[BTS] News: BOTM 129 - Mali, Emperor - Starts 26 April

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 129: Mansa Musa of Mali.

This month you have a standard emperor game on a small tropical map. Enjoy!

Game settings:
Playing as: Mansa Musa of Mali
Rivals: 4 AIs
Difficulty: Emperor
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: None
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Continents
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Small
Climate: Tropical
Sea level: Medium


Mansa Musa is Spiritual and Financial, and you start with The Wheel and Mining.

The Spiritual trait gives no anarchy and double production speed of Temple and Cristo Redentor

The Financial trait gives +1 commerce on any plot that already has at least 2 commerce

Unique unit: Skirmisher (replaces Archer)
The Skirmisher benefits from: base strength = 4, and 1-2 first strikes. This compares with the Archer which has: base strength = 3, and 1 first strike.

Unique Building: Mint (replaces Forge)
The extra benefit of the mint over the forge is that the mint gives you +10% gold in each city it is built in.

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 26 Apr 2017, 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 26 May 2017.

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.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sorry this game is late. Because I've announced it very late, I've only given 2 days for the pregame discussion. - and AlanH gets even less time to make the Mac save 'cos I have other stuff to do before I can hand it over to him. That might mean the Mac save is delayed a day or so, as I may well not have given Alan enough warning to make it! Sorry all if that's the case, but I figured it was better to get the game out as quickly as possible for the majority of players.

 

[lymond]

No reason to move to coast, so warrior 1NE seems most logical to me. SIP nice with the flood plains, but settling on the wine would provide a nice little bonus. AH not a great first tech for Mr. Mansa, but will probably go AG>AH for Pottery.

 

[Ronnie1]

I would rather have the 2 flood plains than settling on the wine. I don't see a reason to move from SIP.

 

[Fippy]

There are strong reasons for settling on wine in a competitive game here, make no mistake about that
While Lymo likes 1ne i would look 1nw thou with the warrior, most likely no info but who knows sometimes those maps are edited.

 

[lymond]

Yeah, come to think of it, moving 1NE doesn't really make a difference in the settling position since the tiles would be in BFC either way...only if there was consideration of moving W or N somewhere. So 1NW or even 1W provides new info.

 

[Ronnie1]

There are strong reasons for settling on wine in a competitive game here, make no mistake about that

Would you mind expanding on this? I see getting 1 extra from the wine, am I missing something?

 

[lymond]

Would you mind expanding on this? I see getting 1 extra from the wine, am I missing something?

Actually you are getting 2 extra commerce, and you will always have that..of course, the value of that degrades over time. However, 2 extra commerce basically free in the early game is huge. One of the major concepts of this game that many new or less experienced players either a) fail to grasp/realize b) fail to utilize effectively, is that this game relies heavily on the snowball effect to succeed. The sooner you can acquire and leverage bonuses - in whatever form - the more stuff you have later. This can lead to faster finishes and higher scores for victories.

So you lose 2 FPs that won't start generating extra commerce probably for 30 to 50 turns depending on when you tech pottery for a more immediate impact to your research. Now, if I was going for a longer game, Space/UN, and wanted a good Bureau cap which SIP appears to be, then I might just SIP. However, if your goal is fast warmongering then, IMO, wine wins out.

 

[Fippy]

Sure, happy you are interested..adding some more stuff to Lymo's already great reply

Everything starts with SIP often being the worst option.
How's that possible, 2 main reasons are a) finding more resources in the fog (or gaining more fogged tiles where that's possible), and b) improved city tiles (+1 food, +1 hammer, or in case of this wine tile +2c).

So before thinking about SIP, we want to learn more by moving our starting unit.
Here the warrior can show 3 fogged tiles west by moving 1nw.
Let's imagine 2w of him is wet corn..setting 1s suddenly became much more tempting than SIP.

Or the more likely result, nothing special was found.
Empty grass tile & 2 forests.
Now settling on wine becomes interesting, by moving we are not getting 2 fps more for our Cap.
Those are not lost thou, and can be used by other cities.
We would be exchanging them for +2 permanent commerce, and fogged mystery tiles.

2 more starting commerce allow getting AH quicker, and should result in a bit more early food.
We are also dropping 2 plains tiles.
Floodplains look shiny, but they are "only" +1 food much later for your Cap when they all would actually be used.

Even for space race or super Bur. Cap, SIP might not be better if our warrior reveals nothing of interest.
Floodplains cottage commerce can be put on other tiles, i.e. on a green river tile that becomes available by not settling in place.
If there's something nice in the "settling on wine fog", what advantages would SIP keep?
Brutally honest answer, zero
Ofc it's not guaranteed, but possible and it's how i think when making settling decisions.
The true value of 2 more floodplains are 2 food. It's not the commerce they also show, many other tiles can provide that.
Food for this city, not lost food by moving.

 

[pigswill]

Blue circle is interesting, on the face of it no stronger than sip so possible there are extra resource(s) in western fog which is an argument for moving warrior nw before deciding on capital location.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Fog-gazing, there could be 5 (or 6?) fp tiles, losing 2-3 by moving to the wine. That's a lot of food in exchange for the +2cpt. Depends on the brutality, savagery and inhumanity of the mapmaker.

 

[Xcalibrator]

To be a contrarian, and because I have a not particularly rational preference for coastal sites (allowing earlier workboat exploration), how about moving warrior W? Moving NW reveals 3 fogged tiles plus maybe one more if it's a hill. W reveals 4 (yes, two are water) and maybe two more if they are hills. If there's seafood, I'd then be tempted to move the settler SW, revealing one more tile. I'm also a little tempted by settling where the warrior is because it would provide 3 river hills (and we start with Mining). Yes, I'm probably looking too far ahead; the extra 2C from wine right now is more important than I think.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Moving the warrior west also might give you an idea of how important it is to leave that area for settling. I looks like you can settle 2w of the blue circle.

 

[Pangaea]

Small mapsize I see, and Continents. How many AIs is that, 4? So probably 1-2 on our continent, for a possible semi-isolation situation.

I see Lowther already mentioned it, by I seem to spot more FPs to the north. SIP looks pretty strong to me, although I also see the strength in settling on the wine. FIN is nice for stuff like that.

 

[Pangaea]

Shouldn't spoiler threads be up by now? I can't find them.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Shouldn't spoiler threads be up by now? I can't find them.

Oooops, sorry, my bad. Spoilers are up now.