[BTS] BOTM 164 Justinian Final Spoiler game submitted

[Deckhand]

BOTM 164 - Emperor Justinian, Boreal Map

What happened?
What challenges did you face?
What was fun?

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 164 then you MUST NOT read this thread unless

• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

 

[Major Tom]

Thank you for the map. Really enjoyed it with refreshing twists as random personalities and PA. Turned out to be a trigger happy bunch so choosing the right wars for diplopoints was important. Late game Victoria wanted to play as team. Haven't done that for ages, but really cool. Played sloppy initially and too lazy going for conquest on large flat map, so had a late peaceful win.

Edit: The sloppy play involved oracling theocracy, hence the thread/poll in S&T forum. But anyway, fun to have AP to create havoc among the AIs. So strategy eventually was about having fun and relaxing mode this time.

 

[krikav]

I enjoyed this map quite abit!
Was afraid that I would get pestered by events constantly, but they where quite far apart, and they didn't really play any role in my game. (Phew?)

Built stonehenge and expanded like crazy. Then went for guilds, prechopped a ton of forest and then whipped/chopped an crazy amount of cataphract.
Took most of darius cities first, save one and took peace for some techs.
Took alot of cities from Sully, a few from victoria and joao.
The plan was at first to try win a early dom/conq victory, but after the instructions from @nocho in BOTM161, I decided I should try to get a space victory.
Vassaled them all and also Cathy and Charly (Although I let them keep their cities.
Sat on 55% land, having Khan as the only rival and started teching.

The land wasn't that rich, and I had very little use for my vassals. (I think railroad was the last thing I got).
Had almost 72 turns consequtice golden age (MoM and Taj), which is a personal record.

Won a space race victory at 1800AD.
I think that was quite good. The land isn't green and lush, but lots of rivers made watermills+state property very nice. Also tiles that give both hammers and commerce benefit double more from golden ages.

Apart from the early game, this was a nice relaxing game, abit like putting together a large puzzle.

 

[LinkDinkin]

I tried but wasn't allowed to build Space Elevator on this map. Is that some obscure constraint of Boreal? Had about 30 cities at the time, and they covered a lot of the map, already building space parts, but SE icon was dimmed out for all of them.

 

[krikav]

The SE need to be built close to the equator.
Not sure if this applies differently on different map scripts or not.

Is it grayed out in all cities?

 

[Deckhand]

I tried but wasn't allowed to build Space Elevator on this map. Is that some obscure constraint of Boreal? Had about 30 cities at the time, and they covered a lot of the map, already building space parts, but SE icon was dimmed out for all of them.

I don't have an explanation. Just opened your save and lots of your cities seem to be within the 30 degrees of equator requirement. Option isn't available now (not greyed out, just not shown) in any cities. Probably because you already finished your spaceship.
Checked the log and you discovered Robotics in 1962 and Satellites in 1965. Perhaps did you (only) try to build SE after discovering Robotics but before learning Satellites?
If that's not it, then maybe as you speculate, something about Boreal.

 

[krikav]

Perhaps something in flat scripts in general?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I don't have an explanation. Just opened your save and lots of your cities seem to be within the 30 degrees of equator requirement. Option isn't available now (not greyed out, just not shown) in any cities. Probably because you already finished your spaceship.
Checked the log and you discovered Robotics in 1962 and Satellites in 1965. Perhaps did you (only) try to build SE after discovering Robotics but before learning Satellites?
If that's not it, then maybe as you speculate, something about Boreal.

I was curious about this so did a bit of digging. And yes, it is something about the map. Essentially, you can't assume that the top of the map is the North Pole and the Bottom of the map is the South Pole. There are a couple of settings in WorldBuilder that control what latitude the map is assumed to be being played at (For any WorldBuilder-geeks interested: Look at the BeginMap....EndMap stuff in any WB file). And for Boreal, the map is assumed to be confined to the tundra near the North Pole. And that means that, no matter how far South you build your cities, they won't be far South enough to be able to build the Space Elevator. Seems a pretty bad weakness of CIv that - as far as I know - there's no way to tell in-game what latitudes are being assumed on the map and therefore whether/where you can build the Space Elevator. Luckily, for most scripts, common sense works and the equator is around the middle of the map.