[BTS] News: BOTM 149: Humbaba!! - starts 16 Feb

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 149: Humbaba of Khmer.

Yes! Humbaba is back! But this time, he is not your enemy. After months of secret negotiations followed up by complicated PFI agreements to implement the deal[*] and sacrificial pillaging of various opponents, you and Humbaba have agreed to work together for victory! Humbaba, who has come to Earth manifested as an artillery unit, will be working with you to build an empire to stand the test of time, and whether you can manage to finish the game and submit.

Just as well you have Humbaba with you, as the good mapmaker Dynamicus Spiritus mysteriously forgot to give you a settler this time round.

Humbaba has brought along a couple of helpers - his scouts, four loyal panthers, and his personal bodyguard - two swordsmen. All stand at your service. And hey, looking at the starting screenshot, it seems that one of the panthers has already discovered an AI settler and entourage! The panthers have also heard from the other animals rumours of human beings further south, but much further away than the group on the starting map.

Oh, and this time, because the Great Mapmaker was feeling kind, He has provided adventurer and challenger saves. Actually, maybe that's why He forgot to provide a settler. Got too distracted playing with the different saves.

[*] Sorry kcd_swede, it seems Humbaba's staff didn't get round to passing the message to you.

Game settings:
Playing as: Humbaba of Khmer
Rivals: 7 AIs
Difficulty: Immortal
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Continents
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: Medium


Humbaba is Expansive and Creative, and you start with Hunting and Mining.

The Expansive trait gives +2 health/city and +25% hammers for worker production and double production speed of Granary and Harbor

The Creative trait gives +2 culture/city each turn and double production speed of Colosseum, Library and Theatre

Unique unit: Ballista Elephant (replaces War Elephant)
The Ballista Elephant has identical stats to the War Elephant, but features the oddity that it targets mounted units first when attacking stacks outside cities. That can strengthen your hand a little when facing mixed AI stacks.

Unique Building: Baray (replaces Aqueduct)
Besides the +2 health of the aquaduct, the baray gives +1 food, meaning the city will grow a bit quicker.

Starting screenshot

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




Note that in this game, any espionage-culture victories will be counted as cultural victories.

Adventurer Class bonuses:
You play on monarch level (but the AI still starts with immortal level starting units)

Challenger Class Equalizers:
You play on deity level (but the AI still starts with immortal level starting units). Also, when your final game score is calculated, it's done as if it was an immortal game: You don't get the extra points that the game would normally give you for playing a higher difficulty.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 16 Feb 2018, 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 16 Mar 2018.

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

Software Versions

Windows: This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Civ4 Vanilla or Warlords), patched to version 3.19, and with the BUFFY mod version 3.19.003 installed. You can download the BUFFY mod here. Players using Windows Vista or Windows 7 are encouraged to read the notes on Vista fixes here.


Macintosh: This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Civ4 Vanilla or Warlords), patched to version 3.19, and with the Mac BUFFY mod version 3.19.003 installed. You can download the Mac BUFFY 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.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Challenger and adventurer

It's a little while since we've had challenger and adventurer saves, so it may be good to remind people what they mean: When you download, you get to choose which save you want.

The contender map is the normal: It's the default that most people will play on. For this game, an immortal level game.
The adventurer is for anyone who wants to play but feels that contender is too hard to be much fun, or who wants an easier game. You play and submit as normal, but if you played the adventurer game, because you had an easier time of it, you won't be eligible for any awards or medals. Your victory (or defeat) will be listed in the results along with everyone else's, but the medals/awards will always go to the best contender or challenger games.
The challenger map is for anyone who wants a real challenge. In this case, it's for those few players who only really like playing on deity. You know who you are Your game is harder, and when the results are published, everyone can see you played a more difficult game, but you get no other benefits.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Some extra info about panthers you may not know...

Panthers have 2 movement points, just like scouts. However, they have a few restrictions: They cannot enter a tile that has another unit on it (even if it's your own unit), unless it's to attack that unit. They can't enter cultural borders (not even your own culture). In particular, it means they can't attack any enemy units that are inside the enemy's borders. They can't move onto any tile that has a resource on it. And as far as I could tell from my testing, they also can't get into boats (well, at least, I couldn't find a way to do it).

These restrictions don't apply the other way round. For example, you can still move another unit onto a tile that your panther is already occupying. So if you want to move a panther along with some other units, you'll always have to move the panther first. Also, your panthers will stay put if your culture expands to envelop them, and you can leave them there as long as you want. They just can't then move onto another tile that is already in your borders.

Apart from color the black panther is believed to be less fertile than normal-colored big cats and also much more unpredictable and aggressive. source.

The panthers can attack enemy units just like any other unit. However, they cannot receive promotions, and from my play-testing, they seem to have quite low odds of survival - even against barbarian animals. There's clearly some weighting against them in combat, but I couldn't figure out what. Barbarian animals will still attack them, by the way, so be careful with them - since you can't bring them into your cultural borders to heal. My guess is that you'll struggle to keep them alive for long once barbarians are out in force, so use them wisely while you can.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Beware...

This game is harder than you might think (which is partly why I provided the adventurer save). You have Humbaba, but it's going to be at least 10-11 turns before you are able to get a city - and that's 10-11 turns of development that the AI has over you. You might think that you can use Humbaba to take out AIs, and you can if you want. BUT.... When I test-played and tried capturing AI cities as soon as I could, after the 2nd city, I was only able to support 50% science. After the 3rd city I was on 0% science (I was paying for unit upkeep too though - you start with a lot of units!). So, think carefully about when to attack, and how far away from your capital you're willing to capture cities.

I haven't tile-counted, but from eyeballing the map, I feel reasonably certain that you can't get domination without finding the other continent.

And do be careful how you use Humbaba and those swordsmen... You might find that, even against archers, you need to spend several turns of Humbaba battering city defences before you can be confident of capturing the city. I really don't want to be reading spoiler reports that say 'I lost the artillery unit and the swordsmen in 3000 BC. There was no point going on after that so I quit'

 

[babybluepants]

This should be fun!

 

[Deckhand]

Seems one of the map makers does some playtesting.

Can you tell us more about the game without settler?
Do we lose conquest on year 1 because we don't have a city?
Do our units go on strike and disappear because we have no income?
If we capture London at size 1, does it self-raze?
What starting units do immortal AI have?

I didn't know all that information about Panthers. Also, they can move thru forest/jungle, can't they?
And your link says they like to swim. Maybe that's whey they won't go in the boats.

 

[Fippy]

This should be great, merci for the deity save too

Some replies for Deckhand, the game lets us play on without a settler (tested with deleting them on regular starts).
All cities that never reached size 2 are auto-razed, if London would build a worker or settler first then i think we are in big trouble.
Immortal AIs start with 3 Archers, 2 scouts, 1 worker & settler.

Strike does not happen while we have no city, after that checking the $ advisor will be needed (for unit cost) and maybe some poor Panthers should be deleted

And for fun, my test game start..would take me forever finding something like that in HoF games..!

Spoiler :

 

[Deckhand]

thanks for the answers

so, you got that start and immediately deleted the setter! I would settle W,NW to get (cows and) a lighthouse for the lake.

 

[Pangaea]

Starting 'spot' looks exceedingly gorgeous. Double gold, floodplains, wet rice, and a sparkly river. Wish we could settle there. Later, eh? No chance we can put two panthers on the same tile and 'create' a settler? Humbab-ies.

if London would build a worker or settler first then i think we are in big trouble.

Indeed, my first thought too. Hopefully she doesn't, but it can certainly happen.

Probably bound to lose everything by 3000BC. Otherwise... Hard Brexit coming up.

 

[High King J.J.]

I really don't want to be reading spoiler reports that say 'I lost the artillery unit and the swordsmen in 3000 BC. There was no point going on after that so I quit'

Ok. I won't be posting any spoilers then.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

To add to Fippy's answers:

Seems one of the map makers does some playtesting.

Can you tell us more about the game without settler?
Do we lose conquest on year 1 because we don't have a city?

Yes, that's right. That's why I said this game was harder than it looks.

Seems one of the map makers does some Do our units go on strike and disappear because we have no income?
If we capture London at size 1, does it self-raze?
What starting units do immortal AI have?

I didn't know all that information about Panthers. Also, they can move thru forest/jungle, can't they?
And your link says they like to swim. Maybe that's whey they won't go in the boats.

I've tried the game with quite a few different combinations and never seen the city auto-raze. Possibly the fact that by the time you get to it, it'll have already culture-popped because of the palace makes a difference?

I don't think it's likely that the AI will build a worker first when at immortal level it already starts with one. But if you want to encourage it to build defensive units first, you could always declare war on your first turn, before the city is even founded. After all, it's not like you have any cities you can lose

Ok. I won't be posting any spoilers then.

Ha ha!

 

[Pangaea]

I've tried the game with quite a few different combinations and never seen the city auto-raze. Possibly the fact that by the time you get to it, it'll have already culture-popped because of the palace makes a difference?

This has no bearing on it, unfortunately. What matters is if the city has ever been size 2. So if the AI happens to start on a settler right away, something Immortal AIs can certainly do, we'd be in a rather tight spot. Did you see this while testing the map? Presumably you checked out World Builder to see what the AIs were building. At least that's what I did to see what happened in the game I submitted some time ago. Can actually be quite interesting to see what the AIs are up to.

With the panther there upon settlement (it won't be booted out automatically, from what I gather from your posts?), we should be able to keep some control over what the AI is building from the espionage screen. If it's something expensive, without growth, from the get to...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Well, if there is concern and people want to be sure the city won't self-raise.... If people want, I could modify the starting save by pre-settling the English capital as a size-2 city. However, it will probably mean pushing the game release date back a day.

Would people prefer that?

I could also give the English a couple of modern armour to defend themselves with.

 

[Deckhand]

Well, if there is concern and people want to be sure the city won't self-raise.... If people want, I could modify the starting save by pre-settling the English capital as a size-2 city. However, it will probably mean pushing the game release date back a day.

Would people prefer that?

No.

I could also give the English a couple of modern armour to defend themselves with.

This is the better option as it frees up quite a lot of our spare time. Ten minutes instead of thirty hours for this game.

 

[Pangaea]

Would probably say "No" too, although it would be very bad news if this English leader (can you say which?) starts on a settler on T0. Depending on resources and techs available (improvements), that will take ~20 turns, then X more for the city to grow.

I checked a few quick tests now with all English leaders plus some others. Mostly they start on an archer (or workboat if coastal with food), but it's not that rare to start on a settler either, so it can happen.

A very interesting game concept; just be aware that roll of the dice can give people wildly different starting positions. Archer vs Settler, and losing (or even heavily damaging) one or both swords when attacking at 95% or whatever. Heck, even Humbaba could lose at 99.9%.

 

[High King J.J.]

Panthers have 2 movement points, just like scouts. However, they have a few restrictions: They cannot enter a tile that has another unit on it (even if it's your own unit), unless it's to attack that unit. They can't enter cultural borders (not even your own culture). In particular, it means they can't attack any enemy units that are inside the enemy's borders. They can't move onto any tile that has a resource on it.

Does this apply only to revealed resources? Can a panther move on a tile that has coal or aluminium there, so far unknown and unguessed? Does this apply to all kinds of resources or just strategic ones? I guess all kinds so that the panthers won't eat all the game, cows, sheep, pigs, elephants and horses. Or mine our gold and eat the rice and fish.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

OK so based on those responses, the game will continue as announced.

Does this apply only to revealed resources? Can a panther move on a tile that has coal or aluminium there, so far unknown and unguessed? Does this apply to all kinds of resources or just strategic ones? I guess all kinds so that the panthers won't eat all the game, cows, sheep, pigs, elephants and horses. Or mine our gold and eat the rice and fish.

Good question. The panther cannot move onto any resource, even if it's a resource that you can't yet see (like copper, or horses, or coal). As far as I could tell when testing, this applies to all resources.

 

[Fippy]

If not mistaken, we can find out fast what London builds via Espio screen and sabotage production.
Also there might be other AIs around.

edit: or maybe not, without a city lol

 

[Pangaea]

If not mistaken, we can find out fast what London builds via Espio screen and sabotage production.
Also there might be other AIs around.

edit: or maybe not, without a city lol

Oh, does this not work without a city? There goes my early-warning out the window.

 

[Fippy]

Looks like it can work, numbers are just very high (300-400 on first turn)
Would have to test.