News: GOTM68 Pre-Game Discussion

GOTM 68 - Carthage!

OK, I'm sort of moved ... if such a thing ever finishes! So after playing Rome, let's move on to Carthage. Fairly standard settings; can the game be other than average?

Civilization: Carthage
Rivals: 7 pre-selected.
Barbarians: Raging
Difficulty: Monarch
Land Form: Continents, 70% ocean, Standard map.
Geology: 5 billion years old, temperate, wet



Conquest-Class Bonuses:

1. You start with 2 Bonus Chariots
2. You get 50 Gold Extra
3. You start with The Wheel

Predator-Class Equalisers:

1. Each AI gets 2 Bonus Pikes to start
2. AI has Emperor Level Starting bonus units and Unit support
3. The Numedian Mercenary will not start your Golden Age

A reminder: do not post any game information to this thread after you have downloaded the save file. Absolutely no spoiler information for this or any GOTM is to be posted in this thread!

Nice starting location, with double gold mountains and a hill to the SE. I'm guessing the water is an inlet from the ocean since it looks like there's a beach by the farthest east hill we can see. Pretty good start. I haven't played Carthage in forever, so this should be fun.

Ah, what's to say? Abundant beegees => build a granary.
Settling in place allows plenty of RCP3 spots.
Erm.. nothing in the fog as far as I can see.

PaperBeetle said:

Abundant beegees => build a granary.

Click to expand...

Without having counted on it, I'd say its probably best to mine one BG and then do some five-turn chopping.

Is there a wide open space for the raging barbarian uprisings to take place in? Then we could get some use of our Mercenaries. Another way could be to deny us Horses.

mhh... looks like a no-brainer for me, unless something very unusual shows up.
Settle in place, work the BG, maybe chop some trees to speed up barracks, or a granary. A ring of cities... and then it's mercenary fest i guess

No need to explore with worker, send him straight to a BG and settle in place. I'm thinking about going for a 20k victory- plenty of shields and food for it, and coast. Any tips?

megistatos said:

No need to explore with worker, send him straight to a BG and settle in place. I'm thinking about going for a 20k victory- plenty of shields and food for it, and coast. Any tips?

Click to expand...

No fresh water will make it tough --> can't grow to size 12 until you get construction and an aqueduct. That's a tough production loss for the critical AA when you need to be building wonders.

Yeah, I tried doing 20k without fresh water a couple of times, and it is absolute agony. I would much rather pass up a couple of spt, and have some corruption for a while, if that is what it takes to get the early aqueduct.

Ive yet to develop enough skill to compete with y'all on a level playing field, so I'll settle NW and hope it tilts the field a bit in my favor. The move away from the hill makes it a friendly setllement location later, and also helps my drive north to impede other civs mobility. Wouldn't mind finding a river op north with that second settlement.

I havent played a GOTM in years but Im going to try this one. Can somone explain what the "bonuses" and "equalizers" are.

There is a wide range of skill levels within the players participating in the GOTM contest. To broaden the appeal of a particular game, 3 versions of the save file are provided.

The 'Open' version is the straight copy of the save. Other than whatever 'modifications' the game designer incorporated, no other changes are present. The Average player for the difficulty level of the current month (Monarch level for this contest) should feel comfortable playing this version.

The 'Conquest' version has been modified to include 'bonuses' to the save file. This is designed for the player who's skill level is below the current month's difficulty level. GOTM has a desire to increase the overall skill level of the participants, and this can't happen for a player if they don't play the game because it's at a more difficult level then they're used to playing at. So the 'bonuses' are like training wheels - something to help the player initially so they can play at a higher difficulty level, at least for a while longer in the game, with the intent of learning more about the game and to improve their skills. The final score is reduced 15% for overall player ranking, and the submitted game is not eligible for any individual awards.

The 'Predator' version of the save has been modified to include additional challenges to encounter in the playing of the game. This is designed for players who are highly skilled at the game. Since the competition is against the other players (and not really against the game), it's not intended to be so difficult to lead to players losing the game - just an increase in the challenge. Both Predator and Open score the same so it's up to the players as to which version to play if they're comfortable with the level.

Well I got Complete yesterday, so I'll be doing this one (along with COTM37).

Thanks Steve.

This looks like a potentially great port city. I'd rather have that be fresh water, but if I can get the Colossus with those gold mtns I'd be happy.

i got 2 chariots but i am sure i downloaded the correct file since its name is gotm_68_ptw_open.
what should i do?

Go to the download page and click on the PTW Icon that has the following Above it.
"Open Class Starting Bonuses:
* None
Click on the image below to download the start Open-class save file for PTW."

Moderator Action: There's a problem with the Open Class save

Please do not play the Open class save, as it appears to be a copy of the Conquest class save. I have alerted Civ_Steve and ainwood, and I hope we'll have a fixed version for you shortly.

Moderator Action: OK. We have an executive decision.

Since it is possible that some players have already started playing the Open file we supplied, I have reinstated the download link as it was. All Open and Conquest players are therefore using the same starting save for this game, and they will all get the extra two chariots. There will be no 15% penalty for players of either starting save.

The starting location seems a little poor to me, guess I'm hooked on Wheat, Floodplains and Cows. Maybe those are out there in the fog, along with a river or two. Having the chariots will help find them, though IMHO, one way to solve the conquest save problem is disband them outside of the city and viola, no extra advantage. Will I do that? I'm not sure, but some could. I'm also not sure if the extra tech is there, if anyone is concerned about that, set the science slider to 0% for 15 turns, and again, no extra advantage, except maye 20-30 more gold. I will decide once I download.

Any voluntary handicaps you give yourselves will be just that - voluntary. The scoring and awards system will treat all players equally.