Challenge-XVII-03

[shulec]

While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we are running a series of ten games called the Hall of Fame Challenge Series. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but your best submission meeting the settings of one of the games will be counted towards the Challenge.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!
(*) Games must be played using the >> BUFFY MOD 3.19.003 << or >>>BUFFY MOD 3.19.004b<<<.
(*) Games to be submitted via the >> Civ IV Hall of Fame Website <<
(*) New players, please >> register << using your CFC forum name​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Conquest (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Warlord
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Speed: Epic
• Map Type: Hemispheres
• Required: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Must Not Be Checked: No City Razing, No Vassal States
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Must include Carthage (Hannibal), Egypt (Hatshepsut), England (Victoria), India (Gandhi), Mongolia (Kublai Khan), Ottoman (Suleiman)
• Version: 3.19.003 or 3.19.004b
• Date: 10th January to 10th June 2016

Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

 

[elitetroops]

I doubt this is what the creator of the challenge had in mind, but I just submitted a 600BC victory using only galleys. With 6 snaky continents, low sea level, tiny islands and cold climate there's a good chance that you can reach everyone pre-optics. Played with Ragnar and used pretty much the same tactic as in Challenge XV-04.

It was a bad attempt that required a second city to hook up copper, made lots of silly mistakes, had tons of horrible combat luck and the last AI was on a very awkward landmass to conquer, so there is still lots of room for improvement. I guess similar dates to that one in XV-04 can be achieved if you find the right map. But do we really want that? XV-04 was a pain to roll maps, as you knew you have to have copper or restart. This is the same, but once you have copper, there is a good chance that you won't be able to reach everyone with galleys immediately, and it might take until the last stages of the game before you realize this. I had a look at a few maps created with these settings in worldbuilder and all of them would have required to settle one extra city and get a border pop in some spot to reach the last few AI. I was prepared for that when I started this game, but got lucky and didn't need to do that. If you do get that lucky map, then close to 2000BC win is possible and there is really no possible way to beat that with any other strategy.

So, while there are still so few submissions, I'm asking if this should be changed. As it is now, it is a rerun on Challenge XV-04, only it requires you to get even more lucky in the map rolling phase. I was actually looking forward to playing this as a fast Optics/Astro beeline and then pull some vassalling shenanigans for the victory, but that is not a winning strategy for this setup. Would it help if it was a continents map? I think those always require Optics, or do they? What about Medium and small? I don't know haven't played those much...

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Hemispheres was regarded by the staff as the only map where you could guarantee that Optics would be required to meet all the AI .....

 

[elitetroops]

I've heard that as well. Thought I remembered wrong when this wasn't the case. This is bad news, as it leaves no mapscript that guarantees Optics is required. Medium&Small doesn't work and the Continents script seems to give you mostly pangaeas with certain settings.

I suppose the only way to guarantee continents would be to include a new mapscript with some upcoming BUFFY release. Or maybe modification to Hemisphere to make it behave more like everyone thought it was. I have no idea how much work is involved in modifying such things, and I'm not expecting this to happen unless someone on the staff already has deep knowledge of mapscript editing. There is at least one mapscript in the game (Planet Generator) that has an option for continent separation, so technically it should be possible to ensure that optics is required. If that option works... Haven't tested.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I wonder if it is simple as taking Hemispheres and eliminating some of the options you used, e.g Low Sea Levels .....

EDIT: Well Sea Levels isn't easy to fix but have knocked together a very crude map script that will ignore all the options you select and generate 2 Normal Continents with Normal Islands. I can't test it just now but feel free to give it a bash!

 

[elitetroops]

I managed to get a galley map also with medium sea level, so that's not enough to solve it. But eliminate many options and maybe... Though I should mention that while creating the last NC game on a Hemispheres map I saw one map with medium sea level and 2 normal continents where it was technically possible to meet all AI pre Optics.

I think the easiest way would be to eliminate flat world wrap from the continents script. I'm fairly sure you will always need Optics with cylindrical or toroidal. I suppose flat continents cannot be banned for all of HoF anymore, but would it be possible for certain Challenges/Gauntlets to require a specific world wrap? Cylindrical continents seems like a safe bet. You probably don't have the screening tools for world wrap in place at the moment, but would it be possible to add?

 

[elitetroops]

Though I wouldn't mind either if you just edited the rules to say flat continents is not allowed for future games and just let those submitted already stay in the tables. Flat continents is an abomination anyway. It is obviously buggy and does not work as intended.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Well we can check the World Wrap setting, if non-flat Continents really works we could simply clone that map script, call it something new and not allow flat with it. Then we have a script we can choose when we want to ensure Optics is required to meet all the AI ...

 

[elitetroops]

That could work... but would that new script be eligible for QM and EQM if it's under a different name?

I don't know how your systems work, but you must have some functionality in place to check world wrap on submitted saves as not all options are allowed. If you (with a reasonable amount of work) could add this check to the part that checks if an accepted game is eligible for a gauntlet or challenge, this should be the easiest option, I think. No need for a new BUFFY release, just add "cylindrical world wrap" in the required options when publishing a new challenge/gauntlet on continents map that is meant to require Optics.

I cannot be 100% sure that cylindrical continents always requires Optics, but I've been looking at how mapscripts behave with different settings a lot over the years and I'm fairly sure I've never seen one where you can reach the other continent with galleys. Just generated another 50 or so maps and none of them was even close to that. Haven't looked at other sizes than standard, but seems that's the preferred size for most games anyway.

With flat continents and low sea level, you are almost guaranteed to have a Pangaea. That option shouldn't have been allowed in the first place, but it's understandable that it wasn't possible to screen all possible settings for all scripts back in the days when the rules were made.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

That could work... but would that new script be eligible for QM and EQM if it's under a different name?

Yes, that would be extremely easy I reckon.

If you (with a reasonable amount of work) could add this check to the part that checks if an accepted game is eligible for a gauntlet or challenge, this should be the easiest option, I think. No need for a new BUFFY release, just add "cylindrical world wrap" in the required options when publishing a new challenge/gauntlet on continents map that is meant to require Optics.

That on the other hand is probably a huge amount of complicated work ....

 

[elitetroops]

Ah, okay, you know this stuff better than me. Maybe the easiest would have been if I had kept my big mouth shut, played this game with settings that can't be won with galleys and let the world live happily under the assumption that Hemispheres still requires Optics.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Hee hee, no I'm glad you pointed it out - especially at a stage whilst we're still developing Buffy .004.