HOF Questions and Answers Thread

[Noble Zarkon]

Game has been processed now, please note we do check the queue before doing the update.

Thanks for your kind words.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Thank you, NobleZarkon!

 

[TheBigBaboo]

Hi all,

This is actually my first post on CivFanatics, so apologies if I am posting in the wrong place, or getting any of the forum etiquette wrong

OK. Downloaded the BUFFY mod from the HOF site. Initially it seemed to work fine. However, when I am already playing the game and decide to load up a saved game, the game crashes and I get the following error:

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Civ4BeyondSword.exe
Application Version: 3.1.9.0
Application Timestamp: 4a0c27e6
Fault Module Name: CvGameCoreDLL.dll
Fault Module Version: 3.1.9.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4b53b2ac
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 001985be
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.256.6
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 3164
Additional Information 2: f31c530d3d12785f4cca5eb2cbce0d8e
Additional Information 3: 011d
Additional Information 4: 01351879a445e41ad4df3ba5eb395c4d

I am not a programmer or anything, so maybe I am doing something blindingly obvious wrong... But I did try the solutions on http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=vista (alas to no avail). Tried reinstalling, problem just started again after a while.

I am not aware of having the same problem when I was playing without the mod.
I am running Vista 32bit. I have attached DXDiag.

I was wondering if anyone here might be able to help? It is kinda annoying


Thanks!

 

[Denniz]

Hi all,

This is actually my first post on CivFanatics, so apologies if I am posting in the wrong place, or getting any of the forum etiquette wrong

OK. Downloaded the BUFFY mod from the HOF site. Initially it seemed to work fine. However, when I am already playing the game and decide to load up a saved game, the game crashes and I get the following error:

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Civ4BeyondSword.exe
Application Version: 3.1.9.0
Application Timestamp: 4a0c27e6
Fault Module Name: CvGameCoreDLL.dll
Fault Module Version: 3.1.9.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 4b53b2ac
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 001985be
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.256.6
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 3164
Additional Information 2: f31c530d3d12785f4cca5eb2cbce0d8e
Additional Information 3: 011d
Additional Information 4: 01351879a445e41ad4df3ba5eb395c4d

I am not a programmer or anything, so maybe I am doing something blindingly obvious wrong... But I did try the solutions on http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=vista (alas to no avail). Tried reinstalling, problem just started again after a while.

I am not aware of having the same problem when I was playing without the mod.
I am running Vista 32bit. I have attached DXDiag.

I was wondering if anyone here might be able to help? It is kinda annoying


Thanks!

Things to try:

• Run BTS without the mod. If it doesn't run then you may need to reinstall.
  
• Try to load a different save game with the mod. Your save could be corrupted.
  
• Run AssetChecker. Send your results to hof.civfanatics@gmail.com.

 

[Seraiel]

Is it possible, that you have installed BUG or BULL? They alter the CivGamecore.dll file, so that it's not compatible with BUFFY, which requires unmodified original files anymore.

 

[SittinDown]

I had a lot of trouble getting my machine to work with the HOF mod.

I had BUG installed previously and messed up my dll's, so I did the full uninstall and reinstall from steam (twice, since I didn't know about the beta thing at first). Then I had to clear out my registry and reboot, because the Assets checker was like "umm, civ isn't installed," even though I was playing a game right then.

...the last thing I had to do was mod my .ini file so BUFFY was the default mod. if I didn't do that I would get an error message when I opened civ, and if I hit 'OK', I could play, but it wasn't valid for the HOF, and if I hit cancel, then it just closed the game.

(I am a developer. not sure if that helped or hurt me in this case, though it made changing the .ini file not intimidating).

 

[Chaosquo]

Hey all, I got it in my head to try for a prince EQM, so I have some questions:

Can I use the same starting save to continue regenerating maps, so I dont have to setup the game again?

What are the harder map types that I should use "stronger" civs on? From my understanding it is maps you cant easily conquer some neighbours early, so things like Archipaelago, Continents, Ice Age?

What would be the easiest settings to play a bunch of games with different civs to get fast wins? Pangea/Tiny/High Sea/Normal speed?

Also for the Inferno challenge of the QM, do I have to submit one game for each difficulty or would 1 deity game be enough?

How do I submit a game to a gauntlet? Just like a usual HoF game, but the Admins will count it towards the gauntlet? Also will the game still count towards QM (e.g. the current G-Minor 216 as a Roman victory)?

(This list is getting pretty long , thank you for taking the time to answer it )

 

[elitetroops]

Can I use the same starting save to continue regenerating maps, so I dont have to setup the game again?

Yes, you can regenerate maps for multiple games from the same starting save.

What are the harder map types that I should use "stronger" civs on? From my understanding it is maps you cant easily conquer some neighbours early, so things like Archipaelago, Continents, Ice Age?

Oasis is probably the weirdest mapscript. Rainforest is quite slow, but great for space games, if you have the patience for it.

Ice Age is actually quite nice with tons of forests that seriously slow down the AI and allow you to easily chop your way to conquest/domination victory.

Continents is good for UN victory. Take out your own continent early before meeting the other continent, then it's easy to make friends with the rest since you haven't declared on their friends.

Archipelago depends on what you want to do. If you pick low sea level snaky continents it might sometimes be almost a pangaea. But if you play prince, you could also go epic or marathon, play Ragnar, send workboats out to circumnavigate the world asap, while getting the UB for extra movement, then chop/whip galleys with axes to take out everyone. A while ago there was a challenge on prince/epic/archi, which also was always war and one city challenge. Galleys with one axe each turned out to be the fastest strategy.

What would be the easiest settings to play a bunch of games with different civs to get fast wins? Pangea/Tiny/High Sea/Normal speed?

Any map, tine, epic/marathon. On prince you can chariot/axe or even warrior rush everyone. For the easiest fast conquest, pick AI that don't start with hunting. They are much slower to archery.

Also for the Inferno challenge of the QM, do I have to submit one game for each difficulty or would 1 deity game be enough?

I believe every difficulty is needed.

How do I submit a game to a gauntlet? Just like a usual HoF game, but the Admins will count it towards the gauntlet? Also will the game still count towards QM (e.g. the current G-Minor 216 as a Roman victory)?

Submit a game with the correct settings and it will automatically count towards the gauntlet.

(This list is getting pretty long , thank you for taking the time to answer it )

Good luck on your quest!

 

[Chaosquo]

Thanks, submitted my first game, just 32 to go

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Any game submitted to the HoF will apply to QM and/or EQM, assuming it fills in a missing game slot or improves a slot for QM/EQM. As elitetroops mentioned, any HoF game meeting the requirements of a current Gauntlet will be included in that gauntlet's results, assuming it is your best game (only each player's best game meeting the requirements counts towards the gauntlet).

 

[Chaosquo]

After doing a bit more research and planning, I decided to go for Emperor EQM since my first games on Prince were way too easy once I went for axe rushes (I had always been playing peacefully until Steel and then breaking out). I have some more questions now :

Are the different starting eras an advantage or not? From my understanding, it seems to be more difficult since you cant beeline e.g. BW on ancient and axerush people. OTOH, I saw that modern starts (Challenge I-10) make it easy to Tankrush people, so Ill probably run a Frederick/Modern/Quick/Immortal(for QM)/Oasis(?) game. What about the other eras (classical/medieval/renaissance/industrial/future)? Could you Cav rush people on industrial and Modern Armor rush on Future?

Also more on map type (just listing my understanding, feel free to add or correct):
Archipelago: force big continent, axerush, conquer last straggler with Galleys (?)
Big&small: axe rush
Boreal: axe rush with extra chopping
Continents: axe rush into diplomatic victory
Fractal: ??
Global Highlands: ??
Great Plains: Immortal/War Chariot Rush
Hemispheres: Same as continents?
Highlands: Many hill cities make axe rush a lot harder?
Ice Age: axe rush with extra chopping and close together AIs
Inland sea: axe rush
Lakes: axe rush
Medium&Small: ??
Oasis: Since I was told it could be weird, best to be safe and go for modern start?
Pangea: axe rush
Rain forest: axe rush (Yes, I like grinding, yes axe rushing 25+ times wont make me go insane )
Terra: axe rush into Space/Culture/Time, since its easy to avoid Domination?

I would also like to request some pointers on Religion victory. My initial idea: You scout the map fast and decide which civs to conquer based on their religion and closeness (e.g. neighbour is Buddhist, you conquer him and try to get Hinduism spread in all your cities), be nice to everybody and win?

Also the reason Im planning on this many rushes is I dont have enough faith in my ability to peacefully outmanage Emperor level AI, so I need an early boost via extra cities to keep up with/cripple the AIs.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Are the different starting eras an advantage or not? From my understanding, it seems to be more difficult since you cant beeline e.g. BW on ancient and axerush people.

Be aware non-Ancient starts ONLY count for Rock of Ages so most of your games should be played on Ancient starts.

I would also like to request some pointers on Religion victory. My initial idea: You scout the map fast and decide which civs to conquer based on their religion and closeness (e.g. neighbour is Buddhist, you conquer him and try to get Hinduism spread in all your cities), be nice to everybody and win?

To win with the AP the best tactic is an obscure religion that nobody follows (including yourself!) spread to just one AI city each. Adaopt the dominant religion so people like you then the AP Vote can often be yourself (as AP owner) versus nobody!!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

All EQM games, except Rock of Ages, need to be Ancient starts.

War Chariot or Immortal rushes usually work better than Axe rushes at higher difficulty levels, primarily because mounted units move twice as fast as foot soldiers on flat terrain.

Horse Archer rush works for any player Civ.

Any rush will be extremely difficult to pull off at Quick speed and Ancient Era start, because units become obsolete so quickly. Normal speed will still be challenging. Epic and Marathon speeds should be easy though.

If your starting location has Ivory, War Elephant and Catapult rush (aka Elepult rush) is the optimal rush for Epic and Marathon. It should also work on Normal speed, but Quick speed will remain challenging. Beeline Construction, research Currency for economic reasons and Horseback Riding for War Elephants. Trade for Archery. Spam Catapults and then War Elephants and when you have maybe six of each, attack your nearest opponent and continue to spam these units until you have achieved your goals.

Religious Victory is easy to achieve peacefully. Beeline Priesthood, research Writing while building The Oracle to get Theology. Include De Gaulle and optionally farm him for Workers to pre-chop for The Apostolic Palace. You will still have good relations with AIs that are Annoyed or Furious with De Gaulle. Convert to Christianity and spread to the low population city of each Civ. If you are sure they will vote for you, spreading to a higher population city might be ok, though the diplomatic situation can change quickly, and worse yet they may spread Christianity and become your opponent. After The Apostolic Palace is built, convert to the religion of your friend(s), send up to three Christian Missionaries to your friend just before the first TAP resolution after your election as TAP Resident. When prompted select the Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory resolution; On that same turn, convert your friend's three biggest cities to increase his vote for you and switch to Christianity to double your own votes. At this point, everyone has already cast their vote, so any diplomatic change on the voting turn is ignored. Your friend might even switch to Christianity himself, but this only doubles his vote for you, since his switch to Christianity is one turn too late to become a candidate for the RLDV vote.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

On the diplomacy side of Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory, do the following to gain diplomatic points with the AI Civs:

Open Borders as soon as possible; +1 for 25t; +2 for 50t.

60 turns of peace provides +1 diplomacy.

Provide resources to AIs: 50 resource x turns = +1; 100 resource x turns = +2; for example supplying both Corn and Gold to an AI for 25 turns provides +1 diplomacy.

Fair Trading provides +4 diplomacy; more accurately called unfair trading; give AI trades that grossly favor them; trading for something small for Theology will usually provide the full +4 bonus; if there is nothing else to give, settle a city very close to the AI and give it to him (that will provide the full +4 bonus and maybe the liberation bonus too).

Some AI's favorite civic is OR; include them and use OR yourself; other civics are usually too late for RLDV, but Hereditary Rule might work.

Share religion with AIs you want to vote for you in RLDV resolution; if the AI owns its State Religion's Holy City, the diplomacy bonus is increased slightly.

Technology Sharing: after each 5/7/10/20 techs traded (leader specific) get +1 diplomacy.

Liberation of Cities: +1.5 diplomacy for each city liberated.

Shared War: +1 diplomacy per 8 turns of shared war.

 

[Chaosquo]

Thanks a lot for these detailed explanations, so could I run a Highlands/Quick game with any spiritual leader to get my religious victory? Ive also read religious victory is supposed to be the easiest victory type, is that because rushes require a decent map and AIs not settling hill cities? Im still going to go for rushes though, my bloodthirsty side showing through

 

[Ozbenno]

so could I run a Highlands/Quick game with any spiritual leader to get my religious victory?

Highlands is a big map, so might not be worth it for AP (potentially good for UN Diplomatic though if you need that victory). You don't want to be sending missionaries to the other side of the map if you are trying to be competitive.

When I was looking at my EQM games, I looked at the tables to see a potential low lying #1 to knock off and tailor my game to that with the optimum leader/map etc. There will be games at the end that you're just trying to win to submit but worth trying to get as high a score as possible.

 

[lymond]

Well, while Highlands is large (and flat) at least it doesn't require Optics to complete an AP game. Yeah, Mishes have to travel far, but as long as you get some workers going for roads, you can move at a good pace. There's also a nice little trick of gifting cities to the AI with the AP religion..just gift them a new crap city near you with a mish ready to infect. Just keep in mind that you can not do this if the AI has more than 3 cities (I think), if the city is not within 9 tiles of their cap's city center. But if you do this early enough on not too high difficulties it can work. And you only need to do it for the far away AIs, not your closer neighbors.

But scout Aggressively to meet the AIs.

And note, you do not need to be in the AP religion all the time to win, just to build it. You can switch on the turn of the vote. Spiritual leaders like Rams are really good for this.

 

[Chaosquo]

Quick question, I am playing a continents game right now with me having cleared out my continent and 3 AIs sharing the other continent. Napoleon is the worst enemy of everybody, and recently Willem voluntarily became vassal of Joao and gained all the extra bonuses (+4 trade/+2 resources/+2 defensive pacts etc). I was planning on having Willem vote for me. Should I not have antagonized Napoleon? Now my only chance at diplomatic victory is captitulating Joao/Wilem? Do I still need +9 relations to get them to vote for me?

(This post probably doesnt belong here, but there doesnt seem to be Q&A thread in strategy)

 

[lymond]

Well, in S&T you can just post a question directly.

My assumption here is that Joao will be your UN rival (assuming UN DV here). Vassals vote for lord. Seems unlikely that DV is possible without breaking up Joao/Willem. You probably want to get Nappy to vote for you as well or vassal him.. DV gets harder with less AIs. Check populations and %s needed. I believe your pop cannot exceed a certain percentage of total and at least one AI needs to vote for you. It's been a while for me on DV though. Also, would assume that you not only need Willem to break free but also vote for you.

 

[Chaosquo]

Yeah, I am at 35 % pop and Joao is at 30 %, and cross sea wars are pretty tedious and i dont even have steel. I guess I have to scout the other continent completely before I commit to antagonizing an AI. Peace vassaling happens pretty frequently, right?