DoC Game of the Week Thread

[mrrandomplayer]

I threw this idea around in the main thread and it seemed to get a lot of approval, so I am going ahead with it.

Every week, there will be 2 different Game of the Weeks, one Monarch and one Viceroy. The civilization and scenario are chosen for you (and the victory condition for Viceroy) but everything else is up to you. Like with the other challenge threads, you will post your victory year, score, virtual win (if applicable), and a savegame of the victory. The winner is the player with the highest score. Posts will be due the Friday of the week, results will be posted the Saturday of the week, and the new challenge will be posted the Sunday of the week. Every 4 months, there will be an invitational for all winners of the tournaments, and the winners of those tournaments will possibly get prizes.. The worldbuilder policy is that we are using an honor system: PLEASE don't wordlbuild, if you are found to be worldbuilding, you will be banned from these tournaments for a month. How the settings will usually work:

Monarch:
Purpose: A challenge for more experienced players, aiming towards the audience of the DoC Domination challenge thread.
Civ: Chosen by a rng.
Scenario: Chosen by me.
Speed: Up to you.
Victory: Any type.
Version: DoC 1.12, most recent SVN as of the challenge posting!

Viceroy:
Purpose: A competition for newer players and players transitioning over from RFC. This is intended for newer players and UHV players. If you know that you're good enough to play Monarch, please don't just play Viceroy to win.
Civ: Chosen by rng.
Scenario: Chosen by me.
Speed: Up to you.
Victory: UHV only!
Version: DoC 1.11

Without further ado, the Game of the Week settings for this week are:
Monarch: Netherlands, 3000 BC
Viceroy: Greece, 3000 BC

Dutch save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=372020&stc=1&d=1394847511

 

[Fresol]

What about Emperor?

 

[mrrandomplayer]

What about Emperor?

I don't think that there are enough Emperor players for it to be worth adding.

 

[Fresol]

Okay, but few is still better than none.

 

[Fresol]

First time I've played Mongolia for quite a while, and they are really really overpowered.

One turn after spawn ALL cities in China except Kaifeng(or was it Luoyang?) flipped to me! This was not the normal flip mechanic which happened the next turn. A crisis China's experiencing?

Subsequently, the game became Doom of Civilization as I pumped endless Keshiks from the mature Chinese cities. I noticed from the Top 5 Cities screen that the MoM was is Babylon, and further scouting with my Keshiks identified the Statue of Zeus was in Athens. Since Mongolia does not start with Theology, you know what this meant...

I aimed for the Middle East and without touching India(yet), the game was won.

Mongolia has IMBA modifiers plus UU plus UP, I'm just glad that AI Mongolia is likely to collapse rather soon. Or are they?

Spoiler :

Edit: This was a UHV.
Edit: SVN revision 699, I forgot to update to 700 but they should be compatible.

 

[The Diocletian]

Dat expansion stability.

Wonderful game!

 

[ales_]

According to the rules, Emperor is not accepted.

 

[Fresol]

Well it's not in the contest, but you can see it as a side show.

 

[Hojsimpson]

If you know that you're good enough to play Monarch, please don't just play Viceroy to win.
Victory: UHV only!
Version: DoC 1.11

This means I can play Russia on Monarch?
Why this should be on the 1.11 version and the other not?

 

[mrrandomplayer]

According to the rules, Emperor is not accepted.

I'm waiting to see how popular Viceroy and Monarch are before I add Emperor.

This means I can play Russia on Monarch?
Why this should be on the 1.11 version and the other not?

There are two different "divisions" of the Game of the Week. One, allowing any type of victory on Monarch, is intended for more experienced SVN players. The other, allowing only UHV on Viceroy, is intended mostly for new players and near-exclusive UHV players. Since very few new UHV players have SVN, that is why it is on 1.11.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Victory: UHV
Difficulty: Monarch
Speed: Normal
Date: 1445 AD
Score: 9883

Played on latest revision as of 3/3/2014



Unlike Fresol, my start was plagued by many problems.
No optimal Wonders in sight, Mom appeared to be razed & no lucky China flip.
The first turn was spent charging south while I switched two of my civics.
I settled Ulan-Ude on the 2nd turn before conquering Beijing to get 4 free Workers.
China was very weak however and their defenders went down easily, fortunately for me, I took Beijing on the 2nd turn,
Kaifeng and Shanghai both on the 3rd & Xian on the 4th, which collapsed them and allowed me to take Guangzhou with ease.
Because I needed to maintain good pacing to make up for my lackluster start, I opted to build only Barracks in all of my cities
and forgo the Ger to save a few turns and eke out some extra Keshiks.
I found out that the Grand Canal had been built in Pyongyang as well, which was a massive waste.
Fortune smiled on me in one way however, as I carved through the Middle East, Shushan was the Catholic Holy City, although its shrine had been robbed long ago.
As it turned out, part of the reason why Mom wasn't around was because Jerusalem was the Zoroastrian Holy City.
I deduced barbs had razed Persia thoroughly as evidenced by the overall emptiness of the plateau when I entered.
I set a rally point near Afrosayib and split my reinforcements from China in two,
sending some northwest towards Russia and sending the rest southwest to reinforce my campaign against the various Middle Eastern peoples.
Arabia, already unstable, collapsed as soon as I took Babylon, and I began mopping up their cities while staging against Egypt.
Occasionally, I'd send some towards India, where the Tamils were having internal strife and occasionally losing cities.
Russia was losing quite badly as well and I had popped a Golden Age from fulfilling the first 2 goals.
Now for the bad news though. China respawned in the early 1400s.
They had the massive respawn stack and I had to let them be, losing a huge chunk of my territory % in the process.
There wasn't anything I could do about it but I soldiered on, determined to win.
I gathered all my garrisons and freshly built Keshiks from mainland China and relocated to
Corea where I gathered a small navy and prepared to invade Japan to expand in lieu of the ten-turn peace.
I sent a Galley up from Hanoi as well, having conquered it before the rebirth.
Around this time, my Golden Age was about to end, so I switched myself from Pagan to Catholic and popped Protestantism as I finished Printing Press, throwing me into war with Spain.
I also settled a city far north in the Mongolian core and popped a Great Artist, bringing my territory % all the way to around 10.85% at this point.
So after I mopped up Russia, (collapsed Poland) & Egypt, I began pushing outward even further towards Spain, collapsed Ethiopia, more of Arabia & collapsed Tamils.
Mobility was key so I left behind many undefended cities. It wasn't really of any consequence.
I won before I could stage the invasion of Japan.

 

[Fresol]

Cool. When did China respawn? During your Golden Age?

 

[Fresol]

And it really looks like there's no difference in difficulty between Emperor and Monarch when you are playing Mongolia for Historical Victory. No research, no barbarians and little other factors(happiness, diplomacy).

Maybe someone could try other types of victories, which may take longer time.

 

[JujuLautre]

To get meaningful comparisons, maybe there should be starting saves, to reduce variance between games.

 

[Alexius08]

The starting save should be a historically-accurate one, if we'll ever require players to use them. At least, the first-time players would be familiar with the starting situation. For a challenge as America, we can expect a British-dominated North America and not one ruled by the Polish.

 

[Hojsimpson]

http://www.dos486.com/civ4/index/score.shtml
http://www.dos486.com/civ4/index/calc.shtml

Useful pages.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Cool. When did China respawn? During your Golden Age?

Yeah, they respawned during my Golden Age.
Which was extremely unfortunate, but I managed to come out all smiles.

And I agree with JujuLautre. We should use one start provided by the GM whenever possible.

 

[mrrandomplayer]

Yeah, they respawned during my Golden Age.
Which was extremely unfortunate, but I managed to come out all smiles.

And I agree with JujuLautre. We should use one start provided by the GM whenever possible.

To get meaningful comparisons, maybe there should be starting saves, to reduce variance between games.

That makes a lot of sense, especially for 3000 BC starts. Do you want me to restart with a premade game or continue with this and start using a save next week?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Start using a save next week.
I'm fairly proud of my results due to all the adversity I encountered.

 

[Manuss]

That makes a lot of sense, especially for 3000 BC starts. Do you want me to restart with a premade game or continue with this and start using a save next week?

So, this site will be very helpful. It's just a world historical atlas wich goes from 3000BC to today.

http://geacron.com/home-en/