News: BOTM 06 Pre-Game discussion

[ainwood]

BOTM 06: Mayans

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):



Adventurer Class bonuses:

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

Challenger Class Equalisers:

1. Some forests in starting shot are removed.
2. 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. 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

For those using the HOF mod under windows Vista, I recommend yo visit this link, 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.

[hellwitch]

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.

[JerichoHill]

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.

[Mesix]

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.

[MarkM]

Originally Posted by ainwood

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 ...

[blastoidstalker]

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.

[Vynd]

Originally Posted by Mesix

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?

[Priah]

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.

[blastoidstalker]

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

[m4gill4]

Originally Posted by blastoidstalker

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"

[Jbourne]

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.

Contender Space Challenge anyone?

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

Test game? Any good worldbuilders out there?

[Jove]

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.

[kcd_swede]

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. :-)

[vixafox]

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

[JerichoHill]

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

[Lexad]

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.

[blastoidstalker]

Originally Posted by kcd_swede

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.

[kcd_swede]

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.

[Cletus]

Originally Posted by m4gill4

IIRC is internet shorthand for "if I recall correctly"

Thanks, I was wondering about that myself.