HOF Civ5 Update Discussion

[Denniz]

The Civilization V Hall of Fame has been updated. 68 games were accepted since the previous update.

Congratulations to AusCG for the highest Firaxis score of the update with a Settler, Domination, Epic, Duel, Great Plains, Shoshone (Pocatello) [BNW] game for 12220 points.

zenmaster was the most active player during this update, submitting 13 games.

Only 4 players were brave enough to take on Deity this update
AusCG - 1920 BC, Turn 52, 5240 points, Deity, Domination, Standard, Duel, Great Plains Plus, Huns (Attila) [BNW]
blatc - 1410 AD, Turn 201, 4015 points, Deity, Science, Standard, Standard, Great Plains, Korea (Sejong) [BNW]
vadalaz - 425 AD, Turn 132, 4484 points, Deity, Domination, Standard, Standard, Pangaea, Byzantium (Theodora) [BNW]
zenmaster - 2050 AD, Turn 1500, 12022 points, Deity, Time, Marathon, Huge, Tiny Islands, Indonesia (Gajah Mada) [BNW]

Gauntlet Results:
G-Major LXXVII - Science, Emperor, Standard, Continents, Epic, Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar II)
1st zenmaster - 1716 AD T-368
2nd sexten - 1718 AD T-369
3rd ViperWE - 1734 AD T-377

G-Minor CXXXII - Science, Prince, Small, Continents, Epic, Assyria (Ashurbanipal)
1st zenmaster - 1732 AD T-376
2nd qoxf - 1742 AD T-381
3rd dinanipedro - 1778 AD T-399

** New Gauntlets Starting **
G-Major LXXVIII - Culture, Immortal, Standard, Highlands, Standard, Assyria (Ashurbanipal)
G-Minor CXXXIII - Diplomacy, King, Small, Arborea, Standard, Carthage (Dido)

 

[Denniz]

A number of players earned Gold Medals this update:

Fastest Finish (Date):
mycivs - 1725 AD, Turn 170, 3358 points, Chieftain, Science, Quick, Standard, Fractal, Shoshone (Pocatello) [BNW]
vadalaz - 240 BC, Turn 69, 2550 points, Chieftain, Domination, Quick, Standard, Tiny Islands, Denmark (Harald) [BNW]
vadalaz - 2635 BC, Turn 91, 5366 points, Chieftain, Domination, Marathon, Small, Inland Sea, Celts (Boudicca) [BNW]
zenmaster - 400 BC, Turn 65, 3015 points, Chieftain, Culture, Quick, Tiny, Arborea, Celts (Boudicca) [BNW]
vadalaz - 425 AD, Turn 132, 4484 points, Deity, Domination, Standard, Standard, Pangaea, Byzantium (Theodora) [BNW]
mycivs - 2950 BC, Turn 42, 3180 points, Emperor, Domination, Epic, Duel, Ice Age, Denmark (Harald) [BNW]
vadalaz - 1250 BC, Turn 110, 1800 points, Emperor, Domination, Epic, Small, Tiny Islands, England (Elizabeth) [BNW]
zenmaster - 1716 AD, Turn 368, 3285 points, Emperor, Science, Epic, Standard, Continents, Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar II) [BNW]
mycivs - 50 AD, Turn 117, 1626 points, Prince, Domination, Standard, Standard, Frontier, Arabia (Harun al-Rashid) [BNW]
zenmaster - 275 AD, Turn 126, 1880 points, Prince, Culture, Standard, Standard, Tiny Islands, Indonesia (Gajah Mada) [BNW]
mycivs - 760 BC, Turn 56, 3850 points, Settler, Culture, Quick, Tiny, Inland Sea, America (Washington) [BNW]
zenmaster - 600 BC, Turn 60, 9705 points, Settler, Culture, Quick, Duel, Great Plains Plus, Netherlands (William) [BNW]
mycivs - 680 BC, Turn 58, 2294 points, Warlord, Culture, Quick, Duel, Pangaea, Brazil (Pedro II) [BNW]
mycivs - 850 BC, Turn 81, 2162 points, Warlord, Culture, Standard, Small, Frontier, Morocco (Ahmad al-Mansur) [BNW]
vadalaz - 1060 BC, Turn 49, 3835 points, Warlord, Domination, Quick, Standard, Great Plains Plus, Rome (Augustus Caesar) [BNW]
vadalaz - 2100 BC, Turn 76, 3880 points, Warlord, Domination, Epic, Standard, Great Plains Plus, Austria (Maria Theresa) [BNW]
zenmaster - 320 BC, Turn 67, 3785 points, Warlord, Culture, Quick, Duel, Highlands, Inca (Pachacuti) [BNW]
zenmaster - 1310 AD, Turn 191, 3144 points, Warlord, Culture, Standard, Standard, Tiny Islands, Venice (Enrico Dandolo) [BNW]

Score:
mycivs - 3180 points, 2950 BC, Turn 42, Emperor, Domination, Epic, Duel, Ice Age, Denmark (Harald) [BNW]
sexten - 3332 points, 1718 AD, Turn 369, Emperor, Science, Epic, Standard, Continents, Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar II) [BNW]
vadalaz - 3835 points, 1060 BC, Turn 49, Warlord, Domination, Quick, Standard, Great Plains Plus, Rome (Augustus Caesar) [BNW]

Veni Vidi Vici News
The following players have joined the ranks of those completing all the VVV categories. Congratulations!

Foamfollower (13th BNW)

 

[vadalaz]

zenmaster - 2050 AD, Turn 1500, 12022 points, Deity, Time, Marathon, Huge, Tiny Islands, Indonesia (Gajah Mada) [BNW]

Wow! That must've taken weeks to finish. Welcome back zenmaster!

 

[zenmaster]

Wow! That must've taken weeks to finish. Welcome back zenmaster!

Hello and thanks. Yes, it has been a long while since I have had a chance to play. Glad to see you are still checking in! Also glad to see the Gauntlets still attracting players each time.

The Time game insanity was one of my unfinished projects from before I had to stop playing for awhile. After playing a couple NiceoneEmlyn specials (Deity Huge Marathon Tiny Island Domination Games) back then, I got the idea that those settings could help solve one of Cromagnus' pet peeves about Time victory games-- The time spent playing did not result in a worthwhile VVV contribution as T-Score was pretty poor for any playable Time Game settings.

By going Deity Huge Marathon, you max out T-Score for a 1 player entry. The most important consideration- Tiny Islands allows you to still build out to a Huge Map while still making turns playable (barely as I found out) in the late game, as the # of cities threatens to make the game unplayable. Also, wiping out Deity AI civs in Tiny Islands at marathon is not that difficult to do early enough to build up a good civ. The other advantage of going Deity Time victory is that there is no worry of accidentally winning a Culture victory.

My first effort in this vein is still unfinished- I played Babylon (to get the Galleases out quickest) and planned to go Freedom and taller, to keep the # of cities down. I wiped out all but France in that one, but it took a bit long, and France was already expanded some and hard to contain completely. I left that one for the time being and launched into an Indonesia game to get 4 cities up quickly, conquer ASAP, and go Order, waiting for big expansion after a World's Fair Social policy windfall.

It worked out well, until the very late game at least. Conquered in reasonable time, leaving small Sweden completely bottled up in the icy tundra as the surviving AI civ. My 4 cities and the annexed AI caps led to a good World's Fair. I then cranked out about 100 cities to cover the map broadly, knowing that any more would slow the game down to a crawl mechanically (Previous Gauntlet experience had shown!). Once all hexes were undarkened so no barbs could spawn and the initial build queues were set, micromanagement was not so terrible. As the cities got big, about T1300 turns slowed down such that it was do a turn's actions, hit Next turn and walk away to do something else for 5-15 minutes. Conquering the city-states was out of the question. The lag just to select a unit was significant. An actual war to take a city-state would have taken several days of playing for each city-state.

Things got worse after T1400 and my big mistake was trying to fill the map to the max with cities on T1497. I figured 3 turns of ~200 cities wouldn't be so bad. How wrong I was-- The 3 turns after settling 70+ more cities were not the worst part. It was T1497 itself. The game took about 15 minutes to establish a new city after I hit the Found City button. Multiply that by 60-80. Then, after I set the build queue for a city and returned to the main screen, THAT took minutes. There were significant mini-freezes just moving the cursor around the board or the menus. My computer heated up so much, I had to save and shut down during Turn 1497 about 4 times over the space of several days.

Much like Cromagnus did in his final Gauntlet Time game, I perservered and got it done. I have serious doubts I will go back and finish the Babylon-Freedom game I started, but I may finish that start up with another type of victory, or finish it as a Time game without trying to max out score (keeping city count < 100).

The takeaway: Tiime victories are probably best kept to Quick setting or Tiny/Duel maps .

 

[zenmaster]

In a separate post, I would like to congratulate Foamfollower, and everyone else who has completed the VVV in the past year!

I know firsthand it is not an easy achievement. Congratulations to all who have achieved this monumental accomplishment.

 

[zenmaster]

I was amazed to see Svinopes had done such serious work in the VVV! So many well played games! Special congrats to him.

It has made me a bit busy the past couple weeks to catch up on old unplayed games, and recent challenges I did not take part in. I find the game still holds great enjoyment after a long layoff. I am still learning and trying new things in Civ 5 after so many games, especially in the Science victory type, so Civ 6 will have to shake off the bugs, early exploits, and rough gameplay edges before I think of starting to learn that one in earnest!

 

[vadalaz]

Thanks for the write-up. That endgame sounds really painful, good job on persevering!

I just checked the formulas, and Marathon speed doesn't seem to increase your T-Score for time games. The speed modifier is the same 1.25 as it is for Standard and Epic pace, and the speed factor never comes into play for score games or any 1-entry table games actually. So I think Duel (or maybe Tiny)/Deity/Standard time games have the best T-Score to time spent ratio. I might actually play a couple of those, I've been ignoring the Duel tables for the most part, so it'd be very good for my Go the Distance score.

 

[zenmaster]

Thanks for the write-up. That endgame sounds really painful, good job on persevering!

I just checked the formulas, and Marathon speed doesn't seem to increase your T-Score for time games. The speed modifier is the same 1.25 as it is for Standard and Epic pace, and the speed factor never comes into play for score games or any 1-entry table games actually. So I think Duel (or maybe Tiny)/Deity/Standard time games have the best T-Score to time spent ratio. I might actually play a couple of those, I've been ignoring the Duel tables for the most part, so it'd be very good for my Go the Distance score.

Yes, you are right about the game speeds. I remember I chose Marathon because Marathon games are much fewer in my games played and make the Deity conquest part easier. I was hoping the endgame wouldn't be as slow as it was . Interesting to see what Deity Time combos you may pick.