BOTM 301: Santa Victoria of England.
Welcome to Civ 4 Game of the Month - BOTM 301. 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!
Did you know it's Christmas coming up? Well if you didn't you do now. Yes, time for
Santa Claus Santa Victoria to make
his her appearance to bring gifts and goodies to the World. And since Christmas is a time to be merry and jolly, and not a time to be alone, Ragnar has come along to your starting spot to say 'hi'. Just remember it's Christmas and don't start fighting before you've at least settled your capitals! In fact, to try to avoid Christmas descending into inappropriate early fisticuffs, I've made sure there is no copper or iron within reasonable early reach of your starting area. To help you decide where to settle, you start with an extra scout as well as your warrier. Since this is monarch level, Ragnar has an archer and a scout.
YOU CANNOT SETTLE ON OASIS. Therefore you and Ragnar will both have to move your settlers before you can settle. You take your turn first so if you choose to settle on the first turn, you get first choice of starting spot. Remember that oasis uses 2 turns of movement, so if you move either the settler or scout to an oasis, they won't be able to move any further that turn.
I've fiddled with the AI starting techs. Ragnar starts with fishing and hunting, other AI start with two random base techs. Noone starts with mysticism. By the way, there are rumours of an area full of goodies somewhere near the South Pole.
You play as Santa Victoria of England, 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 24 Dec 2025 | Competition closes 2 Feb 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 goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled
Map: Polar Arboria
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Tropical
Sea level: Medium
Map latitudes: -50°S to 50°N
Your unique Civ:
Santa Victoria is Imperialistic and Financial, and you start with Fishing and Mining.
The Imperialistic trait gives +100% great general emergence and +50% production of settlers
The Financial trait gives +1 commerce on any plot that already has at least 2 commerce
Unique unit: Redcoat (replaces Rifleman)
Where the rifleman has +25% strength against mounted units, the redcoat has +25% against both mounted and gunpowder units.
Unique Building: Stock Exchange (replaces Bank)
The stock exchange gives an amazing +65% gold in the city it's built in, as opposed to +50% for the bank.
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: Sorry, no adventurer save this time.
- Challenger: Sorry, no challenger save this time.
The
newbies guide has a full explanation of adventurer and challenger.
@Blake00 @The_J
