Challenge-XVIII-10

[Noble Zarkon]

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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 - "Fall of the Inca". 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
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Settings:

• Victory Condition: Space Colony (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Immortal
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Tiny
• Speed: Normal
• Map Type: Archipelago
• Required: One City Challenge
• Must Not Be Checked: Permanent Alliances
• Civ: Viking (Ragnar Lodbrok)
• Opponents: Must include Babylon (Hammurabi), Holy Roman Empire (Charlemange)
• Version: 3.19.003 or 3.19.004b
• Date: 25th January to 24th July 2017

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

 

[Pangaea]

Have had a look at some of the games, and must admit that religious, time, culture doesn't much interest me, but had a glance at this one. However, isn't 1640AD a pretty tough challenge with OCC and not PA? I've never played an OCC so no idea about 'smart' play and such, but from what I can gather, people who play OCC games choose PA to be competitive with techs and building space parts. Building a bunch of space parts in just one city... won't be that be nigh on impossible to achieve that quick?

Presumably you need a very particular start location too.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It is supposed to be a challenge but if people feel that it is impossible we can certainly reconsider.

 

[Pangaea]

Have never played OCC, so no idea what is a realistic finish date, but looking at others in the HoF it sure looks tough.

However, I'm more interested in what might be a good start tbh (others will beat me). Have rolled some starts manually, and this one looks decent from a normal HoF perspective, but without sea food it may be crap anyway. No stone or marble either, which appears to be important.

Spoiler :

Edit: Oh dear, I suddenly feel like slapping myself in the face. May have done a really bad move here. Included Willem. "He's a good techer and decent trader..." Well, he also has rather good UB and UU for Archipelago, and that may be not be a good thing when we are badly hamstrung and need to go to space. I'll continue a bit and see how things pan out. Maybe even I can play reasonably quickly with only one city

 

[Fippy]

I find those settings interesting, but do not understand why Ragnar..?

If your goal is challenging HC, you shouldn't pick bad leaders (for occ) lol.

 

[Pangaea]

Ragnar is puzzling, at least for a scenario like this. In a more normal Archipelago map he'd be good with the unique mace, but here both his traits, UU and UB is pretyt much a total throwaway. PHI or IND would be much better.

Playing the game with the above map, and it's been a new experience, and kind of fun, but there is zero chance to compete with 1600s finish. Choosing Willem was an obvious mistake, he has a favoured civic that makes him go for Lib, so I had to quickly grab Nationalism instead of what I hoped for: Biology. Pretty soon it also became apparent that food wasn't enough, so the map simply isn't good enough. But neither am I. Think I'll finish the game anyhow though, if for no other reason than to get a feel for the end game.

For others playing, I'd also say it's a great benefit if you can get access to stone or marble. Not necessarily in BFC, but getting it at some point is a great benefit, because there are many wonders that are crucial.

Not played to it yet, but for the endgame there are also the worries about resources, particularly coal/iron (IW) and aluminium for space parts and the programme.

 

[Pangaea]

Not much to brag about I'm afraid, but I didn't lose the game, which was a close shave with Willem just 10 or so turns from 3x legendary.

Hard to get a good grasp of what is a normal date with these settings as there are few games in the HoF, and it's hard to see them because most OCC are coupled with PA and there isn't a filter for game options like this. However, it looks like the best games on a decent difficulty level is roughly mid-to-late 1800s.


edit: I'm pleased about PA not being allowed for this btw, as with PA it's not so much a one city challenge as a one team challenge. But beating 1640AD looks like a very tall order.

 

[Ozbenno]

Well done on your victory

Mid to late 1800s is a good date for an OCC non-PA Space victory. I can't see 1640AD being challenged.

Might give this one a go as they don't take too much time. Won't include Willem as an opponent though

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I was trying to balance beating the Incas and the game itself being a challenge, probably didn't quite get this one right! Glad to see people taking part though

 

[Pangaea]

Well done on your victory

Mid to late 1800s is a good date for an OCC non-PA Space victory. I can't see 1640AD being challenged.

Might give this one a go as they don't take too much time. Won't include Willem as an opponent though

Wasn't that quick myself, won in 1933, but from what I could see the best games were ~late 1800s. So I think that even with a good leader, 1640 is simply not possible. Simply takes too many turns to research all those end game techs, and build all the space parts. In a normal game with a huge empire, you may do each tech in a turn or two, while here it is often 10+, and then there are a pile of parts that can't be spread out to 10-ish cities.

It was a good experience though and kind of fun to play something new, so thanks for that @NobleZarkon.

 

[Ozbenno]

Had a quick game with the first decent start I saw (stone and 4 food). Used high sea level and tiny islands which meant that the AI didn't have much to work with but neither did I. Finished in 1970s. The tech speed really killed, rather than production (which I thought would be the problem). I think I might try again with some commerce resources and maybe not tiny islands for a better time.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm trying a new game, and have a question about the end game, as things are a bit unique in OCC. Aluminum is kinda important for building space parts, but I've built a National Park, which removes Coal. I can trade for Coal, but it doesn't show up in the city screen, so I assume it does nothing. Does that mean I cannot found Aluminum Co and get access to Aluminum that way?

In the first game I was fortunate and got Aluminum in the culture area, but that isn't possible in the new game, I think, due to (starting) forests and non-hills. Of course, if I can't trade for it either, building the space parts will take a stupid amount of time, and there is probably no chance of beating my first game, although right now I'm cautiously optimistic.

(That said, Mansa is teching something fierce again, I managed the impressive feat of not being able to trade with him any more (too advanced, yada yada), so he could well beat me on either space or culture -- cities already ~10k each, and he just built Eiffel.... )

Edit: The answer is No. And I'm really worried Mansa will beat me on culture. Not much I can do about it, except try to bribe him out of Free Speech. To make matters worse than Eiffel, he has founded Sushi and Creative Constructions.

 

[Pangaea]

WTF?

Spoiler :

Why did Hammy vote for Mansa? Aren't you supposed to need Friendly relations for Diplo?





Made even more frustrating by the fact I managed to beat Mansa to Culture. Launched in T309, and would have beaten him by a hair with arrival in T323-324, which would also have beaten the previous date by a fair margin. 1902-1904 win.

Doubt I will try again. Although these games are quicker, 'normal' games are more fun in all honesty. Especially when the game decides to 'cheat' me from a win at the death.

 

[Fippy]

Not sure, but Buffy seems to miss something there.
Hammy and Mansa start with +3 or so via first impression.

 

[Kaitzilla]

WTF?

Spoiler :

Why did Hammy vote for Mansa? Aren't you supposed to need Friendly relations for Diplo?





Made even more frustrating by the fact I managed to beat Mansa to Culture. Launched in T309, and would have beaten him by a hair with arrival in T323-324, which would also have beaten the previous date by a fair margin. 1902-1904 win.

Doubt I will try again. Although these games are quicker, 'normal' games are more fun in all honesty. Especially when the game decides to 'cheat' me from a win at the death.

Ah, Hammy voted for Mansa with only +6.

I always thought the threshold for UN was +8, so I would have lost too.

 

[Fippy]

Well it's not +6, peaceweight plus diplo between Hammy & Mansa is missing.
BAT for example would show them at +8 or maybe +9.

I like this overview very much (file added).

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Buffy .004 would show the correct info including the hidden modifiers, previous versions don't.

 

[Pangaea]

Normal BUG does too. But I thought you needed Friendly relations to vote in Diplomatic wins, and in that case BUFFY should show it. Guess I was wrong, and paid a heavy price for it. I usually go for conquest, domination or space, and have little experience with anything else

In hindsight I could have bribed Mansa out of Free Religion, as (way) later I remembered he was Buddhist and not Jewish. That alone should have sufficed.

 

[neilmeister]

Wow Pangaea, your game was going to be very, very competitive. Bad luck on losing to a dodgy diplo! I admit I didn't even think about adding AI.... surely very good thinking!

I just submitted my first attempt... 1925 ad. WIll add Mansa and try again

 

[Pangaea]

See you got a 1903 finish, which is really excellent.