News: GOTM 115 - Isabella, Warlord - Starts 4 June

[DynamicSpirit]

GOTM 115: Isabella: Choose Thy Neighbour!

So, who would you like to 'make friends' with?

I'll share a few things with you about the map. It's overall quite lush with lots of grassland. But - so thoughtless of me to put you bang in the middle of a bunch of hills! Goodness me, it's going to take your settler ages to walk to the lushness, isn't it...

Depending how fussy you are, it'll probably take you a similar number of turns to find somewhere good enough to settle no matter which direction you explore in.

Oh, and before you ask, yes you can settle in place if you want to. I would mention though that there are no resources in the starting area that might be revealed by any technology. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Game settings:
Playing as: Isabella of Spain
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Warlord
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Options: No barbarians, No goody huts
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Map settings:
Map: Think of it as a friendly battleground...
World Wrap: Cylindrical
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Sea level: Medium


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

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):




This time there is no adventurer or challenger save. Everyone plays contender. It took me long enough to make one version of this map, you don't expect me to do three versions of it, do you...

EDIT: OK I've decided to be extra-generous, and I've now provided a challenger save - playing on prince level (but the game is still scored as if on warlords level and AIs start with warlords level starting units). This should satisfy anyone who feels warlords is too easy. But there is still no adventurer save.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open at 00:01 am on 4 Jun 2015, 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 4 Jul 2015.

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.

PS. Sorry this game is a few days late. I didn't look at the schedule and notice I was supposed to be doing this one until this morning. (Amazing what ideas you can come up with in a blind panic, isn't it...)

 

[Deckhand]

I conclude that those signs indicate the direction where our victims friends will settle?
If their location then we would be blocked off (except for empty direction) and quite crowded for them.

 

[Deckhand]

Interesting choice of civs. Mansa seems the only friendly one. Least likely to attack us and most likely to trade.

Maybe SW, looks like fastest way out of hills (although I expect that to be untrue and all directions equal (DS is a professional after all)). Mansa to trade with and HC to build wonders for us (HC isn't industrious in vanilla).
I think Cyrus is only Creative civ, so don't want to go there.

 

[Deckhand]

clockwise

Cyrus - Expansive, Creative
Julius - Expansive, Organized
Monte - Aggressive, Spiritual
Huayna - Aggressive, Financial
Mansa - Spiritual, Financial
Alexander - Aggressive, Philosophical

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I conclude that those signs indicate the direction where our victims friends will settle?

Correct. The signs indicate who your neighbour will be if you explore and then settle once you reach suitable land in each indicated direction.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Interesting choice of civs. Mansa seems the only friendly one. Least likely to attack us and most likely to trade.

If it helps, the choice of AI civs was deliberate and planned.

Maybe SW, looks like fastest way out of hills (although I expect that to be untrue and all directions equal (DS is a professional after all)).

Perhaps I should draw attention to my statement in the starting post:

Depending how fussy you are, it'll probably take you a similar number of turns to find somewhere good enough to settle no matter which direction you explore in.

 

[Minou]

Another great concept - these special maps are why I love GOTM. I'm assuming everyone will walk to the empty spot rather than try to build a 20-turn worker and have a 2 pop capital. Hopefully good land is close enough to walk to before animals start spawning, it would be a shame to die without even founding a city!

 

[c00per]

^

Options: No barbarians

Anyway, looks like very interesting and (hopefully) enjoyable map.

This time there is no adventurer or challenger save. Everyone plays contender. It took me long enough to make one version of this map, you don't expect me to do three versions of it, do you...

 

[Jastrow]

I had also overlooked the no barbs options, and was already imagining my settler as a bear snack.

On Warlords level, I am not sure it matters who your neighbour is, since they will be SOOOOO slow that even the great MM will be of no teching help at all. I guess the question is which of these has the nicest capital.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm assuming everyone will walk to the empty spot rather than try to build a 20-turn worker and have a 2 pop capital.

I'm still a bit confused about how it all works myself, but I am pretty certain that DynamicSpirit only put signs on the map to indicate the relative direction in which you would find an AI (or no AI). The signs do not indicate the starting positions of the other AIs, although I originally thought so myself when looking at the screenshot.


Huayna has a Warrior Unique Unit, so he may be more likely to start off building a Quechua, making him harder to take on.


Mansa will either be useful for trading for some early-game techs or else should die before he gets Archery for Skirmishers.


It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that all of the AIs' Unique Units are early-game units.


Gotta love starting with Fishing on this start.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm still a bit confused about how it all works myself, but I am pretty certain that DynamicSpirit only put signs on the map to indicate the relative direction in which you would find an AI (or no AI).

Yes, that's correct.

The point of the start is that you decide either to head for the empty land or to head for land which is occupied by an AI, depending, obviously, on what kind of early game you wish to play - and you choose which AI you want to share the land with. Obviously, you take a chance on what the starting land is going to be for your given choice, though you may find that there are minor nuggets of information that might guide you (for example, consider the world wrap, that might have some influence on whether you wish to head east/west or north/south).

Obviously though, the map is intended to be fair, and you can deduce from that any variation in the land you get for the different choices is unlikely to be big enough to be game-breaking.

It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that all of the AIs' Unique Units are early-game units.

Congratulations! You have identified the reason for that particular choice of AIs. Part of your choice involves deciding which Unique Unit you would most like (or perhaps least dislike) facing.

Gotta love starting with Fishing on this start.

Who knows... After your initial stroll across the hills, perhaps you'll find yourself settling in a spot where fishing is useful!

 

[Minou]

Just noticed the three starting techs. Are we given The Wheel as a bonus?

I have not played many games on Warlord - maybe I should test out a game and see if it is actually possible to rush Warriors against Warriors. With my bad play, I would probably rush three Warriors, win against the defenders at unfavorable odds, and accidentally burn the capital because it is still at 1 population.

 

[Jastrow]

On warlords, the game gives you a free tech (the wheel) automatically. Warlord really stacks the deck in favor of the player....

Others things people may or may not know about warlords level include (compared to Monarch as a level people may be more familiar with):

-You get 12! free units before paying unit maintenance (4 on monarch).
-City maintenance is caped at 5.
-You get 3 free health and 5 free happy (1 more of each than monarch).
-You get 3 free wins against barbs
-You get 20% strength bonus in barb fights.
-Non animal barbs appear on T40 (25 on Monarch)
-Final barb density is about 30% lower than on Monarch.
-25% chance of a repreive if an AI would normaly chose to declare on you.
-AI is 10% slower than you on most things (research, construction costs, city growth, etc) (No Noble they are even. On Monarch, they are ~10% faster than you.)
-As mentioned above. You get the wheel for free.

-Huts are off, so this does not matter, but for completeness: Chances of spaning barbs is 10% (3 times lower than on Monarch), AND you have a 5% chance for EACH of a settler and a worker (Impossible on levels above Warlords).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

After some reflection I've decided to be generous to anyone who thinks that warlords is too easy to be fun. So there is now a challenger save.

For challenger, you play on prince level (but the game is still scored as if on warlords level and AIs start with warlords level starting units. And you still get the extra freebie warlords starting tech of 'the wheel').

 

[High King J.J.]

Before loading the save I would guess that some people will play this all the way through 1AD once they start and have the time to do so. So, in advance, can we have the 1st spoiler thread in the near future ?
And nice concept once again. Gotm games give us these unique game experiences that keep us coming back for more.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yeah I'll make sure the spoilers go up in the next day or two.

 

[PattonTwo]

Even though the challenger save is scored as if on warlord, I wonder if it might actually benefit the ending score. The AI will grow and research more quickly and I could see for the really good players a situation where they finish faster because of that. Otherwise to try to get a good score I would imagine we'll be gifting techs to several AIs over and over to help them keep up until we're ready to attack or use the tech gifting to try for a diplo victory.

Thinking about it I'm assuming that Mansa/Inca and Persia will do the best early on. Not sure about on warlords but in higher levels Inca seem to build wonders and mansa of course techs and trades. I would plan to leave both of them alone for a while and help them out with gifts of tech early on. Cyrus is who I would worry about most (relatively speaking given the level) as his UU is great early on and creative will help is borders expand quickly.

I'll probably move to the empty land since it will take leaders a while to grow. I can axe rush Greece (hope they build a lot of phalanx) and then turn on rome before they get too many Praets up. Since they need IW for that with the slow tech pace I doubt I'd have to worry.

Mining-BW seems the obvious first techs and hopefully I'll find some bronze for an axe rush. Then Agri/AH/write/alph assuming good resources. I'd like to get alpha early because the early techs are the only ones I'll probably ever be able to trade for. I can also rush on to Lit and TGL to try and push my tech rate. Construction for cats then machine/Guilds for CB and Knights to finish off the game. Well sounds good now. =)

Looks like a fun game as always thanks!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Spoilers are now up!