News: GOTM 46 - Starts 1 September

GOTM 46: India

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/gotm46civ.jpg[/img]

You like wonders? Bored of fastest victory attempts? Medals for highest scoring do not attract you? Make peace, not war? Then this map if perfect for you*. Why not grab all those shiny wonders and prove that Builders rules the world!

The game requires HOF 1.74.004, which you can download here.

Game settings:
Civilization: India (Leader: Gandhi; Traits: Spiritual, Industrious)
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Prince
Map: Inland Sea
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea Level: Normal
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: Standard
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Gandhi:
Gandhi is Spiritual and Industrious; starting with Mining and Mysticism. The Spiritual trait provides 100% production bonus towards Temples and removes the anarchy period during civic/religion changes. The Industrious trait provides 50% production bonus towards Wonders, and you receive 100% production bonus for Forges.

Unique unit: Fast Worker (replaces worker)
The Fast Worker has one extra movement point, which for example enable you to move into a forest and start chopping at once. Please note that forested hills consume all three movement points.

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


Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Extra Fast Worker: A nearby tribe has sent their young men to your settler as an acknowledgment to your superior leadership.

Challenger Class Equalizers:

1. No warrior: A nearby tribe has slaughtered your warriors in anger of your inferior leadership.
2. No forest: The same tribe also burned all the forest in the vicinity to really state that you are not welcome. All forest in fully revealed tiles are removed.

To enter the Competition:

This competition will open on 1 September 2009. From that date, you'll be able to get your chosen starting save >>>here<<<.
Submit the save after your victory (or defeat) here, by 1 October 2009.

Software Versions

Windows: This game MUST be played in Civilization 4 (NOT Warlords or BTS), patched to version 1.74, and with the HOF mod version 1.74.004 installed. You can download the HOF mod here. Players using Windows Vista are encouraged to read the notes on Vista fixes here.

Macintosh: This game MUST be played in Civilization 4 (NOT Warlords), patched to version 1.74, and with the Mac HOF mod version 1.74.002 installed. You can download the HOF mod here.

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 the game outside those threads while it is in progress.

Please write here or send me a Private Message for any technical queries, eg. if you have trouble opening the game. Do NOT post in this thread once you have successfully opened the starting save.

* Never trust a map maker!

Note from author: If your game crashes, reload the latest autosave and repeat all moves exactly. Please PM me about the details of the crash. I appreciate any feedback regarding the map, either through PM or through the spoiler threads. Good luck with this game

Thanks! A game I might be able to finish.

Settle in place and explore east looking for a second city site. Build worker, 2xwarrior, settler. Research copper then AH then to cottages. Then think about wonders.

That's a pretty small inland sea!

Extra fast worker: Two extra movement points?

This map looks excellent for fastest conquest...

Classic opening dilemma. Settle in place for the gold and get a strong early boost to research, or settle towards the east to get the quarries up and running for a head start on the early wonders.

For my taste, settling in place slightly lacks in production capability. I am tempted by 1N. This loses a flood plain but gains an extra grassland hill (whilst keeping the gold). It also loses the useless desert square.

FYI: the save LC downloads will be cursed. Anyone deliberately spreading disinformation in a similar way as LC will also get a cursed save. Take notice community!

I've tried my hand at a test game, if you wish to try out some opening moves.

Settling 1N2E seems quite obvious to me, without trying to second-guess where the hidden resources might be. Am I being naive? I suppose if it turns out to be a mistake, I can always try to rectify it with a quick second city, this being Prince level.

I am having a good streak of victories lately, which is doing *wonders* for my motivation. This looks like another winnable game, a priori (famous last words). Thanks!

I think I'm settling on the PH 1NW. Second city can grab the rest of the goods. Gold is so much more valuable in the capital, while stone/marble can wait.
I think axing 1-2 neighbours and settling in for culture or diplo will be my plan.

I know this is a bit off topic in this thread but I figure this would be a hot thread at the moment for vanilla GOTMs and some of you may have encountered this issue that has not been addressed in the HOF form.

1) In vanilla Civ with latest HoF mod, after 100 turns or more, at least one of my cities - usually the capital - loses much of the interface in the city screen. Basically, the left, right and top aspects of the city view interface are gone. I know one other person has experienced this but i'm surprised not to see it more of an issue. It's a showstopper for me. Is anyone else encountering this or is there a solution?

2) Building Stonehenge does not put an obelisk in all my cities. Is this a known issue?

your help is appreciated. As of now, I can't play vanilla GOTMs

lymond
1) Happens in city with free specialists (GLib wonder). Edit:actually happens in cities with any settled Great People. Go to Option -> HOF3 menu and uncheck Specialist Stacker should fix it. Alt-Tab to desktop and back to the game if specialists icons in city interface displayed incorrect after.
2) Never heard of it before.

lymond said:

2) Building Stonehenge does not put an obelisk in all my cities. Is this a known issue?

Click to expand...

It goes obsolete pretty fast, so that might be it.



I'm gonna settle 1N, 2E like Monnet. A decent production capital with 2nd city getting the gold+river commerce.

You like wonders?

Click to expand...

Sure, but since I've ben playing mostly at emperor+ levels lately, I've learned that you should have a damn good reason to build any wonder at all.

Bored of fastest victory attempts?

Click to expand...

When I get one hundred of them, maybe. Right now I'm still eager for one.

Medals for highest scoring do not attract you?

Click to expand...

My highest score ever is less than half what usually gets a medal here. That doesn't mean it doesn't attract me, just that its not something in the forefront of my mind. Yet.

Make peace, not war?

Click to expand...

To every thing... turn turn turn... there is a season... turn turn turn...

Then this map if perfect for you*.

Click to expand...

Prince level with Gold, Marble, Stone... industrious trait. Yeah... that's a sure way to sucker the addicts into wonder-spam mode. (Us "recovering" addicts are much harder to corrupt).

Why not grab all those shiny wonders and prove that Builders rules the world!

Click to expand...

Because you still need to figure out a victory condition, and some of those wonders are totally worthless in some VC's. Most of them, actually. Maybe all of them. In fact, maybe I'll try to go a game without even a SINGLE wonder just to spite you ... and RAZE any city with a wonder in it that I might capture.
That'll teach you!

BTW... I'm thinking to settle where the warrior is, just because. But I think the start location is probably the best... I do love a good cottage spam. (I believe the term for this is "transferance" in addict-speak).

You like wonders? Bored of fastest victory attempts? Medals for highest scoring do not attract you? Make peace, not war? Then this map if perfect for you*. Why not grab all those shiny wonders and prove that Builders rules the world!

Click to expand...

I had to read this post twice searching for this month's special victory condition before realizing that there was none! Booo! I guess you mapmakers/staff have been spoiling/pampering us too much!

Anyways, it looks like Erkon has gifted us an ideal set-up for a peaceful cultural game - but it could be fun to find Monty, Genghis, Alex and Napoleon at our doorsteps! Fortunately, it still would be only a prince level game!

kcd_swede said:

...In fact, maybe I'll try to go a game without even a SINGLE wonder just to spite you ... and RAZE any city with a wonder in it that I might capture...

Click to expand...

Conquistador 63 said:

...Booo!...

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You were warned! Another two cursed saves

Teddy KGB said:

lymond
1) Happens in city with free specialists (GLib wonder). Edit:actually happens in cities with any settled Great People. Go to Option -> HOF3 menu and uncheck Specialist Stacker should fix it. Alt-Tab to desktop and back to the game if specialists icons in city interface displayed incorrect after.
2) Never heard of it before.

Click to expand...

@Teddy & Meteor

Wow, thanks for the response. I unchecked the specialist stacker and my city interface immediately returned. I guess this is a small bug with the HOF mod. I'll report it to them, but at least there's a work-around.

Yep, I had researched Calendar so Stonehenge was now obselete. That is pretty quick and never noticed it before - I don't build Stonehenge a lot. Weird though that Stonehenge and an Obelisk is still present in the city that I built the wonder in.

lymond said:

... Weird though that Stonehenge and an Obelisk is still present in the city that I built the wonder in.

Click to expand...

The Obelisk does not provide any culture any longer, right?

lymond said:

Yep, I had researched Calendar so Stonehenge was now obselete. That is pretty quick and never noticed it before - I don't build Stonehenge a lot. Weird though that Stonehenge and an Obelisk is still present in the city that I built the wonder in.

Click to expand...

Did you build the Obelisk before Stonehenge? If so, then you get to keep it, and its culture, until the end of the game.

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Can I have a cursed save too, Erkon?
If you settle on the gold, you'll find you have the happiness resource without having to research Mining.

Hmmmm, a trifle food-poor for my tastes. Yes I know there's all those floodplains, but each one is only +2 surplus food with a farm. And that's before you take account of the health penalty. Compared with a couple of good grassland-wheat tiles, you have to 'waste' a lot of citizens working the farmed floodplains to be able to get a big food surplus.

I'm tempted to move the settler to the gold-hill and the warrior to the stone-hill before deciding where to settle, though the rather arid looking land looks rather untempting both East and West.

Erkon said:

FYI: the save LC downloads will be cursed.

Click to expand...

On second thought, I think I'll try to build The Pyramids and Shwedagon Paya asap so I can revolt to different civics every five turns for the rest of the game (every turn after Cristo Redentor). My goal will be to build every single wonder and try every single combination of different civics and still lose on 2050 AD. EDIT: Plus, I want to have an extra fast worker on every single tile of the game, land and coastal.