COTM 40: America

We'll move North a bit and play America, upping the difficulty a tad to Monarch level. Hope you don't find this Continents map too tough to handle ...

Here is the COTM40 game info:

Civilization: America
Rivals: 7 pre-selected.
Barbarians: Restless
Difficulty: Monarch
Land Form: Continents, 70% ocean, Standard map.
Geology:4 billion years old, Normal and Temperate.
AI Aggression: Varied :)

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/cotm40large.jpg
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/images/cotm40mini.jpg

Expansionistic bonus: To compensate for removal of most Goody Huts in the game, all Expansionistic civs (including America) start with 35 Extra Gold and 2 Extra Spearmen.

Conquest-Class Bonuses:

AI Agression Lowered 1 Level
Knowledge of Warrior Code
50 bonus Gold


Predator-Class Obstacles:

AI Aggression Raised 1 Level
Don't Know Masonry
Loss of Starting Expansionistic Bonus

Just a quick comment on EXP tribes. Rather than add military & gold, why not add what EXP tribes need to be sucessful like an additional settler or another starting tech? The EXP trait is really only valuable in the AA anyway, so with a couple of extra spearmen, which aren't typically built until the late AA unless there are a lot of barbarians nearby, the quasi-replacement for huts are actually more of an additional penalty than a bonus.

That said, Scout NW-N, worker W to mine the BG and if nothing of value shows up, settle in place and start a granary. Disband one of the spearmen to help speed it along. The other will scout the local area before becoming an MP in the capital. Research Alphabet -> Writing on the way (hopefully) to the Republic slingshot.

Any non-spoiler reasons for the removal of GH?

They have a tendency to unbalance the game. One player gets 2 techs, 1 settler & a city and another gets 2 maps and 50g.

At monarch it shouldn't be to big of an issue, but at higher levels, losing goody huts for an EXP player is the same as playing with a single trait.

Scout NW-N, spearman 1 south, spearman 2 east. Worker to BG if nothing better revealed, which should show enough of the map to show for certain the best place to settle.

I smell a hidden trap in this one. Either the starting spot lacks useful resources/luxes, or more likely it's an island. Also, I'm betting that one or two nearby AI civs have been jacked up to max aggression to increase the challenge. Maybe just paranoia speaking, maybe not. I may decide to settle in place, unless scouts reveal a better spot.

I smell a hidden trap in this one. Either the starting spot lacks useful resources/luxes, or more likely it's an island. Also, I'm betting that one or two nearby AI civs have been jacked up to max aggression to increase the challenge. Maybe just paranoia speaking, maybe not. I may decide to settle in place, unless scouts reveal a better spot.
Why a trap?

The starting position seems crappy to me. :confused:

If it's an island, then settling SW on the sea (or S on the tobacco, it isn't really helpful anyway) might be an option. But we don't know that for sure so I guess we should settle in place to grab the BG. Maybe it's just me, but do I see some tundra N - NW?

Anyway, BG, hills and fresh water (and a tobacco! yay...) doesn't seem too bad. Second city maybe somewhere on the coast.

I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to play this game, as this month might be a bit busy, but I guess I'll just try to start it up and see if I finish it. I didn't manage to finish cotm 39 though...

I hope I won't get an ambulance this time. I'm going to wait for the sid game in december to complete my ambulance set with a nice red ambulance! :D

(civ_steve said somewhere that december's going to be a deity or even sid game...)

If it's an island, then settling SW on the sea (or S on the tobacco, it isn't really helpful anyway) might be an option. But we don't know that for sure so I guess we should settle in place to grab the BG. Maybe it's just me, but do I see some tundra N - NW?
Nope. It's desert. :)

Though I'm not yet sure whether I'm gonna play this one (depends on whether I'll be able to finish GOTM70 a bit ahead of time), I want to share my penny's worth here as well...

Almost everyone said he would start scouting NW-N. I guess this is because you want to take advantage of that hill and check what can be seen from there. But I was thinking along these lines: apparently the dominating factor in this starting position is the long river stretching from the northeast to the southwest. (civ_steve always likes to put some kind of "interesting story" into his starting positions, so I wouldn't be surprised, if he had set up a nice long "Mississippi" for us here!) Therefore it would certainly pay off to found a couple more towns on that river, perhaps one at either side of Washington, and then see, how things develop.

So how about this different strategy: settle in place to get a better view of the nearby territory. This should enable us to decide, which direction looks more promising, and then we send the scout along the river either NE or SW. I'm sure we'll discover rich soil and good places for our "frontier towns" there, won't we, civ_steve...?

(This starting position really looks a bit "boring" compared to recent ones, so there must be some "tweak" hidden here...)

From the position on the global map it looks like we are right in the middle of it, so in this regard all four scouting directions are probably equivalent. There could be a good chance to meet someone in any direction.

A question regarding goody huts: is there a way to hard-wire the outcome of a goody hut into the map, instead of having the RNG popping up something at random? That would eliminate the "unbalancing factor" of goody huts: if two players discover the same hut, they will get the same benefit (tech, gold, city) out of it. The huts will then just turn into a "reward" for the ones who are best at scouting, and that's fine with me.

Cheers, Lanzelot

A scout's move into the wrong direction costs you at most just two turns to correct.
A wrong decision on capital's site costs you the whole game... :mischief:
I remember well played games where the second build was a town-disbanding settler to move the capital... :crazyeye:

Especially in a food-poor area, you have to build granary and settler before finally taking advantage of a food bonus out of range. And all other towns will be (at least slightly) corrupt, often hindering a settler factory. :old:

If you've got more units then the usual initial settler and worker, it would be like playing intentionally blind if you settled on the spot to gain information where to best send those units. :cool:

A scout's move into the wrong direction costs you at most just two turns to correct.
A wrong decision on capital's site costs you the whole game... :mischief:
I remember well played games where the second build was a town-disbanding settler to move the capital... :crazyeye:

Especially in a food-poor area, you have to build granary and settler before finally taking advantage of a food bonus out of range. And all other towns will be (at least slightly) corrupt, often hindering a settler factory. :old:

If you've got more units then the usual initial settler and worker, it would be like playing intentionally blind if you settled on the spot to gain information where to best send those units. :cool:

That said settling in place seems to be a good decision, after moving your other units for a look of course. 5 GL on a river with access to at least 2 hills seems a pretty good city site.

Scout NW-N, spearman 1 south, spearman 2 east. Worker to BG if nothing better revealed, which should show enough of the map to show for certain the best place to settle.

Please , what is "BG"?
I thought it meant go for production of barracks-granary
right away, which explains my very-all-to-early-defeat..But Im still have to laugh, Ive been studying the screenshot and still have no clue what BG means..Thank for the answer..

BG = Bonus grass (can also mean Barbarian Galley)

It's a grassland tile with a shield. It's the most valuable tile without a resource in the game. By mining it you get a 2-2 tile which is about as good as it gets (again not counting tiles with resources) until you're out despotism.

Thankx denyd!
i sorta figured it was something like the CIV2 "grassland-shield"..

BG = Bonus grass (can also mean Barbarian Galley)

It's a grassland tile with a shield. It's the most valuable tile without a resource in the game. By mining it you get a 2-2 tile which is about as good as it gets (again not counting tiles with resources) until you're out despotism.

I find the most useful tiles to be one's with a river, roading these gives a real boost to your base commerce and thus research. I like Flood Plains myself despite the risk of disease as they will give 3 food when irrigated even when in despotism (+4 under other governments). They can't be mined though (for obvious reasons :lol: ). Under despotism they can quickly replace pop used for forced labour or support specialists.

I like Flood Plains myself despite the risk of disease as they will give 3 food when irrigated even when in despotism (+4 under other governments). They can't be mined though (for obvious reasons :lol: ). Under despotism they can quickly replace pop used for forced labour or support specialists.

I agree, risk/harm of disease is small compared to the speed at which they can grow your population.

I use the whip a lot.:D

You know that's interesting, because I can't remember the last time I "used the whip" in an XOTM game. I seem to find I can usually wait for an item to complete and enjoy the extra commerce & production that the citizens produce. It's also the case that I usually get out of Despotism ASAP so I don't have the pop-rush ability once I start adding those 75+% corrupt towns.

Once again we see there are many paths to Nirvana, grasshopper.

You know that's interesting, because I can't remember the last time I "used the whip" in an XOTM game. I seem to find I can usually wait for an item to complete and enjoy the extra commerce & production that the citizens produce. It's also the case that I usually get out of Despotism ASAP so I don't have the pop-rush ability once I start adding those 75+% corrupt towns.

Once again we see there are many paths to Nirvana, grasshopper.

I never really considered the loss of commerce when I "waste" 1 or 2 citizens. I would think that loss would be negligible considering those citizens get replaced in several turns anyway. Especially on flood plain areas.
I also rush to get out of Despotism but usually favor Feudalism so I can keep whipping as needed.

I sometimes wish there was an "execute" button. Sometimes when they citizenry gets their dander up I'd like to kill a few to show the others what a good idea shutting up and getting back to work is. Oh well.

I sometimes wish there was an "execute" button. Sometimes when they citizenry gets their dander up I'd like to kill a few to show the others what a good idea shutting up and getting back to work is. Oh well.

Have you played SMAC? It's got nerve-stapling. Not quite what you're looking for, but it's close! :lol:

Have you played SMAC? It's got nerve-stapling. Not quite what you're looking for, but it's close! :lol:
I loved that feature. :love: :evil:

Starving them usually does the trick :p

I just load them on curraghs and send them on an ocean cruise in search of goody huts on remote islands

I never really considered the loss of commerce when I "waste" 1 or 2 citizens. I would think that loss would be negligible considering those citizens get replaced in several turns anyway.

No, they don't. The population growth would have happened anyway for even more commerce and game points.

When you start losing commerce is when there are no more tiles with road, bonus and/or river for a new citizen to work or when you reach the population limit, usually six. But training Workers or Settlers is a better way to prune population than whipping expensive (in upkeep) troops or improvements.

I sometimes wish there was an "execute" button. Sometimes when they citizenry gets their dander up I'd like to kill a few to show the others what a good idea shutting up and getting back to work is.

I think the way this real-world mechnism is modelled in Civilization is the Military Police. This model also takes into account, that you can only go so far along this route.

In captured foreign cities where unhappiness is rife, put all non-resisting citizens to be specialists (unsually Tax Collectors) and train Settlers. The combination of starvation and Settler training soon brings population low enough, and the Settler is useful even though it may have foreign nationality. That's only one new foreign citizen for two in the originating city, and its the first citizen, who is more likely not to be unhappy thanks to several game mechanisms.

Sometimes when they citizenry gets their dander up I'd like to kill a few to show the others what a good idea shutting up and getting back to work is. Oh well.


I like your thinking.:goodjob:

No, they don't. The population growth would have happened anyway for even more commerce and game points.

When you start losing commerce is when there are no more tiles with road, bonus and/or river for a new citizen to work or when you reach the population limit, usually six. But training Workers or Settlers is a better way to prune population than whipping expensive (in upkeep) troops or improvements.

Thanks for your reply PF.
My thinking on the whip is twofold. It trims population. This gives more support for smaller towns/cities in feudalism, thus helping commerce. It also turns potential clowns into something productive. Secondly, the builds I rush are barracks, temples (culture & :) ) and libraries (culture & research). Getting these builds quicker, rather than waiting the 20+ turns offers further benefit. The expense of the library (1 gpt) vs. the benefit of 50% research is, I believe, worthwhile.
I agree training workers and settlers is an excellent way to curtail pop growth.
I never play for score, only to win so that is an area that I will look at now that I am playing the “game of the month”.

My thinking on the whip is twofold. It trims population. This gives more support for smaller towns/cities in feudalism, thus helping commerce. It also turns potential clowns into something productive.
Whipping unhappiness will be the main reason why you need clowns... :mischief:
I use the whip only if I have extreme food surplus and shield poorness, in Feudal 100k attempts and of course - in early urgency cases.
But the letter rarely occur before I form an advanced government... :D

Whipping unhappiness will be the main reason why you need clowns... :mischief:


I don't think it is the main reason, usually when I poll the unhappy citizens overcrowding is the main reason for unhappiness.

I've found as long as overcrowding can be kept in check the city won't shut down.