Gotm 142

Game of the Month 142: April 2013

Crowded Europe

1 Swiss (purple) settler used to found Zurich. No starting techs. Emperor level. 7 Civs. Restarts on. Roving Bands (-25).

Map: Slightly modified medium world map (50x80 round).
Rivals: Romans, Celts (Babylonians), Vikings, Spanish, Huns (Chinese), Greeks.
All rivals start in their historical location.

Special rules:
Map is known. You can open the provided map file in map editor at any point in the game. It is highly recommended you do this at the beginning to get a good assessment of where your rivals are.

Your first hut must yield 50 gold. Save before you tip it. If you get any other outcome, reload and keep trying.

Deadline: May 31st

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.

You can find the save file here.

Why does the MAP file show a hut in the Mountain next to the Sioux starting position, but the SAV file does not have that hut?

Isn't that the hut we are supposed to get 50 gold from?

Good observation haleewud. There is no oversight here, that was deliberate.

I placed the Zurich's citizen on the mountain clearing its hut out before relocating the citizen and saving the initial save file. That is the main reason you got the city instead of getting the settler.

Later, I realized how I could have gone back to the map and wipe that one hut out in the map but I did not want to spend the extra time.

The reason for taking this action and the special rule of 50g from the first hut is that I ran a couple of quick simulations and realized that getting a fast unit, even a horse, from an early hut can dramatically change the course of the game. In one simulation I knocked out two civs before I made my first settler and this was tipping huts with a warrior not the initial settler.

Thus I decided to stabilize the early game I have to control the outcome of not one but two earliest huts. Wiping one out and forcing the other to be 50g was just the solution I happened to choose.

So I played a turn that resulted in all other civilizations being eliminated.
I made a save file, and then continued and the game end sequence ran.

If I reload the save file and continue the game does not end but continues into the next year, with no opponents.

I surmise that for the game end sequence to run the last civ needs to be eliminated whilst the game is running. I am hardly a newcomer so I should perhaps have known this, and probably a save from earlier in the turn would be better, and may even be required by the GotM rules.

Does anyone have some wise words please on the proper way to manage this, when a re-spawn may or may not happen? Do you take multiple saves within the one turn?

(In my actual game, the last city was razed, a settler for a new civ appeared but adjacent to an un-moved military unit, so I was able to eliminate it immediately, and no further settler then appeared.)

I do have a save from the previous year, so with not too much effort can recreate.

I do notice this when checking save files from gotm games more often. Somehow the savefile doesn't know the last enemy is beaten. I get no endscore and video. Next turn just starts.

Best way is a save before last city or unit is conquered or beaten.

Inkerman said:

Does anyone have some wise words please on the proper way to manage this, when a re-spawn may or may not happen? Do you take multiple saves within the one turn?

Click to expand...

Any time there is a chance that the game could end with your next move save. Obviously this is the case when you are about to attack the last remaining rival city, or the last respawned settler. It is also the case when there are no rival cities but multiple rival settlers in the wild because some of those may fall to barbarians or just decide to disband before your next turn starts.

Thanks. I wasn't thinking it through fully.

The point that confused me was the need to accept that as the required save is from before the last AI civ is removed (because otherwise the game end sequence doesn't run) what happens may be different when the last action is replayed by someone else, such as when the GotM staff are checking the scores.

Suggested routine.

Reduce AI to a single bribeable city, or an empty or size 1 city, or lone settler.
Do anything you want that affects your score - adjust luxury rate, found cities, strengthen garrisons, remove pollution.

Save the game.
Raze, occupy or bribe the city, or eliminate AI settler.

If you know there was a re-spawn, but not otherwise, save the game and then eliminate the new AI settler.

Repeat as needed i.e if there is another visible re-spawn, save the game, then eliminate AI settler.

End the turn, and get the game end sequence (or you get to carry on and try this all again!)

Replaying the last turn in my GotM 142 several times I have found I make different numbers of save files depending on how it goes.

I will start playing tonight and I have already decided to play OCC. This is a very challenging set up for OCC due to the presence of lots of rivals close by which can make life incredibly difficult near the end.

I did start last night and what a ride it was!

I expected late game action but the action started quite early and it was non stop. I have never played such an edge-of-the-seat oh-my-god-I-can-be-dead-in-2-turns game.

If you have not stated already, I challenge you to do an OCC here. It will be an unforgettable experience.

Results are up.

I had to use an alternative way to create this and other pages but it seems to work. Please let me know if it's possible to download the participants zipfile. I'm not sure the link is working for everybody.

Downloading works fine.

Again we have 5 entries and everybody gets a medal. I like that!

That's great to hear. Then I will create to pages this way until the original way is working again.

I've updated The Hall of Fame.