GOTM 174 (Hexagon)

[Ali Ardavan]

Game of the Month 174: Jan 2016
The hexagon

Civilization: 1 Roman settler
Starting techs: None
Difficulty: Emperor
Total players: 7
Restarts: on
Barbarians: Villages only (-50)
Known map (which means you can open it in map editor at any point in the game)

We start 2016 with a world that is 20x1660. The world consists of one hexagon shaped continent and 2 small islands near the poles. The Romans are located at the center of the hexagon. The other 6 rivals each start at the center of an edge of the hexagon. All player starting locations are on a river on grassland. 3 of the rivals have 1 special, 2 have 2, and 1 has 3. To compensate for lack of specials, extra rivers are added near the starting location. The entire map is very hospitable.

The 6 rivals are chosen to be Perfectionist first and Rational second: Babylonian, German, Aztec, Persian, Carthaginian, Indian.

Special rules:
1. You cannot walk into an undefended rival capital should you have the chance. Of course, it is OK to do so after you kill a defender.
2. You get to choose the best of 3 outcomes for your first 3 huts. Each time save after you tip the hut. Then choose the best of the 3 saves and move on.

Deadline: March 8 22, 2016

Please be sure to follow the submission guidelines when submitting your game (please do not send your files in a .zip file. Attach them directly to your e-mail with your name in the save file). No extra save is needed.

Please send the saved games only to civ2gotm@gmail.com.

Have fun.

 

[Jokemaster]

One important detail that should be obvious by looking at the preview (but that I should mention nonetheless for any newbies lurking) is that the 2 specials shown near Romans' starting location are not within an L-shape of each other (but are instead directly diagonal)

The reason being that the player starting location is right next to the horizontal "edge" of the map, at x=0. Take one step left, and x=19. This is known as the "DateLine" in round maps. When the Civ2 map was generated, one special was generated on one side of the map, and the other one on the other way. Usually, it doesn't matter in flat maps: but the map being round makes it so there can be odd special distribution around the DateLine.

The reason why this is important is because in Civ2, there is a bug that causes cities on opposite sides of the DateLine to both work the same city squares without suffering from overlap. (Overlap from cities on the same side of the DateLine behaves like usual. Basically, no horizontal overlap and yes vertical overlap.)

Last time I checked, usage of this bug was ALLOWED in GOTM's. I'll check quickly in the rules thread and will edit this post if I find otherwise.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Good observation Jokemaster. And yes, taking advantage of this exploit is allowed.

I realized this midway through designing the map and just did not have time to put the center of the hexagon on the center of the map. The map editor is pretty elementary in what it allows you to do. I decided that it is a nice twist to have.

 

[Jokemaster]

Clarification on rule number 1: Let's say I walk next to an undefended capital city, war is declared, and my turn ends. Before my next turn, the other civ builds a warrior, attacks my horse but loses, capital is now empty and ready to be sacked. Would the defensive warrior kill would count as "killing a defender"?

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Interesting case. Did not think of it before. I agree with you. In that case you should be able to take the city since a battle has already occurred and a defender killed.

 

[Jokemaster]

Spoiler :

Has anyone been able to get an offshore respawn in this game? One civ got killed by AI and one by me, none of them respawned. I had MPE so I was able to check.

 

[Jokemaster]

Just dropping by to mention that I am really looking forward to see the different approaches used by anyone who went for an EL game. Replayed it again for fun, and it doesn't seem like the "optimal" approach that I didn't use in my original playthrough is as good as I thought it would be after finishing the 1st time.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

You have played twice and have not yet started a spoiler?

 

[Jokemaster]

Fun map!

Just waiting some time until posting a spoiler because I'm afraid that someone's going to absentmindedly peek in before playing. But if you insist, I'll start it now.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Not sure who else is playing but I have played up to +1000 and due to being out of town this coming week need more than a few days to finish up.

Deadline extended by two weeks.

 

[Magic_gorter]

Results are up. Please check if it's working.
I have to create a new archive page. When that part is ready I will add the resultpage of gotm 174 to it.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Thanks Magic. The page itself is fine but there are no links from there to other relevant pages.

Not that it is a big deal, but I think my finish date is wrong because it makes no sense. It should be around 1800. Maybe 1810 accidentally became 1910?

 

[Magic_gorter]

The links are not made yet. Is next to do on the list.
We will check the date....

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I checked the spoiler thread and looks like mine is not the only one that is wrong. 4 out of the 5 players posted final logs and the final date in the scoring table is wrong for every single one of them.
This is what I have from the spoiler thread:
Ali +1521, Major +1869, Jokemaster +1375, haleewud -325

 

[Inkerman]

The fault is mine folks. Sorry.

The dates in Ali's post above are correct. I believe that the turns taken and the overall scores are correct as published .

The erroneous column bears a resemblance to the prior GotM, so I guess you can imagine what I forgot to do.

Better would be:
Ali_Ardavan 1521AD
Jokemaster 1375AD
haleewud 325BC
Inkerman 1827AD
Major_Advantage 1869AD

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I suppose the score page will be fixed soon as well, right?

 

[Magic_gorter]

Results are up. Please check if it's working.
I have to create a new archive page. When that part is ready I will add the resultpage of gotm 174 to it.

Sorry for the late response. I've changed the page (links and dates). Also created/changed the GOTM 174 resultpage. On this page you should be able to download all savefiles (on bottom of page). Please let me know if it's working and if there are errors.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

The dates are now correct and every link I tried works fine. Glad you finally caught up with this.
Hopefully this did not eat up all your Civ2 time. We miss you in the games and look forward to more results.

 

[Magic_gorter]

Great to hear that everything works. Don't know when I can play civ 2 again. Right now not much free time left to play (sport & work). Right now I'll try to change the archivepage into table format again with all downloadlinks instead of a long list (downloadpage and resultpage). After that I will catch up the GOTM games results (gotm 175 and further).