[BTS] G-Major 186 - America, Prince, Space - Deadline June 26th 2023

[Noble Zarkon]

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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 Colony (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Prince
• Starting Era: Any
• Map Size: Tiny
• Speed: Marathon
• Map Type: Pangaea
• Required: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Civ: America
• Opponents: Must include Mali (Mansa Musa), Netherlands (Willem Van Oranje)
• Version: 3.19.005
• Date: 1st May to 26th June 2023

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

 

[nocho]

I took a shot at this one. Not sure how "Any" starting era is really comparable, but since I only play Ancient starts, played that. I rolled a nice start with 2 golds and a gem and things went along quite nicely, but in the end I couldn't beat PaulisKhan's ancient (2009!) HOF date of 1486AD and got 1512AD. I think that's mainly due to Pangaea as a map type, it's way smaller (I had 310 tiles total land mass) than for instance Terra which is about 700 tiles. So in the end I just had too few cities (17 quite tightly packed at under a percent from domination) to be able to build enough wealth/research to punch through the late era techs fast enough.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Not sure how "Any" starting era is really comparable, but since I only play Ancient starts, played that.

That was a mistake!

I think that's mainly due to Pangaea as a map type

Oh dear, well we can always try again another time, I targeted it as it is so old.

 

[Firmlife]

You could try low sea levels. Probably doesn't get you much on Tiny, but could make the difference between 1486 and 1512.

 

[nocho]

You could try low sea levels. Probably doesn't get you much on Tiny, but could make the difference between 1486 and 1512.

I played with low sea levels already. Might give it another try with another map type.

 

[nocho]

For the fun of it, I played a game with the same settings, but a Terra map. Could fit in double the number of cities, and arrived in 1364AD. Unsurprisingly, land indeed is key.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

An idea for a future gauntlet then lol

 

[Cartesian Bear]

I finally, after all these years, got BUFFY running under Wine without the warning that saves are not valid for the HoF. I had to declare on Willem to prevent him from winning culture. Perhaps I was a bit too greedy in that war. I manage to go and launch the ship, and with 10 turns to go, I inadvertently win domination when one of Mansa's border city goes into revolt. Oops. I guess I'll have to try again. I'm quite a bit rusty and this would not have been competitive, but it at least would have been a score on the board.

 

[iggymnrr]

Interesting. Lincoln or Washington seem obvious. But isn't anything but ancient era eligible for HoF? So I think I'm now running maps for Roosevelt with toroidal setting and ancient era. Toroidal also isn't eligible? Maybe both are legit.

 

[iggymnrr]

Test game reached turn 151 or 1990 BC. 9 cities, 7 workers, 3 AI capitols. Last AI has capitol and a gift city on ice. Couldn't quite get the capitol ... yet. Toroidal doesn't seem too bad. Might finish cottaging before conquest gold runs out. 10 turns of cash and only starting on writing. Tech-wise about where classical era starts but with 8 more cities.

 

[iggymnrr]

Another test game on a flat map. 2000 BC with all ancient era techs 'cept archery, 4 AI capitols, 6.5 cities, 11 workers and a plus economy. Teched mining and then mysticism with Roosevelt. No quarry resources, or mathematics, but Stonehenge netted 500+ fail gold building it myself, relying on Roosevelts traits at 3 cities. Constant worker stealing from 2 AIs. If toroidal map is chosen there is definite possibilities with whipping CHs and forges with overflow into the mids. Toroidal has quirks with maps having 4-5 islands for corporate abuse. Not so with flat maps.

 

[iggymnrr]

I think I will give this a go 2 ways if possible, differing map types. I really like Stonehenge as a vehicle for building wealth pre-currency. Even without stone, whip overflow or slow building is very nice. Chopping pre-mathematics is tolerable, essentially building wealth after currency. There is also the weird possibility of 1-pop whipping a monument with over flow going into Stonehenge. Too easy at this setting to have meaningless downtime early.

Edit: Roosevelt.

 

[iggymnrr]

Toroidal map. Not the best size or island nature map. But as to corps its will be hard to beat Standard Ethanol here. There's more corn/rice too (not shown). Gold isn't bad either.

Edit: 5 workers stolen, switching to slavery. 2490 BC.

 

[ZPV]

I ran out a 1260AD game - 17 cities (3 on islands)/230 pop on a 299 tile shoebox.
The game didn't feel super optimised but I think I'm satisfied with the date.

 

[iggymnrr]

I have a game at 1340 AD which should launch in 20-25 turns. That's before 1400 AD with Roosevelt on a brutal toroidal map. Nasty early maintenance. Mids did provide 5000 fail gold to get things going. Still that is 13+ turns faster than the current record. Not bad.

 

[ZPV]

I'm trying a switch to Flat/Tropical/Solid Shoreline - my last game was on default Cylindrical/Temperate/Random. Shoreline makes such a difference to the map!
You don't get to conquer 3 AIs with 3 Warriors because everyone is further away... but that also means there's more land (400 tiles instead of 300) and all of it is green.
Islands are possible but rare - and are always large bits of continent that just failed to connect. They tend to happen on the snakier version of the map which also seems to generate inland seas.

 

[iggymnrr]

^Amsterdam is too far away if that were toroidal. Forget about capturing a 2nd or 3rd AI.

 

[iggymnrr]

1452 AD. The 1.5x maintenance was severe.

 

[iggymnrr]

Somewhere in the late game I got that video capture bug out of nowhere. None of the suggestions seem to work. I might have to try the microphone jack thing.