News: BOTM 114, Monarch Lincoln, starts 1 September

[Deckhand]

BOTM 114: Lincoln of America.

Lincoln of America. Can Lincoln unite a divided world? (Or is there a reason he has only starred once in a GOTM? (2008))
Note to AIs - if you don't like my map edits, the world isn't fair.

Game settings:
Playing as: Lincoln of America
Rivals: 8 AIs
Difficulty: Monarch
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal speed but marathon number of turns (1500).
Options: No city razing, permanent alliances, new random seed on reload, no goody huts, yes Events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Mystery
World Wrap: None
Mapsize: Worldsize_standard
Climate: Climate_temperate
Sea level: Sealevel_medium


Lincoln is Philosophical and Charismatic, and you start with Fishing and Agriculture.

The Philosophical trait gives +100% great people birth rate and double production speed of University

The Charismatic trait gives +1 happiness/city, +1 happiness for monument/broadcast tower, and -25% experience required for unit promotions

Unique unit: Navy SEAL (replaces Marine)
The Navy SEAL benefits from: 1-2 first strikes, and free promotions: amphibious and march. This compares with the Marine which has: 0 first strikes, and free promotions: amphibious.

Unique Building: Mall (replaces Supermarket) Mall is like supermarket, but also sells shoes.

Starting screenshot

This is the start of the game (click for a bigger image):




Note that in this game, any espionage-culture victories will be counted as cultural victories.


To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 1 Sep 2016, server local time (UTC-6:00). From that date and time, you'll be able to get your chosen starting save >>>here<<<.

Submit the save after your victory (or defeat) here, by 2 Oct 2016.

Here is a link to a list of the differences between Vanilla, Warlords and BtS.

Software Versions

Windows: This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Civ4 Vanilla or Warlords), patched to version 3.19, and with the BUFFY mod version 3.19.003 installed. You can download the BUFFY mod here. Players using Windows Vista or Windows 7 are encouraged to read the notes on Vista fixes here.


Macintosh: This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Civ4 Vanilla or Warlords), patched to version 3.19, and with the Mac BUFFY mod version 3.19.003 installed. You can download the Mac BUFFY mod here.

While playing...

Remember - for your entry to be accepted, it MUST be your first attempt to play this game, and you MUST NOT replay any turns. If you make a mistake while playing, you have to live with it, learn from it, and carry on the game without replaying.

We will open 'spoiler' threads during the month for players to discuss what happens in their games. Do not discuss any details of your game outside those threads.

 

[Deckhand]

Settle in place looks pretty good. Nice of the map maker to reveal a few more tiles.

 

[georgjorge]

Great, on the 1st already!

New random seed on reload: Does that mean we are now officially allowed to reload when we lose battles ? Or does that option actually do anything else other than that?

 

[Deckhand]

Great, on the 1st already!

New random seed on reload: Does that mean we are now officially allowed to reload when we lose battles ?

no it does not

Or does that option actually do anything else other than that?

Not that I know of. I think you might get different in between turn AI interactions and events, so in that respect it is bad. Some time ago, it was adapted for sgotm. I don't know that the reasons for that would apply to botm. Anyway, that's the way it is for this game and hopefully it won't matter.

 

[Livio]

Move the warrior on the sheep just to see something new but settle in place seems to be a must. Great GP farm with lots of food, and we are philo. No city raze could be a problem at monarch, at the begin in particular. And what about the barbs, Deckhand?

 

[lymond]

random seed resets the number used for rng, with rng obviously controlling much of the outcomes in civ iv. So, for example, combat results might be different the next time you load the game.

Technically, in "no reload" quasi-competition like GOTM, the option is pretty irrelevant either way as you don't really know what those outcomes would actually be. In other words, every time you end a session and then start a new session (close game/load game) the seed is reset. The results/outcomes would then be different (although likely not dramatically except for certain major events or hotly contested battles) But really you are blind to all that. Where it would really make a difference is in a casual game where you are reloading inside a turn - testing out different combat results, or in between turns trying to get different outcomes like GP poppage, events and stuff, even IBT combat results.

I haven't thought about it closely to determine if there are ways to abuse it in this situation. (well, actually there is most definitely one way to abuse it if a player would stoop to that level)

So, imo, it is probably best just to never use that option for these types of games, although I'd much rather have that option active than events active.

 

[nocho]

I guess the new random seed on reload actually avoids more abuse than that it allows it and presumably that's why it was introduced some SGOTMs ago. If you have a given save and there's no new random seed, you can test outcomes on another computer than your playing computer and not be detected for foul play. So you test that 50% battle on your test computer and if it goes well you can execute it on the real game without any reloads detected. With new random seed that won't work.

On the Lincoln game, SIP is obvious. And the mapmaker really is nice to show some more tiles.

 

[lymond]

ha..well, we are probably putting ideas in people's heads (for some reason that's the way I look at it), but I had sort of an inverse concept of that logic. although I'm not exactly sure what can be "detected" between computers. But if I"m indeed wrong and the logic is truly sound, then maybe the option should always be on.

 

[nocho]

ha..well, we are probably putting ideas in people's heads (for some reason that's the way I look at it), but I had sort of an inverse concept of that logic. although I'm not exactly sure what can be "detected" between computers. But if I"m indeed wrong and the logic is truly sound, then maybe the option should always be on.

When it was introduced in SGOTM I too was scratching my head over why on earth that option was on, as on first sight it indeed looks as if it could be abused more than anything else. On second thought the reason I gave above seemed actually quite logical.

 

[lymond]

yep, there's just a certain cog in that logic that I'm not sure about in my experiences, but all that's probably better suited to a staff discussion

 

[Deckhand]

@livio - Barbarians are normal. But we didn't give them any techs. (They should have archery at Monarch)

re: NRS - Years ago, I speculated about a way to cheat and Alan revised/deleted my post stating we don't need to give people any ideas. I'm going to bring this discussion to his attention.

 

[AlanH]

Enough said on the topic of new random seed.

The only reason anyone would care is if they were looking for ways to beat the system, but we know that no one here does that &#8230;. don't we?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Nice of the map maker to reveal a few more tiles.

You cozying up to the mapmaker?

I also like starting with Fishing and actually having seafood! And agri and corn! So what's the catch? I like events. The key is to keep about 20g in reserve which pays off most bad luck.

 

[Livio]

You cozying up to the mapmaker?

I also like starting with Fishing and actually having seafood! And agri and corn! So what's the catch? I like events. The key is to keep about 20g in reserve which pays off most bad luck.

Seafood is very good resource but coastal start is too slow in any case

 

[kcd_swede]

We have games both w and w/o NRS. It is not so difficult to see if one or the other is abused. Only having both secures the competitions, imo. It is good to know that we are as diligent as game staff, even now that the game is so old that it is pretty much the old and faithful trusted players engaging. When new players come along and are amazed at the results that xp players can achieve, they can be assured it is some fun things left to learn, not just fudgery.

Anyhow, starting with fishing makes the settling choice easy - you want to use that tech from the ge-go.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

That was very nice of the Map Maker to give us a GH For square within our initial 9 squares when settling in place, rather than only giving us squares which provide 1 Hammer each.

A Work Boat could get built in 10 turns with 3 Hammers / turn for 30 Hammers total.

A Worker could then get built in:
1 turn giving 4 H and 12 turns giving 5 Hammers = 4 + 12 * 5 = 64 Hammers aka a Worker in 13 turns

That's opposed to simply building a Worker from the start, spending 15 turns.

Still, Crab isn't as nice as Fish, so your Worker still comes out 10 + 13 - 15 = 8 turns later than building it initially. But, with what looks like dry Corn being our highest Food-producing square, those extra Worker turns are probably not really going to be missed.


One interesting question to answer is what we should be doing with all of those Forests. The Oracle? The Great Lighthouse? Stonehenge (due to being Charismatic)? Settler spam? Horse Archer spam? Quickly tech to Mathematics to make better use of those Forests?

With a late-game-settled City like that, I'd consider saving the Forests and making it a National Park City, but not for a capital.

 

[Livio]

Please, don't open the spoiler if you have not jet started the game.
Deckhand, there's a problem with the settings or it's all ok?

Spoiler :

Marathon speed but normal speed building and normal speed research. and map size would seem greater than standard.

 

[Deckhand]

Well, that is a problem. Certainly unintended. But rather than trying to fix at this point, I will say "it is what it is" and let people just play it.

My apologies.

Spoiler :

I don't know about the map size. Maybe it is related to the map type I used.
But the speed mismatch is a big oops.

After uploading, when creating announcement, I noticed the accidental marathon speed.

I started WB scenario with new speed, (added some resources) and then saved WB file. Then started/saved upload file.

But it seems there was a problem with doing it this way. DynamicSpirit warned me. Guess I should playtest at least a few turns.

Since game has started and fixing it would both take extra time and result in a later game - let's play as is. I will edit the announcement to note the discrepancy. Let me know if there is more I should note.

 

[Livio]

Well, that is a problem. Certainly unintended. But rather than trying to fix at this point, I will say "it is what it is" and let people just play it.

My apologies.

Spoiler :

I don't know about the map size. Maybe it is related to the map type I used.
But the speed mismatch is a big oops.

After uploading, when creating announcement, I noticed the accidental marathon speed. But it seems there was a problem with doing it this way. DynamicSpirit warned me. Guess I should playtest at least a few turns.

Since game has started and fixing it would both take extra time and result in a later game - let's play as is. I will edit the announcement to note the discrepancy. Let me know if there is more I should note.

Ok tnx, no problem for me to play as is, I just doubt that it was my problem

 

[Deckhand]

From Alan's analysis of the file, it is just a situation of normal speed with marathon number of turns (1500). We may do something about the scoring.

Spoilers are open. The first should probably be available before 1 AD. But that is what it is for now. I will post here again if we change it.