The All Leaders Challenge Game Bullpen

When discussing a leader in pre-game thread it may certainly be worth discussing whether a particular map script will play to their strengths.

On the other hand a theme of ALC series has been standardised games for purpose of comparision which might be lost if you start swapping maps around.

A succession game is a different format to a one person public game and while I think Sisiutil should give it a go I also think the two game types would not be directly comparable.

Sisiutil would you play OCC in your ALC?

feldmarshall said:

Sisiutil would you play OCC in your ALC?

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hmmm. i bet an OCC would be real enlightening to see, for those who haven't tried it. but i really can't picture one in the ALC format, even if S is used to them.

OCC plays really really fast. i mean i can easily spend 20+ hours on one normal game at times (i alt-tab a lot tho), but i think none of my OCC games has ever lasted more than 3 hours. even the most nerve-wracking "OMG let's have a debate with myself over every little tiny thing" games at deity. yes i've played several deity OCC games to the bitter end. not surprisingly, little miss permanewb hasn't won one yet *giggle*.

so i can't really imagine splitting it up into rounds to discuss. i checked the Kublai save from the turn after the win, it has a played time of just over 11 hours, and was his earliest win as far as game years (i don't know whether it was quickest as far as hours of his life he spent on it). some of that is likely time spent taking screenshots and making notes for his faithful readers, but i bet it took longer than 3 hours to play. uhoh, maybe if i stress that too much S will think "oh yay, a short game, i should jump at this chance!"

so much of what we have such fun debating wouldn't be an issue at all and the micro-managing is a breeze. there'd be no dot maps, no reason to post the domestic advisor, not even worker actions to nag him about (i'd miss that part). the absolute key factor is regenerating the map until you get a start that looks like it'll work. that would get quite boring if we voted on them in a thread.

a demonstration OCC game really would be educational for those that haven't tried it. at least for me, i could read the guides all day long but they didn't sink in til i tried one myself. turned out i really like them. but it might be boring as sin for some/most compared to the usual ALC games, in that there just won't be nearly as much to discuss and debate.

so, lalala, as usual i type too much but what i'm trying to say is that i really don't know if that's a good plan or not. i think ALC isn't the best format for that, it's not that idea itself is bad.

KMadCandy said:

S, i don't know how often you save the game and how long you keep the saves around. i also don't know how you don't go crazy naming all the games Sisutil--i tend to have 3 or more games in various stages so i have to have different names in all of them *giggle*. but, maybe if you want to encourage the shadowing option more, you can keep saves on your hard drive at key points other than just at the end of the round (when making a crucial decision about what to research next, what to pick from liberalism or the oracle if that's been debated a lot in the thread, before starting a war if we've bickered over that, etc). and then just have those available if anyone wants them, to shadow from that specific point with their alternate scenario. i don't know if there are limits to the number of attachments you can put in a thread, or how confusing it might be, it's just a thought.

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There is a limit on how much disk space your uploaded files can occupy on this board (20 MB). I have already had to remove game files for most of the older games and I'm still well over the half-way mark. That pretty much precludes uploading a bunch of additional saves, sorry.

feldmarshall said:

Sisiutil would you play OCC in your ALC?

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I've never actually tried one. As pigswill said regarding the maps, I try to play similar maps for comparison purposes, and OCC would be totally different, no source for comparison to other leaders at all. I'm not saying no, but it's unlikely.

Is Terra still a map option in Warlords? That might be an interesting map to try... I played a few games with it when I was still learning and it was interesting. You learn fast about the importance of coastal cities, and it can be a challenge claiming the second continent for yourself, what with both barbs and the opportunistic AI.

Such maps, of course, tend to require a beeline to Astronomy so you can be the first to claim the new continent. But they can make for a CIV game that's enjoyable.

Sisiutil said:

That pretty much precludes uploading a bunch of additional saves, sorry.

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don't apologize to me! i was only suggesting it as a compromise for someone else's idea that i didn't really like *giggle*.

i have been thinking, off and on, ever since reading feldmarshall's post, about how to best show an OCC game on the forums and i just can't picture any way to do it. there are SGs that play OCC, i can think of a few always war ones off the top of my head. but they don't go into detail and explain how OCC is different than a normal game.

my usual pointless ramblings, in this case about trying OCC for the first time, are spoilered below, in an effort to preserve the sanity of most readers, who don't care about OCC and should not open the box.

ratrangerm said:

Is Terra still a map option in Warlords? That might be an interesting map to try... I played a few games with it when I was still learning and it was interesting. You learn fast about the importance of coastal cities, and it can be a challenge claiming the second continent for yourself, what with both barbs and the opportunistic AI.

Such maps, of course, tend to require a beeline to Astronomy so you can be the first to claim the new continent. But they can make for a CIV game that's enjoyable.

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I played my first terra map just recently. It did make for a fun game. I noticed that the AI tended to be very cowardly about settling the other continent, preferring to claim offshore islands where it would be safe from barbs. I, on the other hand, founded a city on the mainland that came under whithering attack. But I survived and took over the continent from the barbarians. By the time I was done I had a horde of Level 4 units that I ferried back to the old world and earned a domination win.

I used to play Terra Maps and found them to be just too dull. There was never enough room to expand, you knew all your rivals before 1 AD, and the cities on the new continent were wasteful until state property. However, I do agree that fractal maps, which is what I am playing now, usually has a snaking large island with a smaller island across the ocean. This makes it really easy to split the AI against each other. I honestly wish they would bring back Islands where you had 3-6 Islands that were big enough to expand, but personally, I would give Terra a spin in the ALC's. Could Be informative on how to work your way out from a small base.

The one Terra game I played I was Rome, so of course I wiped out one nearby rival and managed to severely weaken one other before it was time to high-tail it to the other land mass. That's one way to deal with limited room for expansion!

Well, If you have a beast of a UU like the praetorian...

Just as an edit to that last post, I'm also more of a Renaissance/Industrial warmongerer, and I haven't mastered the art of early war. I'm too afaid to use the whip

Hackapell said:

I used to play Terra Maps and found them to be just too dull. There was never enough room to expand, you knew all your rivals before 1 AD, and the cities on the new continent were wasteful until state property.

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Odd, I've had a different experience. I even add an extra AI on the "Standard" map size and have decent expansion potential. I personally don't mind knowing all my rivals, so that doesn't bother me. And if you chop-rush the Forbidden Palace on the other continent, costs aren't that high.

The only downside I have with Terra is that the AI doesn't know how to deal with the Barbs properly, so unless you are horribly behind, you're virtually guarunteed to control the new world - doesn't really make for a balanced game.

Bh

Hackapell said:

Just as an edit to that last post, I'm also more of a Renaissance/Industrial warmongerer, and I haven't mastered the art of early war. I'm too afaid to use the whip

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The whip is helpful but not necessary. You can also chop barracks and units, remember. Or just improve and work your most hammer-rich tiles while you build units.

A "beginner's" way to use the whip is to wait until the unit is one turn from completion with as many hammers in the build as possible, then whip. An overflow of hammers will then go towards the next build. It's not optimal, but it's simpler than other methods. (Usually it's best to whip 2 pop away at a point which helps keep you under the happiness cap, but that requires some calculating to know exactly when to do it, especially since the hammers you get from whipping vary with civics (OR), buildings (forge) and game speed! )

Bhruic said:

Odd, I've had a different experience. I even add an extra AI on the "Standard" map size and have decent expansion potential. I personally don't mind knowing all my rivals, so that doesn't bother me. And if you chop-rush the Forbidden Palace on the other continent, costs aren't that high.

The only downside I have with Terra is that the AI doesn't know how to deal with the Barbs properly, so unless you are horribly behind, you're virtually guarunteed to control the new world - doesn't really make for a balanced game.

Bh

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That was my experience as well, as I mentioned. I may try my next terra map with the Better AI mod to see if the other civs manage the barbs any better with those improved smarts Blake gave them.

@sisiutil

Are you stickin with the plan to play with Cyrus next game or is that yet to be decided?

I hope your last hot experiences with Cathy didn't change your opinion of trying her to the worst ...

Sisiutil said:

By the time I was done I had a horde of Level 4 units that I ferried back to the old world and earned a domination win.

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How does that work with the exp cap on barbarian battles?

With barbs you can only get max 10 exp. non-charismatic units upgrade to level 4 with 10 experience

I think that you should start running the HOF mod with your games. You wouldn't run it as a mod though, you load it by replacing your CustomAssets folder. That way your saves are normal saves but you still get all of the enhanced interface goodies. It doesn't change the game play at all. Any information that you get from it is normally available, it is just way easier to see it.

When you are actually playing the game you will get the benefit of the things that will happen next turn or happened this turn warnings. There are notifications when a city is about to grow, when it grows, when it will be unhappy or unhealthy next turn, and when it actually does. And there are some other things like when you have a stack selected the units icons have little symbols that say what they are doing, fortified, healing, etc.

But the big advantage for the ALC is the enhanced Foreign Advisor. The Relations screen is unchanged. And I don't think the active screen is changed much. But the rest are enhanced and there are some completely new ones.

Here are some screenshots from the 1358 AD Mehmed II save. The first is Glance:



On it you can see all of the relationship values for everybody at once. When you are actually playing you can hover the mouse over a value and see all of the components of the score.

The Resources screen:



You can see the resources everybody has available, current trades, any excess resources you have and how many of those. The how many excess you have shows up at the top if you have any.

The Info screen:



This is a new screen. You can get this info by talking to every leader, and then looking up their favorite civic somewhere. But this is so much easier and would be so nice to have in your state of the game posts.

The Tech screen:



This screen is not from the Mehmed II game. The Tech screen from that game was not all that interesting, for reasons we all know. This is from a game where I was playing Ragnar. This is all of the info that you normally have to display by clicking each leader in turn. And some more info that you would really have to think about to come up with. You have the techs that you have on each civ, that they could research. The techs that they have on you that you could research, split into ones they will and won't trade. Then there are the techs that both of you can research. In this example, since you can't research physics you can't tell if Mansa can or if he already has it. It really brings you up to date on the tech scene with just one screenshot.

To get the mod go poke around on the GOTM forum. Their save game download pages have links since you have to have it. Install it the normal way as a mod. Then go to the Mods folder in the Warlords folder. You will see the folder for the mod. In there is a folder called Assets. Copy that to the settings folder for Warlords:
C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Warlords\ (I not sure about the name of the last folder, it's something like that)
There is folder in there called CustomAssets, if you have never done anything with this just delete it. If you do have something in there just rename it. Rename the Assets folder CustomAssets. If you don't want to run it, then just rename it something else, like HOFCustomAssets. If there isn't a CustomAssets folder then the game will make one when it starts up.

The feature of HoF that I really like is the buildings screen in domestic advisor; stops you having to scroll through every city to see if you've built enough unis/forges etc for national wonders.

I tried using the HOF mod recently but it won't load on my PC. I've customized my game in a couple of minor ways (changing the Warlords opening screen, adding a couple of music files to the modern era), but it sounds like that's enough to throw it off. The recommended fix was to uninstall both Civ IV and Warlords and reinstall clean. Kind of a pain.