[BTS] News: BOTM 136, starts August 6

[Deckhand]

BOTM 136: Hammurabi of Babylon.

The Babylonians don't just walk the line between Builder and Warmonger: they've settled down to raise a civilization on it. Hammurabi's "Organized" trait and the health-yielding Garden building, the Babylonian replacement for the Colosseum, make Babylonian cities fast-growing affairs. But Hammurabi's "Aggressive" trait and the Bowman's significant bonus against melee units allow Babylonian players to wreak impressive early-game havoc.
Warlord difficulty. AIs in both saves start with Deity units and techs, as well as 300gold. Worldbuilder file is deity level.
Garden will help make up for lack of seafood. Domination victory not available.


Game settings:
Playing as: Hammurabi of Babylon
Rivals: 8 AIs
Difficulty: Warlord (or Deity)
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No barbarians, permanent alliances, no vassal states, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: Conquest, Spaceship, Cultural, Time, Diplomatic

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


Hammurabi is Organized and Aggressive, and you start with The Wheel and Agriculture.
The Organized trait gives -50% civic upkeep and double production speed of Courthouse, Factory and Lighthouse

The Aggressive trait gives free Combat I promotion for melee and gunpowder units and double production speed of Barracks and Drydock

Unique unit: Bowman (replaces Archer)
The Bowman benefits from: 50% combat bonus against melee units. This compares with the Archer which has: no directly comparable benefits.

Unique Building: Garden (replaces Colosseum)
2 in addition to Colosseum usual cost and benefits: 80 +1 +1/20%

Starting screenshot

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




Contender Class bonuses:
Warlord level.
AIs start with Deity units and techs, as well as 300 gold.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
Deity level.
AIs start with Deity units and techs, as well as 300 gold.


To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 6 Aug 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 12 Sep 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.

 

[Pangaea]

Lack of domination means people can take over the entire world, bar one city again, and get silly scores. Just sayin'.

 

[Deckhand]

Lack of domination means people can take over the entire world, bar one city again, and get silly scores. Just sayin'.

Perhaps. If both games score as Warlord then base scores could be huge but final score won't be that big. Contender save is Warlord. But if somehow the scoring uses the wb save; then yes scores will be huge.

If you like conquering everyone, game is for you. No domination and no vassals means you have to take all their cities. Other victory conditions are available for those who don't want to do that.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Starting August 8? You think we had something better to do this weekend?

I'll settle in place and try for a conquest that's faster than my normal pace--but not until after my vacation that starts on Thursday.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Challenger Class bonuses:
Warlord level.
AIs start with Deity units and techs, as well as 300 gold.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
Deity level.
AIs start with Deity units and techs, as well as 300 gold.

Presumably the first one is meant to say Contender Class?

Looks like an interesting setup!

 

[Deckhand]

Starting August 8? You think we had something better to do this weekend?

I'll settle in place and try for a conquest that's faster than my normal pace--but not until after my vacation that starts on Thursday.

Doh! It's been so long since I created a save I forgot that the delay between posting them and releasing them was only to give Alan time for the Mac saves. I will reupload in a bit with start date Aug6 (you still miss the weekend). "Sorry I'm late".

Presumably the first one is meant to say Contender Class?

Looks like an interesting setup!

Thanks, will fix.

 

[Deckhand]

Saves have been uploaded again, with start date of 6Aug.
Upcoming games has correct countdown but wrong (old date) is listed. I probably messed up somewhere. Anyway game should be available in western hemisphere very soon.

Game is available for download now.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Thanks, Deckhand!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

AIs start with Deity units and techs, as well as 300 gold.

For the sake of those of us who don't play at that level, what are the Deity units and tech?

 

[Deckhand]

For the sake of those of us who don't play at that level, what are the Deity units and tech?

4 Archers, 2 Scouts, 1 Worker, 2 Settlers
Techs they normally start with, plus Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, Archery

The AIs were random. No map edits.

 

[justjohn]

Game is available for download now.

Doesn't seem to be correct. I get to the download page, but when I try to download the game, I get:

"Sorry, file civ4botm136contender.CivBeyondSwordSave is not available."​

 

[Deckhand]

Doesn't seem to be correct. I get to the download page, but when I try to download the game, I get:

"Sorry, file civ4botm136contender.CivBeyondSwordSave is not available."​

You are correct - not working now. Just tried.
Before posting above I successfully downloaded the contender save.
Try again after the hour.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Doh! It's been so long since I created a save I forgot that the delay between posting them and releasing them was only to give Alan time for the Mac saves. I will reupload in a bit with start date Aug6 (you still miss the weekend). "Sorry I'm late".

Thanks, will fix.

lol! To be fair, the delay before making the saves available (traditionally about 5 days) was also to ensure there was some discussion about the game - to give people a chance to discuss starting strategies, settling location, etc. Rather than have everyone just download and open the save immediately, thereby disqualifying themselves from further participation in the pregame thread!

 

[Deckhand]

Excellent point, I was over accommodating because of my lateness.

dang, some interesting discussion could have been conducted regarding the settings.

 

[Pangaea]

What's highlands like anyway, don't think I've ever played it.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

What's highlands like anyway, don't think I've ever played it.

I would expect it to be an all-land map, dotted with lakes, and with a very high proportion of the tiles being hills or mountains. It'll probably be very easy to find high-production sites for cities, but relatively hard to find good science/commerce sites. You may find food is in short supply too because of the number of low-food hills. If this is a typical highland map, the starting area will likely be as good as you'll ever find for a high science city with towns. So I would start the game expecting it to favour warring, while science progress will be relatively slow.

Also, you may well find that, in many places, long chains of mountains restrict how you can move around the map. The map size will be quite small - balancing out the lack of oceans so that you still have a similar number of land tiles to a typical standard map.

You can always try running Civ and generating a couple of Highlands Maps and looking at them in WorldBuilder - you'll quickly get the idea, as the overall large-scale geography is always basically the same.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

What's highlands like anyway, don't think I've ever played it.

It's also a Flat map, so reduced maintenance and very high max number of cities.

Mountain ranges can make for interesting patterns.

 

[elitetroops]

The map size will be quite small - balancing out the lack of oceans so that you still have a similar number of land tiles to a typical standard map.

Unless the map was created using some other setting than "highlands - standard size", the world will be massive. Highlands maps are one size bigger than the other flat scripts. A standard sized Higlands map is as large as a large size Lakes or Great Plains map. Usually some 2400-2500 land tiles, or about 3 times the land of a standard pangaea. City count won't be quite 3 times, as there is no coastline to settle, but still there's room for a lot of them.

 

[Pangaea]

I would expect it to be an all-land map, dotted with lakes, and with a very high proportion of the tiles being hills or mountains. It'll probably be very easy to find high-production sites for cities, but relatively hard to find good science/commerce sites. You may find food is in short supply too because of the number of low-food hills. If this is a typical highland map, the starting area will likely be as good as you'll ever find for a high science city with towns. So I would start the game expecting it to favour warring, while science progress will be relatively slow.

Also, you may well find that, in many places, long chains of mountains restrict how you can move around the map. The map size will be quite small - balancing out the lack of oceans so that you still have a similar number of land tiles to a typical standard map.

You can always try running Civ and generating a couple of Highlands Maps and looking at them in WorldBuilder - you'll quickly get the idea, as the overall large-scale geography is always basically the same.

Thanks

Took a while this time, but seems like I've hit that snag again, where I'm tired of Civ and need another hiatus, so probably won't play this map. Have picked up Pillars of Eternity again. With the above, it sounds like the starting area is as good as it will get in terms of food and commerce, even a handful (or two) of riverside cottage spots. With luck there is also a strategic resource on the one possible tile.

Good luck to those playing.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I would expect it to be an all-land map, dotted with lakes, and with a very high proportion of the tiles being hills or mountains. It'll probably be very easy to find high-production sites for cities, but relatively hard to find good science/commerce sites. You may find food is in short supply too because of the number of low-food hills. If this is a typical highland map, the starting area will likely be as good as you'll ever find for a high science city with towns. So I would start the game expecting it to favour warring, while science progress will be relatively slow.

Also, you may well find that, in many places, long chains of mountains restrict how you can move around the map. The map size will be quite small - balancing out the lack of oceans so that you still have a similar number of land tiles to a typical standard map.

You can always try running Civ and generating a couple of Highlands Maps and looking at them in WorldBuilder - you'll quickly get the idea, as the overall large-scale geography is always basically the same.

Sounds like an interesting map for a WonderBread Economy.