WOTM 70 - Victoria, Noble - Starts 22 October

WOTM 70: Victoria of England.

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/wotm70civ.jpg[/img]

Quite a few of you are saying in the Future of Civ4 GOTMs thread that you'd prefer games that are quicker to play. So in this WOTM you're playing Victoria on a tiny map.

In real life, Queen Victoria reigned over an empire that spanned the world. Can you do the same? Admittedly, these map settings mean it should be less work than it was for the real 19th century British forces. But you never know what foes might be lurking out there...

Game settings:
Playing as: Victoria of England
Rivals: 3 AIs
Difficulty: Noble
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No barbarians, no goody huts
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Modified snaky continents
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Tiny
Climate: Tropical
Sea level: Medium

Victoria is Imperialistic and Financial, and you start with Fishing and Mining.

The Imperialistic trait gives +100% great general emergence and +50% production of settlers

The Financial trait gives +1 commerce on any plot that already has at least 2 commerce

Unique unit: Redcoat (replaces Rifleman)
The Redcoat benefits from: 25% combat bonus against mounted units, 25% combat bonus against gun units. This compares with the Rifleman which has: 25% combat bonus against mounted units.

Unique Building: Stock Exchange (replaces Bank)
Where the bank gives +50% gold in its city, the stock exchange gives you an astonishing 65%. But will you have already won before you have a chance to build any?

Starting screenshot

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




There is no adventurer or challenger save for this game.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 22 Oct 2015, server local time (UTC-6:00). From that date and time, you'll be able to get your chosen starting save >>>here<<<.

Submit the save after your victory (or defeat) here, by 6 Dec 2015.

Here is a link to a list of the differences between Vanilla, Warlords and BtS.

Software Versions

Windows: This game MUST be played in Warlords (NOT Civ4 Vanilla or Beyond the Sword), patched to version 2.13, and with the HOF mod version 2.13.003 installed. You can download the HOF mod here. Players using Windows Vista or Windows 7 are encouraged to read the notes on Vista fixes here.

If you have not installed BtS, you will need to update the relevant DLL files in order to match the Locked Assets checks. These are available here.**

Macintosh: This game MUST be played in Warlords (NOT Civ4 Vanilla or Beyond the Sword), patched to version 2.13, and with the Mac HOF mod version 2.13.001 installed. You can download the Mac 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 your game outside those threads.

I just finished the latest BOTM, which was a noble stomp as well. I shouldn't get too used to this, or I'll forget how to play on higher difficulties!

I'm thinking I'll settle 1NE. Keeps the fish and corn, and gains two hills for an otherwise low production capitol, that is unless the two fogged southern tiles are ph (can't tell from screenshot, will have to wait for save) or copper/iron/horses/cows. I don't mind losing the fresh water on noble with two resources in the capitol's bfc.

Playing a Fin leader with a coastal start on noble with snaky continents has me thinking of building the oracle for MC and building the GLH, Colossus, and Moai in the capitol. That is assuming that we will require astro to reach all of the ai civs and the game won't be ridiculously short. I might go for space or diplo just to mix it up.

I don't think 1NE gets you much. Pretty sure there are 2 hills to the south. Only thing that happens is you lose a forest and fresh water with really no gains of note. Only reason I would move here is if the warrior presents me with some interesting options to move the cap inland, saving the fish site for a later city.

If SIP here, I might leave the forests around until Math and try to get more forest growth around as well. Plenty of production from the food there.

Tiny map and 1.5 months to play! I will certainly give it a go.

Plan to SIP. The imperialistic trait means fast REX so I will focus on getting techs that will support this expansion financially (Pottery, Currency, CoL).

Anyone know the size of a tiny map?

Frederiksberg said:

Anyone know the size of a tiny map?

Click to expand...

This map is 52 squares wide by 32 squares high. (Sounds a lot, but bear in mind that a snaky continents map is likely to be mainly water).

MeowZeDung said:

Moai in the capitol.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, Warlords doesn't have the Moai Statues National Wonder.

On the plus side, Warlords also doesn't have Levees, which takes away part of the importance of settling on Rivers.

Settling 1NE does take away 2 Ocean squares, which miss out on the bonus Financial Commerce if one obsoletes or doesn't own The Colossus.

1NE gives the capital 5 big fat cross Forests instead of 3 from settling in place, and allows for some extra 24-Hammer Forest Chops.

ASSUMING that 2S and SE + S of the Settler are squares that do not have Resources, 1NE may be the slightly stronger long-term capital, especially for a later-victory game where you'll want to chop out Oxford.


Starting with Fishing and Mining, plus a nearby Corn Resource, and the lack of a Hammer-heavy square nearby opens up the interesting possibility of teching Bronze Working while working the Corn square and building a Warrior (or other non-Worker, non-Settler build item) to grow to City Size 2, starting to build a Worker upon reaching Size 2, and then whipping the Worker once we have 30 Hammers invested into it.

Building a Worker straight off takes:
4 Hammers per turn * 15 turns = 60 Hammers to get our Worker

It takes 11 turns to tech Bronze Working on Noble when working the G Riv Corn
It takes 8 turns to grow to Size 2 (with 2 surplus Food)
At Size 2, we will make 5 Hammers per turn instead of 4 Hammers per turn to build a Worker, so 6 turns * 5 Hammers = 30 Hammers into a Worker
1 turn for Slavery
8 + 6 + 1 = 15 turns to get our Worker, but we'll be ahead by 2 Food and we'll already be in Slavery, so we've saved a turn of Anarchy, assuming that you would have otherwise switched into Slavery (which you normally should do, unless you are playing some meta game where you role-play your Civ as being against Slavery)


But, let's see if we can improve upon that result.

Let's start off with teching Bronze Working while building a Work Boat, due to starting off with Fishing.

We work the G Riv Corn for 6 turns to get 6 turns * 3 Food = 18 Food
We then switch to working the Fish on the 7th turn (Turn 6 if you could Turn 0 as the first turn and you settled in place, otherwise Turn 7 if you moved your capital--our Cultural Borders will have expanded after 5 turns, so either scenario will allow us to work the Fish)
Working the Fish earns us Financial Commerce, so we save a turn on researching Bronze Working
We then earn 2 turns * 2 Food = the remaining 4 Food needed to grow to Size 2 at 22 Food
But, it turns out that at Size 2 working the Corn + Fish won't get us a second turn faster to Bronze Working, and, indeed, working a Corn + a G For at Size 2 will still maintain our saved turn on Bronze Working... therefore... we can instead just more lazily (it's easier to remember) keep working the Corn until we grow to Size 2 just remember to work the Fish at Size 2 (instead of the City Governor's brilliant assignment of a G For with the second citizen), which will give us enough Commerce to still save that turn on Bronze Working, taking 2 Food instead of 4 Commerce, since we probably care more about Food and getting our capital set up once Bronze Working is in

So, we reach Size 2 on Turn 8 with 2 turns to go on Bronze Working
We reach Bronze Working on Turn 10 and revolt into Anarchy
On Turn 11, we will be in Slavery and can immediately whip our Work Boat
We then have 8 / 22 Food and 40 / 30 Hammers
We then dump a turn of Hammers into a Worker... if we moved our capital, we won't miss out on a turn of growth this way and we'll capture the Hammer overflow into a Worker... or, maybe even boldly go for a Settler instead of a Worker, since we're imperalistic and we only need 100 - 45 = 55 Hammers in a Settler before it can be 1-pop-whipped, and we won't have Agriculture yet, so possibly a Settler makes sense if our Warrior has mapped out a good City location... though, a Worker could be the way to go so that we can then put an Imperialistic Chop into a Settler, by which time Agriculture should be in and then we can send the Worker to Farm the Corn

After that, switch to working another Warrior while growing quickly to Size 2 and then plan to 1-pop-whip that Settler or that Worker, then repeat the process of regrowing to Size 2 or Size 3 and 1-pop-whip the other one out of a Settler or a Worker that we hadn't done previously.

I'm also planning to go BW first. As a general rule it's always best to whip workers and settlers and this is even more true if there are hammer multipliers (from imperialistic trait) or food multipliers (from granary). I will probably build a WB until size 2 then switch to worker, whip when possible and then finish WB. Should be close to optimal start from a REX perspective. Building a second warrior before WB will, on the other hand, give more early scouting info and you could go this way also.

Spoiler threads are now up!

Not sure if this is the exact place for this, but as this GOM is what I'm trying to submit, I'll ask here.....I installed the Civ Complete in order to get Warlords. Problem is, unlike my others vanilla and BTS, there are no Saves folders, within the Warlords folder. Or, the vanilla Civ folder. Been searching for this, even before I started this game, but still no idea. So, done now, but no clue where to find the file to submit. I've Googled this, and gotten nowhere, as well. Anyone?

billybgame said:

Not sure if this is the exact place for this, but as this GOM is what I'm trying to submit, I'll ask here.....I installed the Civ Complete in order to get Warlords. Problem is, unlike my others vanilla and BTS, there are no Saves folders, within the Warlords folder. Or, the vanilla Civ folder. Been searching for this, even before I started this game, but still no idea. So, done now, but no clue where to find the file to submit. I've Googled this, and gotten nowhere, as well. Anyone?

Click to expand...

Check under Libraries/Documents/My Games (depending on what version of Windows you have, the path may be a little different but it should be something like that. Or if you're still stuck, run Civ. Tell it to load a game, and then look carefully at the choice of files it offers you to see what the folder path to them is - it'll be displayed somewhere in the dialog.

DynamicSpirit said:

Check under Libraries/Documents/My Games (depending on what version of Windows you have, the path may be a little different but it should be something like that. Or if you're still stuck, run Civ. Tell it to load a game, and then look carefully at the choice of files it offers you to see what the folder path to them is - it'll be displayed somewhere in the dialog.

Click to expand...

hmm....ok...thanks, that's where it was.....as opposed to where my other games had their Saves files.....I'll try to remember that, the next time I play a WOTM....which could be lord knows when!

billybgame said:

Not sure if this is the exact place for this, but as this GOM is what I'm trying to submit, I'll ask here.....I installed the Civ Complete in order to get Warlords.

Click to expand...

Did you get the Steam version of Civ4 Complete? If so, did you have any difficulty getting it to work with HoF mod?

Sorry...didn't realize you asked this...no....boxed version