News: BOTM 21 - Starts 15 August

[drlcartman]

I haven't really played any gotm since a couple of months after CIV4 was released, AND I have difficulty in playing anything higher than Noble, so I'm a little intimidated.

However, I believe the starting location is a great spot due to the three rivers add a lot of commerce. In regards to the apparent lack of resources, there HAS to be resources that's going to pop up mid game, such as horses or bronze, around the starting location, so I'm not going to worry about only having pigs to deal with at first.

 

[Grifftavian]

@Jungle III - thanks for the test game!

I'll be trying the Emperor save. Will move Warrior 1SE to see if anything interesting shows up, if not settle in place.

Initial research bee-line Bronze Working for chopping & Slavery Civic, then Pottery for Expansive Trait's cheap Granaries, to help recover from the whipping. Get Masonry next and look for a good production city site that could chop/mine/whip The Great Wall while Capitol REXs another city or two.

When that fails, think about what to do for Plan B

 

[godotnut]

Immortal is my favorite difficulty level, and I'm not very experienced with this leader, so this one looks fun. Count me in.

So reading this thread, am I to understand that you can still add great spies, but now they produce empty GPP, so that we can manipulate them at the last minute into engineering points?

 

[lymond]

Okay, GOTM newbie playing his first GOTM game today. I expect to get slaughtered. I like the leader though.

 

[Fluxx]

got no inferface bug with the Buffy mod, any idea how to fix that?

 

[mtt9999]

I've read a lot about Joao's rexxing abilities - I guess with ideally suited traits of IMP + EXP. But I haven't really been able to pull it off while maintaining a decent tech rate.

Starting techs are fishing and mining... so if there's seafood then that's a big plus, and you're already a step closer to BW. But no useful worker techs like The Wheel or Agriculture. Especially on Immortal difficulty, Pottery and Writing feels so far away... before which I'm loath to settle too many cities which inevitably just delays them further.

Anybody out there have suggestions on how to play Joao in the early game?

How not to play it maybe I tried Joao in a recent Gauntlet and overexpanded crippling my economy. Be weary of taking too much advantage of his traits too early.

I suggest the usual quick expansion to 3 cities, preferably one with silver, gems, or gold to keep science up. At this point take some time build Oracle (possibly with Marble), and take COL. Trade this to the person with the alphabet, along with any techs he may not have... You will get a lot back (ie. BW, IW, Pottery, Animal Husb, etc... even maybe alphabet if more than one AI has it) just for one tech. This will allow you to have all the techs to allow for ReXing, and you will have the knowledge for courthouses to keep maintance down.

The key is as soon as this is done (and make it early - 2000BC) you have to expand like crazy to take the remaining empty space before the AIs grab it. Luckily enough your traits make this doable.

Also, keep a small army.

 

[mtt9999]

one north?

edit: agree with espionnage, option a bit broken ie. GE farming from the start, culture pbs...

I'm a bit confused, and maybe this is because I rarely build the Great Wall, unless the barbs are raging!!

So if there is no barbs, the only benefit (other than GE points) is to allow for Great General emergence... but if you are looking for the culture points (possibly for a cultural victory??) why would you care about the great generals (ie. you wont be going to war much in a cultural vic??) Can you explain the benefits to me... a mere mortal??

I understand the GE points, but I would rather take the extra time to build the Pyramids for the GE points, it is a much more useful wonder.. especially if we have stone

confused,

 

[lymond]

Moderator Action. Comments about the conclusion of the game deleted. Please don't post information about what happened in your game outside the spoiler threads - DS. However, I was not able to save the game on that last turn. Any thoughts on how to do this? I believe I'm basically screwed on submitting anything.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@mtt9999: I worded my sentence wrong: I meant that the "no-espionnage option" had balance problems. For instance the GW allowing all sort of GPP abuses (I spoke about GEs, but you can couple the GW with any other GPPs), or the mix between EPs and culture points. Those are two different issues (Adrianj's post sum ups culture mechanisms with this option quite well)

@lymond: I guess you have to replay your last turn if you have it on your Autosave/ folder. Then click on "one more turn" after the replay. Not sure if it's allowed though

Cheers

 

[lymond]

yeah...i check the autosaves and there were only a few but the last one was some time before the end. not sure how that autosave thing works. I didn't save the whole time I played as I was really trying to get acclimated to playing one session without reloads.

it's not a big deal - just need to know what to do the next time I play and get clobbered - which will be next time. I went balls out and played contendah.

 

[caeru71]

Hi all, this is my first game with the new Buffy Mod and I am having problems. The game keeps freezing (It has frozen 4 times by 2000bc) each time I have replayed the same moves from the last auto save but I can't go on like this. The game freezes in such a way that nothing works, not even ctrl-alt-dlt, I have to switch the power off at the wall and reboot. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this and how to fix it? also where can i set the game to auto-save every turn? Thanks.

 

[donsig]

The GOTM page for this one says (in the body) that the save is supposed to be played with BtS version 3.17 and HoF Mod 3.17.something. This might comfuse some who do not notice the red text saying we have to use the 3.19 BtS patch and the Buffy Mod.

 

[mtt9999]

Hi all, this is my first game with the new Buffy Mod and I am having problems. The game keeps freezing (It has frozen 4 times by 2000bc) each time I have replayed the same moves from the last auto save but I can't go on like this. The game freezes in such a way that nothing works, not even ctrl-alt-dlt, I have to switch the power off at the wall and reboot. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this and how to fix it? also where can i set the game to auto-save every turn? Thanks.

i think this is it:

C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword

should be something like that... in this folder will be a .txt file that is named civ4config.

in that file about 2/3 the way down will be:

; Specify the number of turns between autoSaves. 0 means no autosave.
AutoSaveInterval = ??

yours should probably say 4... switch this to 1. 0 means no autosave.

 

[Teddy KGB]

yeah...i check the autosaves and there were only a few but the last one was some time before the end. not sure how that autosave thing works.

also where can i set the game to auto-save every turn?

Config file: CivilizationIV.ini
Location: C:\...\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword

Edit it like mtt9999 say.

 

[kcd_swede]

yeah...i check the autosaves and there were only a few but the last one was some time before the end. not sure how that autosave thing works. I didn't save the whole time I played as I was really trying to get acclimated to playing one session without reloads.

it's not a big deal - just need to know what to do the next time I play and get clobbered - which will be next time. I went balls out and played contendah.

FYI: You probably shouldn't be posting in this thread if you have already opened the save. PM to the gamemaker or an admin for questions about an on-going xOTM game mechanics outside the spoiler threads.

But to answer your problems: You need to click on the "Wait... just... one... more... turn" option when to complete one of these games. THEN, before you do anything else, make a manual save from the next turn as it comes up. THAT is the save you submit.

Also, you are aware that you do not have to complete the game in a single sitting, right? (Reloading means essentially using an older save to "Un-do" something you didn't like, and is prohibitted. If you forgot to save when you ended your session or you crash in-game, its counts as a reload if you have to start somewhere before the last irreversible move you made. Therefore the talk about autosave interval=1 so that you have a save from at most 1 turn ago in event even of a gamecrash).

 

[lymond]

sorry, I thought my question was very general and didn't reveal any information but I will heed the advice. yep, i know you don't have to play in one sitting, I just did anyway.

I've made the config file adjustment. thanks folks and enjoy your game

 

[Yamps]

got no inferface bug with the Buffy mod, any idea how to fix that?

I sometimes get that as well...alt + tab back to windows solves it for me, but there's got to be a better way.

 

[Fluxx]

^

Problem lay with me having the BUG mod installed too.

Sadly enough you can not have both currently.

 

[Munro]

Hi all, this is my first game with the new Buffy Mod and I am having problems. The game keeps freezing (It has frozen 4 times by 2000bc) each time I have replayed the same moves from the last auto save but I can't go on like this. The game freezes in such a way that nothing works, not even ctrl-alt-dlt, I have to switch the power off at the wall and reboot. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this and how to fix it? also where can i set the game to auto-save every turn? Thanks.

When you restart your computer, do you see any system message like "Windows has recovered from a serious error. Etc etc..."? and possibly a link to the Microsoft help pages? Any clues to the problem there?

One thing you could try is to reduce the resolution or graphics settings (if possible). My graphics card used to crash all the time running Civ IV, and I had to disable write combining (under control panel > display > advanced > troubleshooting or similar) and run at a lower graphics level to fix the problem. No idea if it's related to BUFFY or not, but if you're using the option to increase the graphical field of view, that could plausibly be adding some extra load.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I have been working my computer to try to resolve its issues. I'll play this game in about a week, maybe a little more. It will be my final test on the tweaks I've made to my machine. If I get through it w/o problems, I will actually be able to play turnsets in SGOTM!