[BTS] News: BOTM 173 - Monty, Monarch - Starts 1 April

[pomthom]

Personally I think the Jaguar (not the car) kinda sucks, although it's certainly useful if we were to lack both Copper and Iron. It's basically a worse Axeman.

It's still interesting if you want to rush a neighbour. Makes actually teching IW a possibility if you don't have Copper because you don't have to gamble on Iron. Although on Monarch you may want to tech IW yourself anyway. No real point if you have Copper though

 

[pomthom]

Map settings:
Map: Arboria
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Small
Climate: Tropical
Sea level: Medium
Map latitudes: -50°S to 50°N

Tropical? I can't seem to create a map with these settings, the Climate and Sea Level are greyed out

 

[lymond]

Tropical? I can't seem to create a map with these settings, the Climate and Sea Level are greyed out

I'm not sure how such a setting would impact a map in which the setting is normally not valid, but I have been able to have the field populated as such by first selecting ...say...Tropical...on a map where it is valid and then switch to the map where it is not valid, but the setting remains.

I have deliberately done similar for some HOF games (sea level), although I'm not sure it really did anything.

Not sure if DS did so deliberately, or rather a carryover from playing around with settings, but point is that it is possible.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Tropical? I can't seem to create a map with these settings, the Climate and Sea Level are greyed out

For arboria, they are greyed out so you can't change them - but 'tropical' and 'medium' are the pre-selected defaults. In effect, every arboria map you create must always have those settings precisely because it's impossible to change to different climate and sea-level settings.

 

[cseanny]

It's still interesting if you want to rush a neighbour.

Monarch has great early "timing abuse" versus the AI so if you want to rush a neighbor just use warriors! Just throw on a practice map and watch the timing of their 2nd cities, which is normally in the 2760-2680 range (they only have 1 Archer in Capital). For this reason settling on the marble looks very attractive to me.

This would give you enough time to get out a quick scouting warrior, barracks, followed by 4-5 3turn warriors. Actually, you could probably just make 6-7 total, capture a Capital and then wait for their 2nd city to grow to size 2, and then capture that too. All this is pretty much guaranteed, so long as they aren't on a hill.

 

[pomthom]

Test file for those who want to try some openings

 

[Pangaea]

I liked these games more when it wasn't an exercise in game mechanics abuse

 

[cseanny]

It's pretty much impossible to play the game w/out abusing the AI in some way Pangaea. We've got beg formulas, capitulation formulas, city gifting formulas, trade formulas, and basically an entire page of Civ Illustrated (Know your enemey) mechanics, etc. If something puts you off just pass on it, yeah? Stay away from the exploits listed in the GOTM rules and you should be good to go either way.

cheers.

 

[krikav]

Rushing an evil foe with warriors does sound like Monty-style.
When I played on lower difficulties, I never was agressive, and since I have moved up I never attack with warriors. Kind of interesting to see/hear about strategies that might work on other difficulties.

 

[cseanny]

GOTM seems a bit weird to me. Why? I've played 5 or 6 random practice games with Monty and I'm ranging in the 250-1AD Domination VC range, however, the score on those practice games is only around 185K to 200K. The "weird" part is, I can always chose to continue playing, boosting up my population and win much later with a much higher score.

So what would you guys do? Just play for the fastest possible win or for the highest possible score? Honestly, I'm not a fan of the highest score route, however, the structure of these games seems to be geared towards "milking it". It's a shame more emphasis isnt geared at the quickest finish date, which imo, is normally where you'll see much more skill discrepancy.

Thoughts?

 

[krikav]

I have no clue how score is calculated, I completely ignore score and whenever I see an opportunity to win earlier I take it.
Special circumstances might arise if there is some AI who has really annoyed me, then I might want to exterminate them completely and refuse to let them capitulate.

Other times, I'm just in a mood for RP and then something like this can happen:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-spoiler-game-submitted.639217/#post-15291841

 

[pomthom]

GOTM seems a bit weird to me. Why? I've played 5 or 6 random practice games with Monty and I'm ranging in the 250-1AD Domination VC range, however, the score on those practice games is only around 185K to 200K. The "weird" part is, I can always chose to continue playing, boosting up my population and win much later with a much higher score.

So what would you guys do? Just play for the fastest possible win or for the highest possible score? Honestly, I'm not a fan of the highest score route, however, the structure of these games seems to be geared towards "milking it". It's a shame more emphasis is geared at the quickest finish date, which imo, is normally where you'll see much more skill discrepancy.

Thoughts?

Yes it's a paradox of the GOTM reward structure, but it's been that way for as long as I can remember (for ever?). Fastest finishes have rewards but the medals are only awarded to best scores. Generally earliest finish is the most skilfully played game whereas you can milk a gold medal with Medicine or Sid's Sushi. Sometimes both coincide though

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I have no clue how score is calculated, I completely ignore score and whenever I see an opportunity to win earlier I take it.
Special circumstances might arise if there is some AI who has really annoyed me, then I might want to exterminate them completely and refuse to let them capitulate.

There are two scores: Base score, and final score.You can see both listed in the results.

• Base score is basically your population, and a bit is added on for your land area + how many wonders you own + how much science you've learned. You increase your base score by improving any of those four things, but mainly it's your population.
• Final score is the base score but then weighted so that it goes down with each turn that passes: The same base score will therefore give a higher final score if you can achieve it on an earlier date. There's also a weighting by game difficulty (higher difficulty gives higher final score), but that's not really relevant when comparing GOTM results since everyone plays each game on the same difficulty (occasional adventurer and challenger saves aside).

We give the cow award for the highest base score. So you get the cow award by going for the biggest possible empire, which usually means trying not to win until the latest possible date.

We give the gold, silver and bronze medals for the three highest final scores. That's where milking tends to come in: To stand the best chance of winning those medals, you have to balance two competing things: Delaying your victory means your empire gets bigger, which tends to increase your score. But at the same time, as you delay your victory, the weighting factor for a late date comes in and tends to reduce your final score. People who are playing for the medals (and good at it) will tend to watch their final score each turn, and try to win around the time that that score hits its maximum value.

We also list the results in order of the final score, which I think is what gives the impression that GOTM values final score more than some players would like. Personally, I think there is possibly a good argument for presenting the results in a way that emphasizes fastest finishes more. But that discussion has come up in the past a few times in the community, and as far as I recall, there's never really been any consensus about what a better way of doing it might look like.

 

[lymond]

@cseanny I really see little difference in gold vs. fastest finish. They are equal in terms of global rankings.

You can win gold and not get a fastest finish - it’s not uncommon. Yet even in the test scenario you just described there is a good chance you will likely compete for both fastest finish and gold, or a medal.

Personally, I’m far more disappointed by not getting a fastest finish than a medal, which I just view as a bonus. Also, fastest finishes and a cow lead to eptathlete.

So IMO I would recommend continuing to pursue fastest finishes foremost , medals will likely come to you regardless, especially in conq/dom wins. I can assure you medals will come your way with the way you play.

 

[cseanny]

Thanks for the answers everyone. I'll definitely strive to always finish for the fastest date possible because imo that's where true skill shines. Simply put, whoever wins with the earliest finish date is by far and away the best player and the TRUE Gold Medal Winner. Looks like I'll be playing by my own set of rules.

cheers.

 

[cseanny]

Quick question folks. I never play with Events on, so I have a "Quest question". On the settings, small map and standard world size, the game usually starts with only 4 AI, correct? So then, if we get the Horse Whisperer Quest, is the correct number of Stables to build 4 or 5 (this game has 5 AI)? Likewise, will we then get 4 or 5 free HAs?

cheers.

edit: Also, which city will the free HAs arrive at? If it's in the last city to build the final stable that would bring in some high war potential, in that, you could simply pre-build a settler and pre-chop 2 forest near an AI target. Thanks again.