The Hall of Players

[Pangaea]

Played into the wee hours yesterday and think the present attempt is the best of the three where early warrior rushing didn't fail. Oracled CS and got GLH quite early, stone hooked up and beginning to build Mids. Marble in 3rd ring of a secondary city, but at least it's present (it wasn't in another game). 3 capitals captured. Will try to play out this one, or at least see how I fare. Need to REX much more, but I quite like this map so far. Got free Sailing too, which helped a ton.

So long since I played Marathon, and it takes some getting used to, but at least the first 200 or so turns are quite manageable. As always, the tricky thing is getting a Great Engineer, so just gotta cross my fingers and hope for a somewhat lucky one. PHI really helps here, which is one reason why I chose Liz.

 

[elitetroops]

So you are playing marathon, space, prince or below? Aiming for a BC launch?

 

[Pangaea]

Yes. 500BC

Edit: The game is Prince Marathon Tiny btw, so it would be nice if others didn't target it, seeing as I spend quite many hours on these darn maps. Not really sure how I'm doing compared to the currently #1 game, but hopefully ahead of the curve.

Just wish Mansa was useful. Dumb brick spent 50+ turns building Artemis while at 1 city. Over 200 turns, and he still has one city. At this rate, I'll have to research every single tech myself.


Oh lordy, I see that game was done in 4 hours. How the hump is that even possible?!

 

[elitetroops]

I wouldn't expect any help from AI on Prince. With Mansa, if you kept feeding him techs to direct his research path, then maybe he could help with a trade or two, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I wouldn't expect any help from AI on Prince.

Generally you would expect Mansa to at least research IW / Monarchy / Construction for you on Prince, probably not much more than that though unless you're really lucky.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm not worried about English dominance - there are always going to be stronger Leaders

It is never going to be perfect--there will always be some Leaders whose Traits and Unique Unit/Building will give them advantages in certain situations.

I suppose that we could go out of our way to use inferior Leaders, but I'm not really on board with feeling the need to do so--I would recognize someone's achievement for doing well despite an unfavourable Leader selection, but I'd still appreciate an achievement that was made with a Non-Incan-but-otherwise-favourable Leader selection.

I just want to knock the Incans of the top spot then I will be happy!

The flip side of the argument is that if all of the other Leaders had an equal amount of #1 victories as each other, it would take the most possible effort to achieve this goal. Having another Leader being relatively high in the rankings actually makes this goal easier to achieve. As cheap as it may feel, one alternative approach is just to play a lot of games with the #2 Leader, thereby artificially knocking the Incans off of their top spot. However, I prefer how we've chosen to publish the statistics that display the trend in Incan #1 victories, so that we can encourage explicitly targeting removing some of those #1 Incan victories.


I imagine that most people will, most of the time, try to pick relatively favourable conditions for their victories.

I, personally, am content to just not play with the Incans, but beyond that self-imposed restriction, I see nothing wrong with choosing favourable conditions for a given victory. If you can "divine" aka "figure out" the ideal conditions for your chosen victory, all of the power to you (except for when you choose the Incans, which, to me, is like playing on Developer Cheat Mode).


As for Warrior rushing, it really is hit-or-miss, so by taking that approach, you'll probably only end up with a mediocre map, on average. But, when it's successful and you get one or more AI capitals early on, this fact can help to balance a mediocre map.

In other words, if I had a great starting area, I'd probably forego the Warrior rush and use my advantage (Gems or Gold in the big fat cross) to try to find a Strategic Resource or even to self-tech Archery. Meanwhile, if I had a not-so-great start, I'd be more willing to try risky play and if it failed, I wouldn't mind abandoning the map, but if it worked, then it might turn the game into a "keeper."

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I'm playing the Large map now and had something really funny happen - have upped the Domination limit to 76% via killing every original AI (only AI left is a former vassal of Hannibal) and setting up 16 vassals. One of them is Asoka but both his cities are under enormous cultural pressure due to Sushi. I have avoided Mass Media so the AP is still active and a vote came up to assign one of his cities to me which succeeded! He was left with one city and yet again the assign city vote came up, I was sure he would Defy but he didn't he simply voted No. The vote was successful so his last city was assigned to me and he's dead!!

More evil AP shenaigans from me! Playing an Espionage game, two normal Legendary cities were London and, er, Paris . Started another war with De Gaulle and took a city of his on our border, then took peace and gifted him my "Spy City" with 25 stationary spies in it. The Americans took his only other city. Next turn I spread the culture until I run out of EPs (had slightly misjudged it), whilst I was waiting for another Great Spy an AP resolution popped up giving me the change to Assign Spy City back to me!! I voted yes, so did Lincoln and for the second time in my Civ career I killed a Civ via the AP! Won an Espionage victory a few turns later!

 

[Ozbenno]

and for the second time in my Civ career I killed a Civ via the AP!

Well done, I've never had that happen!

 

[SittinDown]

The game is Prince Marathon Tiny btw, so it would be nice if others didn't target it, seeing as I spend quite many hours on these darn maps. Not really sure how I'm doing compared to the currently #1 game, but hopefully ahead of the curve.

I'm making a run at Prince / Normal / Large space. I'm not trying for a BC run - but I am trying out as many of the new techniques as I can. Current record is 1802 AD. Should beat that comfortably without having to run many starts. I've got one now at ~800 BC with GLH, 8 cities, stone, and marble. Capital is on PH marble. Using Joao. Should be in good shape.

(Edit: I had to bail on the start I talked about here, because I started it on the wrong difficulty level.)

 

[Noble Zarkon]

So interesting start I just generated via MapFinder!

Spoiler :

 

[elitetroops]

Not a bad start at all.

Warrior SE. If he sees no new food, I'm moving. Probably settling 2N or 3N depending on what settler sees on first NW move. It takes a very long time until capital would be ready to work more than 2-3 gold, especially with only floodplains and one clam, so leaving a few of them for another city is not that bad. Pigs are more important early on. The blue circle also suggests we might kill some seafood with SIP. Settling location also depends on your goal with the game. If space, then I might be more inclined to settle 2N than 3N as it looks to have stronger long term potential. If goal is some quick military victory, then I wouldn't see myself ever working more than 2 gold and give more value to food and forests.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Not a bad start at all.

Indeed

It's a Cultural game so reasonably long term, without more info I'm leaning 3N, a second city can pick up the seafood and other Gold.

 

[Pangaea]

Errrrrr.... what??? I'm in the tech overview screen. Right click on a leaderhead. War horns sound? I've done that a million times before and then get up the 'conversation' with the leader. WTH is going on?!?

Now the entire game hangs in the balance because of a frickin' stupid bug I've never encountered before? Stupid game!!!

And here I was thinking I could perhaps win in a non-military way because we were friendly. Not quite so friendly now

Moderator Action: Snipped text to comply with language rules --NZ
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Kaitzilla]

Errrrrr.... what??? I'm in the tech overview screen. Right click on a leaderhead. War horns sound? I've done that a million times before and then get up the 'conversation' with the leader. WTH is going on?!?

Now the entire game hangs in the balance because of a frickin' stupid bug I've never encountered before? Stupid game!!!

And here I was thinking I could perhaps win in a non-military way because we were friendly. Not quite so friendly now

That is really weird.
Were you holding down ALT when you right-clicked the leaderhead?

Also, didn't know right clicking in the tech overview screen brought up the leader to talk.

I did something similar once.
left click + right click at the same time on the leader in the scoreboard in the bottom right is automatic war too.

 

[Pangaea]

Were you holding down ALT when you right-clicked the leaderhead?

Nope, wasn't holding down any buttons at all, except right-click to bring up the leaderhead window. The only thing I can think of is that the game has messed up something when I changed workspace (I'm playing on Linux). I don't need to hold down any buttons when going back to the game, but I've no idea what else it could have been. Incredibly weird. And it naturally created a rather 'sticky' situation

I know it's possible to do that with Ctrl-click (or is it Alt-click?), which is useful when you want to wage war on an AI that won't talk to you. Therefore I am always careful with stuff like that, and only use the mouse itself when dealing with various UI elements.

 

[Pangaea]

So close Having run out of BOTM games to run, I tried for HoF instead. Only got one free tech from a hut, but it was Writing. Awesome! Expanding and going well, Mansa is on the right side, not too close, and is even helping me out with picking sensible techs. My capital has double food, double gold and three floodplains. Kinda sick for not having run MapFinder. Got Stonehenge in a secondary city (which happened to grab another gold, woot). Iron popped in that city too, on a mine I had already built, so that was nice. I'm building Oracle there, and ofc going for Civil Service.

But what is this. Joao is building something big in Oporto, and he has already built the Great Wall. Oh, and his worker is chopping there. Won't be 150 so even if it is Oracle I can whip it next turn and beat him.

You know the drill. He somehow got it, maybe he whipped that same turn and was somehow able to do that, I don't know. And he picked MC, which I teched to trade CoL with Mansa, and Mansa somehow got that the very same turn too. So even if Joao hadn't magically gotten 60 or thereabouts in that last turn, I wouldn't have been able to get CS anyway since Mansa had CoL which I was going to trade MC for. (I changed from CoL to MC when I got tech view on him and he went for CoL for his FOURTH religion).

Abandon game. Okay, it might have been good anyway, but I just hate having stuff like that happen. It makes me doubt the whole prospect. And I was intending to go to space.


Rolled a few new ones, and on Rainforest this time. Terrible with all the jungle, but the food is better. Manually rolled 10-ish maps, and I can see both silver and gems in the start. Need to move one tile south to grab both, then settle. Woot, a hidden banana. Cool. Let's hope nobody beats me to Oracle by one stinking turn this time.


Sorry for the random rambling. I know the thread had been dead for a year.

 

[Pangaea]

Errrrrr.... what??? I'm in the tech overview screen. Right click on a leaderhead. War horns sound? I've done that a million times before and then get up the 'conversation' with the leader. WTH is going on?!?

Well, FML, the same thing happened again

Was such a nice game too, or so it looked so far.

Looks like the bug is that the game erroneously holds down the Alt key when going back in. So when I then right-click on a leaderhead, the game declares war instead of pulling up the diplo screen. Incredibly annoying!

 

[Pangaea]

Okay, I started a new save to try to get to the bottom of this. Added another scout near an AI city so I had view on it when founded so I can see the defender, and added alpha so I get tech view.

1. Select our warrior.
2. Changed workspaces and went back. Things look okay when I hover over the defending city archer.
3. Change workspaces again, but this time go back into the game by clicking on the UI element on the bottom of the panel. This also changes the workspace, and puts me back into the game.
4. Hover over the defending archer again. Hey presto! Combat odds how up. This means the Alt button is erroneously held down.
5. Go back into the game again by using the UI element (instead of Alt-Ctrl-Right arrow).
6. Go into the Tech overview, and right-click on the AI leaderhead
7. WAR HORNS!


Testing some more, going back in using Alt-Ctrl-Right arrow isn't safe either, if I do it very quickly. Looks like if I release the buttons for the shortkey before the game becomes 'active' again, the Alt key is considered held down. Meaning war will be declared if I click on a leader, and presumably also if I click on anything in the scoreboard.

I don't know if this could be an issue on Windows too, if you very quickly Alt-Tab back into the game, but it's possible. Be careful!!!



Edit: Would it be possible to disable this shortcut in some way, without invalidating BUFFY games?

 

[Pangaea]

Tried out a few Hall of Fame games again. Yet to finish any. In this one I was luckier than probably in any instance previously.

Even managed to steal two workers.

Unfortunately things went downhill after that, and I eventually gave up the attempt before 1AD. No food anywhere (except plains cows), so getting an army was pretty hopeless. In another game I lost Oracle CS by one turn but continued afterall. In this one the Oracle went super-early in 1840BC (turned out that two AIs had capital marble, including Asoka). Tried to get the GLH, but with low production and no food it was always a long shot. Came somewhat close (140 failgold), but Mansa got it. Which meant I would have had to kill him seeing as this is Big and Small.

Okay, let's continue anyway. Lets try and HA stomp the AI with only archers and chariots. I did grab the first city despite heavy losses. Maybe the game wanted to inadvertently punish me for the early BW luck. RNG spewed poison in my face every step after that, and several chariots managed to kill C2 HAs. One lucky geezer that survived with 0.2 health after a withdraw actually attacked again, and withdrew again. Couldn't believe my eyes. 0.0% win chance. As a last hurrah I threw everything I had at the capital, which was only defended by poorly promoted archers and a chariot. Lost all but one fight at 45-70% odds.

So frustrating to "lose" such a wonderful start. Typically I can only get one hut as there are AI scouts everywhere, so this was the jackpot. That second gold and wheat popped out of the shadows too. But alas...

 

[Anysense]

Not at all surprised after what I have seen. I gave up fighting without the siege completely - too much gambling, too much frustration after the failures like the one you described.
My last two attempts at Epic/Standard Space were murdered by power blackouts. It happens like once or twice a year, but of course, it had to happen at exactly the wrong time. One of those was really good and had potential for 11xx landing (2 neighbours lacking both metals and ivory). Apparently it will have to wait until the gauntlet, I don't feel like playing big at the moment.