BOTM 09 Pregame Discussion

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 09: Russian

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm09civ.jpg[/img]

Game Details:

Game settings:
Civilization: Russian (Leader: Stalin; Traits: Industrious, Aggressive)
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Immortal
Map: Inland Sea
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Cold
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Epic (And yes, I've made sure there are 750 turns... )
Options: No goody huts, no vassal states.
Victory Conditions: all enabled

Stalin:
Stalin is Industrious and Aggressive, and the Russians start with the hunting and mining. Industrious gives +50% hammers when building wonders, as well as double speed production of forges. Aggressive gives a free combat I promotion to all melee and gunpowder units, and allows double production speed of barracks and drydock.

Unique unit: Cossack (replaces cavalry)
The benefit of the Cossack compared to the cavalry is that it receives +50% against mounted units. This is in addition to the usual cavalry abilities of: A powerful 15 strength, 30% withdrawal chance, and +50% AND flank attack against cannon, trebuchets, and catapults. However, neither cossack nor cavalry get defensive bonuses.

Unique building: Research Institute(replaces laboratory)
Like the laboratory, the Research Institute gives an additional 25% science in a city, gives +50% spaceship part production, and allows one citizen to become a scientist. The additional benefit of the research institute is that it also gives two free scientists to the city.

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



Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Quick farms: You start with the knowledge of agriculture.
2. Worker: Just so you don't have to wait before building a farm, you have a worker (sharing a tile with the settler)

Challenger Class Equalisers:

1. No scout: Yep. Disappeared.
2. No techs: Guess what. Yep. Your people know nothing at all.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open on 15 August 2008. From that date, you'll be able to get the starting saves here. Use the same URL to submit your completed entry, which you must do by 15 September 2008.

Civ version

This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Warlords or vanilla Civ), patched to version 3.17, and using the HOF mod version 3.17.001. Note that this is a newer patch and version of the HOF mod than previous BOTMs.


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.

Please use this Saves Available thread for any technical queries, eg. if you have trouble opening the game, NOT for discussions about what happens in your game.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

As indicated in the first post, this is the first BOTM to use the 3.17 patch and the 3.17.001 HOF mod. Just some extra info:

Information about changes to gameplay in the 3.17 patch, as well as a link to download the patch, is here. You may particularly want to note changes to the Russian unique unit, the cossack: It now gets flank attack against catapults, trebuchets and cannon (previously it only got it against cannon).

You can get the new HOF mod 3.17.001 here.

The discussion of the changes in the new HOF mod is here. It looks to me like the biggest change within the HOF mod is the replacement of the specal domestic advisor with a customizable one.

Also, security has been beefed up with the new HOF mod, and as a consequence we've had to restrict the configuration under which you can play Civ for the competition. This won't affect most people, but a small number of people will find when they start the game that they get a warning dialog advising you to exit the game and modify your Civ install before continuing. Again the HOF mod thread gives more details.

 

[Adonias]

That starting screenshot is nasty!!

Definitely going for spaceship. I want to use those institutes. I want the mids so I'm very much debating where to settle!! It's a long journey, but will the food make up for the time to get the first settler out?

Test games needed!!!

 

[Lexad]

Great! So what's the condition for Gauntlet this time? To fully exploit Aggressive and Industrious with UU and UB - Space?

 

[Niklas]

Great! So what's the condition for Gauntlet this time? To fully exploit Aggressive and Industrious with UU and UB - Space?

Seconded.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Challenger Class Equalisers:

1. No scout: Yep. Disappeared.

So for challenger class, you don't know about the stone and food tiles?

 

[Erkon]

This will be great fun!

Great! So what's the condition for Gauntlet this time? To fully exploit Aggressive and Industrious with UU and UB - Space?

Space is excellent, since it's a good opportunity to practice the late tech tree at this level, even though I doubt the UU and UB will matter much. I don't expect to score a fast space, since I can't resist letting loose a bunch of trebs on my neighbors!

 

[LowtherCastle]

Great! So what's the condition for Gauntlet this time? To fully exploit Aggressive and Industrious with UU and UB - Space?

I feel sorry for jesusin. What a perfect start for a cultural victory. (okay, I guess marble wuld be better.)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

So for challenger class, you don't know about the stone and food tiles?

Yes that's correct. The challenger class save includes some special psychic software that erases all knowledge of that food from your mind as soon as the game is loaded. And if you cheat by exploring in that general direction with the settler, it'll just erase your mind.

 

[chopster]

Hmmm, I'll give this one a go - never won at Immortal, nor have I played many but I seem to be able to win occasinally at Emperor, and can last a while, so we'll see how I go!

There seem to be grass tiles 2W and 2W1S of the settler - hopefully theres some food there, but I doubt it given the other food in the screenshot.

Knowing there is such a nice city location close by, what are peoples thoughts on settling in place and starting with a settler?

Perhaps I'll begin with moving the Scout SW, SW to see if there is any food to the East (or southeast) of the Settler, with a view to possibly settling on this tile on the second turn if there's enough food to feed the city. This site grabs at least 3 grass hills, a plains hill and the stone and gems in the fat cross, and appears to be still on the river. Plains wheat would be enough to feed the city at a stagnant size 7 working the stone, 4 hills and gems.

My goals however will be to survive - I may need to practice diplomacy as I could definitely do with improvement in this area.

 

[JerichoHill]

I'll join in the space race gauntlet competition...my first gauntlet!

 

[Lexad]

HoF mod 3.17 is out, so I believe this BOTM and the next SGOTM are 3.17.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yeah, that does make it very likely. I won't absolutely commit until I've tested the game with 3.17 though.

 

[MarkM]

Snap judgment, after looking at it 30 seconds: 2E is looking intriguing (settle second). Get Gems and Stone in FC, also lots of river squares to S, on river itself (FW bonus). It's very possible all squares in FC, but the block of six straight N of that position would be river/fresh water. More confirmed woods to chop short term, monster production capital with levee later on, to add to stone gems, 3+ hills, lot of watermills if necessary. Gems give short term research bonus. Will probably move scout SW-SE to get a preview & then decide for sure. I've never valued dye that much, having them in FC of your first city seems like a particular waste, will come back to get them with 2nd or 3rd city. I may refine this choice slightly after looking closer/seeing what scout fines first turn, in particular I need to feel more confident that giving up the two hammers of the city site as well as the turn is worth it. Maybe it's better to leave stone+farm cluster intact as nucleus of 2nd city. No matter what, I think getting gems in FC is probably the common denominator, and BW first seems like a no-brainer, start hunting copper ASAP. Also -- unless immortal forces you to get a warrior first, need to do test game ... -- worker to get gems up and boost research/prod is another no-brainer?

I'm not sure why you think this is nasty, Adonias, this looks pretty good actually, fits well with Stalin's special abilities (can either go wonder happy -- though I think I personally am too much a virgin at emperor to risk that -- or can hope we find copper quickly and chop all those woods to leverage aggressive into a rush, that would be my first choice if all the chips fall into place)

This should be fun. I'm not certain I've ever won at Immortal (then again I've only played a few games at most, just GOTM long ago, I never got good enough at emperor in non xOTM games). So I hope I'm not gonna shoot myself in foot losing a turn or two at start. Fact it's Epic should help.

DynamicSpirit -- if we start a few days late if we wait for 3.17, would BOTM08 deadline be extended? I always seem to struggle finding time to finish, even a truncated Epic game, having the extra day or two of weekend would

 

[srad]

The start looks nice. My only concern is that there may be no food resource in the capital.

This will be the first game ever for me, that I will try a domination win on a standard sized map. While learning to play civ (started play civ with version 4) I played several domination wins but always on small maps because the standard size looked always so big to me .

With Stone nearby I will go for the mids to establish a nice SE economy and the general strategy will be too beeline rifiling. I think that the first attack on a neighbour will be before but this is immortal so let's see.

Planned tech path: BW, ARCH, WHEEL, MASONARY, ARGRIC, AH, WRITING
Settling in place on the plains hill seems good but the considerations of MarkM also sounds nice.

Building a warrior before the worker? To steal a worker? Hm, maybe too risky?

 

[Adonias]

I'm not sure why you think this is nasty, Adonias, this looks pretty good actually, fits well with Stalin's special abilities (can either go wonder happy -- though I think I personally am too much a virgin at emperor to risk that -- or can hope we find copper quickly and chop all those woods to leverage aggressive into a rush, that would be my first choice if all the chips fall into place)

Indeed, very nice, but the choice where to settle has never been so... ehm... creative in a XOTM

I remember a GOTM pre-game discussion thread not so long ago where somebody complained about nobody talking about the starting position... This thread will make up for that... Nice one DS

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I've now tested the game running with the new HOF mod and it works fine goodjob: HOF team if you're reading this), so BOTM 09 will start on time (sorry, MarkM) and will definitely run with the 3.17 patch.

I've updated the initial game posts to indicate this. You may want to re-read the second post in this thread, which gives information about the new HOF mod and patch.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I agree, I'm finding it very hard to decide the best spot to settle and the best place to move the scout. Should be a very fun game with lots of rivers, grassland and forests.

I'd be interested to know if anyone will go for a worker steal.

Don't think I've won an immortal BTS game yet so this will be a good challenge.
Test game anyone?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I remember a GOTM pre-game discussion thread not so long ago where somebody complained about nobody talking about the starting position... This thread will make up for that... Nice one DS

whistles innocently

 

[PutCashIn]

Looks like coast 3 squares west...I hate poxy coast cities that have to borrow hill tiles from the capital...

Would the settler be able to make it accross those rivers in one turn? (I dont want to personally, Its Immortal, Im going to get Mauled, I want to settle inland so that if all else fails, at least I will have a poxy city site available...)