http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/images/greatgeneral.jpgWhile the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we are running series of games called the Hall of Fame Challenge Series. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings of one of the games will be counted towards the Challenge.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php)BEFORE playing!

Settings:

Victory Condition: Domination (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: ANY
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Huge
Map Type: Archipelago
Speed: Epic
Required: No City Razing, Require complete kills, No Vassal States, No Tribal Villages
Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians, Random Personalities, Permanent Alliances, One City Challenge
Civ: Netherlands (Willem Van Oranje)
Opponents: Must include Aztec (Montezuma), Celt (Brennus), France (Napoleon), Greece (Alexander), Japan (Tokugawa), Mongolia (Genghis Khan), Russia (Stalin), Sumeria (Gilgamesh), Viking (Ragnar Lodbrok), Zulu (Shaka)
Version: 3.19.003
Date: 10th May to 10th September 2010
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

Well I hope participation is good for this; I had hoped it would be diety. You have a great production advantage in the modern age so it plays a level or even two lower IMO. You simply outproduce the deity AI; you just have to kill em before they launch!

Well I hope participation is good for this; I had hoped it would be diety. You have a great production advantage in the modern age so it plays a level or even two lower IMO. You simply outproduce the deity AI; you just have to kill em before they launch!

Are my eyes deceiving me? We start at ancient. Though I agree we would have a great production advantage in the modern age....given lots of other things :lol:

What does "require complete kills" do? I've never checked that.

What does "require complete kills" do? I've never checked that.

They don't die until all units are gone, even if they have all of their cities taken. It actually makes little difference other than averting accidental conquest.

I am wondering about the mechanics of require complete kills:
-Will you be able to sign a peace treaty with a civ with only units left?
-If not, do you have to live with the WW if the AI has spies?

The last time someone tried to push this option IIRC was in SGOTM10, where it was dropped because of too many issues and complaints. It really is a pointless option imo, although I can see the want to create additional unfunny annoyance.

Good game to those who complete this one, at any difficulty really. I envy your computer power (or masochistic patience)..

I am wondering about the mechanics of require complete kills:
-Will you be able to sign a peace treaty with a civ with only units left?
-If not, do you have to live with the WW if the AI has spies?

The last time someone tried to push this option IIRC was in SGOTM10, where it was dropped because of too many issues and complaints. It really is a pointless option imo, although I can see the want to create additional unfunny annoyance.

Good game to those who complete this one, at any difficulty really. I envy your computer power (or masochistic patience)..The purpose of the setup was not to annoy but to provide a challenge. I have already said that the comlete kills may have been too much. If there are issues with it, I'll drop the requirement.

Please do not throw stones just becasue something is not to your taste. :(

Have you said that? I thought you said No City Razing in Challenge 1 may be too much (I agree btw).

But require complete kills sounds annoying too. Do you win if all the cities of all civs are gone? I thought I heard that somewhere. So the straggler units are just a very minor annoyance in that case.

Huge/Epic is the reason I won't be playing this. I was up to 5 minutes in between turns for the recent Prince/Epic/Huge gauntlet.

But require complete kills sounds annoying too. Do you win if all the cities of all civs are gone? I thought I heard that somewhere. So the straggler units are just a very minor annoyance in that case.


In general, one will not have to wait for all Cities of All Civs to be gone, because this is a Domination Victory. Just don't Raze Cities unnecessarily, and take out all the (Next) easy Civs and Cities. When your Land is around 20% from the Land Domination Limit, one can try a Settler spam, but it is complicated by the Archipelago Map (May require a few Galleys to transport the Settlers). Spamming Great Artists may help too, assuming one has the required Technologies.

One might suffer more War Weariness from AI Civs without Cities. I always avoid using "Require Complete Kills" whenever possible, so I have no experience with it yet (until I play this Game of the Series).

Sun Tzu Wu

Please do not throw stones just becasue something is not to your taste.

I apologize, I didn't mean to sound bitter or anything.:crazyeye:
I just wanted to know the mechanics, and wanted to point out that if you cannot make peace with an AI with no cities, then the option would indeed be too much. If you can, then it is not very important being that it is domination and not conquest.

I think that "Require complete kills" might allow a very early "conquest" to be finished off as an uncontested domination victory. Gift a spy before you eliminate the last civ. Could be a useful strategy for faster finish... or not. Probably not. Usually by then it won't be much contested in any case.

I am wondering about the mechanics of require complete kills:
-Will you be able to sign a peace treaty with a civ with only units left?

Yes.

Which unfortunately defeats one of the reasons for having them on. You go exploring at the start of the game, you walk your warrior into an empty city, and you may end up having their warrior walk into your empty capital too. Except they'll sign a treaty straight away, and eventually get their lone warrior killed off by the barbs.


I think that NCR might allow a very early "conquest" to be finished off as an uncontested domination victory. Gift a spy before you eliminate the last civ. Could be a useful strategy for faster finish... or not. Probably not. Usually by then it won't be much contested in any case.

Doubt it, as you'd still need to own the same amount of land to hit the dom limit, regardless of whether it's one last opponent with a spy, or one last opponent with a few squares controlled.

Have you said that? I thought you said No City Razing in Challenge 1 may be too much (I agree btw).

But require complete kills sounds annoying too. Do you win if all the cities of all civs are gone? I thought I heard that somewhere. So the straggler units are just a very minor annoyance in that case.

Huge/Epic is the reason I won't be playing this. I was up to 5 minutes in between turns for the recent Prince/Epic/Huge gauntlet.:hmm: I must be confusing the two games. So many threads, so little time. :blush:

I added complete kills to make the destruction of a Civ's last city not erase any units out there. i.e. No leaving your city unprotected during early conquests. I didn't really think about Great Spys. We'll see if it is a big enough issue to worry about.

The no razing thing in the other was about having to manage a large empire on your way to conquest. Wait too late and domination becomes a real problem. Not sure where the point of no return on that is.

Still both challenges seem more interesting with the restrictions. We'll have to wait and see if things are too challenging...

Complete kills is a non issue for domination wins, it's only a potential issue for conquest.

NCR is only a minor issue for domination, in that you can be stuck with crappy AI city placement. It's a potentially major issue for conquest, as already mentioned.

I don't think it makes much difference to this particular challenge. But I'm also unlikely to be aiming for a super duper date in this challenge, (nor in any of them, I don't particularly enjoy AA wars & sword/axe rushes, so my games tend to go longer) I'm just having some fun on Prince level at the moment as the dutch, I'm best friends with Monty as we split our continent in half and slowly wipe out Asoka, Mansa, Stalin, Brennus, Charlemagne and a couple of others, and no doubt I won't start warring much again until I have tanks to do it with.

Next time the Mali are my neighbours, I won't pick them & their skirmishers for my first war. And next time I get the 'build 11 forges' quest, which presumably has something nice as the reward, I won't research education 4 turns before the 11th forge completes, leaving the quest failed. That'll teach me to read the fine print. :)

1754 despite all the stupid.

Surprisingly, that's a #1 on that particular table by 2 turns. Which tells me that table is very empty. :lol:

All went according to my last post. Built up a decent base, researched tanks, took over my continent with tanks v longbows, then 5 transports full of tanks went to the next door continent, and a couple of spare transports went to take a couple of cities elsewhere. Had a few tanks v muskets at the end, but no worries at all, it was just a case of waiting to trip the limit. I actually hit the limit but only had 50.97%, needed one more tile to go over it, and that took 2 turns.

1754 despite all the stupid.


Very good Prince Win, sanabas!

I'm getting sick of seeing so many Settler Games, especially from Players that are capable of winning at higher levels. babaBrian, are you reading this? ;)

Sun Tzu Wu

It actually felt pretty slow. But hard for me to judge, I simply haven't played enough civ 4 yet to get a feel for what tech pace & things could be at. I keep meaning to start playing civ 4 like I did civ 3, then other things keep getting in the way. I was certainly very unfocused, and don't know if I'd go better with just the required opponents, or handpicking the extras. I also have wonder addiction in 4 like I never had in 3, not sure how much that is hurting me. All the way through civ I've preferred bigger maps, more opponents, turning a tech lead into a bigger empire through one sided wars using superior units instead of just weight of numbers. So it was same for this game, I had the required opponents plus 7? more random AIs, however many it takes to fill the roster.

Think I might do this one at Prince again, had a quick go at my first emperor game, which was looking ok until the barbarian hordes swept in.

... don't know if I'd go better with just the required opponents, or handpicking the extras. I also have wonder addiction in 4 like I never had in 3, not sure how much that is hurting me. All the way through civ I've preferred bigger maps, more opponents, turning a tech lead into a bigger empire through one sided wars using superior units instead of just weight of numbers. So it was same for this game, I had the required opponents plus 7? more random AIs, however many it takes to fill the roster.


For Domination one almost always wants the maximum Number of Opponents to reduce the Land Domination Threshold. For Huge Map, I think this happens at 13 or 14 Opponents. One can go for the Full Monty of 17 Opponents just to keep them all that much smaller. For this Game, I'd pick 7 more Peaceful Leaders that will build few military units like Gandhi! So a total of 17 Opponents.

Map settings: Use low sea level and Archipelago type "islands" so one can get around everywhere with just Galleys.

sanabas, you probably can improve your Date significantly at Prince level. I'm very happy to see that you are playing at the highest skill level you are comfortable with.

Sun Tzu Wu

No doubt I can improve it plenty. I prefer random leaders to preselecting the likes of Gandhi. I actually went with high seas for less land, I can get caravels early enough to go grabbing contacts & maps, I'm unlikely to invade before transports. And went for snaky continents to hopefully have a bigger initial landmass myself, with more opponents to meet early and trade techs with.


I'm very happy to see that you are playing at the highest skill level you are comfortable with.

;) Wouldn't say that just yet, Prince does feel fairly easy. I'll probably go for another quick one at Prince, then we'll see about playing Emperor or Immortal. AI only gets 2 initial settlers on deity, yeah? Though might switch off the barbs. I've abandoned one game where I didn't feel like playing it out. Built the great wall, had a regular 10-15% chance of great spies, and the first 4 great people were spies. Silly RNG. Was a strange start, my initial location was perfect for my second city to get moai statues, etc. But I didn't want the capital there, so went exploring. Walked into an undefended Karakorum on turn 6 or 7, so initial settler went right back where it started and made Amsterdam city #2.

Though might switch off the barbs.

That might not really fit the rules for this challenge ;)

After playing this one for 15 hours and winning in the early 1900's I got to say the dutch are now my favourite civ for any map where the ocean plays a part. The ub and uu are just awesome. Beelining astro gives you a 6 str ship which will decimate the fleets of caravels while transporting your army for early intercontinital wars. and turning your costal cottaged cites into production monsters with the dike and UniSuf is just great. I reckon i can improve quite alot on my finish date but as it took so long to complete wont be trying for a month or 2 :). As a side note i noticed i wasnt getting charged for colonial maintainence, is this a result of turning of vassels?.

Welcome to the HOF, Gorrin!


After playing this one for 15 hours and winning in the early 1900's I got to say the dutch are now my favourite civ for any map where the ocean plays a part. The ub and uu are just awesome. Beelining astro gives you a 6 str ship which will decimate the fleets of caravels while transporting your army for early intercontinital wars. and turning your costal cottaged cites into production monsters with the dike and UniSuf is just great. I reckon i can improve quite alot on my finish date but as it took so long to complete wont be trying for a month or 2 :). As a side note i noticed i wasnt getting charged for colonial maintainence, is this a result of turning of vassels?.


Thanks for the strategy tips.

Looks like this will be easier than I thought. I may play this one sooner than I suggested in the HOF Challenge II Series thread. (It may be the fifth Game in series (or earlier) that I play instead of the sixth Game as I originally planned.) It will be great fun at Deity level. I'll be adding 3-7 AI Leaders to the 10 required AI Leaders. 13-14 Opponents are sufficient to bring the Land Domination threshold down to just 51%. It shouldn't take too long to get that. Eliminating 7 AI Leaders should suffice with a bit of Settler spamming plus Culture spamming.

The Deity Huge Epic record of 1752 AD is unlikely to remain intact. My apologies to WastinTime in advance. ;)

Sun Tzu Wu

(Major hint) Snaky Continents
- 17 opponents to reduce domination percentage to 51
- Try to get a PH start (1 move is OK) and a 3H adjacent tile and warrior rush 2-3 civs. - With this jump start focus goes to Astronomy and Rifling.
- East Indiaman and Rifleman allows direct attacks from the sea. Use some Cavalery to get the inland cities
- Try to focus only on military production (which I never can)
- have patience
- (complete kill) before attacking check how much cities the opponent has. After capturing the last city and you don't see the last unit(s) immediately make peace. As soon as the remaining units appear somewhere send a "killer" towards it. Repeat if necessary.

- have patience

That's where I'm going to have trouble with this one. When (not if) my computer crashes on settler level, I'm done with this one.

OK... I managed this one just fine. Probably because I was able to eliminate a lot of AI very early and was able to win before 1000AD, so I avoided the computer graphics overload crash.

Strategy: I followed some advices here... no need to re-invent the wheel.

I used max opponents to reduce dom limit and increase number of cities I could take, added all easy pushover civs (Indians, Egyptians, Americans, etc) to the required ones. I used snaky continents, with high seas, to reduce the amount of land area to a minimum (and make those pushovers even closer). I did not build any settlers early; my initial cities I was able to take from AI. In the the AD years I was just whipping settlers to fill out land. This delay in settling my continent worked well because the barbs tend to settle the huge tracts of fogged land on my starting continent, which are just free settlers, basically, since they defend with a single warrior.

I did an Oracle CS sling and stayed in Bureacracy until I got to Liberalism and then went into Free Speech to expand borders fastest. HR for happy, and slavery for production (I slaved out settlers mostly near the end, could have won faster if I slaved more units, probably).

I had eliminated all AI on my very large starting continent (5 or 6 AI) taking average 2 cities each, though admittedly the first two were eliminated by walking my starting warrior into undefended capitols. Amsterdam was coastal and built the Great Lighthouse, which is probably the most important wonder to get, but I also got Colossus which was kind of so-so since I didn't built workboats at all, except for maybe an initial explorer. I whipped courthouses in all the captured cities until about 1AD when it was just sprint to finish.

I was going to get Astro for liberalism, but by then my research rate was so high I just teched Astro in 3 turns, and ended up taking Rifling from Liberalism. I turned off research after Mil Trad for cavalry... but honestly that was a gigantic waste! Engineering (for movement, though trebs helped not lose many units --since I wasn't making lots, that was important) when taking cities, was a key tech. Optics (circumnav and needed for astro)... though why I built so many (4) caravels I can't justify... the East Indiaman was the workhorse here, and was available very quickly after Optics. Astro was critical (high seas, remember?). I probably would have won quicker going for Guilds quicker (just did it on way to Repr Parts)... Knights is what you should really use for this one, cavs are overkill and more expensive. Only AI units ever met were warriors, archers, axemen, warchariots, and swords. Knights were more than enough. But of course, its nice being able to take an entire continent with only the four units you can fit on a single East Indiaman.

At the end, it was a toss-up if I was gaining teritory faster by conquest or by settling the unsettled regions. Its weird to me to choose city placement based solely on how many land tiles in the BFC rather than the terrain (lots of iceball cities at the end). Planted cities could pop borders to 21 tiles in 1-2 turns with 50% culture on slider and Free Speech. No need for castes. Never had financial difficulties... too lean on units I guess (and whipping courthouses in the first half of the game, and the GLH).

One mistake I made was assuming the Great Wall (once captured) would allow me to leave all my cities empty... nope, only the ones on the same continent as the Great Wall.:blush: Funny... I left a lot of cities undefended next to barbs that never went after the city, which is why I thought the GW protected me... nope, just lame barbs. Had to recapture a couple from barbs due to that... but warriors die easy. The "No city razing" option was therefore a blessing for this game, not a curse.

My off-continent conquests were done initially with Macemen, who are twice as slow as knights, I might mention. Fortunately, the AI build in clusters, so four mace can take a whole civ. I stopped bothering to wipe out the last units for "complete kills" since leaving the civs alive didn't affect anything in new captured cities that I could notice.

Paper was useful for getting maps to find the enemy.

Education was less useful... I built one university in capitol... that's it. I used my only GSci for a golden age (with a GPro) that was powered by Mausoleam of M... but I ended with 4 turns left in golden age so that MofM was a waste, too. I used my first GP (a prophet) to make the confu shrine... but never spread confu so it would likely have been better to settle him, at least short term. I guess I was hoping to spread confu that way, and thus gain some happy, so my units could do something more useful.

I think golden ages are best use of GP when you have so many cities, but I only had 2 golden ages. Didn't get many GP. Never finished the Taj.

Not much more to say... I don't play settler much, so its hard to judge where I could streamline more. I think a BC win is possible under proper conditions played well.

Patience is very important... it is easy for someone like me who likes to play fast to miss the best whip opportunities and build stuff in cities that are too far away from the action to be quickly useful. I'm happy to have beaten the best showing posted thus far, but still don't think I played my map as well as I could have. I mean... how was I to know that the last city I would capture only required one knight to defeat a lone warrior?

Lots of workers is good... improve best tiles and chop. Can never have too many... and fortunately they are easily captured.

I can't really say that victory was a challenge, but getting the logistics right surely is. So have fun! (And be patient!).

Edit to add: By the way, this is the FIRST Huge map game I have ever completed!

OK... I managed this one just fine. Probably because I was able to eliminate a lot of AI very early and was able to win before 1000AD, so I avoided the computer graphics overload crash.
...


Congratulations, kcd_swede, on your #1 position in the rankings:

Turn 221 AD 715 Win

I must agree that "No City Razing" is usually not an issue for Domination Victories.

Also, the key to an early Domination Victory is the Settler Rush at the End of the Game.

Thanks for the great writeup!

Sun Tzu Wu

Where is 715AD victory? I can't see it in the list...

Where is 715AD victory? I can't see it in the list...

Very odd... it was on the list earlier, and now it doesn't show anymore. :confused:

In my list of submitted games it shows "Not Checked" status now. I'm pretty sure it showed "Accepted" before.

Maybe there was a protest? Did I get one of the settings wrong? My oh my I'm getting nervous now! I'm suspecting that there was some kind of back-up of the server and some games need to be rechecked, or something like that.

Where is 715AD victory? I can't see it in the list...


kcd_swede's Turn 221 AD 715 Victory was definitely listed about 15 hours ago when I posted my congratulatory message on his move into the #1 position.

Maybe a HOF Staff person could explain what has happened?

Sun Tzu Wu

It comes back. :)

Just posted a 415AD win. Settler, of course.

Just posted a 415AD win. Settler, of course.


The top Game keeps getting better. :eek:

Congratulations, Jack LEagle!

Sun Tzu Wu

Just posted a 415AD win. Settler, of course.

Congrats! I didn't expect my game to stay at the top very long, since I know I could have done a lot of things better in that 715AD game. And if I think I could do better, I KNOW there are a lot of you who could do better.

What settings did you use? Did you get really big continents with multiple AI neighbors like I did? If so, do you think that this was a big factor in finishing quickly?

Skål!
:beer:

Snaky continents, High ocean, max number of AI.

This turns the first part of the game into a pangea type domination, took the first 2 civs with warriors vs. nothing, and then 3 more later on the same first continent with 2-3 maces. then it was a matter of sending out the East Indiamen (love those boats!) and taking out a few more AI's. The attack force was in total probably 6-8 maces, 4-5 trebs, and maybe 4 knights. Lots of EI's and settlers going to bad places, of course.

Snaky Continents - low sea - max AI

I took 3 civs with Warriors, the next ones with Axes and then Maces and then I noticed that I am located on one big snaky continent, I immediately switched to "settle the continent" mode and tried to have a balance between building setters and workers(roads) and knights to conquer the AI's/barbs. Finish date is 565AD.

Seems that low sea makes the big difference.

WARNING: Long Post.

I had my first Conquest Victory for another game in this Challenge Series and now this is both my first Domination Victory and the first time I've come anywhere close to finishing anything on Epic Huge. I think this challenge was supposed to allow people to use whichever difficulty level they played at, and I'm not sure how the normalization works but most of the top scores are on Settler and I'm sure all of us are not really Settler level players. What is the normalization method? I would rather play the games above Settler level, but my goal is to turn in the top scores and it seems that the best scores are almost always going to be on Settler.

I will possibly try this one on a harder difficulty but this game took me a long time. If I have time, I will try on Emperor. This really is not my usual style of play though, so I'm learned a lot even on Settler. And of course mastering Settler level is different than mastering other levels and so it does require an adaptive approach. Perhaps each difficulty should be ranked separately to encourage more people to play on levels other than Settler?

Thankfully my game was accepted. Here's some descriptions of what happened in my game and some thoughts about what could be improved.

I finished 580 AD playing on Settler difficulty. I stopped doing micro sometime around when I had 30 cities. It was just too much of a pain to go through each city. Every 5 turns or so I'd cycle through the cities and see if anything needed to be whipped. After all important resources had been hooked up and I had done all of the modifications for the big cities, I put Workers on Automate on my home islands.

What do people think is better for this one with High Sea Level versus Low Sea Level? The top two finishers so far used opposite sea levels, High and Low. Snaky Continents is a pretty obvious choice for this one. With Low Sea Levels you have to own more land tiles to get 51%, but you are also more likely to get larger continents with more civs you can take out prior to Astro.

I was trying to place cities so they'd cover the whole landmass after 1 border pop, but I could have used less cities because between Caste Artists, Free Speech, and the :culture:-slider even new cities can get to 2nd border pop very quickly. I finished the game with 65 cities (4 of which were still in revolt). Several cities were redundant by the end of the game, but on Settler difficulty 65 cities is affordable without courthouses (only built 1 on accident).

Population is never a problem, as I had the population limit from 2000 BC onwards. At the end I had 79% population when I only needed something like 29%. Focus on getting land as soon as possible.

I built 38 Knights. Only 7 of them ever died, so that was obviously overkill. I built 10 Maces. I needed 1 to take out the last person on my landmass (there were 5 opponents total on my landmass), but I didn't need 10. I just kept building them. They are too slow to be useful in the field.

This brings me to what I think is the main factor in determining how early the date is on this map at this level: Unit speed across land and speed to Astro.

Require Complete Kills

I found that usually the best strategy was, as someone suggested, to make peace right after you capture their city. Especially early on your island leave their wandering soldiers and scouts alone, but don't give them Open Borders. This will cause them to wander around and do some spawnbusting for you, making the other islands spawn more barbarians to slow down opponents. I found that the happiness issue for yearning for the Motherland wasn't too bad on Settler with all the innate :). I did declare on Alex after he was already city-less to capture a Worker. If you leave them alive they will bug you all game for Open Borders or Map Trading, but I just always said no. It's not like they were going to use their Scout and Work Boat to take any of my cities.

Civics

HR was nice to have for my big cities. It's easy to spam Warriors and grow the city to size 16 if it has a lot of food. Seemed like there was a lot of food on the map. Is that just in the Archipelago script or was I just lucky. I had like 5 monster food sites on my starting island, two of which were the capitols of Asoka and Nappy. I used Bureaucracy for a while until I got Nationhood and Free Speech. Nationhood maybe wasn't necessary because as I said I had more than enough troops. Free Speech is nice for the :culture: bonus in newly captured cities. I used Slavery extensively with my food heavy cities racking up 70 turn whip penalties, but with all the :) I had at the time and using HR it didn't matter. I turned to Caste during a golden age and ran Artists in newly captured cities and starved a high pop city to get a Great Artist. I probably should have gotten more of these to bomb my late captured cities to shave off turns. I used Merc when it was available as my domestic trade-routes (with GLH) were plenty and with so many cities it was a lot of specialists. I went to Economics for the free GM late in the game to start a Golden Age, but never felt like I needed the extra trade routes. I was in OR for much of the game, mostly just because I never bothered to switch to Pac or Theo or FR. The only buildings I built most of the time was Granaries and in my late cities not even that, so OR probably wasn't that useful except getting up early granaries and a few libraries in home cities. Maybe Theo + Vassalage would allow you to use even fewer troops.

Early Strategy

One or two capitols will fall while still undefended to initial warrior. I had to use an Axe for the second capitol, but I had Copper in my BFC so it was quick. I used Swords and Galleys to take out two other civs on an an adjoining island. Axes will work if they still have Warriors, otherwise swords are better against Archers. One Galley with Swords was enough to take both of these. When I took out Gilgamesh on a nearby island he had recently got Vultures so the one chariot I built came in very handy here along with the Swords/Axes. I had a little trouble with an Archer-defended hill city of his, but I had just got Maces so one of those did the trick. Then I spammed Settlers and Workers (a bit, but probably could have done a bit more). I got about 45 cities on my home islands to cover all three islands. Like I said above I could have used fewer cities counting on all cities to pop borders twice with culture slider and Free Speech plus Merc Artists. I think early on the key techs to get are Monarchy, Currency, and Iron Working.

Overseas Expansion

I wasted some time getting Settlers on uninhabited islands. I should have just focused on the other large island grouping that featured 7 AIs. Several AIs (Shaka, Roosevelt, Washington, Stalin) were on islands by themselves. I also wasted time killing Stalin and taking his small island. Focus on the big island groups with AIs already having settled many cities. The key techs in the phase are Guilds, Optics, and Astronomy. Drama and later Liberalism (for Free Speech) will get you all of the :culture: you need. Load EIs with Knights and Settlers. You will most likely capture enough Workers to build roads, but if you have an empty spot on board and are taking off you could throw on a Worker. Using the EI's to declare war and attack the cities the same turn amphibiously worked well unless it is an Archer-defended city in which case I landed the troops and attacked and reloaded them. I used a few of my Maces to protect the cities, but most captured cities had no garrison. The Knights running around was enough to recapture any city they managed to walk into. One Mace was enough to guard 2 or three front-line cities and none were needed for back-line cities. AI's mostly huddled their Warriors and Archers in their cities, but I'll give credit to Monte for sending an attack force (consisting of 2 Jaguars, 1 Chariot, and a Warrior) to counter attack my cities after losing his. He fought valiantly. I spent too many turns with Knights moving across Jungles, so I wish I had the Mobility promotion. All coastal cities fell to Knights on EIs. GGs on Knights could get Mobility and the +1 Movement promotion maybe. At this point I'm running as much Culture Slider as I can to jump the new cities out in size. I didn't get to use my GA, but this is the time I could have bombed some late cities.

Wonders and GP
I liked the GLH a lot on this map. With so many coastal cities it made sense. Oracling something big could be useful. Other than that not much is needed. Maybe MoM if you're using stray GP for Golden Ages and maybe Taj after Nationalism. I thought about Hanging Gardens as I had 45 cities at the time, but I already was way over the pop limit and felt it wasn't necessary. Colossus makes sense, but I just totally forgot about it. Working Colossus FIN coast with a lighthouse during a Golden Age could be fun. As you'll be rushing Astro though it will obsolete quickly. GPs I didn't handle very well. I had plenty of high food cities that could have been GPFs, but was in Slavery most of the time instead of Caste. I think if I tried it again I'd focus on generating more Great Artists. Get the free Great Artist from Music and use the free GM from Economics to start a Golden Age.

SilentConfusion,

Thanks for the very nice write up!

A Win at Prince level should be easy enough. Deity level could be grim without a good starting location. Try the difficulty level you are comfortable with, but try 1-2 levels lower if you make no headway. A Large map Domination can be very tedious at one's normal difficulty level.

The Difficulty level turn adjustments are defined in the main HOF Challenge II thread.

Sun Tzu Wu

Silent Confusion wrote: "What do people think is better for this one with High Sea Level versus Low Sea Level? The top two finishers so far used opposite sea levels, High and Low. Snaky Continents is a pretty obvious choice for this one. With Low Sea Levels you have to own more land tiles to get 51%, but you are also more likely to get larger continents with more civs you can take out prior to Astro."

In my 415AD game, I was lucky enough to have a second large continent accessible via galleys, so I got a head start on those civs when they were weaker then they would have been by the time EI's were around.

I went settler cheese again since I couldn't bear the thought of playing a huge map game with any degree of difficulty.

Settings
I tried one game with low seas, but realized that there were just too many tiles (for me) to cover for domination. This was amplified by "no vassal states" setting. I think raging barbs would have helped. In my game, I did not see any barb cities.

Early Game
I was fortunate to land on an island with four other civs. My initial warrior took down three capitols. Shaka had an undefended city at about turn 23. This was my best luck of the game. Unfortunately, my capitol was best suited for production, not commerce. I made an early go at Genghis Khan, who was the last on my island, but fell short. I left him alone for quite a while after that. I focused on building workers, workboats, and settlers and didn't want to waste any more hammers on him.

World Wonders
I didn't build until I got marble and stone. I built the oracle to get Civil Service. I built the Pyramids for early research boost. I ran mostly merchants. I built the GLH fairly late at 625 BC. No other wonders for me.

Tech Goals/Tech Path
This is the order of all of my tech discoveries with the motivation behind their research. Some may seem out of place due to trades, e.g. archery.
Early slavery/stronger units: BW-AH
No specific goal: Myst
GS/Academy: Writing
Elephants nearby: hunting
Cottages: pottery
CS Slingshot: poly-PH-Masonry-mono-CoL-Math=>Oracle CS
Galleys: Sailing
Happiness/Commerce: Calender
+1 Circumnavigation Bonus: Metal Cast-Alpha-Machinery-IW-Compass-Optics-
East Indiamen: (Meditation-archery)-astronomy
Maps: Currency-Paper
5 XP Knights: HBR-monarchy-feudalism-guilds-theology-
Cash for Rush buying knights: banking-printing press
Free GA: aesth-drama-music-\
0% research begins
+1 Road movement: Lit-const-engineering
Extra culture in religion founding cities: phil-divine right-
Liberalism path: Edu (not completed)

Overall Strategy/Civics

Universal Suffrage
I tried to grab early cities, rex, build a production base. My major strategy was to get pyramids and use Universal suffrage to buy knights, EI, and settlers. This allowed me to rush units without slavery's population (and happiness) penalty. It was helpful building a spearman or crossbowman in potentially vulnerable new cities. It could also buy settlers from new cities with a population of 1.

Bureaucracy
My capitol had an academy, library and observatory for my research. I also built a bank, market and grocer for cash. This was a production capitol, but I did build two cottages to go along with a gold mine for commerce.

Caste System
Artist specialist for new cities. +1 Hammers for workshops for production cities.

Mercantilism
The free specialist allowed my to start cities with two Artists for quick border pops. Free speech wasn't needed.

Theology
Confucianism spread passively, so why not! The extra XP helped my knights recover more quickly. I didn't use any seige. Too slow. All assaults were with knights. I built 28 and lost 6. I had one capitol I couldn't take because I lost a few nights on that particular continent.

I finished at 460 AD with 58 cities and 11 settlers searching for a place to settle. I did built quite a few granaries in my early cities. I used my first GS for my academy in capitol. I contemplated moving my capitol to a higher commerce city, but went against it. My next three GP went to two Golden Ages.


P.S. In another game (challenge II-06), I was declared upon by Willem and he had caravels and EI in my city on the turn he declared. Until playing this game and seeing that EI can go into rival territory, I did not understand how this was possible. Note Willems ships in my city on the turn he declared.

http://i942.photobucket.com/albums/ad265/shulec/WillemDeclaresonmewhileinmycity.jpg

I managed a 1360AD effort on Emporer. The chosen settings were 17 civs, low seas, aggressive AI.

Deity was a bit much. There were so many AI building wonders that the human had to bend heaven and earth to get one. Drafting was a nightmare, as all captured cities were useless until 10% culture could be reached. That required chasing fishing boats and scouts to the very ends of the earth, even needing spys to check everywhere to eliminate the civ whose juicy cities you took 100 turns ago.


Emporer was a breath of fresh air :D
Chase fishing boats? Don't need drafting! I whipped my civ more than I've ever whipped before. I whipped them like an insane Montezuma who got a Christmas bonus for how many people died that year. After a while I stopped checking the happy situation, just didn't care anymore.

Oracle netted me early currency. I relentlessly grabbed every bit of gold after that. Begging for gold every 20 turns, trading my map to every single AI constantly, and selling techs for big gold made it work. Whipping crashed my economy after getting liberalism, so I sailed across half the world to take the Great Lighthouse by force. That got me to rifles and cavalry where I stopped teching and started upgrading.

Looking back, I wish marble had been closer. The GP farm came online a bit too late. My great scientists sat around playing checkers. The research slider never justified Oxford or a Capital Academy. First GP was a Great Profit whose shrine spread +2XP far and wide. 129 cities at the end, wars on 6 fronts, I feel for anyone who tries this without a powerhouse computer.

Nicely done, Kaitzilla. I enjoyed the write up, especially your whipping description. :whipped: Overall, very inspiring.:goodjob:

I managed a 1360AD effort on Emporer. The chosen settings were 17 civs, low seas, aggressive AI.


Congratulations!


That required chasing fishing boats and scouts to the very ends of the earth, even needing spys to check everywhere to eliminate the civ whose juicy cities you took 100 turns ago.


Why do you care about killing an AI completely? The Victory Condition is Domination, not Conquest. Just build Theatres and increase the Culture slider slightly to keep Unhappiness under control.


Oracle netted me early currency. I relentlessly grabbed every bit of gold after that. Begging for gold every 20 turns, trading my map to every single AI constantly, and selling techs for big gold made it work. Whipping crashed my economy after getting liberalism, so I sailed across half the world to take the Great Lighthouse by force. That got me to rifles and cavalry where I stopped teching and started upgrading.


Using The Oracle to get Currency is a great idea! My pet peeve is there's often something better than Civil Service to get with The Oracle.

Sun Tzu Wu

Why do you care about killing an AI completely? The Victory Condition is Domination, not Conquest. Just build Theatres and increase the Culture slider slightly to keep Unhappiness under control.


Sun Tzu Wu

The unhappy isn't the main problem, it's the drafting delay that hurts.
Getting to 10% culture the old fashioned way takes a while, and I prefer killing a civ off to instantly get 100%. On deity, using captured cities to supply the expanding territory with drafted rifles is irresistable as it allows an economy to keep motoring along too.

Complete kills seems to throw cold water on draft abuse in a huge map, and without it I felt that a Deity victory would be difficult to do quickly.