News: TSG68 Announcement

Welcome to the Sixty-eighth game in the GOTM V Training Series! There are plenty of features in Civilization 5, Gods & Kings and Brave New World to explore and the Training Series games will allow new and old GOTM fans to try out these features in a friendly environment. You are all encouraged to post your questions, stories, advice, tricks and failures in the dedicated game threads described below. You can read more about the GOTM and Training Series concept in this thread. Before going into the details of this game, we would like to ask you to abide to our most sacred rule: don’t replay any turns. If you make a mistake, accept it and try to recover. It's better to do the bad moves in the Training Series instead of in the actual GOTM competition, once it starts.

In this game, the designated VC is Domination. All VCs are enabled but results will be published by fastest Domination victory turn.

In this game you will play as The Zulus and lead the Zulu Empire to victory. It's a standard-sized mystery map played at Emperor difficulty and at standard pace. Domination is the designated VC for this game, all victory conditions are enabled. You will have until October 1st to complete the game and submit.

You must have the Brave New World expansion to play this game.

Civ V BNW - TSG68 Game Settings:
Playable Civ: Shaka - Zulu
Number of AI Opponents: 8
Number of City-States: 16
Map type: Mystery
Map Size: Standard
Difficulty Level: Emperor
Game pace: Standard
Game options: No Ancient Ruins in this game. Quick Combat and Quick Movement are disabled. (You may turn them on using the game options menu at any time during gameplay.)
Game Version: This game was created in Civ5 Brave New World version 1.0.3.80. Mongols, Brave New World and Gods and Kings are required for this game.

In this game, you will be playing as Shaka, you possess Iklwa. Your melee units cost 50% less maintenance. All units require 25% less experience to earn their next promotion.

You can train the Impi, which replaced the Pikeman. They possess the ability to perform a spear throw attack that can damage or kill an enemy before making contact to melee. The Impi specializes in defeating Knights and other mounted units. You must discover the technology of Civil Service but you do not need a resource to build them.

You can also build the Ikanda, which replaces the Barracks. The Ikanda, in addition to the regular abilities of the Barracks, grants a unique set of promotions to pre-gunpowder melee units created within the city. These include faster movement and greater combat strength. You need to discover Bronze Working technology but you do not need a resource to build it.

This is where you will start:





Information about threads associated with TSG
TSG Announcement thread (this one). This thread is used to announce the game and clarify the settings and rules (don’t be afraid to ask questions). It’s also used to discuss the game before you start, and post problems with opening the save. Please don’t post any information from a game you have started. Instead use the next thread.

Opening Actions thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once it's on the way. There are no reading or posting restrictions as such (apart from normal decency), although we encourage players to use the spoiler tags for screenshots. Here you can post questions related to the game and share your achievements/anger/frustration/victories while you play. During the time the game is active, please do not post any information concerning the game outside of the spoiler threads including screen shots and videos.

After Action Report thread. In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please state (preferably in the post title) your victory date and score, as recorded in the Hall of Fame, and the most important: your path to glory! , We will create a separate thread with the results at the end of the two week period (sorted by date and score). Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game. Some players like to replay the game, and although we will not record the results from a replay, you can still post your new experiences. The game will not be closed as such, but after two weeks, the results will be compiled, and will not necessarily be updated with reports coming in after the finish date.

File Upload System
We now have a game file upload system you can find here. Please use it to upload your completed first attempt by saving the game on the turn after your victory or defeat. (by using the "lemme play one more turn" feature) Please note, you must submit your game on the turn following Victory. If you continue to play, the game overwrites the data and your submission could be rejected by the submission system.

This game runs for a month and ends Tuesday, 1 October 2013.

The Save can be found here.

Excited! Already played the incredible Zulu but domination is always fun

Hope you enjoy yourself.

Great!

The starting position looks good and then again not so good
No hills, no grassland... hm. It's not terrible but I hope the warrior can reveal something more juicy.

When I look at the starting picture though I noticed I'm a bit disappointed by the Zulu units not having a unique graphics... I mean at least the settler and Warrior could have been designed new for them (just like european, asian and desert civ have a different looking unit (at least for the settler)).

Nice to see domination as the victory condition. It is perhaps the least predictable (science based) victory condition? I have not played the zulus yet so I think I will play a test game first.

Nice! Do we really need impis?

Maybe just the token one.

Funny. I was just playing a Zulu Deity game. Impi are ridiculous, once they have all the Buffalo bits. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of Lancers they make, with +1 move and all the flanking bonuses.

Impis upgrade to Rifleman, not Lancer.

I don't love settling on the coast without a resource or river, but there's not a lot of food visible unless you go for the hill. I'll move the warrior SE and then decide.

Tabarnak said:

Nice! Do we really need impis?

Click to expand...

Who's going to stroll into those conquered cities?

FeiLing said:

Impis upgrade to Rifleman, not Lancer.

Click to expand...

Guess I should RTFCivilopedia. Thanks.

Shame to see the Ancient Ruins are gone - I might be in the minority, but I do enjoy them, and removing them makes the scout somewhat redundant.

I hope this isn't a permanent thing for all future GOTM

I hope it is But it probably is not.

Pretty bad start, I will moe the warrie SW and see if settling in place is ok, or might settle on the wine. Settling on lux is not as big advantage anymore in BnW so, if there is no food nearby, I will settle in place...

Zibby said:

Shame to see the Ancient Ruins are gone - I might be in the minority, but I do enjoy them, and removing them makes the scout somewhat redundant.

I hope this isn't a permanent thing for all future GOTM

Click to expand...

I agree. The ancient ruins may be a chance feature, but they are part of a proper game of Civ. Besides that, random features make the game a bit more unpredictable, which favours the more adaptable strategists among us.

For this particular game, I am thinking of moving the scout a long way up in the build order, or never build one. Usually I start with a scout, but perhaps for this game replacing the scout with a warrior makes sense.

Looking forward to this one, plus I won a bet for a pint for guessing that next GOTM would be Zulus + domination

Start doesn't look too bad: two granary-enhanced food resources, 3 x luxuries, plus we start on the coast which may be important for trade / exploration given we don't know what type of map we're on.

On the other hand production won't be too great, only one hill unless there are others hidden to the n/e or possibly the south. Will probably move the warrior one east and go from there, unless anything amazing turns up I think we'll settle in place.

Given there are no ruins scout will be down the build order priority, might not build one at all depending on the map. Will probably start with a monument then granary, then some archers, Ikanda and then spearmen. Might have a go for Temple of Artemis.

Pity about no ruins, removes an interesting aspect of the early game and makes one unit essentially redundant - is this a standard GOTM thing now? I used to play quite a few when G+K first came out then stopped for a while, ruins we always on then. Have I missed a big discussion thread about this, cos I can't find one.

- stride

Last time I played Zulu I had a problem with research and money because I killed every potential trade-partner...

I think the "new rules" for Domination (in Brave new World) still exist? The Capitals must be conquered by yourself, Capitals occupied by/donated to other nations do not fulfill the victory condition.

I prefer no ruins for GOTM. I take the point that it favors the adaptable players, and I play with them on otherwise, but in a competitive format it makes sense to remove as much randomness as possible. If the RNG bestows one player with techs and culture and faith, but another with crudely drawn maps and "evidence of recent barbarian activity," the former has a big advantage. I wish the rewards were part of the map, and you could pass around a save file where each specific ruin gave the same reward in every game played from that file. That would be ideal for GOTM.

Also, in the absence of ruins, I think Monument first is an obvious best choice. Can anyone make an argument for worker first? Or is CS gold valuable enough for scout first to still be best? Just trying to fuel discussion. I'm going to start now and my gut says monument first, so that's what I will do.

GLHF

Izmir Stinger said:

... I wish the [ruins] rewards were part of the map, and you could pass around a save file where each specific ruin gave the same reward in every game played from that file. That would be ideal for GOTM...

Click to expand...

Ah I didn't realise that was the case - the locations of ruins form part of the initial map but the results of popping them are purely random, that sucks.

Shame, because I can't imagine it would be very difficult to have the ruins pre-programmed so to speak when the map is generated, then when that save-file is distributed for GOTM or to friends everyone playing it would get the same results but we as players still get the 'random' element to influence the game.

Guess it's too late to change this functionality now though.