Gauntlet Suggestions

[Denniz]

Guys would you please keep on topic. Gauntlet suggestions, huh?

 

[kovacsflo]

Guys would you please keep on topic. Gauntlet suggestions, huh?

I would welcome any major gauntlet with Deity/Huge/raging barbs. At least I could possibly improve my QM score and we could have a manly fight with hard settings. A dom/conquest victory with industrial start would be a great fun, because due to nationalism, an rush is cheesy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I would welcome any major gauntlet with Deity/Huge/raging barbs. At least I could possibly improve my QM score and we could have a manly fight with hard settings. A dom/conquest victory with industrial start would be a great fun, because due to nationalism, an rush is cheesy.

You only get the full "fun" experience of deity raging barbs if you play an ancient start though . I don't think the barbs can even spawn infantry, and having guaranteed rifles, multiple cities at the start with units to defend them, and poor AI reactions to raging can lead to some silly outcomes.

It would be a different experience from usual to be sure though. Huge is tough on my machine especially running HoF mod which slows it further unfortunately, but it's an intriguing setting.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I would welcome any major gauntlet with Deity/Huge/raging barbs. At least I could possibly improve my QM score and we could have a manly fight with hard settings. A dom/conquest victory with industrial start would be a great fun, because due to nationalism, an rush is cheesy.

I'm confused. You want hard settings, yet you seem to want an Industrial Era start and label its rush "cheesy". Perhaps you meant that as an example of what you don't want.

Marathon speed would also be easy, thus not hard. Epic speed want not be quite as easy. Normal speed would be a challenge. Only Quick speed Conquest or Domination could be described as truly hard.

Also, as MeInTeam mentioned, only Ancient Era Raging Barbarians would be much of a challenge and The Great Wall nerfs them very well. Perhaps, Classical Era? Can't use the Great Wall now, if I'm not mistaken. However, it can be nerfed by simply selecting a start with Copper, Horse or even both; plus it starts with a Worker that can improve the strategic resources as soon as desired. Thus there really is no hard settings that Raging Barbarians would contribute much to. The only option that is absolutely required is No Tribal Villages. I'd guess that fighting Barbarians in a Classical Era start with Horse/Copper would be harder than Ancient Era with The Great Wall and BFC Stone.

So, I'd suggest these additions:

Victory Condition: Conquest or Domination
Starting Era: Classical
Speed: Quick
Required: No Tribal Villages

And just to reduce the noise between compeititors:

Required: No Events

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Quick will make the game harder in general, but it will vastly nerf the barb threat. That may or may not be what you're going for, but barbs are a much bigger issue on marathon.

Basically, barb spawn rate is a function of how quickly units can move out of the way for others to spawn; actual cost isn't a factor AFAIK. On marathon, units have plenty of time to move out of the way and spawn more, while civs have to actually build things. Despite units being less expensive in the relative sense on marathon, the barbs are actually getting FAR more units "per year" even after adjusting for that.

I'd rather see quick for the challenge rather than barbs. If you crowd a map and roll a decent positioning, raging barbs aren't nearly the problem they would be on say, huge/mara with 11 or fewer civs.

However, I'll also point out that submissions to a gauntlet on huge/quick/deity would be rare indeed!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I would welcome any major gauntlet with Deity/Huge/raging barbs. At least I could possibly improve my QM score and we could have a manly fight with hard settings. A dom/conquest victory with industrial start would be a great fun, because due to nationalism, an rush is cheesy.

The key phrase in kovacsflo's suggestion, quoted above, is QM score and that is maximized by selecting Deity, Huge and Raging Barbarians. I don't believe he really cares what the other settings are.

MeInTeam, no doubt you are correct that Raging Barbarians are harder to deal with on Marathon speed.

However, I believe that most any Marathon game is easy to win (player SoDs have plenty of time to capture dozens of cities without the need for unit upgrades due to the extremely slow speed), unless the start provides really poor land and resources.

I stand by my suggestion that Quick speed will be the hardest over all. Obviously, the Raging Barbarians setting won't provide much additional challenge.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I stand by my suggestion that Quick speed will be the hardest over all.

That's obvious. The ONLY part that is harder about marathon is that early game barb hounding. Quick is by far the most difficult speed, not just to win quickly but to win at all.

 

[Denniz]

How about we put something like that in the IX challenge. We have had a few G-majors we only 1 person plays it. Deity/Huge of any kind sounds like asking for another one.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

How about we put something like that in the IX challenge. We have had a few G-majors we only 1 person plays it. Deity/Huge of any kind sounds like asking for another one.

You probably meant only one submission or maybe even none. That doesn't mean players don't want the challenge.

If a Major Gauntlet has less than three submissions total by the end of the second update queue, the HoF might want to extend it for a third update.

I really don't think we want such a challenging game in the HoF Challenge where the largest map should be Standard so as not to challenge too many player's gaming machines.

I'd prefer to play this game a Major Gauntlet. I have no interest in it being one of six Challenge XI games.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[shulec]

I was looking at the following Ad Hoc query and was surprised to see nothing but cheese (yes I am in there, from a previous gauntlet!):

Spoiler :

Let's remedy that!

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Space Colony (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Deity
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Pangaea
• Speed: Normal
• Required: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Must not be checked: Permanent Alliances, OCC, no barbarians
• Civ: Viking
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.003

I now feel my suggestion needs explanation since I don't care for the direction the thread has gone.

The above suggestion conforms to the typical game settings used in the S & T forum. Space games also use the most complete set of tools a player has. There was a lot of interest Snaaty's and Tachy's S & T games. I believe there is a new (late) generation of players trying to master deity games. I hope this game will attract deity HoFers like Kaitzilla, Wastin'Time, STW, Tachy, Kovacsflo and some S & T players; I also hope it will attract Space Colony gurus like bcool and Iggynmrr. It will also coincide with the end of the SGOTM.

The settings are such that no nerfing can be done (other than map regeneration, which can't be avoided in HoF games.)

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I now feel my suggestion needs explanation since I don't care for the direction the thread has gone.

The above suggestion conforms to the typical game settings used in the S & T forum. Space games also use the most complete set of tools a player has. There was a lot of interest Snaaty's and Tachy's S & T games. I believe there is a new (late) generation of players trying to master deity games. I hope this game will attract deity HoFers like Kaitzilla, Wastin' Time, STW, Tachy, Kovacsflo and some S & T players; I also hope it will attract Space Colony gurus like bcool and Iggynmar. It will also coincide with the end of the SGOTM.

The settings are such that no nerfing can be done (other than map regeneration, which can't be avoided in HoF games.)

Argument for Quick speed:

Really one set of G-Major settings is no better than any other, except those that reduce the effect of the RNG like "No Tribal Villages" and "No Events". The above suggested settings beg for the use of early rushes to gain advantages over the AI and thus a great deal of RNG luck. I presume that such early rushes is a form of nerfing the game, but it is something that would be difficult to prevent. At least the worse form of nerfing, using the Inca Empire is normally banned in Civ IV HoF Gauntlets.

Early rushes at Quick speed are significantly more difficult to execute than at Normal speed. Also, there has already been a Space Colony Major Gauntlet in the Standard Map and Normal speed slot. Thus, I suggest changing the speed to Quick and Standard Map where no Space Colony Major Gauntlet has been played and where early rushes will be much more difficult to execute.

Finally, I don't believe players will ever agree to what exactly "nerfing" a Civ IV BtS game really is. It seems to be more "in eye of the beholder" than anything precise, beyond certain settings that never should have existed due to their unbalanced nature, such as "No Tribal Villages" and "No Events" and even "Barbarians", though this last one is controversial. It seems that many players don't appreciate the nerfing effect (unecessary RNG) that the presence of Barbarians in the game actively adds.

I wouldn't be too concerned about appealing to "Strategy and Tips" forum players. Their focus on a very narrow set of game settings and moderately good starting BFCs seems to result in their inability to play well with settings outside their norm. They even have troubles with No Modified Assets option and like to reload when they get particularly bad luck. You may get them to play HoF gauntlets that match settings they like, but when either three or more regular HoF players take the top spots or the setting go outside of what they like, they will likely leave the HoF and go back to their more limited "Strategy and Tips" style of play. They really do not like extra good starts and that is part of what makes a top HoF game. Because of this very different philosophy over the goodness of the starting BFC, there will never be much more that a minor amount of cross-over between S&T and the HoF.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[kovacsflo]

The key phrase in kovacsflo's suggestion, quoted above, is QM score and that is maximized by selecting Deity, Huge and Raging Barbarians. I don't believe he really cares what the other settings are.

MeInTeam, no doubt you are correct that Raging Barbarians are harder to deal with on Marathon speed.

However, I believe that most any Marathon game is easy to win (player SoDs have plenty of time to capture dozens of cities without the need for unit upgrades due to the extremely slow speed), unless the start provides really poor land and resources.

I stand by my suggestion that Quick speed will be the hardest over all. Obviously, the Raging Barbarians setting won't provide much additional challenge.

Sun Tzu Wu

Yes, to be honest most of all I want to have a chance to improve my QM, and for me like an Emperor major on a standard map doesn't sound interesting. The reason why I wanted Industrial start is that it need a different strategy, but I agree that it makes it maybe a little bit too easy.

Classical start really does help you a lot against barbs, and you don't need to spend that much time on finding a proper map.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Because of this very different philosophy over the goodness of the starting BFC, there will never be much more that a minor amount of cross-over between S&T and the HoF.

Am I S&T or HoF player ? If you look at my total #submissions in civ IV HoF it's quite high after all. I think what you're saying only applies to some of the S&T and that crossover is more viable than you imply. However, I don't think HoF should "conform" to S&T standards aside from settings that make sense in both settings like the no huts/events. I feel the same way you do about barbarians which puts me in a minority on S&T.

S&T lost some of its best deity talent to the passage of time. There are still a lot of good players there, but I miss players like U_Sun, ABCF, Snaaty (who made a return to show yet another extremely impressive game), Rusten, Dirk, DaveMCW, and Obsolete (though obs wouldn't compete effectively in HOF with that WE/SSE stuff). Rusten still holds a rather impresive slot on the deity tables, and on quick speed no less! These days we have a ton of stuff like "cuirassers stomp a bit before 1000 AD"...impressive, but we used to see stuff like infantry at 1100 AD or tanks/bombers at 1400 AD with average starts/bad civs.

I do think each time we start a gauntlet or definitely a challenge series that it should be cross-posted in S&T. I think we could potentially drum up more interest in HoF if we somehow got some game summaries going like on S&T (should be fine if one doesn't share saves). I would actually like to see summaries posted along those lines in the challenger threads themselves; it would add a lot to the discussion although there WOULD be some small incentive to hide one's "strategy" in hopes of winning.

 

[lymond]

there will never be much more that a minor amount of cross-over between S&T and the HoF.

I believe this to be fallacy. I think the problem is ignorance of HOF. HOF does not do enough to lure in new players. Having been a frequent presence on S&T for years now, its really populated by a lot of new faces and the old ones come and gone.

I do think each time we start a gauntlet or definitely a challenge series that it should be cross-posted in S&T.

Yeah, I harp on that all the time. Oz did post up something for a Gauntlet not long ago and it did get a couple a players or so interested. Even 1 or 2 each time is good. I've not seen one for challengers though. And that thread turned into a soapbox for a certain someone's certain agenda at the time, stirring the pot and creating a negative atrocity. That should not happen. I was very very disappointed in that turn of events as I felt it discourage the staff from posting announcements again. (and it had absolutely nothing to do with in HOF v. S&T junk)

 

[Seraiel]

I will try to catch some players, and draw some light on HoF play and how much fun it is. I think publishing Videos is actually a very effective way of drawing attention to something, and as I just say that, I have a post open in "Civ Illustrated Usergroup" , asking if there are people interested, in recording a Commentary for a Video I'd hand out! Teams often make the better decisions, now imagine, if we HoF'ers had a Video of the latest Gauntlet, the one that has even harder settings then the one's the S&T players play with, and imagine, we would publish that Video, making them actually see, that HoF play isn't pure Cheese, but is actually made up by making a majority of good decisions, and working evidence-based, so with what one can see, with what one has got, and with what one learned through time!

Regarding the thread here, and the Gauntlet, I say:

"WTB minor Deity Gauntlet. "

Settings or Victory condition don't matter to me, as I'm able to adapt. The idea of cross-posting Gauntlets in S&T, I find good. Cross-over in general, I find good, anyhow, I'm happy with the situation how it is, as my general experience is frightingly similar with the one of STW (and I couldn't say it better) , but it's worse.

S&T players act aggressively when encountering uniqueness, it frightens them. Actually, this, is the only real reason, why I would want them to come here (to lose their fear) .

Mean against fear, is work, giving courage on top. I'd find it really interesting, to let them see someone playing against the meanest conditions ever given to him, with taking every advantage he can get, sucking up every bad thing that can happen on the way, playing brilliant sometimes but solid most of the times, and work his way to victory towards a victory, that was achieved in a true way!

S

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Victory Condition: Conquest
Difficulty Level: Deity
Civ: Any (as usual by default, Inca may not be used as the Player Civ)
AIs: Any
Required Options: Always War, No Tribal Villages, No Events, No Vassals (plus those required by HoF rules)
Game Speed: Marathon
Map: Pangaea Any
Map Size: Small
Options that Must Not Be Checked: none (other than those required by HoF rules)

The motivation for this Gauntlet comes from the following Strategy and Tips thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12587679#post12587679

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Seraiel]

I suppurt this proposition.

I'd be glad though, if it'd become a minor Gauntlet though, because this actually is already "Deity-Hardmode" , and I'd prefer Incans to be excluded, though that is a personal whish, as then, it'd count towards EQM, which doesn't really matter anyway, because the game won't be competitive with any other games anyhow.

S

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I think what you're saying only applies to some of the S&T and that crossover is more viable than you imply. .....
I do think each time we start a gauntlet or definitely a challenge series that it should be cross-posted in S&T. I think we could potentially drum up more interest in HoF if we somehow got some game summaries going like on S&T (should be fine if one doesn't share saves). I would actually like to see summaries posted along those lines in the challenger threads themselves; it would add a lot to the discussion although there WOULD be some small incentive to hide one's "strategy" in hopes of winning.

I agree with all this, more publicity is a good idea.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I suppurt this proposition.

I'd be glad though, if it'd become a minor Gauntlet though, because this actually is already "Deity-Hardmode" , and I'd prefer Incans to be excluded, though that is a personal whish, as then, it'd count towards EQM, which doesn't really matter anyway, because the game won't be competitive with any other games anyhow.

S

Inca Empire is not allowed to be a Gauntlet player Civ, unless it is explicitly required in the settings.

This Gauntlet should be a G-minor G-major, because it would typically take too long to finish a game. It both has extremely challenging settings, including Marathon speed.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[BornInCantaloup]

EDIT: snip. No check makes wrong assertion.

Spoiler initial post :

Victory Condition: Conquest
Difficulty Level: Deity
Civ: Any (as usual by default, Inca may not be used as the Player Civ)
AIs: Any
Required Options: Always War, No Tribal Villages, No Events, No Vassals
Game Speed: Marathon
Map: Pangaea
Options that Must Not Be Checked: none

Pangaea = natural shoreline and high odds of a coastal start (although anything can be found).
As I mentionned in that other thread, Small map, Inland Sea, High Sea level is very fitted to AW as chokes can be conquered with relative ease. Not sure about how difficult that would be on Deity (I tried it on IMM) but Small mapsize does make things easier (less unit spam, lower tech rate).
You probably want to specify a map size, by the way

Sorry for messing with the discussion, I probably wouldn't play this game as... that's how it is In any case, don't mind my post. Pangaea is certainly a solid choice for the map type. Breaking out of the choke and into a Pangaea is an interesting thing to do, to say the least. Progression on Inland Sea can be a lot more linear.

Finally, if it's about that thread... you didn't tick in OCC... Not sure you should, though