BOTM 06: Mayanshttp://www.civfanatics.net/methos/info_center/images/civ4/leaders/Maya_Pacal_II.jpg

Game Details:

Game settings:
Civilization: Mayans (Leader: Pacal II; Traits: Expansive, Financial)
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Emperor
Map: Medium & Small (random & unpredictable, IIRC)
Mapsize: Standard
Worldwrap: Cylindrical
Climate: Rocky
Sea Level: Medium
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No tribal villages
Victory Conditions: all enabled

Pacal II:
Pacal II is Financial and Expansive; starting with the mining and mysticism. Financial gives +1 gold on any plot producing two or more. Expansive gets +two health per city, +25% production speed building workers, and double produciton speed of granaries and harbours.

Unique unit: Holkan (replaces spearman)
The holkan has identical stats to the standard spearman (strength 4, move 1, cost 35 hammers). The difference is that the unit is resourceless (although researching bronze working is still required) and that it gains immunity from first-strikes.

Unique building: ball court (replaces Colosseum
Costing the same as a Colosseum (85 hammers), the Ball Court provides +three happy faces, instead of +one.



Starting screenshot
This is the start of the game (click for a bigger image):

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm06small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm06large.jpg)

Adventurer Class bonuses:

Start with archer (on plot with warrior)
Start with worker (on plot with settler)
Game on NW hill is replaced with gold

Challenger Class Equalisers:

Some forests in starting shot are removed.
So is the worker.


To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open on 15 May 2008. From that date, you'll be able to get the starting saves at here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/index.php?month=70006). Use the same URL to submit your completed entry, which you must do by 15 June 2008.

Civ version

This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Warlords or vanilla Civ), patched to version 3.13, available for Windows only, and with the HOF mod version 3.13.001 installed. You can download the HOF mod here (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mods/HOF-3.13.001.exe)

For those using the HOF mod under windows Vista, I recommend yo visit this link (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=vista), and see how to configure permissions to get it to work properly!

While playing...

Remember - for your entry to be accepted, it MUST be your first attempt to play this game, and you MUST NOT replay any turns. If you make a mistake while playing, you have to live with it, learn from it, and carry on the game without replaying.

We will open 'spoiler' threads during the month for players to discuss what happens in their games. Do not discuss any details of your game outside those threads.

For first time to take the second post :)
lots of food. early hunting+BW will make the holkans very nice rush unit. If there is enemy near by ofcourse.

I think we can bet there's no bronze nearby.

So, obviously emperor map of unknown size. Lots of resources. Obviously NOT settling in place.

Warrior moves 1SE to see what's there. Settler either settles 2SE (if warrior reveals goodies, or 1 NW. Either unsettled spot is city #2.

I get the feeling we're gonna be boxed in. quickly.

I think that the spot one NW looks like a great first city. I count five food resources in the fat cross of that position. It should be able to grow fast and whip a lot early. Later it will make a good specialist city.

Hunting, fishing, and bronzeworking are obvious early techs.

Difficulty: Emperor
I've been practically begging for BTS emperor game since day #1 of BOTM, and now I finally get one ... during the game slot that I'm going to be on vacation and traveling out of country for the majority of the game play window. And a sweet leader trait/starting pos to boot ...

:( :cry: :wallbash:

I agree that NW looks like a great spot. I will move my warrior SE first to get on that hill and see what is to the south before making a decision. I like GP cities to be city #2 espiecialy since we are not philosophical. So a good city placment to thew SE may be where I head.
I am wondering if the collusus may be central to my game this time, with financial and ample sea tiles.

I think that the spot one NW looks like a great first city. I count five food resources in the fat cross of that position. It should be able to grow fast and whip a lot early. Later it will make a good specialist city.

Hunting, fishing, and bronzeworking are obvious early techs.

The starting location has 5 food resources. 1 NW only has 4, unless you count the Whales. I don't remember if those produce any extra food but even if they do it'd be mid-game before you could improve them so they don't really matter much.

Personally I think the exact starting spot is an awesome all-around location and would make for a superb production center or GPP. I'll probably move the Warrior one north to see if that bit of land ends in a penninsula or continues onward. If it's an isthmus of some kind then settling in place is a bit less attractive since who knows how long it'll be before you can get a Work Boat to the Clams.

As for settling somewhere out of the immediate vicinity, I suppose it might work out. But I have a hard time imaging that there'll be even better resources just over the horizon. I mean, what are we hoping for? Six food? Gold Gems and Silver in the fat cross?

Settling in place looks like a good call, Id be a little hesistant to move north just because Ill most likely turn this into my gp farm, and that little bit of extra production might go a long way, not to mention those deer are looking very pretty early on. On the other hand, moving 1nw will get that plains hill which will undoubtedly be useful. Its a pretty tough call, but Im pretty sure Ill end up settling in place.

In other news, Im hoping we find some loser with no access to copper early, easy holkan rush would be nice. I play Immortal, so Emperor will be a relatively easy game.

Expansive / Financial will be very nice for having a ridiculously over the top mid game economy based on harbors and the colossus. Probably gonna go for a space race win or something.

What does IIRC mean, is it for the island overlap setting? It does not match one of the options

What does IIRC mean, is it for the island overlap setting? It does not match one of the options

IIRC is internet shorthand for "if I recall correctly"

Very nice starting position. I will stay put and found a religion. Hindu likely. Build a worker or a settler at first. After the religion, fishing, BW and AH. With just 6 AI probably can get couple of Wonders build. So may be the Oracle and for MC and build a early colosus. If more than 1 AI is nearby head to Alpha or head to ????.

Mids would be nice with all those food but better to have a river capital to use the Buro benefits. May have to relocate the capital so, I think I will start a settler until fishing show up, then a WB or 2, finish settler. On to the test game....finish BOTM5 first. :D

Contender Space Challenge anyone?

Test game? Any good worldbuilders out there?

Yes, settling in place looks very good. With Hunting and a worker we can develop 2 food tiles with hammers. Hurry to Bronze Working and we can introduce Holkans to AI that haven't even heard of copper.

My own opinions on the settings:

Medium and Small with 6AI on a standard map means that you can fairly safely bet that we are all alone on a landmass that is roughly 3-4 times in size what we can already see. This setting is almost the same as playing islands, usually, except one AI or two gets really lucky -- find him and kill him or else. 1NW leaves room for more cities, in that case. But better city (imo) is to settle in place.

Also, with Rocky terrain, the number of AI lacking bronze by the time we reach them will be approximately zero. Barb cities should be easy pickings though.

Lack of religion can be problem if isolated. However, with Ball Court most of that can be compensated. I'll go for the aquatic techs (fishing, sailing, astro) as high priority. My bet is that Holkans will be useful against barbs but not much else, unless our galleys get lucky and find a nearby sucker.

One other thing: emperor level game, I will expect to lose this one. :-)

I've never created a test game before, but I have given it a go. Hope it works.

My issue with settling in place is that an awful lot of food resources are used for 1 city . If you settled 1 SE of your starting position and then followed up with your 2nd city being directly north of the deer, you'd have two very strong city locations.

Howver, there are NO HAPPY RESOURCES. This is a problem

Well, as Obormot seems a bit busy, how about this BOTM Gauntlet criterium? I propose competition for highest total score (optimally - gold medal) instead of cow.

My own opinions on the settings:

Medium and Small with 6AI on a standard map means that you can fairly safely bet that we are all alone on a landmass that is roughly 3-4 times in size what we can already see. This setting is almost the same as playing islands, usually, except one AI or two gets really lucky -- find him and kill him or else. 1NW leaves room for more cities, in that case. But better city (imo) is to settle in place.



I generated some mapos with the setting to see what they looked like and found that the map was split into 2 sections diveded by ocean. In each section the 3-4 civs present could contact each other at least by boat and were often on the same landmass. There was usualy a stretch of islands trailing north or south the main landmass, without a civ starting in it.

This would suggest we should have some early contact.

Hope it works out that we have neighbors on same land mass. I don't know what the odds are. But I would agree that definitely we will have some contact by galley or just by cult borders touching. Getting there for using a HOlken offensive is kinda doubtful, unless we are on same landmass, imo. 50% chance we already have the landmass to ourselves, is my guess.

IIRC is internet shorthand for "if I recall correctly"

Thanks, I was wondering about that myself.

In just the screenie I can spot 4 places to settle with the capitol at the start location, if land is so scarce they need to be crammed in. That's not bad for starters. I'm not ready to move the settler this time to make more room.

Well, as Obormot seems a bit busy, how about this BOTM Gauntlet criterium? I propose competition for highest total score (optimally - gold medal) instead of cow.

What about the missing Award: Religious Victory?

What about the missing Award: Religious Victory?

Did they get the bugs worked out for this? I know there were some issues early on with the voting. [spoiler deleted]

Hope that isn't too spoilerish at this late date.

Yes, it is. The rules are clear.

Adventurer Class bonuses:

To be confirmed

Challenger Class Equalisers:

to be confirmed


.

What does "To be confirmed" mean? Are we going to know what these are before downloading or is the point to make it a secret? What would actually need to be confirmed and confirmed by whom? I thought the guy(s) making these saves decided for themselves.

Hope it works out that we have neighbors on same land mass. I don't know what the odds are. But I would agree that definitely we will have some contact by galley or just by cult borders touching. Getting there for using a HOlken offensive is kinda doubtful, unless we are on same landmass, imo. 50% chance we already have the landmass to ourselves, is my guess.

From the test maps I generated, it is unlikely we are on a landmass to ourselves. It is very similar to a continents map only some of each continent is broken up into islands reachable by galley. The islands are north or south of each main landmass. Usually 3 civs share one main landmass and 4 civs share the other...separated by ocean, of course.

edit: I was using 'tiny islands' and 'island region separate' settings so there may be different results with '(not tiny) islands' and 'islands mixed in' settings.

edit2: Using different initial settings yielded more varied landmasses and increased the chance of being on an island alone...but overall I'd say 30% chance or less of being alone.

I'll probably go for space on this one just to get out of my normal culture/religious/diplo rut. After the obvious initial hunting/fishing/BW I'll probably beeline Monarchy unless I find stone to chop pyramids. HerRule will allow much higher pop cities since we don't have any happiness resources but plenty of health. A capital in the start position will have good production and is flexible to spit out GP. Haven't decided whether I'll use Oracle or CoL or MC yet...depends on the landmass and neighbors.

cas

Did they get the bugs worked out for this? I know there were some issues early on with the voting. As a matter of fact, I was trying for this VC in BOTM5 and was not ever able to call for a victory vote. And no, I did not control over 75% of the votes. Hope that isn't too spoilerish at this late date.
We are using the same versions of Civ4 BTS and the HOF mod, so I suspect there isn't a fix yet. Unless there is a procedural change or something that works-around it. Anyone know if someone has found anything?

Religious victory worked fine for me in a recent BOTM :) The hard thing is to get your religion out to all the rival Civ's, as some of them will be running Theocracy and/or refuse to open their borders to your missionaries.

I hope you are not referring to a game still in progress?

Please don't discuss current games.

What does "To be confirmed" mean? Are we going to know what these are before downloading or is the point to make it a secret? What would actually need to be confirmed and confirmed by whom? I thought the guy(s) making these saves decided for themselves.

Could you bring yourself to consider the possibility that the final decision on the class variations has not yet been finalised? That sort of choice involves additional play testing, taking extra time.

What about the missing Award: Religious Victory?

In what way is it "missing"?

Test game for challenger attached. Start position matched to screen shot. Any corrections let me know. I haven't fully explored all the changes to the Map Editor. Does anyone know if there were any big changes?

In what way is it "missing"?

He's referring to Obormot's gauntlet challenges...and the religious victory has not been the goal of one of those yet...whereas dom, conquest, culture, diplo, and space have.

cas

Could you bring yourself to consider the possibility that the final decision on the class variations has not yet been finalised? That sort of choice involves additional play testing, taking extra time.

I don't know if I could bring myself to consider that possibility until I do some testing, so the answer to your question is "to be confirmed". :mischief:

Thanks for the peek into how these games and conditions are made, though. :thanx: Take as long as you need to do your usual swell job. :rockon:

BTW... these CFC smiley things are amusing, aren't they? :love:

In what way is it "missing"?

In the list of Obormot's Gauntlets it is the only VC missing. There has been 1 game for diplo, 1 for conquest, etc... but for the religious VC.

EDIT: as @cas said

Game plan: Contender save, settle in place
Build warrior until pop2, then switch to worker
Tech hunt>BW>fish>AH
build order worker>warrior>warrior/Holken>settler

Early aim: clear my land-mass, REX to 5 cities, try to catch up in techs (alpha/aesth, etc). Early Astro.

Then I go for either Dom or Space, depending on how things stand.

If anybody sees any obvious blunder or can suggest improvements, I welcome all criticism. I win only one game out of 10-20 on Emp level, so I can use some tips if you can spare them.

Game plan: Contender save, settle in place
Build warrior until pop2, then switch to worker

...

If anybody sees any obvious blunder or can suggest improvements, I welcome all criticism. I win only one game out of 10-20 on Emp level, so I can use some tips if you can spare them.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that it is an obvious blunder, but...

Why delay your worker growing to pop2? There are plenty of tiles for your worker to improve. Delaying your first worker is delaying your victory date, (except for special situations, like being sure there is a neighbour and being decided to steal a worker from them).

I wouldn't go as far as saying that it is an obvious blunder, but...

Why delay your worker growing to pop2? There are plenty of tiles for your worker to improve. Delaying your first worker is delaying your victory date, (except for special situations, like being sure there is a neighbour and being decided to steal a worker from them).

I always feel that everything goes twice as fast at pop2 than at pop1, and building worker fast is as or more important than having it completed a few turns earlier. But I could be wrong. Its advice I got a long time ago that has served me well on lower levels, but I am open to change. Maybe first city is an exception to that rule of thumb getting to size 2 before building worker?

Maybe I should do some calculations. Uggh.

Maybe I should do some calculations. Uggh.

Do, please.

You: t8, pop2. t20, Wor. t25, first improvement. t27 pop3.
Me: t15, Wor. t20, first improvement. t 22, pop2. t26, 2nd improvement. t27, pop3.

Consider "power"= fpt+hpt.
By growing to pop2 sooner, you start working a power 3 tile 14 turns before me. (Your pop eats 2 power a turn, and your warrior loses 2 hammers while waiting in the queue, so you are 12 power ahead of me).
By improving 1st tile 5 turns sooner I get 10 power more than you. If you consider food to be superior to hammers, I am already ahead.
By improving 2nd tile 5 turns sooner I get...
By growing to pop4 sooner, I get...

The more I look at it, the more it becomes an obvious blunder ;)

IMO, the real questions with this start are:
- When to build the WBs?
- Mine or camp?
- Will any of the resources survive the challenger settings?

What does "To be confirmed" mean? Are we going to know what these are before downloading or is the point to make it a secret? What would actually need to be confirmed and confirmed by whom? I thought the guy(s) making these saves decided for themselves.

I am 'the guy making the saves'. It is simply that I hadn't had time to play-test / think about what they're likely to be.

I always feel that everything goes twice as fast at pop2 than at pop1, and building worker fast is as or more important than having it completed a few turns earlier. As a general rule, you want to get your resource tiles improved and in use asap. So one question is how much you gain at pop2 working another undeveloped tile.

Specific to this game, there are two ways to speed up your worker build: having 4:hammers: base production to get the 1:hammers: (25% production) bonus and growing your population. Settling in place, your worker-build production at pop1 gets the production bonus and is 5h/t, worker done in 12t, deer improved 5t later. At pop2 (which will take 8t), your worker-build production is 6h/t, which gets you a worker in 10t, that is, 6t later than at pop1, deer improved 5t later. So where do you stand when the deer is improved?

By my calculations, working max food tiles when not building the worker, after 23t:
Wrkr first: 43:food: 77:hammers: +6worker-turns
Pop2 first: 39:food: 78:hammers:

Next question: Which is better for your goals, worker or workboat first? ;)

oops -- crossposted with jesusin!

oops -- crossposted with jesusin!

Interesting crosspost. @LC seems to believe that by getting a worker 6 turns later you get your improvements delayed 5 turns. @jesusin seems to believe that he's playing Vanilla, since he has forgetten the expansive bonus in his calculations. What a pair of fools! :lol:

Anyway, of the 3 blunders at stake, growing to pop2 before Worker still is the more obvious! :)

Equalisers & bonuses added to first post.

I'm struggling to get the save files uploaded, as there are problems with connecting to the FTP server. Please bear with me a while....

Challenger: Replace all the visible forests with jungle?
Adventurer: Free Workboat and knowledge of Masonry?

Ah, crossposted.

Challenger: Replace all the visible forests with jungle?
Adventurer: Free Workboat and knowledge of Masonry?

Actually,
challenger: (some) Forest in starting screenshot removed.
Adventurer: Free archer & worker; game on hill replaced with gold.

Interesting crosspost. @LC seems to believe that by getting a worker 6 turns later you get your improvements delayed 5 turns. @jesusin seems to believe that he's playing Vanilla, since he has forgetten the expansive bonus in his calculations. What a pair of fools! :lol:

Anyway, of the 3 blunders at stake, growing to pop2 before Worker still is the more obvious! :)Sorry, my post may be a bit confusing, but when I say deer improved 5t later, I mean 5 turns after the worker is built, 1 turn to move and 4 turns to build the deer camp.

When I say 6t later than pop1, I mean that the worker built in the grow-to-pop2 scenario is completed 6t later than the worker in the worker-first scenario.

I'm struggling to get the save files uploaded, as there are problems with connecting to the FTP server. Please bear with me a while....

We all appreciate what you are doing for us! :goodjob:

Well, as Obormot seems a bit busy, how about this BOTM Gauntlet criterium? I propose competition for highest total score (optimally - gold medal) instead of cow.

Since there has been no more opinions and the saves are already available, I withdrawn my proposal for Religious Victory.

Gold it is! Good luck everyone!

I posted the Gauntlet thread. I'd rather leave Religious out until continent-type map, otherwise it looks too cheesy, especially when you can spin off colonies voting for you and thus get aroung non-self-voting.

Interesting crosspost. @LC seems to believe that by getting a worker 6 turns later you get your improvements delayed 5 turns. @jesusin seems to believe that he's playing Vanilla, since he has forgetten the expansive bonus in his calculations. What a pair of fools! :lol:

Anyway, of the 3 blunders at stake, growing to pop2 before Worker still is the more obvious! :)

Well, yes, my errors usually are the biggest. Everybody excels at something. :p

The obvious solution is to take the Adv save and get a worker for nothing. :lol: But I won't go there. I should, perhaps, but I won't.

Thx @Jesusin and @Lowthercastle, I am convinced. I will hold my nose those 12 turns and just do the worker first, making sure to get the 4+1 hpt bonus. As for WB... after first worker for me, but before the second. Before settler, too. Chops go to settler tho. And I lean to camps before mines. So you probably want to do the opposite since my judgment is what it is...

edit: I was using 'tiny islands' and 'island region separate' settings so there may be different results with '(not tiny) islands' and 'islands mixed in' settings.

edit2: Using different initial settings yielded more varied landmasses and increased the chance of being on an island alone...but overall I'd say 30% chance or less of being alone.



Here we are facing "unpredictable" continent setting and "random" islands. So it could go either way, but that means that there is a greater chance of neighbors than what I originally thought since it could be bigger medium cntinents than what I have come across.

We'll just have to wait and see, and keep strategy flexible enough at this point to deal with either contingency.

Good luck!

Not clear why you don't research fishing and build a workboat before the worker.
You'll gain 3 gold when the first seafood will be improved, and with that forest-plains-hill the WB arrives fast.

Am i missing something?

I've never created a test game before, but I have given it a go. Hope it works.


Thanks, vixafox! That was helpful... :goodjob:

Yeah, thanx for the test save!

Not clear why you don't research fishing and build a workboat before the worker.
You'll gain 3 gold when the first seafood will be improved, and with that forest-plains-hill the WB arrives fast.

Am i missing something?

What will you build before researching fishing ? Worker I guess ?
It takes usually 6 or 7 turns to ressearch fishing...so when fishing is available, you will be half the way of the worker...without doing in details the math I would think that worker followed by workboat (17 turns without growth but one improvement and the 3 gold and food to grow fast) is better than half worker followed by workboat followed by the remaining half of worker (~18 turn without growth 6 turns with less production but 3 gold).

Depends if you want to go for early religion ...but then why starting by researching fishing

Well, you could grow the city instead of building a worker first whilst researching fishing (6-7 turns), the city will be half grown when the tech is finished, switch to working plains hill, build boat in 5-6 turns. Work crabs with boat, size 2 city in like 13-14 turns working a (4or5 food+) 3 commerce tile. - after fishing you went med/poly, right? Now if you chose the wrong one, youve got a cranking young city to hopefully win the switch-to-another-

Now at this point (the way I intend to play it, at least) my worker is off to Camp the Deer, but then Im not playing for a starting religion, just the shiny wonders (lol, :%).

With that wonderfully food-filled city start and the really nice Adventurer bonuses maybe I'll last to the ADs on this one! Emperor makes me tremble in fear :eek:.

As usual the Adventurer bonuses make a big difference to the first few turns, so I attached an Adventurer update of vivafox' test game (thanks, vivafox!). Unfortunately the tile where the warrior starts is 2F1H in the test game and 1F2H in the .jpg; is that tile a forested plain in the official save? That's what I assumed in my modification.

I'm guessing settle in place, mine gold, try for polytheism for the increased happiness, then fishing, bronze working, hunting (don't need the deer immediately so hunting can go second). As for production, I suppose neither worker or warrior is necessary immediately because of the unit bonuses. Does that mean it makes sense to start either a barracks (for better protectors sooner) or perhaps even stonehenge? I'd want to switch to workboats fairly soon after fishing, so SH would probably be overly ambitious except as a way to get a few extra gold eventually as someone beats me to it. I guess if I decided on SH I'd chop the 2 visible forested hills then mine them.

I'm usually timid, but if there is a near neighbour without bronze, can a holkan rush make sense? I know the AI starts with archers at this level, but it has to actually research archery to make more, doesn't it?

After hunting I'm less sure of what to do (not that I was real sure about the opening in the first place). AH eventually but maybe not right away (because the sheep aren't so important initially because of the seafood), though knowing if horses are nearby would be good before planting the 2nd city. I won't go for Oracle at Emperor. Archery for defence fairly early, aim for construction because of ball courts?

This map will probably a lot like Archipelagos maps, so the Great Lighthouse might be worth its weight in gold. I'm wondering why nobody has mentioned it yet.

So I will settle in place (looks good to me), get Hunting, Fishing, AH, BW, Sailing and chop out the GL. Oracle as well, if possible, then probably taking Metal Casting.

Second Work Boat will be sent exploring and hopefully I'll meet at least three other AIs that way. That means I'll still have two trading partners if I chose to go at war with somebody. The gold from the trade routes will carry me very comfortably towards Astronomy. Harbors are cheap, too.

I'm not convinced of the Colossus, as most cities end up working minimal sea tiles in favour of production anyway. The few additional coins you end up with from having the Colossus are not worth it in my eyes. By the time you're working a sizeable number of sea tiles the Colossus is about to obsolete.

I'm going for my own Big City Strategy, this start is perfect for it, with lots of healthbonuses + forests + expansionistic.

The tactic consists of getting the worker techs first, then going for Monarchy asap and battle the unrest in the city by building lots of warriors.

Settle the capital in place and around 0AD, maybe the city can be 15-20
:D

But don't forgett to build some settlers too, one city cannot win the game!

Another question...having a forested Deer site instead of plain hill/grassland with Deer gives +1 hammer / Food if I remember correctly.
Can a forest grow if there is a camp ? If not, It may be worth to camp only one Deer and wait a forest to pop in the other to get the forested bonus ?

This will be an interesting game. I think using the warrior to check some surroundings is a must to determine whether or not to settle in place. However, since Emperor is way over my difficulty level, I'm probably gonna have to do the Adventurer class this month.

Another question...having a forested Deer site instead of plain hill/grassland with Deer gives +1 hammer / Food if I remember correctly.
Can a forest grow if there is a camp ? If not, It may be worth to camp only one Deer and wait a forest to pop in the other to get the forested bonus ?LOL. I'm already well into the game, so I normally could not comment here Deleted. Sorry! You can't do it now, either!