Earth challenge (huge size)

[Florian K]

First off, thanks for making this Challenge map, has been a blast to play/watch Absolute Zero´s as well as TMIT´s You Tubes.

I too would like to thank Matrix for making this Challenge. I haven't really played Civ for the last few years and this is making me remember how fun it is. I think the map is well balanced. I've never played without tech trading before and it is an interesting challenge.

After spending a few minutes watching Absolute Zero taking over the world, it made me realize I'm not as much of a warmonger as I thought. I spend as least as much time building my civ as waging war. And I obviously play very slowly. It has taken me at least 8 hours just to 65BC. I guess I micromanage too much.

My Russia Immortal game has actually been fairly peaceful (at least the part I've witnessed). Other than Asoka and Genghis fighting off and on and my short wars with the Vikings and Romans I haven't seen any other wars. Though I have run into Monty, which makes me think he probably killed Sitting Bull. I guess everyone is too busy fighting the barbarians. I know they are keeping me busy.

I'm so used to making a beeline for Alphabet that I didn't realize you could research Currency from Mathematics causing me to waste some research on Alphabet before changing. And I researched Iron Working only to realize everyone else already had it. I should have gone for Currency first (still about 7 turns away from it). Those mistakes mean my game will likely take 7-8 turns longer than it would have otherwise as my research is very slow and it will delay my getting knights.

 

[i_imperator]

The great Genghis Khan arises yet again.... and he has two words to describe this game.... 'Duh, winning!!'

Domination Victory, 1887AD.
Monarch/Epic
5hrs 32Mins.
Score 89981 (Normalized)
Score: 5031.

I warrior rushed china and khemer. Then rebuilt a bit and chariot rushed india. Expanded and whipped keshiks and then weekened cathy. Before attacking she had 16 cities, i brought her down to 9, and I had captured a few barb cities aswell. I took peace as she got longbows and i did'nt have enough spy's or points for revolts. I then upgraded my keshiks to knights and took out egypt. Left ram with a few island cities.

The main wonder crucial for mongolia's success on this map was the GW, i was swarmed by barbs in my first three attempts as i missed out on it. But i got it in the end!.

Im a little dissapointed with the score as i was hoping for a score above 100000, but its my seccond best ever it is good enough to get into the top 15 i guess!. Thanks to TMIT and absloute zero for the fantastic vids!

At this point i had 35 cities. Shaka was catching up and eventually got to 35 aswell by killing mansa. I teched towards medicine (sid suishi) and railroad-cumbustion-industraism (mining Inc and tanks). I was about to take out cathy but ragnar dowed on me. I recaptured a city he took and took three more from him. once i had enough infantry, bombers, tanks i took out cathy, then redeclared on ragnar and then shaka. Got the victory after taking out Asia, europe, Egypt, the brittish isles and central aftria. GG, it was a lot of fun, thanks for hosting matrix!

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[i_imperator]

Me too, Mongolia is very vulnerable to barbarians. I could only survive with the GW, and it was fun to watch China get harassed by tons of barbarians strolling along my border to get there They even aided me in my Keshik-rush as well. As for score I suspect that it is heavily affected by your total population, so if you wish to maximize the score it might be beneficial to keep off the whipping from mid-game on, and focus more on city growth. At least drafting would be a better choice.

Another thing for Mongolia which I did was mass-settling the useless area to the north-east to speed up the land-area victory condition. I could fit in around 10-15 cities up there.

Thanks for the tips on score and the mass- settling, i did whip non stop untill I switched into US/FS/EMP/FM/OR, for my final civics. I did'nt do that mass settling of the north east tundra area in my game as I really dispise tundra cities, unless they have a happiness source nearby such as silver. I prefere quality over quantity I guess!!

By the way Dose difficulty affect score? Congrats on your success with mongolia bdw.

I think i will rerun as Inca and/or Rome, But that will have to wait, im a little burned out by civ right now and need a few days break!

 

[Archon_Wing]

China
Monarch
60638 Diplo 1818

Too bored to attempt domination.

Damn it, Julius (the AP builder and resident) switched into Free religion and it took an eternity to hold another election, and I just kept hitting end turn for 50 years, and then getting screwed by technicalities for another 50 because people lost their AP cities. Then, more herp derp "Hey we're gonna abstain even though we're +7 with you and +0 with them, or +11 with you but we feel like voting for the +8 person who's friendly and we're just pleased with you"

Then I guess I'm a scumbag trying to win through the AP.

I hate spreading religion.

Spoiler :

lol I only build 4 cities, apparently. :S

Spoiler :

 

[Matrix]

Results updated. I received one result from DesertPfox, although he never posted in this thread.

Sorry I haven't started the standard Earth challenge yet. Long story, but as said: no proper internet connection at home and no Civ4 at work.

 

[Matrix]

Indeed, I've prepared the map (started playing already ), and wanted to post it on CFC, but when I couldn't establish a connection I forgot to just put it on a USB stick. Sorry, 24 hours postponement...

 

[Bjeurn]

I'm still finishing a game on this map, I got a Viking save that's technically won but still needs a lot of time to actually get there. Bit busy with exams now though, not sure when my result will come in.

 

[m00n]

I'm giving this another shot as the Khmers. Much harder than the Maya because I rushed India out instead of China in fear of creating a vacuum that makes Mongolia big. Now China has become the usual superpower constantly threatening to backstab me when I declare on the weaker AIs. It might have been better to deal with 30 city Mongolia... Also the Khmers are very limited in their ability to rush after the initial Warrior rush. It's mostly Elephant/Cat wars so far.

 

[topsecret]

My game as Shaka is going very well...
I rushed Egypt with Impi/Axes!
I tried to rush Mali, but haven't got their last city yet.
Julius attacked me, but I'm sieging his cities now

 

[Matrix]

At home, with internet.
Earth standard size: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=425928

 

[DrakeD]

Nice. The lack of archers kinda ruined this challenge IMHO.

If you look at that AZ's youtube video, he attack India and Khmer around 1500-1000 BC as Zulu and they still only had warriors. That was lame IMO.

How about we do this map again, only add archery tech to all civ's? Then maybe you can rush 1 civ that only has warriors, but you cant kill 5 civ's who only defends with warriors like AZ did.

 

[Kid R]

^ Agreed. I hate dragging the noble strategic game of Civ 4 down to a perfunctory bish-bash of beelined bangsticks and awfully unprepared, exploitably expendable, programatically pathetic, precarious, arrowless AI warrior garrisons.

 

[Kid R]

Hehe you're right, I was just trying to make my playstyle (i.e. cowardly) sound dignified

 

[illram]

You get the huge difference in weights because players do something irrational in this format (go for a different VC than massed military -----> domination).

Victory conditions do not yield balanced scores. Actually, the formula for high scores has been explored pretty heavily in civ IV; capture a tremendous amount of land, milk as much population as possible using sid's sushi (or on very land heavy maps, cereal mills but usually sushi is better), and try to win in the early 1000's AD with domination. That is the formula that has, on other maps, been used to get scores over 1 million and can easily beat 500000 on this map if someone has the patience for it.

Even max-speed space races by the best of the elite can't come close to that in score. I'd go so far as to throw non-domination games out when it comes to ranking the civs, or else stratify VC because frankly comparing a domination win to a culture win isn't reasonable.

I kind of agree with this, so I am confused how we are really ranking anything here due to these discrepancies. I never played HoF games but you guys have it pretty well worked out in that department as far as ranking scores. Do you guys rank scores depending on the victory type or do low scoring victory types just never get attempted?

BTW not a knock on the thread or what matrix is doing, thank you for keeping up the thread and for coming up with idea matrix! I love earth maps.

 

[gram123]

Done with my diplo attempt. Once again on a pretty low level.

Mali
Diplomatic Victory
Score: 73289
Date: 1857 AD
Dif: Noble

Pretty easy game, founded the world religion witch i succesfully spread to all euroasia. Luckyly Inca and Pacal (would you beleave) founde the other two early religions. So they never spread into euroasia. Actually i got Nativ america converted before they got religion from Monty.
Made a ton of money from that shiren didn't expand much and didn't got any wars, so was able to stay at 100% research until like 1600AD. Eventually that gave me such a tech leak that i got Sids sushi founded in my shiren city, witch made it even more profitable.

When i got riffles i took out those who dindn't like me much for some reason. Ended up beeing the americans. Took out all four american civs. Then Shaka ofcause backstapped me, but attacking Tanks with muskets just isent working that well so took him out too.

Builded the UN in Cuzco and traded it back to Inca whom was the only one not running my religion. Unfurtunelli lost the first Secretary election to Russia, so had to wait for the next election before facing Hyane, and then got diplo victory as first vote when i was UN secretary

 

[Rom_Addy]

Rome
Domination Victory ( 90,90% World Population, 51,48% Land Area )
Score: 564671
Date: 730 AD
Dif: Noble


I've tried this challenge with the Romans. They were the most suitable civ for my strategy. I like to expand fast and far very quickly.

In the end, I managed to get a domination win in exactly 222 turns. That's 730 AD.

Click on the spoiler to see the screenshots :

Spoiler :

And here's the score graph. All the other graphs look almost the same.

How did I do that ?

1)First I planted my 2nd city in Austria, just between iron and copper. I've mined the copper even before I got bronze working. When I got bw, I immmediatly upgraded my 2 warriors to axes and headed to Russia. In the same time I choped one axe that headed to Egypt. I took the second 2nd Russian city just after it has grown to size 2.

2)When I started getting great generals ... I immediatly added them to axes and prets and gave them movement bonus... so that I could rush India, China and Khmer as well. I've sent some chars as well.

3) I've always tried to make the AI to put his workers in city just before I get his city. That saved me a lot of hammers.

4) I wasn't greedy. I had to raze a few cities, so that I could manage my early finances. There were 15+ turns in which I lost 10+ gold per turn and made no science, but the money I got from capturing cities kept me in the game. Great Lighthouse gave me a great boost and I was able to get courthouses really soon, than Forbidden Palace (that I've built in Beijing ).


So here's how my killing spree went:
1) Russia - 2950 BC
2) Egypt - 2800 BC
3) Viking - 2775 BC
4) Mali - 2100 BC
5) India - 2025 BC
6) Khmer -1650 BC
7) China - 875 BC
8) Mongolia - 350 BC
*) Took Liberalism - 70 AD
9) Zulu - 325 AD
10) Maya - 685 AD
11) Inca - 730 AD

Only Aztecs and Native Americans are left standing ... but they're fighting each other =))

 

[illram]

Nice. Might have been even quicker if you settled on the copper. On the regular Earth map that has more civs in Europe, that's the ticket to an easy Roman conquest.

 

[gram123]

Rome
Domination Victory ( 90,90% World Population, 51,48% Land Area )
Score: 564671
Date: 730 AD
Dif: Noble

Now people told me my score at 170000 with a Roman Noble domination was massive, you just tripled that... thats something....

 

[dilettante]

I have completed the conquest of the Majaphit Empire.

err.. that's Civ5's DLC (hopefully, pretty pls. ).

I meant Cultural Victory with the Khmer.

Khmer
Noble
Cultural Vic
Normalized Score: 11144
1936 AD

This challenge is just kickin' my rear. It's always teaching me something new about the game (probably concepts that I choose to ignore )

My scores just keep getting worse and worse.

Spoiler :

 

[Rom_Addy]

Nice. Might have been even quicker if you settled on the copper. On the regular Earth map that has more civs in Europe, that's the ticket to an easy Roman conquest.

That really wasn't an option for me. And it would have been way slower. The Romans start with mining and fishing. The first tech I try to get is bronze working. But in that time I can work only 2 tiles: mining the hills/cow in capital and mining the copper/hills in my Austrian city. If I had planted copper ... my worker would have been on a leave of absence for more than 10 turns. From my point of view ... the Romans are the most fit civ for a continental rush. They have river copper, and you're one tech away from getting axes. They're Imp and you can get a great general extremly fast and make +1 movement, x2 city raider axes and prets to storm the Asian civs. Russians have horse, but they need 2 techs. The Chinese have iron, but you still need 2 techs. Zulu is nice .... but they're just too far from other civs.

Wow, Rom_Addy that is a very nice score. Why are you playing on Noble, you should really increase the difficulty to a level that will challenge you!

I really doubt I could expand the way I did at an increased difficulty levels. I didn't even had pottery when I entered China, I wasn't making any tech points and furthermore I was losing 20 gold per turn... and soon I would have begun to lose units, if I didn't get more money from capturing cities.