News: WOTM17 Pregame Discussion

[Thrallia]

WOTM17: France

Game Details:

Game settings:
Civilization: France (Leader: Louis XIV; Traits: Industrious, Creative)
Rivals: 6 AIs
Difficulty: Immortal
Map: Ice Age
Mapsize: Standard
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Marathon
Options: No City Razing
Victory Conditions: all enabled

Louis XIV:
Louis XIV is Industrious and Creative; starting with agriculture and wheel. Industrious gives you +50% production for wonders and double production speed for forge. Creative gives you +2 per city and double production speed for theatre, colisseum, and library.

Unique unit: Musketeer(replaces Musketman)
The musketeer has the same strength, 9, as a musketman, and costs the same amount of hammers to build, 80. However, it gets 2 movement points compared to the 1 movement most melee/gunpowder units get, making it a worthwhile pillager/fast attacker in the late stages of the Renaissance.

Unique building: Salon(replaces Observatory)
The Salon won't help you warfaring types, but it gives a nice benefit for more peaceful victories. The Salon replaces the Observatory and gives the same +25% science boost that the Observatory does, but also gives you a free artist specialist in that city.

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



Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Gifted Sages: Your people have learned knowledge of Fishing from a passing shaman.
2. Born Sailors: You've built a workboat(located 1S of the settler).

Challenger Class Equalizers:

1. Amnesia: Your people are suffering from amnesia and have lost all knowledge of technology.
2. Total Amnesia: Not only have you lost all knowledge of technology, but your warrior has wandered off, having forgotten his identity.

To Enter the Competition:

This competition will open on 22 March 2008. From that date, you'll be able to get the starting saves at here. Use the same URL to submit your completed entry, which you must do by 22 May 2008.

Civ version

This game MUST be played in Warlords (NOT Beyond the Sword or vanilla Civ), patched to version 2.13, as modified by BtS version 3.13, and with the HOF mod version 2.13.002 installed. You can download the HOF mod here. Any Windows players who have not installed BtS will need to update the relevant DLL files in order to match the Locked Assets checks. These are available here

If playing on a Mac, you must be patched to the Warlords 2.08 patch, not the new 2.13 patch. A link will be posted for it in the saves available thread and from the download website.

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.

Finally, if you have any problems while playing this game(crashes, etc) please notify either AlanH or myself via pm.

 

[Gnejs]

Hey, this looks like great fun! Marathon? Hmm, I guess I should go warring then. Though the start looks like a production powerhouse, which together with Industrious could be quite fun.

Is it possible to get a screenie with resource bubbles turned on? I think there might be fish, wheat and cows in the BFC but it is kind of easy to miss...

 

[Thrallia]

there ya go...sorry, sometimes its hard to see resources when using BlueMarble

 

[Gnejs]

there ya go...sorry, sometimes its hard to see resources when using BlueMarble

See, I missed the Spice...

We must be near the equator as I spot jungle to the south.

 

[Gosha190]

How does Ice Age look? Does it look like pangea? (Or in anther therms: do we need Astro?)

If so, it seems conquest is one of the fastest way to victory.

ERKON
I will not play domination this time because I'm fed up with dominations.

 

[Lexad]

Marathon Cow... :sick:

 

[Erkon]

Thrallia - thanks a lot! Excellent!! I love you!!!

How does Ice Age look? Does it look like pangea? (Or in anther therms: do we need Astro?)

If so, it seems conquest is one of the fastest way to victory.

ERKON
I will not play domination this time because I'm fed up with dominations.

The no-city-razing option may make it more tricky to win an early conquest. Perhaps grabbing the good cities and vasselizing, but that will perhaps not constitute the fastest victory?

And I'm happy that Lexad has run out of funds for his bribing campaign. Now I'm just preparing me for the mental anguish that Dynamic has promised to inflict on me My only comfort is Lexad's torturing 1200 turns for the cow

 

[Lexad]

My only comfort is Lexad's torturing 1200 turns for the cow

I might pick Dom as well just to make things livelier...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Ooooh, a dilemma. Settle in place, losing a forest, or settle on the plains-hill, gaining the extra hammer at the start but losing the cow, which would've been a good early production square.

I think I'll go for the plains hill. The cow looks like it should be usuable from another city, and moving N reduces the number of sea tiles.

IIRC doesn't ice age reduce the amount of settlable land quite a bit - if so that should make domination easier. Especially on marathon.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If this is islands or small islands Ice Age, then there could be some monster scores, for the gold and for the cow. And with only 6 AIs you wouldn't even necessarily have to warmonger a whole lot to reach something close to the domination limit.

 

[LowtherCastle]

IIRC doesn't ice age reduce the amount of settlable land quite a bit - if so that should make domination easier. Especially on marathon.

Ice Age has lots of land, I think. Very low sea level.

 

[Gosha190]

if it looks like this then conquest will be too hard.

PS and what about barbs? are they raging again?

 

[ShannonCT]

How does Ice Age look? Does it look like pangea? (Or in anther therms: do we need Astro?)

If so, it seems conquest is one of the fastest way to victory.

This Ice Age map doesn't look like pangaea or continents. Usually those kinds of Ice Age maps have very pressed coastlines and no islands. The opening screenshot suggests this will be more of an islands or snaky continents map. Depending on the sea level, that could mean conquest is possible without Astro.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Louis XIV is Industrious and Creative; starting with agriculture and wheel. Industrious gives you +50% production for wonders and double production speed for forge. Creative gives you +2 per city and double production speed for theatre and colisseum.

Also 2x production for libraries.

I don't like Marathon but I have to admit it seems fit for games with a 2-month deadline. Not sure if I'll have the time for it, also Immortal is not a level I'm comfortable with.

 

[Thrallia]

ah nuts...I thought that it had double production for libraries, but I was using the CFC Info Center, and it didn't mention it.

As for barbs, they are back to normal again...the barbarian horde was satisfied with the havok they created last game.

 

[zenbanjo]

I just got the game a month or so ago and am looking to get in on my first WOTM. I have a few newbie questions.
What is the Adventurer/Challenger Class things about?
I’ve never played even close to an Immortal difficulty yet. Does everyone have to play it on Immortal?

 

[ArcadicGamer]

As an immortal noob, what do the ai's start with? I'm definatly going warmongering after a painful gotm28, but it'd be best to know what i can expect upon meeting the ai.

As for settling, 1W looks appealing for a monster city. Coastal, fish, cow, wheat and lots of mined PHs. Does the city's base commerce change from the spices?

 

[Thrallia]

I just got the game a month or so ago and am looking to get in on my first WOTM. I have a few newbie questions.
What is the Adventurer/Challenger Class things about?
I’ve never played even close to an Immortal difficulty yet. Does everyone have to play it on Immortal?

hello, welcome to the GOTM!

Everyone plays from the same save file, which is downloadable from the website linked in this post(once it becomes March 22nd, that is).

So everyone will be playing at Immortal difficulty, however, because there are a variety of players who are comfortable at a variety of difficulty levels, we have 3 options for a save to download.

The Adventurer save adds a bonus to your save, in this case fishing and a workboat. These are designed to help you out with your start, but not give you such a big advantage that comparison with others isn't possible, or that you should feel bad if you still lose(after all, if you are playing on adventurer, then you are no doubt playing at a higher difficulty level than you are comfortable with).

The Contender save is the normal save file, it has no bonuses or disadvantages.

The Challenger save is for those who want more of a challenge out of a game. It usually either removes some of your usual starting items(in this case, all your techs and your warrior) or gives a bonus to the AI.

Even if you've never played on Immortal(or whatever the difficulty level for a given game is), I highly recommend you at least download and attempt the game. If you lose, please submit anyway...on higher level games such as Immortal we've historically had more than half our submissions be losses. By submitting, you'll get points toward your global rankings even if you lose, and by playing and sharing how you did with others, and comparing what you did with what others did, you'll find areas to improve your game, and soon find yourself regularly winning on ever higher difficulty levels.

 

[zenbanjo]

Thank you for the explanation. I'm going to try it and see how I do. I've never played this leader, a marathon game, ice age, or immortal. Maybe I'll practice an immortal game first since I have two months for this one.

 

[cas]

looks like a high production - early war - take out the nearest neighbor quick start. Only one non-forest hill and no plains in sight, though...so I question whether we will have access to bronze/iron/horses in the capital culture radius.

Immortal diff + no immediate military resources will be tough for me. Maybe AH-mining-BW-fish and then beeline for the siege weaps if no horse/bronze. worker-warrior-warrior-worker.

Also considering moving 1W. Is there any bonus to settling on spice prior to calendar ?

cas