Gotm19 - Guess what it will be Speculation Thread

[jack merchant]

Ah, a GOTM with my favourite civ ! I'm hoping for emperor or deity level but monarch will do.

The appearance of siege equipment suggests a historical slant to the game - maybe the Germans will be renamed Austrians and we have to besiege their capital named Vienna ? Or the Romans will be known as the Eastern Roman Empire, will suddenly develop a need to build tons of culture, and we have to besiege their capital named Byzantium ?

I'm also thinking different city names we may meet - how abut Manzikert, Kosovo polje and Mohács (all sites of famous Ottoman victories) ?

 

[Ambiorix]

I find it quite hard to define what would be the key-characteristics of the Ottomans and translate them into game features.
I'm thinking of an emperor game, on pangeae again but this time with a much smaller land percentage, making the map a sort of connected archipelago's or 'swiss cheese planet'. In a post somewhere (can't find it back) Cracker mentioned something about 'the direction we're going'. At that time I hadn't really realised we were in any sort of process of going somewhere, but compared with the other GOTM's of this year, I think it has something to do with the opening position becoming more and more challenging. In the Russian and Roman game we had luxuries nearby, in the Carthaginian and celtic world you needed a minimum of expansion-abilities to grab a luxury or resource. I think we'll continue in that line - wich is actually quite a good iea : make the goal a little bit more difficult each time, not too much, just allowing the trainee to rise to the occasion. I think that's the biggest award to Cracker : that he manages to do this whilst keeping the whole concept fun to play.
Anyway, back to the topic : I'm expecting a quite hostile starting location : desert and mountains in one direction, without many opponents there, and another more promising looking directon that however contains many competitors for the spoils that are there.
If I really stick my neck out I'd say we'd be centrally located on the map, with the ability to control one or more landbridges or bottlenecks, by which we could control just who contacts who. Especially after the emphasis of the new QSC scoring system of not researching everything yourself, but trading strategically with your neighbours.

The barbarian-of-the-month will be a guy in white (of course) who keeps on spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning, and 'spices' will be renamed to 'baklavah'.

 

[pilferman]

1) A few large islands
2) Arabs and Babylonians WILL make appearances, but Egypt, Greece, and Persia WILL NOT.
3) America, Japan, Korea, and Zululand will be in the mix, along with the compulsory European nations (Germany, Vikings, Russia, Rome, and Europe).
4) Starting location will be arid and hilly with nice terrain to the north AND south.
5) The onager will simply be the catapult renamed.
6) Emperor level :saiyan:
7) Start surrounded by many civs, as opposed to being off in a corner.
8) Canal opportunities (like Russian GOTM)
9) Naval battles WILL be key (which isn't often)
10) Pilferman will make top 10

Keep in mind that these are not predictions. These are facts. This is simply a list of things that WILL be, but not necessarily in that order. It's go time!

 

[DaveShack]

Here are my guesses:

Main land mass in 3 sections centrally connected with narrow land bridges which permit naval units to pass through a correctly positioned city. (think like a Y shape for the connecting point)

Start position near the choke point, central on the N-S axis, off center to E.

Greece, Rome, Carthage, Russia, Germany, Zulu, China included in opponents and located nearby.

Emporer level, continents, temperate, dry?

If there are multiple choke points, one will appear to be meaningless but will eventually be revealed that it controls a supply of oil. I just hope that I don't get swamped by the high difficulty level before the answer is revealed...

 

[Ribannah]

I expect a small map with our closest neighbours to be Babylon, Egypt and India, and cultural flips set to rampant.

 

[Singularity]

I think the start location will be smack in the middle of the map, with much expansion possibility to both east and west. The terrain will be plains with a some desert tiles, and perhaps a luring flood plains with wheat 4-8 tiles away from start. The eastern part of the map and the western part of the map will be either connected through mountain landbridges over your immediate neighborhood, or by small straits. Effectively giving you the role of a hub civilization with many advantages, trade contacts and expansion in every directions - while the other civs could be at your mercy for a long time if they want to contact the other side of the map.

Other civs is a bit tough, but I dont think we will see any PTW civs beside the Celts or Carthagians since we have to have an option for Mac and vanilla cive'rs to play the game. Strong contenders would be russia, greece, china, rome and india. Hopefully we will see either Deity or Emperor back for the difficulty setting, with a few personal touches to the map to make it bareable for newer players to keep up at that level. Barbarians would be abundant, but not too tough if we play on deity/emperor. After all the Ottomans had to bring the holy sword of islam to the throat of surrounding barbarians to create their empire. In close distance we would also find 3 luxury resoruces gems, wines and spices to increase our chance of keeping happy at higher difficulty levels.

Hmmm, forgot Persia and Babylon in the east with India, obvious competitors/partners for the Ottomans. Greece, Carthage, Rome, France and Russia in the east and we really need germans and english here with their history with the Ottomans. 10 civs on a unique map of landbridges, straits and large lakes. With Ottomans right in the middle of the pack.

 

[gozpel]

3 fat continents on a standard map with 12 civs. Maybe this time we can settle our first city on a river, which would be good for the research. Resources and lux's are scarce and this time no darn Greeks or Romans as neighbours Early wars are fun!

And yes, I think I'm ready to step up to Emperor level...

 

[cracker]

The pregame discussion thread is now open at:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51485

so only post in this thread if you still want to make a prediction about things that are not revealed to you in the Scope of the Game announcement or in the Pregame Discussion thread.

 

[Skyfish]

Well looking at the pregame thread, looks like Ambiorix was again SPOT ON !
How he guess all this stuff ? he must be cracker using a another nickname....

 

[mad-bax]

Well, games out tomorrow. Just thought I'd have one last stab.
Someone keeps mentioning C shaped continents. Hmmm.... C shape, Turkish flag.....