Gauntlet Suggestions

[Ozbenno]

I have a question for you all for the next gauntlet, what do you think is the latest era that a cultural win is possible at normal speed and monarch difficulty? I'm assuming that modern and future are out but industrial maybe?

 

[WastinTime]

I have a question for you all for the next gauntlet, what do you think is the latest era that a cultural win is possible at normal speed and monarch difficulty? I'm assuming that modern and future are out but industrial maybe?

I like where this question is going. I might have to try a modern/future since you suggest it's not possible. Do you have the # turns left for each era handy? I imagine you looked that up.

 

[The-Hawk]

Not sure I understand . Are you asking about starting era? I.e. can you finish culture from a future era start?

 

[Ozbenno]

Not sure I understand . Are you asking about starting era? I.e. can you finish culture from a future era start?

Yes, I want to set the starting era as late as possible for a culture win.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I have a question for you all for the next gauntlet, what do you think is the latest era that a cultural win is possible at normal speed and monarch difficulty? I'm assuming that modern and future are out but industrial maybe?

In my opinion, it should be possible to Win a Cultural Victory from Future Era, regardless of Difficulty Level. Remember that All Civics are immediately available, all Religions are spread out at the end of turn 5, all new Cities start at Population 5 with an adequate set of useful buildings, and to top it off, you start with three Settlers that can be immediately moved to where you want your three Culture Cites!

A Cultural Victory can easily be Won in the Future Era, but stopping the AI Civs from achieving A Victory before yours can be problematic.

I would choose a Boreal Map and immediately setup a National Park with 20 Forest Preserves ASAP! Get as many Religions as possible to enter your Cities by building Railroads to Holy Cities. The sky is the limit with a Cultural Victory Strategy for the Future Era.

With an Ancient Era start one starts with a single 1 Population City and your Civilization at 1000 BC will be far less developed with insignificant Culture. Even at 0 AD, an Ancient Era start is not that much better than turn 0 of a Future Era start. The Future Era start will gain Culture much faster right out of the Gate.

The Future Era start will have 40% of the Turns that the corresponding Ancient Era start has. Given the huge advantages of the Future Era start, that should be plenty of Time to achieve a Cultural Victory.

The choice of Game Speed will be a Huge Factor. Marathon should be easy to Win. Epic not too much harder. Normal may be a challenge. Quick may be impossible.

Map Size will be another factor. A Small Map with its mere 2 Temples per Cathedral requirement may be the easiest Size Map to Win on.

The best strategy may be a combination of Military, Diplomatic and Cultural. Military/Diplomatic to keep all other AI Civs fighting and to provide Defense and divert other AI Civs to attack each other.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[kcd_swede]

I think it should be possible, too, from a future start. Corps/Broadcast towers, and useful WW multipliers, no need to generate research... you can generate a lot of culture very quickly. Never tried it though. I'd guess you would probably want to start by beating down the AI, too. Avoiding domination victory might be tough on some maps, too. (It starts sounding like a Time game, a bit, and those are certainly winnable, though tedious -- and now that I think about it... I think I have had some late era starts where I had to avoid culture to prevent a culture victory when going for time).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

How about a lower level (pre-noble) one city challenge conquest?

Last OCC conquest game was GMaj60, and that was emperor always war Maybe something a bit easier than that to introduce people to the fun of OCC.

EDIT: I could even handle a huge map if it was no ships required and chieftain or warlord. Give aggressive civs a chance to win a gauntlet for a change

 

[Ozbenno]

How about a lower level (pre-noble) one city challenge conquest?

Last OCC conquest game was GMaj60, and that was emperor always war Maybe something a bit easier than that to introduce people to the fun of OCC.

Well there is always Challenge 7.

Good idea though, will set one up for next update.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I'm trying to find a good game for Shaka for my QM, so I am biased

Make it a minor but a big map with protective civs for added interest, perhaps.

EDIT: PAs must be banned and raging barbs should be mandatory! We want to see longbows vs tanks!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Note: This is a reposting of the last half of my final post of the G-Major-71 Thread in a more appropriate revue.

------

Special thanks to the HOF Staff for holding the recent Deity Gauntlet (G-Mjor-71)! Hopefully, Deity level Gauntlet's will continue to be held regularly, maybe once per quarter (that's only one out of 6 Majors and 6 Minors held each Quarter). That still leaves 11 Gauntlets per Quarter to cover the lower eight levels. That may not seem like enough, but adjacent difficulty levels are not quite as different as Immortal and Deity, especially given that for Ancient Era at least, Deity AI Civs start with two Settlers and Immortal AI Civs start with just one Settler. For example, the difference between Emperor and Immortal is not half as big as the difference between Immortal and Deity. The point I'm trying to make is Immortal level may not be that appealing/challenging to a player used to Deity level play, whereas a player used to playing on Immortal level may still find an Emperor level game somewhat challenging.

As a reference point, here are the Difficulty levels of the Gauntlets held in the past six months (G-Minor-82 through G-Minor-93 and G-Major-61 through G-Major-71). This amounts to 12 G-Minor games and 11 G-Major games (starting just before a G-Major started on every update, otherwise there would have been 12 G-Majors counted in this six month period). The following is a histogram of the number of times each Difficulty level is specified in a Gauntlet (Source: http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/gauntlet.php?show=list):

1 D
3 III
3 EEE
4 MMMM
6 PPPPPP
3 NNN
2 WW
1 C
0

This is a reasonable distribution of Difficulty level, assuming one wants more Monarch and Prince level Games, ample Immortal, Emperor, Noble and Warlord level, and very few Deity, Cheiftain and Settler level Games (G-Minor-94 is Settler, but is too new for the time period selected).

Actually, I think its a bit light at Deity, Chieftain and Settler level difficulties. In my opinion, each of these difficulty levels should have had at least two games in this six month time period.

Now let's try to adjust the histogram to reflect a little little less Prince and more Deity, Chieftain and Settler levels. Instead of arranging 23 Games, we'll arrange 24 Games which will be normal for each future sliding six month period of Gauntlets:

2 DD
3 III
3 EEE
4 MMMM
3 PPP
3 NNN
2 WW
2 CC
2 SS

Sorry for the diversion, but I really think that Deity level Gauntlets are too few. There has to be a certain frequency of them, like at least once each quarter to maintain Player interest (in Deity level). If this is not done, it becomes a catch-22 situation. If not enough Deity Gauntlets are offered, there will be less chance of a Community of Players to develop that play them, discuss them and enjoy them.

Maybe the Challenge Series could evolve to permit more than one difficulty level. It definitely has succeeded in providing a great venue for the Community of Players who enjoy (challenging) Emperor level Games! (It also contains two easy Deity setups and and an easy Immortal setup that a Player comfortable with Emperor level could easily deal with.)

More Deity Gauntlets, please.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Denniz]

Like with most statistics, you have to be careful how you take your sample. We are probably due to have another Deity, though.

If you look at the gauntlets overall since inception it is not quite as bad.

Majors:

• Deity........11
• Immortal...15
• Emperor....19
• Monarch...15
• Prince........9
• Noble.........2
• Warlord......1
• Chieftain.....1
• Total.......73

Minors:

• Deity.........2
• Immortal....1
• Emperor.....5
• Monarch...10
• Prince......21
• Noble.......19
• Warlord....14
• Chieftain....9
• Settler.....12
• Total......93

The distribution isn't perfect but there are other factors that need to be concidered when setting up gauntlets. Higher difficulties tend to have fewer participants.

Hmm, when I have more time, I'll have to run some queries to see which settings were historically the most popular.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I remember the deity religious minor being extremely popular. It gave me my only 2 deity wins anyway I'm gonna try Challenge I-10 soon though.

I'd weight the popularity of gauntlets based on the number of HoF submissions overall that update in order to normalise the data.

I think challenge games should count as a major gauntlet too.

 

[Infantry#14]

Suggestion: How about an Always war Deity Culture?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Like with most statistics, you have to be careful how you take your sample. We are probably due to have another Deity, though.

If you look at the gauntlets overall since inception it is not quite as bad.

Majors:

• Deity........11
• Immortal...15
• Emperor....19
• Monarch...15
• Prince........9
• Noble.........2
• Warlord......1
• Chieftain.....1
• Total.......73

Minors:

• Deity.........2
• Immortal....1
• Emperor.....5
• Monarch...10
• Prince......21
• Noble.......19
• Warlord....14
• Chieftain....9
• Settler.....12
• Total......93

The distribution isn't perfect but there are other factors that need to be concidered when setting up gauntlets. Higher difficulties tend to have fewer participants.

Hmm, when I have more time, I'll have to run some queries to see which settings were historically the most popular.

Denniz, I agree that when including Gauntlet data over 6-12 months old, there was better representation of most all Difficulty levels. Things just seem to have gotten a bit more skewed in the past six months. That's why sampled the last six months of completed Gauntlets.

I'm wondering whether it would be helpful to hold Gauntlets of a specific Difficulty level with a somewhat of a predictable Frequency, 4 Deity per year, 5 Immortal per year, ...

Also, Popularity of a Gauntlet isn't always the best measure of its success, especially future success, since the most popular Gauntlets have been ones that have never been tried before. Such Gauntlets had zero Popularity before they were tried.

How does one measure the Popularity of a Gauntlet? No. of successful submissions. No. of quality strategy posts on the Gauntlet thread? No. of different posters to the Gauntlet thread?

I think it would be interesting to combine your Data from the G-Major and G-Minor Gauntlets, resulting in:

          Majors + Minors
Deity........ 11 +  2 =  13
Immortal..... 15 +  1 =  16
Emperor...... 19 +  5 =  24
Monarch...... 15 + 10 =  25
Prince.......  9 + 21 =  30
Noble........  2 + 19 =  21
Warlord......  1 + 14 =  15
Chieftain....  1 + 09 =  10
Settler......  0 + 12 =  12
[B]Total........ 73 + 93 = 166[/B]

Thanks for listening and responding.

I'm stepping off the soap-box now regarding this topic: I just wanted anyone who might care, to see the concerns I have about Gauntlets and Difficulty levels. I trust that some minor adjustment of the Frequency of specific Difficulty levels will be made. I also thrust that Gauntlets will be chosen to be no more than 50% popular repeats, as repeating the same Gauntlets, because they were once Popular would become boring.

I have a great deal of respect for the HOF staff who setup interesting Gauntlets every update, especially when no Players are helping out here in this thread with new ideas. The HOF staff have been setting up especially interesting Gauntlets for a very long time! I just wish more of them were Deity level.

Next time I post to this thread I promise to speak of a different topic. Or at least I won't post something about this topic for at least another 1-2 weeks.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Denniz]

Denniz, I agree that when including Gauntlet data over 6-12 months old, there was better representation of most all Difficulty levels. Things just seem to have gotten a bit more skewed in the past six months. That's why sampled the last six months of completed Gauntlets.

We may not have gotten the mix just right but there have been a lot of interesting gauntlets during that time.

I'm wondering whether it would be helpful to hold Gauntlets of a specific Difficulty level with a somewhat of a predictable Frequency, 4 Deity per year, 5 Immortal per year, ...

We try but we don't want to get too formulistic.

Also, Popularity of a Gauntlet isn't always the best measure of its success, especially future success, since the most popular Gauntlets have been ones that have never been tried before. Such Gauntlets had zero Popularity before they were tried.

How does one measure the Popularity of a Gauntlet? No. of successful submissions. No. of quality strategy posts on the Gauntlet thread? No. of different posters to the Gauntlet thread?

I generally judge popularity of a gauntlet by the number of participants. Posts in the gauntlet thread is also an indication. That generally follows if more people are playing.

I'm stepping off the soap-box now regarding this topic: I just wanted anyone who might care, to see the concerns I have about Gauntlets and Difficulty levels. I trust that some minor adjustment of the Frequency of specific Difficulty levels will be made. I also thrust that Gauntlets will be chosen to be no more than 50% popular repeats, as repeating the same Gauntlets, because they were once Popular would become boring.

We try not to repeat too much. Some will be similar but some like OCC, cultural, etc. tend to bring a good response. It is tough to find the right mix of fun and challenging for a broad spectrum of people. That's why we have this thread.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

In all of my Games (almost always Deity level) achieving a Peaceful Victory Condition, I have as "rule" chosen high Peace Weight AI Leaders as Opponents. This both reduces the chance of an ugly War and reduces the chance of any AI Leader being the Worst enemy of any other AI Leader which makes Diplomacy (important in any Peaceful Game) much easier.

I'd like to see/develop ways of dealing with a mix of high and low Peace Weight Opponents in a Gauntlet.

Such a Gauntlet might be set up as described in point #1 or #2 below:

1) Half the AI Opponents are high Peace Weight and the other half are low Peace Weight.

-- OR --

2) One third of the AI Opponents are high Peace Weight, middle Peace Weight and low Peace Weight, respectively.

The minimum Number of Opponents could be specified as described above. That probably means pre-selected, specific Opponents in the Gauntlet set up.

The Player could optionally add his own AI Opponents up to the total maximum for the map size.

I know that a few Gauntlets have required many low Peace Weight Opponents, but Diplomacy among them would not be as difficult as between a mix of both low and high Peace Weight.

There may have been a few Gauntlets that fit the description above; I just haven't checked.

This could result in a very interesting and very difficult Gauntlet to Win.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Either a UN Diplomatic Victory or Deity Time Victory would be nice.

The TUN Diplomatic Victory could be a OCC, so Winning would require real Diplomacy and not stuffing the Ballot Box with one's own Citizens. Thus, no PA would be allowed.

The Time Victory would be hard enough.

To appeal to more Players, both suggested Gauntlets would allow any starting Era, so Games could count toward EQM Rock of Ages.

Trying to be careful what I wish for.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[The-Hawk]

I would like to put in a vote for limiting gauntlets to BtS. The difference in the timelines between vanilla/warlords and BtS often favors playing vanilla/warlords. However, this means no Buffy which makes the gameplay more enjoyable. Also, mapfinder is a pita on the older versions because it keeps stopping when another AI is in proximity.

 

[Ozbenno]

I would like to put in a vote for limiting gauntlets to BtS. The difference in the timelines between vanilla/warlords and BtS often favors playing vanilla/warlords. However, this means no Buffy which makes the gameplay more enjoyable. Also, mapfinder is a pita on the older versions because it keeps stopping when another AI is in proximity.

Most gauntlets will be on BtS only but every now and again we will throw them open to all versions. There are some people who still only have Vanilla or Warlords as well. Do take the point about the different timelines but that is part of HOF play, determining which path to take to fastest victory, that path might not always be filled with BUFFY-flavoured goodness

 

[hr_oskar]

Suggestion: How about an Always war Deity Culture?

I was just about to suggest something similar... though maybe not quite so hellish

How about something like this:

Victory: Cultural
Difficulty: Immortal
Starting Era: Ancient
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Pangaea
Civ: Any
Opponents: Montezuma, Shaka, Alexander, Gandhi, Mansa Musa, Elizabeth.
Required: Aggressive AI, Raging barbarians

Perhaps all 6 AI's should be warmongers? Just to guarantee that you start next to one. I'm thinking 3 warmongers and 3 peaceful techers would ensure a reasonable tech rate for the game and make it likelier that the warmongers actually have some success and start acquiring vassals... making them more dangerous.

It's challenging while not fiendishly hard and would appeal to warmongering players for the obvious military dimension but also to peaceful builders for the victory and diplomatic challenge.

Could also be combined with the ideas for an advanced start cultural game, which I also find interesting. If so, I would suggest Industrial+, to make the Mass Media - Radio stuff relevant, as well as corporations.