Gotm19 - Guess what it will be Speculation Thread

[cracker]

Its that time of the month again to support all the seers, savants, and clairvoyents in the GOTM world by opening up this thread to let you take your best guess at what you think Gotm19-Ottomans will look like.

Some people really seemed to enjoy this last month and this continues to be a "game within the game" feature where you the players try to guess what the mind of the map maker has in store for you next.

Also just so no one worries about these things too much, the outline of game concepts and features for Gotm19, Gotm20, and Gotm21 continues to be set sort of in stone, so this discussion is not a "request thread". It is pretty much just an extra mind-game for you to play to see how close you can come to guessing key features of what Gotm19 will be even before the pregame announcement is released to you.

FYI, an Onager is a species of Wild Ass.

Good luck and have fun!!

 

[Karasu]

Do you mean we are going to find Onagers along with standard barbarians, Cimmerian warriors, Scythian horse riders, Squids and Krakens?

You are surely making the world a lot larger... !

 

[mad-bax]

Since modern Turkey straddles the Bosphorous which links the Med with the Black Sea (?) and also separates Asia from Europe I would expect a continents map with a tenuous sea route between the two and set in the northern hemisphere. You might expect oil and rubber to be abundant on the Asian continent wheras iron would be abundant in Europe.

Since the Ottoman empire was settled largely by a flood of nomadic tribesmen it may be that the terrain would suit an ICS settler flood type game. Obviously the terrain types would present a difficulty to the game designer as arid desert predominates in asia, wheras Europe is temperate. So balance might be acheived by a lack of bonuses and a high proportion of mountain tiles in Europe.

Also because of the great number of warlike nomadic tribes occupying this part of the world it would not surprise me if the barbarian units were stronger than usual and set to raging.

I would also be surprised if the Arabs from PTW didn't put in an appearance.

Could be bloody. :die:

 

[RufRydyr]

A few days ago I started an Ottomans game to get a feel for them before the game. A trial run if you will. Got to say I love the Ottomans. Fast research and fast workers. I plan to make a beeline to libraries. In my game I have Greece and when we left the ancient age we each got a different tech which was sweet. Then I got railroads for free and Greece got Sanitation. The tech pace has been fabulous in my little game. The other thing that I love is the Siphai. It replaces the cav with an 8/3/3 unit. Talk about a dominating UU. I haven't decided wether to beeline to Siphais or Universities in the second age for the GOTM. In my game it's islands that are spread out like GOTM 17 was and while Greece and I are building railroads the other civs that I haven't destroyed yet are only 1/2 way through research the ancient era techs. Siphais vs. spearman is loads of fun. Hope the GOTM goes like my trial run!

 

[LeSphinx]

Ottomans: Scientifics & Industrious.
I love to play civs which are scientifics.
With the industrious aspect of the civ, I will try to improve quickly the tiles around my cities in order to improve my QSC way of playing. ( I was in group5 in QSC16!)

I hope we will not start in a desert field but in a good flood plains!

LeSphinx

 

[Moonsinger]

What level is it going to be? My guess is that it will be another twisted Monarch.

 

[Shillen]

I'm hoping it will be emperor or deity. After regent and monarch games I think it's time to step the difficulty back up a notch. The Ottomans are a great civ to do that with too because they have powerful traits and a powerful UU. It would be great if he didn't put any saltpeter near us either, so we wouldn't be able to wait until sipahi to go to war.

 

[mad-bax]

Good question!

The last continents map was Emperor so I think that's out. If we have insane barbs then You and about 4 others will be capable of winning a deity game. So I think you could be right.

I kind of hope its' a Deity game though. I want to know if I'm ready.

In the last few games Cracker has always added a new barb unit. I think we can expect another. What do you think it'll look like? Maybe a camel riding Scimitar slashing Bedouin ADM 322. What do you think?

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by mad-bax
The last continents map was Emperor so I think that's out. If we have insane barbs then You and about 4 others will be capable of winning a deity game. So I think you could be right.

I don't see why emperor would be out since our last continents game was emperor. I think monarch would be ruled out first since the last game was monarch. As for the barbs, the way he's set them up in the last 3 games actually makes them much easier to deal with. Since he puts so many camps in isolated locations, no camps spawn anywhere else. That means you don't even have to worry about them if you don't want to. They might as well be set to sedentary.

edit: Do we even know this is going to be a continents game?

 

[a space oddity]

 

[mad-bax]

The reason I am speculating that the barbs will be more of a challenge in this game is for two reasons. Firstly, the historic perspective, as the nomadic tribes were scattered all over the middle east in ancient times. Secondly, cracker is running a quick game to see what happens when barb settings are "upped" to an insane level. If he isolates the barbs then it is more likely the the game level will be set high. OTOH because he's done that twice already maybe he won't this time.

I think a deity bloodbath would be kind of fun

EDIT: No we don't know if it will be a continents game. It's just my guess.

 

[Ronald]

My guess for the level would be emperor, since we had regent and monarch the last two games. Continents could be the landmass after archipelago and pangea, maybe 3 continents with 3 civs each?
Since we had plenty resources last time, a fight for scarce resources could be theme for the next one.

I would also like a realistic map of the mediterranian sea plus some parts of western and eastern europe with all the actual civs on their original starting location: Spain, France, Germany, Rome, Russia, Ottomans, Persia, Egypt and Carthago

Hopefully the mapsize won't be larger than the last two.

Ronald

 

[Karasu]

Space, you are right. The Onager was also a siege machine... Maybe carried by Wid Asses in this GOTM?

 

[Borealis]

So... a mobile siege onager drawn by unruly donkeys?

Okay, that's it for me until I finish GOTM 18.

 

[Yndy]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
What level is it going to be? My guess is that it will be another twisted Monarch.

Let this not be a Deity game. I'm streching my schedule only to post on CFC, palying in the May GOTM seems almost impossible for me. Still. I'll have plenty of time in June.
Given the above I only hope an OCC will be 'doable' for the next GOTM.

 

[Darkness]

Originally posted by Yndy


Let this not be a Deity game.

I can only agree with you here, 'cause I'll surely get butchered at deity level....

 

[Karasu]

Personally, I bet on:

- Deity game with additional player handicaps like unavailable units/improvements/wonders, or forceful permanence in Ancient Era.
- "True" world size (i.e., 1:1 scale, you'll actually be able to see the starting tile borders on the floor all around your computer)
- "Torus" world topology
- Hysteric Paranoid Alien Barbarians storming in from eleven time-space dimensions

And no, Cracker never reveals his map plans to the GOTM staff...

 

[Renata]

LOL @ Karasu

So that's an onager, eh? Additional unit for everybody, maybe?

I'd like this game to emperor or deity, personally, too, since I've glutted myself on 'how to win fastest' type games lately, and am itching for the challenge of 'will I win at all?' And next month I *will* have lots of time to play, as opposed to this month, where I'll be pushing it just to finish.

As for my contribution to wild speculation: I bet the game has Ottomans in it.

Renata, not feeling very imaginative pre-caffeine

 

[inudog]

Sorry for being such a newbie, but I thought the GOTM would be available to be played with Vanilla Civ and not just PTW. How does that work if the chosen Civ is the Ottoman's?

 

[hotrod0823]

@inudog: This may not be the best area for the question but if you check carefully the last 2 games were PTW or Vanilla. Cracker and the rest of the crew "built" specialized civs that replicate the PTW civs. The neoCarth or Keltoi (sp), with all the same attributes and units.

As far as my speculation I think it will be a deity game with a custom map that focuses on survival. Barb intensity will be strong, I expect to be see 3.2.1 units running around.

Maybe we will get to use MDI's this time around. Perhaps there will be some new PTW civs to play against. Not just the Keltoi or NeoCarthage. .

Hotrod