[BTS] A very late ALC attempt

[Choeimok]

Perhaps motivated by the advent (and now release) of Civ 6, I recently came back to Civ 4 (a decade old by now? Who am I to care?) after several years of no or very little play, played a 1-2 random maps on Noble to get back in swing, 2 of the more recent NC maps and started a third, NC Monty on Prince, where due to great land I felt like I was crushing the map without having fought a war in the BCs already - prime cottage land, good production capabilities, Currency and CoL, had like 6-7 cities (3 rivals had like 3) just as many backfill spots secured secured and more open land in rival direction. Was fun, but finishing games that feel 100% won is so tedious - why not try Monarch instead? Since I'm having an absolute blast with these forum games but don't like the idea of having to give techs to barbs in WB, I thought: Why not try for an ALC?

The idea being:

- I will randomize a list of all leaders in the game

Spoiler :

Would have been better if maybe I would have kept this unknown, but oh well, that's the list now. Alexander will be the real deal, if I get there. The 30s also promise to be a lesson in pain...

- I will start at Monarch difficulty
- I may advance by one difficulty after 4 wins in a row, can delay it when feeling shaky or a bad leader being up next but have to after 6 wins.
- I may step down a difficulty after 2 defeats in a row, have to after 3 defeats.
- If I lose with a leader, he will go into the replay pool, which will be shuffled again after finishing the list (as if, I probably won't even get to 10 )
- the selected map script is determined as follows:

Spoiler Original :

All scripts have a weight (1 to 11) and a random number between 1 and 15. If w>=r, the map will be eligible if selected by the also random number on top of that column. If it's red, try again. All numbers are arbitrarily chosen and the first valid map when testing would have been Fantasy Realm - I'll skip that for now as it was just a test

I'm obviously not very good with Excel or making up random algorithms... but pressing when Delete on an empty field i, all values will reroll, so I'm happy

Generally, gimmicky (multiplayer deathmatch or just very strange or bland-terrain ones like Maze or Boreal) or way overly customizable scripts are lowly rated, while standard and pick-from-several-mapscripts ones get higher weights. I like realistic-looking cylindrical maps, so Flat, toroidal or date-border-sea-less cylindrical ones also get a minus. Hope the outcome will be somewhat reasonable.

Spoiler Changes starting with IV. / Mehmed :

Weight and Random number now both range from 1 to 10. Minor changes to map's weights. Using a script instead of an Excel file, which was lost during a break period in the meantime. [post link]

- The game rules will be no huts, no events and no vassals and as many options on random as possible.



Table of contents
I. De Gaulle

Spoiler Monarch, Shuffle :

Diplomatic Victory, 1923 AD.
A continents-style map with a famous expansionist very closely nearby. After lengthy wars with the neighbors, the French economy ran dry in the early renaissance and all depended on how advanced the Buddhist lovefest overseas would be...

II. Genghis Khan

Spoiler Monarch, Fractal :

Domination Victory, 1610 AD.
Starting on the far and narrow end of an almost Pangaea-like continent, the Mongol hordes had to fight for centuries for an equivalent amount of land the rich and large western AIs got uncontested... and still demanded the greener grass on the other side to graze their horses.

III. Catherine

Spoiler Monarch, Fractal :

Discontinued, 1210 AD.
Semi-isolated with Shaka, yet this one got stale towards the midgame. Formally called it quits after a rather long time of not playing at all and having lost the savefile in the meantime. Counting it as a defeat.

IV. Mehmed

Spoiler Monarch, Great Plains :

Ongoing

Spoiler Replay Pool :

Catherine

__________________

De Gaulle is not bad at all, I wonder if I'll be able to resist going for Stonehenge. Been on a bit of a Wonderspam/Settled GP streak recently, it's just a really fun way to play. Won't start before tomorrow, though.


Having only beaten emperor once or twice several years ago, I will probably get whupped a lot.

 

[lymond]

ALC has not been done in years, so good to see this going. I hope you keep it up.

I recommend making this thread your "bullpen", and you could even re-title it as such. As you start each game, you can post links to each game in the OP.

While a whipping boy as an AI, De Gaulle is absolutely one of the best leaders. One of my favorites actually. IND and Char are excellent traits, especially on higher levels, and France has great starting techs. Uniques don't matter much, and Salon is throwaway, but Musketeers can marry nicely as support units for Cur rushes.

Not sure I'd go for Henge even with Ind (and even with Char trait) , but maybe with stone online quick, or even better use it for some fail gold. Depending on AIs though, you should get it quite easily regardless. I rarely build Henge ever, and prefer putting my production in expansion.

 

[Choeimok]

Thanks for the suggestion! I didn't get to start yet yesterday evening due to being sick.

Of course you always have to play the map more than the leader, still I can't help but associate this guy with that specific wonder (normally I only ever build it if I do nothing but spam wonders all game). Anyway, the map choice...

Surprise, surprise - got the most likely one right away. Still strange because in the example image above, it was also showing Shuffle (#28).

 

[Choeimok]

With the Genghis Khan game over )), next up is Catherine... on, let's see how many attempts this takes...

... Fractal again - wonder if it will be another snake-Pangaea? Won't be able to start before tomorrow.

 

[Choeimok]

Hello again
Remembered this thing recently, and got back in the mood for some Civ after a fairly long period of ... that not being the case. It happens. After a bit over a year's break, I'm going to book the rather tiresome Catherine game as a loss - while I could redownload the 4000 BC save file from the forum, I had already played until Turn 181 / 1210 AD. While it could be fun (or "fun") to try a comeback from a game that I remember to have been kind of plodding along for a couple centuries without a real plan at that point, I don't have the save from that anymore, in fact I don't even have my map selection Excel thingy anymore. Better to start over. Mehmed is the next in line, old Catherine will be appended at the end along with the other defeats if I ever get that far.

So I've redone that setup as a (probably still very questionable) bash script, the old method was completely weird anyway:
- a random line from a text file with each line containing one map script and its weight (values from 1 to 10) is selected, the weight is validated using a random number that the weight has to be greater or equal to. If it's not, the loop goes on from the beginning.

Spoiler just for reference :

A few map weight changes where the previous values felt odd to me:

Spoiler :

Shuffle 11->9 (not sure why I used 11 in the first place... Edit: apparently my random validation number was 1-15 rather than 1-10 previously)
Fractal 9->8
Pangaea 9->8
Medium&Small 4->5

Not sure if I'll have to edit the weights further, but now low-weighted map scripts seem to be more common than before. (of course I did more tests than the below)

Spoiler blocky text thingy :

Great Plains - that's an odd one! In fact, the first weight 1 script to get through.