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| Adventure Fifty-Five: RB Sweepstakes - CLOSING DAY |
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Posted by: T-hawk - September 16th, 2012, 11:33 - Forum: Civilization General Discussion
- Replies (42)
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[SIZE="6"]Adventure Fifty-Five: RB Sweepstakes[/SIZE]
Sponsor: Swiss Pauli
Opening Date: Monday, September 17, 2012
Duration: Four Weeks
Map Script: Pangaea
Game Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Monarch
Leader: Your Choice! of Imperialistic leaders
Civilization: Your Choice as determined by your leader
World Size: Standard
Opponents: Five
Victory: Cultural (all enabled)
Options: Always Peace, No Random Events
Version: Beyond the Sword v3.19
Good afternoon! Welcome to the first ever running of the RB Civ Handicap Stakes. The player (jockey) may choose his mount from the list of Imperial horses (leaders) below. This is a Handicap Stakes so the weaker horses receive a bonus to ensure a competitive race in this first past the post contest. Aside from Victoria, each civ will receive a deduction to its actual finishing turn for scoring purposes. Thus Genghis winning on T300 and receiving a 33 turn deduction will produce a T267 date for scoring. The list of turn discounts is found below.
Pre-race favourite and top weight Tricky Vicky will surely be a leading contender if the handicapper hasn't caught up with her. Jumpin' Joao is supremely fast out of the stalls but doubts exist about his stamina. Slippery Suleiman is considered the thinking man's choice, but there will surely be some takers for Avid Augustus at those odds. Catty Cathy will need to get creative if she's going to stand a chance in this company, but Justinian the Jester might not find conditions to his liking. Judge Julius isn't likely to have many backers even at these odds, and the same can be said for Chic Charlemagne. Completing the field are ranking outsiders Cygnet Cyrus and Galloping Genghis. Will any jockey be bold enough to take either of these as his steed?
Code: Leader Turn Discount
Victoria 0 (Financial)
Joao 5 (Expansive)
Suleiman 8 (Philosophical)
Augustus 12 (Industrious)
Catherine 15 (Creative)
Justinian 18 (Spiritual)
Julius 20 (Organized)
Charlemagne 25 (Protective)
Cyrus 30 (Charismatic)
Genghis 33 (Aggressive)
VARIANT RULES:
1. City razing is prohibited; you must keep all culturally flipped cities.
2. Use of the whip is banned. Indeed, the only civics permitted in this game are as follows (all available from the start of the game):
[attachment=76]
(Since switching civics is prohibited, keep in mind that 'the old ways are best'.)
[attachment=77]
Scoring: Fastest cultural victory, after the turn discount.
Honourable mentions: Number of AI cities flipped by culture. All cities must be kept, no razing (also for barb cities).
[attachment=78]
(Your city is already settled. It will have a different name depending on your civilization choice, naturally.)
Closing Date: Monday, October 15, 2012. Reports due by the end of Tuesday, your local time.
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| Adventure 54 Hill Valley - RESULTS and Comments |
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Posted by: T-hawk - September 15th, 2012, 21:41 - Forum: Civ4 Event Reports
- Replies (4)
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I'm going to be lazy and just post a screen capture from Excel.
[attach]2719[/attach]
If timmy827 had played to victory, he would have won a very close contest over kjn by 2 points! However, I'm afraid we really can't set a precedent for awarding points that weren't actually earned, so kjn has to be designated as the official winner. But congratulations to both players are certainly in order.
And some comments from the sponsor:
The genesis of this idea came from a reaction to the glut of "extra goodies" adventures lately. Holiday Wishlist, Hannibal's Muse, Knowledge is Power, and Mansa's Muse all gave some pretty massive free bonuses at the start of the game. Those games were certainly fun, but the variants shouldn't trend towards cheatyface stuff forever. I wanted a game with a more classic Realms Beyond variant experience, taking standard game rules to an unusual direction and with a little bit of extra difficulty. This one came to me in thinking over previous games, particularly Tree Huggers. Could we emphasize another type of terrain like that one did forests? Sure can.
I also wanted to diverge a bit from Pangaea-type maps for some variety. But delaying contact until Astronomy is not so interesting. A map script that came to mind with separate continents but early coastal contact was Custom Continents, and so it was. I rolled several as usual until picking one, and used text editing on a worldbuilder save to convert every tile to hill. I generously added food resources to compensate for the rough terrain (to both the player's area and AIs), mostly pigs and sheep so as not to make food corporations dominant in the later game. And I threw in some interesting tweaks for variety - the lighthouseable lakes tiles, the hill flood plains and oases, the forests to the northwest (ice doesn't usually have forests.)
As for picking a civilization, the Baray UB came first. It seemed perfect, although it wasn't mentioned much in the reports, so maybe it wasn't so great in practice. I felt Sury's traits didn't fit particularly well: Expansive granaries aren't so hot when food is scarce and hammers already plentiful, and neither are Creative libraries without food to run scientists. Ind and Org seemed like the best combo, giving a leg up on key wonders like the Hanging Gardens, and allowing expansion in a world of low-commerce cities.
The scoring system didn't have any particular inspiration, just came together from a variety of stuff in deliberately keeping away from fastest-finish. The competitive nature was a way to easily make it self-balancing, rather than awarding fixed points for fixed goals. Windmills naturally pointed to Machinery and Rep Parts, and growing population would be a serious focus point. The first wonder goal was a nudge towards the Hanging Gardens and Great Library, key wonders on a low-food map, or maybe even Temple of Artemis, with the Great Wall as a red herring that bit Lee hard.  The 550 hammer wonder goal was specifically designed for Sankore for economy on the rough map, with a nudge towards Sistine if you wanted to go for culture.
The beaker goal of course was a subtle Back to the Future reference, to go with the title. I didn't want to make a full-blown BTTF theme but it struck me as a fun little nod, trying to accelerate your civ to "88 miles per hour" for just an instant. 
Congratulations again to kjn, timmy, and all who played!
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![[Image: strategyandtactics.jpg]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/18761275/Civ/PBEM43/strategyandtactics.jpg)
![[Image: getoutmiss.gif]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/32015659/getoutmiss.gif)