[BTS] News: BOTM 300: Sparta, Monarch - Starts December 08

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 300: Leonidas I of Greece.

Welcome to Civ 4 Game of the Month - BOTM 300. These games allow new and old GOTM fans to play Civ 4 single-player in a friendly competitive environment. For each game, everyone starts with the same map and starting save, and you play to see if you can get a better result than everyone else!

A special 300th anniversary game for you. You will be at always war with two Persian civilizations, and permanent peace with the rest. You get 3 Phalanx' to start with, representing the 300 Spartan hoplites which gained immortal fame at the Battle of Thermopylae. Can you reproduce the glory?

You play as Leonidas I of Greece, on Monarch difficulty, against 6 AIs and with this start (click the image to see a bigger version):

Start Playing!	Submit your entry!
Competition opens 8 Dec 2025	Competition closes 15 Jan 2026
Once the competition is open, download the starting save >>>here<<< and start playing	When you've finished the game and before the competition closes, upload your victory (or defeat) >>>here<<<

Game and map information:

Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Monarch
Options: No barbarians, permanent war or peace, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled
Map: Inland Sea
World Wrap: None
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: Medium
Map latitudes: -60°S to 60°N

Your unique Civ:

Leonidas I is Philosophical and Creative, and you start with Fishing and Hunting.
The Philosophical trait gives +100% great people birth rate and double production speed of University
The Creative trait gives +2 culture/city each turn and double production speed of Colosseum, Library and Theatre
Unique unit: Phalanx (replaces Axeman)
Compared to the axeman, the phalanx is much less vulnerable to chariot attacks, having +100% defence against them.
Unique Building: Odeon (replaces Colosseum)
The odeon gives an amazing +2 happiness and +3 culture in its city. It can also turn 2 citizens into artists, and givesn and extra +1 happy from hit singles.

New to GOTM? How to get set up for the game

To play the game, you must have Civ4 Beyond the Sword installed and patched to 3.19. You also need to have installed the HOF/BUFFY mod version BUFFY, which you can get here. You can only play on Windows. There's detailed info about getting set up and playing the competition game in this newbies guide.

Rules while playing...

Our cardinal rule is that 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. If we detect that you've broken these rules, we'll reject your competition entry.

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..

Adventurer and Challenger games:

As an alternative, for the GOTM competitions, we often (but not always) provide an easier 'adventurer' and a harder 'challenger' saves.
For this game:

• Adventurer: not applicable
• Challenger: not applicable

The newbies guide has a full explanation of adventurer and challenger.

@Blake00 @The_J

 

[Conquistador 63]

Great concept for this special ocasion!
Inclined to settle 1N for the +1. Misses 2 floodplains compared to SIP, and looks a little low on food, but should be enough.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Yeah, such a cool and creative spin on 300! and Monarch difficulty . Can't wait!

 

[LowtherCastle]

52x32 map but still seems to average 1300 land tiles. Lots of land.

Weird scenario for choosing a victory type.

Generous starting location.

Questions are, where are the Persians and do they start with any immortals? Given our starting phalanxes, one has to assume our enemies are not blocked by friends and they at least have horse tiles nearby.

Test map? With these settings including Darius and Cyrus, go into worldbuilder and click on diplomacy, select yourself on the far left and you can specify Darius and Cyrus as enemies.

Which brings up an interesting point. Unlike Always War, the other AIs might start at peace with each other, including Darius and Cyrus. Depends on what the map maker specified…

 

[Fine_Distinction]

52x32 map but still seems to average 1300 land tiles. Lots of land.

Weird scenario for choosing a victory type.

Generous starting location.

Questions are, where are the Persians and do they start with any immortals? Given our starting phalanxes, one has to assume our enemies are not blocked by friends and they at least have horse tiles nearby.

Test map? With these settings including Darius and Cyrus, go into worldbuilder and click on diplomacy, select yourself on the far left and you can specify Darius and Cyrus as enemies.

Which brings up an interesting point. Unlike Always War, the other AIs might start at peace with each other, including Darius and Cyrus. Depends on what the map maker specified…

Yeah, I am afraid immortals would be available to our enemies immediately - but fortunately phalanx start with better chances against chariots than axes! I love these unusual scenarios when we can't just play an old playbook!

 

[Frederiksberg]

Sounds like a fun game concept. Will probably play harder than normal Monarch level. We have a lot of units we can move to explore the immediate surroundings before settling. Settling on ivory is definitely an option. Can't trust archers to defend if the Persians have Immortals.

EDIT: Inland sea might indicate that the two Persian civs are on both sides of us.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Sounds like a fun game concept. Will probably play harder than normal Monarch level. We have a lot of units we can move to explore the immediate surroundings before settling. Settling on ivory is definitely an option. Can't trust archers to defend if the Persians have Immortals.

EDIT: Inland sea might indicate that the two Persian civs are on both sides of us.

Yeah, that seems like the most likely conclusion - otherwise there may be effectively blocked.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

@kcd_swede 6AIs include these two Persian civs, right?

I also wanted to play this legendary Humbaba game while waiting for 300 to open - but which number is it?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Sounds like a fun game concept. Will probably play harder than normal Monarch level. We have a lot of units we can move to explore the immediate surroundings before settling. Settling on ivory is definitely an option. Can't trust archers to defend if the Persians have Immortals.

EDIT: Inland sea might indicate that the two Persian civs are on both sides of us.

Right. Time will tell but why give us three phalanxes if the persians aren’t nearby? If I’m the map maker those three allow the player to settle three cities to hook up horses or copper or something like that.

Furthermore, if we are sandwiched by Persians, then that also makes the game challenging because while we are fighting off the Persians the other four AIS thoroughly fill out the rest of the map.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Right. Time will tell but why give us three phalanxes if the persians aren’t nearby? If I’m the map maker those three allow the player to settle three cities to hook up horses or copper or something like that.

Furthermore, if we are sandwiched by Persians, then that also makes the game challenging because while we are fighting off the Persians the other four AIS thoroughly fill out the rest of the map.

Yeah, also my thinking - if they are not next to us then by the time we get to them the phalanxes would become kinda obsolete

 

[DynamicSpirit]

@kcd_swede 6AIs include these two Persian civs, right?

I also wanted to play this legendary Humbaba game while waiting for 300 to open - but which number is it?

If you mean the first ever Humbaba game - which saw several people get defeated by Humbaba within the first few turns, that would be BOTM 41:
Pregame discussion: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/news-botm-41-starts-15-april.418384/
Game release page: https://gotm.civfanatics.net/game-info/game-details.php?month=70041

 

[Fine_Distinction]

If you mean the first ever Humbaba game - which saw several people get defeated by Humbaba within the first few turns, that would be BOTM 41:
Pregame discussion: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/news-botm-41-starts-15-april.418384/
Game release page: https://gotm.civfanatics.net/game-info/game-details.php?month=70041

Yes, that one! I know there was at least one more - but gotta do them in order! Thanks, @DynamicSpirit

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Great concept for this special ocasion!
Inclined to settle 1N for the +1. Misses 2 floodplains compared to SIP, and looks a little low on food, but should be enough.

I can see the attraction of that, but I really want more food. I'm inclined to send the scout SW-SE to check out the view from what looks like a hill. Then I'll decide, but I'm strongly inclined to try to settle further South - looks a lot more fertile there. Keeping one of the phalanxes around should be enough to protect us in the first few turns if any Persians are nearby.

If the Persians are our neighbours, then I imagine the best strategy would be to send phalanxes over quickly to prevent them from hooking up any resources. If we can find them within the first 20 turns (and @kcd_swede hasn't given them any gifts), then 2 phalanxes should easily be enough to stop one of the Persian civs from doing anything. The problem is though, we don't have enough phalanxes to do that to both the Persian civs. One phalanx for each civ might work but is risky - could be killed by a concerted attack by Persian archers.

Also there's a balance. We want the Persians to be small enough to be non-threatening, but I'd guess we also want to let them develop a bit, because ultimately the land they settle on is the only land we'll be able to conquer. Strangle the Persians too much and we hand more land to the AIs that we're at permanent peace with - which means more land we will be unable to ever take (except possibly through cultural expansion).

 

[High King J.J.]

Yes, that one! I know there was at least one more - but gotta do them in order! Thanks, @DynamicSpirit

There has beem several more games with Humbaba appearing (or not appearing even though advertized). Sometimes barbs will load it on a galley that gets sunk and the only way you might know it was there is to see the list of units killed. Unless some other civ sunk it. Not to mention the flak one gets when complaining that the Humbaba was nowhere to be found... (BTW I love the idea of having advanced barbs to provide extra color. I dream of a resource rich Shangri La defended by at least industrial age barb units.)

What, only 3 phalanxes? The poster promised 300! My lawyers will hear of this!
I will most likely die or quit before dying, I dislike permanent war games where I'm forced to war before having anything to fight with. Also it distracts me from wonder building, settling cities to build said wonders and teching to enable said wonders. No wonder I don't like always war.

I will definitely scout around before deciding where to settle. Scout plus 3 means a few more tiles revealed. Still I might SIP if nothing juicy is revealed.

I wonder if our foes are at peace with everyone else? If not it might give us some time to develop. But that would mean a non- mapmaker so forget it. At least this time no bear will eat our scout.

EDIT: Is that a supersize symbiote pouch on the Jaffa on that poster? Normally it's just an x-shaped cut on the abdomen but this is much larger, I bet there's room for several symbiotes. Anyway he should wear a breastplate and not show his immature Goa'uld to the world.

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Well, if Persians have immortals from the beginning it is gonna be brutal - imagine two-move barbs entering your culture - and trying to capture your cities - starting on turn 5 ... I did a test game when they had 2 immortals each ... did not survive long since I was trying to attack them too

 

[LowtherCastle]

@High King J.J. :
Building wonders is definitely an additional complicating factor.

@DynamicSpirit :
Your balance is a serious issue, cities, territory, wonders…

 

[Fine_Distinction]

@DynamicSpirit :
Your balance is a serious issue, cities, territory, wonders…

Yeah, @DynamicSpirit is making a very good point - even if we could somehow kill the Persians quickly, is that the best play?

 

[High King J.J.]

Yeah, @DynamicSpirit is making a very good point - even if we could somehow kill the Persians quickly, is that the best play?

If we could and there was still land to be grabbed, the creative trait would be invaluable to rapidly expand any new city territory and block those peaceful neighbours of ours. I foresee some aggressive cultural expansion and city flipping for those who may survive to compete in peace. I however will continue in pieces as I won't survive. Time to in.

 

[lymond]

pssst...appears the save is up

 

[Fine_Distinction]

pssst...appears the save is up

Wow - it is!!! I thought we need to wait 12 more hours - thank you, @lymond! Can't wait to ruin another BOtM