[BTS] News: BOTM 221 - Brennus, Immortal - Starts Sept 20

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 221: Brennus of Celtia.

Brennus must have been quite a remarkable leader - he did after all defeat the mighty Romans at the Battle of the Allia, even entering Rome itself. And that despite having what must have been one of the most useless unique units of all time, the pathetic Gallic Warrior. In this game, the challenge is just a bit greater because there is no copper anywhere near your starting area. Oh, and your opponents are all classical civilizations, which means they probably have quite early (and much better) unique units.

However, you do have one thing going for you: Your scout managed to reveal a bit more land around your starting area than usual. Maybe that'll allow you to make a wise settling decision to help you along.

Game settings:
Playing as: Brennus of Celtia
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Immortal
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No goody huts; no random events in contender/adventurer
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Pangea
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Rocky
Sea level: Medium
Map latitudes: -90°S to 90°N


Brennus is Spiritual and Charismatic, and you start with Mysticism and Hunting.

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

The Charismatic trait gives +1 happiness/city, and -25% experience required for unit promotions

Unique unit: Gallic Warrior (replaces Swordsman)
The Gallic Warrior benefits from: requires access to copper or iron, and free promotions: guerilla1. This compares with the Swordsman which has: requires access to iron.

Unique Building: Dun (replaces Walls)
Besides the protective benefits of walls, the dun gives a free guerilla I promotion to units built in the city. Unfortunately, this means they don't do anything for Gallic Warriors since they already start with guerilla I anyway!

Starting screenshot

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




Adventurer Class bonuses:
Your intrepid scout stumbled across a tribe of friendly (and very clever) natives who decided to ally with you. In the process they contributed a longbow to help your defence, and a great engineer to help build a great city. Both starting on the same tile as the settler.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
Your scout was so exhausted by the effort of exploring the starting area that he collapsed and died. Oh, and you play with random events on.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 20 Sep 2021, 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 20 Oct 2021.

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.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Fascinating start! At first I was tempted to march to the north coast and settle SE of the fish, but now I'm thinking moving the settler onto the plains hill immediately to the SE would be better--probably slightly faster start and better medium and long term capital. (Or am I bluffing and trying to trick smarter people into explaining where the true best place is?)

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Great, @WastinTime can have events in challenger, while others can enjoy more predictable saves . And adventurer bonuses are very tempting - I love starting with great people on unusual units, it forces us to think out of the box ...

 

[Qactus]

I always forget, would a capital settled on the stone (w/o river access) eventually be able to work the fish if another city provided the workboat?

i.e. does Civ have chasqui runners (http://www.kimmacquarrie.com/how-in...ivered-their-emperor-fresh-fish-from-the-sea/)

 

[lymond]

Not sure why events were left on for the Deity save

I always forget, would a capital settled on the stone (w/o river access) eventually be able to work the fish if another city provided the workboat?

i.e. does Civ have chasqui runners (http://www.kimmacquarrie.com/how-in...ivered-their-emperor-fresh-fish-from-the-sea/)

Yep, the fish would be in the BFC and workable, though never can be improved by a LH

1N would be an awesome city but would kill the fish..ugh

 

[LowtherCastle]

(Or am I bluffing and trying to trick smarter people into explaining where the true best place is?)

About 10 tiles east or northeast? In search of the elusive copper tile…

 

[LowtherCastle]

Brennens is definitely one of the worse early game leaders. Worthless Technologies, useless unique unit and building, lousy traits. At first glance with this opening map there aren’t a lot of variables to leverage.

• Plus one happiness
• Stone
• One prerequisite technology toward masonry
• Stonehenge immediately available

On Pangea land could be at a premium especially if there are AIs nearby. Building Stonehenge in an inland city could be a useful land grab if there are valuable tiles there. If you’re looking for an atypical gambit.

if there are neighbors nearby this could be a tough game.

 

[lymond]

I admit he's a tough starting leader, but his traits are anything buy lousy.

Gallics are one of my favorite UUs, albeit they can indeed be a bit situational when it comes to effectiveness.

 

[MirrorGuard]

Gallics are one of my favorite UUs, albeit they can indeed be a bit situational when it comes to effectiveness

I prefer Aztec Jaguar.

 

[Powerfaker]

To turn his disadvantages around a bit, Brennus' tech issues early game allow aiming for a longer term beneficial capital, rather than the fastest expanding site.

If I would plan to expand fast I would probably settle on the stone => double/triple food + 2 citycenter, also an FP while producing your worker.
Downside, there is room for less cities nearby. Most PH tiles we can see have that too, except 1E (not counting 2SW obviously), so that's the spot I/m eyeing actually. You can drop cities nicely all around + some small other pros, like it's more competitive for landgrab eastwards (would be real nice if there's a high commerce tile there) and it fogbusts a big area after borderpop. The only 1 corn is supported a bit by the FP's.

Not saying it will be superior. Haven't counted out anything. Just promoting another option.

I think I would also go for Pottery before Bronze here.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I admit he's a tough starting leader, but his traits are anything buy lousy.

Gallics are one of my favorite UUs, albeit they can indeed be a bit situational when it comes to effectiveness.

I just reviewed the charismatic traits and I forgot about the plus one happiness from Monument. That dovetails nicely with Stonehenge and the stone here. The -25% XP is only useful early on if we have some sort of an attack unit, perhaps a chariot. Since we know we don’t have copper.

I’m curious, what do you Like about his traits?

 

[Fine_Distinction]

It is a pity Gallic warriors are stripped of one of their few (imho) advantages - that one can build them without researching Iron Working. Here, since we do not have copper, it will not work . so the only think we are getting from our (presumably offensive) UU is a free guerilla I promotion - rather underwhelming, imho. But charismatic, especially with stone so close, can be very nice

 

[krikav]

Not sure why events were left on for the Deity save

I would guess this is a reason!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ch-starts-11-sept.673102/page-2#post-16156390

 

[lymond]

I’m curious, what do you Like about his traits?

I consider Spiritual very strong, especially for players that know how to use it effectively and I think its value grows with difficulty. From temp civic changes to diplo. Char is very solid and always useful even early. The extra happiness very nice in situations where happiness is at a premium. Easy to get a Woody II guy too for mischief.

 

[krikav]

Getting the second promotion at 4xp and the third at 8xp is huge for siege who have troubles getting xp.
The catapults just need to withdraw once to reach CR2 in a early construction attack!
It also helps alot with mounted attacks alot.

 

[jnebbe]

Well I reinstalled civ on laptop and now buffy isn't loading
Tried the gog registry fix (https://www.gog.com/forum/sid_meiers_civilization_series/civilization_iv_for_linux/page3) which is what I worked on desktop but it's not a gog version, I actually don't know where I got this version

Spoiler :

 

[krikav]

@Noble Zarkon Please help!

 

[Fippy]

Getting the second promotion at 4xp and the third at 8xp is huge for siege who have troubles getting xp.
The catapults just need to withdraw once to reach CR2 in a early construction attack!

Did that in the Lincoln game, all Cats attacked on already harmless defenders and for the next city i had 3-4 with accuracy and some CR2 already

I always chuckled when Sulla said bad traits to any leader with CHA.
Very helpful trait for building up and for war. Lincoln game would have been significantly more difficult without (i whipped so much that 2 extra happy made a huge difference).

SPI has a high ceiling, just one little trick: can switch out of Slavery until it's needed again. Usually reduces Civic upkeep by 1gpt.

 

[krikav]

Had a discussion in S&T recently where I mentioned that in isolation plays, I often want to make a quick landing with cannons, and often that means going in with no good support unit for the cannons.
A very nice way to do this safe and sound is to add a couple of muskets to the stack and make sure you find proper landingspots on hills next to cities for the first few cities you strike (before grenadiers are available).
And this usually means you want to promote them guerilla.

Aaaaaaand this is one of the few cases where I can find appreciation for the celtic unique building.

Very specific conditions, but since the dun almost always gets hatred, I thought I would share this tidbit.



*Edit*
I'll 100% go contender in this one, no events for me please.
*/Edit*

 

[LowtherCastle]

Had a discussion in S&T recently where I mentioned that in isolation plays, I often want to make a quick landing with cannons, and often that means going in with no good support unit for the cannons.
A very nice way to do this safe and sound is to add a couple of muskets to the stack and make sure you find proper landingspots on hills next to cities for the first few cities you strike (before grenadiers are available).
And this usually means you want to promote them guerilla.

Aaaaaaand this is one of the few cases where I can find appreciation for the celtic unique building.

Very specific conditions, but since the dun almost always gets hatred, I thought I would share this tidbit.



*Edit*
I'll 100% go contender in this one, no events for me please.
*/Edit*

This map is a rocky climate. With a dun and rax, the first promotion for archers (and gunpowder units) can be guerilla II and they have double movement on hills and can sneak attack worker steals. Don’t even need to wait for the CHA 4th XP.