News: BOTM 250 - Boudica, Monarch - Starts March 24, 2023

[MarleysGh0st]

BOTM 250: Boudica of Celtia.

March is Women's History Month, so you're playing Boudica of the Celts. You have only two full power rivals, who have also been chosen from among the women leaders in this game. However, since Women's History can not be considered detached from the struggle with the Patriachy, there are three other leaders appearing in the game as minor nations. As such, they will never do diplomacy and will always be at war with everyone. Just like the male chauvinists they are. These minor powers will not be conquered easily. To aid you in this task, I have enabled permanent alliances, in case you decide that sisterhood is powerful.

Game settings:
Playing as: Boudica of Celtia
Rivals: 5 AIs (3 of which are minor nations)
Difficulty: Monarch
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: Permanent alliances, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled. Espionage Cultural Victories count as Cultural Victories.

Map settings:
Map: Highlands
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Small
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: Medium
Map latitudes: -10°S to 85°N


Boudica is Charismatic and Aggressive, and you start with Mysticism and Hunting.

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

The Aggressive trait gives free Combat I promotion for melee and gunpowder units and double production speed of Barracks and Drydock

Unique unit: Gallic Warrior (replaces Swordsman)
Perhaps one of the most derided unique units, the main benefit of the gallic warrior is that it can be built with either copper or iron - it doesn't specifically need iron. It also starts with the guerilla I promotion, which gives +20% hills defence, and unlocks the more powerful guerilla II (which gives faster movement in hills).

Unique Building: Dun (replaces Walls)
The dun gives a free guerilla I promotion to all units built in its city.

Starting screenshot

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



Adventurer Class bonuses:
You play on Noble level, but the AI still have Monarch level starting units.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
You play on Immortal level, but the AI still have Monarch level starting units.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 24 Mar 2023, 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 May 2023 8 May 2023.

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.

 

[MirrorGuard]

Gallic swordwoman

 

[High King J.J.]

Minna Canth had her day already, on the 19th of March, the day or social equality in Finland. In Civ terms she'd probably be a Great Artist due to her influence in society and culture. Finland by the way was the first country to give women equal voting rights. Way to go Minna!
Minna Canth
I'll consider SIP unless the scout scouts something worth moving in the north. There are deer for women to hunt and men can be delegated to pig farming as befits the chauvinist pigs.

 

[nocho]

Looks fun. I guess the scout N-NE to see if there's anything of note up there, although if that's forrested deer and a 4-yield tile, it might be worth to keep it first ring for the fastest worker. Those mountains in the BFC don't look optimal though, maybe even gamble on heading east.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The only thing more annoying than unforested deer is unforested deer on tundra.

Shout out to all the humor so far.

The mountains definitely suck, but the river and river tiles are pretty nice. Along with the forest. Moving east risks few river tiles and losing a turn or two for possibly no gain.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Because I'm a kind and generous mapmaker, I'll share a couple strategic points that I noticed during my playtesting.

My first idea was to have all female leaders for the AI. Aside from the leader choices, that would have made it an entirely ordinary game. Boring! I think this scenario is a lot more interesting.

Minor powers can not trade resources or tech. That's a pretty big handicap, making them easy targets for the major powers (unless they're given some other starting advantage, which these AI have not been). In this game, because there are so few major powers to trade with, that's much less of a handicap than usual. In fact, during one of my AutoAI playtesting runs, one of the minor powers became dominant. The game software wasn't designed with the expectation that minor powers could win, so that led to some odd results. I think that power should have tripped the domination limit, although I can't be sure because their stats aren't displayed in the game. I do know that the game ran past the 500 turn limit. That minor power should have won a time victory, but the game wouldn't award it to them, so the game just kept going. I expect all of you will do much better than in these playtesting runs, but in case you don't, you shouldn't be surprised if this happens.

I still haven't mastered playing at Immortal or Deity level, but from what I understand of it, a key to staying alive is using diplomacy to keep the AI just friendly enough that they never attack you with their often overwhelming forces. In this game, your diplomacy won't help against these minor powers. They will try to oppress you, unless you can counter them with force of arms! For those of you who usually choose the challenger saves, you might want to reconsider that choice this time. Of course, if you do play challenger and manage to win, anyway, you'll have earned the accolades of one and all!

Have fun!

 

[Powerfaker]

If you start one or more permanent alliances, is it possible you can no longer win conquest/domination when your allies have too much land?

 

[MarleysGh0st]

If you start one or more permanent alliances, is it possible you can no longer win conquest/domination when your allies have too much land?

No, as I understand it, your combined pop/land should count for domination. I think you can only ally with one other civ.

 

[Powerfaker]

Oke. An ally would count as a teamplayer then right, 100%, not like a vassal, 50%.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Oke. An ally would count as a teamplayer then right, 100%, not like a vassal, 50%.

Yes, that's right.

 

[Gr8scott]

Hmm. I don’t think I have played with minor powers. They are set up as always war with *everyone*? Normal always war is very tough (where everyone gangs up on you). In fact, Immortal always war is much much harder than normal deity imo. However, this flavor could be very interesting. It should make diplo with the major powers a lot easier to manage with all that mutual struggle bonus! SIP for the starting save seems best, but now I kind of want to find a hill to found on!

 

[MarleysGh0st]

Hmm. I don’t think I have played with minor powers. They are set up as always war with *everyone*? Normal always war is very tough (where everyone gangs up on you). In fact, Immortal always war is much much harder than normal deity imo. However, this flavor could be very interesting. It should make diplo with the major powers a lot easier to manage with all that mutual struggle bonus! SIP for the starting save seems best, but now I kind of want to find a hill to found on!

Yes, minor powers are always at war with everyone else, including each other! Unfortunately, the game treats this as the normal state of things and does not give you and the other major powers a mutual struggle bonus for this.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Minna Canth had her day already, on the 19th of March, the day or social equality in Finland. In Civ terms she'd probably be a Great Artist due to her influence in society and culture. Finland by the way was the first country to give women equal voting rights. Way to go Minna!
Minna Canth

WOW - she was raising 7 kids as a widow, managed family business and had time to write on a top of it How? seriously impressive.

 

[High King J.J.]

WOW - she was raising 7 kids as a widow, managed family business and had time to write on a top of it How? seriously impressive.

I'd call her a super specialist, a free artist settled in Kuopio. Now her grave accumulates culture like a monument except it won't become obsolete with tech.

 

[Kaitzilla]

*Edit*
Woops wrong forum!


Minor nations?
I don't remember playing with those before, though I feel like I might have at some point.

I'll definitely try this game later.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

*Edit*
Woops wrong forum!


Minor nations?
I don't remember playing with those before, though I feel like I might have at some point.

I'll definitely try this game later.

I remember having one in a Warlord Ramzes game, about 2 years ago. I thing minor nations =minor civs.

 

[Folket]

Was long since I played a GOTM, but this looked funny.

 

[NightOnEarth]

I'm a seasonal player, and after a long break, I wanted to start over CIV4 with this GOTM. Unfortunately, I couldn't install CIV4 from my old discs. They seem to have got a scratch or two too much. Therefore my daughter helped me to install CIV4 from the GOG platform.
Everything seemed fine, I installed BUFFY-3.19.005, too, and selected "no goody huts", "no random events" and "disable mod. data"? (I don't know the proper translation, I'm playing the german version). Nevertheless it seems this isn't sufficient to participate, because when I start CIV4, I always get the message

I'm lost, my account has admin access. Do you have any advice or suggestion, what I can do?

 

[Fine_Distinction]

I'm a seasonal player, and after a long break, I wanted to start over CIV4 with this GOTM. Unfortunately, I couldn't install CIV4 from my old discs. They seem to have got a scratch or two too much. Therefore my daughter helped me to install CIV4 from the GOG platform.
Everything seemed fine, I installed BUFFY-3.19.005, too, and selected "no goody huts", "no random events" and "disable mod. data"? (I don't know the proper translation, I'm playing the german version). Nevertheless it seems this isn't sufficient to participate, because when I start CIV4, I always get the message
View attachment 658478
I'm lost, my account has admin access. Do you have any advice or suggestion, what I can do?

I am playing on Mac, but your account sounds weird - why you select no huts, no events? you are not starting a new custom game, just try to load the saves linked to the first post.

 

[NightOnEarth]

Thank you, Fine_Distinction; your advice seems to work. At least CIV4 isn't complaining when I'm laoding the save.