Taking Video/Help Requests (BNW)

Chum · Dec 20, 2015

LordBalkoth said:
Unless you pick up specific policies, you're often looking at something like 500 gold for 40 rep (or 1000 for 80, same ratio), meaning you're paying 12.5 gold per turn for 16 faith per turn. Not much better of a ratio than Shrines/Temples. And that's not counting having to get them to allied status in the first place.

No, it's not. Ultimately you need to pay money or production to ally with the CSes. It could be flat out bribes. It could be weaker trade routes to them with the Freedom tenet. It could be gifting produced/bought units with the Freedom tenet. It could be a massive army with the Autocracy tenet (though that's very difficult to do on Deity). Etc. I'm going to work a 2 food/4 gold tile over a 3 food tile. I'm going to bribe CSes over Research Agreements or rush buying Science buildings as necessary. In short, I'm going to sacrifice at least SOME Science in some manner. Everything is an opportunity cost (I trust you're aware of that concept) -- spending more effort on CSes has to come from SOMETHING else.

I don't have a lot of these issues with CS's some people apparently have. Are you not using spies to coup or something? Anything within 80 influence is a 75%+ chance to coup with a level 3 spy. I pay literally pennies on the dollar for influence, and that influence keeps on racking up.

Here's an example. Lets say Vatican City has a trade route quest, and is allied with someone else with 100 influence. Trade route gives me 40, spy is an 85% chance coup, I've got an ally, probably a lux, and 16 fpt for the cost of a few GPT sending them a trade route instead of a better one. Of course there's an opportunity cost there, but that opportunity cost is not 1k gold every 40 turns like some people would like to claim. It doesn't really matter what VC i'm going for, I have most of the world on my side on almost all games. Spies are a neverending supply of literally free influence. Someone pays money to take Vatican City back from me, I coup them again and I'm EVEN MORE influence up. What else are you doing with spies midgame? Level a spy up to 3 via your own capital or someone elses, then send them off to CS's. It's so trivial as to be borderline broken. Sure, occasionally I have to throw down 1k gold and wait for an election rig in order to get a 200+ CS from Greece. That happens. But it's not anywhere near what the "cost" says it is (talking about gold gifts here, which is what you appear to be talking about).

The beauty of Civ is that many ways work. Lots of ways don't, but you don't need to agree with me on what you consider a diplo/culture game for us both to get good results. I personally find that high science is always the key to victory. Of course I don't work some half assed 3 food tile instead of a pasture. I don't even build 3 food farms after Civil Service (before fertilizer), so that's never even an option for me. But I also make sure all my science specialists are staffed immediately, and after I get Secularism, I staff as many other specialists as practical because that adds up in a hurry.

I guess if you want to take that as not being literal enough in this thread, that's fine. I figure if you've been browsing these boards for years you've got some basic concepts figured out like a science specialist is better than a trading post.

LordBalkoth · Dec 20, 2015

Chum said:
I don't have a lot of these issues with CS's some people apparently have. Are you not using spies to coup or something? Anything within 80 influence is a 75%+ chance to coup with a level 3 spy. I pay literally pennies on the dollar for influence, and that influence keeps on racking up.

No, I'm not. I've almost always used them to defend my own cities, steal techs from other cities, or rig elections. A few desperate coups but rare. Never been keen on the idea of launching a bloody coup if I'm trying to do a peaceful game. And thus never realized that it's apparently so brokenly effective.

Chum said:
What else are you doing with spies midgame?

Rig elections every 15 turns with occasional jaunts as temporary Diplomats (unless playing Autocracy and stealing to keep up in tech).

Chum said:
I figure if you've been browsing these boards for years you've got some basic concepts figured out like a science specialist is better than a trading post.

The default governor doesn't have that figured out, and Beetle was/is using the default governor. Even saw a hilarious example in his game -- governor was working a 1F/3H/2G tile and a 4F tile...when he had the option of working a 3F/1H/2G tile and a 2F/3H tile. Meaning you could literally gain a "free" production without losing anything by simply changing the tiles. Same food, same gold, same science, etc...but one more production.

On another note, part 4 (last video) of the Mongolia game.

beetle · Dec 21, 2015

@Chum, most of your criticisms are fair enough, so I am only quibbling here about a few edge assertions.

I am replaying the Polynesia DCL, micro managing specialist at least. Sure enough, now that I am looking in the right place, I am finding plenty of examples where the default governor is not running science specialist. Which I find quite odd because that was something I periodically checking for -- but obviously not carefully enough!

Chum said:
I don't think the micromanaging cities thing is as small as some people claim it is. That's a ton of lost value. Not to mention just switching your capital from default focus to production focus made it pick up 20 hammers and it barely lost any food at all.

You are talking about the file I uploaded, correct? I am not finding those twenty free hammers.

And yeah, the second part is really your economy. If I don't have a faith pantheon, I sell shrines once I get temples.

The idea of selling off prerequisite buildings is kind of brilliant. Something I will consider! Especially Amphitheaters and Opera houses (neither of which you ever bother with, but I really like Hermitage).

I don't remember the last time I built a grand temple.

This I don't get. I build EITC in the Holy City and my Holy City is the pretty much the only city I use for Trade Routes. Until I build GT there, I often have trouble with it keeping its faith (even if I picked up RT, as is my usual enhancer). GT doubles the internal religious pressure, and the 8 fpt is decent even for the late game.

Stables/forge -- simple hammer investment. How long is it going to take to recoup that hammer investment? If I only have 1 pasture, I'm not building a stable. 1 hammer for 1 gold is a poor trade, I'd rather have the gold. Plus it takes 100 hammers to build, so you don't even get to that 1 hammer for 1 gold trade for 100 turns. Same thing with the forge.

I think you are wrong about this, as even just one plot justifies the buildings. Yields are just that small. But you also think 1gpt > 1hpt so I don't think there is any point debating this one. You are quite correct that I should have made sure the city was working those plots. That is terrible, and I am embarrassed that missed that the default governor was not picking them up.

Armories generally don't get build, except for one or 2 cities I'm planning on churning out units with (high production cities that are ahead on infrastructure and can spare the turns). There's no reason to have them in every expo.

That is interesting, as it seems I am eventually building units everywhere. That might be a late game thing, so I will pay better attention to when I start on Armories. My unit production starts in the cap, but shifts to expos as the cap has too many other things in the queue: NW, guilds, WW. So I will have at least two expos working on units. It is too bad that deleting prerequisite building won't work for Military Academies!

LordBalkoth · Dec 21, 2015

beetle said:
I am replaying the Polynesia DCL, micro managing specialist at least. Sure enough, now that I am looking in the right place, I am finding plenty of examples where the default governor is not running science specialist. Which I find quite odd because that was something I periodically checking for -- but obviously not carefully enough!

Let me put it this way -- if the default governor actually ran science specialists, we'd be a LOT less concerned.

Hell, just managing specialists manually and then just toggling between default/food/production focus (depending on the state of the game) would already be a large improvement.

beetle said:
You are talking about the file I uploaded, correct? I am not finding those twenty free hammers.

You're getting 25 food and 51 hammers on default. Swap to production focus and you get 33 food and 72 hammers. But that's misleading as you stop working even the guild slots and don't work the Academy -- I suspect he's so used to manually assigning specialists that he didn't realize that happened.

That said, you can easily trade 2 food for 3 production on many tiles if desired.

beetle said:
The idea of selling off prerequisite buildings is kind of brilliant. Something I will consider! Especially Amphitheaters and Opera houses (neither of which you ever bother with, but I really like Hermitage).

May want to rethink that -- they're still giving 1 culture per turn for 1 gold per turn (which helps expand borders too), even if they don't have a Great Work. I mean, think of it this way -- if you could send a Cargo Ship to another Civ to earn 30 culture per turn with the trade route, would you do it? Hell yes.

beetle said:
I think you are wrong about this, as even just one plot justifies the buildings. Yields are just that small.

I'm not sure what "yields are just that small" means in this context.

His point, though, is that a Stables costs 100 Hammers. Which means that it takes about 100 turns to pay for itself if it's working one pasture (and ignoring the maintenance cost). And even that's misleading, since you're also delaying the building of other things while building the stables (and thus could be benefiting from those buildings for more turns.

Think of it this way if you'd like -- say you could build "Super Awesome Production Building" in the Ancient Era which cost 3000 hammers and then provided 60 hammers per turn. It pays for itself in 50 turns, right? Awesome to build! Except...you'd spend so long building it that you'd be delaying other stuff like Libraries, Workers, etc. Same principle here but on a smaller scale.

beetle said:
But you also think 1gpt > 1hpt so I don't think there is any point debating this one.

I mean, technically he's correct long term from the viewpoint of a pure Science victory -- once you get a certain amount of minimum production, more production doesn't really help whereas gold can be used for Research Agreements, City State bribes, rush buying Science buildings, etc.

I'm *assuming* that he's not meaning that at the start of the game, more mid-game onward.

beetle said:
That is interesting, as it seems I am eventually building units everywhere. That might be a late game thing, so I will pay better attention to when I start on Armories.

Pretty much. It's not that Barracks/Armories/Military Academies are bad if you're going to build units...it's that if you're not building units they're completely worthless. And worse, actively cost money to maintain. One thing to possibly consider as well is setting up one city to have high production and help feed it after the capital...and use that city for the units/military buildings, so you aren't paying maintenance or trying to squeeze out units in every city. In terms of SV/CV, at least.

Chum · Dec 22, 2015

LordBalkoth said:
No, I'm not. I've almost always used them to defend my own cities, steal techs from other cities, or rig elections. A few desperate coups but rare. Never been keen on the idea of launching a bloody coup if I'm trying to do a peaceful game. And thus never realized that it's apparently so brokenly effective.

Rig elections every 15 turns with occasional jaunts as temporary Diplomats (unless playing Autocracy and stealing to keep up in tech).

I've never had war start because of "you are competing for the favor of the same city states." I coup every city state that's allied with someone else. I start with cultural ones if I have a choice, then move on to religious ones, then maritime, and military/mercantile ones last or whenever I need the happiness (I don't, usually).

Try it. Level up your first spy via your capital or someone else's. Get him to 3, then send him out to coup CS's. Anything within 70-75ish influence with a level 3 spy is a ~80% chance to coup. 2nd spy gets leveled up in the same manner, and then sent out. You will control the entire world's congress in VERY short order. Rigging elections is absolutely worthless compared to couping. The best a rigged election can do for you is a very small influence bump for you in 15 turns. You can coup 4ish CS's in the same time period (1 turn to travel, 3 to establish surveillance).

This is why we disagreed so heavily on the diplo victory. I HAVE the votes to win diplo, I'm completely unconcerned about getting the votes, I'm entirely concerned about getting the vote started in the first place, which is why it's a science victory for me and a gold victory for you.

Wild_Woojsha · Dec 22, 2015

Chum said:
I've never had war start because of "you are competing for the favor of the same city states." I coup every city state that's allied with someone else. I start with cultural ones if I have a choice, then move on to religious ones, then maritime, and military/mercantile ones last or whenever I need the happiness (I don't, usually).

Try it. Level up your first spy via your capital or someone else's. Get him to 3, then send him out to coup CS's. Anything within 70-75ish influence with a level 3 spy is a ~80% chance to coup. 2nd spy gets leveled up in the same manner, and then sent out. You will control the entire world's congress in VERY short order. Rigging elections is absolutely worthless compared to couping. The best a rigged election can do for you is a very small influence bump for you in 15 turns. You can coup 4ish CS's in the same time period (1 turn to travel, 3 to establish surveillance).

This is why we disagreed so heavily on the diplo victory. I HAVE the votes to win diplo, I'm completely unconcerned about getting the votes, I'm entirely concerned about getting the vote started in the first place, which is why it's a science victory for me and a gold victory for you.

I've got to try this more myself, I didn't realize the failure rate dropped so significantly at only 70-75 influence compared to 40-60. The only problem is if they fail, it drops your influence through the floor. Of course, I was dumb and always tried it when the success rate was at 30-40%, with fresh spies that weren't training in my capital first and not even past 60 influence. My next game will be using this a lot, especially if its a nice Austria, England, Greece or Siam game.

chuckh89 · Dec 22, 2015

docbud said:
Holy crap, LordB

I realize I really suck a this game.

I think part of my problem is that other folks say "don't build wonders," but you did successfully.

Other folks say get chariot archers first and then upgrade to Keshiks, which I was trying to do (and you disagreed with).

My first opening in tradition was wonders (which you said was a mistake--although it came in hand).

I think there are so many experts and advice and sometimes they conflict.

It is true that many people have different opinions on the best strategy, and really they both can work, but really which is MOST effective?!

A good way to verify strategies is to use to the HOF/Gauntlet files for verification, for example if you have a particular scenario (Leader, Map, speed, Size,..) look at the winning file on the identical (similar) gauntlet or submitted HOF game, and your probably have the answer to the question. If it was a old Gauntlet game, you can go to the the thread dedicated to that scenario, and odds are pretty good that there was some debate at the time when everyone was battling for the Gold Medal. You can also learn a lot downloading those files and looking at the details Start, 1/3, 2/3, Finish to follow the route to victory.

Many can say their strategy is BEST, but you really can't argue with results,....IMHO the guy with the best finish time or score applied the best strategy,...Right?!

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LordBalkoth · Dec 22, 2015

Chum said:
I've never had war start because of "you are competing for the favor of the same city states."

Er...what? What does this have to do with anything? I'm objecting to the principle of having my agents directly instigate violent and bloody coups in games where I'm trying to play peaceful. "We come in peace...just ignore the face my spies are helping to covertly assassinate your friends." There's a reason your spy *dies* if the coup fails.

Chum said:
This is why we disagreed so heavily on the diplo victory. I HAVE the votes to win diplo, I'm completely unconcerned about getting the votes, I'm entirely concerned about getting the vote started in the first place, which is why it's a science victory for me and a gold victory for you.

Keep in mind I was never disagreeing that science is still very helpful and getting the vote started is good...I was just pointing out that triggering the vote is meaningless if you don't have the votes (and I'll point out that I've never heard anyone talk about coups in this manner before now -- there's a reason people about talk Venice being "EZ MODE DIPLO VICTORY" and it ain't because Venice has amazing science).

chuckh89 said:
Many can say their strategy is BEST, but you really can't argue with results,....IMHO the guy with the best finish time or score applied the best strategy,...Right?!

Well, which are you saying is better? Time or score? If I have a three city self-founded empire and you have a 20 city conquered empire but I finish Science victory 3 turns earlier, who has the better strategy?
Hell, I recently realized how effective Freedom's gifting units thing coupled with Landsknechts is -- spend 130 gold for 20 influence versus like 250 gold for 20 influence (or even less than 20 influence later on). Downside is you obviously can only gift every 3 turns or need to manually move the units to the CS's territory...but drastically more efficient, gold-wise.

Chum · Dec 22, 2015

Wild_Woojsha said:
I've got to try this more myself, I didn't realize the failure rate dropped so significantly at only 70-75 influence compared to 40-60. The only problem is if they fail, it drops your influence through the floor. Of course, I was dumb and always tried it when the success rate was at 30-40%, with fresh spies that weren't training in my capital first and not even past 60 influence. My next game will be using this a lot, especially if its a nice Austria, England, Greece or Siam game.

Level 3 is the key. It's very important to have then maxed out. A 40 influence coup with a level 1 spy is almost impossible, but it's 85% with a level 3, all the way up to 65ish influence.

I've couped city states OUT of war with me before. That's right, my locked -60 influence plus the 61+ it requires for an ally in order to be at war with me. It's rare I try something that risky, but if you're not paying attention or get unlucky and they flip a military CS on your borders and you're not prepared to absorb that amount of pillaging, sometimes you don't have a better choice.

A lot of people on this board get so bent out of shape about people stealing tech from them, and they ask civs to stop stealing and get mad when they don't. DON'T EVER TELL ANYONE TO STOP STEALING FROM YOU. For starters, the most efficient way to level up your spies is in your own capital. If you know someone is stealing from you (preferably multiple someones), you'll be able to level your spies far quicker than spending 30+ turns stealing from a civ who's very close to you in tech (surely you're not letting someone run away with the game, are you?) and then rolling the dice on whether you get killed by a counterspy or not. There's no way your spies can die in your own cities. Second of all, forgiving them for spying after you've killed one of their agents is a positive diplo boost, and one of the only ways you can get a green modifier with someone who currently hates you. Never tell anyone to stop spying on you, and always forgive them, and you get some great passive benefits that require no action on your part and improve your diplomacy greatly.

For the same reason, I NEVER build the Constabulary and Police stations. I WANT spies stealing from me as quickly as possible. Why? More chances to level up my spies! Only when you're in a game where your spies are either getting killed in coup attempts (it does happen from time to time - I've lost 3 85% chance coups on the same turn before, and that hurts), or your spy levels are stagnating due to the AI all stealing from civs other than you do you want to build the NIA. That will at least get you level 2 spies, which are better than nothing. But generally after I build that, I sell the Constabularies and Police Stations the next turn. I don't want anything slowing down enemy spies, because that negatively impacts my game.

"But Chum, why do you want to give the AI's free techs as fast as possible?"

Who cares? You're ahead of them if they're stealing from you. I don't care if they steal Philosophy on turn 200. Good luck catching up with that scenario. You never need to worry about civs that are behind you, because it's not like they are working all their specialist slots, bought all their research labs and have 8 GS's sitting around waiting to bulb after Rocketry, do they? No. They don't. So since the AI will never do that, anyone who's behind you in tech is your friend, not your enemy. Focus your efforts on defeating your enemies, not your friends.

Chum · Dec 22, 2015

LordBalkoth said:
Er...what? What does this have to do with anything? I'm objecting to the principle of having my agents directly instigate violent and bloody coups in games where I'm trying to play peaceful. "We come in peace...just ignore the face my spies are helping to covertly assassinate your friends." There's a reason your spy *dies* if the coup fails.

If you're playing peaceful and not doing CS coups, that's just roleplaying. You're not at war, so that's peaceful. You're imposing restrictions on "Peaceful play" that don't need to be there. If that's what you want to do, that's fine, but to me a 'Peaceful" game is one where I don't go to war with people. That's entirely possible by using CS coups all game.

LordBalkoth · Dec 22, 2015

Chum said:
If you're playing peaceful and not doing CS coups, that's just roleplaying.

Out of curiosity, are you familiar with the phrase "denying" in MOBAs?

chuckh89 · Dec 23, 2015

LordBalkoth said:
Well, which are you saying is better? Time or score?

I just meant,..
If your trying for fastest finish time,...then use that HOF file.

If your going for highest score,...then use that HOF file.

Some people have different definitions for BEST,...Usually mine is fastest finish time (As I would assume is the case for most) unless I am playing a "Score" Gauntlet/HOF[VVV] qualifier. The finish time is the determining factor for 90% of the HOF/Gauntlets games, and I believe most of the Elite players on CivFanFor/HOF competitors would have similar opinions.

LB the title says "Video", did you make any that I missed...???

The "Help" is wonderful, and I encourage everyone to give this Thread a "Excellent" rating,...it is rare that the Civ Community has this kind of resource. I would really LOVE to see a video with play by play,...

For example a Science, (Bulbing) video...and Really you could skip much of the in between Techs, and just recap what happened before selecting the Tech and/or Bulbing to reach your eventual goal.

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Wild_Woojsha · Dec 23, 2015

Chum said:
Level 3 is the key. It's very important to have then maxed out. A 40 influence coup with a level 1 spy is almost impossible, but it's 85% with a level 3, all the way up to 65ish influence.

I've couped city states OUT of war with me before. That's right, my locked -60 influence plus the 61+ it requires for an ally in order to be at war with me. It's rare I try something that risky, but if you're not paying attention or get unlucky and they flip a military CS on your borders and you're not prepared to absorb that amount of pillaging, sometimes you don't have a better choice.

A lot of people on this board get so bent out of shape about people stealing tech from them, and they ask civs to stop stealing and get mad when they don't. DON'T EVER TELL ANYONE TO STOP STEALING FROM YOU. For starters, the most efficient way to level up your spies is in your own capital. If you know someone is stealing from you (preferably multiple someones), you'll be able to level your spies far quicker than spending 30+ turns stealing from a civ who's very close to you in tech (surely you're not letting someone run away with the game, are you?) and then rolling the dice on whether you get killed by a counterspy or not. There's no way your spies can die in your own cities. Second of all, forgiving them for spying after you've killed one of their agents is a positive diplo boost, and one of the only ways you can get a green modifier with someone who currently hates you. Never tell anyone to stop spying on you, and always forgive them, and you get some great passive benefits that require no action on your part and improve your diplomacy greatly.

For the same reason, I NEVER build the Constabulary and Police stations. I WANT spies stealing from me as quickly as possible. Why? More chances to level up my spies! Only when you're in a game where your spies are either getting killed in coup attempts (it does happen from time to time - I've lost 3 85% chance coups on the same turn before, and that hurts), or your spy levels are stagnating due to the AI all stealing from civs other than you do you want to build the NIA. That will at least get you level 2 spies, which are better than nothing. But generally after I build that, I sell the Constabularies and Police Stations the next turn. I don't want anything slowing down enemy spies, because that negatively impacts my game.

"But Chum, why do you want to give the AI's free techs as fast as possible?"

Who cares? You're ahead of them if they're stealing from you. I don't care if they steal Philosophy on turn 200. Good luck catching up with that scenario. You never need to worry about civs that are behind you, because it's not like they are working all their specialist slots, bought all their research labs and have 8 GS's sitting around waiting to bulb after Rocketry, do they? No. They don't. So since the AI will never do that, anyone who's behind you in tech is your friend, not your enemy. Focus your efforts on defeating your enemies, not your friends.

I never tell the AI to do anything, or lie to them if I can help it. I don't need red modifiers, and I happily kill their spies all game long and forgive them twice each time. I just don't take the time to manage it, I'm too busy micro-managing my cities and don't pay any attention to my spies at all. That has to change, putting my first spy in the capital and wasting promotions, then cycling the other spies around everywhere else and getting them killed in badly-planned election rigging has to end.

I have never built a constabulary because I rarely have the spare production to build it when I haven't given up mentally on Micro-managing (Usually at about 4:00 AM plus). I reach a point sometimes where I see victory and know its just time to click end-turn until either I reach it or Ghandi nukes me or something. This may be where I should build the constabularies and police stations to grab a quick NIA and coup a few more CS's back to me since I gave up trying to hold them all. I might reach victory faster this way. I'll have to try it.

chuckh89 · Dec 23, 2015

Chum said:
It doesn't really matter what VC i'm going for, I have most of the world on my side on almost all games.

I think you have a very naive approach to what "Victory" is considered to much of the CivCommunity.

I would assume you are playing at the same level, and when you see that trophy appearing, you experience a sense of gratification. Wow, awesome "Victory" another Win...again.

I doubt if your playing on Deity that you have most of the world on your side, especially if you are going for a Domination Victory. Maybe it is time to increase the difficulty if your repeatedly playing the same type of game and constantly finding yourself in a dominating position.

One of the best things about Civ is the multiple ways to play and compete,...Your not always playing at the highest level to suit your experience, and "Victory" isn't necessarily confined to a Gold Trophy spinning on the right border of your monitor.

How quickly did you attain that Victory?

I will tell you, most of the quickest Diplomatic Victories under Deity are achieved by eliminating all but 2 Civilizations and then reaching the Atomic Era (to trigger the World Congress), and then securing the proper amount of votes. Securing CS votes at the end portion of the game is trivial,...it is the speed of conquest and Science that really determines the speed of Victory. It doesn't matter how many times you tell someone "I forgive you" their not going to get them back in your good favor after you have eliminated half the world, unless you have been paying him to be your partner the whole time (Rare). But, really I agree there is nothing to gain by not forgiving.

If your trying to secure a Domination Victory (In the fewest amount of turns), then it matters if a Civ Steals "Gunpowder" or "Rifling" as my army approaches for conquest. So, when you say "You don't care if they steal from me", and "Never, say - "Stop Stealing from me"",...it really depends on the individual's goals.

Micromanaging is also a key to success, and if you can operate as a minimalist (Protecting a city with Ranged attack and a Garrisoned unit) that will leave you more money to purchase Schools, Labs,..and beating down the opponents Science level keeps Barbarians unit level in a position that squanders pillaging attempts,...A random resource pillage with borderline happiness or badly timed Coal pillage can add turns to a successful venture.

I understand your philosophy, and I am sure it works for your repeated methods...But, I doubt if it hold true with a majority of the competitors in the community.

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Chum · Dec 23, 2015

chuckh89 said:
I think you have a very naive approach to what "Victory" is considered to much of the CivCommunity.

You might wanna rethink how much of the community exists within the HOF forum and how much exists outside of it.

I'll give you a hint - the community outside of THIS board absolutely dwarfs the community inside of it, and your HOF community is just a subset of that community.

As it stands, I refuse to get into a discussion about who is more hardcore and l33t due to the differences in how we play games.

chuckh89 · Dec 23, 2015

Chum said:
I'll give you a hint - the community outside of THIS board absolutely dwarfs the community inside of it, and your HOF community is just a subset of that community.

It not about the HOF community,...it's about challenging yourself and improving your skills to the highest level.

So, if you played under the same conditions 3 times in a row,...just by yourself not in any HOF competition. It would just be,...

T204,...Win,..cool
T199,...Win,...cool
T133,...Win,...cool

Or,...on the third would you say,..."Sweet, I kicked butt on that one",..."You know what I did differently,...I am going to remember that for the future, maybe I can improve even further"

You know, I go to work every week, and as long as I fill the necessary requirements I get a paycheck.
But, I am constantly trying to improve my skills to better myself, I am a kind person that is empathetic towards peoples situation, and take pride in my job.

I play a lot of golf, and you know what,....Even on the hardest courses in the area,...I can get the ball in the hole 18 times,...So, your telling me that should be my goal every time I play?
- O.K....Whatever!

Dude, I know it's only Civilization...But it's not "Win,...cool"

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Wild_Woojsha · Dec 23, 2015

That's exactly why the Community Deity Game series was started, to expand and challenge any and all bad habits and cheesy tactics developed when mastering and then dominating at this game. They have achievements and the maps have been cooked in a way that makes achieving those difficult yet still possible.

Game 1 - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=557617
Game 2 - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=558560
Game 3 - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=559515
Game 4 - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=560239
Game 5 - Coming January 1st or sometime after

I tried doing HOF myself, but I got tired of re-rolling crappy map after crappy map trying to find one that had a solid start. I now only play pre-built maps so I can improve every last aspect of my game until I know every trick there is and compare how I do to everyone else easily. I got to education turn 140 because I suck, Player A got there on turn 100, what did he do that I screwed up? It's so much easier for me to do this on a pre-built map with an active thread. Between this and the TSG's, I've got more CIV than I know what to do with and it has taken me from barely winning on prince to complete domination on emperor or below. I still have a lot of work to do to make the final jumps, but for those already dominating most Deity games, the CDG series and any others that follow like it will give them the challenge they are missing without joining a NQ group on Steam.

BTW, anyone have any good communities they recommend to follow other than this one?

Sclb · Dec 23, 2015

There's a big difference between HoF and playing a pre-built map. HoF is more about rolling maps and trying to optimize map rng and it also gives civs such as Spain an extra advantage because of dependence on map. I would say that pre-built map offers a more fair competition due to everyone starting on same start, except there is no way to differentiate between who has map knowledge or not. Therefore the competition becomes assuming you can reload/play the map as many times as you can, what is the quickest victory? I believe only deity offers a remote challenge, everything below that is just too easy for this type. Some of the achievements for CDG series listed above are next to impossible without knowledge of map, and some are difficult even with knowledge due to just how deity AI works. Instead of refusing others advice about tricks, we should all share and learn from each other.

LordBalkoth · Dec 26, 2015

Videos about the default governor and Beetle's Ethiopian game are up.

Chum, did you miss my earlier question about "denying" or simply ignoring it?

chuckh89 said:
LB the title says "Video", did you make any that I missed...???

Not sure, but I edited the first post to include the videos post so far (three "series" at the moment, busy processing/uploading a peaceful OOC Deity French Cultural Victory).

LordBalkoth · Dec 27, 2015

Uploaded DCL #37 French OOC Peaceful Cultural Victory.

Taking Video/Help Requests (BNW)

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