Mesix Challenge Series 1

[Mesix]

In an effort to promote more competition in the HOF community, I have decided to create a challenge series. This will work similar to the official HOF gauntlets. If there is enough participation in these games then the top three finish dates should get a medal (6 games are required for the HOF to award gold medals for a particular table).

I will try to promote the use of G&K in an effort to try populate the G&K tables and also to try out some of the new tactics offered by the expansion. Here are the details for the inaugural game in this series.

Settings:

Expansion: Gods & Kings + DLC
Victory Condition: Science (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
Difficulty: Emperor
Map Size: Standard
Map Type: Small Continents
Speed: Standard
Leader: Byzantium (Theodora)
Opponents: Any
Version: SV8
Date: 3rd March to 1st April 2013
The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.



There were 9 entries for this challenge:

1...moriarte......240...1650 AD
2...Salomo........261...1755 AD
3...browd..........279...1818 AD
4...steveymer....294...1848 AD
5...titantoma......306...1872 AD
6...nerovats.......232...1903 AD
7...Mesix...........339...1919 AD
8...dinanipedro...367...1947 AD
9...xger.............499...2049 AD

Thank you to everyone who participated and congratulations to the winners!

 

[Mesix]

I was inspired to start this series by complaints in this thread that having the current Major Gauntlet on Deity level and a Minor Gauntlet which requires DLC (Korea and Polynesia) limits playability for some players. For this reason, I have chosen to set this game a Monarch and to allow any opponents. A second motive for starting this series to to get more G&K games submitted to the HOF. According to the HOF tables, there are no submission with these settings yet, so I will decide the winner by looking at the table after the update.

 

[HideInLight]

Good initiative, I will try and submit a game for this.

 

[dinanipedro]

monarch diff is king?

 

[Mesix]

monarch diff is king?

Sorry, I meant Emperor. I will fix the OP.

 

[dinanipedro]

giving it a go, sounds interesting and I havent played byzantine yet

melima is my favourite diplomatic encouter when playing with byzantine as ai, and nearly always end up in dof.

planning a similiar strategy as when using ethiopia:

getting a strong religion out fast and spreading (religious texts belief) and a strong pantheon (culture from pastures and some happiness maybe)

rushing food wonders temple of artemis and hanging gardens

policy wise will go tradition/ rationalism plus some others

small continents - any use's for dromon - not sure (unable to go into ocean tiles til upgrade)

five own cities with good production/population and push out universities, public schools and research labs as they are teched (education, scientific theory and plastics)

i think by then a naval war would be best. (knock down potential runaways)
eventual puppeting and focus on spaceship part assembly

 

[kirbdog]

Nice initiative.

 

[Arnold_T]

I like this initiative Mesix! I don't usually have time to play more than a couple of games per month (the TSGs) but TSG55 should be a really fast dom win. maybe I can squeeze this game in too.

 

[Izmir Stinger]

melima is my favourite diplomatic encouter when playing with byzantine as ai

The voice actress that plays Theodora sounds like she really put a lot into the role, considering it was just a few dozen odd sentences in a half dead language.

 

[kirbdog]

I uploaded a turn 283 science victory. I'm sure I could have done better, but as you say, we could use a lot more G&K game submissions. Good luck to all.

 

[nerovats]

Fit's nicely into my scematic. Don't own Civ5 that long and only recently purchased G&K. Have an emperor game to submit and haven't played small continents, nor Theo. Don't expect a great score, but will submit one.

@Kirbdog, how do you guy's finish games so quickly? 283 turn, in just a couple of days. Amazing.

 

[Mesix]

Well, I had a really poor showing with a 339 turn finish. I only built 4 cities (size 32, 27, 20, and 18 at the end of the game IIRC) and 3 of them were in tundra. I had some very bad luck at the beginning of the game. I decided to go for the 4 cities Tradition opener, but found myself on an isolated landmass with no AI players to trade with so I didn't have the to purchase settlers and other stuff early on. I reached Education circa turn 130. When I reached the End Game, I did not have any Aluminum. I only had enough to buy 2 GS so I had to hard tech several of the late game techs waiting for the last couple SS components despite having finished Rationalism in perfect timing to get Rocketry/Satellites in 1 turn and having saved a GE to rush Hubble in my capital.

I have some other games to play, so I may or may not get back to this before the update. I submitted my poor showing to prop up the medal contention of anyone else who decided to play.

 

[kirbdog]

It's not so complicated; it just means having the day off to play civ. XD

Edited to add: enabling quick combat and quick movement does help, fwiw.

 

[dinanipedro]

The voice actress that plays Theodora sounds like she really put a lot into the role, considering it was just a few dozen odd sentences in a half dead language.

Artemis Lagopoulos makes my games so much more interesting

 

[kirbdog]

My first submission was invalid so I played another one.

This time I tried to do it as an OCC challenge.

I got an amazing start for Petra (mountain, river, and desert hills as far as the eye could see). So I built the Hanging Gardens, the National College, and got Petra in the 90s. Things were looking good.

Turns out I was producing far too much culture with all these wonders and an early culture ruins for me to be able to hit Rationalism in stride. So a second city would not only have provided beakers but also that necessary drag on Policy costs. First mistake.

I tried to build Chichen Itcha for a GE, got sniped. Second mistake. Even though I had amazing production I followed a guide that said to get a Great Engineer out first, use it for Pisa, and then use a GE from Pisa for Porcelain. Yes, for Deity, but not for Emperor. Should have hard-built Pisa and Porcelain. I even stopped scientists a while to force the GE. Third mistake.

I took a while finding all the AI and getting RA's up. Fourth mistake.

I fell asleep at the wheel in the middle of the game and got my city proselytized by George Washington. Probably set me back a great scientist from the faith loss and another few turns from lower population due to an inferior form of belief. Fifth mistake.

Switched to production mode several times when I could have worked my food tiles for 95% of the game or more, easily. Sixth mistake.

Took a fourth point in Rationalism before opening Order, because I hoped it would have been over sooner. Seventh mistake.

I wasn't aggressive about getting maritimes or we love the king day. Eighth mistake.

Still managed to upload a turn 305 win.

My religion:

Desert Folklore
Fertility Rites
Tithe
Swords into Plowshares
Religious Community
Reliquary

I really did love this religion! Everything you really want -- lots and lots of food and hammers -- all the faith left over for producing Great Scientists. (Oh, I did make a GE with Order, for the Hubble, but I was so far ahead, I should have hard built it too. Mistake number nine, LOL!)

 

[Moriarte]

Finished on t.240

Did make few epic mistakes (like spending 20 turns in unhappiness throughout the game), but i really wanted to try going wider than i usually do (with tradition). Also, playing by HoF rules really limits one's options .

My religion choices were: Desert Folklore, Pagodas, Mosques, cheap missionaries, and texts. Not sure if that's the best mix, but my happiness literally exploded in the mid game. Was tempted to pick divine inspiration instead of mosques.

I did manage to create about 10 GS during the game, but that wasn't enough, due to the fact i could only peak at 1200 bpt. No RAs were signed. The world hated me for two DoW's on my nearest neighbors.

Anyway, Theodora is real strong in desert environment. Might play another one before challenge expires .

Spoiler :

 

[Mesix]

I generally only take one religious building, especially when going wide. I like Pagodas because of the +2 . I think having 2 religious buildings limits the number of cities where you can buy them. My goal is to spend my preindustrial era on Pagodas and then save my postindustrial era faith on great people. I don't remember the name off the top of my head, but the belief which gives +2 per Temple complements Pagodas nicely when you want a lot of happiness.

I find that I experiment with many different beliefs from game to game. Different game objectives call for different religious choices. Being able to purchase units with :C5faith: can be a really potent belief in a Domination game for instance.

 

[Moriarte]

Well, one only needs 10-12 units max to conquer the world on emperor, so i'd rather pick temples, like you suggest, or anything else, which provides happy faces.

Simple advantage of picking 2 or even 3 religious buildings is that they also provide faith (for GS) and culture: very useful when annexing cities in a wide empire and filling them with science buildings. Of course one needs to buy all religious buildings before industrial hits, which is tricky. But if you manage to do it right, you're looking at 100+ fpt & solid culture at the time industrial hits.

 

[Mesix]

After the update, it looks like we had five takers so far. The challenge is still open until the the next update, so one more player to reach the Gold medal plateau. Right now, the leader achieved a turn 240 Science victory. Perhaps someone thinks they can improve upon this?

 

[nerovats]

Finished turn 323. Had trouble growing. But still reasonable date I gues.