game going where I thought I was going well, was less than 10 turns from Gunpowder and then Asoka, Gandhi and Frederick all turned up at the same time with 10+ stacks of catapults/swords/axes/horse archers :mad:. I had 3 CG3 archers, 3 catatpults and 4 CG2 archers and a medic warrior, I at least lasted past the first turn of 30+ attacks, with just my warrior left :mischief:

They all seemed to be handling the conditions OK :lol:

Yes, luck with the AI seems to be needed, loads of longbows and horse archers really slow you down. :(

I'm convinced on a good map that Augustus can do this with just Praetorians faster than it can be done with Sule. If you settle on stone and research masonry first you can build barracks -> (switch to) great wall -> worker. The stone also allows you to get the pyramids quickly (may as well for the happy, there's nothing to build until you have iron). Then researching the worker techs & bronze/iron and lots of chopping and you're ready to roll over the map.

The problem is getting a map where you have stone that also has decent other resources (ideally gems and plains deer). Then the difficulty is that iron only shows in an early reachable spot maybe one in four games. But if it all works out in a game where the AI is backward, it's surely faster than waiting for maces.

Almost did it in a test game, but had basically zero commerce (no gems or river) on my start so that running an army around sent me broke and my units were disbanding. The same start with gems and I think it would have worked.

:mad::mad: Ugh! This is ridiculous. I don't know how anybody can beat this. I want to actually watch someone do this. I am going crazy.:crazyeye:

I am getting very frustrated that all the maps end up not having iron (or iron just a little too far away) then when I finally do get a good start it happens to be one of the maps where multiple AIs get a double digit number of cities and wiping them out would take forever.

Two things: 1. This is one bad ass G-Major! 2. Is it me or random events allow you to make peace while "Always War" is enabled? This to me is a bug, because it violates the "Always War" function of the game.

Is it me or random events allow you to make peace while "Always War" is enabled? This to me is a bug, because it violates the "Always War" function of the game.

There is an event (wounded soldier event) that can offer you peace with one of the AI but if you take that option, you automatically re-declare on them so you can't escape the Always War part of the game.

There is an event (wounded soldier event) that can offer you peace with one of the AI but if you take that option, you automatically re-declare on them so you can't escape the Always War part of the game.

Could be the case. I wish I saved the game :/ (bad me) because the event came up very frequently, and didn't seem so random. Anyway, if I run into it again I'd be sure to pay more attention. This is one side-kick to head type of game :)

It does knock them out of your territory when you get it, so it's still useful even if it doesn't stop war.

Managed to get 4 AIs dead in my latest try before the longbows showed up, and with 17 cities to go it just seemed too hard. I want one of these magical maps where everyone is backward with only a couple of cities. :sad:

I tried several other games: one archipelago which utterly failed; some boreal maps that I quit around 14xx when it became obvious that I'm too slow; tons of boreal maps quit in disgust with no single strategic resource...
And finally the one, extremely rare game as Augustus with stone and gems and iron...AND horses!
Standard opening: worker-warrior-archer(s)-GW-SH-worker-mids-CoLsling-library-barracks-army. Due to the lack of t4 units I went for Theo&Vassalage and a medium Praet army (that killed 2 civs) before researching Heroic Epic & CS. The final and important steps were knights and engineering. Three settled great priests and one merchant eliminated all gold problems. Rome was size 12, and the culture slider was needed a lot in the end due to WW.

The annoying thing was that 3 AIs did extremely well; they all had copper+iron+horses, while Fred and Roosevelt in addition got those dreamstarts in a corner shielded by long mountain ridges. They both had longbows when I reached them. Without my knights, victory would have come many centuries later. And even with them, I did not win before 1400 AD. Built approx. 80 units (hardly cats) and killed some 400.

I'm getting the impression that if the map generator is gracious to you, it is even more gracious to the AI :( In most other boreal games, longbows didn't appear until late 16th or 17th century.

Okay, got a much better game this time. I think I've figured out the secret to this gauntlet: find a game where the AI does poorly.[...] I finished sub 1400 for 1st place.

-- Manic
That's a most impressive result, and I think it will win the gauntlet - unless someone manages to "pull off a Cyrus" :crazyeye:

That's a most impressive result, and I think it will win the gauntlet - unless someone manages to "pull off a Cyrus" :crazyeye:

I was convinced Cyrus could do this & I worked tirelessly to prove it. I managed to knock out one civ w/ my immortals in several games but then would have to keep my immortals holed up in the capitol to fight off enemy stacks. When I did get a stack of immortals out in some games to seek my enemies, I was constantly facing the barbarian hordes / enemy stacks so that what finally arrived at my enemy's doorstep was not really what you would call a stack. I never tried Boreal though & meant to make an attempt on that map, but never got around to it after giving up on other settings. It seems to me though that the early advantage of the immortal was offset by the barb attacks on AI units which allowed survivors to be highly promoted.

I don't think Immortals will work well on this gauntlet - if you can do it you'll get the best time, but it seems unlikely.

I do agree with an earlier posted that the standard Roman Legion beatdown might work well, although Janissaries are much more powerful (8.0 versus 9*1.25=11.25). But in a lucky start where the AI is not doing well it might be possible and maybe you can tech to knights as a clean-up crew.

Boreal is a good map for this - I tried several inland sea games (to limit stacks and meeting AIs) but they were just too strong to beat quickly.

-- Manic

Well for practical purposes if your troops are CRIII promoted, it's 8 * 1.75 vs 9 * 2 when attacking a city. The advantage is that you can have an army out in the BCs vs 800 or so AD for Janissaries.

The best I was able to do was take 4 civs out before longbows showed up though. I tried a few different tech paths and it seemed the most effective was to get IW ASAP then stop bothering trying to tech. By going this route you're obviously gambling on the map where an early victory is possible though.

I gave up because I got sick of playing out starts and then no iron, or you'd meet an AI that already had a vassal very early on, or long bows showing up super early. I'm sure it's doable by someone with more patience though.

In regards to the city raider III praets, I think the game has a bit of a weird algorithm. Some bonuses like +10% add to your power. The others subtract from theirs. So versus an archer (strength 3) a praet does better with the +10% promotion than with city raider (+20% city attack). City makes jans (or musketmen) extra good since their base attack is so high.

But yes, the game you describe does seem doable and should give you a 1st place as it stands.


-- Manic

Results:

G-Major 60 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=major&gauntlet=186) - Conquest, Emperor, Standard, Epic with (OCC, Raging Barbs, Always War)
1st manic 1320 AD
2nd karmina 1400 AD
3rd FiveAces 1495 AD

Congratulations!

Well done to anyone who finished this one, it was beyond me.

1320 without Praets...:eek:
Congrats and well done!

This gauntlet turned out more rewarding than I imagined.

Very good game idea karmina, very difficult initially, I certainly wasnt sure it was doable. But it turned out to be managable with a fine tuned strategy.
And of course congratulations to manic on a score I would have thought impossible.

I had a handful of attempts in the end, but lost patience trying to find a map good enough to challenge those dates.