News: BOTM 59 -- Starts October 15

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 59: Peter and the Mongol hordes.



Game Details:

Peter and some comrades were wandering the steppes one day, when they came across a Mongolian witch. The Russians thought it best just to liquidate her, but she begged for her life in exchange for the secret of the Keshik. Each of Peter's party received one keshik unit, and they spared her life.

When Ghenghis and Kublai heard about this, they became furious. Like -100 diplo points furious, and that's no joke. They killed every Russian settler they could find (you start the game WITHOUT a SETTLER), burned the witch (but not before she put a plague on all Mongols - they don't have a starting settler either), and set off to track down Peter and his comrades. For good measure, they declared war on the whole world. With the aid of their keshiks, the Russians were able to stay one step ahead. But now they are stuck playing a game of Civilization without any settler, and with a horde of Mongols on their tails, and a handful of nasty barbarians om the steppes for good measure.

How's that gonna work? I have no idea. Maybe you do, though? I will tell you that due to mapmaker devilry, it will be impossible for you to win this game, even by Conquest and Time, without getting a city one way or another.

You will play as Peter the Great of Russia. You are Expansive and Philosophical, and start with Hunting and Mining. The EXP trait gives you +2 health per city, +25% on production of workers, and +50% on production of granaries and harbors. The PHI trait gives you +100% great person growth rate, and double production rate for universities. Your unique unit is the Cossak, which replaces the Cavalry, but gets a combat bonus (+50%) against mounted units in addition to the usual. Your unique building is the Research Institute, which replaces the Laboratory and provides 2 free scientist specialists in addition to the usual. You start the game WITHOUT a SETTLER,

The game will start in the Ancient Era against 7 AI plus Mongols, at Normal game speed.

Game settings:
Civilization: Peter of Russia (Note: No settler!)
Rivals: 7 AIs plus Mongols
Difficulty: Noble
Map: Great Plains
Mapsize: Standard
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: Require complete kills, huts removed from within 8 tiles of the Mongols
Victory Conditions: All enabled


Starting screenshot

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




Adventurer Class bonuses:
You start with a settler on the same tile as the Russian keshik in the soutwest corner of the visible screen.

Contender Class:
No bonuses or hinders from the game description above.

Challenger Class Equalizers:
The witch tricked you... two of your comrades must walk (the two eastern most keshiks are replaced by scouts).
To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 15 October 2012, 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 November 2012.

Software Versions

Windows: This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Warlords or Civ4 vanilla), patched to version 3.19, and with the BUFFY mod version 3.19.003 installed. You can download the BUFFY mod here. Players using Windows Vista are encouraged to read the notes on Vista fixes here.

Macintosh: This game MUST be played in Beyond the Sword (NOT Warlords or Civ4 vanilla), patched to version 3.19, and with the MacBUFFY mod version 3.19.003 installed. You can download the MacBUFFY 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]

Maybe someone should tell you about Keshiks and barbs. Off the top of my head, on Noble level your first two battles with barbarians will be victories, earning experience without any risk. Also note that keshiks are basically the same thing as horse archers, except that they ignore terrain movement costs (they can move two spaces per turn even over rough terrain).

Anybody else want to correct inaccuracies in my descriptions is welcome to do so.

How many ways to get a city can you think of?

Oh yeah, and if someone can prove me wrong and actually win the game without ever having a city, you will win a banana.

 

[sossos]

Interesting game setting and story. Thank you KCD.

Do you choose great plain and keshik because of the post of "delayed bronze"?

 

[kcd_swede]

Interesting game setting and story. Thank you KCD.

Do you choose great plain and keshik because of the post of "delayed bronze"?

Not conciously, but now that you mention it... my subconcious might have snuck that in there.

 

[wwassme]

My thought is to initially move the four Keshiks to the four hills. That will give us maximum exposure of the surrounding land. The visible Mongol may or may not get taken out with one of the barb spears. On move 2, probably take out two of the spears with our free barbarian wins and move the other two Keshiks to expose more land, depending on where the spears move and what we see after move 1. That could change if more Mongols or barbs appear. Obviously, we need to find a city to capture.

I also see that at least one of the Keshiks (Stalin) is a Great General. I wonder if the other three are GGs as well.

 

[lymond]

S
i
p
!

 

[WelshGandalf]

I'm getting the vague feeling that we don't have a settler to start with. I don't know how I got that impression though.

According to the civopedia, Keshiks have all the following advantages over Horse Archers, listed in order of awesomeness in my opinion....

Ignores terrain movement costs
Can withdraw from combat (20% chance)
Are not immune to first strikes, but instead have 1 first strike
+50% attack vs. Catapult and Trebuchet (Horse archers get the bonus against catapults only)
Flank attack vs. Catapults and Trebuchets

I guess the plan would be, pick a direction at random (N/S/E/W), kill the 2 barbs in the way using our free victories, and hope we find a nice city to capture & don't run into the Mongols.

I'm Guessing that the statement of "you can't win without capturing a city" means there's more than 1 land mass...?

 

[Jaybone]

you sure you don't want to save those 2 free victories gandalf? What if there's a size 2 barb city visible on one of those hills?

 

[neilmeister]

What a scenario!?! How did you think of this one?

Anybody else want to correct inaccuracies in my descriptions is welcome to do so.

Oh, if you insist. It's a Cossack, not Cossak. But I admit I am always caught out with American spelling, so this might be correct in Sweden.

At Noble, we have a reasonable chance of popping Settlers from huts, especially if we take the Challenger save and get 2 scouts, though I feel safer with Keshiks.

What does concern me is the lack of 'No City Razing', we can't just blindly attack the first one we see. We need to wait until it is pop 2.

What I really have no idea about is what are the Mongols going to do??? Without a settler, or a way to produce one, but with military units, and at war wuth us.

 

[Deckhand]

The mongrels don't have a settler [says the most trustworthy mapmaker], but BUFFY says they have a city.

 

[Deckhand]

How many ways to get a city can you think of?

Flip it with our awesome culture.
By trade on the diplomacy screen - only if it is a city the AI doesn't want.
Found it with a settler
seems like there should be another way

 

[Manco Capac]

What does concern me is the lack of 'No City Razing', we can't just blindly attack the first one we see. We need to wait until it is pop 2.

Sheesh.

 

[WelshGandalf]

you sure you don't want to save those 2 free victories gandalf? What if there's a size 2 barb city visible on one of those hills?

Hmmm I suppose we can squeeze through the gaps between the spears. Given this it turn 0 though, I can't see any size 2 barb cities appearing for quite some time. Might as well get the free XP while we can. I wonder if Stalin has 20XP free for us to spend on his keshik?

I have a question about the description...

Options: Require complete kills, huts removed from within 8 tiles of the Mongols

Do you mean Mongols here, or Russians? Just checking.

The mongrels don't have a settler [says the most trustworthy mapmaker], but BUFFY says they have a city.

I suspect that's an odd buffy thing. If you're at peace with someone it displays the actual number of cities, if you're not it displays the number that you know about (usually this is how many you have scouted). I suspect BUFFY's logic is, they haven't been wiped out so they must have a city somewhere.

Finally, I love the sound of this scenario, really looking forwards to it, and hopefully no epic fail mis-clicks this time around...

 

[WelshGandalf]

I was just thinking about unit maintenance. From a quick read I think we can capture 1 unit OK (for example a careless worker), but if we capture 2 then we'll be losing 1gpt => unit disbands. So no going on a worker-capturing rampage until we have a city.

 

[vranasm]

I have the feeling this will end for me as a loss on Noble difficulty in 10 turns....

 

[Manco Capac]

I have the feeling this will end for me as a loss on Noble difficulty in 10 turns....

I was about to write that too, but that is more a rule for a dual confrontation. T10 is the earliest conquest possible; it checks if there's a remaining player with all the cities; if yes, then the remaininng players lose.

But here we are facing more than 1 opponent...

 

[High King J.J.]

First, our mapmaker has stated that the Mongols start without a settler. He did not say they start without a city. I'd guess they already have a city. And those keshiks.
Second, I'd like to know if all our keshiks are GG's or just comrade Stalin. What (if any) promotions do the other units (ours and theirs both) have? What about the barbs? Do the mongoloids have a GG as well? Or perhaps four GG's, one with each keshik?
Third, is it possible to meet Humbaba within the game?
Fourth, thanks to the "Require complete kills" I believe we don't necessarily need a city (except for the obvious long-term reasons).

Spoiler :

I'm looking forward to the chance to start, play until conquest loss is inevitable and fail to submit
Or to play, make one stupid mistake or involuntary mouse click and lose my capital to an almost dead barbarian unit when all defending units have just moved out towards some random point on the map
Or until some bug just before victory renders my last saved game (and all others saved during the last playing session) unloadable

 

[kcd_swede]

thanks to the "Require complete kills" I believe we don't necessarily need a city

Without this setting, the game is over as soon as you load it (and you lose by conquest defeat) if you have no cities and no settlers. That was my original idea, but figured some of you might actually want a game that lasts a little longer than that.

Mongols have no cities and no settlers when you start your game, which you perhaps could guessfrom the game description or perhaps not.

BTW: I wouldn't bet Mongols being without a city for very long though, because as you might have missed in the game description, the Mongols have declared war not just on YOU but on everyone else as well.

I won't mention anything about other units being GG or not, since players who do not read this thread would not have that information either. You can easily see what you have and what the Mongols have when you open the saves.

I should also point out to you that the russian units are all alone on their squares (unless you play adventurer in which case you get a settler as described). There are FOUR Mongol keshiks in the center tile. And there are 8 barbarian units visible. All this is in the starting screenshot, though maybe not as easy to see if you aren't looking for it (dots over the flags held by the units).

Huts have been removed from within 8 tiles of the Mongol keshiks, unless I missed one. Since I am feeling generous, I will tell you that for every hut I removed I added another one somewhere else on the map. Nice of me, wasn't it?

 

[Manco Capac]

I'll try to keep one hut for Astro popping .

 

[lymond]

Wow! Did not even catch that those were Mongols in the center tile. So the opening strategy is "Run Away!" "Run Away!"