Challenge-II-01

[Denniz]

[IMG=right]http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/images/greatgeneral.jpg[/IMG]While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we are running series of games called the Hall of Fame Challenge Series. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings of one of the games will be counted towards the Challenge.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Conquest (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: ANY
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Large
• Map Type: Pangaea
• Speed: Epic
• Required: No City Razing, No Vassal States, No Tribal Villages
• Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians, Random Personalities, Permanent Alliances, One City Challenge
• Civ: India (Gandhi)
• Opponents: Must include Aztec (Montezuma), Celt (Brennus), Greece (Alexander), Mongolia (Genghis Khan), Russia (Stalin), Sumeria (Gilgamesh), Viking (Ragnar Lodbrok), Zulu (Shaka)
• Version: 3.19.003
• Date: 10th May to 10th September 2010

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.
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[ParadigmShifter]

A large conquest with NO city razing or vassals???

Avoiding the dom limit means a very early win...

 

[Denniz]

The no razing may have been too much. Perhaps I should remove it. Thoughts?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'm sure it's doable at low levels but I'm not sure if that is the intention of the challenge.

 

[WastinTime]

The no razing may have been too much. Perhaps I should remove it. Thoughts?

Keep it. Makes it more interesting. I'm sure it's doable even on Deity.
You could always let barbs take your cities, right?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You'll have to capture the Great Wall city last then

 

[kkatta]

No Vassal State means no colonies, right?
It looks a very difficult game for a Conquest Victory....

 

[Denniz]

No Vassal State means no colonies, right?
It looks a very difficult game for a Conquest Victory....

A bit of a challenge, maybe?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Wow. Large epic conquest no razing and no vassals... how do strikes work again?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Keep it. Makes it more interesting. I'm sure it's doable even on Deity.
You could always let barbs take your cities, right?

IF someone pulls this on deity, they will wear the crown of "best civ IV player ever in TMIT's eyes".

There are only a few ways I can think that make this one possible:

1. Simply capture and kill every civ in the game before they expand to amounts that would trip domination (impossible on deity until proven otherwise...so far it has not been proven otherwise).
2. Lower the sea level, build Gwall, and run raging barbs. Play this 3049873405893746908347 times until you get lucky.
3. Capture/destroy a few civs, putting you near domination limit. Then, within only a few turns nuke and paradrop every remaining city within the amount of time cities take to come out of revolt, so you kill everyone off before you trip the land %.

3 is not easy. The AI will block paratroopers with the likes of workers and executives, and on a large map the ground and sheer # of cities to cover is tough to overcome. I have a feeling this will be finished at a more middling difficulty by an elite player, but I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Fluroscent]

Yeah, I'll will be amazed at any Deity victory here. I predict the highest level victory will be Emperor. Now prove me wrong

Funny how this one would probably be the hardest one even with NCR off (only at high levels obviously). Some of the others should be quite easy, even at Deity.

 

[cabert]

too bad you can't play it on vanilla (less pain from the no vassal)

I guess I can make it up to chieftain at least
On monarch+, I can only see nukes working. Let's wait and see.

 

[BLubmuz]

What have you smoked?
Anyone goin' over settler difficulty can't hope to be first.

For this game, you just need a few chariots or even a few warriors to conquer the closest neighbours, 2 stacks to send in different directions. game over.
Research: wheel (you got it free on settler), AH, BW. Stop.

The settler AI takes forever to research BW, you can have researched well past Alpha before they arrive to it.

The settings state:

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

Not difficulty as tiebreaker. Run and run fast.

 

[travlake]

Edit: Ignore this, AI can't raze either.

Thoughts on this strategy: Let genghis do your city razing for you.

If I read the xml right, he razes 75% of the cities he captures (smarter person confirm this?).

The ideal situation is to have genghis centrally located so that after each conquest you can declare on him, vacate your newly captured cities, have him roll through and raze most of them, retake/vacate until he razes them all. Take genghis last, as I assume the AI will not raze their own cities.

This is no silver bullet, as the ai will resettle the area (genghis himself included), and you'll have to make sure you can subdue genghis at all times. I'm gonna try this at Monarch and see how it goes.

 

[sanabas]

Does no city razing still allow the AIs to raze cities?

 

[cabert]

Does no city razing still allow the AIs to raze cities?

no
even barbs can't raze

 

[Denniz]

Moderator Action: Moved the posts about difficulty adjustment to the Challenge Series II discusssion thread. Please keep the individual game threads for game discussions.

 

[VincentThe88]

I sought to achieve victory on Warlord difficulty. However, I failed. One turn from achieving conquest, two Russian cities remaining, I won via domination... Anyone else here made the attempt, or plan on taking this on any level other than Settler?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I sought to achieve victory on Warlord difficulty. However, I failed. One turn from achieving conquest, two Russian cities remaining, I won via domination...

Did you try the following:

0) Set Raging Barbarian option

1) Abandon when Copper/Iron or Horse are not in Capital BFC.

2) Build The Great Wall in your Capital or capture the City that built it.

3) Pillage AI controlled Copper/Iron Mines and Horse Pastures.

4) Kill all AI Leaders/Civs one, two, three or four at a Time.

5) Construct no buildings that generate Culture, except for a few in the Capital.

Anyone else here made the attempt, or plan on taking this on any level other than Settler?

I plan to play Deity level. However, this Game is #5 on my priority list, so don't expect anything for at least another month (more likely 2-3 months).

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[cabert]

Did you try the following:

0) Set Raging Barbarian option

1) Abandon when Copper/Iron or Horse are not in Capital BFC.

2) Build The Great Wall in your Capital or capture the City that built it.

3) Pillage AI controlled Copper/Iron Mines and Horse Pastures.

4) Kill all AI Leaders/Civs one, two, three or four at a Time.

5) Construct no buildings that generate Culture, except for a few in the Capital.

sound advice except build the great wall
you may leave cities to the barbs if you don't

I plan to play Deity level. However, this Game is #5 on my priority list, so don't expect anything for at least another month (more likely 2-3 months).

If you make it at deity level, you'll get praise for several months from me
Sincerely I don't think it's doable.