[BTS] News: BOTM 244 - India, Monarch - Starts 1 Nov

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 244: Gandhi of India.

Is India now conquering the World? Dunno. But from what I hear they are celebrating what in some ways could be seen as an ironic reversal of the British Empire - with an ethnic Indian now in charge of the UK!

Maybe India can rule across the World in this game too. The World contains two large continents separated by an ocean, and you start with a settler on each one, so it's up to you whether you settle one continent or both. Beware though - settling both settlers in-place will give you instant civic costs of 10gpt on contender or 12gpt on the challenger save. Just in case you decide to risk it, you start with 100 gold. And so as not to disadvantage the AI, they all do too!

Each settler is accompanied by 2 archers, one of whom has city garrison I and II, and the other has woodsman I and II. There are 3 AIs on each continent.

Another warning: If you decide to settle for the gems, you might find it hard to build any decent military units, apart from archers. If on the other hand, you decide to be frugal and settle the other settler, you won't be short of resources to build units, but you may find happiness is a bit of a problem. It's your choice.

Game settings:
Playing as: Gandhi of India
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Monarch
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: None
Victory Conditions: All enabled

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


Gandhi is Spiritual and Philosophical, and you start with Mysticism and Mining.

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

The Philosophical trait gives +100% great people birth rate and double production speed of University

Unique unit: Fast Worker (replaces Worker)
The fast worker has 3 movement points against the ordinary worker's 2 - making the fast worker one of the fastest-moving land units in the game!

Unique Building: Mausoleum (replaces Jail)
The mausoleum gives +2 happiness out of the box, to add to the espionage and war-weariness benefits of the jail.

Starting screenshot

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



Challenger Class Equalizers:
You play on immortal level (but the AI still starts with monarch starting units)

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 1 Nov 2022, 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 1 Dec 2022 8 Dec 2022 15 Dec 2022.

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.

 

[jnebbe]

Sounds fun!
I assume you won't have trade routes until optics
I suspect only settling 1 city is smartest but settling 2 will be way more fun

 

[lymond]

trade routes until optics

Astro

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Interesting strategic choices. If we settle on one continent, we have no strategic resources (on the whole continent or just near our starting position?) If we settle the other one, we have no happiness. If we settle both, we still have the corresponding problems for each continent until we get a trade path between them. Maybe we can do that island hopping with galleys. More likely, as lymond said, we'll need to wait until we have astro. And the higher maintenance costs will delay that day. On top of everything, neither starting position appears near a coast. The longer it takes to get a coastal town, the longer until we've explored the situation.

If we choose not to keep the units on one side, what should we do with them? Delete them to save on support costs? Wait until we've contacted the three AI on that continent, so that we can trade tech with them? Or should we settle a city and then try to trade it or give it away for some advantage?

I'd really prefer to keep both settlers, but I don't know how soon we might be able to overcome the cost of doing that. Looks like time to create a test game to get a better idea of that.

 

[jnebbe]

With 2 continents you’ll have 2 different tech trading limits, should be easy to keep up with tech even on immortal

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I suspect only settling 1 city is smartest but settling 2 will be way more fun

As mapmaker, I would say, if you do settle 2 cities, make sure you have enough income to pay for them first. Your starting 100 gold will soon get used up with a 10gpt maintenance if you don't have any other source of income.

The longer it takes to get a coastal town, the longer until we've explored the situation.

Re island-hopping: You might note that I explicitly stated in the starting post that the continents are separated by an ocean!

No-one has yet remarked on that you have a Woodsman II archer on each continent. Woodsman II gives pretty fast movement if there are forests around. It basically means that if your first move is onto a forest or jungle, then that unit gets another movement point that turn. I'm sure you guys can think of a few uses for that It also has very strong defence on forest/jungle, which may be useful if you decide to keep one of the settlers around for a while.

If we choose not to keep the units on one side, what should we do with them? Delete them to save on support costs?

I should probably have mentioned in the starting post: If you choose to settle only one of the settlers and keep all the other units, you will not incur any unit maintenance costs from the extra units on either the contender or the challenger saves (at least, initially - obviously that may change once you start building additional units). With one size-1 city, on contender (monarch) you get 8 free units plus 2 free military units. On challenger (immortal) it's 6 free units plus 2 free military units.

You also incur no unit costs if you decide to completely delay settling for a few turns - so your starting 100 gold is safe.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Astro

Yep that's correct. Optics lets you build caravels to explore across the oceans, but you need astronomy to have ocean-based trade routes.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Settling two cities immediately will probably stifle the economy to a point that seriously delays early development. My plan is to keep one settler and decide later, after some exploration, whether to settle both continents.

 

[Qactus]

We could create a colony if we quickly expand to 3 cities on the other continent. Don't think you need Feudalism for that.
Without a trade connection there doesn't seem to be an immediate benefit though (such as demanding the gems). An early proxy war maybe, declaring on one AI and bribing in another to help your vassal?

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Re island-hopping: You might note that I explicitly stated in the starting post that the continents are separated by an ocean!

That's generally what defines continents in this game.

It doesn't explicitly confirm or deny the presence of islands between them, but I'll take your pointed reminders on this subject as a very strong hint that there's no such island-hopping route in this game.

So, if we decide to only settle one city (as least to begin the game), the question is which continent to choose. If we want Gandhi to follow his traditional non-violent path, then the continent with the happiness resources (and higher commerce) is the better choice. If we want his to take a contrary path, then the strategic resources are the way to go. Of couse, that's without knowing who our neighbors will be on two continents.

 

[Powerfaker]

Question about submission.

I have removed a civ4 running issue with a reset to std settings.
One consequence was that I had to reinstall Buffy. I know for a proper submission you need to change something in administrator settings as well. This used to be described in the Hall of Fame, but it's no longer there (I think).
Can anyone tell me what to do or where to find it, or is this no longer necessary? I would like to pick up on the current BOTM games.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The thing I'm guessing you're missing is, you need to make sure the game runs as an administrator. I normally find the easiest way to to that is to find the executable that runs Civ (If you have installed from a dvd, it'll be the file called Civ4BeyondSword.exe in the directory you installed Civ in. Probably somewhere under C:\Program Files (x86) on most Windows machines). Right click on it in the File Manager and set it to always run as an administrator.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Important:

The submission deadline for this game has now been extended to 8 December 2022. This is because the server was down and it wasn't possible to download the starting saves earlier this month, so we've extended it to make sure you all get the full month to play.

 

[Powerfaker]

The thing I'm guessing you're missing is, you need to make sure the game runs as an administrator. I normally find the easiest way to to that is to find the executable that runs Civ (If you have installed from a dvd, it'll be the file called Civ4BeyondSword.exe in the directory you installed Civ in. Probably somewhere under C:\Program Files (x86) on most Windows machines). Right click on it in the File Manager and set it to always run as an administrator.

I think I fixed it. We will see when I submit

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I think I fixed it. We will see when I submit

If you're at all unsure and want confirmation, you'll be welcome to PM me an intermediate save after you've played a couple of sessions, and I can check.

 

[High King J.J.]

It seems the Gotm server is unavailable. No downloading or submitting possible. This makes it easy to decide which Gotm to play: none.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Still unavailable

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Still unavailable

Sorry about that. We're aware of the problem. Not sure what's causing it. This game has already had a week long extension to take account of previous server downtime, and we'll keep that under review if the downtime continues.

 

[High King J.J.]

Here's an idea: make the original savegame(s) downloadable on this thread. That way one could play the Gotm and if the server ever gets fixed it could be submitted. Or not.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Here's an idea: make the original savegame(s) downloadable on this thread. That way one could play the Gotm and if the server ever gets fixed it could be submitted. Or not.

That's actually a pretty good idea, considering the current situation. The Windows contender and challenger saves are attached to this post. I don't have copies of the Mac saves so can't post those.