G-Major 157 - Space Race (Vanilla / Warlords) - deadline 9th June 2017

[Noble Zarkon]

​

While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Space Race (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Emperor
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Any
• Speed: Normal
• Map Type: Continents
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 1.74.004 (Vanilla) or 2.13.004 (Warlords)
  
• Date: 10th March to 9th June 2018

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

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Although we are moving to a system whereby you can filter QM / EQM on BTS only if you want we did agree to run this Space Race gauntlet for this interested. This thread is an opportunity to discuss:-

• Technical issues in setting the game up.
• Changes between the versions (see this thread)
• Best choices for Leader / Opponents
• etc etc

We hope you will enjoy the novelty this brings.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Links to these Mods:-

Vanilla

Warlords

 

[elitetroops]

Nice! I will try my best to participate in this. Thanks for making a long deadline!

Here is a list of notable changes posted by @Dhoomstriker from another thread:

- In Vanilla, capturing an AI's capital (or an AI capturing your capital) can destroy Space Ship progress, if I understand the list correctly (<--- I think this applies in BTS as well)
- In Vanilla, the Space Elevator is often worth building due to differences in the end-game tech tree, such as Robotics being needed for a Space Ship Part and the Space Elevator only needing Robotics to start building it
- In Vanilla, Research and Wealth build items start off at 50% Hammers and are not augmented by Hammer-multiplying Buildings such as Forges, but are augmented by Libraries, Universities, Observatories, Research Labs, Academies, Oxford University, Markets, Grocers, Banks, and Wallstreet. Since Space games often last long enough to build a lot of Research and Wealth, the tech path and build items chosen can be quite significantly different
- In Vanilla, Calendar obsoletes Monuments and there is no Mausoleum of Maussollos Wonder, so it is a tech that often comes with a bit of pain to research, making it less of a no-brainer to take the tech in trade for access to extra Happiness Resources
- In Vanilla and Warlords, Factories have no Health penalties from Resources such as Coal and Oil
- In Vanilla and Warlords, there are less techs, so there are subtle differences. As one example, without the existence of the Aesthetics tech, you must compete harder with the AIs to build The Parthenon, as that Wonder gets unlocked really early on at Polytheism. Also, since Alphabet leads directly to Literature or Drama, you can either beeline The Great Library or beeline an unlocked Happiness Slider while still being able to trade techs with AIs who haven't teched Alphabet themselves. Meanwhile, Alphabet does not lead to Currency, so you have a different set of choices when evaluating whether to go for Mathematics (which unlocks Currency) or Alphabet after Writing
- In Vanilla and Warlords, Spies work significantly differently, such as requiring Gold, not Espionage Points, for Missions, and only being buildable out of a City with the Scotland Yard National Wonder, which is built like any other National Wonder (in only one City) instead of being a specially-constructed Building made from a Great Spy (Great Spies also don't exist) and instead of Spies being buildable as a Unit out of any City
- In Vanilla and Warlords, Religions, not Espionage, can control visibility of AI Cities, which can encourage you to more actively spread a Religion to AI Cities
- Some Leaders have different Traits, such as Saladin not having the sucky Protective Trait in Vanilla and instead having Gandhi's BtS Traits but with a decent Unique Unit that can engage in combat

I'm sure there is a more complete list somewhere.

We have to choose between two different versions, 1.74.004 or 2.13.004, which both probably are quite unfamiliar to the BTS player. Could someone share some light on some key differences between these and how they play out in space games? Somehow I've got the impression the AI is more aggressive in Warlords. Is this correct?

Are there any notable differences in the interface of the different BUFFY versions? Do workers automatically stop after pre-chopping? Does map finder work with both Vanilla and Warlords?

Edit: Just noticed the much more extensive list posted by NZ earlier. Also provides info on interface changes.

 

[elitetroops]

I installed Vanilla from Steam and 1.74.004. The game warns me it is not valid for HoF submission and settings page says: The assets are different from a standard install. Contact the HOF staff.

Warlords and 2.13.004 I get the exact same warning.

 

[elitetroops]

I followed the steps here, reinstalled beta version of Vanilla and used the assets provided by Neil. Next problem was that now it wouldn't start at all. Got a popup saying it can't find steam, even if I started it from the steam client. A quick google search, I copied steam.dll from steam folder to the game folder and now it appears to work.

I played a conquest game and submitted to HoF to see if the install is okay. Built some HAs, then declared, only to realize I had accidentally selected chieftain difficulty. Could have done with a lot less.

 

[elitetroops]

I noticed in Vanilla I can get ridiculous amounts of failgold in a single city if I put a ton of chops into a wonder, then take it off the cue. For example chopping 6 forests into stonehenge with stone gave me 4 times more failgold than the production cost of the wonder. Is this allowed? Didn't see it on the GOTM list of exploits.

 

[lymond]

Did not realize there was a beta version of vanilla on Steam. I just use the regular version, and as per those steps, I just used Neil's assets to replace like 3 files. (you can see the files you need to replace with Asset Checker) The beta version likely changed the DLL so that is why you could not start.

Forest chops are immediately applied to whatever is in the queue in vanilla and warlords. You really have to micro those chops especially since there is not the BuG pre-chop feature. I'm not sure about the failgold exploit though.

 

[elitetroops]

In the thread I linked, @neilmeister promised to upload the required assets for Warlords "next week". No link to them yet. Could anyone upload them somewhere and put a link here? I suppose there will be more people running into the same problem if attempting this gauntlet.

The forest chopping mechanics really add another dimension to failgolding. Now you don't even need to spend any turns building the wonder anywhere, and you can put chops into the same wonder in multiple cities on the same turn.

I think Qin is the obvious leader choice. Have to grab the opportunity when one can't play FIN/IND for EQM in BTS.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Somehow I've got the impression the AI is more aggressive in Warlords.

One significant difference in terms of combat is that Vanilla doesn't have Vassals. Of course, you could just as easily turn them off in Warlords or BtS.

At some point, a patch was made for Vassals to make AIs less willing to capitulate to other AIs. I am not sure whether this patch was BtS-only or whether it happened when Warlords was still under development, so be aware of the possibility that AIs may more readily capitulate to each other than you're used to seeing.

The AIs definitely work differently from BtS. It is only in BtS that AIs feel that they can be risky with their Workers as long as no enemy Unit appears to be within reach. So, the concept of Woodsman II Units abusing this mistaken AI belief applies better in BtS, since AIs tend to hide their Workers safely in their Cities when at war in Vanilla or Warlords. The Workers become harder to snipe, but it also becomes signficantly easier to choke an AI from improving their land.

The AIs in Vanilla and Warlords also tend to do a much better job of escorting their Settlers--expect to see 2 defenders as part of a Settler Party, instead of 1 or 0 as the BtS AIs often do.

Catapults are fatal in Vanilla and Warlords, a fact which has both pluses and minuses. One plus is that you could literally spam Catapults as your army, if you so choose, and conquer Cities that way. One minus is that because there is no "enforced retreat" when the top defender gets sufficiently wounded, your Catapults tend to die more frequently than they do in BtS.

I noticed in Vanilla I can get ridiculous amounts of failgold in a single city if I put a ton of chops into a wonder, then take it off the cue. For example chopping 6 forests into stonehenge with stone gave me 4 times more failgold than the production cost of the wonder. Is this allowed? Didn't see it on the GOTM list of exploits.

It is currently allowed:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/list-of-allowed-disallowed-exploits-strategies.152399/

Forest Chop / Production Switch: ALLOWED: It is possible to change city production between settlers / workers and units / buildings to ensure that the production from forest chops is diverted preferentially to the worker / settler; allowing the worker / settler to be built virtually solely from forest chops. The benefit of this is that you can produce workers / settlers whilst the city is still growing.

It sounds like you've found a previously-undiscussed case that people haven't, to my knowledge, ever brought up, since people tended to use those Chops in the opposite way--to avoid turns spent not growing a City when producing a Settler or a Worker.

That said, your idea doesn't feel like it's something worth disallowing, though, since it doesn't take long for the cost of Wonders to increase (the base cost of The Pyramids or The Hanging Gardens is already signficantly higher), so you're only talking about early-game Wonders, and you don't generally have a ton of Workers, Forests, and time before an AI builds one of those Wonders. Sure, you could argue that you could take advantage of this fact on Settler Difficulty Level, due to the AIs taking longer to complete Wonders, but you tech so much faster than the AIs that you could just as easily be completing a more-useful Wonder (The Pyramids) and getting Failure Gold everywhere from it without exceeding the base cost of the Wonder in your Failure Gold Cities, instead of dumping Hammers into self-completing Stonehenge. And, yes, your example shows that you can get a lot of Gold very early on, assuming that you have Masonry and have connected Stone, but very early on, you don't tend to need THAT much Gold, since you haven't yet expanded sufficiently for your City Maintenance Costs to require TONS of Gold.

What IS different is that in Vanilla, you can put Chops into a single Wonder in multiple Cities on the same turn as each other, but that's just Chops, not raw production from a City's Hammers, so it's really just a timing convenience that could similarly be obtained with good planning in BtS.

 

[elitetroops]

Thanks for the reply.

Regarding the failgold thing, WastinTime already broke the game with his WB-economy, the vanilla chopping mechanics only make it a lot easier to take advantage of it. Especially on normal speed. In BTS it's not that easy to find time for massive failgold production. Putting hammers into a wonder in a dozen cities would take a dozen turns at least. Being able to do it in 1 turn, without interrupting whatever else those 10 cities are doing, with no cap on how much you can get from each city, that is a huge advantage! I'm not saying this should be disallowed, just checking that it isn't something people frown upon. Apparently not, so I'm going to abuse it to the max.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It is currently allowed:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/list-of-allowed-disallowed-exploits-strategies.152399/

That's the GOTM rules, HOF ones are here - http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php?show=disallowed and are slightly different.

Apparently not, so I'm going to abuse it to the max.

I very much doubt we're going to go back and ban at it so good luck!

I hope to play - any tips for getting the non-Steam versions working? Even running in compatibility mode I can't get them to start up.

 

[lymond]

@elitetroops Elite, run asset checker on Warlords, then send Neil the list of 3 files you need to replace. (there are four but you don't need the map file)

again, note that I've been using the standard installs for vanilla and warlords..not sure about the beta version.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

That's the GOTM rules, HOF ones are here - http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php?show=disallowed and are slightly different.

Thanks for clarifying. Note that I'd responded in the context of elitetroops' question:

Is this allowed? Didn't see it on the GOTM list of exploits.

which was presumably asked in the context of "GOTM has been actively hosting Vanilla games all of this time, has no one in GOTM thought to ban it? If they have banned it, maybe the HOF should, too."

And my response was intended to be "It wasn't banned in GOTM, and a similar item was actually explicitly allowed in GOTM, but the exact scenario presented does not appear to have been a previously-discussed item, so there's a possibility of banning it for HOF, but my personal opinion is that it's not ban-worthy for HOF."

It seems that you're in agreement.

I hope to play - any tips for getting the non-Steam versions working? Even running in compatibility mode I can't get them to start up.

The GOTM forum has this thread on the subject: Playing Vanilla and Warlords on Windows 10.

If you're playing on Windows 7, I've found that I have to run the executable twice in short succession, in order to get the game to load (for either Vanilla or Warlords).


EDIT:

In BTS it's not that easy to find time for massive failgold production. Putting hammers into a wonder in a dozen cities would take a dozen turns at least. Being able to do it in 1 turn, without interrupting whatever else those 10 cities are doing, with no cap on how much you can get from each city, that is a huge advantage!

I'm not sure that I see it as being such a huge advantage.

One cap is definitely on the number of Forests that are available for you to Chop. It can be an advantage, but I'm not sure that it's really a big advantage.

If you're only planning on one or two Wonders being built in the game by the AIs, then the AIs are probably building those Wonders so slowly that you're probably better off completing some of the useful Wonders yourself, at which point it's more of a planning convenience, where you spend 10 turns building Libraries in every City and then have one turn where all of your Workers complete their Chops empire-wide, but could have otherwise spaced out those Wonder-builds over the span of those 11 turns in different Cities.

If many Wonders are being completed by the AIs, unless you are incredibly behind in tech, you'll have at least a few turns in which you can put some Chops into a given Wonder before it gets completed, and if you miss the timing of that Wonder, since so many Wonders are being built, put your Failure Gold into the next Wonder.

I could see it being a partial catch-up advantage if the AIs are far ahead and are completing Wonders before you learn the associated techs, such that you just learned a tech for a Wonder that is about to be completed, and you only have 1 turn for all of your Pre-Chopped Forests to be resolved into that Wonder, just to get you a pile of Failure Gold to help you in catching up, and that advantage would be nice, but if you caught up in tech, you'd then have more Wonders into which to dump Hammers for more turns, meaning that it would no longer be a huge advantage, and if you didn't catch up, you probably would have been better off dumping those Hammers into Military Units and using war as a means of catching up.

 

[elitetroops]

Oh, trust me, I have no intention to ever be in a situation where I'd need to catch up.

Now you are only considering the amounts of gold you can create, while ignoring timing. If I need gold now, then it doesn't help me at all that I could still put chops into a wonder over the next 10 turns.

In a game like this, my goal would be 20+ cities in the BCs, while never dropping slider below 100%. The vanilla chopping mechanics make this easier to achieve in many ways.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

And my response was intended to be "It wasn't banned in GOTM, and a similar item was actually explicitly allowed in GOTM, but the exact scenario presented does not appear to have been a previously-discussed item, so there's a possibility of banning it for HOF, but my personal opinion is that it's not ban-worthy for HOF."

It seems that you're in agreement.

Agreed yes, thanks.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I decided to start generating maps for the Duel map size, in case anyone wanted to know (either avoid that map size if you don't want to directly compete for the same HoF slot or pick it if you want more direct competition).

I am using Warlords, mostly because I've had the fondest of experiences when playing with the Warlords Expansion.

MapFinder hotkeys are Alt + m to start generating maps and Alt + x to stop generating maps. Of course, when I want to play, I don't typically have much patience for MapFinder, so I have mostly just used it for the convenience of being able to regenerate a map from a saved game, which seems to be one area where the game lacks functionality (I haven't actually checked in Warlords, but I recall from BtS that the Regenerate option from the "Esc" key, right-side-of-the-screen game menu disappears when you load a 4000 BC saved game).

In other words, I'm not very picky and I went ahead with a start that has 1 G Riv Corn and 1 G Riv Gems. The map itself is underwhelming, and The Oracle went early to an AI who spent it on the tech that I learned 1 turn later, but I don't necessarily want a perfect map.

In my opinion, what makes HoF fun is the ability to beat previous records. When someone plays "too perfectly," hooray for that person, but boo for everyone else. I'd rather submit games where there is room to beat every one of them, so that future players can always have a chance to challenge the existing records.

I went with the Spiritual Trait because I find it all too easy to forget not to switch Civics during a Golden Age in Vanilla/Warlords, even though the F3 Civic Switch screen does tell you how many turns of Anarchy you'll have and the number won't be zero. Golden Ages here are all about working squares that earn both of Hammers and Commerce as much as possible (Plains Cottages (if you are so bold), Riverside Mines, Windmills, Watermills, Riverside Workshops, and Riverside Lumbermills that are not on the corners of Rivers) and are not meant to be used for Civic switches (you still get the Anarchy and end up bleeding away your Golden Age time) and are not meant for Great-Person-generation (since a Golden Age won't increase Great Person Points and it won't increase the Flasks or other inputs of Specialists).


Continents was a good map choice. I tried Great Plains briefly, before I realised that the map type was already pre-specified, and Great Plains felt like it would be too low on Resources. In particular, we don't get the BtS training wheels at higher difficulty levels and you have less starting Happiness... I believe that it was 4 Happiness in my capital, which would mean 3 Happiness in other Cities that would not get the +1 Happiness from having a Palace. Continents looks like it will be fun, giving both of us and the AIs a chance to grow big empires, and it seems that this map type has a good quantity of Resources available, even if they are often spread out far from each other (I'm already planning on founding a couple of Cities just to grab +1 Resource each).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I hope to play - any tips for getting the non-Steam versions working? Even running in compatibility mode I can't get them to start up.

It seems that I missed linking to the Important Info - Running Vanilla or Warlords on Windows from dvd thread earlier, in case you are running either of Win 7 or Win 8.

For me, I have to launch the game executable twice before the game will launch. If you're on Win 10, hopefully the other link that I provided above will help.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Thanks for the reply.

Regarding the failgold thing, WastinTime already broke the game with his WB-economy, the vanilla chopping mechanics only make it a lot easier to take advantage of it. Especially on normal speed. In BTS it's not that easy to find time for massive failgold production. Putting hammers into a wonder in a dozen cities would take a dozen turns at least. Being able to do it in 1 turn, without interrupting whatever else those 10 cities are doing, with no cap on how much you can get from each city, that is a huge advantage! I'm not saying this should be disallowed, just checking that it isn't something people frown upon. Apparently not, so I'm going to abuse it to the max.

Oh my!

Are record hunters gonna revert to Vanilla/Warlords now over BTS?!

Nice work Elitetroops

 

[WastinTime]

@elitetroops I agree, that is a HUGE advantage. Like you said, really makes a difference on normal speed (or quick). Can't wait to see the finish dates possible that use this. Shame this gauntlet isn't Deity.