Sons of Monarchy Bullpen

Welcome to the Sons of Monarchy Bullpen

This series is dedicated to those playing Monarch and other intermediate difficulties. Whether you are moving up from Noble to Immortal and even Deity or just content with playing at these levels, this series is intended to help you improve your game and, most of all, have fun. This is the spiritual descendant of the Original Monarch Student Series started by Ai Shizuka and Monarch Student^ Series from Meatbuster & BigTime. Much thanks for their past work in establishing those series. As this is a fresh series, we will be starting from the beginning with the aim of (eventually) going through all civilizations and leaders.

As stated before, the main goal of this series, as with any, is fun. The second, and almost as important, is to provide games that will help players who have moved beyond Noble but are not quite to the high difficulties. Players of all levels are welcome to play and join the discourse.

However, enough with the chit-chat! On to the games!


SoM I: Mansa Musa (FIN/SPI) of Mali
SoM II: Suleiman (PHI/IMP) of Ottoman
SoM III: Gilgamesh (CRE/PRO) of Sumeria
SoM IV: Boudica (AGG/CHA) of Celtia
SoM V: Bismarck (EXP/IND) of Germany
SoM VI: Julius Caesar (ORG/IMP) of Rome
SoM VII: Pericles (PHI/CRE) of Greece
SoM VIII: Tokugawa (AGG/PRO) of Japan
SoM IX: Asoka (ORG/SPI) of India
SoM X: Huayna Capac (FIN/IND) of Inca
SoM XI: Washington (EXP/CHA) of America
SoM XII: Pacal (FIN/EXP) of Maya
SoM XIII: Catherine (IMP/CRE) of Russia
SoM XIV: Ramesses (IND/SPI) of Egypt
SoM XV: Sitting Bull (PHI/PRO) of Native America
SoM XVI: Napoleon (ORG/CHA) of France

Proposed Future Rounds:
SoM XVII: Kublai Khan (AGG/CRE) of Mongolia
SoM XVIII: Isabella (SPI/EXP) of Spain
SoM XIX: Elizabeth (FIN/PHI) of England
SoM XX: Cyrus (IMP/CHA) of Persia
SoM XXI: Qin Shi Huang (PRO/IND) of China
SoM XXII: Hammurabi (AGG/ORG) of Babylon

I am open to leader/map suggestions, but want to maintain a nice balance of civs and traits used. New games should be every couple weeks, but I can do them more often if the popularity/demand is present.

First game-Mansa-will be posted by Friday (Feb. 3) afternoon, perhaps earlier. I'm still working out the kinks but have the general idea of how to make the saves. I am not planning on including Noble/prince saves, but can do so if enough people want them.

Awesome! I've been trying to up my game and this might be just what I need. Thanks!

I feel like I do disproportionately badly with Financial leaders for some reason (likely laziness), so Mansa will be a good one to start. Definitely playing along here.

If you do one thing and one thing only. Make it so that the land distribution is balanced. Otherwise on higher difficulties it makes the game way to hard.

First Round is up!

Zx Zero Zx said:

If you do one thing and one thing only. Make it so that the land distribution is balanced. Otherwise on higher difficulties it makes the game way to hard.

Click to expand...

I have attempted to in the first game and will continue to do so. I am planning to keep map edits to a minimum, but will inspect them for playability.

One question regarding land distribution that I'm just not sure about.

It depends on how much land he has. If he has like 23% or more it will be stupid late game.

First map spoiler, re: the party in question:

SoM II: Suleiman of Ottoman (PHI/IMP) -> for anyone subscribed to the thread

SoM III: Gilgamesh is now up.

SoM IV: Boudica of Celtia is now up!

A quick update since it has been (over) a month since the last round was posted. The last month has been an absolute whirlwind, what with finishing up the thesis and final exams for my masters degree. As such I haven't been able to play any CIV, let alone make the next round. However, this is now done (and golly it feels good).

If there is still interest, I will make the next map over the course of the next week and post next Friday (5/25). I'm planning on Bismarck and was thinking a fractal map but am open to suggestions.

Yes i would be interested in Bismark, am not too shure about fractal, contents maybe or perhaps something challenging like terra?
Gluck in your college work, i myself will be finished my college exams on tuesday and on my summer holidays!

I think a Terra Map would be a nice change! We don't see to many of those on here lately!

SoM V: Bismarck of Germany (EXP/IND) is now up!
I had been planning on making a Terra map for this round but decided against it as the recent Mao IU and Huayna Capac NC games were both Terra/terra-like. I generated this map a while ago but ran out of time before a vacation to post it, so apologies for the delay.

For the next round I am planning a nice Julius Caesar Terra map. I should also be back to a normal schedule of a new round every 2 weeks now.

SoM VI: Julius Caesar of Rome (ORG/IMP) is now up and ready!

Which leads us to the next group of rounds. I have tentatively chosen the next few leaders:
SoM VII: Pericles (PHI/CRE) of Greece
SoM VIII: Tokugawa (AGG/PRO) of Japan
SoM IX: Asoka (ORG/SPI) of India
SoM X: Huayna Capac (FIN/IND) of Inca
SoM XI: Washington (EXP/CHA) of America

I'm definitely going to include Pericles, and would like to maintain a little balance geographically (the first six rounds were an African civ, 2 Middle Eastern civs, and 3 European civs respectively) while shuffling through a variety of traits. But ultimately I make these for the forums to enjoy. As such, if there are suggestions for leaders & more importantly map types, please feel free to add your two cents.

SoM VII: Pericles (PHI/CRE) of Greece is now up for your enjoyment

SoM VIII: Tokugawa (AGG/PRO) of Japan is now up!

I posted this in the Toku thread already, but wanted to reiterate it here where it might get better visibility. I'm hoping to post an Asoka round this week, but haven't made a map. I'm looking for map script suggestions from the people. Choggy has suggested a low sea, tropical fractal, which I'm not really opposed to, but generally speaking SOM does fractal a lot. If people like the fractals, I'm fine with them, but if more variety is desired I'm happy to accomodate that too. Suggestions?