The Hall of Fame Team would like to welcome new players, and welcome back old vets, to the Eighteenth running of the Civfanatics Civ IV Hall of Fame Challenge Series.

HOF Challenge XVII was a successful and competitive instalment of the series, won by ChrisFromLux. HOF Challenge XVIII is a collection of 10 games with a time limit of 6 months to complete them (from 25th January to 24th July 2017).

The winner will be the person who finishes the most games and collects the most points along the way (10 for 1st in each individual game, down to 1 for 10th). Progress results for all games can be found at http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/challenge.php. There are individual threads for each game in the Challenge Series forum so head on over and check it out.

This challenge has a theme – “Fall of the Inca“. The Inca are widely recognised as the most powerful nation you can play in Civ IV, especially at the higher levels where the anti-archery bonus for the Quecha UU means you have a powerful attacking force from Turn 0. Their UB, the Terrace, is based on a building you will normally construct in every city (Granary) and acts as a mini-creative trait. Their actual traits are 2 of the strongest in the game – Financial and Industrious. Finally their starting techs of Agriculture and Mysticism are very flexible – your workers have something to do immediately and you can compete in the race for early religions if you so desire. The Incans are so strong that their games do not count towards Elite Quatrromaster status and they are not normally chosen for Gauntlets.

Normally Challenge games have quite restrictive options and difficult opponents, this time the real challenge is the fact that each of these games is aimed at one of the oldest standing records in the HOF. We have targeted 10 of the oldest #1 slots held by the Incans, dates perceived as very difficult to beat playing as another Civ. Not only will you compete against the other players in this Challenge but also the spectre of these records which have stood the test of time.

As well as the Challenge page itself and the forum mentioned above we have created a special page on the site where you can explore some of the facts and figures behind the Incans and their dominance – this can be found at http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/fall_inca.php.

Ready to go. The sixty-eighth episode of [url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast]ModCast[/url], entitled “[url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast/season9.php#mcepisode68]Put Together[/url]”, is now netcasting with a 51m37s runtime. The ninth season premiere features regular co-hosts [url=http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=20480]Rob “Rob (R8XFT)” Riley[/url], [url=http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=243820]Jett “TPangolin”[/url], [url=http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=205813]Jan “Janboruta” Boruta[/url] and [url=http://forums.civfanatics.com/member.php?u=145352]Scott “AlphaShard” Dirk[/url] and eight others in the show’s first composite episode of archived segments.

The summary of topics is as follows:

– [i]00m52s[/i] | [b]Topic #1[/b]
On pitfalls in the Religion and Tourism mechanics in [i]Civilization V[/i] and towards tweaking the game’s trade system User Interface (02m50s; recorded for [url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast/season5.php#mcepisode48]Episode 48[/url]).
– [i]05m28s[/i] | [b]Cartography Room[/b]
Much quality to be found amongst a number of the game’s user-created civilizations (recorded for [url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast/season6.php#mcepisode50]Episode 50[/url]).
– [i]08m11s[/i] | [b]Code Corner (Part 1 of 2)[/b]
Having City States in [i]CivV[/i] produce Settlers for expansion (recorded for [url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast/season7.php#mcepisode58]Episode 58[/url]).
– [i]13m30s[/i] | [b]Miscellaneous (Part 1 of 2)[/b]
A then-update on [i]Anno Domina[/i] for [i]Civilization V[/i] (recorded for [url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast/season7.php#mcepisode61]Episode 61[/url]).
– [i]20m57s[/i] | [b]Code Corner (Part 2 of 2)[/b]
Varying coding practices in game modding.
– [i]25m49s[/i] | [b]Modding Spotlight[/b]
Using an enhanced modding screen for [i]CivV[/i] and an events generator (recorded for [url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast/season8.php#mcepisode64]Episode 64[/url]).
– [i]30m20s[/i] | [b]Miscellaneous (Part 2 of 2)[/b]
The “weirdest and worst” comments for [i]Civilization V[/i] works in the [b]Steam[/b] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=8930]community[/url], how the popularity of some has come to influence those creators’ approach to modding (34m13s) and how the most spent time on mod came to be so consuming (37m25s; recorded for [url=http://thepolycast.net/modcast/season8.php#mcepisode66]Episode 66[/url]).

[u]ModCast[/u] is the first spin-off of the [i]Civ[/i] strategy-centric [url=http://thepolycast.net/polycast]PolyCast[/url]; fellow sibling [url=http://thepolycast.net/turncast][u]TurnCast[/u][/url] focuses on [i]Civ[/i] multiplay.