News: BOTM 44 - Starts 16 July

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 44: Kublai Khan of Mongolia

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm44civ.jpg[/img]

It's come to my attention that we've not yet done a BOTM playing as the Mongols. BOTM 44 attempts to right that injustice, and give you the chance to try keshiks in BtS. Have fun!

Game Details:

Game settings:
Civilization: Kublai Khan of Mongolia
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Emperor
Map: Tectonics
Mapsize: Standard
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Epic
Options: No goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Kublai Khan:
Kublai Khan is aggressive and creative, and the Mongols start with hunting and the wheel. The aggressive trait gives a free combat I promotion to melee and gunpowder units, and double production speed of barracks and drydock. Creative gives +2 culture/turn in each city, and double production speed of library, theatre and colosseum.


Unique unit: Keshik(replaces horse archer)
The main benefit of the keshik over the horse archer is that the keshik can ignore terrain movement costs - so it can move very quickly! It also gains a first strike, though does not have the immunity to first strikes that horse archers do. It shares with horse archers a 20% withdrawal chance, +50% against catapults and flank attack against catapults and trebuchets.

Unique building: Ger(replaces stable)
The ger is identical to the stable except that, where the stable gives +2XP to mounted units, the ger gives them +4XP.

Starting screenshot

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




Adventurer Class bonuses:
Game will be played on monarch level. AI units are the same as emperor level however.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
You play the game on immortal level (but the game will still be scored as if on emperor level and AI units are as at emperor level).

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 16 July 2010, 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 16 August 2011.

Civ version

This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Warlords or vanilla Civ), patched to version 3.19 and using the BUFFY mod 3.19.003.

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.

 

[neilmeister]

Thats a hell of a lot of food, but not so much production. The gap in the forests 2N of us looks suspiciously like metal or horses. We are going to go whip-crazy!

 

[Alamankarazieff]

I didn't have much practice with mongols, so ran a quick test game. Keshiks are fun, and brutally efficient on early games. But, I count three hills. Not great, but not abysmal, especially if there is a horse tile.

 

[shyuhe]

I think keshiks will only get hit by a defending unit's first strikes if the defending unit has more than 1 first strike opportunity.

 

[Zechnophobe]

First strikes cancel each other out, so while they don't ignore ALL first strikes, they do ignore the first one, which is as many as most units get.

I feel like these teaser posts should also include starting techs. The pre-game discussion is sorta dampened until we know for sure.

In this case we start with Hunting and the Wheel.

Size 5 capital should ultimately be working: Fish + three mined hills + cottaged plains,but will grow off of corn as well. The above spread is 5+3+1+2 = 11 food, feeding our 5 people.

Since we start with neither fishing nor agriculture, one or other is going to need to be a first tech, possible both. I could consider agri-mining-BW-Fishing and hook up the fish last. It is the worst for commerce though, but best for growth.

agri-fishing-mining-bw seems the 'obvious' route, but I'm not sure if it is worth it. We want to mine them hills.
Oh, and this is Epic speed, which may through off my numbers a fair bit since that always does!

Hmm, you can see some tundra up north, meaning we may need to expand southward, possibly by boat. At the very least culture should pop to get to the landmass the fish are on, if it is indeed different.

I can't see any reason not to SIP from that photo, but the scout will move EE to see. If the goods are right, I could imagine either NN or EE for the settler as possible spots, and then hang a second city on the peninsula later on (Allowing us to research fishing later).

Excitement!

Edit; Oh and I'm predicting horses 2N of settler :3

 

[shyuhe]

You can reach the island to the south since it's connected by coast.

 

[psparky]

Adventurer Class bonuses:
Game will be played on monarch level. AI units are the same as Prince You play the game on emperor level.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Well I have to leave some typo in the starting post to give you guys something to do don't I

Fixed.

 

[jesusin]

With this much food I will be looking for happy sources from the beggining.

Pyramids are attractive if we can find Stone.
With so much boat building to do I will be running a big risk: I might have defective exploring if my scout gets killed, since I won't be building more than 1 Warrior in the early game.

At pop5 I see my capital working very different tiles than Zechnophobe: fish, clams, crabs, crabs and unhappy citizen.

 

[Bebekija]

Excitement!

Edit; Oh and I'm predicting horses 2N of settler :3

Excitement indeed ! I wish it started on the 15th instead, it would have given me the whole weekend to play it...

Are you sure that DS will be kind enough to give us horses in our BFC in a Mongols game? Hard to believe....

 

[cabert]

I guess I must check the specifics of Tectonics map script.
Never played this.

Any opinions about this?
I have a bad feeling about the ability to hit the AIs with horses, if they are on a different continent

 

[Zechnophobe]

With this much food I will be looking for happy sources from the beggining.

Pyramids are attractive if we can find Stone.
With so much boat building to do I will be running a big risk: I might have defective exploring if my scout gets killed, since I won't be building more than 1 Warrior in the early game.

At pop5 I see my capital working very different tiles than Zechnophobe: fish, clams, crabs, crabs and unhappy citizen.

Ah, whip-whip-whip eh? Y'know... challenge accepted! I've never done a pure food-whip capital before, but just this once, I'm going to give it a go!

 

[Zechnophobe]

A few runs on tectonics... Just to try out the map script a bit since I haven't played it much.

It seems to generate very very little land on the default setting (70% ocean). So depending on how that was twiddled, we may be in for a very wet game here. That would suggest GLH pretty strongly. But the Capital doesn't have much production without chopping. Hmm indeed.

 

[cas]

A few runs on tectonics... Just to try out the map script a bit since I haven't played it much.

It seems to generate very very little land on the default setting (70% ocean). So depending on how that was twiddled, we may be in for a very wet game here. That would suggest GLH pretty strongly. But the Capital doesn't have much production without chopping. Hmm indeed.

Tectonics varies a lot based on the settings. No way to tell this early.

The capital has plenty of production. It's called slavery -> whip overflow hammers.

cas

 

[King Pluto]

A few runs on tectonics... Just to try out the map script a bit since I haven't played it much.

It seems to generate very very little land on the default setting (70% ocean). So depending on how that was twiddled, we may be in for a very wet game here. That would suggest GLH pretty strongly. But the Capital doesn't have much production without chopping. Hmm indeed.

The first thing I think of when I hear Tectonics is plains-heavy and food-poor maps. Take a look at some of the pictures in the map guide of Tectonics maps. The Pangaea normal climate picture is especially telling. So many plains!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246788#tectonics

 

[Zechnophobe]

The first thing I think of when I hear Tectonics is plains-heavy and food-poor maps. Take a look at some of the pictures in the map guide of Tectonics maps. The Pangaea normal climate picture is especially telling. So many plains!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246788#tectonics

Yeah, those pictures show about what I'd expect. I think the lesson here is that the maps come in basically two types: 30% 'lake' maps, and 60-70% island maps, and the latter are very land poor, making them extremely aggressive based. Something Kublai would be very good at.

 

[Ronnie1]

Not sure which type of map we will get(no additional data). So I started a practice game with 60% water and got this start on the 2nd regen and decided to share because it is remarkably close to the screen shot.

 

[Mylene]

I wanted to try this for the first time
Installed Buffy (not bad..), then i saw it is Epic speed
Is there an option to play this on normal? The waiting times are no fun.

 

[lymond]

My - With GOTMs, everyone plays the same save and settings for comparison/competitive purposes. (except the adventurer/challenger saves). Most games tend to be on Normal speed, but ever so often we get thrown a different speed. 1 Epic game won't kill you...just do a Conquest win by 1AD...short game

 

[WelshGandalf]

Well I have to leave some typo in the starting post to give you guys something to do don't I

Fixed.

You missed another one, with the start date.

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 16 July 2010