G-Minor IX

[Denniz]

[img=right]http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/170/hofgauntlet.jpg[/img]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.

(*) Please read the >> HOF rules << BEFORE playing!​

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Science (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Warlord
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Terra
• Speed: Standard
• Leader: France (Napoleon)
• Opponents: Any
• Version: SV7 (1.0.1.332)
• Date: 16th July to 1st August 2011

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

 

[avl8]

Mmm, standart speed and standart size. My favourite!

Does France have some starting bias to begin near mountain?

 

[JWideman]

Mmm, standart speed and standart size. My favourite!

Does France have some starting bias to begin near mountain?

No bias at all. And I agree - I love standard games.

 

[ashvin.l]

I am unable to access the HOF website. Can someone post the HOF rules in this thread?

 

[mcmpan]

EDIT: Just saw the announcement

I got an error while accessing the HOF Submit Game site:

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ5/user_submit.php

Message:
Not Found

The requested URL /civ5/user_submit.php was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

 

[ssjos]

cant submit, page error

 

[Peets]

cant submit, page error

read the post above you.

 

[Denniz]

You can submit again.

 

[Martin Alvito]

You're right, vexing. The micro is BRUTAL. Just jacked up a game by acquiring Astronomy one turn too late. Rationalism was to be the seventh policy, boosting five succeeding RAs. Would have cleared all Medieval techs by turn 80, possibly Gunpowder as well.

The new RAs are amazing at chokepoints. Simultaneously clearing three or four legacy techs with a single RA is nuts.

EDIT: Got it right this time on turn 81, and the AI promptly proceeded to double DoW to cancel two full power RAs. Ugh...

On the bright side, I think it is possible to clear the tree in three RA waves now. Paying for it is going to be nightmarish.

 

[avl8]

t223, 1565 sci win, nothing special as I see.

Settled 4 cities asap, t88 astronomy/rationalism, 17 RAs, 3 puppets, 1 culture cs, 1 marytime cs.

SPs: full liberty, left side of rationalism, right side of freedom. Got happiness from sci-buildings after appolo.

Maximum beakers were 413, I bulbed through modern and some future era techs with GSs, Oxford and sci-revolution. Got Louvre and some GGs to speed ship parts a bit.

The only notable thing I found is the way to get all RA going without fails.
#1 military strength + massive trades with RA partners + bribes = 17/17 RAs successful.

Even Bismarck couldnt find a way to break RA being Guarded in the end

 

[Martin Alvito]

In principle, it can be done in well under 200 turns. I'm pretty sure that I've found the optimal strategy, but I played my submission poorly and I haven't been able to get the luck factors to come together in any other game.

I haven't been playing HOF primarily because game spam is so disproportionately rewarded. Between starting dirt, ruins and the way AI cash potluck influences your RA capacity, throwing a lot of games at the wall and hoping one sticks is generally good for 15-20 turns.

 

[Mallow]

I've struggled mightily with my reputation. On my first try, pretty much everyone denounced me. On my second try I focused on the military much more, but still I was mostly blessed with guarded nations. And two of my friendly neighbours, with whom I had signed RA, declared war on me.. In the end I signed 17 RAs with two of them failed and the last two were only for the Plan B.

I arrived at the astronomy turn 96. and rationalism turn 100.

And finally the win came on turn 218. Which makes my start much slower than Avl8 :} In the end I did something right

 

[vexing]

i went top and bottom, leaving the middle undone to push up the median.
try to stay classical with first 3 RA completions, preferably ending with engineering, metal casting, and theology all one turn from finishing, then a 5ish turn delay for next RAs. on lower difficulties this lets you sign 3 extra RAs for classical price, which is pretty significant - 200 gold vs 350.

compass and the bottom three late medievals should be open before next RAs fire, which lets me bump the median to that (270ish beakers instead of 155 for early medieval).
two more RAs will get through most of education, but not all. a 10ish turn wait for final two should be enough to finish education and rushing porcelain tower before they fire, and they can finish compass and start down steel and physics.
pop GS and take rationalism before final classical RAs fire, gunpowder can push the median up to middle renaissance, by having currency, machinery, navigation, chemistry, metallurgy open.

next three RAs can finish the three middle renaissance techs and push the median to late renaissance, then you can go and backfill. you'll want to finish printing press before chivalry, or you can end up with 6 techs open which drops the median - but don't fret, one RA can complete almost all of machinery, printing press and chivalry. next one can complete all of acoustics and banking. i sure am glad they fixed RAs

 

[Martin Alvito]

You're spending too much on the early RAs. They're not worth it; they cost 400 each because you could have looted that with a luxury for later use.

Thought I had the Holy Grail game. Turn 95 and Medieval's done, got Astronomy and Gunpowder too. Five first wave RAs only. Trouble is that three distant AIs went Hostile and stayed that way, and they're the non-broke AIs. Game's screwed as a result.

Actual submission is not yet checked, so I don't know whether or not I outraced you. I sort of doubt it. I lost three turns to the only Aluminum being in a CS (requiring me to upgrade to a pair of FLs to knock it over, costing me a Spaceship Factory in the bottleneck) and four turns to miscalculating the number of remaining techs and putting the Public School in the wrong place as a result. Bad play is bad.

Only had about sixteen RAs in four waves, too. My cashflow was good; AI cash was not. A few more early RAs and I'm done twenty turns even earlier.

I don't like your plan. Given seven initial RAs, I want to:

- Hard tech Compass, bulb Astronomy before first RA resolves, pop 7th SP
- Use Steel as the lever to clear the center of the tree
- Open Chivalry to get to three Renaissance-era techs
- Use those as the lever to get to Gunpowder
- Now use the three second-tier Renaissance-era techs to clear Machinery -> Economics

The trick is figuring out how to get that sequence to land around turn 90. It's extremely counterintuitive.

 

[vexing]

hmm, are you using GL for education?

my finish was 208. it wasn't an extraordinary game, except i entirely avoided wars and hostility.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Yes, late GL (60ish) for Education. That's the intuitive part of the solution. Every once in a while the AI burns you on it. I had a hot El Dorado game where Wu built it on turn 55; that and not finding everyone in time pretty much shafted it.

I also finished on 208, so it looks like score is the tiebreaker. Mine's pretty blah. Relatively similar game; I got DoW'd by the Ottomans once, and ended up getting paid 300 to cease hostilities. Otherwise, the only violence was overrunning Venice for 11 Aluminum.

 

[vexing]

nice. i think only had three cities so my score will be low.
are you going to share the counter intuitive part? is it beeline for hanging gardens to get high population?

 

[Martin Alvito]

I might have you then. I had six (settling the last was an error) plus the puppeted CS.

I'll give a complete rundown once Denniz closes this out. It's not something straightforward like the HG.

 

[vexing]

a one city NC start? that'd be counter intuitive as france. first three policies are to representation, tech is writing / mining / philosophy

 

[iggymnrr]

So Nappy is a lock to win the space race. Might have been fun to try this one. Good luck.