G-Minor 34

[Denniz]

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.

[size=+1](*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!
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Settings:

• Victory Condition: Conquest (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Prince
  [*]Starting Era: Modern
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Lakes
• Speed: Quick
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 1.74.001, 2.13.002 or 3.13.001
• Date: 25th January to 10th February 2008

Must not play as Inca.

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

 

[Denniz]

Sorry, I forgot to change the Starting Era. Please note that it is "Modern".

 

[BLubmuz]

Prince+Quick+Modern make this game not so easy, see the condition.

Too busy with 20, anyway.

 

[shyuhe]

It's significantly easier than the major I guess I'll start with this one to figure out the game first.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'll have a go at this, I need a conquest for my QM ranking. And it's not deity

EDIT: I don't see how playing as Inca will make it easier!

 

[Harbourboy]

Yes, hard to see the potential attraction of Incas for this one. More like Americans or Germans?

 

[Denniz]

We put a temp patch in to put a blanket exclusion of Inca for all gauntlets. At some point we will fix it so it is an option so that we can set it only when it makes sense.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Germany I think for me, America not so useful on a lakes map, although the Navy Seals get a bonus vs. artillery and MGs, but then so do normal marines. I've never played a non-ancient start though. Fred is normally my man for Germany, since I play SE. I think Fred being organised gets a production bonus for assembly plants too, so they are cheaper than forges I heard...

EDIT: Meh, Navy SEALs are just normal marines with 1-2 first strikes it seems. Not a big whoop-de-doo really. I think they smoke while they are machine gunning people though, which as everyone knows is cool (not big or clever, but cool).

EDIT2: What are the barbarians like in a modern start, rifles? I was wondering whether it is worth playing with raging barbs on.

 

[bestje]

@ paradigm shifter: in the game I just played there didn't seem to be many barbs, 1 city but i didn't see any wandering around

A few firsts for me in this game though, not being ahead in tech by the modern era is quite odd and the AI started throwing nukes about, fortunately they don't use them all that well, better than in Civ3 but still...

 

[Hackapell]

Since Prince is my max level, I think I'll play this is one go, as it will be short.

Especially before the monstrous Major

 

[bestje]

Can I ask who currently has the number 1 spot?
I have number 2 with 2044 but would like to shave a few turns off that
Would some of the experts out there be willing to have a guess at where the winning date will be as well?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Right, time to give this a go I think, after my failure to avoid accidental domination in GMajor20.

EDIT: Maybe I'll get lucky and win a time victory in this one by mistake

 

[GMTemplar]

I need tips for this one, my panzers just can't manage against the anti-tanks, even with highly superior numbers. However tanks (panzers) are the only unit with movement 2, anything else just can't keep up and the turn limit approaches really fast.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I need tips for this one, my panzers just can't manage against the anti-tanks, even with highly superior numbers. However tanks (panzers) are the only unit with movement 2, anything else just can't keep up and the turn limit approaches really fast.

I think the fast finishes will be warlords or vanilla games. There isn't much research in this game and its possible to race around the world with tanks if anti-tank guns aren't present. Just overwhelm the AI with tanks and build railroads so the marine stack defenders can keep up.

I'm not too impressed with the Germans. I focussed on eliminating the AI access to oil so there weren't many panzer vs tank battles. The extra engineers from the assembly plants are nice for popping some great people but panzers just aren't great. Any random charismatic leader may be a better choice than the Germans and regenerate the map if you don't see oil and coal after moving your two explorers.

I have a 19xx finish where I built production buildings, barracks and an endless stream of tanks. The research rate was too slow for the AI to research more than 3 techs so I saw lots of SAM infantry (I'd rather have the AI build this than marines or infantry and the AI loves to research rocketry) but only 1 gunship.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

This is quite a fun setup. My top tip - remember you can build railroads from the off, I think I might start again now that I realised this

Any tips on civics etc.? I went representation but was then suffering from emancipation unhappiness.

I'm going to save the Germans for a harder game I think, I went with Washington (because he is charismatic) in my first game. I'm playing warlords.

What about tech path? I went flight from the off but it takes a while to research techs in this game.

EDIT: The map is smaller than I thought it would be as well. Cylindrical world-wrap seems like a must too.

 

[GMTemplar]

I think the fast finishes will be warlords or vanilla games. There isn't much research in this game and its possible to race around the world with tanks if anti-tank guns aren't present. Just overwhelm the AI with tanks and build railroads so the marine stack defenders can keep up.

Thanks, I totally forgot the anti-tanks are a BtS feature. Dropping them out should make this a lot easier.

What about tech path? I went flight from the off but it takes a while to research techs in this game.

I dropped research down to 0% on the first turn. No use going further than the tanks I think.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'd quite like bombers though. Artillery are slow or do you think just a huge amount of tanks, a mix of collateral damage promos and city raiders?

How many cities are peole keeping? I'm thinking keep all the first AI victims cities and raze everything else.

 

[Methos]

I dropped research down to 0% on the first turn. No use going further than the tanks I think.

Me too. Went with Germans, so oil was all I wanted.

How soon are you all declaring? I'm at '95 turns left' and am just now starting to build up my armies. Did I wait too long? Should I have declared earlier? I could have chopped everything earlier, but I have so many forests I thought I'd use the National Park and forest preserves for .

 

[GMTemplar]

How soon are you all declaring? I'm at '95 turns left' and am just now starting to build up my armies. Did I wait too long? Should I have declared earlier? I could have chopped everything earlier, but I have so many forests I thought I'd use the National Park and forest preserves for .

I did 3 serious starts with BtS which all came down to my Panzers dying to anti-tanks. Haven't had the time to try again yet (without BtS this time). Twice I left all the forest standing to build National Park to my capital. When NP is up the city will produce a panzer a turn anyway so I can't see much use in chopping there.

I built barracks, assembly plant, nuke power and some workers before I started to build armies (ie panzers), that takes me approximately to '100 turns left'. There'll not be too many turns to play around with though and the AI expands really fast. You have to declare before '90 turns left' and be well on your way from there on, otherwise you're just too slow I think.

 

[hecubus]

I built 6 panzers as soon as I had oil hooked up (second city) and sent them at Ragnaros. Cut down one city with heavy losses, but had backup by then and took out the rest. Kept his capital and one other, razed everything else. Dropped one settler down between the two territories. He popped a few anti-tank but they really were only a minor speed bump. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

I turned on Gilgamesh, but production stalled as I was still getting the new cities online. Ragnar had built the Cristo Redentor, which took the sting out of some poor civic choices. I took out a couple cities and called for peace as I saw how monstrous Pericles was becoming. Oddly enough, Pericles seemed perfectly happy to throw stacks and stacks of armored units at my panzers. I let him keep his oil, figuring if he wanted to build armor, at least he's not building anti-tank (and he didn't). He's lightly defended with widely-spaced cities, but I'm going to run out of time.

I teched to bombers, but as I started razing instead of keeping, I was getting well outside their range. Maybe spies are the way to go. I went SE figuring farms were up and running off the bat (with biology no less), had bad bad happiness problems early on (and some jerk went for Emancipation right away ). Wondering if cottages are the way to go, and just over-produce food enough to run all the engineers. Frederick is Philo though, it seems a shame to waste it. Representation vs. Police State didn't make much difference in production speed at this production level and speed.

The religion-founding is interesting, but due to the era you have to run Organized Religion if you want to spread it at all -- can't build monasteries.