[BTS] News: BOTM 265, Genghis Khan, Monarch, starts January 10

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 265: Genghis Khan of Mongolia.

You begin isolated on an island in an inland sea, and will be always at war with every civilization you meet. Maybe you can spread your DNA as widely as the original Genghis Khan? Good luck and have fun!

Game settings:
Playing as: Genghis Khan of Mongolia
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Monarch
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: Always war, no vassal states, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Inland Sea
World Wrap: None
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: High
Map latitudes: -60°S to 60°N


Genghis Khan is Aggressive and Imperialistic, and you start with The Wheel and Hunting.

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

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

Unique unit: Keshik (replaces Horse Archer)
The much-feared keshik can travel very fast, since it ignores terrain movement costs. It also has a first strike, which the horse-archer lacks, but on the other hand it doesn't have the horse-archer's immunity to first strikes.

Unique Building: Ger (replaces Stable)
The ger is a super-charged stable: It gives +4XP instead of +2XP to mounted units. As if keshiks weren't scary enough already!

Starting screenshot

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




Adventurer Class bonuses:
Always war is too difficult or tedious for you, so Adventurers will play the same game without the Always War setting.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
Monarch level is not challenging enough for you, even with the Always War setting, so you play the same game with Always War at Immortal difficulty level, though AI start with Monarch level units.
To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 10 Jan 2024, 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 10 Feb 2024.

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.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Thanks for the new game, kcd! But, oh dear, what have you done to us with this start? I'd guess you've put us on a peninsula sticking into the inland sea in order to give us a bit of protection/isolation from the neighbors, but the gold will effectively be impossible to access until Sailing (and even then hard to defend unless it's on an island); our starting position plains hill has no food; the corn region to the SE has food and would block off more land early on (assuming that the peninsula connects to the mainland on the south) but very little production. I guess I'd send the scout 2W and then settle SE (or S?) of the corn and hope I can expand to more cities before the mean AI find me? Or would 1N of the eastern corn be better to start, even with its paucity of hills and initially knowing much less about its surroundings? Maybe a turn or two of exploring before settling is warranted? Immortal Always-War scares me with this start so I'll stick with Monarch, thanks very much. Then again, a standard-size map is pretty big so probably there's enough room to establish ourselves before venturing into the wider world. Gah! I guess send the settler to the SE corn to look around.

"You begin isolated on an island in an inland sea": Yeah, that would be important to not miss.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Scout west looking for sea food to supplement the corn. Otherwise the plains tile 1N of wet corn to the east looks like the best spot to settle.

@kcd_swede, when you write we are isolated, does that mean astronomy is required to access the main land?

 

[kcd_swede]

Scout west looking for sea food to supplement the corn. Otherwise the plains tile 1N of wet corn to the east looks like the best spot to settle.

@kcd_swede, when you write we are isolated, does that mean astronomy is required to access the main land?

No, it means you start on a landmass that is not inhabited by any other civilization.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Interesting concept. Could be fun harassing enemies from sea.

 

[soundjata]

Maybe there's more than 1 island (gold), in which case GLH wins?

 

[LowtherCastle]

So many questions, so few answers. For instance, “Maybe you can spread your DNA as widely as the original Genghis Khan?”

Is this a subtle hint, that the six AIs will be the following?

Booty
Catty
Lizzy
Hatty
Izzy
Vicky

 

[Powerfaker]

Don't know about Middle-east/China, but the Khan's DNA spread to all of the Russian nobility and from there to all of the European royal houses.

My first impression was that we were looking at 90% of our island. That would be problematic. But it looks like the gold tile is connected, so maybe we have room for a solid island empire. That would be interesting. Eventually it will be good to have 1 or 2 cities on the mainland for the AI to bang their head on (and for trade routes), while we raid their cities from the seas. Their will be plenty of generals to create navigation promoted navy.
Is GWall active on only 1 continent? That would ruin its value for this game.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

@kcd_swede is there a problem with the starting save downloads again? Getting "Sorry, file is not available"

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Is GWall active on only 1 continent? That would ruin its value for this game.

Yes, Great Wall is only for the continent it's built on (and only for land tiles - so it won't stop barb galleys plundering your fishing nets etc.) I don't think there'll be any point building it on this map.

 

[LowtherCastle]

GSpy would be nice for scouting.

 

[Conquistador 63]

@kcd_swede is there a problem with the starting save downloads again? Getting "Sorry, file is not available"

I just downloaded it without problems.

This setup (island within the inland sea) reminds me of WOTM10 (yeah, had to do some searching to find it), of course this one should be much harder with always war and standard size and # of opponents.

 

[kcd_swede]

@kcd_swede is there a problem with the starting save downloads again? Getting "Sorry, file is not available"

The server does not allow you to download a second object until 2 minutes have passed from the first download. Close your browser, and then navigate to the page again, and it should work.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

This setup (island within the inland sea) reminds me of WOTM10 (yeah, had to do some searching to find it), of course this one should be much harder with always war and standard size and # of opponents.

WOTM 10? Wow, someone has a good memory!

BOTM 13 is a also a game worth checking out if you want some practice. That was an always war game I did on which you also started on an island, surrounded by the AIs on the mainland, so you had a chance to build up a bit of infrastructure before AI units could show up. I'm guessing that's a similar set-up to this game, from the info that @kcd_swede has given in this thread. In BOTM 13 I designed the map to see if I could make always-war reasonably playable, after the first always-war map (GOTM 22, not mine, and played on a pangea map) attracted lots of 'fun but tougher than deity' comments.

 

[kcd_swede]

WOTM 10? Wow, someone has a good memory!

BOTM 13 is a also a game worth checking out if you want some practice. That was an always war game I did on which you also started on an island, surrounded by the AIs on the mainland, so you had a chance to build up a bit of infrastructure before AI units could show up. I'm guessing that's a similar set-up to this game, from the info that @kcd_swede has given in this thread. In BOTM 13 I designed the map to see if I could make always-war reasonably playable, after the first always-war map (GOTM 22, not mine, and played on a pangea map) attracted lots of 'fun but tougher than deity' comments.

Heh heh, you are right... that game of yours sticks in my mind. Maybe it was a Christmas game or some other special occasion? But IIRC I was just brainstorming ways the mapmaker could be evil to us mortal players. I think you especially need to play this one to know how it feels.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Spoiler threads, please!

 

[kcd_swede]

You caught me in the proces.... the spoiler threads are up now!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

You caught me in the proces.... the spoiler threads are up now!

Thanks! Now I better post something in them.