Bleys
Deity
This is the second installment a relatively new idea called Pick Your Leader. The idea is based on a single, common map, but a selection of AIs to choose from, each with his own unique starting position on that map.
The goal is to see how wildly varied the map becomes with various players taking control of their own choice of Leader.
This edition is a bit different. Due to a bug in the World Builder saves, and how the games are created from scenarios, there are some issues about having a choice of leaders and difficulty AI bonuses. This makes it necessary to do things slightly differently than the last one. This months ZIP files contain 7 WB Saves, one for each leader. There is no need to clutter up your own WB folders with all these saves, so I suggest that once you decide on a leader, you simply un-ZIP his/her WB Save (clearly marked inside the ZIP) and dont worry about the rest (unless, of course, you wish to try your luck with more than one leader).
Also, because of the 7-WBsave-system, I was able to hand-edit each starting Civ so that all the AIs will have their proper starting bonuses at the higher levels. I was also able to remove that bonus in a 2nd file for each leader for the lower levels. Thats why there are 2 ZIP files, one for those who wish to play Monarch, Emperor, or even Immortal and Deity (Labeled M) and one for those who wish to play at Prince or Noble (labeled P).
Now that we have that taken care of, I will move on to this months theme.
Backstabbers!
We all know em, we all love to hate em! They are the AIs who actually have the highest percentage chance to Declare War at "Pleased"! I am sure we have all had this happen in a game or two, you think you have done a decent job with diplomacy, and BOOM, an AI you were on "good" terms with suddenly DoWs and drops a stack at your doorstep.
There is another change this month as well. I am not going to post Starting Locations. I am simply going to list the leaders, and attach the saves, and we can go from there. In the future, I may go back to it, but to be perfectly honest, its been a long day and I dont feel like starting every leader, taking a screenshot, uploading them, and linking them all back. Its kind of a pain. Maybe each person who decides to play can do a brief "Opening Post", with a screenshot of their start and their early plan of progress.
I would like to have as many do reports and progress updates as possible, but it is not a requirement of any kind. This is designed to be a FUN series, to see what happens when we alter the human-element in different spots on the map. I am sure most of us have played games where were saw an AIs capitol and starting location and though "Wow, I would like to have tried starting from that spot!" Well this is how the idea was born.
I do ask that all reports be labeled and formatted as follows:
Choice of Leader, Difficulty and Speed, Years covered in report. And then the report itself inside a Spoler. For example:
Willy, Monarch, Epic, 4000 BC through 1 AD:
This is so that others who do not wish to gain pre-knowledge of the position or resources of others can avoid reading them until they wish too. Sort of like "Since I know Bismark is a Wonder-hog, and saw stone in his starting position, I didnt bother with the Great Wall" kind of thing. Thats kind of another reason to not publish the starts right away, so players can pick a leader without being biased by the starting tiles. If it doesnt work out this way, and folks would rather see the starts like I did last month, just mention it. To be honest, once I get into the "swing" of the map picking and WB file building, I will probably do the extra step. So tell me what you prefer, I dont mind criticism at all, as long as its constructive and polite.
So here is the list of leaders for this month:
Alexander, Greece, AGG + PHI
Catherine, Russia, CRE + IMP
Louis XIV, France, IND + CRE
Montezuma, Aztec, AGG + SPI
Qin Shi Huang, China, IND + PRO
Ragnar, Vikings, AGG + FIN
Victoria, England, FIN + IMP
If you wish to play Monarch or above, download the ZIP labeled with an M, for Prince and below, the ZIP labeled P. Each ZIP contains 7 WB files, choose your leader, and place his WB Save into your My Docs\My Games\BeyondTheSword\Saves\Worldbuilder folder.
Then start the game normally, load your favorite MOD if you wish, and choose "Play a Scenario" from the menu. You will see a listing for the leader you chose, pre-fixed by "PYL II".
In the Scenario menus, you may choose whichever level of difficulty and speed you wish. All bonuses should be correct now, no more Warrior Rushes on Monarch, and the AIs wont be as slow building Wonders and teching, since they have been given Archer in the Monarch-saves.
If you are a "Prince trying to learn Monarch" level player (I think this is a VERY common skill level on these boards, the one I kind of fall into myself), there are actually 2 choices for you, "Prince-Plus" (playing Monarch level with the Prince ZIP-save, no Archery for the AIs) or "Monarch-Light" (playing Prince level with the Monarch ZIP-save, AIs start with Archery, but will play at Prince "skill" so to speak)
EDITED NOTE: I am pretty confident that the saves are all correct, but if ANYONE runs into any problems, please PM me or post here ASAP. I did not start every single save, I edited one, and started it, and then just made minor changes and re-saved each, but a stray character here or there is all it takes to muck em up.
The goal is to see how wildly varied the map becomes with various players taking control of their own choice of Leader.
This edition is a bit different. Due to a bug in the World Builder saves, and how the games are created from scenarios, there are some issues about having a choice of leaders and difficulty AI bonuses. This makes it necessary to do things slightly differently than the last one. This months ZIP files contain 7 WB Saves, one for each leader. There is no need to clutter up your own WB folders with all these saves, so I suggest that once you decide on a leader, you simply un-ZIP his/her WB Save (clearly marked inside the ZIP) and dont worry about the rest (unless, of course, you wish to try your luck with more than one leader).
Also, because of the 7-WBsave-system, I was able to hand-edit each starting Civ so that all the AIs will have their proper starting bonuses at the higher levels. I was also able to remove that bonus in a 2nd file for each leader for the lower levels. Thats why there are 2 ZIP files, one for those who wish to play Monarch, Emperor, or even Immortal and Deity (Labeled M) and one for those who wish to play at Prince or Noble (labeled P).
Now that we have that taken care of, I will move on to this months theme.
Backstabbers!
We all know em, we all love to hate em! They are the AIs who actually have the highest percentage chance to Declare War at "Pleased"! I am sure we have all had this happen in a game or two, you think you have done a decent job with diplomacy, and BOOM, an AI you were on "good" terms with suddenly DoWs and drops a stack at your doorstep.
There is another change this month as well. I am not going to post Starting Locations. I am simply going to list the leaders, and attach the saves, and we can go from there. In the future, I may go back to it, but to be perfectly honest, its been a long day and I dont feel like starting every leader, taking a screenshot, uploading them, and linking them all back. Its kind of a pain. Maybe each person who decides to play can do a brief "Opening Post", with a screenshot of their start and their early plan of progress.
I would like to have as many do reports and progress updates as possible, but it is not a requirement of any kind. This is designed to be a FUN series, to see what happens when we alter the human-element in different spots on the map. I am sure most of us have played games where were saw an AIs capitol and starting location and though "Wow, I would like to have tried starting from that spot!" Well this is how the idea was born.
I do ask that all reports be labeled and formatted as follows:
Choice of Leader, Difficulty and Speed, Years covered in report. And then the report itself inside a Spoler. For example:
Willy, Monarch, Epic, 4000 BC through 1 AD:
Spoiler :
This is so that others who do not wish to gain pre-knowledge of the position or resources of others can avoid reading them until they wish too. Sort of like "Since I know Bismark is a Wonder-hog, and saw stone in his starting position, I didnt bother with the Great Wall" kind of thing. Thats kind of another reason to not publish the starts right away, so players can pick a leader without being biased by the starting tiles. If it doesnt work out this way, and folks would rather see the starts like I did last month, just mention it. To be honest, once I get into the "swing" of the map picking and WB file building, I will probably do the extra step. So tell me what you prefer, I dont mind criticism at all, as long as its constructive and polite.
So here is the list of leaders for this month:
Alexander, Greece, AGG + PHI
Catherine, Russia, CRE + IMP
Louis XIV, France, IND + CRE
Montezuma, Aztec, AGG + SPI
Qin Shi Huang, China, IND + PRO
Ragnar, Vikings, AGG + FIN
Victoria, England, FIN + IMP
If you wish to play Monarch or above, download the ZIP labeled with an M, for Prince and below, the ZIP labeled P. Each ZIP contains 7 WB files, choose your leader, and place his WB Save into your My Docs\My Games\BeyondTheSword\Saves\Worldbuilder folder.
Then start the game normally, load your favorite MOD if you wish, and choose "Play a Scenario" from the menu. You will see a listing for the leader you chose, pre-fixed by "PYL II".
In the Scenario menus, you may choose whichever level of difficulty and speed you wish. All bonuses should be correct now, no more Warrior Rushes on Monarch, and the AIs wont be as slow building Wonders and teching, since they have been given Archer in the Monarch-saves.
If you are a "Prince trying to learn Monarch" level player (I think this is a VERY common skill level on these boards, the one I kind of fall into myself), there are actually 2 choices for you, "Prince-Plus" (playing Monarch level with the Prince ZIP-save, no Archery for the AIs) or "Monarch-Light" (playing Prince level with the Monarch ZIP-save, AIs start with Archery, but will play at Prince "skill" so to speak)
EDITED NOTE: I am pretty confident that the saves are all correct, but if ANYONE runs into any problems, please PM me or post here ASAP. I did not start every single save, I edited one, and started it, and then just made minor changes and re-saved each, but a stray character here or there is all it takes to muck em up.
, I can't peek and pick the best one, guess I'll have to play properly as peeking didn't do me any favours the last time.
. There's likely going to be war all over the place, as those are some aggressive leaders right there and just by the nature of this game they'll be easy to bribe to war! The biggest potential snag then, is one of the AI's going runaway on us. Of course, the best probable counter to a runaway warmonger AI civ is to do it better, and be runaway also 
.
. Charismatic is just so great in my eyes though...2 extra early 
