zerksees HOF attempts

This thread will document my HOF attempts.

My first attempt - using PTW 1.27f emperor. It was a 100k win with Zulu on standard map in 2038.

I had a few fast finish attempts, one or two of which were in the HOF for a short time. These will count as my second attempt.

My third attempt - using PTW 1.27f deity. It was a domination with with Rome on a small map in 2050.

My fourth was using C3C 1.15 monarch level. Tiny map, 2050 AD win scoring 3469. I have started composing it for a thread but never finished. Maybe someday...

My fifth was C3C 1.15 emperor level. Described in this thread. Ended with diplo win and score of 7773 on small map.

- C3C 1.22 deity small map playing as Iroquois. Described in this thread. Ended with spaceship win and score of 5698.

- C3C 1.22 chieftain huge map playing as France. Fastest finish game ending with domination win in 730AD.

- C3C 1.22 regent large map playing as China. "Fastest finish" game ending with conquest win in 1420 AD.

Edit: Here is my quartermaster info by date:

10/16/06: 18 zerksees 3.29 (19/20) 166781 6.57 2.17 (6/6) 2.00 (5/5) 2.43 (7/8)
11/17/06: 18 zerksees 3.27 (19/20) 166781 6.48 2.17 (6/6) 2.00 (5/5) 2.43 (7/8)
12/23/06: 20 zerksees 3.22 (19/20) 166781 6.29 2.17 (6/6) 2.00 (5/5) 2.43 (7/8)
01/19/07: 20 zerksees 3.22 (19/20) 166781 6.29 2.17 (6/6) 2.00 (5/5) 2.43 (7/8)
07/25/07: 22 zerksees 3.28 (19/20) 166781 6.01 2.33 (6/6) 2.20 (5/5) 2.57 (7/8)
08/16/07: 16 zerksees 2.90 (19/20) 189511 3.66 2.67 (6/6) 2.40 (5/5) 2.86 (7/8)
12/15/07: 14 zerksees 2.81 (19/20) 189511 3.66 2.67 (6/6) 2.20 (5/5) 2.71 (7/8)
04/06/08: 15 zerksees 2.91 (19/20) 189511 3.71 2.67 (6/6) 2.40 (5/5) 2.86 (7/8)
04/16/08: 16 zerksees 2.89 (19/20) 147927 3.71 2.67 (6/6) 2.20 (5/5) 3.00 (7/8)
11/15/13: 30 zerksees 4.37 (19/20) 167941 3.82 4.67 (6/6) 4.00 (5/5) 5.00 (7/8)

I am currently working on a small map emperor game on C3C 1.15 playing as Egypt against 4 rivals and roaming barbs.

I am going to try for diplomatic or spaceship victory.

Again no special mapfinder utilities – just start new game.

Made adjustments from prior C3C game. In addition to regular expansion, I focused on finding luxuries and building cities on them. Of course I needed culture to keep the cities from flipping. Another benefit of religious is easy government changes, which I wanted since I am trying to find my way with governments in C3C.

I did complete philosophy first in 850 BC and chose map making as my free tech.

In 825 BC I switched from despotism to monarchy. This was too early as I had very little change. Corruption was unchanged and -7. All I did was lower my free unit support count so I had to pay for some units now. I had 10 cities at the time. I think my last tiny map game convinced me corruption was really bad in C3C, but it was not nearly as bad in a small map.

I kept up with city production fairly well and had almost the same number of cities as the AI players at the end of expansion phase.

In 610 AD America decided to attack. On her second encroachment into my territory, Lincoln chose war on the “remove or declare” ultimatum. America was eliminated by 860 AD. I brought all the other AI into MA against America. I took about half of her cities and expanded my border. Nicely the Pyramids were in Washington which I took.

Prior to this there had been only one war between America and France.

In 880 AD I switched to Republic and gained about 90 gpt. I was cautious to convert after enough infrastructure was up.

In 890 AD the Sumerians were in my territory and gave them the “remove or declare” option. And they too chose war. I did lose my Ivory city at first (far away luxury city). This war lasted a while. I did not have enough units to finish them, but after reducing them to about 10 cities and taking Smith’s Trading Company, I made peace in 1210. They had been leading in science and culture, but I think their science power is in check.

In 1415 AD the Zulu attacked the French. The Zulu have been “also-rans” the entire game. Somehow they lost out on expansion phase and had less than half the cities of the rest of us. This is a great opportunity for me. As the French started taking all their cities I prepared a city for Shaka. He doesn’t know it yet but he is my new friend who will help me get the UN vote in the end. I had a nice little piece of tundra at the north end of my territory where “Shaka Exile” was founded. Once I gave it to him France kept trying to send all her units to that territory. Every turn I told her to leave and she did. Zulu still had 4 other cities, and I needed them gone. So I surrounded the new Zulu city with units and the next turn France obliterated all the other Zulu cities. Shaka in the tundra, has no units, and is polite to me.

In 1425 I gave saltpeter and horses to Zulu. I wanted them to fight well against France.

In 1525 Zulu and France made peace. France had been in democracy the entire time of this war, and is now my main threat.

I did complete TOE in 1420 and get the free techs – electronics and radio.

Shortly after 1525 I tried to get Sumeria into MA against France, but no go. So I signed MPP with them and declared war on France. I then waited for France to invade, which they did. Sumeria was then forced to declare war on France.

I was a little concerned about my military size. I had 26 cavalry, 55 infantry, 28 artillery, and a few other land based obsolete war units.

It was enough. It took a few turns but I stopped the French offensive. Too bad they have infantry too. I lost some cavalry, but the artillery blunted their offensive. Once the groups were smaller, around 10 or less, I could redline all the units and pick them off with cavalry.

After about four or five turns I started taking cities. I found no more than 4 infantry per city. I easily redline them with artillery and take them with cavalry. All the while my military is “weak” compared to them. In1585 I noticed France was in anarchy again, probably to get rid of that democracy that the AI is so inept at managing. I also completed motorized transportation so I am building tanks.

Hopefully I will have conquest phase wrapped up before the 1800’s.

I will finish this game but am feeling confident I can move up a level.

Now it's 1670 and I have dispatched of all of France except one city. I have tanks and used them and my artillery to make fast work of France. I hope Joan likes that Napoleon-looking suit as she will be wearing it the rest of the game. I think I was able to finish this war at 0% luxury slider. The screenshot shows me "protecting" France's last city from the evil Sumerians, who have not made peace with France yet.

I am still in republic. Since I acquired a few more luxuries from France I can probably go the rest of the way in republic. The Sumerians have about 12 cities but should not pose a problem. I have 174 units, and 177 are allowed with my current size at 0 cost. I am starting to like this republic thing a little better. Taking inspiration from SirPleb I think I will go back and investigate the benefits of communism after the game is complete.

I am now in a tedious phase of the game. The 60 or so workers I have (40 of which are slaves) are making improvements in newly taken cities. I am also starting up on infrastrucutre building in most of them. This mean civil engineers and a lot of micromanaging.

I am preparing to abandon some of the French held cities so I can have a fast war with the Sumerians and not trigger the dom limit. I need to have a majority of the population in those cities so I am rush building settlers and starving cities to size 1 then let them grow to 3 before abandon. I'll keep them until I start taking Sumerian cities after I hit the 65% land ownership (at 63% right now). Then they can be abandoned with no rep hit. Also have to wait for newest Sumerian city to reach size 2 - no razing wanted to keep the rep up for the diplo victory.

It will take a while to get through this due to some current real life circumstances, plus this is not a very exciting part of the game so I spend less time per day playing civ.

The score is 2581. I haven't yet started tracking the increase per turn. I think I'll have peace and do some milking for 20 turns or so and then finish Sumeria.

I'll have fission in 2 turns, and the UN shortly thereafter. I just completed the military academy - too bad I don't need armies anymore.

Here is Joan's new home. She is safe there.

I actually had to build roads on some of those tiles just so I could crater them!

Game update:

1705 - Score is 2753 and rising at 25 ppt.

Once I decided to start the war, I was able to make quick work of the Sumerians. Enough time had passed that I was able to abandon some old French cities to stay under the domination limit. By 1754 they were eliminated. This leaves 198 turns for milking. And to think there was a time when I could barely beat emperor level!

1762 - Suffer a small setback in milking phase as Chicago defects to France. I can't attack now since I have some type of trade going with them.

1768 - Egypt completes construction of the UN.

1818 - Score is 3943. Culture is 49276 and rising at 374 ppt. Have to start selling off some culture buildings.

183? - Decide to take Chicago back - declare war on France.

1842 - Dijon defects to France. Took it back that turn. It had a majority Egyptian population, so I razed it! Chicago was starved down and built up again until it had a majority Egyptian population and it was razed too. Let that be a lesson to the infidels.

I then built a couple more cities on prime real estate to take their place.

Made peace with France once they acknowledged our envoy.

After that it has been all out milking. Made 30 ppt at the peak and now am down to about 25 ppt.

Hoping to get 8000 but it is going to be close. I have not yet figured out when the last UN election call is at once every eleven turns. I have been keeping MPP and ROP with Zulu, and giving them some free luxuries. Should be a shoe in for the UN. Just need to give France another city right before the vote.

Right now it is 1950 and the score is 5788 and culture is at 60099.

Well, the game is over.

Since last update I discovered Zulu shunned government was republic, so I made the switch to democracy.

I was able to get the Zulu gracious by signing MPP and ROP with them. With their land-locked tundra I did not have to worry about settlers.

I gave Joan a couple new cities about 6 or 7 turns before the end so she would have the majority. She was still furious no matter how much stuff I gave her. Somehow she made it to modern times, shedding her Napoleon outfit after all. Maybe she was furious about the shaved head thing.

The ppt was down to 18 near the end.

I scored 7773 and got a diplo victory in 2046. While not earth shattering, I did beat my prior emperor high – which was on a standard map.

I spent 49 hours and change on this one.

What’s next? I am ready to try C3C deity or Sid. I am giving some thought to a serious milking effort for the next game. First some RL issues…

Looks like you'll have the first small map diplo victory in the HOF.

I am working on a C3C 1.22 deity small map game on archipelago against four AI rivals.

I used mapfinder to find some map candidates and have chosen to play this one forward. I am playing the Iroquois - I found the agricultural/commercial combination hard to pass up.

It is 600 AD and I have a score of 1767 and almost 20% of the world area.

I suspect I can't reach the fastest finish score so I'll be trying for some other victory condition. First I want to make sure I can win it.

Had a long war with America which was quite effective slowing the tech pace. The Hittites (edit) got the losing end of the deal since they were sharing land with the Americans. I was able to get a couple cities on the American continent between the Hittite (edit) cities so I have a foothold there.

Since the American war ended it has been eerily quiet and the tech pace has been furious. I built the GL in my capital so I could not give it away to re-catch up in tech.

I was able to snag the last coal resource – it was the last free land tile in former Sumerian territory. There is no other extra to sell .

I have made it to the 1300’s, am now in communism, and just discovered two rivals do not have rubber – which means no infantry for them. One of them, the Zulu, do not have saltpeter which I would like for cavalry. Looks like they are the next victim. I have two extra rubber but neither are willing to pay much for it so I am not sharing.

I have less than 200 units and am building lots of improvements to increase cash flow, and some units. I have military tradition but no leaders yet so no military academy. This is bad. I think I’ll be using the Zulu war to try to farm some.

It is now the late 1600's

I had signed MPP with America and so I ended up at war with the Mongols. This cost me my coal city as it was weakly defended. I made the Zulu my friend and brought them in too. The war has been beneficial as I have been able to secure some strategic resources, however the whole time America kept getting stronger.

I am way behind in tech. The AI has TOW infantry, I have infantry. I was able to get espionage and have been stealing techs, which helps (would you like to steal steel comrade?). I just got flight which is allowing me to build some flak. I also built ironclads first (with one scientist), and strangely enough the AI gave me techs for that even though they already had destroyers.

I have a few cities on the Mongol/Zulu continent - securing saltpeter, coal and soon oil. Sorry Mongols and Zulu. (The saltpeter was right on the Zulu border and my new city planted in Mongol territory was able to secure it - man does this game require some dirty pool or what?)

The Americans had a lot of units but I think they can be taken. I let the ROP with them run out and then asked them to leave my territory or decalre war. They chose war. I have the Zulu in on that one also. I had a foothold on their continent but lost it, mostly due to too many American bombers.

Drove them from democracy to fascism. I think they are all in fascism.

Right now America has 74,000+ culture. I am hoping one of the others has more than half they do so they won't win soon. Somehow I need to get the Zulu and Mongols to quit fighting each other and concentrate on fighting America.

I have made countless mistakes in this game. The first was building the GL in my capital so I could not give it away and retake, followed by letting up on America in the first place.

Once I cut down on the American bomber threat, I can start thinking about another invasion. I need to take some of their cities to cut down their rapid fire culture growth.

I have been living in mobilization. I carefully finished improvements and made sure all cities were working on military items when I made the switch. And the saga continues...

Now it is 1752. America has 84,000+ culture so either Zulu or Mongols have over half that amount. I need to look at the culture chart to compare them with America and guess how much time I have left.

America has four spaceship components done but none currently in progress (I wonder if they need uranium to build some parts?).

Stealing techs is working very well. It seems to be working 9 times out of 10 so far. I have entered modern times and have computers.

The war against America continues. Slowly the American unit counts are dwindling but they still have way too many units for an invasion. I have been taking out bombers with flak - they have about 10 bombers left. I tried fighters against the bombers but they never last very long. For the first time America landed ground forces in Iroquois territory on my secondary landmass. They lasted two turns before my artillery could take them down and allow my other units to finish them. Luckily I stole computers the same turn and drafted a few mech infantry for insurance.

I could use some patience in my tactics, but this is only slowing my advance.

The Mongols declared war on us and made peace with America. When their forces were looming, I burned one city on their continent rather than give it to them. There were no other losses. That lasted about 5 turns before they acknowledged my envoy and made peace giving 250 gold. I gave them ivory for MA vs. America.

Making peace ended mobilization. I am going to try to build hospitals (to get to battlefield medicine) and stock exchanges in key cities before mobilizing again. I will probably put some culture buildings in my cities on the Mongol/Zulu landmass to keep them from flipping, since my coal, oil (and saltpeter) are there.

The results are starting to show on the power bar as my power is increasing and America is decreasing. I hope I can reach them before the culture win kicks in.

Right now the spaceship looks like the best way out.

Final update for deity small C3C attempt:

Well - the tech stealing did not go so well after the last update, but I was able to steal the rest of the techs I needed. After a while I passed the Zulu and Mongols in tech so I was able to sell them techs to buy what I needed.

The war with America went on and on. I was finally starting to get on top of it - sinking all the ships before they could land units. I actually put together two tranports full of marines (even one marine army), and a stack of 10 destroyers and 10 bombers to try an assault on an American city. It failed.

It did not matter though as I was ready to end the war anyway. I decided to end the war once I realized that the Zulu had a monopoly on uranium! I had been keeping them and the Mongols at war with the Americans continuously so I knew they were not trading. In addition I had signed trade embargoes against America with both of them. I then knew they could not finish the spaceship unless they took the Zulu cities! This would be the end of the wars.

I quickly ended the war and started on infrastructure - anything to increase the GPT, and also build the Apollo program and the ship components. I had no aluminum but the Mongols did and I gave them a tech for it. I did the same with the Zulu to get uranium. I did not have all the techs yet but I was able to build most of the ship parts on this trade. Then the 20 turns ran out and the Zulu got the aluminum from the Mongols. One of the Mongol aluminum resources was one tile from my border on the Mongol/Zulu landmass. I rushed culture in the city near there but could not take it over. There were mountains on the border so I could not plant a city next to it to get it that way. I decided I would make war with the Mongols to get it. By now they were letting me have ROP so I figured I would just take it from them. To build the stasis chamber I needed uranium and aluminum at the same time. The uranium I would trade with the Zulu to get.

I lightened up support of my secondary landmasses and on the home continent - moving most of my artillery, tanks and mech inf, TOW inf, etc to the Mongol/Zulu landmass. I was about two turns from attacking the Mongols when the Zulu attacked me! They had practically no fast units but they had a ton of infantry, TOW infantry and marines.

I had to regroup. I realized that if I got the Mongols to declare war I would be able to buy their aluminum again, and they could help with this 50+ high SOD in my territory. I also realized that my trade embargo with the Zulu against America had probably ended, so I needed to get the Americans into the war too. This would keep the uranium from the American spaceship. I knew that one of the three uranium resources was near my border with the Zulu, so if I could take that city I could get the uranium I needed. Of course there was the risk that the Americans would take a uranium resource but there was no other choice I could see. So I bought them both off and now the world was at war with the Zulu!

The other spaceship pieces were finishing quickly. The aluminum resource and new technologies allowed me to upgrade my tanks to modern armor. I got a great leader from my elite tanks. The plan was delayed a few turns because Mongol units were blocking my path. To fix this I bombed out the roads to cut off the Zulu supply and the Mongol units moved forward. Eventually I succeeded in taking the city - beating the Americans by a turn (they had established a beachhead in Zulu territory and were working their way toward my target city.)

I moved the leader to the main landmass for safe keeping. Once the uranium was hooked up I rush built the stasis chamber with my leader and it was over!

Fortunately the Americans did not get the culture win. They had over 140,000 culture but the Zulu had over half of what they had.

I finished in 1912 and scored 5698. To my surprise history will remember me as zerksees the "magnificent". I would have never guessed I could get a spaceship victory this late in a C3C deity game. To me it was an ugly win but it counts. I am sure I'll do better next time - maybe on Sid?

Sounds like a real battle. I've been spoiled recently playing Chieftan Domination games. I'm planning on working my way up the ladder so it will take me a while to get to the point where you are at.

Just wrapped up a C3C 1.22 chieftain huge domination win playing as France. It was not nearly as exciting as the last HOF attempt.

I like industrious and commercial so I thought I would try France. Since I was not going to be agricultural, I played against 15 AI so they could build my cities for me. I chose pangea and 80% water, and did not use mapfinder.

The only glaring error I made was not gifting monarchy to the AI's. They were whipping their cities down to size one so I was taking out their capital, then waiting for the next capital to expand it's borders to take it, etc. Some of the other cities were large enough to take. What a pain to travel such a large empire without railroad! The game was over before I even made it to military tradition. Once I gave them all monarchy it went a lot faster since I could just attack the nearest city and take it.

Of course I built the Temple of Artemis. I also built the Pyramids, Statue of Zeus and Sun Tzu, though I am not sure I needed the last two.

I built a few musketeers but the game was over before I could get them to the front lines.

The game ended in 730 AD.

It took me 12 hours to finish. Now, off to play another one...

Mistfit said:

I'm planning on working my way up the ladder so it will take me a while to get to the point where you are at.

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I did the same thing when I was learning the game. One level at a time, you will get there before you know it.

I just wrapped up my latest game - a C3C 1.22 regent large pangea 80% water game.

I started it before the last update when there were no conquest victories for this type of game, so I started it with ctrl-Q. I was on the far east end of the continent, with no cows near the capital. Eventually I planted a city near a bonus resource and started a settler factory. As luck would have it I got an SGL and rushed the pyramids, though it was probably 1000 BC or so before this happened.

The game was progressing OK but then the latest update came, and I saw Sanabas and Tone had completed games on or before 50 AD. My game was already at 400 AD and I think only Portugal had been damaged by my efforts. Suddenly I knew I was playing for a shot at 3rd place.

As I continued exploring I found the continent was like a long snake with a rat or two in it's belly and I was at one end. So it was an incredibly long way from my end of the snake to the other. All this distance really slowed my offensives, and required a few units placed along the shores to address the naval landings from my enemies.

To add insult to injury the Spanish were not on the continent. Eventually I found them on an island by themselves with about seven cities. So much for a pangea map! It was an easy conquest - I was almost industrial and they still needed a few techs to get out of ancient times - though the ships and the journey added more time to finish.

After 21 hours of effort the game ended in 1420 AD with a conquest victory. I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken were it not for the Rider, and Rider armies. I will have to try this again someday with the help of mapfinder.

If it was for a #1 spot in the HOF I should have abandon the game but I wanted to finish it - hopefully it will be a while before seven other games are submitted in this category.

Well I have been remiss in updating this thread, and with Civ IV in full swing I don't see much benefit in providing all the details.

I did finally beat Sid with the Byzantines on standard size island map. It took until 1902 but should make the HOF.

I started a huge emperor island map with 4477 domination limit playing as the Maya. The map is really good as I have a very large landmass and the AI's I have met so far are not as fortunate. I need to improve my histographic score and this seems like a good way to do it.

zerksees said:

I started a huge emperor island map with 4477 domination limit playing as the Maya.

Click to expand...

Good luck with that.

zerksees said:

I did finally beat Sid with the Byzantines on standard size island map. It took until 1902 but should make the HOF.

Click to expand...

Congratulations!


What kind of victory did you achieve?


I'm not brave enough to take on Sid.

Bartleby - thanks. The only bad luck I have had so far is only one lux on my landmass and a few sunken suicide curraghs

Marsden - you can read about it here The thread tells the story of me taking on Sid. The winning game is the last one in the thread. I am not convinced the Byzantines are the best way to beat Sid.