GOTM 42: Rome

Civilization: Rome (Militaristic, Commercial; Starts with Warrior Code & Alphabet).
Land Form: Continents.
Barbarians: Raging (what else, for Rome?)
World Age: 4 Billion Years.
% Ocean: 70%.
Climate: Normal.
Temperature: Temperate.
World Size: Standard.
Rivals: 7 (Pre-Selected).
Difficulty: Emperor.
Rule Changes: Iron Disappearance probability == 0.


Therefore: Wherever you find iron, its where I put it! :D

In addition to the other 'normal' gotm rules (ie others same as last month).


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/gotm42large.jpg


And for those who are not used to sn00py's terrain, here it is in vanilla terrain:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/gotm42alt.jpg


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/gotm42mini.jpg





GOTM 42: Have you all got your towels?

Difficulty level? And would you still be smiling about the iron placement if you were playing?

That's an evil start. As in evil evil.

Difficulty level? And would you still be smiling about the iron placement if you were playing?
Its emperor.

Oh - and I've played it. ;) Who says the iron matters? :D

Hmmm, sounds intersting (or very difficult I guess...)

Ainwood wrote:
GOTM 42: Have you all got your towels?

Maybe too interesting...
What is the difficulty level?

Another difficult start! I don't think settling in place makes sense. Movement is constrained. South or NW look like the best options. NW looks the most promising, but for some reason I am tempted by south. Maybe I will send the worker south and the settler NW if nothing shows. Ultimately, NW-N keeps fresh water and grapes and looks to have better terrain beyond.

Hmmm, sounds intersting (or very difficult I guess...)

Ainwood wrote:
GOTM 42: Have you all got your towels?

Maybe too interesting...Let's just hope it's a refernce to all the lakeshore property and not our "crying" towels.

It's a Hitchhiker's Guide reference.

However, only the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy explains that the towel has a far more important psychological value, in that anyone who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against mind-boggling odds, win through, and still know where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch-hiking slang, as in: "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."


******* ******* -- Douglas Adams, "The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy"

Hmm. This looks... interesting. My first thoughts are to head towards the hill 2N, with the Worker doing a little additional scouting. May be W or SW to see if there are any flood plains out there.

It's a Hitchhiker's Guide reference.

I don't get it :( . Does the towel represent something? Why do I need my towel? Do we have a long way to trek? Maybe good land is far away? Maybe our enemies are far away?

I don't get it :( . Does the towel represent something? Why do I need my towel? Do we have a long way to trek? Maybe good land is far away? Maybe our enemies are far away?

Given that start and the difficulty level... I'm not expecting an easy ride in the beginning! Maybe there should be a hand-held electronic edition of the War Academy with "Don't Panic" written in big friendly letters on the front made available ;)

I don't get it :( Not a Hitchhiker's Guide fan, then? It's a fun book, with a different perspective on life, the universe and everything. You should read it.

Not a Hitchhiker's Guide fan, then? It's a fun book, with a different perspective on life, the universe and everything. You should read it.

I'll see the movie.

*ahem* back on topic. I think my settlers going N :D .

Rule Changes: Iron Disappearance probability == 0.
Therefore: Wherever you find iron, its where I put it! :D

Probability that Iron is on Home Continent = .000001. :rolleyes:

I'm guessing that this is going to be a crwoded start since we've had a lot of isolated starts lately. Also the lack of good starting positions would probably go along with this theory too. What would really suck is if a barb camp is just to the north and take out your settler before your able to settle Rome.

Wow, what a crappy start. Can anyone tell if that blip of water to the south might be a start of a river (and therefore flood plains)?

We have bad terrain and it is emperor level. Unless there are rivers nearby, then the commerce from the lake will be important--but I doubt it will be enough to get the Republic slingshot. I expect I will go north with the settler as well, and send the worker to chop forests for an earlier granary.

When the save is released, I'll definitely enlarge the map in photoshop to see if I can spot any bonuses like FP wheat to the SE. It looks like this game might be quite challenging.

I was thinking of skipping COTM11 since I haven't gotten too far into it but after seeing this map I had better play it to keep my GPR points up.

Does the oasis mean anything or is that just the Graphic mod that Ainwood uses?

Fog gazing is not really showing me anything this time. Small chance of some "smoke" from incense in the southern deserts.

I need a fast game this time as I may not be able to submit after May 1st. I might try a 5CC 20K or Diplo win.

Wow, what a crappy start. Can anyone tell if that blip of water to the south might be a start of a river (and therefore flood plains)?

We have bad terrain and it is emperor level. Unless there are rivers nearby, then the commerce from the lake will be important--but I doubt it will be enough to get the Republic slingshot. I expect I will go north with the settler as well, and send the worker to chop forests for an earlier granary.

When the save is released, I'll definitely enlarge the map in photoshop to see if I can spot any bonuses like FP wheat to the SE. It looks like this game might be quite challenging.

This is GOTM, so not republic slingshot. I think the oasis is just the graphics mod that Ainwood uses. It might even imply that there is more desert to the south.

This is GOTM, so not republic slingshot

I guess that would indeed make the slingshot even more difficult than I imagined. :) That's what happens when I miss a GoTM and write before drinking my coffee. :blush:

I think my settlers going N :D .
You will definitely need a towel if you do that! ;)

There appears to be a "beach" type desert tile SE-S so either there is another lake down there or the ocean is down that way. I doubt Ainwood would give us 2 luxes in the starting area.

Also it looks like that little "lake" is in between 4 tiles. I imagine that that lake will extend south.

I wonder if Ainwood got his inspiration from Minnesota - "The land of 1000 lakes" - for this map??

Wow, what a crappy start. Can anyone tell if that blip of water to the south might be a start of a river (and therefore flood plains)?If it were a river then one or more the tiles between us and it should be flood plains. I think it's the northern end of another lake or a coastline.

I was thinking about Minnesota, too. 1S is probably a good place for a 1st or 2nd city as a land bridge. The hill 2N and the bridge 1S are 4.5 apart, which is nice for a 4.5 or 4/4.5 radius ring.

That would be cool if we had a pangea landmass with a bunch of lakes seperated by one tile. You could nagivate your troops through the many lakes with the cities connecting the lakes.

IF that's not what ainwood has already done, that would be an awesome xOTM map, hint hint ;)

I hate low food starts. This one is so food poor, it's making me hungry.

Moving Northish (while avoiding falling in Lake DaveMcW :rolleyes: :p ) seems to get us to better terrain. If Ainwood started with a generated map, probability dictates there should be a lot of good terrain that way because it ain't here.

Of course, I'm adverse to move the settler unless abolutely necessary (like GOTM41). So I was thinking about what founding at the starting point looks like. Starting off, we add two food to a desert tile, so that's a good thing from a food point of view. I figure that founding where we are, we will have enough food to make it to size twelve (barely). That involves chopping the forests and irrigating them. It also involves getting out of despotism. Even with that, I think we top out at ~13spt depending on what's under the trees.

I am curious though about joining the worker into the city right away. Five of the six best tiles to work in despotism are lake tiles which need no improvement. Besides mining the wine hill, any other improvements would be wasted until size 7 which will take 70 turns. By joining the worker, we cut 10 turns off growth and get us closer to the first settler.

Starting out with Alphabet, I think a good plan might be to found at the start, join the worker, research at max towards Republic. Build some warriors for scouting while the population climbs. If there truly is good terrain nearby, with food bonuses, I would build a settler before the granary and then stick to growth until a granary is built. I've never joined my first worker but this might make sense for this map? Seems like a safer method than wandering aimlessly with the first settler trying to find a better starting spot because we're at least progressing in technology if not growth or production.

Aeneas woke up as the hot Saharan morning sun found its way into queen
Dido's lofty bed chamber. Her black hair was spread over the finely
woven white linen as the first ray of light made her eye sparkle. A
dispatch was waiting with a newly drawn map, in the middle a large red
spot, or was that a clumsy drawing of a man with a walking stick,
saying: YOU ARE HERE. Sh-t.

- Honey, I shrunk Mare Nostrum!

- Look, to the south the Red Sea, then against the path of the sun the
Sinai, the hills of Palestine, the Cedar woods of the Phoenecians, the
highlands of Asia Minor, the district of Chianti and then the Riviera,
the place to go for a bathing holiday and a spin on the Wheel. But
I'll have to travel with the sun across the edge of the Atlas, through
the magical forests of Catalonia into the Pyrenean hills for a glimpse
of the promised land of Gaul. Catch you later.

Its not food poor, its shield poor. All those lake tiles give 2 food and the wine hill will give an extra food. Its a good thing warriors are cheap and they wont cost too much to upgrade. It seems like science may be one of our strenghts in this one. But I was thinking about minimal science and storing the cash. Math would be nice for cats.

I really hate the ring deal in vanilla and PTW, but settling one tile NW will give 3 more sites at ring 3 on the lake. Because its raging barbs a tight city placement will add to security as any culture buildings will be at full price.

Joining the initial worker wouldn't help any would it? The lake will only give you one food until the harbor, correct?

It's 2 food for the lake, I thought.

... and lakes don't do harbours.

Lemme guess--we have our ol' buddies Carthage and Greece next door, right?

Its not food poor, its shield poor. All those lake tiles give 2 food and the wine hill will give an extra food. Its a good thing warriors are cheap and they wont cost too much to upgrade. It seems like science may be one of our strenghts in this one. But I was thinking about minimal science and storing the cash. Math would be nice for cats.

I really hate the ring deal in vanilla and PTW, but settling one tile NW will give 3 more sites at ring 3 on the lake. Because its raging barbs a tight city placement will add to security as any culture buildings will be at full price.
While not food poor, there are no food bonuses. That makes this worse than the average start (especially for GOTM). The wine is on a hill so it will only get to 2F and is not irrigatable. Therefore the fastest growth is 10 turns (5 with granary) which in my book is food poor.

I am so convinced that we have no Iron that I was planning on max research to Republic forgoing the large treasury until we're in a better government. Upgrades are the only thing cash is good for in despotism and I didn't think we were going to have an upgrade option. If we do have iron, then Yes low shield, high commerce will make much more sense to build warriors and upgrade to legions.

Since wines usually come in groups there might be a grassland over there with wines unless ainwood is screwing us big-time.

I'm going to deduce from ainwood's comments that there is no iron in the area
Oh - and I've played it. ;) Who says the iron matters? :D

I think there is iron on the hill 2N. :D

Now where is my *crossing fingers* smilie?

I like the idea of getting 3 cities with a lakefront view, but that may be a lot of food sharing if the terrain doesn't improve quite a bit to the north and/or east.
So it may end up only having 2 on it.

Raging Barbs? That might hit the cash supply some want for upgrades...
What to do, what to do... :confused:

What a start. :wow: Do Conquest class player get a galley at the start so that they can go across this lake?
Could anyone tell me what is this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/cactus.jpg

Is it a cactus or Joshua tree and what does it mean? Tequila lux?
I just do not know what to do. Looks like this start requires some serious thinking. From what I can see a hill n n sounds as the best position to settle Rome, but it is three turns!!! On emperor!

Don’t know. I think I will be keeping reading this thread in hope that someone will come up with a reasonable starting sequence.

i think i'll settler where we're. moving around may give us a little more food but one core city will be located around the starting position anyway in the future.

Is it a cactus or Joshua tree and what does it mean? Tequila lux?
I think that it's something in Snoopy's terrain where cacti are randomly placed in the desert tiles. No lux. just grafix

Looks like a text-book 10-turn Settler factory to me. Sweet!

Lemme guess--we have our ol' buddies Carthage and Greece next door, right?

Who do you think has their capital on the only Iron hill on the continent? So, exactly how many Warriors does it take to kill a Numidean Mercinary in a city on a hill? :sad: Of course, the no Iron movement may serve as a way to eliminate bad luck from the game. Imagine the poor sap who has the only Iron in the area disappear on him.

Its the land of 10000 lakes. Minnesota, that is. This looks like the land of 1 lake.

So, exactly how many Warriors does it take to kill a Numidean Mercinary in a city on a hill? :sad:

I'm not going to find out, I'll be sending Archers, Spears, and Cats! I know how many Horses it takes to do a similar job (COTM35) though.

I'm going to wait for the save before making any final decisions; I find fog-gazing easier with an actual map. This being said, it seems logical to move both the settler and worker north, carefully choosing the route so as to avoid wasting valuable towels :rolleyes: Then the worker would probably move one further north before making a decision.

After thinking about this instead of doing actual work, I'm planning on moving Northish. Due to the Hitchhiker's reference noted by Alan, I think that there is probably some nice territory just outside of our view. Now I'm hoping that the direction I chose will not be incorrect.

What sort of terrain is iron on just mountains & hills?

YAYYYYYYYYY!
Rome, high difficult level, crappy start... absolutely worth playing!

YAYYYYYYYYY!
Rome, high difficult level, crappy start... absolutely worth playing!

No fair! tR1cKy has an unfair advantage!!!
:crazyeye:

I am going to pursue a 100K. I don't think the legion can conquer the world. I'll just use it to get a ton of land. I'm betting iron will be close enough, say 8 or 9 tiles away.

I think a granary is crucial. I am going to settle 1 NW (I like the idea about consuming desert). I am going to do pottery at 100 and chop those trees for a granary. BW and IW will be next, maybe I can trade for it. Then go for republic. The new cities will do barracks and archers/or warriors. I hope an early war can score a leader.

I'll pack in cities at space 3 and then see where the iron is. More cities will give more gold as rome is commercial. More cities should give an edge toward republic and I will try to get that before unleashing the legions. Archer/cats/spears should be good for any early war.

Once my republic is set, I will try and shut down science and win the game before the end of the second age.

So I will try many cities, war for room, rebublic in MA to cash rush culture. It will be oscillating war to maximise the leader potential.

As most of you know the new Star War movie is due out during GOTM 42 and one of the trademark lines of the series is "I've got a bad feeling about this", well as I was driving to work this morning I thought about in all the Civ games that I played either solo, XOTM or SG, I've never won a game as Rome. This start plus nasty barbarians plus emperor, means I've got a bad feeling about this.

On a more serious not, I'm going to plant my capital somewhere to the north, moving NW & N then worker to the hill NE to seek a better location for the capital, if none is found then I'll settle on those trees. I'll have access to fresh water at least one forest to chop and a luxury nearby. Research for me has to be writing to literature for the Great Library. I'm thinking with the lack of rivers and the lack of related commerce, will make research slow, so that would be a big bonus to allow me to collect some cash for warriror->legionaire upgrading.

No fair! tR1cKy has an unfair advantage!!!
:crazyeye:
Don't say it - the startpoint may be not so bad as it looks like :D
Probably settling in the hill 2 tiles north is worth the 3 turns waste. City on hill, lake tiles to exploit and at least 2 forest tiles to chop in order to speed up the settler. Then, at this level, the wines are too important to be missed.

With only 20k and Diplo left (as well as lowest base score) on my collection of the shield awards, and 20k probably better suited for a scientific civ, it looks like I'm going to be running for the UN this time. Plan is probably going to get to 25% during the middle or industrial age, using the AA only to build a strong core which will fuel research.

As far as this start goes, settle in place and immediately begin a settler; use the worker to build a road toward the wines and also be exploring. After the initial settler the capital is probably going to just build warriors and workers. (From my calculations, a 20-turn settler is possible - +10 shields during size 1, +20 during size 2(while working the wines)). Research will probably be headed straight for republic, max rate on Alphabet and Writing then 40 turn on the rest(or trading). Basically, I'd have the settler out on the very first turn possible (even with moving the movement would take away from any food advantage you might be able to find, barring flood plain/wheat. But we had that last month, so I doubt it'll come around again). The desert's probably small with a large lake to the south(possibly not freshwater). Since the capital isn't going to be working any land tiles until size 2, I'm going to move the worker right to the wines and start roading backwards, getting the early exploration from that.

Once my republic is set, I will try and shut down science and win the game before the end of the second age.


Welcome to AAC - http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/aac.gif
I will consider it too, although I do suspect that this game may not be suitable fo AAC. GOTM41 was good for that, so I do not expect two such games in a raw. It is not Pangaea and it is 70% water, we might need to research something to get to another contient.

@Xerol

Don't you want a warrior or two as well?? To find your second city site, if nothing else?

solenoozerec- I am not going to try and conquer the world. I am going to try and buy my way to 100K before the end of the second age using legions to carve out space for settlements and my commercial trait to make a ton of money. I'll leave the second continent alone except to try and get money from them.

If this GOTM is Diety level, then some players might remind of this game as Rome vs. Barbarians MK III from Realm Beyond Civilization.

I don't get it :( . Does the towel represent something? Why do I need my towel? Do we have a long way to trek? Maybe good land is far away? Maybe our enemies are far away?

Maybe the towel refers to all the water (70%). I guess there will be a lot of beaches around this world.

Perhaps it means this game will be a nice leisurly game where you can ease back on a beach towel and automate everything so you can sip on your soda pop! Not much chance of this I suspect.

I created a practice .sav based on what we see in the GOTM-42 pre-game announcement. Is it legal to upload it here?

I'm 99.99% sure I'm going to want to settle around the wines, if not to just secure them from another civ's size 1 radius, and it looks like the best terrain is going to be in that direction as well. In either case, the wine hill would make a good tile to use as part of even a slow settler/combo pump - 2/2/2 on any tile ain't bad and I'd just need to mine it. Plus it captures more hills/mountains in my territory making iron more likely to be within my territory once it shows up. When the worker gets to the hill he'll reveal enough north to see whatever I'd need to know for a city location around there.

Ainwood wrote:
GOTM 42: Have you all got your towels?


As AlanH has already noted, this is a refence to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But it has more than one reference. AlanH has quoted a passage pertaining to the towel. Here's one pertaining to the particular game number:


...
For instance, a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings once built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact Forty-two--and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was.
And this computer, which was called Earth, was so large that it was frequently mistaken for a planet--especially by the strange apelike beings who roamed its surface, totally unaware that they were simply part of a gigantic computer program.
...


Douglas Adams, rest his soul, had a unique sense of humor and wit. If have not read any of his books, I urge you to at least read The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. If you enjoy that, follow up with So Long and Thanks for All the Fish; Life, The Universe, and Everything; and The Restaurant at the end of the Universe.

Don't Panic!

Fog-gazing....To the north of the lake is all hills. That means that the ease of working those tiles are bad. I think that I'm either going to settle 1NW or 1SE.

But it has more than one reference. AlanH has quoted a passage pertaining to the towel. Here's one pertaining to the particular game number:
Well spotted, I did provide a clue in my previous post. I wondered how long the penny would take to drop ;) I'm surprised how few players here seem to have read the great works of Mr Adams. He was also an Apple Macintosh fan :mischief:

Fog-gazing....To the north of the lake is all hills. That means that the ease of working those tiles are bad. I think that I'm either going to settle 1NW or 1SE.
Tubby, 1SE has the same problems as 1N. You need a towel.

if settling on the wine, what do we gain? 2 food, 2 shields and 1 gold? or only 1 shield?

re: Hitchhiker's references ....

I hope this means there will be lots of fish (as in So Long and Thanks for ...) or better yet, lots of cattle yearning toi be eaten...

Well spotted, I did provide a clue in my previous post. I wondered how long the penny would take to drop ;) I'm surprised how few players here seem to have read the great works of Mr Adams. He was also an Apple Macintosh fan :mischief:

Oh dear... how on earth didn't I spot that?!

re: Hitchhiker's references ....

I hope this means there will be lots of fish (as in So Long and Thanks for ...) or better yet, lots of cattle yearning toi be eaten...

Whales. Plenty of Whalemeat for all ;)

if settling on the wine, what do we gain? 2 food, 2 shields and 1 gold? or only 1 shield?

2 food, 1 shield, and 2 gold I think (3 gold if there is a river). No shield bonus unless the bonus provides it and land provides it.

Whales. Plenty of Whalemeat for all ;)
A sperm whale falling into the lake from the sky in turn 2? More likely just a bowl of petunias, as Ainwood's Improbability Drive goes into top gear. :lol:

I'm probably gonna move my settler, like, 10 tiles. :rolleyes:

Good luck... :crazyeye:

My guess, unless you walk round in circles for 10 turns, you'll be building in AI territory, or your settler will be barbecued before you start.

It would take 10 turns to walk around the lake.

My guess, unless you walk round in circles for 10 turns, you'll be building in AI territory, or your settler will be barbecued before you start.Who says I'm not trying for the red ambulance? :crazyeye:

Personally, I like Worker-South (just to cover the bases, in case there is some floodplain down there) and Settler NW. On the second turn, we can make the decision whether to settle there or continue north towards the hill, but just the single NW move looks like it will add 2 grassland tiles to our radius.

I'm thinking of skipping the granary idea, and using the forest chops to build archers. Worker needs to put a mine on the wine square, though, in anticipation of border expansion at turn 10: the wines end up 2/2/2 like a BG in Despotism. If we're working the lake tiles, that doesn't leave much land around to improve, and we have time for some chops.

I'll build a granary when/if I find some land that has bonus food on it -- raging barbarians with Emperor AIs researching toward the MA scare me. *shivers* My early shields need to go towards some military build-up.

For the record, I'm proud to have noticed this is game 42 before I got to any of the responses pointing it out. *grin* HG 4 teh win!!

Iron Disappearance probability == 0.
You know, I think you're all missing the fact that there's a very, very simple way to set the game so that a resource can't be depleted: if there isn't any in the first place, it can never be depleted.

What are the best PTW Wonders for triggering a GA in a militarist/scientific society, anyway?

solenoozerec- I am not going to try and conquer the world. I am going to try and buy my way to 100K before the end of the second age using legions to carve out space for settlements and my commercial trait to make a ton of money. I'll leave the second continent alone except to try and get money from them.

Ooops, I misunderstood you, I thought you plan to win before the end of the first age. I am wondering if AAC 100K is possible. Only temples and libraries. How many cities should we built to get to 100K before 2050AD?

I hope that Vogons are not among our 7 rivals.

If have not read any of his books, I urge you to at least read The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. If you enjoy that, follow up with So Long and Thanks for All the Fish; Life, The Universe, and Everything; and The Restaurant at the end of the Universe.


There are also Mostly Harmless and Young Zaphod Plays it safe, at least, in the book that I have at home. Yet, I did not read these two, got bored before. But I agree that the first one everyone MUST read.

:hmm: For the record, I'm proud to have noticed this is game 42 before I got to any of the responses pointing it out. *grin* HG 4 teh win!!

The question is... Ummm what is the question? :hmm: Where is the iron? :hmm: Answer: 42? :crazyeye:

You know, I think you're all missing the fact that there's a very, very simple way to set the game so that a resource can't be depleted: if there isn't any in the first place, it can never be depleted.

Ainwood could not possibly be so evil as to deny the ROMANS any chance of getting irorn???!!!??? :cry: OTOH, he has a track record :eek:

What are the best PTW Wonders for triggering a GA in a militarist/scientific society, anyway?

Is THAT the question? I'd like to know the answer. And don't tell me that it's 42. :p

Why would you want to know that? :p (Rome is Militaristic/Commercial ;))

I'm probably gonna use a conquered MIL wonder (hopefully Sun Tzu's or Leo's), or if that fails, UniSuff, plus Smith's...

Worker needs to put a mine on the wine square, though, in anticipation of border expansion at turn 10Turn 10's a tad optimistic! 5 turns just to get there, then another 12 turns to build the mine?

Personally, I like Worker-South (just to cover the bases, in case there is some floodplain down there) and Settler NW. On the second turn, we can make the decision whether to settle there or continue north towards the hill, but just the single NW move looks like it will add 2 grassland tiles to our radius.

yes. this's the best analysis i've seen. i think i'll try this. i'll then look for a good spot for my 2nd 20k wonder city. :crazyeye:

I thik we might be in the middle of a small, circular land. There's a really crappy start in the middle, but nice land all around that could benefit from the start placement.

Hmmm, this is just too much to resist. I should have more free time starting at the end of the month in which to give this one a try. My guess is that we're in the middle of a big desert, but there's a fertile, resourse-rich peninsula somewhere with no AIs but lots of barbs just waiting for a palace jump.

A sperm whale falling into the lake from the sky in turn 2? More likely just a bowl of petunias, as Ainwood's Improbability Drive goes into top gear. :lol:

As long as it's not two unchanged rockets falling down on us thinking: "Oh no, not again..." We don't want to know, why they would think this... :mischief:

Maybe we are stuck (with on settler's leg eg.) on some unfertile planet just waiting... and feeling unchallenged :scan:

Guess this would be the Gotm to go for spaceship victory - if I'm not running out of time... :(

EDIT: please excuse missing accuracy - I read those books like 10 years ago in German language...

Hmm. Perhaps we have the ability to shape coastlines to our own liking...?

As far as this start goes, settle in place and immediately begin a settler; use the worker to build a road toward the wines and also be exploring.
[...]
Since the capital isn't going to be working any land tiles until size 2, I'm going to move the worker right to the wines and start roading backwards, getting the early exploration from that.

For these goals, you're probably better off letting the worker chop a forest along the way. Use the 10 first shields in the city towards a warrior and fulfil your 3000 BC settler plan with the 10 missing shields replaced by the chop.

Settler NW,N,NE and settle. Worker chop forest. One can still get the wines and the terrain north can only be better, maybe grassland.

Rome is Commercial. Doh! But ... I thought Commercial civs got Bronze Working to start, and Scientific civs were the ones who got Alphabet. What's Rome doing with Alphabet?

Smith's is a lot later in the game than I like for my GA, though. Colossus (captured?) + Sun Tzu would be well-timed, but would require strong trading partners for AA tech in an Emperor game.

Turn 10's a tad optimistic! 5 turns just to get there, then another 12 turns to build the mine?

Is it 12 turns to build a mine? I've spent too much time playing Industrious civilizations ...

Unless there's FP to the south, this game is going to be famous for the number of slow starts.

Is it 12 turns to build a mine?Well, on the flat it's definitely 6 turns for regular civs before Replaceable Parts or Democracy. I believe it's twice that on a hill, which is where the grapes are. So that's 12 turns.

Sorry, the trait techs are the other way around as well. Alphabet for Commercial and Bronze for Scientific.

I ran a test game with the same settings, not quite the same bad start though. My closest neighbour was Carthage, with the city of Carthage located on a hill. I lost 7 veteran/elite legions to a single (initially) regular Numidian Mercenary. I consider this an omen...

Sorry, the trait techs are the other way around as well. Alphabet for Commercial and Bronze for Scientific.
Well, then ... that clears that up! :crazyeye:

I ran a test game with the same settings, not quite the same bad start though. My closest neighbour was Carthage, with the city of Carthage located on a hill. I lost 7 veteran/elite legions to a single (initially) regular Numidian Mercenary. I consider this an omen...
can any one good with math calculate the odd of such thinig happening? 5%?

A Legionnaire is a 3 attack (3.3 for the elite I think)

Numidian Mercenary is a base 3 defense
and gets a 50% bonus for on a hill
and gets a 25% bonus for fortified
and gets a 50% bonus for a city or walls (I taking that for granted from his post)

That would be a total of 6.75 defense. So if it's Elite legion vs regular NM, it's likely the first only got 1 HP off (if that), the second could easily go 0 for 4 so now the NM is a 3/4 Vet NM, #3 Legion takes another HP off, but he promotes again to 3/5. I think he'd now get another 10% bonus for being elite (not 100% sure about this), the would be 3 attacking 7. The #4 legion could easily go 0 for 4 with those odds. If the remaining legions went 2 for 12 (not that rare considering only a 30% victory chance), the NM would be standing there shouting insults (probably something like "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" ) at the other Roman units.

So it isn't that unusual for a normal RNG that he could withstand that kind of assault in that situation.

According to TechCalc's combat calculator here are the odds of a Legion killing a fortified Merc on a hillside city before and after any promotions it recieves in battle:

Elite Legion vs Reg Merc: 37.1%
Elite Legion vs Vet Merc: 20.8%
Elite Legion vs Elite Merc: 10.8%
Vet Legion vs Reg Merc: 27.0%
Vet Legion vs Vet Merc: 13.6%
Vet Legion vs Elite Merc: 6.4%

Yuck. Any bad luck with your first attacker is going to make the job very hard. Say, you lost your only Elite on the first attack without doing any damage to the Merc and the Merc is then promoted. You are now left with a Vet Legion vs a Vet Merc with very good odds of the Merc winning and advancing to Elite. Hopefully, you've done some damage in that second attack, though I've seen enough stretches of bad RNG where I do no damage that getting to the point of Vet Legions vs an Elite Merc is possible, making it pretty likely that you could lose 7 Legions in the attack. So, while losing 7 would require some bad luck it's not that far out of the question. If I was in that situation I'd probably want 4-5 Legions for every Merc expected to be there, 2 in a normal town and 4 in Carthage. It may be a little bit of overkill, but nothing will stall out an attack like a SOD failing 3 tiles into enemy territory.

edit - Denyd beat me to the punch

A Legionnaire is a 3 attack (3.3 for the elite I think)
It's always 3. Attack strength is not dependent on experience, and there's no 10% strength bonus for an elite, on either side. Attack strength relative to the opponent's defence strength determines the chances of hit point win/draw/lose on each attack during a battle. An elite's extra hit point just gives him one more to lose before he dies.

I use a system based on the probability of each hit point being won or lost.

3 attack vs 6.75 defence gives 69% success per hit point to the defender according to the online combat calculator - set it to 1hp on each side.

With odds that bad you should assume that you will have to take 5 hp off the defender to kill him, even if he starts out as a conscript. Do the multiplication of 5 by 0.69 repeatedly, and you'll see that it will take 11 attacker hits to get above 90% chance of killing the defender. That's two dead elites. 13 attack hits will get you to 95% - an elite and 3 vets. For a 99% success rate you need to deploy 17 attack hits - 6 vet legions.

Niklas' 7 lost vets is 28 attack hits, and the chances of the defender surviving that long are down around 0.02%, so I'd say that was a pretty evil sequence of rolls of the RNG. Note that this was the Carthaginian capital. I have no evidence, but I have a gut feel that there are some extra hidden defender bonuses when (a) you are attacking the last defender in a city and/or (b) it's the capital. I'm probably just seeing things that aren't there, but I do tend to deploy a bigger force against a capital these days, in the expectation of a harder fight.

Even a rifle fortified in a hill city across a river would only have a 5% survival rate against 7 vet legions.

The capital is considered a city for defense purposes (you can't build walls in it, for example).

The capital is considered a city for defense purposes (you can't build walls in it, for example).Yeah you can, actually. I've built them there in many AW games. They just don't show.

Yeah you can, actually. I've built them there in many AW games. They just don't show.
:hmm: I just read a thread on it, and yes, there is apparently no bonus (although I was sure I was unable to build walls the other day...)

BTW - the walls aren't there due to the defense bonus; they're there due to the bombard bonus (otherwise, a Civil defense in a town would make it appear 'walled'.)

Was the city too large for walls, ainwood? I remember something obscure about not being able to put a wall around a city once it reaches a certain size.
Do the multiplication of 5 by 0.69 repeatedly, and you'll see that it will take 11 attacker hits to get above 90% chance of killing the defender.
I see what you're trying to do, Alan. You want to multiply 0.69 five times, to simulate the chances that the Defender will win 5 battles:

0.69 x 0.69 x 0.69 x 0.69 x 0.69 = 15.6%

That's the odds of the Defender winning 5 attacks in a row, though. The actual formula you need for the odds has to take into account that the Defense can fail 4 times (it takes 5 failures to kill him). I think you need to use that old factorial formula for computing this one. ;) I wish I knew for sure.

The logic denyd followed is concrete, and seems reasonable to me. Here's another way to look at the problem:

Start with a 31% chance of losing a hitpoint (69% of not losing one).

1 attack = .31 hitpoints lost (on the average).
2 attacks = .62 hitpoints lost (on the average).
3 attacks = .93 hitpoints lost (on the average).

This passes a "reality check": if you've got a 31% chance of losing a single round of combat, you'd expect it to take an average of a little more than 3 attacks to lose 1 hit. Continue this line ...

17 attacks = 5.27 hitpoints lost (on the average)

So, in an average situation (50% of the time), it would take 17 attacks to kill a 5 hitpoint Defender. That's 17 attacks, 5 of which the attacker wins, leaving 12 attacks he loses. 50% of the time, you would kill 3 Vet attackers, and the fourth one would win.

If you kill 3 Vets 50% of the time, it just doesn't make sense that there would be a 0.02% chance of killing 6 Vets (particularly since we have a report of it happening). It does make sense that there would be a 25% chance of killing 6 Vets. I'm not saying 25% is the answer to the question; I'm just saying it has a good feel to it.

Was the city too large for walls, ainwood? I remember something obscure about not being able to put a wall around a city once it reaches a certain size.
Not directly - I was actually doing some testing to see what it was that causes the wall graphics to appear on cities (where I found it was the bombard bonus, not the defence bonus). To test this, I actually gave barracks a bombard bonus. I was surprised to find that this prevented me from building a barracks in the capital (even though it was size 1). I'll double-check on this though.

in my test game, i lost 4 straight battles with barbarian (2 my warrior vs warrior and 2 my warrior vs horseman) and the barbarian unit came out full hp after three of them... what's the possibility for that!?
my 20K city ended up robbed three times by them (once i lost 1 pop and twice i lost the production) and it finally led to my race to oracle...
it seems i need to get enough military in my 20k city this time.

I'm not saying 25% is the answer to the question; I'm just saying it has a good feel to it.

I thought "42" was supposed to be the correct answer?

Well, ive certainly got my towel, and im ready to trek the world, to the west i go ;)

The actual formula you need for the odds has to take into account that the Defense can fail 4 times (it takes 5 failures to kill him). I think you need to use that old factorial formula for computing this one. ;) I wish I knew for sure.

If you change factorial to binomial then you're correct. :)

First of all some clarifications to my earlier post. Carthage was size 1 at the time (I shouldn't have called it the city of ..., I know) so I didn't calculate with the city bonus. Could we have a definite answer on whether or not the capitol counts as a city?

A mercenary fortified on a hill is 3 x 1.5 x 1.25 = 5.625 3 x (1+0.5+0.25) = 5.25 defense. Adding an extra 0.5 for the city bonus gives 6.75.

Let's call the base probability of scoring a hit p, which in the example above would be 3/(3+5.25) ~= 0.364 for the one of my legions. I will use the following additional variables:
ohp = the number of hp the opponent starts with
hp = the number of hp you start with
lhp = the number of hp you lose

Informally, the chances that you will win is equal to the sum of the chances that you will win with a certain number of lost hp, which will range from 0 to h-1. Semiformally:
pWin = sum[lhp = 0 to hp-1](pWinAt(lhp))
The probability to win with a particular number of hp lost is where the binomial series come into play. I'll use an example where ohp is 3, hp is 3 and lhp is 1, i.e. you both start with 3 hp and you win win 2 hp left. Denoting an hit by you with x and an hit by the opponent o, the different outcomes are
o x x x
x o x x
x x o x

In all these outcomes you score ohp hits while the opponent will score 1 hit. The number of ways you can create such outcomes is exactly the binomial value 1 | 3, read "one over 3". Intuitively, for those who haven't read probability maths, x | y is "the number of ways you can pick x items out of a set of y elements". In our example the "items" are the positions at which an opponent hit occurs, and the set is the positions at which such a hit can possibly occur. Since the last hit must always be from you (otherwise you wouldn't win), we have that x = lhp and y = lhp+(ohp-1), i.e. y is the length of a series of hits (4 above) minus the last element which is always a hit from you.

With this intuition we can define pWinAt as
pWinAt(lhp) = p^ohp * (1-p)^lhp * (lhp | lhp + ohp - 1)
Informally this means that we must score a hit (probability p) ohp times to kill the opponent, he must hit us (probability 1-p) lhp times for us to lose that many hp, and we can construct (lhp | lhp + ohp -1) such series.

Instantiating these formulas for an elite legion attacking a regular mercenary gives
p = 3 / (3+5.25) ~= 0.364
ohp = 3
hp = 5

yielding a probability of ~ 0.5. For other values we get:
eLegion vs rMerc -> 0.50
eLegion vs vMerc -> 0.32
eLegion vs eMerc -> 0.20
vLegion vs rMerc -> 0.38
vLegion vs vMerc -> 0.22
vLegion vs eMerc -> 0.12

If the capitol counts as a city for defense purposes, then we get instead
eLegion vs rMerc -> 0.37
eLegion vs vMerc -> 0.21
eLegion vs eMerc -> 0.11
vLegion vs rMerc -> 0.27
vLegion vs vMerc -> 0.14
vLegion vs eMerc -> 0.06

which is considerably lower.


Since the chances of an initial win for an elite legion are quite high we cannot make the simplification that we are facing an elite mercenary from the beginning. Thus it's hard to say something about the overall probability of losing 7 legions in a row (2 were elites, 5 veterans, and in my game I actually had one more who captured the bloody place), except that they are small. Irritatingly small. :cry:
If we simplify so that we start against an elite mercenary, the chances of x legions winning are simply pWin with hp set to the sum of their individual hps. I don't do binomial numbers that large in my head, but I might be able to write a small program that does. :)

Niklas, there is an error in the premises.
Defense doesn't add up this way. When considering bonuses, it's always the base value that is multiplied by the defense factor, and the bonuses are added to the base value.

So, a merc fortified on a hill has a defense of
3 + (3*0.5) + (3*0.25) = 5.25
If the city is size 7+ another (3*0.5) is added, and the defense value becomes 6.75

Ah, there are no specific bonuses for the capital.

EDIT: that last sentence must be tested, i'm not 100% sure.

All this playing and I never even noticed... :blush:

Thanks tR1cKy for clearing that up. It will only affect the base probability calculation, to the benefit of the attacker. This means that the chances of that single merc goes down even more...
I'll correct my post above.

Alright, so I wrote a binomial number generator. Assuming 7 veteran legions that's 28 hp in total. Instantiating pWin with p = 3/(3+5.25) ~= 0.364, hp = 28 and ohp = 5 I get the whooping probability of 0.9974156 of a win, i.e. the chances that the merc would triumph is less than 0.26%. And that's assuming he starts as an elite. Gee, that's even worse than I expected.
Giving him a defense of 6.75 instead lowers the probability to 0.9848651, or slightly better than 1.5% chance of a defender win. Not much, but still a lot more than the previous.

I always knew the RNG hates me.

I know cats aren't as good in PTW as they are in C3C, but why wouldnt you bring a few along if you are going against carthage.

Any idea how the calculation looks if a HP is shaved off a merc first?

@budweiser: I brought no cats because I was pointy-stick researching Maths from Carthage. ;)

To calculate with one hp less, just set ohp in the formulas to 4 instead of 5. Once again that's assuming that the merc starts at 5 hp before the shaving. The probabilities of a win increase to 0.9991705, leaving the poor sod with less than a 0.09% chance to defend his home.

In this case the odds are overwhelming in any case, but with fewer legions the cat becomes more important. Assuming 4 veteran legions, the chances of a defender triumph is ~9.5% at 5 hp and drops to ~4.5% at 4 hp. With 3 vLegions the chances are ~25% vs ~15%.

Edit: Btw, how do you calculate the probabilities for a successful bombardment?

Good job Niklas.
Personally, it's some time that i have an impression floating around my mind. It could be wrong but... it seems that, when the RNG poops an exceptionally low value, it remains stuck in generating low values for quite a while.

Let N be the n-th current random number and F be the random generating function used to carve out the (n+1)th random value from N. It seems that when N is quite near to zero, the value F(N) has a high chance to be near zero at well. The result of such a thing would be a number of unfavourable events (like the one you described) much higher than expected from the probability.

If the RNG function isn't picked carefully enough such things may happen.

If carthage is even in the game, or greece. We wont face too many elites and if we strike early enough we will face regulars, not vets. I might not even build many barracks as all the barbs running around will act as free barracks for us, and unfortunately the ai.

I'm not sure how bombardment works in PTW, but I think you get an even chance to hit all three targets in the city; units, improvements, pop. So you need more cats than in C3C where units get hit first. The good news is cats against troops in the open work just fine and there are likely to be many troops out wandering looking for barbs.

Were the Celts one of Rome's rivals? To me that's much scarier than Carthage or Greece.

Celts, Greece, Egypt, Carthage, Persia - they are Rome's contemporaries (just load up the Rise of Rome scenario in C3C).

@Niklas: doesn't the formula for calculating binomial odds include the ratio of two factorial numbers?

I felt it was time for a more "observational" approach, so I wrote a script to simulate 100,000 battles. (Umm ... 100,000 full fight-to-the-death sequences. It'll be easily a million individual attacks.)

As input, it takes the defender str & starting hitpoints, and the attacker str & number of hitpoints (more than 5 hitpoints for multiple attackers). My output shows the number of times at least that many hitpoints were lost by the attackers ... so it's more of a "probability chart" than just a result of a single calculation.

To verify that the system is working properly, I took two perfectly-matched opponents: each had 10 str and 5 hitpoints. The results came to a 50-50 chance of 5 attacker hitpoints being lost (defender wins the battle):

96920 (97%) 1 attackers lost
89080 (89%) 2 attackers lost
77350 (77%) 3 attackers lost
63582 (64%) 4 attackers lost
49930 (50%) 5 attackers lost

Okay! Let's see what 100,000 attempts at the tough problem shows us. (Ouch! 30 points of attackers? I thought we were talking about 22ish hitpoints of attackers. So much for 25% ....)

Defender: 5.25 strength, 5 hitpoints
Attacker: 3 strength, 30 hitpoints

99283 (99%) 1 attackers lost
97198 (97%) 2 attackers lost
93244 (93%) 3 attackers lost
87669 (88%) 4 attackers lost
80282 (80%) 5 attackers lost
71973 (72%) 6 attackers lost
63105 (63%) 7 attackers lost
54186 (54%) 8 attackers lost
45764 (46%) 9 attackers lost
38011 (38%) 10 attackers lost
30951 (31%) 11 attackers lost
25107 (25%) 12 attackers lost
20056 (20%) 13 attackers lost
15768 (16%) 14 attackers lost
12385 (12%) 15 attackers lost
9593 (10%) 16 attackers lost
7336 (7%) 17 attackers lost
5607 (6%) 18 attackers lost
4200 (4%) 19 attackers lost
3141 (3%) 20 attackers lost
2318 (2%) 21 attackers lost
1712 (2%) 22 attackers lost
1250 (1%) 23 attackers lost
893 (1%) 24 attackers lost
657 (1%) 25 attackers lost
488 (0%) 26 attackers lost
353 (0%) 27 attackers lost
253 (0%) 28 attackers lost
184 (0%) 29 attackers lost
139 (0%) 30 attackers lost

Yep ... 139/100000 (0.139%) is pretty small. And that's using the approximation that the Defender starts out as Elite; actual odds should be a touch lower.

Just for giggles, I gave the Defender a 50% wall bonus. I think this is the number we were using earlier (0.69 chance of Defender success). His odds went up dramatically:

Defender: 6.75 strength, 5 hitpoints
Attacker: 3 strength, 30 hitpoints

99722 (100%) 1 attackers lost
98780 (99%) 2 attackers lost
96791 (97%) 3 attackers lost
93636 (94%) 4 attackers lost
89169 (89%) 5 attackers lost
83663 (84%) 6 attackers lost
77351 (77%) 7 attackers lost
70390 (70%) 8 attackers lost
63262 (63%) 9 attackers lost
56113 (56%) 10 attackers lost
49110 (49%) 11 attackers lost
42411 (42%) 12 attackers lost
36343 (36%) 13 attackers lost
30914 (31%) 14 attackers lost
25947 (26%) 15 attackers lost
21559 (22%) 16 attackers lost
17852 (18%) 17 attackers lost
14685 (15%) 18 attackers lost
11998 (12%) 19 attackers lost
9751 (10%) 20 attackers lost
7907 (8%) 21 attackers lost
6321 (6%) 22 attackers lost
5051 (5%) 23 attackers lost
4017 (4%) 24 attackers lost
3158 (3%) 25 attackers lost
2492 (2%) 26 attackers lost
1946 (2%) 27 attackers lost
1524 (2%) 28 attackers lost
1204 (1%) 29 attackers lost
929 (1%) 30 attackers lost

Interesting to note is the scenario I discussed in my last post: 0.69 chance of Defender win, 17 attacks (average) to kill the Defender (at 0.31 hp per attack). 17 attacks - 5 wins = 12 losses. 12 attackers lost happens 42% of the time, though ... so that theory was ballpark, but it was wrong.

Instantiating these formulas for an elite legion attacking a regular mercenary gives
p = 3 / (3+5.25) ~= 0.364
ohp = 3
hp = 5

yielding a probability of ~ 0.5.
Oh - since it's another good test of my script:

Defender: 5.25 strength, 3 hitpoints
Attacker: 3 strength, 5 hitpoints

95189 (95%) 1 attackers lost
86032 (86%) 2 attackers lost
74464 (74%) 3 attackers lost
62277 (62%) 4 attackers lost
50482 (50%) 5 attackers lost

Check.

Not directly - I was actually doing some testing to see what it was that causes the wall graphics to appear on cities (where I found it was the bombard bonus, not the defence bonus). To test this, I actually gave barracks a bombard bonus. I was surprised to find that this prevented me from building a barracks in the capital (even though it was size 1). I'll double-check on this though.

Capitols can never have wall graphics because they always look like cities or metros (whether they are or not).

It is interesting how many different topics not directly related to GOTM42 were discussed in this thread. To try to bring this discussion back, I’d like to ask a question about southern oasis. In this graphical mode, it looks like it is shared between four tiles. Where is it exactly?

My opening sequence is likely to be the following:

4000BC worker nw, settler nw
3950BC worker n settler n
3900BC I may settle in the forest.
If not
3850BC settler ne, worker may start chopping the forest (may not)

Unless I will hear anything better, I will stick to the above plan.
I also will think before choosing the class, if predator won’t sound good for militaristic purposes, I will play open (I got badly burned in COTM11)

I don't see it as an oasis. I think it's the northern corner of a coastline or lake, and South/South from the settler is a water tile.

Of course, the no Iron movement may serve as a way to eliminate bad luck from the game. Imagine the poor sap who has the only Iron in the area disappear on him.
That happened to me in GOTM 24. It disappeared in the IT right after 1000BC. I was convinced it was somehow hard coded to disappear immediately after QSC, but after the submissions were in it appeared that I was the only one it happened to. I was very discouraged and disbanded all units and declared on everyone to lose via conquest after a failed feeble desparation attack on Baekje's iron city. I'm a better player today and might not miss the iron so much.

There are also Mostly Harmless and Young Zaphod Plays it safe, at least, in the book that I have at home. Yet, I did not read these two, got bored before. But I agree that the first one everyone MUST read.
Young Zaphod Plays it Safe is a short story and not its own book. Xevious listed the sequels in reverse order. So Long... and Mostly Harmless are the 4th and 5th books of the trilogy.

I'm guessing the towel reference is mainly about 42 and the upcoming movie. This is a bad enough start without trying to read between the lines of the intro!

And I thought DA had an Apple II, not a Mac?

I ran a test game with the same settings, not quite the same bad start though. My closest neighbour was Carthage, with the city of Carthage located on a hill. I lost 7 veteran/elite legions to a single (initially) regular Numidian Mercenary. I consider this an omen...

I am of course disappointed that no-one used my simulator for this, so I did it myself (attack with 3 elite and 4 vet legions v one reg num merc in a hill city):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/merc_defender.GIF

Offa, that's a great tool! I looked for something like that in the utilities section but I guess I didn't look hard enough.

Skydance, nice to see there's no big difference between theory and practice, eh? ;)

I also created a random map and then recreated the starting position. The oasis-like thing is coastline. My random map had Rome and 2 others on the big continent and 5 others on the small continent. Rome ended up almost in the middle of the lower half of the continent, with a very nice choke point (on a hill even) separating the lower from the the upper. I don't think we can be that lucky.

I removed iron from near the start to take it out of early consideration. There were a number of barb camps and ample resources and lux on the map. I concentrated on early moves. The barbs are pesky. I never build up enough to know how productive a tight ring would be.

Defending workers and cities will be important for me. It seems impractical to hook up the wine early, so home guards will be important. I'll probably settle 1 N, and start a chop N NW. Then road/mine and chop/road/mine the next forest. Research pottery, then Republic. Build barracks, warrior, warrior, settler, granery, warrior. Maybe granery before settler. I'll want to time my chops. Experiment with build order again tonight. The settler will take one warrior escort and settle RCP3 near the wine and build a worker. The new worker will connect then mine the wine. The first worker should have built a road to the second city by that time. Rome will build warriors/archers and settlers. A settler and escort will be sent to all the RCP3 sites. 8 of them? The second ring will be much farther out. In my first test runs, I sent out a very late warrior to scout and still made contact early enough to trade very effectively. To expand cities beyond 4 will require temples or lux.

How are the contact trades set up in this game? I had contact trading with writing in my map.

Anyway, I'll try some more runs. This looks like a hard start, and I will need to micromanage and guard everything.

My opening sequence is likely to be the following:

4000BC worker nw, settler nw
3950BC worker n settler n
3900BC I may settle in the forest.
If not
3850BC settler ne, worker may start chopping the forest (may not)

why do you choose to settle on the forest or hill? i think settling on the dessert tile can at least instantly improve that tile. with such a bad start, even a forest should be something that we cherish. :rolleyes:

If Carthage are our neighbours, I won't be attacking them first ;) Unless I have no choice. Now that would be just plain cruel, wouldn't it?

If Carthage are our neighbours, I won't be attacking them first ;) Unless I have no choice. Now that would be just plain cruel, wouldn't it?
if that's the case, i'll wait till they start a war with their neighbor and then move in with my archers...

why do you choose to settle on the forest or hill?

Because it is likely that there are fertile land north of this forest. I also would like to get wines connected soon since, this is emperor. I may build my second city on the hill with wines. I am not sure that having a capital in desert is a good idea. Of course, we will have food from the lake, but all first citizens will have to work in this lake, even if desert will be irrigated. This will limit our production. I’d rather loose first two-three turns.

i think settling on the dessert tile can at least instantly improve that tile.

You can do the same with any town, not necceseraly your capital. Besides, if that "oasis' is indeed a coastal line, I dfenetly want Rome away from it to make more cities with reduced corruption.

with such a bad start, even a forest should be something that we cherish. :rolleyes:

I see two of them, and there could be more north.

if that's the case, i'll wait till they start a war with their neighbor and then move in with my archers...

What if they do not start a war with anyone?

In addition a reference to towel means traveling and I will not be very surprised if I will see a cow from that hill (or may be two :drool: )

Oh my! I think I have my test map wrong. Oops. Back to the drawing board.

I did a little thinking about this one at lunch and think I might settle on the hill and then after a scouting warrior, build a barracks, then a settler to run my settler factory and then a stack of veteran warriors (future Legions) from Rome. Rome on that hill would have at least 2 forest & 2 hills, so that should be a veteran warrior per turn. Now if I can just find some iron nearby :hammer:

Skydance, nice to see there's no big difference between theory and practice, eh? ;)
*laughs* Except that it took me 30 minutes to write the script and get an actual answer, instead of the hours we all spent debating the math & posting explanations ... without ever arriving at a number.

Your tool looks very powerful, Offa. It looks like it supports multiple defenders, too -- excellent.


I generated multiple random starts with the same world settings. All it really did was to remind me just how tough it is to play Emperor without a starting food bonus ....

I am sorry :blush: , what Offa tool and where to find it :confused: ?

I'm takingn the desert tile NW. I just think its too cool to use the desert. My test games indicate that its a good idea to get an archer pretty quick.

I'm torn between researching BW at 100% or pottery at 100%. I'm not too keen on escorting settlers with just a warrior. But it depends on who else is in the game if I can either in trades. I'm kind of hoping to meet a scientific civ. Its not likely that anyone could get IW first on this map and it might be better to get writing.

For research, I'm thinking of writing & literature then on to republic while I trade literature to my neighbors hoping they'll build me the Great Library while I get my Legions ready to take it from them.

Great Library-meh. That thing will only shorten the life of legions. Better to destroy it. I'll take the Great Lighthouse for 200, Alex. That way I can sail on to continent number two.

The plan for the GL is to get literature, trade it to a weak neighbor (maybe Egypt or the French), let the GL get built, take it, turn off research and have lots of money for Vet Warrior to Vet Legion upgrades and flood the continent with them, while not having to worry about research spending. If everyone can be kept at war, research will slow to a crawl and lengthen the life of legions.

If the official game is half as tough as the mock-up of the start I made... and those Barbarians :cry:

Here's the tool from Offa:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=104677

Hey, offa, you could advertise it in your sig...

OK - I have posted a screenshot using normal graphics, rather than the sn00py's terrain. Basically, I thought the "oasis" might have caused a bit of confusion.

OK - I have posted a screenshot using normal graphics, rather than the sn00py's terrain. Basically, I thought the "oasis" might have caused a bit of confusion. Oh, yes. I always thought "Isn't that a river?" Since the wet spot is exactly in between four tiles it should be an overlay and not a bonus. You have even included a grid, thankfully.

Since this is not a Conquests game it should be fairly clear that there would be no oasis bonus tiles...

Since this is not a Conquests game it should be fairly clear that there would be no oasis bonus tiles...
who knows if that is a bonus from our generous GOTM staff? :)

who knows if that is a bonus from our generous GOTM staff? :)
Nope.
It would require a new GOTM modpack to be downloaded. They said nothing about it.

I tried couple of test games on this scenario.
On my map I happened to be closely surrounded by 6 neighbours and the last one had another continet all to himself.

I tried settling NW all the time, but there was no river SW on my map - it was a lake. A river SW would change everything, of course.

Well, the 1st 3 times I tried to expand at max, get out the settler ASAP, build granary and other such foolishness. I was beaten by some neighbour as soon as city#2 was built.
You could get max of 1 settler and 2 warriors at the year of 2950BC: 50 shields max (2 chops + 20 from city center + 10 from wine hill starting from turn 10) in 20 turns it takes to grow to size 3. Apparently 2 warriors wasn't enough to hold back the neighbours.

The 4th time I desided to build military 1st and then expand. I worked the forest instead of a lake to get 2 warriors out in 8 turns, and used the chop to hurry an archer. The next chop hurried a settler which also built an archer, while Rome built another archer.
All the time I was bee-lining to Republic at Min, hoping to trade for Pottery from neighbors (got it from British). I got Writing 1st and traded it around. I also got a lot of cash for upgrades.

The the stack of 1st archer and 2nd warrior killed a Egyptian warrior escorting a settler nearby - 2 slaves to work the wine. Egypt sent a stack of 3 warriors and an archer my way, and our stacks met and annihillated. After that, (maybe 4 turns of war) Egypt gave me peace plus all his techs and gold, and 1 slave.

Rinse and repeat with the next neighbour - Russians, with 4 archers this time. Rome became quite productive with worked tiles - archer in 4 turns and warrior in 2, and it had barracks. More techs, 4 slaves, 1 town autorazed. Meanwhile Iron was clamed by a 3rd town, and Rome switched to warriors.

I upgraded 10 legions before 1000BC and turned on England. Despotic GA, but who cares - that was the only way to survive. At 750BC - London captured, another city given as peace bribe, 2 cities autorazed. Total 8 cities (2 British) in Roman empire, 10+ slaves and strong military, ready to cripple Germany next.

The morale of the story: if I go NW, I'll crank out military 1st and worry about settlers/granaries later. I'll work forests a lot before they are chopped. I'll forgo Pottery and do cash-building Writing at min instead.

But if SW is a river... Dunno. Or if we are alone on a continent...

Nata- That's good stuff. Hence ainwood's comment "who says the iron matters?"

Alot depends on who the neighbors are, but a beligerent republic bee-line sounds good.

OK - I have posted a screenshot using normal graphics, rather than the sn00py's terrain. Basically, I thought the "oasis" might have caused a bit of confusion.

Tequila lux also disappeared :(

And for those who are not used to sn00py's terrain, here it is in vanilla terrain:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/gotm42alt.jpg


Ok, so I'm starting to think maybe first move should be Worker 1S. See if the tile 2S is fresh or saltwater; if it's saltwater we've got a nice bridge we can use, and if it's fresh well then you've got a nice gold-generating city. I'm only thinking of two possibilities right now: Settle 1S and get a settler out as fast as possible(possibly with chops after warrior build(s)), or settle around the lake, moving 2 or 3 turns. And option 2 doesn't look that good.

Chances are, however, with this start there's a great 20k location not too far away. I'm 99% certain I'm getting the conquest award for last month so it's either Diplo or 20k this time - Diplo would require staying ahead in tech at least to the extent that I could pre-build for the UN and not have to worry about the 25% land requirement; 20k means war for leaders(although not too many too early - late finish date is going to be the key to this, and of course preventing other people from winning first, so I'm going to have to slow the tech pace a bit).

EDIT: Ooops, doesn't look like 1S has any forest. I thought there was forest to the SE somewhere.

In my test runs, I was able to make a pretty good go of things. Research pottery first.

I settled NW, then built barracks with the help of one chop. Then, 3 warriors. Then, granery with the help of another chop. The worker roaded and mined after each chop. Then, a settler. He settled at RCP 3 near the wine (with a warrior) and built a worker. The worker roaded and mined the wine. The first worker roaded to the second city and helped work the wine and the second city. The second city built a barracks and began building archers. The first city (meanwhile) was building warrior warrior settler.

I did this a couple of times.

Expanding out to 5 cities and fast research to republic seemed to work. There were two barb encampments in the area, but technically I didn't know where they were, so I never dispersed them. I let the barbs attack when they could. They seemed cautious, and 2 veteran warriors in each city was sufficient to defend against their attacks. The second city was only producing veteran archers and workers, so I had a few archers to go on a barb hunt.

When I could make contact with other civs, I could easily trade for all my missing techs + gold to fund research. But, in my test map, Rome was rather isolated. I hope that the real thing has a few neighbors to trade with and to take some barb attacks, too.

I think I'll go back to the editor and add a close neighbor or two. I'd like to experiment with early contact and maybe early wars.

I just wanted to point out that some might want to peruse the old GOTM 16 Emperor Rome game thread, probably the best GOTM IMHO with the puzzle and latin names for everything. As for this one Im thinking 20k (youve gotta love those expensive libraries and temples) if we find some coast, undecided otherwise, with a healthy helping of archer rush to harass settler pairs. I put my money on being close to others if the start is indeed as dreary as it looks.

I put my money on being close to others if the start is indeed as dreary as it looks.I hope so. All these test games got me skeered about the barbs. I'm not used to providing a ton of MP's in cities to defend against them. Typically you don't have to worry about the AI, but who knows with this one.

The cities should be OK. I am worried about all my hard worked improvements. Those barbs will pillage. I'm glad that you cannot pillage a lake!

I am also worried about guarding with just warriors when my settlers are walking around. And I must remeber to use extreme restraint in attacking any barbs with my warriors. This game will benefit from some early archers. I hope the RNG is kind.

Hey, offa, you could advertise it in your sig...

Ummm. I think you are right.

I have thrown in a link to my lovely spreadsheet too.

is anyone settling on the spot?

Moving 3 turns is really tough on emperor. Settling in any closer visible location is worse. I will not decide where to settle until I've taken at least one scouting step with my worker, probably south or west.
This will be a tough one...

is anyone settling on the spot?

I'm considering it. I need a fast game as I'm off to vacation in May and I tend to play slowly. I will likely build warrior>settler>warrior>warrior>settler if I've got the shields calculated right. I will research to The Wheel first off unless Japan is in the game and my 2nd or 3rd city will try and settler near horses. After the Wheel I'll either take a min run to HBR if WC is available or I will head to IronWorking.

I'm also thinking about a loose 5CC to speed play and could throw out the first 2 cities settled in favor of better locations.

I'm thinking setting where we stand is not a bad idea. Unless a singe worker move in any available direction could reveal anything worth moving for (unlikely) I don't think I'm going on a wild goose chase at Emperor hoping for a better location.

Cracker's mantra still holds good: "Move only if you can see a clear advantage". There seems to be a trend towards "Move, dammit! There's got to be somewhere better than this!"

If I understand the graphics correctly, there is water 2 south which means we might be 1 tile away from a coast start.

If I understand the graphics correctly, there is water 2 south which means we might be 1 tile away from a coast start.
One tile away from a coast start is only an issue if you are going to have a lot of coastal tiles in your city radius and no harbour to make them productive. In this situation none of the southern water will be within 21 tile radius of the start location.

One tile away from a coast start is only an issue if you are going to have a lot of coastal tiles in your city radius and no harbour to make them productive. In this situation none of the southern water will be within 21 tile radius of the start location.

True. I'm now thinking it's best to move NW and settle. If there is coast down there, this will allow more area for a couple southern cities.

Northwest is surely better and I am moving at least that far.

I'm betting there are two city locations on that southern coast at radius 3.x from the start. That'll do me. Moving NW doesn't guarantee you any more.

EDIT: BTW, there are no choke points to settle. Anywhere you park in the visible area leaves a route east/west, south of the lake.

The issue is not where to place your city ring... it's way too early to decide that. NW is just a better spot since there appears to be grass further to the north.

Sorry Abegweit, I was responding to MeteorPunch's point about coastal locations. I agree there appears to be grass north, and I leave open the possibility of going that way *if* a worker move gives me any extra visibility.

Ah. It is confusing and it's probably my fault for jumping in. Sorry.

I think that the extra grass that I can see already in the fog is well worth the move. My worker will also move nw and then one more north. If that doesn't reveal anything exciting, he starts chopping - conveniently yelling timber! just after Roma finishes our first explorer.

You could get max of 1 settler and 2 warriors at the year of 2950BC: 50 shields max (2 chops + 20 from city center + 10 from wine hill starting from turn 10) in 20 turns it takes to grow to size 3.

I would be interested to see how you pull that off. I believe you have played C3C or not at all.

If you did settle in place, you'd have only one (1) move to reach a forest in order to deliver the timber timely for the second worker, which obvoiusly is not possible. Let's assume therefore that we first move worker and settler NW and found Rome in 3950 BC. We spend the next turn moving onto the forest, then ten turns cutting it. This second warrior will have an overrun of two shields coming from the city center and from the wine hill. He will arrive in 3400 BC. We then spend one turn moving onto another forest and ten more cutting it down. The timber and the settler arrive only in 2850 BC and again we have an overrun of two shields. (In this location we have the option to work the forest and some undisclosed western tiles, but your calculation, and mine also, assumes working the lake and the wine hill only.)

which move of the worker can be the most revealing? west, southwest or south?

which move of the worker can be the most revealing? west, southwest or south?

I think sw, but I won't go there.

I would be interested to see how you pull that off. I believe you have played C3C or not at all.


I should have put: "about 2950 AD or so", of course worker movements would have to be taken into account.

But the morale I got out of my tests was that it's better to sacrifice early growth to early production as trying to grow at max in that place would only give you 2 warriors max before the 1st settler. And with crowded start which I randomly got that wasn't enough.

I'm glad the vanilla graphics of the start was posted: Now I see it's not a river SSW, and it means I'm definetely going NW and settle there.

NW location can give 3 shields per turn immediately if you need it, and none other 1-tile move (while hugging the lake) or staying in place would give that. And we might need those 3 shields very much.

Nata, that's the same conclusion I reached from my games: early military is critical for defending against raging barbs, and your expansion without a food bonus is so slow that you will also need strong military to expand into neighboring civs. Working a forest gives you that:

settle NW
worker chops
work Forest 3 turns, then 1 lake = Warrior -> scout
work Forest 3 turns, then 1 lake = Warrior -> scout
work lake 2 turns, wines 4 turns = 10 shields + chop = Archer at 3250 BC.

If Zeus is merciful, we might find a BG under some of those trees. I expect to start with Writing at 10%, because (1) I will need coin to support excess units, and (2) I will probably need the Lux slider at some point.

If this start is as bad as it looks, I'll be making a palace jump as soon as I can take over a neighbor's capital. Desert tiles give me a rash. *shiver*

where is the game? :) it's 4/15/5 EST here.

Within the next 3 hours....

I'm half-tempted to play the Conquest class. Those 2 spears at start could be an advantage greater than expected.

for Jason score, i know there's a penalty like substracting 20% of your socore if you play conquest (not sure about the exact number 20%). but for the earlies winning date award, what kind of penalty is there for choosing conquest?
edit: sorry for asking this question in both this thread and the game release thread. pls answer in one of them and i'll check both.)

I don't think that a Conquest player can win an award.

The penalty is 15%. And for what i recall, there's nothing in the GOTM pages about Conquest class submissions being banned from winning awards.

The penalty is 15%. And for what i recall, there's nothing in the GOTM pages about Conquest class submissions being banned from winning awards.

I just read the reference thread on Conquest Class. No mention of awards is made in that thread.

I think someone from the GOTM staff should solve this issue.

BTW, i discovered right now that players who have earned a GOTM score in the first half of a final scoreboard cannot submit Conquest-class games, so at 99.9% i won't qualify for Conquest, unless in the final day there will be a damn lot of submissions over 10000 points. The issue is solved, at least for me... :rolleyes:

EDIT: issue solved for anyone. Conquest player can win awards. Just look at the scoreboards of past GOTM games.

EDIT: issue solved for anyone. Conquest player can win awards. Just look at the scoreboards of past GOTM games.

were those players above 50% or below 50% the time before they played that award winning game?

Here is Alan's response in the other threadThe rules are:

- Any player who has achieved a ranking in the top 50% in any individual game can no longer play Conquest class. So IonImplant cannot play Conquest class now or in the future. 57th is in the top 50% of 114, I'm afraid. It's designed as a way to let new players into the competition gently for a couple of games, not to provide an easy option for experienced players.

- We do not award medals or fastest victory awards to Conquest players. They can win lowest scoring victory awards or ambulances.

- Conquest entries score 85% of the full Jason score for their date/score/victory condition. Win or lose.

EDIT::: sorry Alan, I just wanted people who saw this thread to see your response, since you are one of the powers that be.

Please limit this to one thread ... the game announcement one I replied in. Subject closed here.

Arrrr, my thinking goes along with Solenoozerec's. It fits nicely with the Colorado method of Palace movement: stick it in your backpack and hike!
Not to mention, the land can only get better from here. I've never seen a desert world in GOTM, and I doubt Ainwood has re-created Tatoonie.

Well, this is off topic but with all the previous talk about "The Guide" it got me thinking. Don't you think it is a little wierd that each civ can talk perfectly to each other right from the start? I mean there is no way the Greeks could carry on a conversation with the Chinese back in BC....

You know, they must all have Babel Fish since "The Guide" says "The Babel Fish is small, yellow, and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all the unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picke up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish. Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God."

See what I mean....

Oh, and I am going to start right there and build a warrior, settler, warrior, worker, settler...

I mean there is no way the Greeks could carry on a conversation with the Chinese back in BC....Oh, I think they could! Humans teach each other their languages very fast when sex, war or commerce are on the agenda :mischief:.

Oh, I think they could! Humans teach each other their languages very fast when sex, war or commerce are on the agenda :mischief:.

Oh, I forgot about those things..... :rolleyes: