Mistfit's Introduction to cIV HoF

[dutchfire]

Lesson of the day, count your tiles before settling all your settlers. I was playing Warlord Normal Small, and I missed domination by a couple of tiles. I needed to capture a barbarian city before my units went to strike, and then had to wait until it came out of revolt so it could pop it's borders Ended in 250 BC anyway, but could've been better.

 

[Mistfit]

Can you tell me how you count your tiles? or rather how many more you need to win?

In my days doing domination in C3C we always had Dianthus' handy dandy tool that would tell us.. now I am not so sure the best way to do it..

 

[Denniz]

Can you tell me how you count your tiles? or rather how many more you need to win?

In my days doing domination in C3C we always had Dianthus' handy dandy tool that would tell us.. now I am not so sure the best way to do it..

In the Civ4lerts section of the HOF Mod options there are alerts for Pop Dom Limit and Land Dom Limit. The message that pops up when you are within the selected percentage of the Dom Limit displays the numbers. If you want a percentage different from the ones provided in the dropdown you can change the HOF ini file directly.

 

[DJMGator13]

In the Civ4lerts section of the HOF Mod options there are alerts for Pop Dom Limit and Land Dom Limit. The message that pops up when you are within the selected percentage of the Dom Limit displays the numbers. If you want a percentage different from the ones provided in the dropdown you can change the HOF ini file directly.

Set it to the lowest alert (5% IIRC) and it will tell you the number of tile needed for domination, when you reach 5% of the land area. Then make sure your gridlines are on and start counting. Water and impassable ice tiles don't count. I even go into the Globe View and mark the tiles as I count them.

 

[dutchfire]

Set it to the lowest alert (5% IIRC) and it will tell you the number of tile needed for domination, when you reach 5% of the land area. Then make sure your gridlines are on and start counting. Water and impassable ice tiles don't count. I even go into the Globe View and mark the tiles as I count them.

IIRC, you have to set it to the highest, not the lowest alert. (I've set it to 99% in the .ini, and it's working for me )

 

[Mistfit]

Ah.. but IIRC the old map finder for C3C would tell you how big the domination limit was as it was searching for files right?

Well this is what I have been doing, keep in mind I am not a computer guy at all so this is likely a very difficult way of doing things.. I cannot seem to make mapfinder choose the maps I want it to look for. I have changed the rules to 3 simple rules but it will not keep those for some reason.. All I want is 1 food resourse and either gold gems or silver but it seems to go back to the default settings when looking for maps. So I have been doing the following..

I set mapfinder looking and I watch it and Alt-X when I see a map I like then I settle and look at the domination limit.. I have seen them from between 1.46% and 2.15% for the initial 9 tiles. If the Dom limit is over 2% I play it until I see if it is a winnable map and if not I do it again.. but it sure would be nice having mapfinder do it for me and tell me the dom limits too boot

Still I have not beaten your mark.. I will continue a while though.. Although I might switch up to another setting to keep learning this game.. I did find a great start (dom limit was too high) that had 2 food and 1 gold and a grass gem in the starting 21.. this might be a good one for a space run..

 

[DJMGator13]

Well this is what I have been doing, keep in mind I am not a computer guy at all so this is likely a very difficult way of doing things.. I cannot seem to make mapfinder choose the maps I want it to look for. I have changed the rules to 3 simple rules but it will not keep those for some reason.. All I want is 1 food resourse and either gold gems or silver but it seems to go back to the default settings when looking for maps. So I have been doing the following....

Have you change the HOF Option tab to not use the default.rul set? Just a guess.

Still I have not beaten your mark.. I will continue a while though.. Although I might switch up to another setting to keep learning this game.. I did find a great start (dom limit was too high) that had 2 food and 1 gold and a grass gem in the starting 21.. this might be a good one for a space run..

Running high seas will make for less land and smaller dom limit. You originally indicated you were doing normal seas.

 

[Mistfit]

I will check the first.. I switched over to high seas quite a while back.. I just have not been getting lucky on maps.. the maps I need have 3 opponent fairly close to me that I can ransack and another somewhere.. What I keep finding is too spread out. I will keep at it though.. it is fun and only takes 1.5 hours to play a map out.

 

[Mistfit]

@ Dutchfire... ONE DANG TURN!!! Grrrrr...

 

[dutchfire]

@ Dutchfire... ONE DANG TURN!!! Grrrrr...

You've improved quite a lot during the last 2 weeks! If you continue like this, you're going to overtake me quite soon.

By the way, you mentioned that you wanted gems/gold/silver in your initial fat cross? I'm wondering if that's really worth it, sure, it will speed up Iron Working a bit, but I think more production is better in the long run.

 

[Mistfit]

I did not mention the fact that I also look for at least 3 hills total and the more forest the better. I chop a whole lot of my production.. Clear cut actually.. I have been leaving the chopping til mathematics but might change that a bit to get a few more praetorians out sooner.. the extra 10 hammers are nice but so would a unit a bit earlier.. I will have to fuss with this. Again I have you to thank for my rise to the (near) top Without your helpfulness I would still be building courthouses.

 

[dutchfire]

I'd say earlier is better. Although leaving some hammers for late game settlers is interesting too.

By the way, why did you build Stonehenge that early? You only really need it a couple of turns before the big settle. I'd prefer a couple of extra praetorians that early. Unless you used it to get an extra border pop in some towns, which I doubt.

By the way, it seems you were way more efficient in placing towns, you had quite a lot less.

I tried looking at your games, but got a "this save file is protected" message.

 

[Mistfit]

I have built Stonehenge quickly in most of my games as it helps me place my cities more efficiently also it seemed like a good idea to get the larger bfc in my starting 3 cities to make them as productive as possible. It also allowed me to chop more units.

as to the file protected thing it is likely that it has something to do with my issues that I am trying to resolve with the HoF Staff and my Vista operating system.

 

[Mistfit]

Well as soon as I get reliable internet connection at home I will be submitting a couple more games.. I have still yet to be able to beat your 200AD score on Noble. I did play a couple of others though that will make the leader board.

I am posting this from work so my dates may be a little skewed.

I played a Prince game that I think I finished at 175AD which was decent. I was amazed at how many more units the AI built in this game. One of Victoria's cities had 6 archers - 2 spear - and 3 or 4 charriots :O

I played a Warlord game that will take a current second I think at 175BC. Again here I was surprised at the difference in levels. The AI here was very easy to defeat and mostly had 2 or 3 archers max to contend with. I actually had George pull his last 2 units out of a city IBT and left it for me to walk into.. Also here I did not realize that you can pop a settler from a hut! This was a nice surprise. I think this date can be easily improved upon with some solid planning now that I have a feel as to how many settlers vs Praetorians I will need to build. This level I added a couple of opponents so they would build more cities for me to take from them I added Nepolean and HC (just because I like beating up on them.

I am thinking that the if the jump from Prince to Monarch is as severe as Noble to Prince I may need to change my strategy to include cats possibly.. I will play a few more at Warlord-Noble-Prince to try to perfect my score for a bit and then move up again and then possibly move on to another Victory Condidtion

 

[DJMGator13]

Mistfit

There is an excellent reference tool located here. It is done for BTS but gives you an idea for the other versions. Page 74 has the "Difficulty Levels" showing your bonus, AI bonus, GH results, and modifiers. (Modifiers also affected by map and speed.)

I haven't found this page for cIV or Warlords. There is a real good cIV and WL spreadsheet that has a lot of the other info, unit, techs, leaders, etc... but not the AI starting units. That file can be found here.

 

[Mistfit]

I have been thinking of a new strat to try out with Culture bombs.. Can someone tell me how much a single artist bomb will expand a city (with no other cultural borders around)? BFC+ 1 expansion?

 

[DJMGator13]

I have been thinking of a new strat to try out with Culture bombs.. Can someone tell me how much a single artist bomb will expand a city (with no other cultural borders around)? BFC+ 1 expansion?

Back to the reference area you must go. Here is the link for an Excel culture calc. This will give you the point value of a GA depending on what difficulty and speed you are playing. You can then use the World Builder to give yourself a city with that many points.

 

[Mistfit]

OK I think I found an answer to this..

If I am reading correctly a culture bomb gives 4000 culture.

the levels go
10=BFC
100=BFC+1
500=BFC+2
5000=BFC+3

So in an uncultured city (newly settled) with no other cultural pressure you would have BFC+2

How many tiles is that? I do not have cIV where I am at ATM.. It could be a quicker way to win Dom if I can generate GA's quick enough.. If I get to CoL and set my Cap to Artists only will I get GA's? or is there a certain amount of luck involved?

 

[Methos]

OK I think I found an answer to this..

If I am reading correctly a culture bomb gives 4000 culture.

On normal, that is correct. On epic you get 6k and on marathon you get 12k . I'm not sure on quick what you get.

Edit: Also the required for border expansions change by speed too.

 

[Mistfit]

ah.. I have not played games outside the normal speed yet.. I may have to try that sometime