This is for Beyond the Sword expansion version 3.17.
The map is huge and continents.
Difficulty Level = Prince
Speed = Epic (You have 5 full weeks to complete it)

Pay attention as these are unusual settings for us normally:
City Flipping after Conquest is ON
Advanced Starting Points is ON and raised a bit to 2000 starting points (use them wisely or fall behind early)
No Technology Trading is ON

All Victory Conditions are on, but we will only accept Domination or Conquest victories this month.

So this is a war mongering game this month.  Who is to lead you to such a war victory?

Why, its Sean of Rome!  Why did I use Julius instead of Augustus?  For the Organized trait.  Now you can afford more cities and maybe not fall too far behind with no tech trading.  Be careful with that No tech trading setting!

With the Advanced Starting Points, here is your starting area:

Settings recap

Again, only Domination or Conquest victories will be accepted in our December GOTM challenge.  Highest Normalized Score with those 2 victory conditions will be declared BTS GOTM Champion for December.

When you complete the game, take a screenshot of the Victory screen where it lists your leadership counterpart in history. You may post the screenshot in the GOTM thread and then Email your final save (hopefully one turn just before victory) to gotm@1bcciv.com. Saves should be named as follows: [username]Dec08BTS.CivBeyondSwordSave

Submissions will be accepted until the end of December.

What are the rules?
The rules are fairly simple: Play fairly.

This means that you play within the spirit of the competition. As it is a friendly competition, we like to believe that there is no real incentive to cheat - but unfortunately, people do. Any persons found to be cheating will have their games removed, and there is a strong possibility that they will be banned from participating in the future.

Cheating includes (and is not limited to):

1. Playing the game multiple times and submitting the best effort (or even playing to get knowledge of the map, the replaying then starting the game again).
2. Using any sort of programs to edit the game or save files.
3. Altering the XML or using other mods that give you an unfair advantage.
4. Reloading an earlier save-file and replaying turns in a different way. The only time you may reload a save file is to start a new play session, and you must use the save file from the end of your previous session.

Also, if in doubt, ask. If you think you have found a new loop-hole or exploit, then we strongly suggest that you ask as to its legallity before you use it. The aim of the competition is not to see who can exploit the rules, and as such, we reserve the right to disqualify submissions based on exploits that are discovered later.

Good luck and Enjoy!!

If you can complete this one with Conquest or Domination victory, for our general amusement (pun intended) I'd like to ask that you post how many Great Generals you generated over the course of the game.  This is a fun request and nothing more.  Even if you do not win, can you please post this?

Good luck, guys.  You might want to remind yourself to focus on the war machine more than you usually do.

RARR!

Is raging barbs on? Only there seem to be rather a lot of 'em. Perhaps it's because it's a huge map at epic speed (neither of which I've tried before)?

Well that didn't last long . . .

Never try to get in turns while your wife is jibber-jabbering trying to get attention!

Got up to about ~500 AD. Everything was going pretty well . . . had a few wonders, was pretty well caught up Techs, had a sizeable military, had had a couple successful wars . . . got opportunistic against one of my surly neighbors and stole 5 workers in one stack (meanwhile wife is pestering me) . . . move forward and capture one of said surly neighbors towns . . . few turns later I overlook the camou stack about to onslaught one of my hinterland cities . . . losing 1/6th of your towns and having zero ability to defend a primary . . . *sigh* this game just pisses me off!