News: GOTM 103 (Isabella, Noble) - Starts 2 June!

[DynamicSpirit]

GOTM 103: Isabella of Spain.

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/gotm103civ.jpg[/img]

And so it was that Isabella and her small band of followers finally came upon a grassy plain by the sea. The goddess Athena visited Isabella in a dream and commanded her that these were to be the lands upon which her descendants might grow and prosper. Isabella thanked Athena and asked what after their time in the wilderness her followers would eat. And Athena in her wisdom blessed a part of the ocean and commanded shoals of fish to come there and breed. But Isabella said, "what use are fish? We cannot eat fish until we build boats and my people are hungry today." And Athena in her generosity visited the grassy lowlands and made the soil so fertile that it would sprout rice in abundance. But Isabella merely replied, "But, Athena, my people are hungry. They have wandered and trekked and fed off what few wild animals and plants they could find. What will we if barbarians come and pillage the lands? We must have reassurance that we will always be able to eat." And Athena did not wish to disappoint her followers, so she looked upon some nearby land where fine copper to make shields and annexes was buried in the ground, and transformed the copper into pastures so that sheep might freely flock there. But still Isabella was not satisfied. She said "Oh Athena, you asked us to abandon the place where we were born and journey through mountains and hills. Yet you have given us food that we do not know how to eat."

And now Athena was angry. In her rage she towered high over the plain and spoke with an angry roar. "Three times have I answered your requests, and still you demand more. Very well you will have food. This land of yours will be blessed with food in abundance. Truly, you shall grow fat on the fruits of the soil. And you shall have nothing else." And then Athena left.

Yet, even as Isabella contemplated the strange new white creatures called sheep, in faraway lands to the north, Hatshepsut, noble leader of the Egyptians, was praying to Horus. "We must build chariots to defend ourselves. Oh Lord, we have insufficient horses. What use are these dyes and silk when we cannot protect our lands from vile barbarians?" And Horus therefore transformed the si

Unfortunately the remainder of the scrolls of the ancient Book of the Land have never been found.


Game settings:
Playing as: Isabella of Spain
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Noble
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: None
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Inland sea (modified)
World Wrap: None
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: Low

This game will probably play a somewhat harder than usual for noble.

Isabella is Spiritual and Expansive, and you start with Mysticism and Fishing.

The Spiritual trait gives no anarchy and double production speed of Temple

The Expansive trait gives +3 health/city and double production speed of Granary and Harbor

Unique unit: Conquistador (replaces Knight)
The Conquistador benefits from: gets defensive bonuses, and 50% combat bonus against melee units. This compares with the Knight which has: does not get defensive bonuses.


Starting screenshot

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




Adventurer Class bonuses:
You play on warlord level

Challenger Class Equalizers:
You play on prince level (but the game will still be scored as if on noble, and AI units are as for noble)

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 2 Jun 2014, 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 2 Jul 2014.

Here is a link to a list of the differences between Vanilla, Warlords and BtS.

Software Versions

Windows: This game MUST be played in Civ4 Vanilla (NOT Beyond the Sword or Warlords), patched to version 1.74, and with the HOF mod version 1.74.004 installed. You can download the HOF mod here. Players using Windows Vista or Windows 7 are encouraged to read the notes on Vista fixes here.

If you have not installed BtS, you will need to update the relevant DLL files in order to match the Locked Assets checks. These are available here.**

Macintosh: This game MUST be played in Civ4 Vanilla (NOT Beyond the Sword or Warlords), patched to version 1.74, and with the Mac HOF mod version 1.74.002 installed. You can download the Mac HOF 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.

 

[Deckhand]

One each of fish, rice and sheep! From your description I expected abundance.
[edit: wet sheep and dry rice - what was Athena thinking?]

This game will probably play a somewhat harder than usual for noble.

Catapults to rule them all.

Looks like nice land to the west and nice hills to the east.
Think I will SIP to get the 3 food and mine all the hills.

Edit (since no one else has found this thread) - I kinda like 2E. Settle on Plains Hill. Delays settling only one turn. Gets workboat out faster. Another (cottage) city can have the sheep; slower growth without them though. What do you think?
Maybe hunting/archery first to handle barbarians? Doesn't sound like we will have any metal or horses (go north young lady). Will all the civs have women rulers?

 

[haphazard1]

Things looks pretty abundant to me -- check the northwest and what looks like a grass/flood plain combo. Five food without even being improved! Looks like some more flood plains as well. The rice is worse than dry, though -- it looks to be dry plains rice. Only 3F1H with a farm until CS.

Settling 1W looks interesting -- the grass FP, sheep, and fish all in BFC plus fresh water and river tiles. From what we can see there should be room for cities east (share fish and take rice) and west (flood plains). A lot less hammer potential but an excellent early worker/settler pump and later GP Farm. The palace can always be moved later if necessary.

 

[Jastrow]

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

I must say I find that disapointing. I think any espionage-culture victory in this game deserves at least a full Heptathlon award!

BTW, what the hack is that loaf of bread 2NW of the start?? It look like settling 1W would lose only dry rice (and one forrest), but get us:

-A five food tile pre-worker/workboat, which is roughly as good as improoved rice!
-Fresh water health bonus.

It however gives up 3 hills, and may leave us short on production... Still, a 5F tile starting on turn 5 (border pop) would be very nice.

Decisions, decisions, decision...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I must say I find that disapointing. I think any espionage-culture victory in this game deserves at least a full Heptathlon award!

Well spotted. I'll remove that line from the announcement.

BTW, what the hack is that loaf of bread 2NW of the start?? It look like settling 1W would lose only dry rice (and one forrest), but get us:

haphazard1 is correct. It's grass with a flood plain on it. It's not riverside btw (on the corner of a river, which doesn't count as riverside in vanilla), so without improvements it gives you 5F but no commerce. You can build improvements on it.

 

[Htadus]

Athena has always been a pain and I for one am thinking of turning my back on her fruitful land and run to find Noble Hatshepsut and borrow her horses. But where is she and her lands?

 

[Deckhand]

Athena has always been a pain

so true

and I for one am thinking of turning my back on her fruitful land and run to find Noble Hatshepsut and borrow her horses.

sounds like a plan

But where is she and her lands?

"in faraway lands to the north"
maybe on the other side of the sea? and how would you know where the horses are? oh yeah, by the time you get there, they would be pastured.

 

[PsyMar]

And Isabella in her wisdom blessed a part of the ocean and commanded shoals of fish to come there and breed.

Uh, did you mean Athena?

 

[Deckhand]

Uh, did you mean Athena?

Good catch.

You going to play this one PsyMar?
Warlord or Noble?
Have Fun.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Uh, did you mean Athena?

Wow, well spotted. Yes that should be Athena. Fixed now.

And to think of the number of times I proof-read it without spotting that...

Enjoy the game!

btw everyone - the spoiler threads are now up!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

If anyone is playing this using Steam - please DO NOT accept any Steam updates.

We've heard from the HOF guys that Steam has released an update which is apparently incompatible with the current version of the HOF mod - and which will prevent you loading this game (or for that matter, any other GOTM that's in progress).

I don't yet have details - will try to clarify when I know more, but in the meantime it seems safest not to accept Steam updates.

As far as I know this doesn't affect people who have installed Civ from dvd.

(EDIT: Some more info here)

 

[neilmeister]

I think I will also settle 2E, i love a 5f tile, but at noble early production is better, especially if our metal has turned into sheep.

Warrior rush Hatty, anyone?

 

[craigholl]

I've been playing the GOTM and got to 1615. My computer froze yesterday (not while Civ4 was running) and I had to do a hard reboot. But now when I try to load my saved game I get:

"The save file you selected requires the following mod to be loaded: NONE The application must restart, ok?"

When I hit OK it tries to load Civ4 without the HOF mod and then Civ4 crashes. I tried other save files and the previous two don't open but the one from 1515 will open. All other previous games seems to open fine (from other GOTMs, etc)

What should I do? Is there a way to fix the file so I can continue on? Or should I just load the 1515 game and 'repeat' a part of history (20 turns), which is technically against the GOTM rules? Luckily it was a pretty boring time in history and I'll try to do things the same, but I want to do the right thing.

Help!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I've been playing the GOTM and got to 1615. My computer froze yesterday (not while Civ4 was running) and I had to do a hard reboot. But now when I try to load my saved game I get:

"The save file you selected requires the following mod to be loaded: NONE The application must restart, ok?"

When I hit OK it tries to load Civ4 without the HOF mod and then Civ4 crashes. I tried other save files and the previous two don't open but the one from 1515 will open. All other previous games seems to open fine (from other GOTMs, etc)

What should I do? Is there a way to fix the file so I can continue on? Or should I just load the 1515 game and 'repeat' a part of history (20 turns), which is technically against the GOTM rules? Luckily it was a pretty boring time in history and I'll try to do things the same, but I want to do the right thing.

Help!

Have you checked your autosave files? (You'll find them in the autosave folder under where your manual saves are).

If the later files are not loading, then it could because something in those files is broken, or because something in Civ (or the HOF mod) is broken, possibly caused by the hard reboot. It may be worth uninstalling and reinstalling Civ and the HOF mod, to see if that fixes the issue. And if you have access to any other computer with Civ on, then you could try loading the later saves on that to see if the problem is with those saves. Or you send one of them to me privately (PM me for details - DON'T post it here, obviously) and I can check whether I can load it. (NB. If you do uninstall civ, copy your save files somewhere else first - to make sure they don't get lost when you uninstall Civ!)

At this point I would avoid playing from the 1515AD save. It's unlikely we'd be able to accept a game with 20 turns of replay