The All Leaders Challenge Game Bullpen

I can see why you might have that trouble. It basically has two parts, one designed to discourage cheating in HOF and GOTM games. That part might be having trouble with your changes. The other part's function is to improve the GUI so much that you are excited to use it so it doesn't seem like a bad thing that you have to.

I would try it with the CustomAssets folder, and remove the .dll file that is in there. That should remove the complaints and leave the goodness.

I had never seen those screens before. That's very impressive. Does anyone know if they are going to become part of the regular game in BtS? (So I wouldn't need to download and install the mod now)

I downloaded the HOF mod when I got Warlords (same time as getting the patch), and I would never go back to the plain old variant. I can just check the game log at the end of the turn to see if pop has increased, so I don't need to check all my cities every turn if I know what they should be doing. It is superb. I never cheat anyway so the anti-cheat options are no worries. I do like the way you can se how all civs feel about all others, that is really helpful. And you get a message about new techs to trade too. Saves a lot of checking the various screens. I still take 25+ hours to play a standard size map though.

just adding to the chorus. the f4 screen makes it all worthwhile. the others are gravy. the glance thingy is also very useful. see ^^^

ParadigmShifter said:

I never cheat anyway so the anti-cheat options are no worries.

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you can still "cheat" all day long as far as the game is concerned. you can leave "Lock Modified Assets" unchecked (to allow a mapcheck for isolation or horses ), you can use chipotle, you can start a game with any of the options the game already has, you just can't submit it to the HoF. using it for the features, that's not a worry.

the problem is, HoF wants to make sure that no one has changed their game to give them advantages other players don't have. that "this mod prevents you from cheating as HoF defines it" code requires that all your actual come-with-the-game files match the default files. in each and every way. including vanilla if you're using only warlords mod, since warlords depends on vanilla for some stuff. as someone who uninstalled and reinstalled warlords four times last week (don't ask, you do not want to know), i sympathize with S not wanting to uninstall and reinstall vanilla and warlords. i hadn't even made any changes i wanted to keep around like S might want to keep his for other games.

i didn't know you could save games played with HoF mod as normal games, as Welnic suggested, so that they could then be loaded without the mod. maybe the .dll thing he posted about would work, that'd be spiffy, if S does like the options in the mod.

ParadigmShifter said:

I do like the way you can see how all civs feel about all others, that is really helpful. And you get a message about new techs to trade too.

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and when they have X lump sum or gpt to trade too! you can set X to whatever you want. oh hatty darlin', can you spare some change for a friend? i have such gigglefits on large maps when a wonder being built is followed by a flood of "so-and-so has X gold to trade" messages.

@Hero: i haven't heard any rumors about any of this being added to BtS. as far as i know, the only player-created stuff they're interested in is Blake's AI and the scenario-type mods. no interface-type stuff.

you can use chipotle

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I luv that stuff.

@Hero: i haven't heard any rumors about any of this being added to BtS. as far as i know, the only player-created stuff they're interested in is Blake's AI and the scenario-type mods. no interface-type stuff.

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That sucks. Has anyone seen a really good scenario for this game yet? Civ3 had some decent scenarios that people actually wanted to play as SGs. So far, nobody has taken up that challenge with the current ones.

So I tried running HOF as a CustomAsset instead of a mod on an actual PC in vanilla. (I'm actually a mac guy. ) Moving just the Assets folder and renaming it CustomAssets did not work. I also had to move the other files that were in the HOF mod folder into the Civ IV folder in My Documents. That worked fine. It does not work without the .dll file. So I do not know if you get anymore slack running it that way than as a mod if you have changed files.

Welnic said:

I can see why you might have that trouble. It basically has two parts, one designed to discourage cheating in HOF and GOTM games. That part might be having trouble with your changes. The other part's function is to improve the GUI so much that you are excited to use it so it doesn't seem like a bad thing that you have to.

I would try it with the CustomAssets folder, and remove the .dll file that is in there. That should remove the complaints and leave the goodness.

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Nope, that didn't work, nor several other variations. I even tried loading some of the HOF mods on their own. Civ4Alerts works fine from the CustomAssets folder, but the Exotic Foreign Advisor didn't, which makes me suspect it's the overall culprit. I figured out I was working with a vanilla version, but the Warlords one I eventually tracked down sounds a bit buggy, and my experience certainly confirmed that.

Anyway, this experience just confirms my opinion that the ALC games should be mod-free. If I had this tough a time whilst trying to implement a couple of simple mods, I can imagine many of the more casual players following the thread would as well, and would get frustrated when they see those non-standard screens.

Though I must confess that I get tempted from time to time to play an ALC with the Canada Mod. Just to be different.

Sisiutil said:

Anyway, this experience just confirms my opinion that the ALC games should be mod-free.

Though I must confess that I get tempted from time to time to play an ALC with the Canada Mod. Just to be different.

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i'll support you on the first point. and heck, for you, i'd probably even go download some canada mod to follow an ALC.

Sisiutil said:

Civ4Alerts works fine

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Of course!

but the Exotic Foreign Advisor didn't

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If I remember correctly, that piece requires a bunch of external configuration files that need to be in a non-obvious place if you're installing the HoF mod in CustomAssets. Looking at my own directories, I'm guessing that you need

• HOF-1.61.005.ini
• HOFSettings.txt
• ModSpcDomAdvColums.txt

all to be in your "My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4" folder (the one that contains CustomAssets).

Well, the things about these mods is they don't change the actual play of the game. Whenever I look at an ALC game I always use the HOF mod suite, because I always run it. If you can get it to work the CustomAssets route then it doesn't change the saved game at all. What the good doctor said about file placement is what I found, even if I didn't say it as well.

The Civ4lerts is great while you are playing the game, but the Exotic Foreign Advisor is the one that would really spice up the state of the world reports.

As I posted in ALC16 thread Sisutil should decide if he's playing All Leaders Challenge (which is how the series started when S was a struggling prince player) or All Leaders Demo.

I suspect that Sisiutil won't be seriously challenged until/unless he moves up to emperor. I also think that part of the challenge is playing blind.

However if Sisiutil wants to continue at monarch level then playing demo games (which may well involve a minimum amount of map fixing to enable UU or whatever) is quite a reasonable thing to do. It certainly seems to be a popular option with a lot of posters.

pigswill said:

As I posted in ALC16 thread Sisutil should decide if he's playing All Leaders Challenge (which is how the series started when S was a struggling prince player) or All Leaders Demo.

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It's a bit of both, isn't it? Many people have indicated that the ALC series has helped improve their game and enabled them to move up several levels of difficulty. Credit for which I insist on sharing with everyone who contributes to the threads.

Right now, as the Mehmed game seems to indicate, the biggest challenge I could face on Monarch level would be another isolated start. I'm not opposed to trying one out again, but it has to be with the right leader. Leaders who lack an early UU and who are not naturally warmongers are suitable for that type of start. Of those coming up soon, I'd say Peter of Russia and Roosevelt of America would be suitable to an isolated start if the RNG gods deem it appropriate.

Isabella seems to fall into that category, but in her case, founding an early religion and then spreading it seems like the best course of action, again making an isolated start a bit of a waste for her. And Shaka should definitely start with some victims nearby to get the most out of those Impis.

Ragnar, on the other hand, could definitely start isolated. Once his UBs are in place, Viking galleys with Navigation 1 could potentially hop to other land masses while his base remains out of reach until Astronomy, and his UU could attack directly from aboard ship provided the target is relatively weak. Fun! Then again, Viking galleys still can't enter ocean. Hmmm...

In fact, given Ragnar's many strengths (chief among them: he's Financial), I was thinking of moving that game up to Emperor. Either that or playing it against the BTS expansion pack's improved AI.

Sisiutil said:

It's a bit of both, isn't it? Many people have indicated that the ALC series has helped improve their game and enabled them to move up several levels of difficulty. Credit for which I insist on sharing with everyone who contributes to the threads.

Right now, as the Mehmed game seems to indicate, the biggest challenge I could face on Monarch level would be another isolated start. I'm not opposed to trying one out again, but it has to be with the right leader. Leaders who lack an early UU and who are not naturally warmongers are suitable for that type of start. Of those coming up soon, I'd say Peter of Russia and Roosevelt of America would be suitable to an isolated start if the RNG gods deem it appropriate.

Isabella seems to fall into that category, but in her case, founding an early religion and then spreading it seems like the best course of action, again making an isolated start a bit of a waste for her. And Shaka should definitely start with some victims nearby to get the most out of those Impis.

Ragnar, on the other hand, could definitely start isolated. Once his UBs are in place, Viking galleys with Navigation 1 could potentially hop to other land masses while his base remains out of reach until Astronomy, and his UU could attack directly from aboard ship provided the target is relatively weak. Fun! Then again, Viking galleys still can't enter ocean. Hmmm...

In fact, given Ragnar's many strengths (chief among them: he's Financial), I was thinking of moving that game up to Emperor. Either that or playing it against the BTS expansion pack's improved AI.

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If you have Isabella and an isolated start, it's a garanteed cultural win. Who needs trade ?

Sisiutil said:

Isabella seems to fall into that category, but in her case, founding an early religion and then spreading it seems like the best course of action, again making an isolated start a bit of a waste for her. And Shaka should definitely start with some victims nearby to get the most out of those Impis.

Ragnar, on the other hand, could definitely start isolated. Once his UBs are in place, Viking galleys with Navigation 1 could potentially hop to other land masses while his base remains out of reach until Astronomy, and his UU could attack directly from aboard ship provided the target is relatively weak. Fun! Then again, Viking galleys still can't enter ocean. Hmmm...

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they can enter ocean if it's in your borders; easy on an archi map, would have worked for that island by you in the mehmed game but not have been of any use, can't count on it being useful on continents really.

one of my best games was actually me (as ragnar) and isabella in isolation together. archi map, isabella was close enough that i found her early on. i found an island to the north of me that had stone but basically nothing else. i sent a settler quick, since i knew she would otherwise, and because it would let me reach her more easily than i could from my bigger island.

and then, you know, she kinda happened to die before either of met anybody else. and i'm the one who's almost always scared to go to war before cats!! but i couldn't resist. once i finally did get my UU, i went on to bash everybody else in the head. eventually, i put wall street in double-holy-city barcelona and oxford in way-too-much-food madrid. she left me awfully nice presents. i'd never have guessed that "isolation with isabella" could be so much fun for a non-early-warmonger like me.

religion spread from isolation even factored into it too. i'd circumnavigated before astronomy, and traded maps and was going along clobbering folks. after astronomy, catherine of all people shows up on my screen, scaring me to death. i'd completely forgotten there was another AI in the game. my state religion had spread to her, and the holy city gave me LoS so that's how i met her . it was quite a shock.

but yeah, ragnar must pretty strong if even i can wipe out civs that early playing him .

Sisiutil said:

How many of you think I'll get through every single leader before Civilization V comes out? Yeah, that's what I thought...

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Is this some kind challenge or competition? and who ever gets your rhetorical question right, gets a prize of some kind??? lol Kidding

Well I 'll do my best to answer

You started your Aztec ALC on April 26th 2006
You finished your Ottoman ALC on April 29th 2007

So about 15 ALCs per year

To be more accurate

368/15 = 24.53 days per game, so an average ALC should last about 25 days, well the Ottomen game was kind of an anomaly finishing early because you loss, but we'll assume you'll play most of your games till the end.

So.. well when will Civ V (5) be released???... I'll make an assumption and say, July of 2008, If you finish an ALC every 24.53 days until July of 2008 (excludes loses and days off/breaks), you should have played another 17.4 ALC games roughly 18 games before Civ V(5)'s release ... (lol you'd be in the middle of an ALC when Civ V is released) Well that's all theory....

So the very last ALC game you'll play with my assumption, is your Ramese's game (Game 33) assuming you don't change the order of which leader you'll play after BTS Expansion.

LOL what a waste of time I wrote ... this what happens when you gave a LONG nap in the afternoon and find out you can't sleep at night with nothing to do :S. Well looking forward to your last Civ 4 ALC play Ramese LOL

kniteowl said:

You started your Aztec ALC on April 26th 2006
You finished your Ottoman ALC on April 29th 2006

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Wow, he did 15 ALCs in 3 days? That's pretty impressive.

Bh

Bhruic said:

Wow, he did 15 ALCs in 3 days? That's pretty impressive.

Bh

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LMAO oops.... that 2006 should be a 2007...

Hey Sisiutil, I was just checking the old games and I saw that a succession game was mentioned as a possibility. Any chance that could happen?

Hackapell said:

Hey Sisiutil, I was just checking the old games and I saw that a succession game was mentioned as a possibility. Any chance that could happen?

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Anything's possible, though I think someone else would have to manage and organize it and I'd just be one of the participants.

Any volunteers?

(Insert sound of crickets chirping here...)