[BTS] News: BOTM 257: Hatshepsut, Deity - Starts 1 Sept

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 257: Hatshepsut of Egypt.

The various deities have decreed that this is to be THEIR month. Therefore, you play on deity level. And since the Gods want you to have worthy opponents who worship and respect the deities, you are playing against all classical civilizations. One of your wise men did express the opinion that this is just so all the AIs get to play with their unique units before you vanquish them. Of course, you instantly exiled him to the desert for blasphemy: The thought that anyone could ever question the motives of the mapmaker-Gods. Pffft!

Because deity is probably going to take longer to play, you have an extra week: This competition won't close until 9 October.

Game settings:
Playing as: Hatshepsut of Egypt
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Deity
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No barbarians, no vassal states, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

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


Hatshepsut is Spiritual and Creative, and you start with The Wheel and Agriculture.

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

The Creative trait gives +2 culture/city each turn and double production speed of Colosseum, Library and Theatre

Unique unit: War Chariot (replaces Chariot)
A favourite for early sneak attacks, the war chariot is stronger than a chariot, with a base strength of 5. And it's also immune to first strikes.

Unique Building: Obelisk (replaces Monument)
The obelisk lets you turn 2 citizens into priests. Very nice if you want a super-early great prophet!

Starting screenshot

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



Adventurer Class bonuses:
An intrepid barbarian tribe managed to evade the God's instructions that there should be no barbarian villages, and by pure luck, your warrior stumbled on it just before the game began. They provided you with a 2nd settler and a scout (on the same tile as the warrior) and a worker (on the same tile as the settler). Maybe that will even things up with the AIs (who on deity each start with 4 archers, 2 scouts, 2 settlers and a worker).

Challenger Class Equalizers:
Your warrior was a bit too blase when he entered the barbarian village: He sought to seduce the barbarian chief's daughter. Unfortunately for you, he succeeded. Naturally, the chief was livid, and in his fury he vowed to rid the World of all non-barbarians. As a result, instead of playing with No Barbarians, you are playing with Raging Barbarians. All other options are unchanged. As a result, the No Barbarians setting is switched off. You are playing with normal barbarians. All other options are unchanged.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 1 Sep 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 9 Oct 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.

@Blake00 @The_J

 

[Fine_Distinction]

great to have another game - I messed up all the last three in various ways . Going to try adventurer for this one, will be nice to have an extra settler

 

[Frederiksberg]

Appreciate the extra week. Pangea and medium sea level mean there is not a crazy amount of land available. It will be critical to get 4-5 quality cities founded before the AI has settled all land.

Settling 1W seems logical to get all visible resources within the FC. Hatty has decent traits and the starting techs are useful. Mining first and then either BW or Pottery.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Appreciate the extra week. Pangea and medium sea level mean there is not a crazy amount of land available. It will be critical to get 4-5 quality cities founded before the AI has settled all land.

Settling 1E seems logical to get all visible resources within the FC. Hatty has decent traits and the starting techs are useful. Mining first and then either BW or Pottery.

Early AH is also an option, to try to build war chariots. Playing on Adventurer is slightly more difficult here wrt to needing place for 2 cities asap .

 

[Qactus]

...Going to try adventurer for this one, will be nice to have an extra settler

You could go AH first and wait with the extra settler until horses are revealed. Then immediately settle near or even on them for super fast WCs. An early captured AI capital might make up for the lost turns...

 

[Fine_Distinction]

You could go AH first and wait with the extra settler until horses are revealed. Then immediately settle near or even on them for super fast WCs. An early captured AI capital might make up for the lost turns...

Cool idea - I am tempted to try it.

Yeah, an Adventurers save poses an interesting dilemma - if I settle in the obvious 1W spot left to the settler to grab all 3 visible resources - then there is no resource to improve by the worker in the first 5 turns . It is not completely hopeless, we start with the Wheel so I can road for 5 turns to save 1T of improving later, but still - rather disappointing ... not a problem for regular version though.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Cool idea - I am tempted to try it.

Yeah, an Adventurers save poses an interesting dilemma - if I settle in the obvious 1W spot left to the settler to grab all 3 visible resources - then there is no resource to improve by the worker in the first 5 turns . It is not completely hopeless, we start with the Wheel so I can road for 5 turns to save 1T of improving later, but still - rather disappointing ... not a problem for regular version though.

Creative. Your worker can improve on the third turn…

 

[LowtherCastle]

Holy Godliness! Raging barbs on the Challenger. Gives a whole new meaning to popping barbs from a hut.

 

[Fippy]

How would you even start when raging barbs enter on turn ~13, pretty much forced to settle 3w and keeping the warrior inside.

 

[LowtherCastle]

How would you even start when raging barbs enter on turn ~13, pretty much forced to settle 3w and keeping the warrior inside.

I was thinking the same thing. I’m guessing the map maker didn’t test that version. And I also haven’t tested it but I do know that on raging barbs they can enter your culture when 1.5 x NumberOfPlayers cities have been settled. So basically, as soon as they spawn (plus the technicalities DanF and others have described), they’ll be able to enter our cultural borders and attack. Since we do not start with archery, I’m not sure if the barbs will have archery yet, and can spawn archers. Do they?

Even starting with a single archer to plant on the city hill would be extremely difficult I think.

But speaking of 3W, hm…

 

[Fippy]

Yup archers spawn at around 50:50 chance with warriors on regular deity games, and they attack right away on raging as you wrote.
As AIs start reaching BW Spears & Axes plop up as well.

We had some different games where challenger was not full deity cos AIs still had lower difficulty units..but here there would be no mercy i think.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

How would you even start when raging barbs enter on turn ~13, pretty much forced to settle 3w and keeping the warrior inside.

OK that's a fair criticism. In the light of that, I'm changing the Challenger save so that it will have normal barbarians, rather than raging barbarians.

 

[Fippy]

LTC's idea with a gift archer was good too imo
If you are looking for a different touch challenger save, raging barbs + i'd say 2 bonus archers would be fair.
Still significantly more difficult than no barbs but now playable.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

LTC's idea with a gift archer was good too imo
If you are looking for a different touch challenger save, raging barbs + i'd say 2 bonus archers would be fair.
Still significantly more difficult than no barbs but now playable.

Thanks for the idea. I did consider something like that, but I was reluctant to start giving the challenger save extra units that the other saves don't have, hence removing the Raging Barbarians instead. I'll perhaps keep that idea in mind for another occasion.

 

[Tobiyogi]

I am hesitant here which save to play. Extra settler + worker is a bit too strong imo, makes it probably easier than an average IMM game. Imagine two cities from scratch that both create culture, this is a clear statement!
On the other hand, I have never won a deity game other than culture, LOL - and could use some help. If it was only +1 worker, I would almost definitely play adventurer class.
Still thinking about it.

 

[Qactus]

...
On the other hand, I have never won a deity game other than culture, LOL - and could use some help....

War Chariots help considerably though, compared to a leader with later specials. And SPI always helps with Diplo (giving in to demands such as religion switches)

 

[kcd_swede]

Because deity is probably going to take longer to play, you have an extra week:

That's funny, Deity level is usually over pretty quickly for me.

 

[LowtherCastle]

OK. I tested raging barbs on deity Pangea medium sea level. One test only. What I learned was that with the city settled on a hill even a Barb archer has extremely low odds of winning. 12% against a 25% fortified warrior with 20% culture. With 40% culture about 6% odds. Building a second warrior before the worker safeguards against 1/9 bad luck.

The problem remains improving and protecting the corn and gold. Probably need archers for that. Settling a second city before getting surrounded by neighbors could be iffy.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Thanks for the idea. I did consider something like that, but I was reluctant to start giving the challenger save extra units that the other saves don't have, hence removing the Raging Barbarians instead. I'll perhaps keep that idea in mind for another occasion.

Two archers for the corn and gold tiles don’t guarantee they’ll survive, especially on the corn. But they do give the player a chance to expand. Raging barbs will still slow it down.

Normal barbs, if the player gets horses, probably helps the player. Free promotions during the obligatory mobilization strengthen attacks against AIs.

 

[LowtherCastle]

That's funny, Deity level is usually over pretty quickly for me.