Scope of the Game:

• Civilization: Portugal
• Difficulty: Emperor
• World size: Standard
• Landmass: Continents
• Geology: 70% Ocean, 5 Billion years
• Environment: Normal, Temperate
• Barbarians: Raging
• Rivals: 7 pre-selected
• Respawn: OFF
• Scientific Great Leaders: OFF
• Mobilisation: ON
• AI Agression: Normal
• Submissions due by December 1st, 2007. PLEASE NOTE THE DATE.

ALL SPOILERS PROHIBITED: Do not post any messages or questions about this game in any forum until after about November 5, 2007. Please do not discuss any aspect of this game prior to that date, when official spoiler thread will be opened for discussions. NEVER DISCUSS AN ACTIVE CONTEST IN ANY THREAD OTHER THAN THE CORRECT SPOILER THREADS!

As always, have fun playing the COTM and we hope you join us in the postgame discussions!

You will have your choice of Playing COTM 42 in one of three skill levels that most closely matches your current abilities - Conquest Class, Open Class, or Predator Class.

Conquest-Class Game Details for Conquest 42

Players who choose to play in the Conquest class game will receive a set of bonuses designed to help them focus on key early strategic decisions that may help them to get more enjoyment out of the specific conditions of this game. The bonuses ARE NOT designed to guarantee you a win without requiring some good early decisions to be made and without asking you to manage your Civilization properly.

Players who might be interested in playing the conquest class game could be those players who might only feel comfortable playing at Warlord or Regent difficulty.

For the purposes of global ranking and comparison to all other GOTM scores, the Conquest class games scores in the QSC and GOTM results will be weighted downward with an 85% multilpier to factor out the value of the additional starting bonuses.

Conquest Class Starting Bonuses:
Conquest class players will begin the game with following unit and game feature bonuses:

• Bonus Unit: You start with a bonus Curragh
• Bonus Tech: Your people also know Warrior Code
• Bonus Luxury: You start with 50 bonus Gold.

Click on the image below to download the Conquest-class start save file.

Open Class Game Details for Conquest 42

Players who choose to play in the Open Class game receive no bonuses compared to a game that would be normally be played on Monarch level.

For the purposes of global ranking and comparison to all other GOTM scores, Open class game scores will be ranked according to the Jason score which balances speed and scoring skills for a combined "Best Overall game" rating.

Open Class Starting Bonuses:

• None

Click on the image below to download the Open-Class start save file.

Predator Class Game Details for Conquest 42

Players who choose to play in the Predator class game must overcome an extra set of obstacles built into their game to provide an extra level of challenge. The intent of these changes is to raise the difficulty without altering strategic play progress from that which you would see for comparison in the conquest class and open class games.

Players who might be interested in playing the Predator class game could be those players who have participated in the Elite or Leader divisions of the Medal Play Series or players who just want an extra level of excitement or challenge.

For the purposes of global ranking and comparison to all other GOTM scores, the Predator class game scores in the QSC and GOTM results do not receive any compensating scoring bonus for the added elements of challenge.

Predator Class Equalizing Obstacles:
The game features for Predator Class Games have been raised to provide the following obstacles:

• Each AI starts with a Bonus Musketman
• You do not know Pottery
• AI Bonus Unit Support increased to DemiGod Level

Click on the image below to download the Predator-Class start save file.