[BTS] News: BOTM 251 Zulu, Immortal - Starts June 15, 2023

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 251: Shaka of Zululand.

Zulu, fractal, randomized map script. Only map modification is addition of 4 land tiles. Just trying to get the game going quickly so everyone can have some summer fun!

Game settings:
Playing as: Shaka of Zululand
Rivals: 5 AIs
Difficulty: Immortal
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Fractal, all other mapscript settings at "Random"
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Small
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: High
Map latitudes: -90°S to 90°N


Shaka is Aggressive and Expansive, and you start with Agriculture and Hunting.

The Aggressive trait gives free Combat I promotion for melee and gunpowder units and double production speed of Barracks and Drydock

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

Unique unit: Impi (replaces Spearman)
The impi is a super-fast mover: It has 2 movement points, and starts with the mobility promotion, giving -1 terrain movement cost - which means it keeps the fast movement over most forest, jungle and hills (but not forested or jungled hills).

Unique Building: Ikhanda (replaces Barracks)
Not just a mere barracks, the ikhanda acts like a mini-courthouse, reducing city maintenance by 20%. However it costs more to build - 60 hammers against 50 for the plain barracks.

Starting screenshot

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



Adventurer Class bonuses:
No Adventurer class

Challenger Class Equalizers:
You play at Deity level but all units are unchanged from the Immortal level.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 15 Jun 2023, 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 15 Jul 2023.

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 3.19.005 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.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Thanks for the game @kcd_swede ! And it's a small map!!

I will settle on the plains hill with 90% certainty, but will move scout south first to have a look. The starting techs are not the best match for crab and gold.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Thank you, kcd!! Oh dear--BOTM252 ends on June 12, which means we would be entirely and tragically without any BOTM for a few days. Perhaps the June 15 start date for 253 could, you know, be bumped up a bit? Perhaps to, like, NOW?

 

[mscellaneous]

Thanks for the game! Small map, high sea level plus 5AIs might lead to a crowded map. I might settle on the gold

 

[kcd_swede]

Thank you, kcd!! Oh dear--BOTM252 ends on June 12, which means we would be entirely and tragically without any BOTM for a few days. Perhaps the June 15 start date for 253 could, you know, be bumped up a bit? Perhaps to, like, NOW?

Perhaps you could spend the time making a test game based on the visible tiles to optimize your opening.

 

[luvencedus]

Perhaps you could spend the time making a test game based on the visible tiles to optimize your opening.

That is what I am trying to do now, and it's not going well on immortal
For proper starting base it requires to have 5 techs (to have bronze working, pottery and fishing) and it's hard to prioritize. 5 AIs are blocking me around with their cities very soon.
Hope there is copper somewhere near to train Impis early, if not there will be nightmare

 

[Frederiksberg]

Good points about the crowded map. If there are food resources to the south, it certainly could make sense to move inland and grab more space. Don't settle on the gold though, you are going to need the commerce from the gold mine.

 

[High King J.J.]

No time to finish the previous Botm and with immortal level no chance to survive this one. At least you didn't insult us by providing an adventurer save, after all who isn't going to take the challenger and play at deity level, right?
The mapmaker's definition of fun may differ from the players'. I hate maps where I am forced to fight against superior enemies at an early date when they have all the advantages.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

That is what I am trying to do now, and it's not going well on immortal
For proper starting base it requires to have 5 techs (to have bronze working, pottery and fishing) and it's hard to prioritize. 5 AIs are blocking me around with their cities very soon.
Hope there is copper somewhere near to train Impis early, if not there will be nightmare

I'd be tempted to settle on the plains hill 1W: Gives faster production and the chance for some food resources in the unseen tiles to the West. If there are no extra food resources then maybe, go fishing. Start with a worker and swap to workboat as soon as you have fishing. Once your borders pop, you have 4H/turn for the workboat so you'll get it quickly, and then you have a 4F2C tile to help grow and research. Or alternatively consider heading for mining and complete the worker first (6H/turn with expansive once your borders pop so you'll get the worker pretty quickly), and have him mine the gold to quickly research whatever else you need (consider building a workboat using the mined gold). The only snag with that approach is as long as you're working the gold, your capital isn't growing, so you can't do that for long.

 

[kcd_swede]

No time to finish the previous Botm and with immortal level no chance to survive this one. At least you didn't insult us by providing an adventurer save, after all who isn't going to take the challenger and play at deity level, right?
The mapmaker's definition of fun may differ from the players'. I hate maps where I am forced to fight against superior enemies at an early date when they have all the advantages.

Don't sell yourself short. On a small crowded map, Immortal level is no tougher than Emperor level. And the mapmaker swears the only map change from an entirely random mapscript was to put 4 more land tiles than the RNG gods gave you. Humbaba stuff takes a whole 'nother level of mischief, and for sake of time, Humbaba remains in the underworld. Give it a try... I will give extra award for anyone who beats the mapmaker, even though I know the basic outline of the map I will probably be slow, if I win at all.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Seems like settling on the PH and building worker first is best. A rather unimaginative opening sequence but sometimes it's better to stay in the box and not wander too far outside of it with your thoughts . In the starting screenshot it looks like there is more ocean to the south-east so the probability of spotting a juicy corn tile with the scout is not high.

 

[mscellaneous]

Good points about the crowded map. If there are food resources to the south, it certainly could make sense to move inland and grab more space. Don't settle on the gold though, you are going to need the commerce from the gold mine.

There are plenty of river tiles for early commerce, so I am not too worried about losing a gold mine. Especially if it secures me at least 2 decent city spots on a (possibly) crowded map.

Seems like settling on the PH and building worker first is best.

If there no farmable resources on the fogged tiles W of the settler then your worker will be farming the FP only before mining the gold. Until both Crabs come online it is not a great capital for early expansion. Getting the 2 Crabs up will take a while, plus at least 2 or 3 forests possibly have to go into workboats instead of settlers / workers.

My main reason NOT to settle on the PH: you do not start with Fishing, thus probably building a warrior and grow to size 2. Further, I do not see 3H tiles to help you build workboats, this will be very slow until you research BW.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Good discussion. Several options to test out for those so inclined. Farming fps is 7 turns of . Do you even want a farmed fp rather than cottage? Working the (river!) gold gets you the crabs in 6t. Interesting dilemma. Wkr has to do something till BW.

Settling in place appears to give a couple more river cottages if you want to cottage the capital like crazy.

Might be one or two more flood plain tiles to the west.

Then there is the alternative of focusing on work boats and a warrior to begin with, if the map is crowded, and stealing the first worker. That might get the first settler built fastest.

Tidbit: At pop4, Working 2 crabs + 1f2h + 3f1c = 11food-hammers per turn. 22 h in a 2whipped wkr is max overflow into your settler. (leveraging the expansionist trait.)

 

[Fine_Distinction]

A lot depends on whether we get a strategic resource and if so, which one? Mapmakers comment about possibly not being able to win at all makes me worried ...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Thank you for putting this one together, kcd_swede!


Barbs are enabled and thus I would recommend keeping the Scout close to home for any Unit's 2-square-radius, Barbarian-spawn-busting ability.

What good is it to meet an AI early who might just decide to plot war against us? An AI cannot plot a war on a player that it has not met.

Meeting AIs later also makes diplomacy easier, as there will be less turns where we weren't being nice to an AI if we had not yet met that AI. AIs start counting from the turn that we met them as to whether we've been nice to them, or not. It's harder to be nice in the early game when we have not unlocked Open Borders, a Trade Network for Resource trades, or Tech trades.


Note that we have cheap Granaries and cheap Ikhandas, both of them initially costing us 30 Hammers, each.


Consider a Bronze-Working-beeline. Here's how I would propose doing it:
Complete a Worker, first. Farm the Flood Plains or else Farm an uncovered Food Resource. Only then build the Mine (a Gold Mine or a different Mine if we choose to settle on the Gold).

After the Worker, build 2 Warriors. Anything else can be built (or, more likely, partially built) on our way to City Size 3.

Keep the Scout nearby and use the Scout plus the 2 Warriors to spawn-bust the area, maximizing our chances of being able to peacefully settle 2 additional Cities.

Assume that there won't be any Worker-stealing happening and thus at City Size 3, build a second Worker! You will thank me, later!

Aim to have a Worker arrive on a Forest on the turn before completing Research on Bronze Working.

After researching Bronze Working, research Fishing, but put the first 2 Forest Chops into a Settler.

After researching Fishing, the first Work Boat can be quickly Whipped. The second Work Boat can be built more slowly, as we won't have a lot of Happiness to work with from the Difficulty Level plus some early Whipping, even with the +1 Happiness from the Gold Resource if we settle on the same River as the Gold (note that we would also be on the "same" River as the Gold if we chose to settle on top of the Gold ).

Try to settle City 2 near Copper, but lacking Copper, settle strategically.

One approach would be to settle to block off some land if there are AIs nearby. Another approach could be to settle close with some squares overlapping with the capital's big fat cross, to save on Maintenance Costs, to get Trade Routes up earlier, and possibly to share a Crab Resource if there aren't other good Resources nearby and if there isn't a threat of AIs stealing other future City locations.

The Wheel plus Pottery come next, for Trade Routes, for hopefully connecting-up Copper, and for cheap Granaries.


A Flood Plains square can be later Cottaged, if you have such a fetish, while still building an early Farm on top of it, first. Building the second Worker early on gives us extra flexibility with Worker turns. The early +1 Food from the Flood Plains square, again assuming no Agriculture Food Resources being revealed, will be worth the invested Worker turns.


Even without beelining Bronze Working, I'd build Worker-first over Warrior-first no matter what our other opening moves are.

If we choose to go for Fishing first, building a partial Warrior and then a Work Boat will give us quite a slow start. It really hurts not to have any Worker turns for a long period of time. I'd instead suggest finishing the Worker and then building a Work Boat, as the Worker can already start paying for itself quite quickly. With extra Hammers from settling on a Plains Hills square and from any turn where we can earn at least 4 raw Hammers, the Worker will arrive faster than its typical 15 turns. How many turns until the first Work Boat could be completed? Probably more turns than it would take to complete the Worker, and the benefit of the Worker is that it keeps improving the land over time, while the Work Boat's Hammers can only contribute to improving 1 square. Rushing to get a Netted Crab just to have a Food Resource for a citizen to work while building a Worker might help on some maps, but it isn't that great of a play on a map like this one where we have the Expansive Trait (the Crab's Food does not get a Hammer bonus), where we have a City Centre Plains Hills square to shorten the Worker's build time, and where we don't start with Fishing.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Following @Dhoomstriker's advice will certainly get you a solid start. I will do something very similar.

@mscellaneous, I think we agree that the starting techs are not a good match for the nearby resources, but what can you do? Unless the scout finds an agricultural resource to the south. But I suspect the ocean is also to the south.

 

[mscellaneous]

@mscellaneous, I think we agree that the starting techs are not a good match for the nearby resources, but what can you do? Unless the scout finds an agricultural resource to the south. But I suspect the ocean is also to the south.

I agree it is not straightforward to find the optimal start here. Settling the PH and build workboats seems a good start. I am not convinced, however, that it is the optimal start. I'll be scouting with the settler (SW) and scout(either SW or SE, SW) and then decide.

With regard to our location on the map, there are snowy trees NE of the settler. This leads me to think we are (far) north and I expect there is more land to the south and west, unless we are on an island on an Archipelago map. EDIT: fractal map

 

[LowtherCastle]

Did some testing. The optimal start is not obvious. Edit: by that I’m not saying I found it and it’s not obvious. I mean it’s not obvious and I’m still testing…

 

[LowtherCastle]

Thank you for putting this one together, kcd_swede!


Barbs are enabled and thus I would recommend keeping the Scout close to home for any Unit's 2-square-radius, Barbarian-spawn-busting ability.

What good is it to meet an AI early who might just decide to plot war against us? An AI cannot plot a war on a player that it has not met.

Meeting AIs later also makes diplomacy easier, as there will be less turns where we weren't being nice to an AI if we had not yet met that AI. AIs start counting from the turn that we met them as to whether we've been nice to them, or not. It's harder to be nice in the early game when we have not unlocked Open Borders, a Trade Network for Resource trades, or Tech trades.


Note that we have cheap Granaries and cheap Ikhandas, both of them initially costing us 30 Hammers, each.


Consider a Bronze-Working-beeline. Here's how I would propose doing it:
Complete a Worker, first. Farm the Flood Plains or else Farm an uncovered Food Resource. Only then build the Mine (a Gold Mine or a different Mine if we choose to settle on the Gold).

After the Worker, build 2 Warriors. Anything else can be built (or, more likely, partially built) on our way to City Size 3.

Keep the Scout nearby and use the Scout plus the 2 Warriors to spawn-bust the area, maximizing our chances of being able to peacefully settle 2 additional Cities.

Assume that there won't be any Worker-stealing happening and thus at City Size 3, build a second Worker! You will thank me, later!

Aim to have a Worker arrive on a Forest on the turn before completing Research on Bronze Working.

After researching Bronze Working, research Fishing, but put the first 2 Forest Chops into a Settler.

After researching Fishing, the first Work Boat can be quickly Whipped. The second Work Boat can be built more slowly, as we won't have a lot of Happiness to work with from the Difficulty Level plus some early Whipping, even with the +1 Happiness from the Gold Resource if we settle on the same River as the Gold (note that we would also be on the "same" River as the Gold if we chose to settle on top of the Gold ).

Try to settle City 2 near Copper, but lacking Copper, settle strategically.

One approach would be to settle to block off some land if there are AIs nearby. Another approach could be to settle close with some squares overlapping with the capital's big fat cross, to save on Maintenance Costs, to get Trade Routes up earlier, and possibly to share a Crab Resource if there aren't other good Resources nearby and if there isn't a threat of AIs stealing other future City locations.

The Wheel plus Pottery come next, for Trade Routes, for hopefully connecting-up Copper, and for cheap Granaries.


A Flood Plains square can be later Cottaged, if you have such a fetish, while still building an early Farm on top of it, first. Building the second Worker early on gives us extra flexibility with Worker turns. The early +1 Food from the Flood Plains square, again assuming no Agriculture Food Resources being revealed, will be worth the invested Worker turns.


Even without beelining Bronze Working, I'd build Worker-first over Warrior-first no matter what our other opening moves are.

If we choose to go for Fishing first, building a partial Warrior and then a Work Boat will give us quite a slow start. It really hurts not to have any Worker turns for a long period of time. I'd instead suggest finishing the Worker and then building a Work Boat, as the Worker can already start paying for itself quite quickly. With extra Hammers from settling on a Plains Hills square and from any turn where we can earn at least 4 raw Hammers, the Worker will arrive faster than its typical 15 turns. How many turns until the first Work Boat could be completed? Probably more turns than it would take to complete the Worker, and the benefit of the Worker is that it keeps improving the land over time, while the Work Boat's Hammers can only contribute to improving 1 square. Rushing to get a Netted Crab just to have a Food Resource for a citizen to work while building a Worker might help on some maps, but it isn't that great of a play on a map like this one where we have the Expansive Trait (the Crab's Food does not get a Hammer bonus), where we have a City Centre Plains Hills square to shorten the Worker's build time, and where we don't start with Fishing.

Settling near copper or to block off an AI may require some scouting, which conflicts with keeping the scout near home. Better might be to use the warrior(s) to spawnbust the nearby territory.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I also did some testing but location of a strategic resource or presence of more food on nearby tiles changes the results so dramatically so that I got discouraged from testing more before being able to do 1-2 turns of scouting . It does seem to be potentially crowded map and that we can be sc****d without copper nearby.