Gauntlet Suggestions

[Ozbenno]

Yep, Always Peace is not allowed (the AI doesn't really get it and still builds heaps of military). There are a series of SGs in the SG forum that deal with this, including Conquest games with Always Peace selected.

 

[Bugio]

Oh right, always peace is banned, never really noticed. Most accustomated strategies involve warring (worker steal, early rushes, bribings), except maybe for religious victories, so i've always considered it a malus and never selected.

I will play the game for myself then just for fun.

 

[shulec]

I suggest we do a G-Major and a G-Minor this session.

 

[Ozbenno]

I suggest we do a G-Major and a G-Minor this session.

Got to find the time first sorry. Will be tomorrow at the latest. RL is taking precedence at the moment.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Conquest (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Deity
• Starting Era: Any
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Any
• Speed: Normal
• Required: No Tribal Villages, No Random Events
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.19.003

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Ozbenno]

OK, gauntlets up, sorry for the delay.

STW, thought that having any for the era was not a good thing? Can use idea next major but would probably but ancient for the era.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

STW, thought that having any for the era was not a good thing? Can use idea next major but would probably but ancient for the era.

Any Era is fine without Tribal Villages. tachywaxon was able to get both Horseback Riding and Aesthetics from Tribal Villages in a Classical Era start. This will be impossible with the No Tribal Villages option being required.

I like having the Era open so players can participate in later Eras which are much easier to win, but whose finish date is unlikely to compete with Ancient Era. In other words Era being Any allows greater player fun.

Players in it to win as early as possible will use Ancient Era anyway.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[ZPV]

Any Era is fine without Tribal Villages. tachywaxon was able to get both Horseback Riding and Aesthetics from Tribal Villages in a Classical Era start. This will be impossible with the No Tribal Villages option being required.

I like having the Era open so players can participate in later Eras which are much easier to win, but whose finish date is unlikely to compete with Ancient Era. In other words Era being Any allows greater player fun.

Players in it to win as early as possible will use Ancient Era anyway.

Sun Tzu Wu

Popping HBR is not necessary when we're not stuck with Ethiopia.
The biggest difference is in undeveloped AIs and immediate horses - Classical should hold a bigger advantage over Ancient in this scenario than the large domination one.

I don't really understand why you ask for Deity-lite gauntlets rather than just pushing the difficulty level down to something a little less challenging.

 

[Manco Capac]

Don't ask, deity is his thing. Everyone has his thing.

Glad my voluntary hut trolling finally pushes minds against them.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Don't ask, deity is his thing. Everyone has his thing.

Glad my voluntary hut trolling finally pushes minds against them.

I have always been against Tribal Villages, Events, Barbarians or any other optional game element that adds additional randomness to a game that necessarily has enough randomness in it as it is.

Thank you tachywaxon for your excellent example of how exploitative the combination of Tribal Villages and Classical Era starts are. However, most players neither understand it nor do they care.

Fortunately, Gauntlets can be defined carefully so neither banning options or filtering them will be necessary. Unlike the official Civilization IV Hall of Fame.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Popping HBR is not necessary when we're not stuck with Ethiopia.
The biggest difference is in undeveloped AIs and immediate horses - Classical should hold a bigger advantage over Ancient in this scenario than the large domination one.

I don't really understand why you ask for Deity-lite gauntlets rather than just pushing the difficulty level down to something a little less challenging.

I don't agree that Classical Era will have any advantage, since it loses 50 turns and starts in 2000 BC. That will be a bigger handicap on a Standard map then on a Large map.

I prefer Deity, because that is the difficulty level that I play literally 99% of the time. I like allowing Any Era, since that helps introduce new players to Deity level where they can pick the Era on which they can win with reletive ease and without rerolling a new start more than once or twice.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Bugio]

Inca not banned?

 

[Bugio]

And also, classical start persia might be even stronger than ancient inca.

 

[Ozbenno]

Inca not banned?

Inca are banned from all gauntlets

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

And also, classical start persia might be even stronger than ancient inca.

Classical Era suffers from a 50 turn handicap = 2000 BC. An excellent Inca Ancient Era Standard Normal Conquest game might end before 1000 BC, not that long after the Classical Era starts. Also remember that in the Classical Era game, all AI will have knowledge of Bronze Working and can settle their 2nd Settler very close to Copper, assuming the first Settler didn't. Even a small number of Spearmen will make life for Immortals very interesting and short.

Also, don't forget that Immortals costs twice much much to build as Quechuas. The main reason that Quechuas are so hard to stop is they are dirt cheap to build. The other reason is ~86% chance of killing an Archer on a flat plot with no defensive terrain or fortification plus reasonably good odds versus a city.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Inca are banned from all gauntlets

Not quite true. Inca is allowed when specifically required to be the Player Civ.

While requiring the Player Civ to be Inca might be interesting, it would not at all be the Gauntlet that I originally suggested. On the other hand, an Inca Gauntlet on Standard Normal Conquest with Any Map might be an interesting challenge.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[ZPV]

Classical Era suffers from a 50 turn handicap = 2000 BC. An excellent Inca Ancient Era Standard Normal Conquest game might end before 1000 BC, not that long after the Classical Era starts. Also remember that in the Classical Era game, all AI will have knowledge of Bronze Working and can settle their 2nd Settler very close to Copper, assuming the first Settler didn't. Even a small number of Spearmen will make life for Immortals very interesting and short.

1000BC on Normal Speed? Are you kidding me? No one has come remotely close to that date in the HOF. You simply cannot build enough units.
The Persia/Inca comparison probably doesn't quite match up, but we're not really comparing Persia-Classical to Inca-Ancient but to Other-Ancient, and the former certainly gives you a fast start against weaker AIs.

 

[Bugio]

You start with BW too on classical, that means chop from turn 1 (settle on horse) while you grow and start whipping aswell. 1 / 2 immortal per civ will deny metal and expansion till longbows, you can probably kill 3/4 ais this way. Normal speed quechua, i doubt can kill more than 1 deity ai, they get BW/chariots way too fast. It could be an intersting comparison anyway.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

1000BC on Normal Speed? Are you kidding me? No one has come remotely close to that date in the HOF. You simply cannot build enough units.
The Persia/Inca comparison probably doesn't quite match up, but we're not really comparing Persia-Classical to Inca-Ancient but to Other-Ancient, and the former certainly gives you a fast start against weaker AIs.

The first Civ can be eliminated before turn 10 with lots of luck. Now its one down and five to go. If unlucky, reroll until one makes it so. By turn 10 one has three Quechus. By turn 15, one has four Quechuas, is close to finishing Bronze Working, stolen several Workers and chopping out more Quechuas. The next few Civs don't have a hair width's chance of survival. Not even one's economy is an issue, because one can simply raze cities if not getting enough City pillaging Wealth. I maintain that 1000 BC is possible, if one is willing to reroll enough. It may turn out that 1000 BC is more realistic for Small Normal; Ancient Era Standard Normal may finish 500 BC or even 1 AD. Of course it is understood that the game will be very map dependent and must include using a legal map exploit.

Since there are no Ancient Era games at all in the Deity Conquest Standard Nomal, there's no real basis at all for predicting the best possible Inca game here. No one has seriously tried here yet with any Ancient start.

If you still doubt this could happen, we can try an Ancient Era Inca Civ, Any Map Type, Deity Conquest Standard Normal gauntlet and see what happens. The Civ IV HoF tables are largely useless for determining the best date for a particular Difficulty level, Victory Condition, Map Size and Map Speed unless a very recent Gauntlet had been held there with liberal (open) settings.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[ZPV]

I'm afraid I have to see that to believe it. Those are Duel/Tiny tactics (especially the belief in all AIs being close enough to worker steal + choke very quickly, with one close enough to kill with the initial Quechua), which might extend to Small.

What you say about individual HoF tables not necessarily being optimal is true in general, but Inca rushes are another beast. People have always tried to push the boundaries with those, to see how extreme (in this case straying from small maps and marathon speed ) the settings can be.