Challenge-XVI-01

[Noble Zarkon]

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 your best submission 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: Religious (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Immortal
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Speed: Normal
• Map Type: Rain Forest
• Must Not Be Checked: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Civ: India (Gandhi)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.003 or 3.19.003s
• Date: 30th May to 25th November 2015

Must not play as Inca.
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

 

[neilmeister]

My first game for a few months, HoF or otherwise, came back yesterday and noticed a new challenge had started, and Game 1 was exactly what I needed to get me going.

Started a few games to get a feel of the settings (and of Civ again!), and then I noticed that it was not 'Must be checked' but 'Must NOT be checked' for No tribal villages and No random events.

Opposite of what I would have expected, but it was a nice twist. Normally the variant in these religious games is we have to play with barbs or with someone like Monty.

Biggest problem was production, got Writing & Mathematics from huts which was super nice considering I had 4-5 forests and Ramesses must have popped Alphabet which all helped. My game was almost derailed by the fact I only found Roosevelt with my my missionary with 2 turns until the first vote, that will teach me to put my warriors on auto-explore before I discovered where everyone is!

600 BC is my opener and my first thoughts was that this was a OK date, but nothing special but I was shocked to see it actually equals the #1, which by coincidence is held by me.

 

[Todelotti]

I'm worried about my Worker:



But serious question: Why is only a flat rainforest map allowed according to general HoF rules and not a "round" rainforest? It's quite a pain and the most time consuming part to move the missionaries from one corner of the map to the other, especially through all this jungle that makes the missionaries basically 1-tile-movers.

600 BC

Congrats to this date! After I'm trying literally since several days to get a reasonable date I know now, 600 BC is a VERY good result!

 

[aitkensam]

the most time consuming part to move the missionaries from one corner of the map to the other, especially through all this jungle that makes the missionaries basically 1-tile-movers.

Haven't tried this yet, but I guess fast workers give time to get some roads through the jungle. Shouldn't need to build much (anything?) pre-Oracle so once grown to happy cap on exploring warriors/scouts perhaps can get an extra worker or two.

 

[elitetroops]

You can look for a start that is more in the middle of the map. Probably worth it in this challenge. Also, remember that you can gift cities anywhere on the map, as long as they have no more than 3 cities yet. Not sure how fast the AI would be to 4 cities on this mapscript.

If you are not very familiar with religious victories, I recommend downloading neilmeister's saves from the HoF page and checking them out for clues about tech order and builds. It seems he even included an intermediate 2760BC save for this game, which might be helpful.

 

[Todelotti]

Haven't tried this yet, but I guess fast workers give time to get some roads through the jungle. Shouldn't need to build much (anything?) pre-Oracle so once grown to happy cap on exploring warriors/scouts perhaps can get an extra worker or two.

I tried that in one approach but probably too late. Will do that more consequently next time. I have to do the next try anyway, I just trashed another game after spreading failed for a missionary who needed 18 turns to reach his destination.

You can look for a start that is more in the middle of the map. Probably worth it in this challenge. Also, remember that you can gift cities anywhere on the map, as long as they have no more than 3 cities yet. Not sure how fast the AI would be to 4 cities on this mapscript.

If you are not very familiar with religious victories, I recommend downloading neilmeister's saves from the HoF page and checking them out for clues about tech order and builds. It seems he even included an intermediate 2760BC save for this game, which might be helpful.

Oh, settling and gifting a close city sounds very interesting! I'll try that out.

 

[neilmeister]

Thanks for the compliment, but I doubt 600BC will win this challenge.

I also thought workers would help road, and this did help somewhat. Didn't think about settler, gift city and spread to that, but it wouldn't have made any difference to my game.

You definitely want to either see the top or bottom edge very quickly, if you see the left or right edge then start again.

Some hints that you won't pick up from my save:
- go for Alpha after you Oracle Theology
- know who you can get a +1 relations with for 7 or even 10 tech trades (see Know Your Enemy threads)
- know who are the best AI to have, and what traits to be in (hatty & ramesses are the best of all!!)
- build 3 missionaries before you start AP, and spread them to the furthest AI
- whipping missionaries into AP is always an option, especially if production is your major bottleneck.
- at high levels, spread to AI with a religion already (more important than the hint above)
- whip those last missionaries like crazy
- switch to 'no' religion after the AP is built
- switch back to the AP religion the turn you vote (as in after you vote, but before hitting end turn)

 

[ruff_hi]

- switch back to the AP religion the turn you vote (as in after you vote, but before hitting end turn)

This doubles your voting power ... but what else does it do? IIRC, they introduced a change that you cannot vote yourself the winner without some AI support. I don't believe that this 'switch' overcomes that.

 

[Todelotti]

Thanks for all the tips, neilmeister! Most of them I already figured out more or less. This one is very interesting:

- switch back to the AP religion the turn you vote (as in after you vote, but before hitting end turn)

I was always unsure if I should do this. You want to switch back to AP religion to get double votes, right? On the other hand, doesn't it risk that some AIs drop from friendly to pleased (or even worse) due to the sudden "heathen religion" penalty and then abstain from voting for you?

One funny thing about city gifting from my current game. I have a situation where gifting a city seems to be the only option to go forward. I was scouting like crazy to meet Mansa and just couldn't - until very late I found his "empire" I guess I have to settle a city for him to help him break out from his jail:

 

[Seraiel]

Lol @ that screenshot with Mansa.

 

[neilmeister]

That's gold.

The reason you switch after you vote is that this is after 'everyone' votes, so they will vote based on the relations at the beginning of the turn.

Another trick is after you switch, you can sometimes bribe the AI to also switch. This does not suddenly make them eligible or change who they vote for, but it will change how many votes they get.

There must always be an AI that votes for you and if you have enough votes to self win then you cannot win. This is not going to be a problem at high levels, but it can be at low ones.

 

[lymond]

Neil has been the holiest of men for some time

Yep, that switch into AP religion on turn of vote is key, as Neil says. It is also one of the main reasons it's a cheesy victory.

I'll definitely be giving it another go at some point. I think Neil's date is pretty darn solid though

 

[Todelotti]

Submitted a game now with 425 BC. (It's my very first HOF submit as well! Hopefully, everything was correctly set up and played.)

600 BC wasn't in reach for me at the moment. Maybe I'll do another try after other games. After all this game isn't bad to learn something for a noob like me: Controlling diplomacy towards a specific goal, managing a city for a very special purpose, selecting a good start and recognizing and throwing away a bad start that won't have a chance anyway, testing out different research paths and tile improvements, etc., etc.

Generally in this challenge the same user can submit multiple trials for a game and his best result will count for the challenge in the end, is that right?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Submitted a game now with 425 BC. (It's my very first HOF submit as well! Generally in this challenge the same user can submit multiple trials for a game and his best result will count for the challenge in the end, is that right?

Congrats on first HoF game and yes you are correct re multiple games.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Seraiel]

Submitted a game now with 425 BC. (It's my very first HOF submit as well! Hopefully, everything was correctly set up and played.)

600 BC wasn't in reach for me at the moment. Maybe I'll do another try after other games. After all this game isn't bad to learn something for a noob like me: Controlling diplomacy towards a specific goal, managing a city for a very special purpose, selecting a good start and recognizing and throwing away a bad start that won't have a chance anyway, testing out different research paths and tile improvements, etc., etc.

Generally in this challenge the same user can submit multiple trials for a game and his best result will count for the challenge in the end, is that right?

Also congratz from me . Sounds like you're having a lot of fun, next time a Deity Gauntlet comes up, make sure you have advanced that far 'til then .

 

[Todelotti]

Also congratz from me . Sounds like you're having a lot of fun, next time a Deity Gauntlet comes up, make sure you have advanced that far 'til then .

Thanks! I'm sure I don't need to tell you this but the fun has a good portion of pain included. Running against the results of strong players is a much tougher task than just finishing the game. If Neil hadn't put such a date on the table maybe I had submitted 500 AC after my first try and thought "Wow, cool, what an early win!" I needed around 10 iterations to get at least a rough idea how to play this for a competition.

 

[Seraiel]

Thanks! I'm sure I don't need to tell you this but the fun has a good portion of pain included. Running against the results of strong players is a much tougher task than just finishing the game. If Neil hadn't put such a date on the table maybe I had submitted 500 AC after my first try and thought "Wow, cool, what an early win!" I needed around 10 iterations to get at least a rough idea how to play this for a competition.

That's what the S&T guys like to forget. They always say "our games are much harder, we play without huts, with barbs and with random starts" , but nothing is harder than beating another human in a competition.

 

[neilmeister]

Well done todelotti, 425bc is a fantastic date for a first time HoFer. Having a decent date to chase and beat is I think a huge motivational factor. I am usually happy to be the frontrunner because at least it gives everyone a decent, butnot iimpossible target

 

[Pollina]

Did not have much patience to roll for a nice map. 2 corn, 4 bfc forests, a plains hill and a fairly central location was all that my capital had to offer.

Only useful pop from a hut was Masonry. Founded Hinduism to help out with happiness. Settled a second city near my 3rd ring ivory to increase my commerce output. Was lucky and got an auto spread there, which meant I could go straight to Monotheism to start building Hindu missionaries in my second city, while the capital was building The Oracle (under OR). Writing after Mono. BW after that. Not really my usual tech order in AP games, but it worked very well here.

Lost 1-2 turns to an event that destroyed my PH mine while I was building the AP. I hate events in short games like this one.

Might try again with a better start. The fact that production tends to be the bottleneck here makes this one rather interesting.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Lost 1-2 turns to an event that destroyed my PH mine while I was building the AP. I hate events in short games like this one.

Might try again with a better start. The fact that production tends to be the bottleneck here makes this one rather interesting.

Glad you enjoyed it, your feedback re huts is noted. I like the idea of one game with huts in a Challenge but you may be right that a short game might not have been the best option.