News: GOTM 52 - Starts 6 March

GOTM 52: America

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/gotm52civ.jpg[/img]

The swords are worn blunt, the arrows are broken, the gunpowder is wet and the peace mongers have confiscated your precious supply of plutonium. No hope for glory, no more gloating over defeated enemies, no kill'em all, only one path to victory: diplomacy. The end is surely near.

This month you play as Washington and you are challenged to prove your worth of world domination by your benign actions, not your guns. Perhaps not the most realistic scenario, right? And to make sure you stay away from the bully tactics - war is disabled

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

Game settings:
Civilization: America (Leader: Washington; Traits: Financial, Organized)
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Noble
Map: Terra
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea Level: High
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No War (Always Peace), nearest goody huts removed
Victory Conditions: Diplomatic enabled, the others are disabled

Washington:
Washington is Financial and Organized ; starting with Fishing and Agriculture. The Financial trait provides one extra commerce for all tiles with at least two commerce. The Organized trait reduces upkeep with 50% and provides 100% production bonus towards Lighthouse and Courthouse.

Unique unit: Navy Seal (replaces Marine)
The Navy Seal is ... well, it's normally useless, and even more so in this game. Anyone who can come up with a good reason to build one will receive a special jesusin-reward*.

Scenario Specifics:
No War That's right. No war in this game. Barbs can be attacked as usual, but that's it.
Extra sight A few extra sea tiles are revealed to help you decide on capital location*

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


Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Crippled AI: The gods take pity with your doomed quest and strike down on your opponents. Only the settlers survive. (AI escort removed).

Challenger Class Equalizers:

1. Blessed AI: The gods take pity with your opponents and bless them with dual settler capacity (extra AI settler and AI escort).

To enter the Competition:

This competition will open on 6 March 2010. From that date, you'll be able to get your chosen starting save >>>here<<<.
Submit the save after your victory (or defeat) here, by 6 April 2010.

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

Looks like a settler spamathon!

Where is the food?

jesusin will starve on this map!

Hmmm.... so a race to the UN while keeping a majority of civs happy? I wish we were spiritual.

warrior 1NW. undecided which way to move the settler, but inland. Maybe 2NW. Maybe SW depending what the warrior reveals. civ with fishing but no seafood (visible) on the coast is equal pet peeve to civ with fishing starting inland. Bleh.

I assume we can still culture flip AI cities even with 'no war' ticked ? I've never played the 'no war' setting before.

cas

No war? No conquest or domination? You only set that condition because you won't be playing the game...

The resolution of the map is fairly low. Plus, it's easier to tell what each tile is if you turn on the yield indiator (i.e. shows food, hammers and gold per tile). Finally, can you select the settler so that we can see the blue circles?

Thanks!

"war is disabled"

Does this mean the AI cannot go to war either, with other AI's or us ?

Sorry, just found the nugget of information I wanted

"Scenario Specifics: No War That's right. No war in this game. Barbs can be attacked as usual, but that's it."

Erkon said:

Extra sight A few extra sea tiles are revealed to help you decide on capital location*

* Never trust a map maker!

Click to expand...

civ with fishing but no seafood (visible) on the coast is equal pet peeve to civ with fishing starting inland. Bleh
cas

Click to expand...

The tiles 2E and 3E are fogged. What if they have seafood? Sh we move Settler E, NW to see?

Deckhand said:

The tiles 2E and 3E are fogged.

Click to expand...

Interesting. These two tiles and the tile east-east-northeast of the settler appear to be grayed out rather than the typical black fog. Is that normal?

Mitchum said:

Interesting. These two tiles and the tile east-east-northeast of the settler appear to be grayed out rather than the typical black fog. Is that normal?

Click to expand...

Most likely, warrior was moved from original position on the hill SE of the settler. There should be a reason for that ... Anyway, I'm going to settle inland, 2W or W-SW.

Is goody huts on?

No war means no need to build an army as long as we fogbust the territory (and protect risky cities from barbs) and get the great pyramid soon to avoid hereditary rule. I tend to love peacebuilder mode, thus I am going to get a liking of this GOTM.

I think youd still be able to see little clams or crabby claws or jumping fish if there was food on those grayed out tiles. That and reasource bubbles still show on gray tiles, yes?

And Leif, theres 2 flood plains there, better than nothing i guess?

At least were financial, so a coast with no food still has some slight commerce yield.

From the description of this map type:


I generated a few maps and in all cases, all 7 civs were on one larger continent and the "new world" was empty. Is this always the case.

With that said:

Yes Mitchum, in Terra, all civs *always* start on just one of the 2 generated continents (sometimes theres an 'indonesia' ending in an 'australia,' which is also unpolulated). - Sorry if you werent actually asking a question about this.

I hadnt noticed the selection of unique map type befor, thanks for pointing it out, it means population sizes (with respect to the UN) will be somewhat dependant on how much land you get in the 'new world.'

As for this "No War" option, is that really indicating that the "Always Peace" option is enabled? Knowing that fact would at least allow us to set up an appropriate test game.

I set up a game with the Always Peace option and only the Diplo Victory option selected. Doing so leads to some interesting first-meeting declarations. For example, Kublai Khan said the following:
The mighty Mongolian Empire greets you. Let us work together to achieve the total destruction of our foes, and only THEN betray and rend each other like the rabid dogs that we truly are!
"There shall be peace in our time!" is the only option available.

Clearly, Kublai didn't check the game settings before making his bold claims.

Also, it appeared that the denominator for the Number of Turns counter remains at zero, presumably because without a Time Victory enabled, there is no time limit... so, I wonder if we can play well past 2050 AD if neither you nor the AIs are able to get voted as the leader of the world.


I wouldn't be surprised to see neither Stone nor Marble anywhere near us, just to force us into making a big Hammer "sacrifice" just to get the Wonder of our choosing. Seeing as how you cannot take a Wonder by Conquest, you SHOULD CAREFULLY PLAN WHICH WONDERS YOU WANT TO BUILD and PRIORITISE GETTING THEM!


With a Terra map, as Mitchum alluded, could it be possible that America starts isolated on the North American continent, as opposed to being in "the old world" with the rest of the civs? Never trust a map maker... If we are in "the old world," I get the feeling that we start in China.


I'm tempted to send the Settler 1NW then 1E, possibly settling on that Desert Hill on the next turn if there is another Resource to be had to the north. That way, we will get to keep all of the nearby "good" squares--the two Wines, the two Floodplains, and even the two River Grassland Hill squares within our fat cross, while also remaining on the Coast for a possible Great Lighthouse build.


If a Conquest Victory is disabled, does that mean that we will get a free Settler if the Barbs capture all of our cities?


A Diplo Victory begs a Specialist Economy, but it seems to really be a waste of the Financial Trait not to Cottage-spam. Decisions, decisions...

IIRC, self-voting is allowed in Vanilla?..

I hope there is food around the riverside plains hill with grapes. That is where I would want to settle. look like in this game someone can get both the Gold medal and the fastest diplo. So there is something to aim for.

No culture, no space, no time, no domination (yes domination can be done without war-now there is some thing to aim for ) awards? This is a true diplomatic challenge.

Lexad said:

IIRC, self-voting is allowed in Vanilla?..

Click to expand...

Yes, you can vote for yourself in Vanilla.

First post updated:

• Large map is now high resolution
• Yield is visible
• No war = Always peace
• Goody huts are on the map, but removed close* to the player

Settler is still not activated since I don't want to encourage decisions/discussions based on blue circles. The grayed out water tiles have been revealed to the player to prevent players to waste turns scouting the water.

* Guess what?

Erkon said:

The grayed out water tiles have been revealed to the player to prevent players to waste turns scouting the water.

Click to expand...

Thanks. You may not be trustworthy, but you aren't All evil.



Oh, and lack of seafood is a subtle hint to move inland and grab more territory - thanks again.