Challenge-IV-04

While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we are running a series of ten 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.


Settings:

• Victory Condition: Conquest (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Emperor
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Small
• Map Type: Ice Age
• Speed: Marathon
• Required: Always War, No Tribal Villages
• Must Not Be Checked: One City Challenge
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.003
• Date: 6th February to 6th June 2011

Must not play as Inca.

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

So I am officially on the board!

Trial Run
I played a trial run with this game. I made an Immortal rush on the only civ on my continent. I then went wonder crazy to help economy/teching. I built the GLH, Pyramids, Great Library, Parthenon, and Taj Mahal. I founded Taoism, which pretty much spread itself. I took Astronomy with Liberalism. At about that time, caravels from the other continent started showing up. I started building Galleons. I researched up to Cuirassiers. And started to crank out a military. Unfortunately, by the time I had a sizable stack, AI stacks started showing up by boat.

Self research took forever. I was too slow making an attack force. The AI was teching too fast for me so I abandoned this attempt.

Submitted Game
I decided to go with an early Immortal rush. I pretty much just kept on cranking out Immortals. Note that the game clock is inaccurate. This took me about four hours.



Edit: I chose to play with Isabella, Justinian, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. None of them start with Mining. Each of them starts with Fishing or Mysticism. I think these starting tech will slow their research for Bronze Working. None of them are creative. No early UU to deal with.

I sampled the maps several times and about 50% were pangaea-like choosing wide continents. I use future starts to check land formation trends. I chose high seas for a smaller land mass.


I tried to go on the offensive very quickly, so I didn't try the Great Wall and Raging Barb option. My trial game taught me make sure I had all civs on my continent. Trying to kill all the AI asap is the best way to go. I didn't try Praetorians or any other UU because they take a while to get started.

When I have played with Immortals in the past, I have felt that I got better combat results than projected by combat odds. This game, I lost a lot of high combat odds battles.

Did you choose opponents? Which ones?

I find it interesting that you did not have to kill a single spearman, just archers. I like Egypt because you can get WC's out quicker than Immortals, usually... but if all you ever face is archers, Immortals are surely better.

Good game.

I have an unfinished attempt at these settings currently and it's about 900 BC with one AI gone. My landmass had all the AIs on it, but they started settling off continent, so they're all weak and will eventually fall, but I have to crank out the galleys while finishing them up.

I'm sure I'll try again and try to improve my effort and go the astro route, as you suggested. My tech is hosed, as I hadn't planned on needing too much beyond worker improvement and basic military techs. I came out of the gate just razing away, but I might also consider keeping a good nearby city or two as well? I built three, but at current, the untouched AIs have 6-7 each. If I can get them before they settle up so much, obviously that would be better.

It's been fun so far - certainly different - but there are plenty of other things to try yet. I hadn't counted on how slow self-tech would be at this difficulty.

kcd_swede said:

Did you choose opponents? Which ones?

Click to expand...

I chose to play with Isabella, Justinian, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. None of them start with Mining. Each of them starts with Fishing or Mysticism. I think these starting tech will slow their research for Bronze Working. None of them are creative. No early UU to deal with.

I sampled the maps several times and about 50% were pangaea-like choosing wide continents. I use future starts to check land formation trends. I chose high seas for a smaller land mass.

kcd_swede said:

I like Egypt because you can get WC's out quicker than Immortals, usually...

Click to expand...

I assume you are you saying this because Egypt starts with the wheel?

shulec said:

I chose to play with Isabella, Justinian, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. None of them start with Mining. Each of them starts with Fishing or Mysticism. I think these starting tech will slow their research for Bronze Working. None of them are creative. No early UU to deal with.

I sampled the maps several times and about 50% were pangaea-like choosing wide continents. I use future starts to check land formation trends. I chose high seas for a smaller land mass.



I assume you are you saying this because Egypt starts with the wheel?

Click to expand...

Thanks... I've never even considered picking leaders based on their starting techs before, but now you say it of course it makes a lot of sense!

Yes, I like Egypt because it starts with the wheel. I can go straight for AH and abort the game if there are no horses. But if I really took the time to examine my results, perhaps I'd see that BW is needed to chop/whip a large number of units in a short time anyhow, so maybe I'm pennywise and pound foolish.

shulec said:

I chose to play with Isabella, Justinian, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. None of them start with Mining. Each of them starts with Fishing or Mysticism. I think these starting tech will slow their research for Bronze Working. None of them are creative. No early UU to deal with.

I sampled the maps several times and about 50% were pangaea-like choosing wide continents. I use future starts to check land formation trends. I chose high seas for a smaller land mass.

Click to expand...

The Ice Age map does definitely offer a high percentage of single land mass generations.

I would have chosen Low Sea Level to increase the number of maps with a single land mass, but obviously High Sea Level worked well for you, shulec.

Great strategic opponent choices!

Sun Tzu Wu

2030BC using Rameses. Very easy and could be improved quite a bit.

high seas. cold. wide landmass. no vassals (not necessary). NRE. Used mapfinder to get a 1 gem start. 4 opponents (Isa/Lincoln/Mehmed/Brennus). Normal barbs...need them for additional promos to your warriors trying to get woods2 (also attack AI scouts where 75% odds or better).

It's easy to tell if you have a one continent game because you meet the neighbors pretty quick. I like the 2 spiritual civs because they go for religions early rather than mining-BW. The extra culture defense (40% versus 20%) doesn't make a huge difference against war chariots and they never get to slavery to whip an extra archer when you move in your army to attack. No creative civs. No civs starting with mining as shulec pointed out. No early UU's. Mehmed/Brennus only had one city when I took them out. Isa/Lincoln were far east so they had 2 cities each.

The capital was food poor but hammer strong. Horses,cow,gems,banana in the BFC with lots of forest. Stone in the BFC too, but I didn't bother to do anything with it...probably should have farmed it.

tech path:
mining (gems)->AH->BW->myst->poly->priest->writing->masonary->started mono

Nothing past BW matters. Quickest to mining-AH-BW with horses in the BFC wins basically.

Room for improvement:
1) start location - closer to the middle. I was on the far west edge. Closer to the middle makes for easier worker stealing and less travel time. Worker stealing is huge, of course. It slows the AI and speeds up your chopping out the first war chariots or building roads to the AI if you haven't researched BW yet.
2) corn(1-2) + 2 gems start would be faster and rely more on chops/whips to get those first WC out faster. Obviously still need horses in the BFC.

I may play it again with a better mapfinder start using Hatty for creative rather than useless Industrious trait. 2030BC will be easy to beat.

cas

cas said:

2030BC using Rameses. Very easy and could be improved quite a bit.

Click to expand...

Not sure I believe the "Very easy" part, unless its due to your brilliant planning!

Great game and strategic analysis, cas!

Sun Tzu Wu

Agree, that won't be an easy date to beat, well done

I do think that Hatty will be the best leader (better than Darius, Cyrus and Ramesses) for this for earlier UU (as you only need one tech) and Spiritual to move to slavery. With good planning you should have a worker and barracks built as you connect up your horses.

Could be wrong about Immortals though

Ozbenno said:

Agree, that won't be an easy date to beat, well done

I do think that Hatty will be the best leader (better than Darius, Cyrus and Ramesses) for this for earlier UU (as you only need one tech) and Spiritual to move to slavery. With good planning you should have a worker and barracks built as you connect up your horses.

Could be wrong about Immortals though

Click to expand...

Yes, originally I thought I would build SHenge, so chose Ram...but Hatty is better.

Barracks is a waste, IMHO. 150hammers versus 60/ea for WC. I would rather have 2.5 WC faster with no promos. They still do pretty good against archers even with no promos.

I understand you are talking about building barracks before horse is connected, but I don't think the timing will work out correct. I'd rather build 2-3 warriors and send them off to harrass the AI. By that time, horses were hooked up and there was no time for barracks.

This assumes you have gems/gold in the BFC and steal a 2nd worker...which should be your initial goal.

cas

I managed a 2240BC date, with Hatty and opponents from above. Thanks guys. It was my 30-40th attempt, its frustrating when you don't meet everyone but you have horses, and vice-versa.

Started with 1 corn, 1 cow and lots of forests. Only whipped once, most Chariots came from chops.

Researched AH->Mining->BW and nothing else.

Built worker, warrior, barracks, and lots of WC's. Biggest factor for me was stealing 2 workers, very handy. So, I had 3 workers chopping chariots.

neilmeister said:

I managed a 2240BC date, with Hatty and opponents from above. Thanks guys. It was my 30-40th attempt, its frustrating when you don't meet everyone but you have horses, and vice-versa.

Started with 1 corn, 1 cow and lots of forests. Only whipped once, most Chariots came from chops.

Researched AH->Mining->BW and nothing else.

Built worker, warrior, barracks, and lots of WC's. Biggest factor for me was stealing 2 workers, very handy. So, I had 3 workers chopping chariots.

Click to expand...

Excellent date neilmeister! I continue to be impressed by the level of play in this Challenge.

Really great, considering no Gems/Gold in the start.

Sun Tzu Wu

neilmeister said:

I managed a 2240BC date, with Hatty and opponents from above. Thanks guys. It was my 30-40th attempt, its frustrating when you don't meet everyone but you have horses, and vice-versa.

Click to expand...

Same for me, but 2020bc due to having to found a second city to get horses. Had corn+sheep+gold and a whole lot of forests in my capitol.

Got a woodsman3 on my first warrior by kiling scouts. This let me steal 3 workers. I built worker-worker-barracks-settler-wcx1000. Not only did I have to settle a second city, I stupidly put it 2 tiles from the horse so it could contribute to the effort, but that meant waiting extra turns to get the horses.

All those workers meant 1wc every 2 turns from each city, and also meant I had roads to the farthest opponent. However, my decent finish (I was aiming for anything faster than 2000bc, so I'm pleased) is due mostly to geography. You can't ask for a better placement of the civs than I got... all very close. OK, I could ask for more 2-move terrain between the #3 and #4 civs... but you can't expect to get everything, can you.

I had to take 7 cities... but 3 were still size 1 with no culutre, and on my path to the capitols, so it probably speeded things up by dividing the enemy forces and putting them in crappy culture defense cities. Oddly, I didn't have to attack a single city on a hill, all on flat. I did face 1 spear in the final capitol, before I pillaged the copper. It attacked instead of taking the city defense bonus, and was easily killed next turn.

neilmeister said:

I managed a 2240BC date, with Hatty and opponents from above. Thanks guys. It was my 30-40th attempt, its frustrating when you don't meet everyone but you have horses, and vice-versa.

Started with 1 corn, 1 cow and lots of forests. Only whipped once, most Chariots came from chops.

Researched AH->Mining->BW and nothing else.

Built worker, warrior, barracks, and lots of WC's. Biggest factor for me was stealing 2 workers, very handy. So, I had 3 workers chopping chariots.

Click to expand...

You forgot to mention that you took down a total of five cities, all on hills! Nice game.

It took many tries to get both horses and everyone on one land mass but I finished in 1840 BC with Hatty and the suggested opponents. I was in the middle of the continent and probably would have done better had I sent stacks in each direction but I'll take this one. Thanks for the suggested strategy guys.