News: BOTM07 Pregame Discussion

[Lexad]

There go my chances to get a good result at BOTM07...

My evil plan has performed flawlessly

 

[ButSam]

Granted I am not the best Civ IV player (and this may be one reason why), but the flood plains don't produce that much unhealthiness, and unhealthiness is relatively easy to counter. Imagine financial + cottages on those flood plains... Especially nice if you want some specialists to go along with that city. This is a very nice city spot. Besides, when you get calendar, you have 3 resources in the fat cross. You can whip buildings that you need... I whipped library once it would only result in 1 unhappiness, and can easily whip granary and other health-improving buildings to compensate.

Sure, your capitol (at least temporary capitol) will not be a production city, but you can always move it later. What a sweet city spot... But it's pretty quick to move your capitol to another better-producing city or coastal city later, and it only ties up one city's resources, not your entire empire's resources.

My initial play of the test game was promising. I was researching much faster than any of the AIs because I put cottages on three flood plains very quickly, and now they are giving me 5 commerce per turn, my capitol is producing massive quantities of commerce (in the BCs still, around 800ish BC, and I get 28 beakers from this city alone per turn, and I am building a monastery so it will go up more), and with 5 cities I still can expand and not violate the "60% rule" because I am also getting great gold from the commerce)

I missed the no barbarians thing, I almost built great wall but decided against it, glad I didn't go through with it!

 

[Avo Man]

Downloaded.... Thanks Dynamic

 

[ButSam]

When does the first spoiler thread become available?

 

[Htadus]

When does the first spoiler thread become available?

I believe around 20th. Are you already done?

I downloaded the game at 2AM and was able to reason with me and my self to not to start. I think I will play a practice game before starting.

 

[dalamb]

For what it's worth, I remembered an old thread about cottage spamming with Catherine, who used to be Cre+Fin like Willem is now. The lack of barbs in this game (plus my using the Adventurer save, as usual) may make the initial weakness less of a problem.

 

[Stormreaver]

Hard to say without getting to explore with the warrior, but I'm thinking settling 1E to get the two hills mined for some production along with 4 FP to cottage. Seems to be more FPs to the west, providing decent city sites to REX fast with all the commerce available. Also brings in a couple more forests into the BFC for optimal chopping. In the long run, a 15 or 16 cottage bureaucracy Oxford U city will have me researching like hell. Space Race or perhaps Domination, just for the fun of trying out warfare beyond the sword.

Because of normal speed instead of epic, no barbs forcing early military and creative to protect my borders I might not go to war before maces/trebs or maybe even later.

 

[pixiejmcc]

Hey,

I just got back into Civ4 after over a year's absence - I've fallen back in love with it . Previously I played almost solely MP over on the ladder. I enjoyed it a lot but of course it required a very different approach. Anyway this time around I'm looking forward to having a stab at some GOTMs and hopefully getting more involved in the CivFanatics community.

I think I get the idea, there's plenty of information, but I have a question. I understand that you cannot reload a save or start over. But can we, for example, explore the different permeatations on a turn (especially the first turn), i.e. move units around in every direction until we've had visibility on every possible tile, then start? I'm sure you can't but I wanted to check.

Is there anything else I should know, that might be easily missed? Or perhaps you could point me in the direction of some useful tutorials/threads, especially ones that refer to single (as oppose to multi) player play and dealing with the AI. My game knowledge is pretty good because I used to play way too much (although I will have to become accustomed with all the new BTS content), but like I say I need to adapt my style. If that sounds like a cop out, don't worry, I will be searching around myself ^^.

EDIT: May be I should have made a new thread for this, anyway feel free to move it Mods!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Hey,
I think I get the idea, there's plenty of information, but I have a question. I understand that you cannot reload a save or start over. But can we, for example, explore the different permeatations on a turn (especially the first turn), i.e. move units around in every direction until we've had visibility on every possible tile, then start? I'm sure you can't but I wanted to check.

No you can't. The only way you could do that would be to move the units, then reload the game from the start of the turn, so that you can move them in a different direction on the same turn. That of course is against the rules. The point is that your entry must be *entirely* your first attempt to play the game, with each move being a step into the unknown. If we allowed replaying, then the GOTM would no longer be so much a competition of skill but a test of who had the most time to replay the most times until they found the optimal moves - and that would be I think I pretty worthless competition.

Note however that as you play, you can reload previous saves as long as you don't *play* them. So you can load a save from earlier in the game, look around the map, etc., then quit, as long as you don't start making any moves from that save.

btw make sure before you play that you have autosaves set to save every turn. And good luck - welcome to the GOTM community!

 

[Lexad]

Note however that as you play, you can reload previous saves as long as you don't *play* them. So you can load a save from earlier in the game, look around the map, etc., then quit, as long as you don't start making any moves from that save

This can be a tricky one either, treat it like this: my scout went east, but I also want to check what's west, so I load a previous save, move him west to uncover the land, and then return to my previous save with east movement in effect - clearly a rules violation. Reloads-free is the way to be.

 

[pixiejmcc]

This can be a tricky one either, treat it like this: my scout went east, but I also want to check what's west, so I load a previous save, move him west to uncover the land, and then return to my previous save with east movement in effect - clearly a rules violation. Reloads-free is the way to be.

I think DynamicSpirit covered this by saying, you mustn't *play* the save. Unless I misunderstand something (quite possible).

Anyway, thank you DS for the clarification, and the welcome .

 

[Lexad]

Yep, then I misinterpreted the "look around the map" bit. The way you clarified is perfectly normal and GOTM-compliant.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yep, then I misinterpreted the "look around the map" bit. The way you clarified is perfectly normal and GOTM-compliant.

Sorry, my wording was a bit ambiguous so easy to misinterpret. Looks like you and pixiejmcc have both understood (well you've been around long enough to know anyway ) but to be absolutely clear in case any other newbies get confused : I meant that it's fine to load a previous save and to scroll around the map to look at the land that is already visible in that save - because that's not playing, it's merely looking (One common reason why you might want to do that is to get some screenshots for posting in the spoiler threads). But if you are doing that, you must not actually move any units (or do anything else that involves playing, like making deals with AIs) - because then you would be replaying and so breaking the rules.

 

[Redtooth]

I've finally gotten the civitch back, and I thought there'd be no better way to satisfy it than a good GOTM game to see just how rusty I am. Don't think I've done a GOTM since CivIII's GOTM44 or 45, so we'll see how long I last. At least this is only a Monarch, not like the WOTM right now!

And just to be sure I'm not doing anything wrong: After Installing BtS, I update it to 3.13 with the patch. Then I download the HOF mod, install that. I then open the game using the HOF mod and open the save from there, and start playing! Anything I missed?

 

[kcd_swede]

And just to be sure I'm not doing anything wrong: After Installing BtS, I update it to 3.13 with the patch. Then I download the HOF mod, install that. I then open the game using the HOF mod and open the save from there, and start playing! Anything I missed?

In my experience, once the HOF mod is installed you can just open the save directly from the game download. Civ4BTS with HOF mod will automatically recognize the file and open it in the HOF mod. This is true for any saves you later make. No need to open BTS, then load the HOF mod (which restarts the BTS!), then open the file from inside the game. Much quicker just to click the save and it opens the game in the right config. Note, the first time you "might" have to check the options so that the default for HOF mod is "Lock Modified Assets". Otherwise there will be a red warning at the top of the screen that the game is not compatible with HOF submissions. You need to lock modified assets and reload the save. But as long as you don't change that default, HOF mod will always start that way.

No guarantees... Some systems might work differently.

 

[Thrallia]

just be sure not to update to the new 3.17 patch! If you do, you won't be able to play or submit this month's BOTM.

Until a HOF mod gets built using the 3.17 patch, all BOTMs will continue using 3.13, and you should put off updating(if you want to play the BOTMs) until we are 3.17 compliant.

 

[JungleIII]

Do you have an estimated date for when the HOF mod will be updated to 3.17 compliant? i.e. next game, game after....

 

[mc-red]

I have played a few civ III gotm and COTMs but wanted to try this as i have just begun to play BTS (a few games at Noble).

Question: Can i build dykes if city has rivers in BFC or does city have to be on the river?

thanks

 

[Stormreaver]

Question: Can i build dykes if city has rivers in BFC or does city have to be on the river?

Can build dike regardless of rivers.

 

[Lexad]

Not exactly. AFAIK, can build dikes in either river cities or coastal cities.