[BTS] News: BOTM 270 - Charlemagne, Monarch - starts March 15, 2024

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 270: Charlemagne of Holy Rome.

After a number of unusually time-consuming games in recent months, I thought I would give you a quickie. One City Challenge means you will only have one city to manage. Simple, right? You will play as Charlemagne the God of the Holy Roman Empire on Monarch difficulty level. It's a very crowded map, which should prevent any of your opponents from growing too big (peacefully, at least). All victory conditions are enabled by having the possibility to create Permanent Alliances. Have fun!

Game settings:
Playing as: Charlemagne of Holy Rome
Rivals: 10 AIs
Difficulty: Monarch
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: Permanent alliances, one-city-challenge, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Pangea, high seas
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Arid
Sea level: High
Map latitudes: -90°S to 90°N


Charlemagne is Imperialistic and Protective, and you start with Mysticism and Hunting.

The Imperialistic trait gives +100% great general emergence and +50% production of settlers

The Protective trait gives free City Garrison I and Drill I promotion for archery and gunpowder units and double production speed of Castle and Walls

Unique unit: Landsknecht (replaces Pikeman)
Where the pikeman has +100% strength against mounted units, the landesknecht has +100% against both mounted and melee units!

Unique Building: Rathaus (replaces Courthouse)
The rathaus reduces city maintenance by a whopping 75% (against 50% for the courthouse).

Starting screenshot

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




Adventurer Class bonuses:

Adventurers will play at NOBLE difficulty level, though AI opponents start with Monarch level staring units.



To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 15 Mar 2024, 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 15 Apr 2024.

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.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm setting this up early because of upcoming vacation... use the extra time to discuss all the strategizing that these conditions lead to!

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

what does the OCC really mean? can I conquer other cities?

 

[antimony]

Worst(?) civ compatibility with a OCC, but really excellent starting location.

--

For what OCC does there are some guides such as here:

BtS One City Challenge Strategy Guide - CivFanatics

This guide is intended to show players who haven't played a One City Challenge (OCC) before, or at least not one in Beyond the Sword, some basic strategies and guidelines to use.[B] What's different in an OCC[/B] -As the name implies, you will be limited to one city for the duration of the game, so

www.civfanatics.com

You only have your first city (capital) the whole game. Cities you conquer or flip via culture are razed immediately.

What the Civ wiki says about permanent alliances:

• Permanent Alliance - Immediate - Your two civilizations essentially become one nation with two rulers. You each continue to have control over your units and cities, but you share everything else: resources, technologies, maps, and victory or defeat. If one declares war, the other automatically does so as well. If one signs a treaty, the other is bound by it.

So after you research Fascism or Communism (probably the latter in a OCC), you can make a permanent alliance with another Civ you are friendly with (must already have a defensive pact or joint war for some time I think?) This is what allows domination or cultural victories that would be impossible otherwise in a OCC.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Imperialistic trait.... +50% production of settlers - on one city challenge!! Gee, thanks @kcd_swede - so generous!

 

[kcd_swede]

Imperialistic trait.... +50% production of settlers - on one city challenge!! Gee, thanks @kcd_swede - so generous!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Where to settle? That's a huge decision in OCC because if you make a sub-optimal choice, you're stuck with that as your only city for the entire game. I think I'd go for settling on the marble. Allowing for moving, you get your worker 4 turns earlier, plus the rice and an additional floodplain, compared to settle-in-place. And the tiles you're removing from the BFC are all forested, so unlikely to contain any other nice resources.

Where to move the scout - doesn't really matter as whereever the scout goes, it seems very unlikely that he'll reveal anything to change the settling decision, but I'll prob go SE-E to get max visibility of land immediately around the settling area.

 

[LowtherCastle]

anyone know the requirements for a cultural victory in OCC?

 

[nocho]

Where to settle? That's a huge decision in OCC because if you make a sub-optimal choice, you're stuck with that as your only city for the entire game. I think I'd go for settling on the marble. Allowing for moving, you get your worker 4 turns earlier, plus the rice and an additional floodplain, compared to settle-in-place. And the tiles you're removing from the BFC are all forested, so unlikely to contain any other nice resources.

Where to move the scout - doesn't really matter as whereever the scout goes, it seems very unlikely that he'll reveal anything to change the settling decision, but I'll prob go SE-E to get max visibility of land immediately around the settling area.

Settling on the marble looks obvious at first sight. However, despite the wonderful city tile, the city might end up low on hammers, especially pre-workshop/watermills, while we might want those hammers for wonderspamming. Only one other hill in sight, probably another one west in the fog as I think the standard map scripts guarantee 3 hills. So I'm thinking I'll move the scout NW/SW and see what it shows and contemplate then if 1W of marble may be an option. Yes, it's obviously a much slower start, but maybe that's not as important as we won't be needing or able to build settlers. 1W picks up all the visible resources and might pick up something more to the west, hopefully something other than only hills to make it more attractive even. That said, if the scout doesn't reveal anything of interest, settling on the marble it will be.

 

[High King J.J.]

Even more generous is the Rathaus: -75% maintenance with all of one city to benefit from it.
By the way, can we ever build the Versailles in this game?

EDIT: Congrats Sweden! Finally part of NATO. Welcome brothers.

 

[lymond]

anyone know the requirements for a cultural victory in OCC?

Basically the same, but ya need to flip your partner into culture victory mode and get two of their cities legendary. If I recall, you cannot bomb their cities, but you can gift them GAs in hopes that they do.