Challenge-XVII-06

[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: Diplomatic (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Prince
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Speed: Normal
• Map Type: Medium and Small
• Required: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians
• Civ: Mali (Mansa Musa)
• Opponents: Must include Arabia (Saladin), Aztec (Montezuma), Celt (Boudica), Japan (Tokugawa), Khmer (Suryavarman), Korea (Wang Kon), Mongolia (Genghis Khan), Netherlands (Willem Van Oranje), Portugal (Joao), Spain (Isabella)
• 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.

 

[Pollina]

Fun game. 660 AD win.

Considered using Random Personalities, but decided against it. Instead, I distributed AI so that most warmongers spawned on my continent, while the nicer AI like Wang Kong, Joao, Boudica ended up on the other continent. (I count Boudica as nice, since she is pretty easy to please with tech gifts.)

Early game was some kill, kill, kill combined with some REX. I think I had 10 cities at 1000 BC (normal speed record for me). I stopped expanding at 16 cities, with only GK left alive on my landmass.

Milestones:
- 1240 BC Oracle (CS)
- 100 BC Oxford
- 100% GEngineer (my first ever)
- 8 GScientists (Academy, Education, PP, Physics (2), Electricity (3))
- 1 GArtist (GA)
- bpt at peak: 1150 bpt (no GA)
- only 6t from SciMeth to Mass Media (another record for me)

The endgame was pretty exciting. All religions except Buddhism were founded on my side of the world, so I knew pretty early that the other continent was a Buddhism lovefest. My plan was to make GK my opponent for the UN vote by giving him some cities after Mass Media, to ensure that the other AI would vote for me and not for their Buddhist friends. Problem with GK is that he doesn't grow his cities. My initial pre-UN city gifts (to avoid worst enemy penalties) were not enough and he ended up having 5 pop less than needed on the turn before the victory vote. I had to give him another city, which got me a -4 diplo hit with Wang Kong. Thanks to Joao and Boudica I still won the vote, but it was very, very close.

BUFFY-3.19.004b visible hidden diplo modifiers are awesome!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Glad you enjoyed the game and the Mod!

Instead, I distributed AI so that most warmongers spawned on my continent

I thought this was a myth but it appears not!

 

[Pollina]

I thought this was a myth but it appears not!

It's not 100% consistent on M&S, and doesn't seem to work for all AI on standard size maps with 10 opponents, but with my settings GK, Toku, Monty were always(?) on my side of the map, while Joao, WK and Izzy(?) spawned on the other continent.

 

[cseanny]

I distributed AI so that most warmongers spawned on my continent,

How does one accomplish this? BTW, very very very very insane finish date.

 

[Pollina]

Here is a test save. Generating new maps from it should fairly consistently give this AI distribution:

1 Alex (A)
2 Bismarck (B)
3 Charlemagne (A)
4 Darius (B)
5 Elizabeth (B)
6 Freddy (orange color) (A)
7 Gandhi (varies)
8 Huayna Capac (varies)
9 Isabella (varies, usually same as Gandhi)
10 Joao (varies, usually same as HC)

Player is on A.

It doesn't work 100% of the time, but maybe for 90% of the maps created.

 

[cseanny]

Thanks Pollina. Gotta give you congrats on your time yet again. Not even a hand picked leader or oppnents and still that time! The more I play this game the more I realize how much I suck lol ^.

 

[lymond]

Pollina - You have quickly become an absolutely stupendous civver! Congrats!

 

[Pollina]

Thanks!

Not even a hand picked leader or oppnents and still that time! The more I play this game the more I realize how much I suck lol ^.

Don't be discouraged. You're doing great!

I've been refining my strategy for UN and lower level games for years and have a huge advantage here -- experience. One of the most common 'misplays' I see is that less experienced HOF players tend to use similar approaches on prince level as they would use on immortal. The result is often a slower finish date on prince as compared to immortal, mostly due to lack of tech trades. For a faster finish, you really need to take advantage of the weaker AI and lower maintenance, which is best done by using some drastically different openings.

Also, Mansa is actually one of the top leaders for quick/normal speed UN victories and almost tied with Liz and Gandhi. His only disadvantage is that you can't have his AI as a trading partner when you use him. Not that much of an issue on the lower difficulties.

 

[cseanny]

Thanks Pollina. I'm still impressed . I actually submitted a 700's AD UN Victory about a week or so ago http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=28844, however, that was on a random Noble HoF game with a hand picked leader and opponents. You're milestones are insane. In my Noble game I had 5 cities by 2000 BC, Academy 1300, CS sling shot in 1320 BC, and finished the Mids at 1040BC and HG in 950 BC. I didn't get Oxford in that game until 50BC. In this game I also gifted 3 cities away at the end to ensure the least liked AI wouldn't get votes. My max beakers were like 900.

Once again, this is with a hand picked leader, map, opponent, and 1 level lower than this current Challenge. I agree that Mansa is a very good leader for UN. I'm sure it helps having the knowledge and ability to manipulate the map (generation) in such a way that even on M&S you only have to conquer one land mass.

It would be nice if some of you elite players made some post which detailed the in's and out's of all the little known dirty secrects which have significant impacts on the game. If anyone ever did this I would hope it would permanently be "stickied".

cheers. sean.

 

[Pollina]

I actually submitted a 700's AD UN Victory about a week or so ago http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/game_info.php?dsply=&entryID=28844, however, that was on a random Noble HoF game with a hand picked leader and opponents. You're milestones are insane. In my Noble game I had 5 cities by 2000 BC, Academy 1300, CS sling shot in 1320 BC, and finished the Mids at 1040BC and HG in 950 BC. I didn't get Oxford in that game until 50BC. In this game I also gifted 3 cities away at the end to ensure the least liked AI wouldn't get votes. My max beakers were like 900.

Wow, you're improving fast.

Judging from your early game numbers alone, you should have finished even earlier. You seem to have been well ahead of me in techs and wonders. I can't access your game details and log, as your game is not published yet, but I can compare your graphs to mine knowing your entry ID.

GNP seems similar. You are ahead of me early on, but I catch up later:


Crop yield is where our games differ the most:


Your numbers are actually very similar to what I would have aimed for a year ago. I changed my playstyle a bit a few months ago and am now focusing more on expansion rather than research in the early game. That means I now skip/delay the early academy in favor of settling more cities. Seems to work well so far. Only got my academy in 700BC this game. I had 14 cities at that time, IIRC.

It would be nice if some of you elite players made some post which detailed the in's and out's of all the little known dirty secrects which have significant impacts on the game. If anyone ever did this I would hope it would permanently be "stickied".

I've been planning to write a guide to HOF map generation for years, but never got around to it. Truth is I am not much of a writer, or at least a very lazy one.

 

[cseanny]

Thanks for the encouraging words Pollina. I'm still going through the processes of how and to what end I play these games. In this challenge I actually conquered quite a bit early too (8 cities by 1300 BC) and expanded conqured into 17 cities by 300 BC (excluded due to crash). The problem I ran into was the other continent and the need to put so many resources into making units into transport and war. And on the current Gminor I'm still debating what the optimal opening should be lol.

There's so many damn choices availabe in each game it's mind bogling lol. It might take me 8 or 9 hours to finish one of these but every game I take 1 or 2 breaks (in-game) and deliberate for at least 1 or 2 hours trying to figure out the best course of action.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

To ensure Genghis Khan was a cadidate for The United Nations Diplomatic Victory, you could have given him the city with The United Nations wonder rather than give him a large portion of your population.

 

[Pollina]

That wasn't an option for me. Only city that could build the UN in 1t was my capital.

Giving away the cities wasn't a big deal. I had neough AI voting for me (or would have had). My mistake was not giving him more cities before worst enemy penalties became an issue. I just didn't take into account that Wang Kong grows his cities like crazy while Genghis doesn't.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Well, you could just build the Palace national wonder in your next best city and given your old capital with The United Nations great wonder to Genghis Khan before the first opportunity to submit the Diplomatic Victory resolution came up.

Have a great day!

 

[Pollina]

Well, the cities I gave away combined had about as much population as my capital plus the bridge city I would have had to gift away along with it. No real point doing it. The result would have been the same: same pop, diplo hit with WK and only 2 AI voting for me. And I would have had to build the palace in 2-3 turns to finish it before the vote. Impossible without running Slavery (loses pop) or US (needed to run HR to get Joao's vote).

Gifting away the UN city can be a really good play. I've certainly done it in the past. It just didn't make sense in my game.

 

[cseanny]

If your Vassal is 2nd in population do they still vote for you? If not, will gifting the UN city (however, I can't do that here) to the 3rd place in population trump my Vassal? What to do???!, Lol. So I'm sitting at 150 in population and I need 143 to secure the vote. I'll stop growth and gift a city to fix that.

- My Vassal Mansa is at 80.
- 3nd place Izzy at 60.
- 4rd place Nappy at 55.
- 5th place My Vassal Elizabeth at 16.

Now I can simply gift Izzy 2 cites which are a total of 24 population. Obviously that would fix everything. I'm still curious as to the questions above because I would like to know for future reference - "what happens when you can't gift enough cities/population to outpopulate your 2nd place Vassal?"

 

[Pollina]

If your Vassal is 2nd in population do they still vote for you? If not, will gifting the UN city (however, I can't do that here) to the 3rd place in population trump my Vassal?

No, vassals will vote for themselves if they can. Gifting the UN to any other player would make that player your opponent, and your vassal would vote for you.

 

[cseanny]

Thank you Pollina. Looks like you and Tzu were already discussing the same exact thing. I just caught on to that lol. In my game there was also no option to move my Capital to a location capable of being the "gift city" as well as a 1t UN.

I re-read your 660 AD submission post and caught onto your "1st 100% GE". I'm going to start implementing what I believe you did in your game (Shedwa Paya). That makes a lot more sense to guarantee 100% GE, especially with a Spi leader. With a PHI leader it's obviously easy to do regardless, but when not, definitely the Shedwa.

An extra turn or so of Anarchy w/ non SPI leaders is the only draw back but imo still the best choice. It should be very simple to time out finishing your 2nd great person (GE) while simultaneously building either TGL and or NE in a different city. This would be very powerful because you'd be able to get your 3rd GP, a GS 4-5 turns later which would then bulb EDU.

This would allow you to get Oxford sooner as well as buy more time to trade/ or Vassal research PHI too. As mentioned, the extra turns of Anarchy isn't perfect but getting #2 and #3 GP outlined above would be reallyt strong (and easy to do every game). You'd need to switch civics yet again for ORG and whip/chopping of Universities and then Oxford before finally starting your GA/Civic switch............

I'd be willing to waste 2 more turns in Anarchy (non SPI leaders) to guarantee 1 GE and a very quick follow up GS for EDU. After all, it would probably take 7-9t to finish EDU w/out a bulb at this point in the game.