Bindy's Road to EQM -- Round 1

playshogi said:

I started this despite being skeptical about using continents for domination. Sure enough, after conquering the continent, I'll be about 4 squares short. I think I'll devote this game to time victory, instead, where I can just about maximize my land score, except I used high seas .

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How do you know how many tiles you are short? Is there something that shows this? or are you just extrapolating from the % given on the victory screen?

If you turn on HOF domination warnings it says things like "Your land area (311) is approaching the domination limit (325)". The numbers are # of tiles.

Mistfit said:

How do you know how many tiles you are short? Is there something that shows this? or are you just extrapolating from the % given on the victory screen?

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There's a tile counter in the HOF mod, you can activate it in the options screen, I believe in the HOF-2 tab, but it could be HOF-1 or HOF-3 too. It's domination limit tiles, and you can set it to a percentage. It will show the number of tiles you have, and the domination limit, when the difference between the domination limit and your current number of tiles is smaller than the given percentage. I've set it on 50% currently, so I know the exact limit way ahead.

(Someone else will be able to explain this properly )
edit: ParadigmShifter did

On topic:

Warlord, Noble (200 BC currently ), Prince and Monarch look beatable. Settler is probably beatable too, since I've gotten a better result on Noble. I might try one of these.

edit 2: Hah, that Monarch game is mine. That was one fun game, I was Tokugawa, and tried to use Samurai to conquer the world. My economy crashed so bad. In the end, I was fighting Cavalry, Cannons and Rifles with Samurai (and some Grenadiers).

I had another attempt at Emperor last night, badly messed up (ran out of cash with only 3 cities settled and not enough troops to kill Cyrus, 50 turns to research writing!).

I checked those figures on the HOF, I think those are for warlords, small maps, domination only. There are small emperor dom wins in vanilla.

EDIT: Nope, they look correct. I must have been hallucinating last time I tried to check them.

EDIT: They look correct-ish

Try this link anyway

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/ind...&incBeta=0&speed=Normal&expansion=0&submit=Go

Here it is, the moment that no one's been waiting for:

My first attempt, which I described earlier, had a lot of AI on my continent, and was quite possibly big enough for domination, but I got bogged down in wars, as I always seem to do, and eventually decided to start over.

I chose Mao, Mansa, Louis, Izzy, Rosie, Bismarck and Gandhi as my opponents. I was trying for a combination of peacenik techers, religious freaks that don't build big militaries, and unpredictables who would keep the techers honest.

The Opening: 4000 B.C. to 275 B.C.


Dominating at "Home": 275 B.C. to 1030 A.D.


Second Contact: 1030 A.D. to 1530 A.D.


The End Game: 1530 A.D. to 1888 A.D.

Looks like I'm going to get my first win on Emperor with these settings, was on a continent with Mehmed, Isabella, Stalin and Roosevelt. 1 more AI location unknown.

Mehmed was the first to go, after his invasion ruined my previous game. Stalin was next, then Isabella. Washington is in the middle of being defeated, a huge stack of cats and praets, he does have longbows now (275AD). But I don't think he has a chance.

It looks like the continent I am on will be big enough for domination as well, I'll have to count some tiles though I think. Worst thing that could happen is I'll be a few tiles short, with no islands reacheable by galley... Fingers crossed.

WAHEY!!!

First ever Emperor win, Augustus Caesar 1060AD!!!!

I am so very happy now

166K odd on the score, my earliest victory too.

WAHEY!!!!!!!

EDIT: Praetorians are overpowered. I'm not complaining though!

I had good success too, capturing my continent in like 600AD, (I'm playing epic speed) but 3 squares short. My time victory is still 210 turns away and Mansa has built Apollo. I wonder if he can launch with only about 5 cities and way behind in tech. He still needs industrialism, for example. I'm already at future tech 7.

My game has been accepted, so I might just be #1 in Emperor, Small, Normal Speed, Domination! (There are no other entries in the table yet!)

EDIT: My continent was clear in 600AD as well!

Here's a link to the game if anyone is interested, if you are looking for any easy practice praet rush on Emperor it is a good map (grassland gems plus seafood and another food resource in the capital, calendar resources too). The continent is about 75% of the total landmass too. Mehmed and Washington are right next door, I left Wash till last though. I razed every Russian city in the 2nd war(was considering keeping Moscow, but he built it 1 tile away from the coast, dork. Izzy built a city there later on - which I razed, the barbs built another city there later too!). Izzy built the Great Library (and the Oracle, didn't do her much good), Washington built the Great Wall, Great Lighthouse, Parthenon, Pyramids, Hanging Gardens - thanks Izzy and George!!. I bet they wished they invested some more hammers in troops now . I didn't build any wonders (some national wonders at the end to boost my score a bit). After the settler spam phase I had to grow population for a while, had a 1 turn strike but no units were disbanded (I did disband alot myself near the end, all my workers were fogbusting). None of the opponents are protective (they were random opponents however), and only Stalin is aggressive (he only built chariots and archers though, ha ha).

My tech path was: bronze working, agriculture, iron working, the wheel, (spam praets), pottery (cottaged the capital early on, even the calendar resources, they give an extra gold), writing, alphabet (traded for: mysticism, sailing, hunting, masonry, animal husbandry), maths, construction (spam catapults, a couple of elephants - withdrawal ellies are good for weakening longbows), calendar, currency, code of laws, civil service, metal casting (last thing I researched before clearing the continent), then cheap techs to increase score. Didn't even get machinery for macemen (praets are just as good as long as you don't face macemen).

I don't know whether the link will work until the game has been published (I think there will be an update on the 11th).

Thanks Bindy for a good setup for a game! I'm going to try a standard sized Pangaea at Epic (Emperor level, random leader) now to see if it really was the praets that let me win.

Link: http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?show=general&dsply=&entryID=10743
Settings: Warlords expansion, Emperor difficulty (although the map is good, it was easier than some of my monarch games), Small Continents map, Normal speed, Augustus Caesar (Cre/Org), Normal barbs.
Opponents: Mehmed, Stalin, Isabella, Washngton, Gandhi (on another continent)
VC: Domination win 1060AD. 166064 points.

I've updated the first post with the HoF links to the games that ParadigmShifter and I submitted. I didn't see any others that met the requirements, (although looking for specific games can be tricky!) but if someone else submitted one, just give me a number and I'll add it to the list.

Round 2 should begin later this week, the first of the BTS games, with a BTS-only leader, BTS-only win condition, and a BTS-only map!

That's great, I see I am second in your link ordering rather than the first

My map was jammy with extra jam, tea and crumpets though I think.

My succesful attempt at this was in warlords on a tiny map at prince level with JC and I managed the fairly slow time of 1640 AD.

got stuck about 30 tiles short on my continent and had to tech astronomy to invade the other
probably my own fault, should have picked a bigger map size

this game won't get published till the next update though

ParadigmShifter said:

That's great, I see I am second in your link ordering rather than the first

My map was jammy with extra jam, tea and crumpets though I think.

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I listed them numerically, I submitted first!

I looked at your map in the submission, it was similar to my first attempt, where I got bogged down in the wars. I don't know how common the 65/35 maps are, but if you get one!

bestje said:

My succesful attempt at this was in warlords on a tiny map at prince level with JC and I managed the fairly slow time of 1640 AD.

got stuck about 30 tiles short on my continent and had to tech astronomy to invade the other
probably my own fault, should have picked a bigger map size

this game won't get published till the next update though

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If I remember, I'll certainly go back and update the first post at the next update. It's looking like Tiny (and maybe even small ) won't be EQM eligible based on the discussions in the forum, but I don't know if it has much effect on the continent makeup; I think you're as likely or unlikely to get a domination-sized starting continent regardless of map size.

What settings are you using to get a 60% continent? I would like to fuss with this a little.

I just used all the default settings (so medium sea level). It was lucky to get 75% of the land on one continent. I added an extra AI (5 opponents instead of minimum 4). Finding 4/5 AIs on my continent made me think it would be a good map...

EDIT: It was small world size however.

hmm.. I may have to try that.. It will be interesting if I can get a 60% continent out of a start. I have been playing Pangaea

if you have an odd number of AI, then you've got a 50% chance of being on the larger continent...also the more AI you have, the lower the % of land required. So I'd go for the maximum number of AI, and hope you get on the larger landmass...you've got a decent chance of getting enough land to get a domination win.

Woohoo, had to get a new keyboard (if you spill beer over it it works OK for a day or so and then some of the keys stop working), so I got BtS while I was at it... installing now, so I'll be ready for round 2. Will drop down to Monarch for a bit till I get my head round the new stuff.

ParadigmShifter said:

Will drop down to Monarch for a bit till I get my head round the new stuff.

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The AI don't get the same bonuses as they did in Warlords and Vanilla, so Emporer is probably a little bit easier than it was. There are a range of really good new leaders as well (my faves being Darius, Hammurabi, Justinian, Pericles and Zara).

The AI will pursue a cultural victory now, which is pretty cool as well.

Ozbenno said:

The AI don't get the same bonuses as they did in Warlords and Vanilla, so Emporer is probably a little bit easier than it was.

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But the AI just plays significantly better than before. So higher levels might be easier or more difficult, not sure, whereas Monarch and lower is definitely more difficult now in my experience.