News: GOTM135 Germany - Pre-game announcement

GOTM135 Germany - Pre-game announcement



Game number 135 in the classic game of the month series puts us in the shoes of Kaiser Bill on a bigger than standard islands map. The Germans are scientific and militaristic. They start the game with Bronze Working and Warrior Code and build panzers instead of tanks. Panzers have the same attributes as tanks, except that they are faster.

This is an Emperor level game, and there is no sponsored victory condition. Therefore all medals and awards are available, and any victory condition will be elligible for a medal.

Note that this map is a non-standard size. Large maps are 130 tiles square by default, but this map is smaller. However, the map is designated as large and has all of the usual settings for a map categorised as large. The player should not read anything into this. The map has been configured like this to manage the required playing time for most people.

This game continues to use a modified form of the standard PTW scenario, and although no bugs have been reported in some time, it is possible that play testing has not been exhaustive. Any in-game event or behaviour that a player feels is unintended should be reported to the GOTM staff immediately.

The Game parameters are:
Civilization: Germany
Difficulty: Emperor
Map size: large 116 X 116
Map topology: Cylindrical Archepelago
Rivals: 9 pre-selected AIs
Barbarians: Roaming
Required victory condition: None

Here is your start position.




The game will be live from 5th July at which point the starting save will be available here.

Hey, these people aren't Germans - they are Bavarians...
(The typical tribal emblems are easily recognized.)

Real Germans these days look like this:




Anyway, this game could be a real challenge. Hopefully the victor is not decided by who has the best luck with suicide galleys...

What is better: moving towards the cow to get the food faster, or settle in place to get +5fpt eventually? With that much space available, a 4-turner probably doesn't help much... If the map keeps what the screenshot is promising, we'll be lucky to squeeze 4 cities on this island...

Lanzelot said:

Hey, these people aren't Germans - they are Bavarians...
(The typical tribal emblems are easily recognized.)

Real Germans these days look like this:




Anyway, this game could be a real challenge. Hopefully the victor is not decided by who has the best luck with suicide galleys...

What is better: moving towards the cow to get the food faster, or settle in place to get +5fpt eventually? With that much space available, a 4-turner probably doesn't help much... If the map keeps what the screenshot is promising, we'll be lucky to squeeze 4 cities on this island...

Click to expand...

I say settle in place. That'll be a very resourceful city eventually. Even though this is an island scenario, that doesn't mean that each civilization is on its own island! I'd prefer to setup shop and claim as much of the island as possible, then parse resources as needed. And IF there is a neighbor, wipe them out as quick as possible!

The starting point is, strategically, a good spot because it allows a city built over there to act as a canal between the two seas. Same story for the tile 1N.

Settling in place means a very productive capital and at least a decent RCP4, but it would have the drawback of a slow access to the moo, and a waste of 4 worker turns (for irrigating a grassland) to bring water up there. It might be life-saving if there's a very aggressive neighbour around.

Alternatives are 1N and S-SW, which might be either better or worse.

On a side note, i'd happily pay a friendly visit to some of those Bavarians in the photo

tR1cKy said:

Alternatives are 1N and S-SW, which might be either better or worse.

Click to expand...

1N? - Why not 1NE? It would keep two additional river grasslands (one with a silk forrest) in the BFC!
S-SW? - This I don't understand at all. Why walk away from the cow?

Lanzelot said:

1N? - Why not 1NE? It would keep two additional river grasslands (one with a silk forrest) in the BFC!
S-SW? - This I don't understand at all. Why walk away from the cow?

Click to expand...

Both home and 1N would produce a canal between the two seas, 1NE wouldn't, that's why i prefer 1N over 1NE, even tho, as you say, it would have less workable terrain.

About S-SW, you might want to take a second look at that spot. If my knowledge of Civ3 does not fail me, it's desert and not floodplain, on coast, near a river, and with access to a bonus grassland, 2 silk forests and at least 2 floodplains. The cow would be exploited with the second city, which should come reasonably fast.

I see the canal argument (though a canal doesn't seem that important here: the island seems to be ending 2-3 tiles further north anyway... )

But a cow certainly is stronger than 2-3 floodplains, isn't it?! Unless you plan to set up the city by the cow as a Forbidden Pallace City and use Berlin as a "throw-away capital", when jumping the pallace to a bigger island? (If there is one on this map...)

Basically, it all depends on what we'll discover around.

If the island ends up 2-3 tiles further north, using the cow city as FP city and jumping the capital abroad would be nonsense. It would make much more sense to keep Berlin as capital and rush the FP abroad in a favourable spot.

Can we get another day or two? I'll have a long train ride on Sunday, where I can finish it.

Lanzelot said:

Can we get another day or two? I'll have a long train ride on Sunday, where I can finish it.

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I second that! I've been super busy with work lately, but can finish mine in another day or two!

Is it worth continuing? With greatbeyond we would now be three additional submissions.

Guys,

I'm afraid that a business trip that was supposed to last a week was extended to over two. The nature of that trip made it very difficult to keep up with my responsibilities here, for which I apologise. I can't promise it won't happen again I'm afraid - It's just an occupational hazard.

Sorry the game didn't get extended. In future, if I'm missing I can only suggest you PM Alanh. (He'll hate me for saying that).

I will examine the entries for game over the next couple of days, and if no issues exist I'll post a results thread mid-week.

MB

But still I feel kind of "bitter" about how this game went: I had asked ahead of time whether we could get an extension. In the past, we had always gotten an extension in such a case, so how could I predict that this time we wouldn't? If I had known in advance that you would not show up for the next couple of days, I would have tried to squeeze it in before the deadline, as I had done so many times in the past... But as I was confident of getting the extension, I went to bed instead, got some sleep and made the planned trip with my kids the next day, and when I checked back in to see the answer, time was already too short for an attempt to finish before the deadline. So I kept waiting for the OK as my only chance for a submission...

I think with greatbeyond, bbrady and myself we could allow three more submissions of people who had been "active" in this game and in the spoilers. (I would also promise to write a final spoiler, if anyone is interested in reading the details and the mishaps of an 1840 AD 20K victory... )

I can't but feel that we all should try to get our acts together.

Lanzelot said:

I would also promise to write a final spoiler

Click to expand...

Please go ahead and post the spoiler, submission or not! At least I am more interested in good spoilers, which I know I can expect from you, than of tables of medals, prizes and current rankings. There's always another month to fill up those.

Più Freddo;13415409 said:

There's always another month to fill up those.

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Problem is that I can't afford every month to spend +80h on a difficult 20K game...

I'll try to get a spoiler ready over the next couple days, though.