News: GOTM 45 - Starts 1 August

[Erkon]

GOTM 45: Rome

The Greek island Crete hosted one of the earliest civilizations in Europe: the Minoan. Since then, numerous powers have ruled over the island. Several religions have flourished, mainly based on the religion of the ruling country. The Romans managed to conquer the island around 70 BC, but were later overthrown. Can you do better? The mission of this months game is to unite the people of the island under your rule. You play as Romans, and simply destroying everyone else is not an option. Instead, you will only succeed if you manage to convert all inhabitants to one specific religion of your own choice, and that all opponents in the game survive. The map roughly resembles Crete*.

The game requires HOF 1.74.004, which you can download here. Please note that this is a NEW VERSION of the HoF Mod.

Game settings:
Civilization: Rome (Leader: Julius Caesar; Traits: Expansive, Organized)
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Noble
Map: Crete (custom made based on Pangaea, slightly less landmass than usual)
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Rocky
Sea Level: High
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: Standard
Victory Conditions: Conquest disabled

Specific rules for this month:
The following conditions must be fulfilled to compete for the medals/awards:

• All civilizations (including the player) must have the same State Religion the turn the player wins
• No civilizations (including the player) must run Free Religion civic the turn the player wins
• All civilizations must survive (conquest is thus not allowed)

Your submission will be accepted regardless if you fulfill these conditions or not.

Julius Caesar:
Julius Caesar is Expansive and Organized ; starting with Mining and Fishing. The Expansive trait provides +3 health in cities, and 100% production bonus towards Granary and Harbour. Organized reduces Civic Upkeep with 50%, and you receive 100% production bonus for Lighthouse and Courthouse.

Unique unit: Praetorian (replaces swordsman)
The praetorian is stronger than the swordsman (strength 8 instead of 6), but does not have the +10% city attack bonus.

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


Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Extra work boat: The ship carrying you to Crete survived the trip.

Challenger Class Equalizers:

1. No warrior: The ship not only crashed on the rocks, but the warrior drowned as well.

To enter the Competition:

This competition will open on 1 August 2009. From that date, you'll be able to get your chosen starting save >>>here<<<.
Submit the save after your victory (or defeat) here, by 1 September 2009.

Software Versions

Windows: This game MUST be played in Civilization 4 (NOT Warlords or BTS), patched to version 1.74, and with the HOF mod version 1.74.004 installed. You can download the HOF mod here. Players using Windows Vista are encouraged to read the notes on Vista fixes here.

Macintosh: This game MUST be played in Civilization 4 (NOT Warlords), patched to version 1.74, and with the Mac HOF mod version 1.74.002 installed. You can download the 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 the game outside those threads while it is in progress.

Please write here or send me a Private Message for any technical queries, eg. if you have trouble opening the game. Do NOT post in this thread once you have successfully opened the starting save.

* Never trust a map maker!

Note from author: If your game crashes, reload the latest autosave and repeat all moves exactly. Please PM me about the details of the crash. I appreciate any feedback regarding the map, either through PM or through the spoiler threads. Good luck with this game

 

[Erkon]

FAQ

Q: So we don't have to convert all the civs, they just have to end up in a common religion, right?
A: Right. They might as well convert on their own (free?) will

Q: Is "turn the player wins" the turn that you accomplish the VC or the turn that game announces it (we hope it is the former ... for obvious reasons)?
A: It is what is recorded in the log The player acts first during a turn, and the victory is accomplished at the end of the turn which means that the AI acts after you. Pray to Sid that they don't revolt . I'm not picky though, so if that happens to any player, please PM me and it will be included. I'm not inclined to make enemies on this forum

Q: All civs must survive, so we have to prevent any other civ (or the barbs) from killing off another civ, right?
A: Right.

Q: And does failing to meet these condition mean the submission won't be accepted, or that it won't be counted as a victory?
A: It will not be accepted. EDIT: It will be accepted, and it will count as victory, but the medals/awards will only go to those who fulfill the conditions.

Note: Please download the HOF mod again to ensure you have the latest version, which was published Jul 30, 2009, 12:07 PM

 

[BLubmuz]

Don't worry, the rules are clear
Despite the low level, i don't think it will be easy to win this one.
Probably on Warlords, but i'll let more creative players to find a way to accomplish those conditions and i'll enjoy reading the spoilers.

 

[mtt9999]

Observations:

*No religious VC (vanilla)
*No Vassal States (no forced conversion)

Possible Strategies:

*Quick Victory (get a domination) before liberalism to prevent converting to free religion
*Found all religions / only spread one religion to neighbors / use mercantilism civic to prevent spread through trade routes. (natural spread early on will be neglible because of the 'too few people follow that faith'.) The problem with this strategy is that it requires Ceasar to found all religions without Myst as starting tech.

 

[babybluepants]

Interesting scenario... I think I'll definitely have a go at this one. Could be very, very frustrating... The free religion thing makes all victory conditions other than dom seemingly very difficult.

 

[ShannonCT]

If you finish Liberalism before any AI starts it, it should be easy to keep the AI out of Free Religion. Don't trade Philo or Education to the AI. If any AI gets these techs, capture/raze their best cities and leave them one city of the chosen religion.

 

[Deckhand]

What about this strategy?
Discover all religions besides Buddhism and Hinduism. Don't spread any of yours. Raze Holy city of one of theirs and capture the rest of that religion's cities. Goal is everyone adopts the other (Hinduism or Buddhism).

 

[ShannonCT]

I don't think you need to go out of your way to found 5 religions unless you're going for culture or diplo. If going for domination, you can capture any holy city and leave each AI with a single city that has the chosen religion. If an AI doesn't have a city with the chosen religion, build him one and gift it to him, then capture his other city. Space Race will give you plenty of time to use the same strategy later in the game. I assume that if an AI has only one city and that city has only one religion, the AI will always adopt that religion if Free Religion is not an option.

 

[da_Vinci]

Instead, you will only succeed if you manage to convert all inhabitants to one specific religion of your own choice, and that all opponents in the game survive.

Specific rules for this month:
Your submission will only be accepted if the following conditions are fulfilled:

• All civilizations (including the player) must have the same State Religion the turn the player wins
• No civilizations (including the player) must run Free Religion civic the turn the player wins
• All civilizations must survive (conquest is thus not allowed)

So we don't have to convert all the civs, they just have to end up in a common religion, right? (Like the nuked by anyone or nuked by us discussion for the SGOTM, with a different result).

Is "turn the player wins" the turn that you accomplish the VC or the turn that game announces it (we hope it is the former ... for obvious reasons)?

All civs must survive, so we have to prevent any other civ (or the barbs) from killing off another civ, right?

And does failing to meet these condition mean the submission won't be accepted, or that it won't be counted as a victory? (Of course, how do we score a non-conforming victory as a loss for the score table? Maybe non-conforming gets 10% of score in the score section? 5%? [1% for ShannonCT? ] ... or just 0?)

dV

 

[LowtherCastle]

Let's discuss the starting position. I think I'll move the warrior W-E-W. The settler will go N-S-N-S. It will probable settle on the coast or maybe near a mountain, possibly next to a resource tile. The rest of my plans will be published later...

Agree with Shannon. DOmination, leaving each AI with one city.

 

[Erkon]

dV, I've added your questions to the FAQ. I might squeeze in a 1% fix for ShannonCT if you can rally enough supporters...

 

[Deckhand]

Let's discuss the starting position. I think I'll move the warrior W-E-W. The settler will go N-S-N-S. It will probable settle on the coast or maybe near a mountain, possibly next to a resource tile. The rest of my plans will be published later... .

For best synergy with SGOTM10, should we settle on the uranium or the aluminium?

 

[Deckhand]

I might squeeze in a 1% fix for ShannonCT if you can rally enough supporters...

nope, I appreciate his advise. make it 5%

 

[Conquistador 63]

Cool challenge, we need more of those to keep the interest high in vanilla and warlords.

We can now start discussing starting position. I've hacked Erkon's computer and got not only the starting area but the full map.



Cultural and Space will be harder to achieve, because of the risk of tripping over the Domination land, while keeping everyone else in the stone age. I should try for one of these.

 

[Ronnie1]

Very interesting indeed!!!

This one will take a bit of work, but sounds like a great challenge.

 

[JungleIII]

And does failing to meet these condition mean the submission won't be accepted, or that it won't be counted as a victory? (Of course, how do we score a non-conforming victory as a loss for the score table? Maybe non-conforming gets 10% of score in the score section? 5%? [1% for ShannonCT? ] ... or just 0?)
dV

As dV alluded to... disallowing a game Victory ANY value by not accepting the entry, is a step down a slippery slope, IMHO. It was tried in Apolyton for the Tri-League and it will unfortunately limit participation, as people perceive games as un-winnable, and/or can't submit great victories, because of a small glitch in gameplay.

I appreciate that Erkon is trying to make the game more interesting and has a great support group of like minded buddies. The map and interest will be there for this game...

However, I vote we do not head down that path as you will be ELIMINATING great results and often weeks of play.

IF there is a roar from the AVERAGE PLAYER that arbitrary state and/or winning conditions are the only victory acceptable, then at least make the winning condition a 10,000 point bonus or something similar, not the ONLY available submission option.

This game has quite a few disqualifiers and I feel many will try, but few will succeed and again, takes the game out of reach of the masses. I will play, and I will play the game to meet the conditions, and hopefully win with the conditions applied, and sure hope my week of play gets counted for something...

Erkon, thanks for the set-up - sorry I disagree with the disqualification aspect.

 

[adrianj]

I had hoped on playing a similar difficulty level as my previous BOTM experience to try to make up for my mistakes. But with these conditions I think the game will be tough enough.

I wonder if a UN-like victory would work well in this game? Get friendly enough relations with your neighbours such that you can bribe them into the same religion.

I guess the domination route is as ShannonCT suggests: basically take over the world but leave them with a single city with the correct religion, gifting them a city if necessary. It might even be a good reason to found rubbish arctic cities with zero food/production - simply to gift it to them as their OCC.

Edit: Arctic tiles might not be so common on this 'Crete' shaped land though!

 

[JungleIII]

As for the setup - quite exciting. I've always wanted a historical setting, and matching a game to a real time and place will add flavour!

I look forward to seeing more games in a historical setting, and look forward to an advanced starts in BtSOM where a historical setting can be played out... It's all possible in a BOTM game.

Can't wait to see what part of the island we have landed on!

 

[adrianj]

As dV alluded to... disallowing a game Victory ANY value by not accepting the entry, is a step down a slippery slope, IMHO. It was tried in Apolyton for the Tri-League and it will unfortunately limit participation, as people perceive games as un-winnable, and/or can't submit great victories, because of a small glitch in gameplay.

I appreciate that Erkon is trying to make the game more interesting and has a great support group of like minded buddies. The map and interest will be there for this game...

However, I vote we do not head down that path as you will be ELIMINATING great results and often weeks of play.

IF there is a roar from the AVERAGE PLAYER that arbitrary state and/or winning conditions are the only victory acceptable, then at least make the winning condition a 10,000 point bonus or something similar, not the ONLY available submission option.

This game has quite a few disqualifiers and I feel many will try, but few will succeed and again, takes the game out of reach of the masses. I will play, and I will play the game to meet the conditions, and hopefully win with the conditions applied, and sure hope my week of play gets counted for something...

Erkon, thanks for the set-up - sorry I disagree with the disqualification aspect.

From my experience so far on a Pangea map - those extra conditions for victory really are quite difficult (for me at least).
Any chance of removing the 'requirement' and trying something as JungleIII suggests - ie, make it a bonus rather than a requirement?
Or something like - each AI player NOT in your religion = -20 turns from the date. Each AI player DEAD = -50 turns from the date...

 

[Deckhand]

I don't like elimination and rejection of played games.
Nor do I like handicapping close failures with some point (or turn or whatever) value - this opens up the possibillity of deciding not to meet a requirement in an attempt to score better.
This is similar to SGOT10 discussion.

I propose medals and awards only go to those that meet the game requirements (all civs in our religion).
If none do (for that award), then rank games by number of civs not in our religion.
Score as tie-breaker?