Newbie to GOTM

[Nicol.Bolas]

Hi, I read all the introduction, but somethings are unclear:

1) I understand the no-reload policy. I never do it in my games. But does this mean, that I have to play the game in one straight session? Or can I play the game for example during 4 evenings, each time strictly taking on from the save I made an evening before?

2) I own civilization complete. Should I also play GOTM and WOTM, or should I just play BOTM? Isn´t it confusing to play in different versions?

3) Is the HOF mod, that (required) safe? Does it in any way change the way firaxis made the game?

 

[da_Vinci]

Hi, I read all the introduction, but somethings are unclear:

1) I understand the no-reload policy. I never do it in my games. But does this mean, that I have to play the game in one straight session? Or can I play the game for example during 4 evenings, each time strictly taking on from the save I made an evening before?

2) I own civilization complete. Should I also play GOTM and WOTM, or should I just play BOTM? Isn´t it confusing to play in different versions?

3) Is the HOF mod, that (required) safe? Does it in any way change the way firaxis made the game?

Answers for you:

1. No, you don't have to play one, continuous, 35 hour eek session. You can save the game, log off, and RESUME from the last position where you stopped. In my opinion the term RELOAD is a bit ambiguous, as some think the prohibition on RELOADS is a prohibition on stopping and resuming ... it is not. What is prohibited is a REPLAY of turns and decisions.

The only time that you can go back and do any part of a turn over is if you have a crash. You should set the autosave to every turn, so you only have to redo one turn at most, and you must make all the same moves you made up to the crash.

2. Many of us play all three XOTM's ... the G, the W and the B. Now, we leaned them one at a time as they were released, so that is less confusing than trying to learn all at once. If you are new to Civ, or to Civ 4, then you might start with the initial Civ 4 as that is the core game ... Warlords and BTS each added more nuances to that Civ 4 core.

3. What I am told about the HOF mod is that is stores in the save certain information about how you played the game that the staff can use to detect reloading activity or other deviations from legitimate play. It also has great helpful features (more on that later). By safe if you mean it does not steal personal information, my understanding is that it does not. If you mean does it run well on the computer, yes it does. And it does not change the underlying gameplay of Civ 4.

It does provide a lot of redesigns of how information is displayed to the player. For example, instead of having to look at leach leader on the relations page or in the diplomacy window to see how they feel about you, the mod creates a table called glance that summarizes it all on one page. It has an improved tech trading screen. Various things like that. Everyone I know who tries it loves it.

dV

 

[AlanH]

Hi, welcome

1. You can, of course, play a game in separate sessions. Save immediately before you quit at the end of a session, then load that save to continue.

Before you start, use Notepad to edit the CivilizationIV.ini file so that autosaves are made for every turn instead of the default of 4 turns. There is one .ini file for each variant of the game, and they all contain a pair of lines like:

; Specify the number of turns between autoSaves.  0 means no autosave.
AutoSaveInterval = 4

Change the '4' to '1' and save the changed file. Then, if you suffer a crash, you will only have to go back to the start of the current turn. Contact me or the game designer to let us know if this happens.

2. We publish vanilla and BtS games every month, and a Warlords game every two months. You can play any of the variants you wish, whenever you wish. you would need to ask the regular players whether they get confused playing multiple variants.

3. The HoF Mod (or BUFFY for BtS) doesn't change the standard game play, and it doesn't expose more information than you have available in a standard game. It is designed to provide you with the same information about the game that is already provided by Firaxis, but it makes it easier to find that information.

It also collects information that allows us to police the reloading rules, and it encrypts saves for additional security. You need to ensure that you set up the permissions for the mod in your version of Windows so that it can do this - see http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php?show=vista for details.

[Cross posted with da_Vinci]

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

thanks for advice,

I have two more unclear things after I playd first GOTM....

1) How should I save the final save?? I just posted the last autosave I found, after I lost my final city, is this the correct way? (but i didnt set the save to 1 per turn) (and how should I save in case I win - either knowingly or surprisingly?)

2) should i save over the downloaded save, or make separate save manually, or just post last autosave?

 

[AlanH]

When you win, or lose, enjoy the victory ceremony then tell the game to continue, save, and submit that save.

If you are conquered you can't continue, so just submit your last autosave. However, if this was not the last turn then it may be considered an "incomplete" game, and you'll be judged to have retired.

We don't care how you save your game. Just ensure that you have a final save that contains the victory or defeat situation.

 

[Deckhand]

There are some minor game play changes in the BOTM BUFFY (HOF) mod:
Global warming (considered broken by many) nerfed and nuclear winter added.
Some of the (most egregious) events are disabled (in particular barbarian uprisings, don't know what else)

Spoiler :

there's lots of posts about whether events belong in a competition, they are usually disabled for higher level games (emperor and up??) - this is a map designer choice

AlanH, thanks for the reminder about setting save interval to 1. You not only tell us what to do, but show us how. Much appreciated.

Spoiler :

I checked, mine were all 1.

 

[ngraner42]

1. No, you don't have to play one, continuous, 35 hour () session.

Of course you can do this just for bragging rights.

One of these days I hope to play a GOTM in one session (to victory, the other way is trivial). My last GOTM was 5hrs, so it certainly could have been one session.

 

[da_Vinci]

[Cross posted with da_Vinci]

Wow, to the minute!

thanks for advice,

I have two more unclear things after I playd first GOTM....

1) How should I save the final save?? I just posted the last autosave I found, after I lost my final city, is this the correct way? (but i didnt set the save to 1 per turn) (and how should I save in case I win - either knowingly or surprisingly?)

2) should i save over the downloaded save, or make separate save manually, or just post last autosave?

Starting with question 2: Looks like you are asking about how to store your GOTM saves on your computer.

First of all, each of the HOF mods has a save on exit option (which I suggest activating) and even a save on end turn (which I would not as that will be a lot of saves on the disk!). I also make a manual save whenever I log off, because sometimes the save on exit fails to work.

The save on exit save is easy to recognize, as it has a naming convention made up of three letter fragments from the game conditions ... something like "Egy_Ram_Nob_Epi" for a game that has you playing Egypt, Rameses, at noble difficulty on epic speed (map settings also show on the list).

I don't overwrite my original save or my manual saves along the way. The default naming of manual save gives you the leader and year, IIRC ... I just put "GOTM XX" in front of it for an unambiguous name for manual saves. These various manual saves are useful in writing a final spoiler once your game is done (of course, don't go opening up these old saves until after your game is submitted, lest it look like a replay).

So when it comes to submitting a save when game is done ... if I win, or another AI has won, the save on exit makes an appropriate final save. It actually comes earlier in real time than the manual save that I make by chosing the "one more turn" option in the dialogue box. If the save on exit function has worked, I submit that final save on exit save, if not, I submit my final manual save made after my victory (or AI victory)

It is a bit different when human is eliminated since usually no AI has won on that turn. In that case you need to submit a save the turn of your conquest defeat. You will see that this is a separate choice in the submission type drop down list.

Lastly, if you decide not to stay to watch the dismemberment of your empire, you can retire, making a save of the position you are retiring from and submitting that.

Hope that helps.

dV

 

[xTBONEx]

I'm also brand new to GOTM.

Are previous GOTMs available? I couldn't find them posted anywhere that was obvious (to me), but that doesn't mean they aren't in fact obviously posted. I would be interested in attempting one or two before trying the current game and absolutely humiliating myself. If someone could just point me in the right direction...

 

[AlanH]

Hi, welcome

Have you found the GOTM web site yet? The release page and results for very Civ4 game we have published is available there. We publish vanilla (GOTM), warlords (WOTM) and BtS (BOTM) competitions and there are over 100 games with 10,000 submissions. You can also see replays of the games submitted by players, as text or an animated map.

All the discussion threads for Civ4 game announcements, spoilers and results are also available in this forum. The default forum listing gives you threads posted in the last 100 days, but you can change that setting to list the older threads.

 

[Deckhand]

Are previous GOTMs available? ... I would be interested in attempting one or two before trying the current game and absolutely humiliating myself. If someone could just point me in the right direction...

To play older GOTMs, you need to load the World Builder Save (because the HOF mod keeps getting better and current mod won't work with old saves).

Now, where can we find those saves again?

 

[AlanH]

You're quite right

At the top of the results table for each completed game there's a link to the WorldBuilder save for the Contender version of that game.

 

[neilmeister]

2. Many of us play all three XOTM's ... the G, the W and the B.

Sad.... but true