News: BOTM 99 - Louis, Emperor - Starts 10 Jan

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 99: Louis of France.

For this game, you're playing as Louis of France on a small fractal map. Your unique unit can move fast, enabling you to conquer neighbours quickly. But do you want to wait long enough to build it before you go to war?

Game settings:
Playing as: Louis of France
Rivals: 4 AIs
Difficulty: Emperor
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No barbarians, no goody huts, no random events
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Fractal
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Small
Climate: Cold
Sea level: Medium


Louis is Industrious and Creative, and you start with The Wheel and Agriculture.

The Industrious trait gives +50% wonder production and double production speed of Forge

The Creative trait gives +2 culture/city each turn and double production speed of Colosseum, Library and Theatre

Unique unit: Musketeer (replaces Musketman)
The Musketeer benefits from: 2 movement points. This compares with the Musketman which has: 1 movement point.

Unique Building: Salon (replaces Observatory)
In addition to the +25% science and ability to run one scientist that the observatory gives, the salon provides a free artist. Possibly not the most useful of unique buildings, but there you go...

Starting screenshot

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




Note that in this game, any espionage-culture victories will be counted as cultural victories.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 10 Jan 2016, 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 10 Feb 2016.

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 3.19.003 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.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Yaa for a non-Tundra Deer Resource. Boo to it being both unforested and not on a River. Is it possible to update the game to include a Forest on the Deer Resource, to reduce the luck factor from early Forest growth affecting a capital's key square?


To move or not to move?

In place gives 2 Food Resources, a good amount of Rivers, and 4 visible, workable Mines.

1NE is on a PH Riv square, but loses 2 workable Hills, 5 Riverside squares, 1 Forest, and misses out on the Cow's Commerce for 3 turns.

1N is also an option for keeping some of the Riverside squares and picking up a couple of more of them, but we still lose a net of 2 workable Hills.

There's also the somewhat-odd option of settling on top of the G Riv Cow, should the Warrior move 1NW and spot another Deer Resource there, but otherwise, I wouldn't even consider wasting the Cow just for an extra +1 Food for the capital's City Centre square.


Moving the capital 1NE or 1N may work out for getting another Resource within our capital's big fat cross, but also has the potential of wasting the 2 Grassland Hills squares that we'd be moving away from, as there might not be a Food Resource to the south that can be partnered with them. So, I think that moving the Warrior 1S GH will be a good opening... if a Food Resource, such as a Clam, gets revealed within range of those 2 GH squares, I'll feel better about risking moving the Settler northward. Otherwise, settling in place looks to be solid enough of a play.


As for Musketeers... they can be obtained via: Monarchy + Feudalism + Metal Casting + Machinery + Guilds + Gunpowder. With some clever Lightbulbing (avoiding Fishing and some other techs for a Great Scientist), it might be a viable path to take.

Otherwise, going through the typical Civil Service + Paper + Education + Gunpowder route would fit with how more people tend to play.


Why tech to Gunpowder for Musketeers if we're already going to unlock Knights from Guilds? The only answer that I can think of would be to go for their Draftability, but then we need Civil Service (which could be obtained via Feudalism), one of Code of Laws or Drama, Philosophy, and Nationalism, which is already a lot to tech.

At least the typical Education-via-Civil-Service path allows for a bit more synergy with the Drafting path, and if we get Philosophy via Lightbulbing, then theoretically getting Liberalism for Nationalism (not much of a raw Flask savings, though) would be a way to go.


An alternative route to Nationalism would be via Great Prophets for Theology and Divine Right, but we'd still need Civil Service via either Feudalism or Code of Laws, in order to tech Nationalism itself. In this approach, using our Industrious Trait for Great-Prophet-producing Wonders doesn't sound that bad, although it's probably not optimal play (who said fun had to equate to optimal play, though, and there are many paths to success in this game).

 

[yyeah]

Iam so tempted to settle this cows .
This can be huge mistake

 

[ikotomi]

I've personally never liked musketeers enough to war with them. Is 1 movement enough to justify a musket rush when normally you would just wait for cuirassiers? Compared to Knights, they ignore walls but have 1 less strength and don't ignore first strikes, so it's hard to say if it's even that much better than an earlier rush.

 

[lymond]

Musketeers aren't going to do much for you on Emperor. They are a decent complement to Curaissers though, throwing in a few in the mix for defensive purposes. I don't like Knights much either on this level unless you somehow pickup Guilds in advance of MT for an initial run at an AI, but Guilds is off track to better options for war.

Oh..that deer isn't forested. That would have been nice.

warrior move isn't going to do much except probably reveal a forested tile to the NW. It appears that there is no food in the fog, unless there is more deer somewhere. I'm thinking 1NW on the plains hill is probably the best move here, with maybe potential for more food out in the unknown.

Braver souls might even consider moving the settler to greener pastures. This start does not play well to France's starting techs. With a Hunt>AH opening there likely will be some lost worker turns unless more food or open hills show themselves to the E (given settler move)

 

[High King J.J.]

I've personally never liked musketeers enough to war with them. Is 1 movement enough to justify a musket rush when normally you would just wait for cuirassiers? Compared to Knights, they ignore walls but have 1 less strength and don't ignore first strikes, so it's hard to say if it's even that much better than an earlier rush.

Just a thought, what if we have no horses? And maybe no iron?

 

[ikotomi]

Sometimes you have tough games, but it's pretty rare to have none of horses, iron, and elephants. If you have one of those, you can either elepult or rent a resource for some turns. Cuirassiers are a pretty major tech advantage over muskets, so it's worth stalling your research temporarily. I don't remember if AI trades enough gold on Emperor to make this feasible though.

If you have absolutely nothing, maybe catapults and muskets can work. Teching to riflery and possibly nationalism might be safer still. If you have at least iron, maces and trebuchet are more attractive if only for the earlier timing.

 

[WastinTime]

draft 3 musketeers/turn
An extra 30 units every 10 turns has a huge impact. Especially when they move 2.

 

[dutchfire]

Combines well with Cuirassiers, they have the same speed and can defend your stack and captured cities (against pikemen and war elephants in particular).

 

[Xcalibrator]

In place gives 2 Food Resources, a good amount of Rivers, and 4 visible, workable Mines.

1NE is on a PH Riv square, but loses 2 workable Hills, 5 Riverside squares, 1 Forest, and misses out on the Cow's Commerce for 3 turns.

It's risky, but moving 1NE has its attractions.

11 visible river tiles with SIP, 6 with settling NE. 4 visible mines SIP, 2 NE, but you'll probably pick up one or two more non-visible with NE. 17 visible forests SIP, 10 NE but with up to 5 more not visible. (Yes, some of those "visible" are inferred but whatever they are, most of them are common to both locations; it's the difference that matters.) Cow commerce is compensated by the extra city-center plains hill hammer in 3 turns, after that you're ahead with NE. More important is the lost turn to move but you make that up in 2 or 3 turns (more for the commerce) and then you're ahead, although your worker (assuming that's your first build) will likely be delayed by a turn. Vacating the unforested hill means you can mine it without BW (assuming forests don't cover before you get to it)--no other mines until then. Until BW your worker can only improve the deer and cows (with Hunting and AH, which you'll likely research before Mining if you SIP), apart from roading. But maybe by the time you've improved the food resources you'll have researched through BW--anyone want to do a test? Moving NE gives you 6 chances for another resource in the BFC that you won't have with SIP (although DS tends not to play tricks like that--I think?). On the other hand, with SIP your worker won't have to spend extra turns moving through forests or hills to get to the deer and cows.

Probably the biggest difference is the river tiles--very nice for cottages and/or farms and levees (if you're going for Space)--but maybe there are some river squares among the to-be-revealed tiles if you settle NE. Hmm, lots of apparent losses with settling NE and not as many potential gains. I might have talked myself into SIP. Do you feel lucky, punk?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Did a quick test and you're actually a little ahead with settling NE up through getting BW on T35. The difference is from getting the worker earlier (unlike what I wrote above) because of the extra plains hill hammer: worker ready on T13 rather than T15 with SIP. That lets you camp the deer (which you should do before cows because it gives [edit]4 food rather than 4) on T17 rather than 18. Both approaches give you Hunting->AH->Mining->BW on T35 but with NE you have 8 more food in the bin (both pop 5) and a lot more hammers from working the grass river hill mine (I think it was around 3 warriors worth) instead of a forest. SIP lets you build an extra road (4 vs 3). Worker actions were camp, pasture, mine (only with settling NE), and killing time building roads when waiting for BW, which is unavoidable either way.

So, settling NE on the plains hill gives a faster start in terms of hammers (around 45?) and food (8) but you'll be trading a significant number of known river tiles, forests, and hills for 6 unknown tiles. Maybe some fog gazing with the real save can give you a little extra info to make your decision. Good luck!

[Edit: Sorry, my test game incorrectly put grass under the deer instead of plains, so my numbers will be off and you'll want to work on the cows before deer. But the comparison between SIP and NE remains about the same: faster start, but at the cost of not knowing what you'll get in return for giving up the river tiles, etc. that you can see.]

 

[pigswill]

With fractal there´s no absolute guarantee that all AIs can be reached before astronomy.

 

[Pangaea]

Maybe I should give this game a go, for the first BOTM?

As for Musketeers... they can be obtained via: Monarchy + Feudalism + Metal Casting + Machinery + Guilds + Gunpowder. With some clever Lightbulbing (avoiding Fishing and some other techs for a Great Scientist), it might be a viable path to take.

Otherwise, going through the typical Civil Service + Paper + Education + Gunpowder route would fit with how more people tend to play.

Don't need Machinery, we could go more directly via Monotheism -> Theology -> Paper -> Edu - Gunpowder. Maybe by Oracling Theology, self-teching Paper and using the GS on part-bulbing Edu.

That would be a very unusual path for me, but perhaps it could be viable here given the leader. Like WastinTime said, drafting can be pretty strong, but then we need Nationalism, meaning we're only one tech short of Cuirs anyway, and they stomp both Knights and Musketeers into the ground. With that approach, naturally it's nice to have some footsoldiers along, to protect the moving horde of horses, that for once can keep up.

But with a start like this, especially with SIP, which is the 'safe' option I guess, I'd like to get Civil Service early for Buro awesomeness, which is at a different path, but a much more useful one (Currency, CoL).

Have never played with these settings (cold, small), but from what I recall emperor is pretty similar to immortal, which I handle well most of the time. Great discussion above about settling alternatives. Usually I don't like to settle on green hills, but with two poor food resources we'll need both, so straying too far won't be viable. Shame the warrior wasn't 1W, he may reveal something useful then, but now he will probably only reveal a forested tile by going NW. Of course, if that happens to be a forested deer, settling on the cow may actually be a not too idiotic option Particularly because that naked plains tile outside of SIP BFC intrigues me....

With forest on every single tile surrounding SIP, there will be lost worker turns, unless another deer pops up. Have half a of mind of moving the warrior south, simply because he'll reveal more, but it's probably akin to hut chasing, and it's more sensible to go NW. With all that ice and tundra, settling south isn't a grand option after all. 2W might actually be okay too, except there is tundra that way too, but also forested grassland.

Perhaps moving NE is an option after all, despite the high uncertainty. Even with SIP there appears to be few riverside grassland (4?), and NE will get 3, unless there is a river north or east as well. It does give an extra hammer for the city square, and a mine-able hill pre-BW, but also moves away from two other green hills. Of course, if there was marble over there....

I suppose second guessing the mapmaker (are BOTM maps generally (heavily) modified, or more or less as generated?) isn't the best thing, and SIP does appear like the safe but unspectacular option.

Not sure what victory condition I would go for. Culture could be handy given the leader, but it bores me too much. Could be a nice capital for space, with cottages and a levee, and I do like space games, but if you first start rolling with a war machine, may as well go for that, although it's probably the most contested victory around here.

 

[Pangaea]

*gulp* Hope this isn't a problem

I tried to load the starting save after changing the game back from the BUG dll to the BUFFY one (played the recent Noble Club game, which required BUG). There was some type of message on screen for a tiny second, before the game crashed. Tried loading an old BUFFY save, and the same happened. Then I remember that I wasn't supposed to use the actual BUFFY dll, but the one I have titled "original". I've been on hiatus for a few months, so didn't remember which one it was. After this change I tried to load another old BUFFY save, and the game crashed outright while loading the save. This happens sometimes, so don't think it's a big problem, at least I hope so. When I once again fired up the game and tried to load the BOTM save, it worked. This hiccup probably means it looks like I loaded the initial save twice, however, which I suppose isn't great (although of course no moves were made, as the game crashed while it was loading the save).

Will try to play a bit, and hope things work out okay. Think I'll just SIP, as it's the safest option.

 

[lymond]

Why do you even have a Buffy dll in that folder, Pangaea? BUFFY is standalone. All you need to do is make sure your vanilla dll is active.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

*gulp* Hope this isn't a problem

I tried to load the starting save after changing the game back from the BUG dll to the BUFFY one (played the recent Noble Club game, which required BUG). There was some type of message on screen for a tiny second, before the game crashed. Tried loading an old BUFFY save, and the same happened. Then I remember that I wasn't supposed to use the actual BUFFY dll, but the one I have titled "original". I've been on hiatus for a few months, so didn't remember which one it was. After this change I tried to load another old BUFFY save, and the game crashed outright while loading the save. This happens sometimes, so don't think it's a big problem, at least I hope so. When I once again fired up the game and tried to load the BOTM save, it worked. This hiccup probably means it looks like I loaded the initial save twice, however, which I suppose isn't great (although of course no moves were made, as the game crashed while it was loading the save).

If you didn't make any moves (which, obviously, you couldn't if the game crashed immediately) then it'll be fine. It's only *replaying moves* that's against the rules.

Not sure what the cause of your crash is, but make sure you are running with the correct version of the BUFFY mod - we're using version 3.19.003, which is not the latest version. If all else fails, uninstalling and reinstalling civ is always an option If you're nervous about the competition game crashing, you can always grab the starting save for another recent BOTM off the GOTM server and try loading that - that'll confirm whether you have the game and mod installed correctly to play BtS GOTMs.

 

[Pangaea]

Think it came with the BUFFY download, and each time I make this mistake. Aye, best to delete it

edit: xpost with DynamicSpirit. I'm using the .003 version, and it seems to be fine now, I've played some turns and the game works as it should. Sometimes it does crash when loading saves, more frequently with BUFFY I think than with BUG, so maybe there is an issue there. But the game itself runs fine and stable, so as long as I can get started it's fine. When it does crash, it's during the loading process. Sometimes CTD and other times the loading seems stuck and never completes (sometimes I've waited 5-10 mins without luck).

I am running the game on Linux, via wine, but I've had many games accepted to the HoF so it should be okay. I've run the assetchecker, and got things okay'ed after downloading a small archive of FX files (iirc).

 

[jshelr]

Hi guys. Have not played this game in a long time.

Just loaded buffy on a new pc. I'm getting an "assets protected" message when I try to load the game.

Is there a buffy trouble shooting thread? Or can someone just tell me what to do

 

[lymond]

Is there a buffy trouble shooting thread? Or can someone just tell me what to do

Your best bet is to try this options listed here:

buffing buffy

hope you get it working and welcome back

 

[jshelr]

thanks