[BTS] News: BOTM 169 Enlil of Sumeria, starts Feb 1st

[Noble Zarkon]

BOTM 169: The Garden of Eden.



Enlil, mighty leader of the Sumerians, you live in a beautiful but small area, food and other resources are plentiful - indeed some of your followers describe it as a Garden of Eden (but without the tree!). Many of your followers are content to live where they are and build a Civilization the likes of which the world has never seen. Some of your advisers however are more ambitious and seek to expand beyond your immediate horizons and see what (perhaps who?) is out there, some fear they are foolhardy and worry about what horrors will confront your people if you leave your wonderful home. Which way will you lead your people forward?

• Leader: Enlil
• Difficulty: Prince
• Map size: Worldsize_standard
• Map Script: That would be telling!
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Speed: Normal
• Options: Aggressive AI, unrestricted leaders, no goody huts, no random events, rising seas
• Rivals: 4
• Victory conditions: All enabled
• World wrap None
• Schedule: Starting saves will be available below from February 1, 2019
• Submissions: Will then be due by March 4, 2019

Enlil is Spiritual and Organized, and starts with The Wheel and Agriculture.
The Spiritual trait gives no anarchy and double production speed of Temple and Cristo Redentor

The Organized trait gives -50% civic upkeep and double production speed of Courthouse (Ziggurat in this case!), Factory and Lighthouse

Enlil's Unique Unit is the Vulture, an axeman with base strength 6, but with only 25% bonus against melee instead of 50% as the regular axeman. The higher base strength is a huge advantage and significantly increases the chances of a successful early rush.

His Unique Building is the Ziggurat a slightly cheaper Courthouse (90 hammers instead of 120) that is available at Priesthood rather than Code of Laws. Only 4 of them are required to build the Forbidden Palace.

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 on 1st Feb 2019, 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 4th March 2019.

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 3.19.005 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.

 

[krikav]

Oh, incence, wine and deer on grassland? This sure looks like eden!

 

[Deckhand]

Settle in place looks awfully good. Good food and production. Looks like cottages are way to go. Mine or camp deer?

Looks like ocean to our south. SIP could isolate seafood there. Unlikely mapmaker is that evil. Is it worth delaying settling one turn to send scout there to check?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Thanks for the map NobleZarkon. This looks intriguing.

Settle in place looks awfully good. Good food and production. Looks like cottages are way to go. Mine of camp deer?

Looks like ocean to our south. SIP could isolate seafood there. Unlikely mapmaker is that evil. Is it worth delaying settling one turn to send scout there to check?

Oh yes, that's a tough one. You could argue the mapmaker is already that evil just by giving us such a difficult decision.

The scout could move onto the deer in T0, which will give us a good view of the likely sea to the West. Depending what the scout sees there, we could possibly settle 1NW: That keeps all the same SIP resources, and makes it just possible to settle an extra city to the South if it turns out there's seafood there. However, the cost is that 1NW will probably make it impossible to use the visible lakes with a lighthouse. And from fog-gazing, it looks likely to bring one unlighthousable coast tile as well (by itself a pretty minor issue but psychologically frustrating).

Having said that, settle-in-place does look like an amazing high commerce capital site with good early growth into the bargain. Maybe it's worth the risk of orphaning any seafood?

1SE doesn't look too bad - it's probably coastal, still has a fair few commerce tiles, and keeps the option of building the great lighthouse in the capital if it turns out that the map type makes that a good strategy.. Keeps the corn and incense, and allows for a 2nd city to use the deer and lighthousable lakes.

Tricky decisions.

some fear they are foolhardy and worry about what horrors will confront your people if you leave your wonderful home

Trying to read between the lines, from this remark, I'm guessing that if we go exploring, maybe we'll find much less good terrain outside our immediate vicinity. If NobleZarkon has really modelled this on the Garden of Eden, I wonder if we'll find an Arabian desert around us?

 

[krikav]

With the father ragnus map, where things where very uncertain. I choose to wander around for quite some turns, just to get the full picture of my surroundings.
The start is so rich, that we can afford to wander around here too.
If we really do have just a small patch of eden surrounded by desert, squeezing in multiple cities can be really important, even cities w/o any food resource is important.

 

[lymond]

I can't quite reconcile the Leader/Civ stuff. I assume we are playing Asoka of Sumeria. However, you mentioned India's starting techs, which are determined by the civ not the leader. So, if we are Sumeria, should we not start with TW and Ag?

Looks like a juicy start. Key issue being the proximity to the coast. I do agree that hopping the Scout onto the deer tile is probably the best move. Part of me is considering settling on the wine or even just 1N. 1N seems to give pretty much the same stuff less the deer tile which I could leave for another city.. Yeah, mining is is okay but probably would not use that tile much early, and as for hunting would likely ignore it for a long time. 1N would give some play to the southern coast area if seafood presented itself.

 

[Deckhand]

1N loses all three hills, maybe not production at all.
1SE keeps two hills, gets access to sea and leaves room for another city for deer. Maybe move scout there.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I can't quite reconcile the Leader/Civ stuff. I assume we are playing Asoka of Sumeria. However, you mentioned India's starting techs, which are determined by the civ not the leader. So, if we are Sumeria, should we not start with TW and Ag?

You're right thanks - have corrected the opening post.

 

[High King J.J.]

Unlikely mapmaker is that evil.

Oh you poor innocent. All mapmakers are by definition evil.
This is Prince level, exploring before settling won't kill us.
This Eden is without any trees. It would have been nice to get to eat from all the rest of the trees, maybe ripe with tropical fruit. Now we have to turn to the tech tree of good and evil.
I can't speculate on the evil horrors and civs that may lurk out there, lest certain person ban me from CFC. I might be banned because of this comment. If so, .

 

[Deckhand]

This Eden is without any trees.

That's an advantage for me, because I am chopping impaired.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Sounds exciting. As usually, hoping for a Mac save.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

What is out there?

Surely, we can't be playing Sumeria without it being Humbaba.

 

[AlanH]

Sounds exciting. As usually, hoping for a Mac save.

Mac save is now uploaded!

 

[jshelr]

Just thought I would mention that I use Steam to play Civ IV. After updating buffy on my new lap top I was unable to load the save file. Also, there is a message when I play the mod buffy that the results will not be accepted for GOTM or Hall of Fame. Not sure what to do. If I could get around this I would participate regularly in GOTM.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

ust thought I would mention that I use Steam to play Civ IV. After updating buffy on my new lap top I was unable to load the save file. Also, there is a message when I play the mod buffy that the results will not be accepted for GOTM or Hall of Fame. Not sure what to do. If I could get around this I would participate regularly in GOTM.

Have you followed the instructions for running Buffy on Steam?

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Mac save is now uploaded!

Thanks

 

[jshelr]

Thanks NZ. Advice worked fine. I was able to start the game file with no problem. (However, I had to exit immediately

Will enjoy playing this.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Thanks NZ. Advice worked fine. I was able to start the game file with no problem. (However, I had to exit immediately

Will enjoy playing this.

welcome, great to see new players