BOTM 288 - Asoka, Emperor - Starts March 8, 2025

[MarleysGh0st]

BOTM 288: Asoka of India.

You are Asoka of India, in a good, old-fashioned game. You know what to do.

Game settings:
Playing as: Asoka of India
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Emperor
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Tectonic
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: Medium
Map latitudes: -90°S to 90°N


Asoka is Spiritual and Organized, and you start with Mysticism and Mining.

The Spiritual trait gives no anarchy and double production speed of Temple and Cristo Redentor

The Organized trait gives -50% civic upkeep and double production speed of Courthouse, Factory and Lighthouse

Unique unit: Fast Worker (replaces Worker)
The fast worker has 3 movement points against the ordinary worker's 2 - making the fast worker one of the fastest-moving land units in the game!

Unique Building: Mausoleum (replaces Jail)
The mausoleum gives +2 happiness out of the box, to add to the espionage and war-weariness benefits of the jail.

Starting screenshot

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



Adventurer Class bonuses:
You play at Prince difficulty. The AI still have the starting units for Emperor difficulty.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
You play at Deity difficulty. The AI still have the starting units for Emperor difficulty.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 8 Mar 2025, 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 Apr 2025.

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.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Once again, I'm posting this announcement later than I wanted to. The starting date is set for this Saturday, even though that does not leave much time for pregame discussion, just in case anyone is impatient to get started playing another game this weekend. I've added an extra week to the submission date, so there's time to delay your own start if you want to continue with that discussion.

As I've said before, I use the AIAutoPlay mod to test my games. The results of that testing appear to indicate that one AI has a distinct advantage and that Asoka has a distinct disadvantage. In past games, I'd let that worry me and I'd start tinkering to balance things out.

I've stopped worrying.

All of you are much better than the AI at playing this game and I'm sure you will easily handle whatever challenges you encounter. Everything is exactly as generated by the computer: the map, the resource placement, the unit placement, everything. If you disagree with my judgement, the Adventurer and Challenger Class saves are available for you to choose from.

Have fun!

 

[LowtherCastle]

Complex settling choices.

(Assuming AIAutoPlay goes SIP, Ignore it although good to find the strong AI asap as a trade partner or war victim.)

Emperor difficulty allows settling on t1 or t2. Four plains hills to pick from, three including the gold, two including two visible food resources but on lake not river. Tons of forests and river tiles.

Warrior not well positioned to scout food resource tiles for the western river tiles, for an uber capital.

Frosty forest to the north so settling sw is a more centralized capital but misses the gold and forests.

Fast worker can improve corn, sheep and gold with only one movement cost (is AH done in time?) or two and chop a lot of forest with no mvmt cost.

Settling 1e seems to play itself. Three resource tiles and three cottages. Come roaring out of the gate researching while cranking out settlers. Likely my choice.

 

[High King J.J.]

I may go Lowther's way but first warrior will scout SE. Gold is most useful for early income but to use it one needs more food. One dry corn isn't appetizing enough, I might go south to get a river and more green land if there's more food.
Looks pleasant enough but what do I know.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@MarleysGh0st : on challenger level you meant emperor units, right?

 

[MarleysGh0st]

@MarleysGh0st : on challenger level you meant emperor units, right?

D'oh! Yes, I do.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Can anyone please explain how to control the creation of rivers in WB. Often when I try it creates extra rivers on a tile where I don’t want them. This has exasperated me for eons.

Edit: Never mind. I finally found what I was looking for and figured it out from there. If you're curious, here's what helped me:

Post in thread '2 Worldbuilder questions'

Jan 23, 2007

For the rivers , you can try to pratice like this at the beginning .

Begin to make your river segment by segment .

1 - left click on the tile where you want to make a segment of river . the segment of the river is always on south or east of the tile .

2 - left click on an adjacent tile of the first to choose direction .

3 - right click to disable river function .

4 - right click to erase the second part of river you don't want .

5 - restart for the next segment

Then , with more practice , you should make rivers quickly .

Tcho !

• Sto

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I'll point out that the sheep can be farmed for a reversed grassland hill.

I've rolled a few Tectonics maps with the basic "70% water" option (there are others).
The script is, indeed, very well suited for runaway AIs as the land distribution seems to be very random.
There are often 4 to 5 landmasses, some of which can be :
- very small and shared by 2 AIs ;
- very large and owned by a single AI ;
- connected pre-Astronomy ;
- unoccupied entirely.

This can be a very fun set up and exploration could be rewarded handsomely.
Don't quote me on any of this : randomness is the keyword.

Over 10 or so generations, I've seen maps ranging from 450 to 1250 land tiles....

 

[LowtherCastle]

Checking land tiles on T0 essential .

 

[High King J.J.]

I'll point out that the sheep can be farmed for a reversed grassland hill.

I'll just comment that I don't understand what reversed grassland hill means. Could someone enlighten me, what this is supposed to mean?
The sheep can be irrigated from the start, yes. Apart from a (temporary, until AH) food bonus from irrigation I see no reason to irrigate the sheep. Until CS it won't carry irrigation to the dry corn anyway. There are a few grassland hills. Reversed is a mystery, and if it is supposed to mean riverside GH then the only one of those is where the warrior stands. That seems sub-optimal site for a city, the sheep are outside the BFC. Maybe reversed means food/hammer output is reversed from a GH, from irrigated sheep instead of from a mined GH? Not sure why this should be mentionable?

EDIT: Just thought autocorrect might change 'riverside' to 'reversed'. It can turn the 'perfect' text to 'per feet' text.

 

[lymond]

I took BiC's meaning as simply one can ignore AH and farm the sheep like one would mine a grashill pig or sheep.

 

[ruff_hi]

Can anyone please explain how to control the creation of rivers in WB. Often when I try it creates extra rivers on a tile where I don’t want them. This has exasperated me for eons.

Edit: Never mind. I finally found what I was looking for and figured it out from there. If you're curious, here's what helped me:

Here you go ...