[BTS] G-Major 185 - Egypt, Monarch, Domination - Deadline April 24th 2023

[Noble Zarkon]

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While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Domination (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Monarch
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Small
• Speed: Epic
• Map Type: Pangaea
• Required: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Civ: Egypt
• Opponents: Must include America (Lincoln), Germany (Frederick), Greece (Pericles), India (Gandhi)
• Version: 3.19.005
• Date: 31st January to 24th April 2023

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

 

[SittinDown]

had fun running this one. hadn't played in a while.

 

[Firmlife]

I've made a submission for this (not yet reviewed), my first in many years, more to test that all my mods are working well enough to get submissions accepted. It's close to, but slightly behind, the current best times in the HoF, and full of mistakes and bad decisions as I re-familiarize myself with Civ4. I have another game in progress which is more promising if the first is accepted.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

more to test that all my mods are working well enough to get submissions accepted.

Unfortunately it looks like you forgot to check "lock modified assets" so this game is not acceptable.

You don't need to play a whole game to check, once you have it set up you can check your start file here - https://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/user_startfile.php.

 

[Firmlife]

Thanks for the tool Noble Zarkon, that's good to have. I ran my saves against it and what I got was actually "3.19 Unrecognized Install." For my existing unplayed saves lock modified assets was checked, but I didn't scroll down to verify the lock modified assets value for the exact start game I submitted before I deleted it on seeing the unrecognized install. Either way, it definitely seems the game is not acceptable.

I'm not sure I ever properly installed Civ4 on this computer, I may have just copied it, so I've stripped Civ4 off my computer, which was a huge ordeal since Warlords wouldn't install and I had to root it out in the registry, and I've reinstalled and repatched and remoded everything. I tried a trial save game and it passed, so hopefully I'm set. Thanks for the help!

 

[Firmlife]

I've submitted a game which has been accepted. A respectable BC date, but not particularly close to the top HoF spot.

The first games I generated with map finder also failed the startfile test. It seems like the real problem was my mapfinder was not installed inside the folder that contains Civ4. (Or at least moving it there and updating the BUFFY mapfinder save path fixed the issue.)

I've also played a game that improves on the game I've submitted but I'm going to hold onto it for a while to see if anyone tops the submitted game. In attempting to get a better date, I noticed that the existing best game ends in 685BC, but my games never got to exactly 685BC as they're still incrementing in 25's at that point. Then I realized the top HoF game is from 2007/Civ1.74 when I gather the way turns/years incremented was different. Talk about a long-standing record!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It seems like the real problem was my mapfinder was not installed inside the folder that contains Civ4. (Or at least moving it there and updating the BUFFY mapfinder save path fixed the issue.)

Strange, mapfinder can be installed anywhere and shouldn't start if the file paths are wrong. anyway glad you have it working.

 

[SittinDown]

A respectable BC date, but not particularly close to the top HoF spot.

Nice. My first submission was ~ 150 AD, where I ran horse archers over the map.
I had some trouble claiming enough land efficiently after I won my wars, and I also crashed my economy really hard, and even had a couple of strike turns. I held onto a couple of cities I probably should have razed, and then re-founded later to claim land.

 

[Firmlife]

Nice. My first submission was ~ 150 AD, where I ran horse archers over the map.
I had some trouble claiming enough land efficiently after I won my wars, and I also crashed my economy really hard, and even had a couple of strike turns. I held onto a couple of cities I probably should have razed, and then re-founded later to claim land.

You should try War Chariots. They're only one less attack than Horse Archers but they're much cheaper. I too went into strike towards the end and dragged out my game a couple turns more than needed to try to avoid it. I've tried to cut down on teching to save money, since you really don't need anything after Pottery, except maybe Horseback Riding.

 

[Firmlife]

Strange, mapfinder can be installed anywhere and shouldn't start if the file paths are wrong. anyway glad you have it working.

Yeah, main thing is I have it working. It could also be that I have my drive partitioned and the Map Finder was on the logical C drive but Civ4 on the logical D drive. *shrug*

Anyway, on to try some espionage games to try to understand the mechanics.

 

[SittinDown]

You should try War Chariots. They're only one less attack than Horse Archers but they're much cheaper. I too went into strike towards the end and dragged out my game a couple turns more than needed to try to avoid it. I've tried to cut down on teching to save money, since you really don't need anything after Pottery, except maybe Horseback Riding.

Makes sense. I think I got the first two with WC's but used more HA's for the 3rd and 4th. By the time I got to Frederick, he had hills and iron, so I needed a lot of units, and I'm not sure the WC's could have done it. Of course, they're cheap, so you can have almost 2:1 ratio, but they're awkward to whip.

I went with Hatty, for creative to get the quick border pops, since industrious seemed useless in a quick domination game where you weren't going to tech metal casting or build any wonders. I don't think I built a library. In hindsight, maybe I should have stopped teching at Horseback Riding, but I went all the way to currency. I never got alphabet. I also kept a couple of crap cities that Gandhi settled, and I wondered if it would have been better to raze them and re-settle later.

Did you conquest get you enough land, or did you wind up settling a bunch of cities late to grab land?

 

[Firmlife]

Did you conquest get you enough land, or did you wind up settling a bunch of cities late to grab land?

Well, to be clear, I've played four games to victory, first got rejected, second accepted, and I'm holding the third and fourth until April (Gauntlets are (justifiably) so long these days!).

In none of my wins did conquest net nearly enough cities for domination. With each game I played I tried different things to optimize a bit. One thing I did was start keeping more cities I conquered, to the point where in my last two games I turned on No Razing. The second cities empires settle often aren't very good, partially overlapping their capital territory, but as I got better at managing the economy, I felt I had more leftover money than leftover hammers/whipping pop. Also, as my first conquest moved earlier, I found I could take out the first empire or two before they established a second city, so there was no nearly worthless city I had to carry for half the game. The second thing I did was stop teching more and more. I think if I were to play again I'd stop after Pottery/Archery.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I'm holding the third and fourth until April (Gauntlets are (justifiably) so long these days!)

Yeah it's tough for us to judge this, happy to have any feedback.

 

[Firmlife]

Yeah it's tough for us to judge this, happy to have any feedback.

If I were being totally selfish, I'd vote for shorter, more frequent gauntlets with less competition

But looking objectively at the two going on now, 2-3 months seems about right. If I were running these gauntlets, I'd be hoping to get 3-4 participants minimum. If a gauntlet ran for 3 months and only had 1 participant, it might be tempting to extend it in the hope of getting more, but it might just be that no one wants to play the posted game and you need to move on to a new one.

Also, looking at recent history, it's rare for a gauntlet to get more than one player. So maybe the real question is, how do we encourage gauntlet participation for a game that came out fifteen years ago? I think the answer there is to do everything you can to encourage new players to stick with the game and to solicit feedback on what gauntlets people want to play. I think both are being done, and I will comment in the suggestions thread before April (assuming I'm still playing).

I guess you could also try to entice former players who've drifted away to return, but again you come up against the 15-year-old-game issue. Maybe a thread asking people what they're playing now? Why they've moved on?

 

[Peteyboy]

Just wondering when we a) get the result to this one (I put in a 23rd April entry - I'm sure it won't be a winner, but interested to see how it fared) - and b) when the next Gauntlet will be (Not interested especially in the future / deity one going on) - This one was quite a nice easy one, Monarch for most will be comfortable, along with WCs for Egypt.

Discussing length of time, I would think a month or so should suffice, there are only so many playing them these days, if each was done to fit in a month, it would also avoid Firm's thing in the other gauntlet of only submitting right near the end (unlike me who only played it on the last day) - That's my view for what it's worth.

Good luck to those who did this one.

 

[SittinDown]

Probably will be announced with the end-of-month update, I would imagine. I had fun doing this one, even though I didn't win. I only tried it once.

 

[Firmlife]

b) when the next Gauntlet will be (Not interested especially in the future / deity one going on) - This one was quite a nice easy one, Monarch for most will be comfortable, along with WCs for Egypt.

You should head to the Gauntlet suggestion thread and post, even if it's just a vague suggestion, like difficult or victory type. I've asked for a bunch of higher difficulty Gauntlets and absent other suggestions, they might keep going with mine like they did with the Time/Deity game. I feel like that minor is playing like a major and this major played like a minor, with a BC finish quite possible, Small map, kind of quick to play.