Blackhat HOF thread
- Thread starter BlackHat
- Start date
Holy cows, that's a nice area! All it needs is a hill or two for production.
Interesting thoughts on investing in units such as Mounted Warriors by sending them on ahead, even if they don't have overwhelming force yet. Though atypical, I can see where it could potentially speed up expansion a bit, and that may be worth the tradeoff when the goal is a fastest finish.
There's some old gauntlet thread I ended up looking at the other day where you can see 8 grassland cows within 6 to 8 tiles of the capital, I think.
I think the best production sight I've seen makes for the area around the captured 001 here. But Khan had other plans for me in that game... sigh.
Wow, with those hills and forests that KHAAAN game has everything the Sumerian one here lacked and still just as many cows!
I don't think I've ever had that many cows in one place, but back in PTW days I had a city on flood plains with a ridiculous amount of wheat, and I think two rivers coming together too and thus extending the flood plains. Got up to size 45 IIRC, but I lost the save in the mid-late 2010's along with nearly all my other pre-Conquests ones. Pity of it was in wasn't till Conquests that specialists produced more than 1 science/commerce.
BlackHat
Chieftain
One big thing that I've missed since starting on the HOF is the more casual, purposeless play of non optimized games. "Just win" sounds nice on paper, but when I know I'm submitting a game there's always pressure to optimize. I also wanted to step up to Deity, and trying to play optimally for time when leveling up is not always the best way to assure a win. So this isn't really so much about the HOF as how to up difficulty level, have fun, and get a win.
To address both these issues - increased chance to win and a sub optimal strategy that doesn't put pressure on time - I chose to do a zero research variant targeting space. That way I have an excuse for a crappy time, but can focus resources on survival. Set up 60% pangea huge map, a few expansionist opponents and all scientific tribes, then ran mapfinder for 3 cows.
What I got was a good capital and not much else. Dry to the north and east, wetlands to the south and west. 1000 BC.
At first I felt that personal flaws had caused that poor Rex, but looking back there simply weren't many good tiles to work with. Over the next 1000 ish years I was able to bring this land up to some semblance of usefulness and expand into the jungle a good bit while Sumeria expanded south into the good land between themselves and Russia. But for most of the game those towns were just as much a defensive liability as productive towns. Soon after this 07 in the north flipped to the Americans. Should have seen that coming. During this ~1000 year period there was one productive activity beyond worker improvements - stealing technology/gold through trade route cutting. Trade route cutting is kind of underhanded in my book, but when you've got a bad start on higher levels there's not a lot to be done.
At 30 AD the same area looked like this:
Allowing the Americans to land Cleveland was a big mistake that really complicated the first war. As you can see, we'd been collecting quite a bit of gold through trading, and were two techs away from Military Tradition, home to the Ottoman Siphai - a 100 shield, 8 attack beast. But at this time we only had trade routes to 4 civs, and resources were quite limited. America was our primary trading partner, and had iron available, but in the absence of horses such was not terribly valuable. Fortunately the fog on the other side of the jungle revealed a horse that was not in any nations cultural borders, and a rushed settler made it to position around 300 AD.
I can't get replay to work, but the power graph tells the story rather well. Around 400 AD we invaded America, but for at least 100 years leading up to that point they had either chosen or been tricked into was with every close neighbor and were on the verge of collapse. In fact, the biggest difficulty in that was wasn't the American troops but racing the Russian, Sumerian and Incan forces to their cities. Then we had to blockade their last city to prevent a rep hit from the "broken" alliances. That's the long tail on their power chart. This was also the first time I have ever used disconnect/reconnect expansively, so there was a lot of refinement along the way.
Next came a few wars to consolidate the former American holdings, which took about 10 turns, then another 10 turns to put factories into core towns. Then decision time. Because in pursuit of conquest gold I had killed most of the world economies by extracting all their GPT. The only GPT in the economy was tied to lux deals with me. That of course had slowed research down a lot, and it turned out conquest on deity is really fun. Checked the tables and found that both Conquest had an easily achievable date, so the decision was made - conquest it was.
Most of my wars came with artillery proper, as replaceable parts came in during the war with Greece and Germany, and all but two from that point were against hopelessly depleted or underpowered opponents with no infantry. The Horse-cav upgrade was incredibly powerful, especially combined with Siphia.
As can be seen on the minimap from 1000 AD, Russia and Sumeria were the strongest civs for most of the game and lasted until the very end. Sumeria had Calvary, a very long border with our core and... Leo's. Fortunately they did not have rubber, and never obtained Replaceable Parts. Russia on the other had did get RP, and had fat stacks of infantry to deal with. Sumeria came first, then Russia over the last 15 turns of real war. Both were softened up by 10 turns of infighting before I invaded, but sumeria took the brunt of the losses and was relatively easy to handle. If I had it to do over again, I would have used the difficulty of moving through the jungle between us to defend core towns and hit Sumeria far more aggressively as soon as adequate artillery and rails were available. It would have saved a lot of cash.
One really difficult spot came on an isolated island.
I don't think the tactic is widely described (though it's surely used). A boat with 2 infantry, a settler, and a leader to land on the spit of land between Russia and Persia. Immediately after settling the leader rushed a palace and the next turn I gifted a city full of artillery, workers, armies and Siphia to a neutral AI. This teleports all units (with full movement points!) to the capital, and by the end of the next turn the entire island was conquered. I then abandoned the capital and the palace returned to the core, and had I really needed to most of the units could have been returned to the mainland through another city gifting.
Unfortunately both Russia and Sumeria got settlers into boats, and after about 10 turns of spamming frigates and shooting at everything that moved the game started crashing regularly and war weariness was killing me. The number 1 slot of for domination was over a hundred years away, so I rushed settlers, filled in gaps and took the win in 1150. It probably could have been at least 200 years earlier if I hadn't been set on conquest.
This was the most fun game I've played in a while, and I highly recommend it if you enjoy more balanced gameplay with allowance for a slower buildup. I'll probably play another Deity war game like this before stepping up to try the same on SID. Maybe with a decent start extensive trade route breaking won't be a requirement.
To address both these issues - increased chance to win and a sub optimal strategy that doesn't put pressure on time - I chose to do a zero research variant targeting space. That way I have an excuse for a crappy time, but can focus resources on survival. Set up 60% pangea huge map, a few expansionist opponents and all scientific tribes, then ran mapfinder for 3 cows.
What I got was a good capital and not much else. Dry to the north and east, wetlands to the south and west. 1000 BC.
At first I felt that personal flaws had caused that poor Rex, but looking back there simply weren't many good tiles to work with. Over the next 1000 ish years I was able to bring this land up to some semblance of usefulness and expand into the jungle a good bit while Sumeria expanded south into the good land between themselves and Russia. But for most of the game those towns were just as much a defensive liability as productive towns. Soon after this 07 in the north flipped to the Americans. Should have seen that coming. During this ~1000 year period there was one productive activity beyond worker improvements - stealing technology/gold through trade route cutting. Trade route cutting is kind of underhanded in my book, but when you've got a bad start on higher levels there's not a lot to be done.
At 30 AD the same area looked like this:
Allowing the Americans to land Cleveland was a big mistake that really complicated the first war. As you can see, we'd been collecting quite a bit of gold through trading, and were two techs away from Military Tradition, home to the Ottoman Siphai - a 100 shield, 8 attack beast. But at this time we only had trade routes to 4 civs, and resources were quite limited. America was our primary trading partner, and had iron available, but in the absence of horses such was not terribly valuable. Fortunately the fog on the other side of the jungle revealed a horse that was not in any nations cultural borders, and a rushed settler made it to position around 300 AD.
I can't get replay to work, but the power graph tells the story rather well. Around 400 AD we invaded America, but for at least 100 years leading up to that point they had either chosen or been tricked into was with every close neighbor and were on the verge of collapse. In fact, the biggest difficulty in that was wasn't the American troops but racing the Russian, Sumerian and Incan forces to their cities. Then we had to blockade their last city to prevent a rep hit from the "broken" alliances. That's the long tail on their power chart. This was also the first time I have ever used disconnect/reconnect expansively, so there was a lot of refinement along the way.
Next came a few wars to consolidate the former American holdings, which took about 10 turns, then another 10 turns to put factories into core towns. Then decision time. Because in pursuit of conquest gold I had killed most of the world economies by extracting all their GPT. The only GPT in the economy was tied to lux deals with me. That of course had slowed research down a lot, and it turned out conquest on deity is really fun. Checked the tables and found that both Conquest had an easily achievable date, so the decision was made - conquest it was.
Most of my wars came with artillery proper, as replaceable parts came in during the war with Greece and Germany, and all but two from that point were against hopelessly depleted or underpowered opponents with no infantry. The Horse-cav upgrade was incredibly powerful, especially combined with Siphia.
As can be seen on the minimap from 1000 AD, Russia and Sumeria were the strongest civs for most of the game and lasted until the very end. Sumeria had Calvary, a very long border with our core and... Leo's. Fortunately they did not have rubber, and never obtained Replaceable Parts. Russia on the other had did get RP, and had fat stacks of infantry to deal with. Sumeria came first, then Russia over the last 15 turns of real war. Both were softened up by 10 turns of infighting before I invaded, but sumeria took the brunt of the losses and was relatively easy to handle. If I had it to do over again, I would have used the difficulty of moving through the jungle between us to defend core towns and hit Sumeria far more aggressively as soon as adequate artillery and rails were available. It would have saved a lot of cash.
One really difficult spot came on an isolated island.
I don't think the tactic is widely described (though it's surely used). A boat with 2 infantry, a settler, and a leader to land on the spit of land between Russia and Persia. Immediately after settling the leader rushed a palace and the next turn I gifted a city full of artillery, workers, armies and Siphia to a neutral AI. This teleports all units (with full movement points!) to the capital, and by the end of the next turn the entire island was conquered. I then abandoned the capital and the palace returned to the core, and had I really needed to most of the units could have been returned to the mainland through another city gifting.
Unfortunately both Russia and Sumeria got settlers into boats, and after about 10 turns of spamming frigates and shooting at everything that moved the game started crashing regularly and war weariness was killing me. The number 1 slot of for domination was over a hundred years away, so I rushed settlers, filled in gaps and took the win in 1150. It probably could have been at least 200 years earlier if I hadn't been set on conquest.
This was the most fun game I've played in a while, and I highly recommend it if you enjoy more balanced gameplay with allowance for a slower buildup. I'll probably play another Deity war game like this before stepping up to try the same on SID. Maybe with a decent start extensive trade route breaking won't be a requirement.
Congrats Blackhat! A fair amount of Deity, Sid, and even Demi-God slots for the HoF are open. Especially Large and Huge maps. And you have things like Large 20k having more entires filled than Large Conquest, which even has spots open on Warlord and Regent. So, I wouldn't worry about sub-optimal strategy if you just want to put something on the board. And even for tables with 10 full entries the lowest placed finished often have later finish dates.
BlackHat
Chieftain
Thank you Spoonwood! It felt pretty great in that American war to be slicing through a Deity AI like it wasn't there.
Yes, Deity very much does not require a perfect strategy for a table position, or even a number 1 slot as my game demonstrates! I had 11 opponents, a 60% map, a bad start, and wasted at least 20 turns trying to get a conquest victory and still beat the number one domination slot by a hundred years. It's not so much a rational objection about the table slot as a psychological block on not doing everything possible to maximize results. It tends to reduce my enjoyment of a lot of activities actually... Still haven't figured out a way to enjoy a hobby without obsession making it a bit of a chore.
Yes, Deity very much does not require a perfect strategy for a table position, or even a number 1 slot as my game demonstrates! I had 11 opponents, a 60% map, a bad start, and wasted at least 20 turns trying to get a conquest victory and still beat the number one domination slot by a hundred years. It's not so much a rational objection about the table slot as a psychological block on not doing everything possible to maximize results. It tends to reduce my enjoyment of a lot of activities actually... Still haven't figured out a way to enjoy a hobby without obsession making it a bit of a chore.
BlackHat
Chieftain
Had some business travel to Japan recently, and the laptop doesn't run mapfinder very well, so this is an homage to @templar_x and his random settings HOF approach. Random Civ, world, opponents on a small monarch map. The roll left me as the Iroquois playing on what appears to be a wet, 5 billion, 70% arch map against Germany, Sumeria, China, Egypt, and Arabia. The start had 3 wines within reach on the tip of a peninsula and a wall of jungle to the rest of the island:
Got the full slingshot and revolted well before anyone else had a clue, but it wasn't yet clear what the goal was. And it was obvious that regardless of the VC we needed more land - because the jungle had left us hopelessly strangled in the early expansion phase and desperate for land. Arabia was the obvious target, but in 590BC there was still nothing to attack them with:
Fortunately Arabia's lack of access to food bonuses kept them weak, and in in the next save in 50 AD the same area looked like:
Sumeria was next, but fortunately got a boat out and settled on a nearby tundra island before they were wiped out. That moved their capital far away and reduced flip probabilities while assimilating the land (and pyramids). Still had a few, but overall it wasn't bad given that I had no culture.
At this point conquest/domination were clearly not viable table slots due to the slow start, and a diplomatic win seemed a bit unreasonable due to the warring already conducted and the lacking commerce on the home island. culture wasn't viable, so it came down to space or histographic. Histographic would have filled a table slot, but space seemed more fun and challenging than milking for the last table slot, so I ICS'd the tundra, filled in gaps, and spammed workers to get to max science ASAP. I was very surprised how quickly tundra can make workers with the pyramids, so it wasn't long before the space was fully roaded and workers were waiting for rails. Meanwhile, Egypt had some attractive coastal land near the capital and we had several MW's doing nothing:
Unfortunately our German allies stole Memphis the next turn, but the rest of Egypt fell to us easily enough. Germany was both strong and rich, so they escaped assimilation and would provide 60-80 GPT for the rest of the game. The next war came after tanks to absorb the Chinese holdings to the west, just after completing the industrial revolution in the core cities.
Research was per usual, with mostly 4 turn research from mid industrial on. Maybe 2 or 3 modern techs took 5 before the chinese specialists kicked in and final CE buildings completed. Saved the ToE for miniaturization and robotics (the most expensive techs required for a science victory) by building Universal Suffrage to break the cascade. Launched on the same turn as finishing superconductor in 1530. Not bad for starting in jungle and getting 5 or so free techs from the science trait all game.
Got the full slingshot and revolted well before anyone else had a clue, but it wasn't yet clear what the goal was. And it was obvious that regardless of the VC we needed more land - because the jungle had left us hopelessly strangled in the early expansion phase and desperate for land. Arabia was the obvious target, but in 590BC there was still nothing to attack them with:
Fortunately Arabia's lack of access to food bonuses kept them weak, and in in the next save in 50 AD the same area looked like:
Sumeria was next, but fortunately got a boat out and settled on a nearby tundra island before they were wiped out. That moved their capital far away and reduced flip probabilities while assimilating the land (and pyramids). Still had a few, but overall it wasn't bad given that I had no culture.
At this point conquest/domination were clearly not viable table slots due to the slow start, and a diplomatic win seemed a bit unreasonable due to the warring already conducted and the lacking commerce on the home island. culture wasn't viable, so it came down to space or histographic. Histographic would have filled a table slot, but space seemed more fun and challenging than milking for the last table slot, so I ICS'd the tundra, filled in gaps, and spammed workers to get to max science ASAP. I was very surprised how quickly tundra can make workers with the pyramids, so it wasn't long before the space was fully roaded and workers were waiting for rails. Meanwhile, Egypt had some attractive coastal land near the capital and we had several MW's doing nothing:
Unfortunately our German allies stole Memphis the next turn, but the rest of Egypt fell to us easily enough. Germany was both strong and rich, so they escaped assimilation and would provide 60-80 GPT for the rest of the game. The next war came after tanks to absorb the Chinese holdings to the west, just after completing the industrial revolution in the core cities.
Research was per usual, with mostly 4 turn research from mid industrial on. Maybe 2 or 3 modern techs took 5 before the chinese specialists kicked in and final CE buildings completed. Saved the ToE for miniaturization and robotics (the most expensive techs required for a science victory) by building Universal Suffrage to break the cascade. Launched on the same turn as finishing superconductor in 1530. Not bad for starting in jungle and getting 5 or so free techs from the science trait all game.
templar_x
usually walks his talks
thanks, BlackHat, but this is more than an hommage - i clearly would have rerolled with such a start. 
most of the times i rolled a few starts and went on with the best one. to look for maps more professionally was just way too tedious for me.
t_x
most of the times i rolled a few starts and went on with the best one. to look for maps more professionally was just way too tedious for me.
t_x
BlackHat
Chieftain
Recent computer issues have made the need for a file repository clear, so I'm making a post and uploading key files as I find them. First up is the most succinct and useful tech tree I've come across, and one that is difficult to find even when you know what you're looking for. Will edit as necessary with other useful items.
Donny Brook
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2004
- Messages
- 120
You pop the cheapest techs first so it's very likely that someone has already popped CB before you got a chance to research it first. As such, it was highly improbable that you would ever get a SGL going that route.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/probabilities-of-goody-huts-c3c.93244/
Similar threads
