New BTS division for Quattromasters and Elite Quattromasters

[elitetroops]

In order to help people who may need a Gauntlet towards their BTS EQM we are running a special Open Immortal Gauntlet for the next 3 months, the settings are totally open (although still no Duel Maps or Inca) and your two highest scores will count towards the gauntlet.

Oh so this already started and it says I'm in the lead! (No worries, only lazy games with no war and small empires, shouldn't be hard to beat. )

What do you mean with two highest scores counting? You can fill two G-Major slots with this one gauntlet?

Thanks for making additional ad-hoc queries possible! I'll see if it can be useful. For EQM purposes I just realized it's not even enough to filter out Inca games. Any games using later starts are also irrelevant when it comes to EQM scoring. For example huge/normal/immortal/conquest doesn't seem to have a single ancient start submission, neither does immortal huge/quick/conquest or huge&large/quick/domination. Any ancient start submission to these slots would give 100 points towards EQM, but it's hard to find these free slots. So if it's at all possible I'd suggest adding a filter to the main tables that filters out both Inca and later era starts to show only games eligible for EQM.

Edit: Or do you even get 100 points for ancient era starts if there's a quicker later start victory? Never tried, just assumed it works the same as with Inca.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

What do you mean with two highest scores counting? You can fill two G-Major slots with this one gauntlet?

Exactly, if you have two submissions that meet the criteria (which is basically play on Immortal lol) they will both count for your G-Major slots.

PS This has not been tested but should work!!

 

[Conquistador 63]

As someone who recently came back from a 5 year or so retirement, and is having fun playing HoF games lately, I have to say I appreciate the hard work Noble Zarkon and others to keep this friendly competition running.

That said, I confess I was a bit disappointed by the introduction of the espionage victory requirement. I respect those who enjoy playing it, but from what I have read about it, it is definitely not my idea of a fun game.

But never mind, for the time being I am content to pursue the improvement of my QM/EQM status for the old fashioned "all expansions" option.

 

[elitetroops]

I'm not a big fan of the espionage victory mechanics either, but they can always be cheesed. If you're playing a normal cultural game and notice that it doesn't work out quite as well as you wanted, just run a spread culture mission in any AI city and finish cultural victory as normal. It will count as espionage victory and chances are whatever slot you are playing for is currently empty. At least one of my espionage victories might have been achieved exactly in that way...

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I confess I was a bit disappointed by the introduction of the espionage victory requirement.

Unfortunately we had no choice, there was a danger all traditional culture games were going to be wiped out. You only need 1 and as elite says you don't have to go all out espionage!!

 

[elitetroops]

The Machiavelli tab of the EQM page still says "every victory condition (except Culture by Espionage victories which are excluded)" even for the BTS division. Rock of Ages tab says all eras are required to complete the award.

The new list tab you added to ad-hoc query is actually a quite nice addition, but I noticed it does not retrieve any games at all if I leave it at victory condition: all. Could be useful if I for example hated the French and wanted to exterminate them from the tables. (Disclaimer: I do not hate the French at all, you people are awesome! )

Anyway, appreciate the great job you're doing. Keep it up!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Thanks for the feedback - it is really appreciated as you guys notice things I don't, will get that sorted.

 

[Pangaea]

Has something changed in the ad hoc query, or is it Firefox acting up? All the icons don't fit on a line any more, which makes the table longer and more awkward to read. Maybe it's possible to use CSS instead of all those underscores?

Spoiler :

 

[Noble Zarkon]

You still use Firefox???

Nothing has changed, clear cache perhaps?

Changing to html5 is planned along with various server side upgrades.

 

[Pangaea]

You still use Firefox???

Of course. It's the best browser, especially when it comes to security. Not all of us will bow down to the Google-no privacy exists anywhere world

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It's the best browser

I prefer Tor (which is based on Firefox I know!) for security and Chrome for functionality!!

 

[Pangaea]

Chrome is certainly not allowed on my computer.

If nothing has changed, something must have on my end somehow, or maybe with one of the Firefox updates. I don't know. Only saw that it looks strange now, with linebreaks that aren't meant to be there.

 

[Pangaea]

Gosh. Even if I go down to for example Prince level, it's easier to count the map types and civs I have played than the ones I haven't. So much blank space. Should probably try to untick at least a few of those boxes. Think I'll try out Epic with Germany on Lakes. Haven't played those yet (Epic on a very low level apparently, but not Prince+). Missing about half the victory types too, but not sure about that really. Thinking space since I haven't played that yet since coming back, but we'll see.

 

[elitetroops]

I've been trying to tick off maps and civs I haven't played on immortal+ yet. Some of them are really annoying to find a good use for (looking at you oasis). Lakes is a great map. Great for almost any victory conditions except domination.

Then there's that dreaded time victory... My games get so slow already at 15 cities. Can't imagine playing hundreds of turns with 100-200 cities. It would be kind of tempting to go with map settings that require as little as possible micro management, but then again if I don't want to repeat it, it's better to get a score high enough that nobody will even attempt to beat it.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Can't imagine playing hundreds of turns with 100-200 cities.

I just submitted an entry for Immortal, Marathon, Time, Big & Small - Tiny map so only 90 cities lol. Beat T-Hawk's record by 8,000 points so happy with that. Would prefer you avoid that slot

 

[elitetroops]

Would prefer you avoid that slot

Haha, yes, I was thinking I wouldn't pick a slot that looks like someone has put in a decent effort. I'd kind of want to try huge normal speed archipelago, only because I can't remember when I last got to fight wars with modern units. I'm assuming with those settings the wars would go on far into the modern era. Although it would be a never ending micro management hell.

 

[Pangaea]

Ouch. Time games. That's never going to happen Normal games last way long enough already, can't imagine how many hundreds of hours games like that would last. Probably a giant pain with spies too, to prevent AIs winning culture or space. But then I have about 20 civs and almost all maps to play, so not exactly a small project to go all the way. Not sure I ever will tbh. Will this place be around when I have retired?

I had several attempts to complete marathon big & small score games, but on buffy 003, so no longer possible to submit, and every time I somehow stopped playing during the micro-intensive exec spreading phase. Not that much left of the game really, but it wore me down. Games like that isn't really fun, it's just boring busywork.

 

[elitetroops]

I suppose a time game pretty much requires you kill all AI except leave one with one crappy arctic city, ideally non-coastal on a small island with no room for a second city. Then you can do whatever you want with no fear of spies or AI winning somehow. On smaller maps or marathon it shouldn't be too hard to achieve this. The only remaining enemy is the domination limit.

 

[Conquistador 63]

IMHO, Time is by far the most boring VC. Unfortunately I need to play one of these on my way to Emperor EQM (besides a whole lot of other more enjoyable game settings).
Just started an attempt (small/epic). Let’s hope I can endure the boredom until the end. Decided to pick a non-ideal mapscript pointwise, but one which should require easier micromanagement and which I haven’t played in ages - Inland Sea.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I suppose a time game pretty much requires you kill all AI except leave one with one crappy arctic city, ideally non-coastal on a small island with no room for a second city.

Non-coastal doesn't really matter as long as there are no hammers and you have a fleet of Privateers

I actually ended up giving her 3 more cities late on as I tried to maximise my score, Hatty is quite helpful being Creative so she gives a little push back against Sushi!