Apolyton July Tournament - "Roughing It"

[nbarclay]

I know the June tournament isn't closed out yet, but since it's July, I want to go ahead and get the July game started. This month's game is, once again, on Monarch level. The theme of this game is "roughing it," derived from two aspects of the game:

(1) We're playing with civ-specific abilities turned off, so we have to make do with just the basic capabilities and technologies inherent to any civ. (By the way, that also means no one has any techs to trade with you until they research them - and vice versa.)

(2) The overall terrain settings for the map are (at least in my opinion) about as bad as they get: cold, dry, and three billion years.

Neither of these factors should make winning particularly more difficult since the AI faces the same encumberances we do. But I'm hoping maybe they'll add a little flavor to the game.

The map is a maximum-land archipelago map, so while the Great Lighthouse and doing your own research MAY not be as important as last time (where we had a good bit more ocean), there's always the possibility that they might. At least we have a river, which is barely visible from the starting position (shown below). There are no barbarians or huts, so take that into consideration.

I'll let the picture of the start position speak for itself, assuming it posts properly. I've only moved the settler and worker one space each, so I don't know particularly more about what lies beyond than you do. I'm just trusting that whatever we might come up against, we can find ways to overcome it. We're playing the Babylonians, by the way, so we can get a golden age if we get a religious wonder and a scientific wonder.

As for who our opponents are, I'll post that separately for the benefit of those who might prefer to be surprised. (Normally I'd pick random civs to surprise everyone, myself included. But since I didn't want any expansionists in this game, I rolled them up the old fashioned way using dice.)

Good luck, everyone!

Nathan

[nbarclay]

And here's the 4000 BC Save:

[nbarclay]

Spoiler Alert - Read only if you want to know who your opponents are.


The opponents in this game are Persia, the Aztecs, India, France, Rome, China, and Greece.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by nbarclay
We're playing the Babylonians, by the way, so we can get a golden age if we get a religious wonder and a scientific wonder.

Even with civ-specific abilites turned off?

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Even with civ-specific abilites turned off?

I was a little surprised myself, but that's what DaveV posted on the "July Tournament Ideas?" thread. "A note on playing with civ-specific abilities disabled: you can still generate a golden age by building the appropriate wonder(s). I've probably mentioned this enough times to be tiresome already, but it's an important piece of information for everyone to know at the start." Thanks, DaveV!

I might also add that building a wonder after capturing wonders has been known to cause captured wonders to trigger a golden age. I'm not sure whether that's the rule or the exception, though.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

I've played through far enough to post on the spoilers thread, and I think we succeeded in getting an interesting and unusual game. By the way, I can now confirm first-hand that golden ages are possible with civ-specific traits turned off.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Bump

[DaveV]

I've played far enough to take a peek at the spoilers thread, and discovered that nbarclay started his Golden Age by building the Hanging Gardens - an Industrious wonder for a civ that's normally Religious and Scientific. New theory: building any wonder with civ-specific abilities disabled causes a golden age? I really hope Firaxis changes this (*sigh*).

As Nathan said, this is an interesting game, and I've been having fun with it.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by DaveV
New theory: building any wonder with civ-specific abilities disabled causes a golden age? I really hope Firaxis changes this (*sigh*).

For anyone who hasn't followed the thread I started specifically for the golden age issue, Aeson ran some tests that seem to confirm the "any wonder triggers a GA" hypothesis. I'll agree that having any wonder trigger a GA can be a bit annoying for those of us who prefer not to get our golden ages too early, but at least now we know about it. (Of course for some of us, it's a bit late, but better late than never.)

The full thead on the matter is at

Nathan

[cybernev02]

says "Invalid file type .sav" when i try to open it - ??? help

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Cyber--

What version of Civ III do you have? I think this save is with the most recent version (1.21f). Anything earlier, and you won't be able to open it.

You can get the patch here.

[nbarclay]

Bump

[Chemical Ollie]

After finally finishing minitourIII, I am now joining this tournament. Seems fun and different. I have never played with unique civilization abilites off.