Challenge-XIV-03

[lymond]

[IMG=right]http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/images/greatgeneral.jpg[/IMG]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!
(*) Games must be played using the >> BUFFY MOD 3.19.003 <<
(*) Games to be submitted via the >> Civ IV Hall of Fame Website <<
(*) New players, please >> register << using your CFC forum name​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Time (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Prince
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Large
• Speed: Quick
• Map Type: Archipelago
• Civ: Germany (Frederick)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.003
• Date: 1st May to 30th November 2014

Must not play as Inca.
The highest score wins.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Almost picked Archipelago landmass type because I played that last game. Then changed it to Tiny Islands, which is much easier to get time on. First one to Sushi should win. First map I rolled, got corn, gold, 2 crab and 1 clam!

 

[enKage]

Sushi is dangerous. Plenty of sea resources = plenty of culture = cultural win before the game ends

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Sushi is dangerous. Plenty of sea resources = plenty of culture = cultural win before the game ends

Gift the cities away. Then they can't get Legendary. Or just switch to State Property, but then your cities would starve.

 

[dohh]

Yeah, aint that easy as it seems. Going to end game soon but nothing really good comes out of it. Lol, first time I play time game on quick map, left too strong AIs on map, now its already 4th space ship I have to bring down from heaven, also rushed to other island to cancel French plans for cultural

Culture via sushi is also a problem. May have made mistake, and went for many big cities but no supercities... Anyway first milestone will be up on challenge 3 soon-

 

[enKage]

OK I've done

Archgipelago, low seas, sneaky continents gives sth like big and small mapscript. I went Cereal to avoid culture.

67 cities, max pop 44, 123 future techs, wonderspamming/settled specialists/nationalpark&epic capitol


Prince is probably the last diff level when one can easily build Mids, GLH and Oracle (Civil Service) in one city with no ind trait and still expand fast.

 

[zbgayumn]

Well, I posted a win, even if the score is pretty lame.

I tried settling various islands and then spinning off colonies. While it kept maintenance costs from crushing me, it doesn't seem to be a good recipe for maximizing score.

It was a crazy, crazy endgame. I saw that Hatty was 2 turns behind the countdown to win a culture victory, but I still had 30-some turns at that point, so I took my time assembling a strike force. With 16 turns to go, she was down to 8 turns to culture victory, so I went ahead with the amphibious assault and razed her 3rd city. That was complicated by the fact that she a vassal to Washington, who was 2nd most powerful in the game. I figured I could deal with the consequences if wanted a real war though.

As soon as I razed that city, I checked the Victory screen. Now, Brennus is 7 turns away from cultural victory. Holy crap! So, I load up what's left of my assault force and start sailing toward Celtia. I also start building new transports in my land closest to his cities. He's been stockpiling units, but I get lucky in that his 3rd culture city has mostly naval units in it. In five turns, I have two transports that reach Vienne and at least 12 Jets on carriers for air strikes. I pull off my second amphibious assault and raze that city.

By that time, Washington was willing to talk. Apparently, the fact that I attacked his vassal and not him made it OK to negotiate. Then, two turns after I attacked Brennus, a UN vote comes up and I can propose "Stop the war against Zack". It passes and I'm home free. Almost.

Both Washington and Mao have been trying to finish spaceships for what seems like forever. I watch the countdown nervously, because I don't think I could Beijing if I had to. Once it hit 10 turns, I started feeling better, but I don't know how long a spaceship travels on Quick. Finally, at 4 turns to go, Mao launches. They don't go that fast, because I won without having to try a 3rd assault.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Well, I posted a win, even if the score is pretty lame.

I tried settling various islands and then spinning off colonies. While it kept maintenance costs from crushing me, it doesn't seem to be a good recipe for maximizing score.

It was a crazy, crazy endgame. I saw that Hatty was 2 turns behind the countdown to win a culture victory, but I still had 30-some turns at that point, so I took my time assembling a strike force. With 16 turns to go, she was down to 8 turns to culture victory, so I went ahead with the amphibious assault and razed her 3rd city. That was complicated by the fact that she a vassal to Washington, who was 2nd most powerful in the game. I figured I could deal with the consequences if wanted a real war though.

As soon as I razed that city, I checked the Victory screen. Now, Brennus is 7 turns away from cultural victory. Holy crap! So, I load up what's left of my assault force and start sailing toward Celtia. I also start building new transports in my land closest to his cities. He's been stockpiling units, but I get lucky in that his 3rd culture city has mostly naval units in it. In five turns, I have two transports that reach Vienne and at least 12 Jets on carriers for air strikes. I pull off my second amphibious assault and raze that city.

By that time, Washington was willing to talk. Apparently, the fact that I attacked his vassal and not him made it OK to negotiate. Then, two turns after I attacked Brennus, a UN vote comes up and I can propose "Stop the war against Zack". It passes and I'm home free. Almost.

Both Washington and Mao have been trying to finish spaceships for what seems like forever. I watch the countdown nervously, because I don't think I could Beijing if I had to. Once it hit 10 turns, I started feeling better, but I don't know how long a spaceship travels on Quick. Finally, at 4 turns to go, Mao launches. They don't go that fast, because I won without having to try a 3rd assault.

You should turn vassals off, it reduces maintenance and makes the weak stay weak. Don't spawn off colonies if you want a high score.

 

[enKage]

I got ca. 19k points, but unfortunately excluded due to replaying moves (remember, NEVER "go to" orders !!! while stopping session during the war)

I will try another game soon, cereal works really fine, sushi is a waste IMO as 1 future technology per turn is easy to achieve without it and sneaky contonent can give quite a lot of corn/wheat. just be sure you dont start on an island! ther is usually no or little crop there. For now I think Oracling CS + GLH + Mids is a key

 

[smitsk00]

So...I would have loved to take Washington and destroy Lincoln's ship like I did Zara's and Lizzie's. The game would have had to notify me, however - no announcement, no graphic. Damn.

 

[cas]

OCC time victory. would have been easy with nukes, but no uranium. Had to plod through the hard way. ~2750 points.

cas

 

[neilmeister]

Aaarrgghhh!

Just had my game accepted, with a score of almost 25K.... but I used Bismark by mistake.

 

[lymond]

Aaarrgghhh!

Just had my game accepted, with a score of almost 25K.... but I used Bismark by mistake.

I felt your pain when I clicked the accept button

 

[neilmeister]

Just submitted my second and final attempt, I think I have killed this one. Sure it can be beaten, but anyone that does deserves the award, purely for stamina!

With Frederick this time

33.5k final score
Sushi was giving me +57 fpt, 124 workboats built
5/7 shrines
6/7 corps
129 future techs
All but 4 wonders
Berlin went Legendary 4.5 times
Berlin had 46 settled great people!
Wall St city generated 5433 gpt
167 cities settled, 51 captured, 28 razed, sushi spread to all but 2 (competing corps)
Max pop 56, ~180 cities above pop 30, ~130 cities above pop 40

These 2 games were my second and third (and last!) Time games ever. I will never play another!



Edit: Hints for others: Use No Vassals, GLH is killer, so is Colossus. Keep conquering, leave only 2-3 AI max. Stay in State Property until about 80-90 turn to go. Then spread sushi like crazy!
Edit2: Sushi isn't for future tech, it is for population, which is where you find the score!

 

[enKage]

Uff I did it finally.

More continental aproach, only +20 or so from Cereal, but more farms. Largest city 47.

Maybe continental aproach could win with Sushi, but there is 1 serious problem: number of cities! Tiny islands allow about 200 cities, while continental map gave me only 99 and I was counting tiles every turn to avoid domination, had to settle 1 city at the end to give it away.

145 future technologies, all wonders but stonehenge and Hagia Sophia gave me final score 24k or so. I dont know how it would translate to score visible on the table.

Oracle-(Represantation)-GLH - Mids in BC is extremely powerful, I dont know why neilmeister did not try it, his score would be far more impressive.



I dont kno why some people have problems with AIs spaceships. After turn 250 or so running 100% espionage and still having positive income and future techs in 1 turn allows kepping AIs in "stone age". 20 spies in Amsterdam destroyed everything in 1 turns, no buildings, no health, no happiness :] poor Willem

 

[neilmeister]

Nicely done enKage! This game is truly a test of stamina.

Problem with tiny islands (other than pushing boats around all game) is the lack of hammers, so without Stone Mid's is usually too hard.
Looking back at my game I was foolish to not build them, they would have been easy to get, but I had already been beaten to GLH (luckily to my neighbour) so I wasn't thinking about other wonders.

Cereal Mills can also be expanded immediately without risk of Cultural victory, so this maybe would have given you the pop to start cranking out 1 tech a turn a little before me.

 

[enKage]

Nicely done enKage! This game is truly a test of stamina.

Problem with tiny islands (other than pushing boats around all game) is the lack of hammers, so without Stone Mid's is usually too hard.
Looking back at my game I was foolish to not build them, they would have been easy to get, but I had already been beaten to GLH (luckily to my neighbour) so I wasn't thinking about other wonders.

Cereal Mills can also be expanded immediately without risk of Cultural victory, so this maybe would have given you the pop to start cranking out 1 tech a turn a little before me.

I tried one approach of tiny islands till 100 AD and basically it does not make a huge difference with continental starts. 4 hills or cow+3hills give enough production before mass settling engineers and prophets. Still Oracle-GLH-Mids combo is easy to take in BCs even with no stone. That beauro bonus is huge and is definitely worth spending few turns on preparing early GreatScientist for Maths bulb to open oracling CService. Typically while building Oracle, you get CoL and should get Monotheism as well. +75% production for wonders around 800-700BC is worth every sacrifice, especially when some turns later go another +25% from forge. Masonry resources are not even necessairy

Just another tip for everyone willing to test his patience :]
EDIT:
I won with future techs

 

[neilmeister]

Pollina, were you going to mention you smashed my game?

 

[Pollina]

I'll post a writeup later today.

 

[Pollina]

Ok, let’s start with the hard facts using Neil’s metric:

33.5k final score
Sushi was giving me +57 fpt, 124 workboats built
5/7 shrines
6/7 corps
129 future techs
All but 4 wonders
Berlin went Legendary 4.5 times
Berlin had 46 settled great people!
Wall St city generated 5433 gpt
167 cities settled, 51 captured, 28 razed, sushi spread to all but 2 (competing corps)
Max pop 56, ~180 cities above pop 30, ~130 cities above pop 40!

My game:

44.1k final score
Sushi was giving me +48 fpt, 73 workboats built
4/7 shrines
4/7 corps
123 future techs
All but 5 wonders (razed Sistine Chapel city with 4 wonders , forgot to create a lvl 6 unit for Mt Rushmore)
Berlin went Legendary less than 4 times
Wall St city generated ~4000 gpt @ 80% gold
152 cities total, 110 cities settled, 52 captured, 8 razed, 2 gifted away, sushi spread to all cities
Max pop 55, all cities above pop 30, 42.4 pop/city on average
38 hours played (minus a few lunch/dinner breaks)

So why the difference in score? The main reason is that I used high sea level which produces a ton of one tile islands that are the best city locations in score games. I had 152 cities on a 767 land tiles map (Neil had 214 cities on a 1800 tiles map). Add to that a larger average city pop (42.4 vs. 39.6) due to earlier and faster Sushi spreads (less culture from Sushi, less cities) and you get a population score of 27555 (vs. 18503 in Neil’s game).

Not much else to say strategy wise:
- expand, build early key wonders in 2 cities (skipped Collossus and went for early-ish Astro)
- kill or cripple AIs with units of choice (amphibious rifles and marines ), last cities captured in 1850s
- expand to dom limit, prioritize small islands, notice that razed cities keep plot culture, 2 city gifts to weakest AI
- spread Sushi (starting 120 turns before end), gift some Sushi resources to surviving 3 AIs to reduce culture output
- hit enter ~60 times -> win

AIs were a non-issue in the endgame. Tiny islands and cold climated kept them from expanding. Two of the three surviving AIs were building the Apollo Program in the end… with 150 and >200 turns to go.

Overall, this was only half as bad as expected and kinda fun for the most part. I might even play another time game... in the very distant future.