Gauntlet Suggestions

[vadalaz]

King/Standard is probably the sweet spot then. Quick pace raises the difficulty (likely more so than going Emperor) and OCC games don't take long to play anyway. Emperor is a bit of a trade-off: more competent AIs will give you better deals, trade routes and potentially Research Agreements, but there's going to be more competiton for CSs and wonders, especially in the early game, and killing the culture leaders is a much bigger investment if you choose that route.

Pocatello is fine, though I think I'd prefer a civ with more lingering bonuses.

 

[zenmaster]

King/Standard is probably the sweet spot then. Quick pace raises the difficulty (likely more so than going Emperor) and OCC games don't take long to play anyway. Emperor is a bit of a trade-off: more competent AIs will give you better deals, trade routes and potentially Research Agreements, but there's going to be more competiton for CSs and wonders, especially in the early game, and killing the culture leaders is a much bigger investment if you choose that route.

Pocatello is fine, though I think I'd prefer a civ with more lingering bonuses.

Happy New Year, all!

I agree wholeheartedly that Standard would be the best speed, and I would also not prefer Pocatello (already omnipresent in Gauntlets and the HoF boards in general)

I will suggest Thailand. Those City-State bonuses will help out the OCC throughout the game and will make getting CS allies an even more worthy goal to fit into the strategy.

 

[Lernon]

Agreed. Any civ with CS bonuses should help with OCC.

 

[aafritz17]

This quote is from the current G-Minor gauntlet:

I had a spare GS and no observatory so I'm pretty confident a sub-200 is possible, but at this point I'm gonna give up trying.

This raises the question - should this gauntlet stay open longer? Or maybe the better question is "When should a gauntlet be longer than a month?"

@Denniz often had one of the two run longer than just a month. I don't set the closing date for these (@Noble Zarkon, who does, is also a Civ IV Mod, and administers the Civ IV HOF, so he juggles a lot of his time), but I'm sure we could extend this through the next cycle (meaning, to the NEXT closing date, whatever that turns out to be).

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Happy to extend it if that's what you guys want.

In Civ IV we try to have one of the gauntlets quite short and the other a bit longer, the latter will often run for 2 or even 3 months.

 

[aafritz17]

So here's an idea.

After the last update I had 5 of the 6 Veni Vidi Vici categories completed. So I set out to close the last 26 leaders. Played every one of them on the same Tiny Great Plains setup. After the first few games I was finishing in less than 50 turns and in about an hour. Surprisingly, it turned out to be quite fun. So much, in fact, that (after completing the 26) I stepped up the difficulty and played a just-for-fun round-robin between four leaders that had UUs and/or UAs useful in those first 50 turns.

By "round-robin" I mean play 4 games, one with each leader, and always with the other 3 as the opponents. Anybody know if this approach ever been used in the context of a gauntlet? I think the auto-processed scoring would pick only the top 3 games of all submitted, but I could manually calculate a score for each player submitting all 4 games, and post them as separate competition.

 

[vadalaz]

Regarding what I said in the Minor thread, it's not that there isn't enough time to make more attempts (the game itself actually goes pretty fast once you've got a good start, as you only have one city to manage), it's just me personally not willing to dedicate any more time to rolling a good enough map. It's really tedious, and even when you've got great terrain, the first 30-40 turns might go so badly you have to reroll again.

One month duration for gauntlets has been working just fine, I think. Longer waiting times might lose the players' interest in gauntlets altogether. The HOF tables will always be there anyway, and people often submit games using past gauntlet settings years after those were actually run.

 

[vadalaz]

How about Sweden/Huge/Diplo? The idea is to get 11 DoFs for a 110% boost to GP generation. Diplo VC fits the theme and takes long enough for the bonus to be relevant. Not sure about the difficulty or the map, probably something that doesn't require Astronomy to meet all the civs, but not too easy to just kill all but 2 AIs before Atomic era.

 

[aafritz17]

Sorry, dropped the ball a bit here, but the July gauntlets should now be visible in the HOF. (@Ozbenno will sticky the forum threads when he completes the update.)

Thanks, @vadalaz, for the suggestion. I made it the Major, at Emperor and on a Boreal map. Figured that all the forest and mountains at that difficulty should slow conquest some, plus the map lends a bit of realism for Sweden.

The Minor is America. When I started setting the gauntlets up, I made a spreadsheet of the last 2+ years of gauntlets. At the time there were 5 civs that hadn't been played during that period, so I have been using them in recent games (Maya, Netherlands, and England were 3 of them). America is the last one on that list, so (after playing this) we will have played all 43 civs at least once going back to September 2016. Also, America celebrates Independence Day this month (today, actually), so dominating a Frontier map in July makes sense. (To my fellow countryfolk - Happy 4ourth!)

Everybody, I do welcome your input. Those of you that are working on your VVV - make leader or map suggestions based on what you still need. Totally happy to help with that.

 

[aafritz17]

New August gauntlets are up in the HOF.

 

[aafritz17]

December gauntlets are visible in the HOF Gauntlet tab.

 

[aafritz17]

(As you all probably know) at the bottom of the Advanced Setup page there are 15 check boxes (Policy Saving, Promotion Saving, etc.)

Six of those are hard-coded as "Must not be checked" (Max Turns, Policy Saving, No Barbarians, No Espionage, New Random Seed, and Random Personalities). These are the same six choices that are identified as Illegal in the HOF rules.

The other nine can be set to either "Must not be checked" or to "Required". These are:
Promo Saving, Complete Kills, Disable Start Bias, No Ruins, No Razing, One-City-Challenge, Quick Combat, Quick Movement, and Raging Barbarians.

(Curiously, there is one other menu choice in the setup screen - End Turn Timer. I have never heard of this feature. I started playing Civ in BNW. Maybe this was a Vanilla or G&K feature that was eventually eliminated?)

With regard to allowing "Any" Victory Condition (or "Any" Map Type, or "Advanced" Starting Era), these can be chosen the same way "Any" Leader can be chosen. However, I wonder if there would be any downstream issue that would arise from making these choice, so I've asked for some input from more-experienced staff. "Any Vic" seems like it would work just fine, but an Advanced Start Era would not be an HOF-eligible game. Doesn't seem like that would prevent the Gauntlet itself from working, but the "spirit" of the gauntlets is to be competing while at the same time adding games to your own HOF journey.

Stay tuned...

 

[zenmaster]

Thanks for this!

Interesting that Raging Barbarians can be required

An interesting "true gauntlet" tough gauntlet would maybe involve some or all of raging barbarians, no ruins, OCC etc. ... on an unfriendly map type... Level and map size (and civ(s)) would need thinking about

 

[aafritz17]

March's G-Minor is Napoleon, King of Culture. It's Huge, and on Tiny Islands. (That's meant to discourage Sacred Sites, but it isn't prohibited.) Also, note that there are 8 opponents specifically required, leaving one open to your own choosing. (Zulu, to do your wet work?) The opponents were chosen for their high culture and religion flavors.

It's visible in the HOF Gauntlet tab, but the start date is 3/01/20, so if you crank one out today, wait 'til tomorrow to submit....

Also, remember G-Major CIII continues running through 3/31/20.

 

[vadalaz]

How about an OCC game? Would be quite the contrast to the current TimeVC Minor.

 

[zenmaster]

From previous post, I think an OCC, no ruins, raging barbarians would be a good test for a Science win at a relatively high level. Perhaps on a challenging barb heavy map like Boreal, Tilted Axis, or Frontier. Domination win not a challenge with these settings, Diplomacy win or Culture win would become a domination win for the most part. But Science would give leeway for different approaches with different civs, so an any civ approach would work here as well.

Go with a Science civ? Venice or India or Ethiopia who are helped in a way by small civ? Shoshone get neutered with no ruins... Spain as always a contender for any civ win? Military civ to dominate AIs and extort them? Aztecs for possible floating garden and culture kills? Egypt for wonders?

If you didn't want to go "any civ", I think Egypt (wonder choice), or Sweden (friending/great people options), or Aztecs (sacrifice on a massive scale), or Byzantium (religion choices) make for the most interesting gameplay with this.

Any level from Prince to Immortal would work (Deity would get so few entrants), but King or Emperor probably best. AI civs need to be tough enough to challenge the player and high enough level to be able to be good trade partners/tribute payers. Having a chance at good wonders would be good, so Prince might be cool but AIs may not handle raging barbs well at Prince, while Immortal would make the challenge really stiff. King or Emperor probably sweet spot. Standard size to give the AIs a good run? Small size would make play time shorter though and allow for multiple games in the any civ format, so that may be better. Just floating ideas, but making it tougher on players by specifying the "increase difficulty" checkbox options is the general gist.


Edit: the more I think, the more Boreal should probably be the map choice for these settings. Almost no "great" initial setup possibilities with Boreal, so feeling you "need" to map reroll not an issue Boreal also definitely has the most wicked barbarians for some reason.

Maps like Tilted Axis and Frontier and Highland will have small pockets of awesome terrain, so rerolling a lot of maps would be a thing if you wanted a great game. Might not be ideal. No water maps for sure, as raging barbarians is not a challenge really with water. And everyone has more Pangaea games than any other map type so no need for that.

With an any civ approach on OCC Boreal, I would expect Spain to maybe be the obvious choice as natural wonders largely unaffected. Korea or Aztecs or Siam could still be contenders I think.

So I propose Science Victory, Boreal, King or Emperor, Small map, Standard Speed, OCC, raging barbarians, no ruins. Either "any civ"or 1 of the 4 mentioned above (Aztecs, Egypt, Byzantium, Sweden) Feel free to tweak or make suggestions if this could be improved.

 

[zenmaster]

As I look at the list of little-played civs, I am thinking how I have always wanted to just let the Ottoman naval capturing run wild but have never gotten around to it.

Turkey, Huge, Tiny Islands, Standard speed, maybe Warlord , give or take a level? Maybe even throw in raging barbarians for more ship capture possibilities...

 

[vadalaz]

So I propose Science Victory, Boreal, King or Emperor, Small map, Standard Speed, OCC, raging barbarians, no ruins. Either "any civ"or 1 of the 4 mentioned above (Aztecs, Egypt, Byzantium, Sweden) Feel free to tweak or make suggestions if this could be improved.

Aztecs would be a lot of fun I think. Great UB, and nice synergy between the UA and raging barbs.

In an "any civ" OCC science gauntlet, I think Babylon and Korea would be a step above all over civs.

Turkey, Huge, Tiny Islands, Standard speed, maybe Warlord , give or take a level? Maybe even throw in raging barbarians for more ship capture possibilities...

Unfortunately I think even in that scenario the UA is really inconsequential. It'd probably end up being a standard Galleass rush with a bonus ship here and there.

 

[aafritz17]

Sorry, folks, I am REALLY late getting back to this discussion (meaning, gauntlet discussions in general). You'd think that with all of this time on my hands (I was "essential" for a while, but was furloughed about 10 days ago) that I could keep up, right?

Here's what I propose.

1. I think we should leave the two current gauntlets open until May 15, another couple of weeks. So anybody struggling to get finished with a game, or if someone wants to give them another try, have at it.
2. I will set up just the Major gauntlet to start May 1, then I'll start the Minor on the 15th, when the two current games close. (Correct, there would be 3 games going at once.)
3. Regarding the May 1st Major: Per @zenmaster's suggestion, let's for sure do [ Any Civ, Science, Small, Boreal, and Standard Pace ]. Couple of questions about the other settings:
   1. To me, [ No Ruins, Raging Barbs, and OCC ] are three significant but off-the-beaten-path constraints. I would really like to hear from some of the other players about these. Do we want all three? If not, which would you prefer to include or exclude?
   2. I agree that King or Immortal are the sweet spot, because they balance difficulty with getting SOME assistance from the AI (in both trades and in vermin-control). For those reasons, it would seem that Immortal would be the choice. But I wonder if we have players who don't feel up to Immortal, AND who are finished with the two current games. Would choosing Immortal exclude players?

Those two questions - which constraints and what difficulty level - are pretty inter-related. Some players would not play Immortal with all 3 constraints, but might with just 1 or 2 of them.

Something I THOROUGHLY enjoy is checking the games at the end of a competition and seeing submission from players who aren't necessarily "regulars". When I set up new games, YOU are the players I'm thinking about. One of my goals is to make The Gauntlets as appealing as possible. So, while I welcome any input here, I would really like to hear from that "silent" constituency. C'mon, step outta that comfort zone, let me know what ya think.

 

[Nizef]

1. Regarding the May 1st Major: Per @zenmaster's suggestion, let's for sure do [ Any Civ, Science, Small, Boreal, and Standard Pace ]. Couple of questions about the other settings:
   1. To me, [ No Ruins, Raging Barbs, and OCC ] are three significant but off-the-beaten-path constraints. I would really like to hear from some of the other players about these. Do we want all three? If not, which would you prefer to include or exclude?
   2. I agree that King or Immortal are the sweet spot, because they balance difficulty with getting SOME assistance from the AI (in both trades and in vermin-control). For those reasons, it would seem that Immortal would be the choice. But I wonder if we have players who don't feel up to Immortal, AND who are finished with the two current games. Would choosing Immortal exclude players?

Those two questions - which constraints and what difficulty level - are pretty inter-related. Some players would not play Immortal with all 3 constraints, but might with just 1 or 2 of them.

Something I THOROUGHLY enjoy is checking the games at the end of a competition and seeing submission from players who aren't necessarily "regulars". When I set up new games, YOU are the players I'm thinking about. One of my goals is to make The Gauntlets as appealing as possible. So, while I welcome any input here, I would really like to hear from that "silent" constituency. C'mon, step outta that comfort zone, let me know what ya think.

My two cents on this subject: I think that OCC on King/Emperor can be very fun, as long as you have good production. Immortal seems to be a stretch though. It is such a nice feeling to build all those early wonders that you never build on Deity. I understand that it is a part of the game to play without ruins once in a while. However, as I have stated in the GotM threads, I am no fan of playing without ruins.The RBs is a different issue. On Diety it "does not matter" if they are turned on or not, since the AIs will clear the camps fast. I think the barbs can be a pain (or a blessing) on King/Emperor and thus it has more to do with what kind of game we want the players to have. In short:
OCC +
No ruins -
RBs =