Vote for BOTM 289 - Players Choice!

[MarleysGh0st]

I've run out of ideas for a new BOTM, so this time I'm letting all of you decide!

Here's where we'll start. According to our normal game progression, BOTM 289 will be run at Noble Difficulty. I'll add a Challenger Save at Monarch Difficulty, for those who can't be bothered with Noble. All victory conditions will be enabled. I want you to vote on the following questions.

1. What leader do you want to play?
2. Which six leaders do you want the AI to play?
3. What settings do you want for the game?
4. What options do you want enabled? (Vote for as many non-conflicting options as you like. Ignore the ones for New Random Seed on Reload and Lock Modified Assets).

As a reminder of all of the settings and options you have to choose from, here are some screen shots from the custom game creation menu.

I will give you until the end of this Saturday, March 29, to cast your votes. The winning choices in each category will be used to create the game. I may regenerate the map a few times to find one that looks pleasing, but I won't edit whatever the computer produces. I'll try to get the game posted in time to start on April 1, for anyone who is ready for it.

In the event of a tie vote for any of the choices, I will select the winners randomly, by a roll of the dice. The result of all of this may be an odd and unusual combination. Who knows? Democracy can be a fickle thing!

 

[lymond]

Is this an April Fool's Joke? ...jk

Although not a fan of them, I'd vote for huts on for a change of pace at this level. No events though, puhlease. Choose Relgions (i always play with this one). Rest I don't care.


(hmm...just a thought...i think extremely few ever play with it on, but Advanced Start would be an interesting thing to try...at least one time. It would be interesting to see the different approaches players take to the options that start with. I'm not sure it has been used in GOTM that I recall, and for good reason, but still the strategy behind the choices would be interesting to compare. On this level, I don't think it would be the impactful one game to another) I'd be up for it though if others want to try it. For those unfamiliar, you start with set number of points that you can use to buy anything from a city pop, a worker, units, tech, and even a second city, I believe. Each has a cost so you spend your points wisely, like a new city I think, is most expensive (or maybe it is just a settler). Also, you are shown a select area on the map and can choose where to plant your cap.)

Leader - De Gaulle (one of my favorites and I don't think he has been around a while) starting techs + traits are excellent

AI - any are fine with me...just no Shaka or Monty in muh face

Settings - I'd be up for a good ole fashun Pangaea or maybe Continents. (Down vote to Archi) edit Big and Small works for me

 

[nocho]

On a lower difficulty I guess I'd like to at least have the need for astronomy to have some balance between research and blindly stomping the AIs, so I'd vote for some map type with continents and low sea levels, but not archipelago indeed. Leader, anything is fine, maybe I like a SPI one for trying to squeeze something out of civic changes, can't remember if we had Isabela lately for instance. Opponents, maybe a mix of decent techers (some FIN folks) and aggressive and/or unit spammer types. Options, fine with or without huts and events, probably it's inconsequential but maybe city flipping after conquest to think a bit more about vassaling everybody as soon as possible without having to worry about cities flipping back. Regular barbs. Not much a fan of advanced start, then again it might be interesting indeed for a change (although not entirely sure if it's even possible with BOTM mechanics).

 

[Conquistador 63]

De Gaulle was played a couple months ago, on BOTM285.
I’ll play anything you give us, but would like to play one of the leaders/civs we haven’t played in a while, like Portugal, Netherlands, or Spain. Heck, maybe a bunch of Europeans colonial powers like those and the British, French, German in a Terra or Earth2 map with raging barbs on, could be fun to colonize the new world with a lot of barb cities.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Somewhat in keeping with the spirit of Lymond and Nocho, I’m looking at a scenario requiring a lot of travel to conquer all AIs but not necessarily Astro because I would like to add the variable of lots of potential exploration pre-astro. Thus Big_and_Small….

Tribal villages would be fun for this reason too.

I selected financial AIs to speed them up.

1. Joao Willem
2. Mansa
Darius
Hannibal
Elizabeth
Pacal
Ragnar

3. Big_and_Small with us starting on the small continent!

Standard mapsize
Temperate
Medium sealevel
Ancient
Normal speed
Normal continents
Tiny islands
Islands mixed in

4. City flipping after conquest (shoutout Nocho)
Aggressive AI
Choose religions (shoutout Lymond)
Advanced Start
No Vassal States

Vote against:
One-city challenge!

MG: I may change these preferences before the deadline depending on others’ preferences!

 

[lymond]

Big and Small would be good..I'd vote for that. Not keen on playing Portugal, but either Willie or Izzy would be great.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I tested Advanced Start for the first time ever. Whoa. In addition to being fun it is turbo-charged and as Lymond says, dynamic. So many choices. I ran one to about 2000 bc. I had Alpha and almost completed MC when Qin Oracled it. SH was built before 3000bc. On Noble! Lol

 

[LowtherCastle]

Big and Small would be good..I'd vote for that. Not keen on playing Portugal, but either Willie or Izzy would be great.

I think this is fun to discuss. I would suggest that to keep it simple for MG we finalize our own decisions in our original single post. What do you think?

 

[LowtherCastle]

More on Advanced Start.

Because it starts in a mini-worldbuilder, the first thing you have to do is pick your capital location. With Big and Small, there can be a rage-quit scenario in that you cannot tell if this cluster of land tiles or that cluster is the continent or just some small island. Of course settling your capital on the island creates future maintenance cost problems, especially No Vassal States is turned off. I could be mistaken but it appears that the red circle, centered in the screen is on the continent.

Also, if we do decide to do advanced start, I think everybody should run at least one test on it if they haven’t before because it’s different. The beginning is unusual, and the mini world builder has a few oddities. For example, when you go into buy a technology, somehow when you click on one, and then you forget to make the purchase and exit the tech screen, when you go back in to buy it you can’t. The workaround is to click on a different one and then come back to the one you wanna buy, at which point you can buy it. Assuming of course you have enough cash on hand.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I would suggest that to keep it simple for MG we finalize our own decisions in our original single pos

Yes, please, if you're going to spoil my fun and come to some reasonable consensus. I was prepared to deal with hanging chads and fake elector slates, but keeping track of these ranked voting choices is a bit much.

I should have insisted on secret ballots delivered by PM.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I'm a big fan of small maps to make the game faster to finish. However, I like this better at a higher difficulty level. At Noble level, the game should be fast even with a large map. Advanced start sounds fun, but really any game will do. I really enjoy the creative maps and changes to starting units, starting techs etc. but no need for all games to be like that. Sometimes it's nice just to play a randomly generated game. At immortal level and deity level it makes sense not to put us next to a Shaka that already hates our leader, but at most levels a random game works fine.

 

[Xcalibrator]

BigAndSmall or something similar, small map, regular start (not advanced), no AP. And an explorer pony.

 

[High King J.J.]

We have had an advanced start Botm last year. Can't remember which but it was an inland sea with everyone else having religions founded, including some barbarians. I'm not a big fan on advanced start so I'd vote no on that. Also no fantasy realm, too much ice, tundra and desert tiles. No toroidal, please. No always war. Maybe toss in the odd minor civ if you want some excercise, just not right next door to us.
Some fun things to have would be some guarded El Dorado, Wakanda or whatever promised land with nice riches and maybe corporation resources. (I remember the donut map with 3 seafood islands in the middle.) Like how often do you use the aluminium corporation unless you have a ton of coal resources for example. It would be guarded though, maybe an island or through a narrow mountain pass with advanced units guarding a bottleneck barb city or ironclads etc. guarding the island. Of course Humbaba or somesuch is always welcome.
A year or two ago I suggested a theme where we would start the game with our leader's favourite civic or the tech that enables it. We had for example Isabella with Theology tech for theocracy civic. Note that if the tech or civic gives us too much advantage then maybe consider giving the rival civs similar advantage, so if we start with Constitution for Representation civic we may face Gandhi with Democracy or Stalin with Communism for example.
But if you just want to generate a random map then I'm wasting my breath here.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Go, @MarleysGh0st, go!!!