GOTM 57

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Keep 'Em Alive!

From the mists of time, the Gods of War and Peace have given you an opportunity to change the course of history. Seven extinct tribes (the Celts, the Babylonians, the Vikings, the Aztecs, the Persians, the Carthaginians, and the Mongols) have been brought to a mythological continent - Atlantis. You have been given control of the Celts, and your task is simple: preserve them all to the best of your abilities while reaching for the stars.

This scenario flips the normal priorities of Civilization on their heads. Rather than wiping out the other civs you are called upon to preserve them. Rather than finishing the fastest you are going to have to build defenses for the long-haul and emphasize research and production. Rather than building the biggest civilization quickest you are going to have to choose your placement of cities wisely, sometimes holding off on expansion while you look for strategic choke points or access to the ocean (you begin in the middle of the continent).

The primary means of enforcing these requirements are one-time changes to the scoring of this GOTM. This game starts with Restart Civs Off, so each tribe that is lost will count against your final score, whether lost to Barbs, other Civs, or you. A differently-weighted GOTM scoring formula will begin to penalize you should your civ grow beyond 10 cities (and reward you extra should your civ build significantly less - disbanded cities will still count). And extra points will be awarded for each Hab Module that reaches Alpha Centauri first. For those of you with limited time, the Green Star will still be awarded for Fastest Finish. The scoring penalties for eliminated civs will ensure that the Green Star ends up near the bottom of the scoring rankings. Instead of a single day (or night?) of play consider spreading out your time on this scenario over the rest of the month.

The game settings
Difficulty: King
Barbs: Restless
Restarts: Off
Map: 50x100 (Medium), Flat, Single Continent
Human Civ: Celts (White)

Starting Techs
- Alphabet
- Bronze Working



Saved game:
http://civ2gotm.civfanatics.net/civ2gotmdownload_57.shtml

 

[Dominus Romae]

I am hoping to play this Gotm. Pity that no one participates today, because of Civ3. And later, because of Civ4.

 

[mr. Y]

I like this one.
the popping of advanced tribes is not necessarily a good thing this month.

 

[bruderpetrus]

i like this just for the different tactic to use. found the download, went into game and forgot to save at 1ad. first save i got is 480ad. hope this will be ok, cause i don´t want to start again.

-babylonias were destroyed by AI (never found them)

seems quite hard to hold this stupid computerplayers in the game (harder than kicking them out)

 

[mr. Y]

Additional question:
The less cities you have, the higher your score.
So how are they counted? What's with lost cities? I lost a city to the AI, if I don't reconquer it, does it still count?

 

[ElephantU]

OCC Report:

Might be an exciting game for a One City player. The specials and huts indicate the Resource Seed is 53, which means that the tile just to the east of the starting Settler has 4 specials around it, all of which are Whale-type (the Whale and the Wheat are two, the other two are still in the black). An alternative site is due north two tiles, which should have two Whale-type specials (one is the visible Wheat) and two Fish-type specials. Looking at the layout of huts, there are about a half dozen within a 10 tile radius of the starting location. One alternative might be to pop huts before settling your first city, which should suppress Barb and AdvancedTribe/Nomad results. If you settle the eastern special site, the hut next to it will have Barbs suppressed due to the proximity of the city.

Mr. Y: Aside from not settling your first city while you pop huts, another strategy to prevent Advanced Tribes is to pop only huts that do NOT sit on Grass or Plains. Those are the only places you regularly get ATs. Note that it does not happen every time - there are percentage chances for other outcomes, and the program has an algorithm to calculate the "sufficiency" of the surrounding terrain for a city (similar to the one the AI uses). If the city radius is full of poor terrain it will produce a Nomad instead.

 

[Dominus Romae]

Just playing it now...

A question: do we need any patch to play it? I only have Civ2 Classic, but there may be something that is needed to play it.

 

[Ace]

I'm also running it on Civ2 Classic v2.42. No problem, but you should have the latest patch dated Oct. '96. The patch is not necessary, but the game runs better. You can get the patch in the downloads section if you need it.

If you meant, do you need a special patch to run this gotm, no. It runs fine on the "regular" Classic or Gold editions.

 

[ElephantU]

Starting Tech Report:

With the freebies of Alphabet and Bronze, you cannot get Monarchy on the third round due to "hiding". If you take Currency that round you can get Monarchy on the fourth and Trade on the fifth. Alternatively, if you feel the need to get Horseback first, you can still get Monarchy on the fourth round but Trade won't be available till the seventh.

 

[Old n Slow]

Keep 'em alive, play soft & gentle -- what a concept!

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Sounds very exciting, thanks Duke.

Could you please elaborate on the scoring rules, please?
Here are my specific questions:
1. What is the reward/penalty per city?
2. Typically GOTM scoring rewards fastest finish. My impression is that that is still the case, but there are severe penalties for eliminated civs, right? In other words, I want to aim to land as quickly as possible.
3. How much is the reward for extra SS modules?

 

[nerovats]

I´ll join again this month. But I would like some extra info too, about the size of penalties and bonusses. I understand the goal will be space, I there also a revered date bonus (wich means finish in the 21th century will give more points)? Or is it just to finish quickly as a means to give civs less time to kill each other?

 

[EmperorGandalf]

I just finished. my spaceship wasnt first though, although i thought i did well for having only one city.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

The penalties and bonuses are significant enough to be aware of. I'll leave it at that.

As far as the number of cities goes, any city in your posession at any point during the game will count towards your total number of cities, not just the ones you build.

The finish date still matters, so, yes, you want to try and land as quickly as possible using the fewest number of cities.

 

[Stegyre]

I like the concept: it's how I usually play, and I prefer to limit myself to 3-4 cities. One further request for clarification on the number-of-cities rule, however: I will often repeatedly found and disband to generate NONE engineers. I take it that each iteration will now count as an extra "city" (even though disbanded within 1-2 turns), and I should just limit myself to bribery?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Any cities built, bribed, disbanded or captured will count towards the total.

 

[TheViking]

This GOTM is so interesting that I will probably be participating for the first time in a year or so - the strategy required is totally different from my usual strategy. Do razed cities also count towards the total ? Since I'm a warmonger I'd prefer to raze all cities except for one city per enemy civ. If razed cities count I'll need to reduce the size of all AI cities to 1 instead .

 

[ElephantU]

Seems like "...or captured..." would cover the razed cities as well, if they are greater than size 1 when you "capture" them. Leaving only one city might be risky, though, if losing a civ is a major blow to your score. Better make sure no pop-up Barbs or other civs can get at it.

Perhaps we should include with our GOTM submission our own count of our maximum number of cities? Might make the job easier for the people doing the scoring.

 

[TheViking]

What I had in mind was to reduce the size of the cities to 1 (either using spies to poison the water supply or by attacking cities without walls) before capturing them. In that case capturing the cities destroys them.

This is rather important for me to know because I now have 8 cities and have already destroyed one enemy city which was in the middle of my empire and thus interfered with my plans.

 

[URUWASHI]

What a GREAT Game !! Needless to say,,I got up this morning at 4 am ..and its now 11.30 PM ....and I just finished it !! After almost 14 hours playing the third part of the game.....
A very unusual game !! But it was fun!