Gotm 135

Pentagon

This 100x100 round world consists of a southern continent and a northern continent hugging the poles and spanning around the world. The southern continent is very green and vacant. Northern continent has some dry spots and is home to Mongols. There is another small continent shaped like a pentagon right in the middle. The human player, playing the orange civ, is right in the middle of this continent. The remaining 5 rivals are on the 5 corners of the pentagon.

The pentagon is large enough so that no two capital cities share a tile yet small enough that each capital's border touches that of some other capital.

The challenge here is to win before Mongols do.

We are going to play on this map twice. This first round, will be OCC. Next round, this Fall, will be a regular game. This is going to be a rather unusual OCC due to the proximity of so many rivals and the fact that late game multilateral warfare is all but inevitable.

Game Settings
Game of the Month 135: June 2012

Civilization: English
Map: Custom Known map, 100x100, round;
(Known map means you can open the original save in the map editor and refer back to it any time during the game)
Rivals: Celts, Babylonians, Germans, Aztecs, Americans, Mongols
Difficulty: Deity
Barbarians: Restless tribes (+0)
Restarts: On
Victory: Conquest or Spaceship
Starting Techs: None.
Other info: Rivals start with one settler and no techs.

Special rules: One City Challenge. You may not have more than one city at any point in the game with one exception: If a rival has launched a space ship that is going to beat yours you may take their capital. If you do so, at the end of your turn there may not be any of your units left in the capital. If they have movement points left move them out, otherwise you must disband them.

You may replay as many times as you wish. But you get to submit only one game; your best outcome obviously. I should explain that replay means going back to the starting save and playing from there. Going back to some intermediary save is considered cheating. Reloading for a different battle outcome is also considered cheating.

Submit your game before August 15th, 2012.

Please be sure to follow the submission guidelines when submitting your game (please do not send your files in a .zip file. Attach them directly to your e-mail with your name in the save file). No extra save is needed.

Please sent the savegames only to civ2gotm@gmail.com.

Have fun.

Edit: I have just created the page. And added the savelink in this post.

Starting save is here.

I've added a screenshot.

I have been too busy with real life to do any playing for the past three weeks. I just started this weekend. Log follows in the spoiler.

In light of the fact that all 3 players who have so far finished this GOTM have lost to the AI, and with approval from Magic Gorter, I am adding a new special rule for this GOTM.

You may replay as many times as you wish. But you get to submit only one game; your best outcome obviously. I should explain that replay means going back to the starting save and playing from there. Going back to some intermediary save is considered cheating. Reloading for a different battle outcome is also considered cheating.

Even though there is still 2 weeks left to the deadline and this is an OCC game, I am extending the deadline by two weeks to accommodate everyone.

Good luck and happy playing.

While this proved to be quite a challenge for the non-seasoned OCC players, for an even tougher challenge you may try the following:
Put a yellow civ in the middle instead of English (human player). For the 5 rivals on the pentagon place Russians, Zulu/Japanese, French/Vikings, Persian/Chinese, and any of the orange. This way all the rivals on the Pentagon are closest to aggressive which makes alliances and peace less likely.

Results are up.

We know from the spoiler that the following players were playing:
Major Advantage, Inkerman, haleewud, mackarel, Cordeo, and I. We should not have only had 2 submissions out of the 6. I realize some lost to the AI, but that is no reason for not turning your game in.
As a general rule, you should always submit your result even if you lose.
In this case, one of you non submitters could have gotten the bronze.

I've updated The Hall of Fame.

Ali Ardavan said:

We know from the spoiler that the following players were playing:
Major Advantage, Inkerman, haleewud, mackarel, Cordeo, and I. We should not have only had 2 submissions out of the 6. I realize some lost to the AI, but that is no reason for not turning your game in.
As a general rule, you should always submit your result even if you lose.
In this case, one of you non submitters could have gotten the bronze.

Click to expand...

Based on what I said in the Spoiler, I actually gave up at a point where I thought I could no longer win. What kind of submission should I have made? Should I have retired at the point I gave up? Just wondering.

Yes. You could submit at the point you gave up or you could play till you actually lose. Either way explain the situation in your submission.