Challenge-V-02

[Ozbenno]

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. 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: Domination (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Monarch
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Ice Age
• Speed: Normal
• Must Not Be Checked: No Barbarians
• Civ: Ethiopia (Zara Yaqob)
• Opponents: Must include Byzantium (Justinian), China (Qin Shi Huang), England (Churchill), Holy Roman Empire (Charlemange), Khmer (Suryavarman), Native America (Sitting Bull)
• Version: 3.19.003
• Date: 6th June to 6th October 2011

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

 

[Ozbenno]

Well I kicked things along in this map with a 1510AD finish.

Had an interesting start with three luxuryt resources in the BFC (silver, fur and ivory). I Oracled Construction and went warring with War Elephants and Catapults. Managed to take down 3 AI this way but then they all had Feudalism, so I had to get to Engineering, Guilds, Civil Service and Machinery to fully steamroll the rest.

Certainly could have finished faster if I played better but it was a fun game.

 

[colonelmustard]

Good job. Sounds like a nice start for this map. Would you say that the map was the toughest part? Besides food and resources, I seem to remember that landmass type is unpredictable for ice age?

 

[Ozbenno]

Good job. Sounds like a nice start for this map. Would you say that the map was the toughest part? Besides food and resources, I seem to remember that landmass type is unpredictable for ice age?

Yeah, the map can be tough. Being able to get to everyone quickly can be a pain on Ice Age. Was able to get to enough AI on my map easily enough.

 

[Manco Capac]

As always, RNG gods are favourable to me. After two-three fake attempts of 5 min each, the next was sweet.
Single continent, chose Animal Husbandry path right away, villages taught me Horseback riding early, got horses in my third culture ring (like in G-Major 93 instead of copper) and I ran amok.
Of course, I did my warrior rampage before. I am a warmonger and I like IT!

I added four additional opponents to lower the land requirement for domination.
Easy leaders that is ...for practicing...

Spoiler :

Try to beat that, bcool!

 

[shulec]

Tachywaxon, this is yet another impressive victory! You are quickly building a reputation as "the Guy to beat!"

Nice job!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

As always, RNG gods are favourable to me. After two-three fake attempts of 5 min each, the next was sweet.
Single continent, chose Animal Husbandry path right away, villages taught me Horseback riding early, got horses in my third culture ring (like in G-Major 93 instead of copper) and I ran amok.
Of course, I did my warrior rampage before. I am a warmonger and I like IT!

I added four additional opponents to lower the land requirement for domination.
Easy leaders that is ...for practicing...

Congratulations, Tachywaxon! A BC Domination of a Standard Map at Normal speed is very impressive!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[shulec]

Try to beat that, bcool!

I missed this the first time around. I am pleased to see a little friendly trash talkin'!

 

[bcool]

Ouch I have been humbled...

I doubt I'll be able to beat it, but you have made me very determined to try

 

[Manco Capac]

Ouch I have been humbled...

I doubt I'll be able to beat it, but you have made me very determined to try

And in return you humbled me somewhere. Friendly retaliations......well I got what I deserve to bring you into that gauntlet.

Masochistic competition, here I come...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Having to rely on lucky huts/super starts/etc really turns me off for going for the absolute best times, but I'm going to run the series and am casting this game on youtube. I managed to pull a 720 AD finish date with no huts/events, nothing great but good enough. HA spam games are nothing new to me and nobody got longbows before I stuck a nail in the AI.

Still, sitting at -100 gold per turn at one point was pretty comical. One revolt to slavery/rep later + massed courthouse whips + build wealth later, it was all golden (or at least green) .

 

[Manco Capac]

I really understand your point, but if I want to be competitive, I have to do so.
Anyways, you style of play is totally respectable.

BTW, count on me to view your vids...those HommIII vids made me flinched for a period.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I really understand your point, but if I want to be competitive, I have to do so.

No, don't take it the wrong way, I understand yours too. In essence, those options are required to compete. I don't like that, but I'm out-voted. I do not begrudge competitors from using every options available to them to win the competition within the rules; it's for similar reasons I use stealth rocks in pokemon even though I hate them very much.

 

[iggymnrr]

@TMIT
Thanks for the video on this one!

 

[Manco Capac]

Technically, I didn't take that badly that comment of yours because you laid at length and critically your opinion regarding gamebreaking and uncontrollable random aspects of the game in the past. But derisions by a specific deity player becomes really annoying. And that is probably why I was on the defensive. It may be sarcasm it says, but there are constructive sarcasm. Anyways, that is why I respect your choice and by time I play, I feel huts are a bit shameful. That is why I was proud of my diplomatic win in a certain G-Major because I killed tribal huts and Random only brought me a bit of cash from gold mines. Of course, the start was stellar, but that is HoF.

I have begun to watch your vid and it feels good to turn back to my lurker status once in a while, but one comment, I didn't try to pop HR badly, it just happened and I was quite surprised. In that particular BC game, I had in mind a chariot rush after "choking" an AI.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Technically, I didn't take that badly that comment of yours because you laid at length and critically your opinion regarding gamebreaking and uncontrollable random aspects of the game in the past. But derisions by a specific deity player becomes really annoying. And that is probably why I was on the defensive. It may be sarcasm it says, but there are constructive sarcasm. Anyways, that is why I respect your choice and by time I play, I feel huts are a bit shameful. That is why I was proud of my diplomatic win in a certain G-Major because I killed tribal huts and Random only brought me a bit of cash from gold mines. Of course, the start was stellar, but that is HoF.

I have begun to watch your vid and it feels good to turn back to my lurker status once in a while, but one comment, I didn't try to pop HR badly, it just happened and I was quite surprised. In that particular BC game, I had in mind a chariot rush after "choking" an AI.

My issue isn't that you (or any player!) gets these types of lucky outcomes; but rather that they're required to be competitive. Granted, a better player would have finished my map earlier than I did regardless...but the amount these random factors can play is rather high compared to say RNG outcomes of individual battles (even though in theory you can wipe the entire world with stock warriors and win before 2000 BC with "enough attempts", though its beyond unlikely to happen in a lifetime) is rather jarring.

I also wouldn't mind if you rolled the map 200 times just to pop HBR as opposed to what you actually did (just took advantage of fortunate chance) as the current rules encourage that; my issue here is that the rules demand an outcome that can not be attained through skill, but rather through sheer chance (which results in needing more #attempts, on average, to get a competitive finish. This has tough implications for a HoF table that has still not been filled competitively and goes against policies such as allowing mapfinder/choosing opponents).

Your game is both within the rules and very impressive. Part of me wants to know whether it would STILL have taken the top spot (so far!) even without the huts; I believe you'd have still beaten my date for example. The hard part is that we can never 100% quantify the impact of these factors on each game and between games.

Anyway this is not the place for discussion of the rules per se' or even that I don't like them; I'm mostly posting this to emphasize that it's the rules I disagree with; not your approach or result which I find very impressive. I've already pulled up my, your, and several other games in this format for comparison...always looking to pick a thing or two up!

Edit: Said deity player has yet to answer the point that it is not the AI you compete with on the "joke maps", but rather other players who all also have the SAME "joke maps". In reality, my impression is that the style of play conducive to his success on deity/normal does not translate to early finishes very well...but he too has different venues where he prefers to compete.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

But derisions by a specific deity player becomes really annoying.

Who might that be?

I may complain about random game features like Tribal Villages and out of balance game elements like the overpowered Incan Civ. I don't complain about other players using Tribal Villages too; I use them myself, but I would wholeheartedly support a total ban of them. I do tend to be a bit unfair in my criticism of players using the Incan Civ when other Civs would work as well; I really wish the HoF had a total ban on them and not just in HoF Gauntlets; I was shocked when the HoF decided to allow the Incan Civ in HoF Challenges.

@ MeInTheTeam: I finally looked up Erwin Schrödinger and his cat story. He has his view of the story; other physicists have their own differing views of the same story; some think the story is irrelevant. It's a somehow comforting story (not for the cat), because there are so many different viewpoints of it. Wonder why Schrödinger switched his view to pure waves at the end of his life. Thanks for the diversion!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Manco Capac]

Who might that be?

If you think that is you, you are wrong. It is not a HoF player (like you), but better let it up.
That part was useless after all, but he somewhat insulted the HoF party and I got flustered. Looks like controlled environment kind of games are totally ridiculed by some.
I guess they are right.

EDIT: Btw, why do you think I would even target you?
If it has to do with the great vizier comment, you got it wrong...nothing nasty was intented.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Looks like controlled environment kind of games are totally ridiculed by some.

I'd not agree on this. IMO controlled environments are necessary to make games more comparable, it's just a question of which controls are used.

Besides, how often do we play ice age otherwise . I was expecting the land quality to be terrible, but it wasn't. Maybe it gives a larger % land that is tundra and tundra starts sooner as you near the poles, but since I wound up with a centralized mostly-pangaea map (sury got stock an an island and never showed up for me even though western civ probably met him via culture, haha!), it seemed like a normal map with virtually no tundra XD. This is an interesting script I might take a look at for other things in the future.

 

[DanielTorrence]

As always, RNG gods are favourable to me. After two-three fake attempts of 5 min each, the next was sweet.
Single continent, chose Animal Husbandry path right away, villages taught me Horseback riding early, got horses in my third culture ring (like in G-Major 93 instead of copper) and I ran amok.
Of course, I did my warrior rampage before. I am a warmonger and I like IT!

I added four additional opponents to lower the land requirement for domination.
Easy leaders that is ...for practicing...

I never thought that this would be possible. Even with getting HA from a hut, you must have hit multiple AI towns at each turn - I would assume just the moving from one edge of the map to the other would take you longer than that...Very impressive. Too bad you didnt make a video I am watching TMIT currently and even 720 A.D. is far beyond anything I have seen or done so far...Managed to take over my own continent by 175 A.D. but the other three civs where on a different land mass...Still, its nice playing when I currently struggle on Emperor+