It is not possible for you to begin play at this time but you can strategize together about what you think you would do in the main strategic challenges of game.

This process should allow all the players to look over the setup instructions for the game and discuss what they think these instructions mean without the risk of any real spoiler information. Since none of the players will be able to start the game, essentially all you will have available to support your discussion will be past GOTM results and strategy articles.

The rules for participation in this discussion thread are simple:

1) read the game announcement and get yourself mentally prepared to play the game when the save game is released to you.

2) The basic game setup and map description have been announced on the scope of the game pages and you may freely discuss these features here. The specific differences between the three classes of play have not been posted but will be released at with the starting save files and will follow previous patterns of choice. The intent here is to focus on the general strategy overview issues that may be required to succeed in this game with this map and this civ, without diverging too much in the bonuses that will be placed in each of the three classes.

3) Once you download the starting save game file and open it to begin play you may no longer participate in this discussion thread.

I plan to leave this thread open to support pregame discussion for any players who have not yet opened the starting save game file but if we have any players who violate this rule the discussion will be closed.

Again there is a great deal going on inside and around this month's game, but at the core of the process the game is simple and fun. Read the instructions and you will have a good time.

An advance warning is appropriate because the setup files for all game versions are LARGE. This is because we are using this opportunity as our once a year chance to integrate a multi-unit (or m-unit) animation into the game that features four independent animations all in one unit. These four units are unique to the mongols and will be available to the netire community but GOTM players get to see them and play them first.

Be warned also that the first spoiler discussion will not open until November 5th.

The first spoiler discussion will require you to have a specific map visibility plus a specific number of contacts and complete the Ancient Age.

For most players, this game will feature FOUR different Unique Units for the Mongols so there will be a great deal of strategy to discuss. Each one of these unique units has similar abilities to units that you have already played but may have added horseback archery features of blitz abilities that will add significant gameplay choices to your game.

Here is your link to the

Game Announcement Page for Gotm25-Mongols (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/gotm25_mongols.shtml)

Here is also an image of the minimap of your Mongol Demi-God world to help you in your pregame planning:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/2003images/gotm25_start_mini.jpg

Amazing start position. Which makes me think that most of the rest of the map is desert with little or no fresh water nearby. Still, I'll probably move the settler one tile NE to take advantage of the coast, if it turns out to actually be coast there. (The 3 lines next to the settler indicate that there's another unit, probably a scout). I may actually be able to finish this one, October's is probably going to be a no-submit because my closing turns are taking upwards of 45-50 minutes/turn because of the Large map size.


Rivals: 11 Preset/3 minor


3 Minor? One more mystery. Perhaps normal civs, crippled in some way? (Maybe a UU of a settler that takes 100 shields, to slow down their growth).

Raging barbs, mystery landmass, 5 million geology. Indicates that early defense is probably important. But the raging barbs of XXIII-Arabs didn't turn out to be much of a problem for me, and in fact actually helped me in a few cases.

The UU situation confuses me slightly, but I'll probably be able to figure it out.


All in all, looks like the GOTM Team has outdone itself once again, setting up another 30 days of great gameplay!

To emphasize your Generalship skills, this game includes a package of 4 unique Mongol Horse Archer units to serve as the unique unit army set for the Mongols.

The first big question is which of these trips of GA? I am not sure at this time. I didn't see a clear answer on the announcement page. I don't want to trip a GA in despotism if at all possible.

Thanks Xevious.
Good question LKendter.
I'm also a bit confused by this "archery barrage abilities".
Does this mean the units have lethal bombardment?

This one sounds fun..I can't wait to experiment with these new units and see what all this means.

Originally posted by rabies

I'm also a bit confused by this "archery barrage abilities".
Does this mean the units have lethal bombardment?

This one sounds fun..I can't wait to experiment with these new units and see what all this means.

I would think you treat them like land ships...the injured ones barrage the enemy one square away at a strength of 6 and NO possibility of getting damaged themselves, hopefully redlining the enemy, then a healthy unit attacks normally for the kill. Or an injured Elite unit finishes them off--LOTS of potential leaders here!

Do any of the units get the free shot at oncoming attackers like the Peltasts when on defense?

All 4 UUs require a Medieval technology, so you should be out of despotism by then.

Sounds like a victory by any of the 4 will trigger a GA, which actually gives us a bit of choice for timing.

[other comments about units edited out--they were wrong )


This is going to be a lot of fun, inless of course cracker has hid the horses from us:mischief:

Originally posted by pterrok

Do any of the units get the free shot at oncoming attackers like the Peltasts when on defense?

As I read it they all do. In addition three of them have offensive bombardment ability with one of them having single shot lethal ability.

Wow...this all makes it sound like the mongol units will be an unstopable force (by design?). I wonder what cracker has up his sleeve to make it a challenge?

Originally posted by King Of America
Looks like attack strength varies for most depending on whether you attack on the run or from standing still, although if Ordu Archer has an archery barrage A/D/M of 4/1/2, it may be that you can move 1 tile and then let loose with an attack of 4 (the 2/1/3 makes them a potent "mopping up"/"picking off weak units" threat).


The 4/1/2 stats are more likely the unit's bombard strength/range/ROF.

It's good we are the ones playing as the Mongols, because the AI would have no clue how to use these units...

All UUs have a movement of 3 in common. This indicates lots of opportunities for hit and run type of attacks. They resemble Chinese riders, with bombardment ability compensating for lower attack ratings. Because they are all 3 movement it will be very easy to stack them together to form assault groups with reasonable defense and attack units mixed together. I can't wait to try them...

Now, Cracker wouldn't give these units to one of the other civs, would he? Could the 'minors' be rivalling clans?

Originally posted by rabies
Wow...this all makes it sound like the mongol units will be an unstopable force (by design?). I wonder what cracker has up his sleeve to make it a challenge?

Um, I guess the trick is that the difficulty is Demi-god...

It seems like the other game we played at Demi-god was "easier" for me than a random Emperor game because of the way it was laid out. I bet this one will probably play much harder than Emperor for me.

It's probably something like we're deep in Inner Mongolia in a hidden valley a la Shangri La--our nice opening position will be surrounded by mountains 3 tiles deep all around. All the other major civs will contact each other quickly and so we will be way behind in techs when we manage to get a couple of roads out to release the hordes...

We'll find those '3 minor civs' near our valley and quickly overrun them and then have to use the great speed and abilities of our special units to subdue the rest of the world. If you have to leave the Middle Ages to get the Domination win you'll be out of luck for a good score. So I might focus entirely on the Great Library as the only thing to research since it'll get me all the techs I should need...

...but SirPleb will win at around 300 BC having never left Despotism since the govenment change would take too long! ;)

5 wines at the start is excellent, but you only need three for a 4-turn settler factory so I'll likely build my second city pretty close to take advantage of the other two; I presume we will get the standard Mongol scout too to investigate further but as it is I'm moving the settler 1 NE to the coast/lake (a reference to Lake Aral in Central Asia perhaps ?)

The great thing about the horse units is that combined arms will be a must as none of these units will be able to defeat an enemy force of knights all by themselves, and the archery bombardment will be crucial for taking down enemy units. My goals then will be to build the Great Library so I can spend money on upgrades instead of tech and Leo's to make them cheaper; Sun Tzu won't be necessary as barracks are cheap anyway.
My guess is that the Turghaut and Khorchin will be the mainstay of my forces, the Turghaut for defense and Khorchin for attack. I'm wondering about the Korchin archers- though if they can always bombard at a rate of fire of 1, why would you build the Bagatur ? Blitz is great but more useful when the attacker outmatches the defender, and the Bagatur would more likely face pikes & knights on defense.

Anyway, roll on November 1 ! :cool:

Originally posted by jack merchant
My guess is that the Turghaut and Khorchin will be the mainstay of my forces, the Turghaut for defense and Khorchin for attack. I'm wondering about the Korchin archers- though if they can always bombard at a rate of fire of 1, why would you build the Bagatur ? Blitz is great but more useful when the attacker outmatches the defender, and the Bagatur would more likely face pikes & knights on defense.

Agreed. I can't find any reason to build Bagaturs. The Khorchin have equivalent bombardment and attack while the Turghaut have better defence. Meanwhile, both are cheaper than Bagaturs and can be upgraded from other units.

The Ordu Archer does have two advantages - the ability to bombard at a range of two and upgradability. Question: is it possible to move one step along a road and then bombard at a range of two? Even better.. two steps into enemy territory and wham!

I plan on mixing Khorchin and Turghaut at a ratio of about 85:15. I might throw in a few Ordu Archers (maybe quite a few) if one-step two-range bombardment is possible. I cannot imagine any reason to build Bagaturs.

As for wonders, the crucial one is clearly Leo. This will be the first game I have ever played where I built more than one or two archers.

The blitz ability for the Bagatur is actually very powerful, not for attacking, but for bombarding. A single Bagatur is like three strength-6 catapults.

But the unit that is most powerful here is the Khorchin. Disconnect your horses, build a gazillion Mangudai Bowmen (Archers), connect your horses, upgrade to Khorchin (you have Leo's, right? ;) ), and repeat.

Build enough Khorchin and the AI will not have any chance. Move two tiles into his territory with 100 Khorchin and bombard his city until all his units are redlined. Then use a few more of them to finish off the defenders (even if they are musketmen) with minimum losses. Scary! :)

I think that the B/R/F stats for bombardment are Bombard/Range/Fire rate, or how many potential hp's damage it does. So the Ordu still only has a range of 1, but can potentially take two hp's out in an attack. That is their advantage, but it is not lethal bombardment. The Korchin only can do 1 hp, but it is lethal bombardment, so after the Ordu or Bagatur take them down to 1 hp, the Korchin can finish them off, without even attacking if needed. The Bagatur and Korchin have a bombard of 6, which is even better than catapults! The blitz advantage allows them to weaken their opponents before attack, or to finish off multiple units that have already been weakened.

My question is how promotions/leaders are handled, I don't think even lethal bombardment will result in a promotion, so I would imagine even after your archers weaken the opponents, you will want to go hand-to-hand to finish them off to get promotions and leaders. As Cracker mentioned, the Korchin can be used to try to kill select units (say the one musketman in a hill city), so your other attackers can get promotions by finishing off the spearmen and archers of your enemies! ;)

Another question, I see on the Civfanatics homepage announcement it refers to Steppe Settlers, but I didn't see any mention of them in the game announcement. If I read it correctly, the UU's (other than the Ordu) can be upgraded to some type of Settler at the end of the Middle Ages (Military Tradition, maybe). Any thoughts? Would it maintain a higher movement? Could be useful to resettle captured lands after a lot of razing.

All this talk about new units has turned this poor Peanut's brain to paste. So, in an idle moment or two I produced a one page summary. This is a poor imitation of those great user guides that every budding fanatic has probably downloaded and laminated to have at their sweaty fingertips as they play.

So here it is as a zipped '.doc' file if anyone is interested ... please anyone take the liberty of correcting errors, or posting a more useful '.pdf' or '.html' version. Peanut's Simple Unit Summary (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/PeanutsGOTM25NewUnitSummary.zip)

As for the game itself, I can just imagine that Cracker has put everything a young Ghengis Peanut needs to equip his horde right at hand. We have wine aplenty to irrigate so those keen Mongols can gorge on grapes, get sloshed of an evening and reproduce faster than locusts in the summertime.

Ah, yes ! It'll be a cakewalk ... except for the minor detail of Horses and Iron. Those will probably be placed two civilizations away with some fierce opponents right in the way.

I can just imagine Ghengis Peanut's Mongol Hordes, equipped with embarrassingly inadequate blunt stone axes and bronze spears, having to hitch-hike to the battlefield with some passing barbarian horsemen lest they miss their appointment with destiny.

Erm,

Just a quick question. It's taken a long time for me to work out why some of my bombards have never killed anyone as the literature supplied with the game is somewhat lacking. Is there a thread somewhere which lists which bombard units have a lethal bombard ability so I'll know not to waste my time.

Also, and pretty importantly, what is the blitz ability? Can't seem to find it anywhere.

Also, what does Zone of Control mean in Civ3?

Prior to PTW, no bombardment was lethal, meaning when you got to the last HP on a unit, bombardment had no effect. With PTW, it is an option in the editor, although under the default rules no unit still has the lethal option enabled. (Unless you want to count Nukes, which are a different animal). Within the list above, only the Korchin can use lethal bombardment.
The FAQ has a link to a more detailed description of bombardment, as well:

Bombardment Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39577)

Blitz is the ability for a unit to make more than one attack per turn, if they have movement points remaining. For example, a unit with movement of three could move one space, then make two different attacks (assuming it survives the first, of course!).

Zone of Control basically means that if an enemy unit passes adjacent to your unit, your unit gets to take one free shot at him as he passes.

Originally posted by Justus II
Another question, I see on the Civfanatics homepage announcement it refers to Steppe Settlers, but I didn't see any mention of them in the game announcement. If I read it correctly, the UU's (other than the Ordu) can be upgraded to some type of Settler at the end of the Middle Ages (Military Tradition, maybe). Any thoughts? Would it maintain a higher movement? Could be useful to resettle captured lands after a lot of razing.

The Steppe Settler gives players the ability to retire any Mongol unique units that survive the fierce ravages warfare in the middle ages. All three of the extra unique units (Turghaut, Khorchin, and Bagatur Hordes) may survive to be retired at the end of the middle ages.

To me this means that the extra unique units can be retired to become Steppe Settlers whatever that is. This could be their greatest value if you can build cities with them or add them to existing cities.

Edit: I think a Steppe Settler is a Migrant. From Conquests Fall of Rome 'the Visigoths start with 7 Migrants (Settlers who can move at double speed)'.

The Way I plan it:
ATTACK: Korchin (3/1/3, 6/1/1 ZL), Bagatur Horde (3/2/3, 6/1/1 ZB)
DEFENCE: Turghaut Cavalry (2/3/3, 6/0/1 Z)
ARTILLERY: Ordu archer (2/1/3, 4/1/2 ZB), Bagatur Horde (3/2/3, 6/1/1 ZB)
B = blitz. L = Lethal. Z = Zone of Control

artillery effectiveness = Bombard Value * rate of fire * attacks possible per turn.
Therefore:
Korchin = 6*
Turghaut Cavalry = 6^
Ordu Archer = 24
Bagatur Horde = 18
*Korchin have lethal bombard, which puts them in a class of their own
^Turghaut Cavalry aren't made for bombarding anyway.

Bagatur Hordes are a jack of all trades, but master of none. They cost more, can't be ugpraded to, can't be upgraded from. However, they can make up your entire army if you want, and are cheaper than building each unit seperately. I'm going to go for the combined arms approach, but the horde approach may be just as good.

Wow!!! This is going to be fun! Shaking my head in amazement at the careful construction of combined troop possibilities here. I seldom build combined unit stacks. But in this game I expect I'll be wanting to do a great deal of that.

Here are my scattered pregame thoughts. These are highly subject to change as the map unfolds, and as I play the game and find out I was wrong :)

I'll go slow in this game. It looks way too good to race through, I'd rather play it slowly and savor it.

Based on what's visible so far I will irrigate the start tile and move the settler NE. But before doing this I'll move the scout, just in case he sees something better. I'll start the scout with a step SE. Where he goes next I'm not sure. What he sees may affect the decision. If nothing special is visible at this point I might make his second step to the west. That would reveal a few more tiles which could change the settler's first move, though that is unlikely - only one of those tiles is grassland which could have cattle.

Depending on surrounding terrain I expect to end up with one or two settler/worker factories using the lovely wines.

I'll avoid early warfare if possible. One exception will be if war is necessary to claim iron and horses. Another possible exception would be if a neighbor builds Great Library. Aside from those possibilities I'd prefer to spend Ancient Times building up for the massive wars which will come in the Middle Ages.

I haven't decided yet but I'm considering going to Monarchy and staying there in this game instead of my usual choice of Republic. Once we hit the early Middle Ages this game is likely to be continous war till the end. Monarchy without war weariness, or Republic with more income? I'm not sure. After exploring the map I'll decide. Luxury availability and the likelihood of being at war with multiple Civs simultaneously later on will affect my thinking on this.

The four unique units present many interesting possibilities. They'll all mix nicely into hordes (stacks :) ) since they're all fast.

As others have said, Turghaut Cavalry will be good defenders. I think I'll want at least two of them in each Mongol horde. Having two or more in a horde will allow the horde to continue if one is wounded or killed, and will allow temporary splits of the horde into two or more sub-hordes. These units are far from invincible defenders though. They'll be facing strength 4 attackers. I think it will be important to also use the horde's fast movement to take advantage of defensive terrain.

The other three units are attackers. Each has a different advantage. They all share one weakness: low hand to hand attack strength. They're weaker than Knights in this regard. It will be important to utilize their archery. When attacking cities this may mean that we need large numbers of them. If, as I suspect, archery works like bombardment against cities, then many shots will be "wasted" reducing the population and improvements instead of hitting defenders.

The Ordu Archer seems the weakest attacker, especially with hand to hand attack strength of just 2. But it can fire twice per turn at strength 4. This will be an advantage in some situations over the Khorchin which can fire once per turn at strength 6. And it can eventually upgrade to Cavalry - a major advantage if the game continues to the Military Tradition stage :)

The Khorchin is in the middle of the three attack units I think. It has an ok hand to hand attack strength of 3, a single shot per turn at 6, and that single shot can kill a redlined enemy. In general it seems best to use these units to take advantage of their powerful archery instead of attacking hand to hand.

The Bagatur Horde seems the most powerful special unit to me. It has the same stats as the Khorchin except that its shots cannot kill a redlined enemy, it has defense 2 instead of 1, and it has the blitz capability. The blitz capability will be this unit's advantage. In seiges they can use three strength 6 shots. If these units are used to dispatch redlined enemies in hand to hand combat, they'll get an instant upgrade to elite by winning twice in one turn, and thereafter they'll have plentiful opportunities to produce leaders. This unit should fare well on its own in some situations. Its defense of 2 is barely acceptable for a loner (an accompanying Turghaut Cavalry would be better of course); in offense it can be very powerful, taking two shots at an isolated enemy unit and then engaging it in hand to hand combat all in the same turn. I think this unit may have been underestimated so far. Which is better: 3 Khorchin at a cost of 60 shields (3 archers) + 90g (if we have Leonardo's, 180g if we don't), or one Bagatur Horde at a cost of 60 shields? If the Bagatur Horde does indeed get to take three shots per turn, then both of these choices result in 3 strength 6 shots per turn. But the Khorchin can be prebuilt before we learn its tech. And has lethal shots, and each of the three Khorchin can move and shoot in the same turn. OTOH, the Bagatur Horde has better leader generating potential and costs less. Decisions, decisions ...

It seems to me that the special units become progressively harder to build in the following sequence:
A Turghaut Cavalry can be created by retraining a 10 shield Warrior.
A Khorchin can be created by retraining a 20 shield archer.
An Ordu Archer can be created by retraining a 30 shield Horseman.
A Bagatur Horde can only be created by building one at a cost of 60 shields.

Trying to save gold for the upgrade paths will clearly be important. Whether that is possible, and how to do it, will depend on how the map unfolds.

It may be useful in this game to leave one or more productive towns unconnected to the rest by road. Those towns would be able to continue producing warriors and archers for a long time, who could then travel to a nearby connected town and be retrained to become Turghaut Cavalry and Khorchins. It might even work to have a separate town connected only to horses, to build Horsemen for upgrading to Ordu Archers. This seems a dubious possibility though - hard to set up and only 20 shields are saved on that upgrade path.

My initial thinking is that ideally I'd want my hordes to consist of Turghaut Cavalry, Khorchins, and Bagatur Hordes in a ratio of about 1 : 3 : 8. The Turghaut Cavalry would act as defenders. The Bagatur Hordes would wear down enemies with their archery. When the enemy is down to redlined units, the Khorchins would fire on strong defenders, the Bagatur Hordes would take out the weaker ones hand to hand. But I doubt I'll have any chance to actually build hordes with that dream mix - it is a very expensive mix to build. And has no longer term potential to upgrade to Cavalry. In practice I'll probably have hordes with some Turghaut Cavalry, many Ordu Archers, some Khorchin, and some Bagatur Hordes. And I might have some isolated Bagatur Horde units wandering about.

Research: I'll start with research at zero. Our starting techs enable building granaries and archers, but they don't enable direct research of any second level tech. I'll try to meet neighbors and find goody huts before starting research.

A bit further along, trying to build Great Library will be tempting. It would enable saving up a lot of money for upgrades to the special units. Nonetheless I probably won't try for it. Limited expansion and a high production town might change my mind. But the downsides of building it are significant too: many shields invested, and slower research. The Great Library approach encourages waiting for the AIs to discover techs. I'll prefer to get ahead them (if that proves possible.)

On entering the Middle Ages the choices become confusing. Feudalism first because it is necessary for all of our UUs? Or Monotheism and/or Engineering first, counting on the AIs to research Feudalism and trade? I'll go the second route if the AIs are researching quickly enough by that time. If there's a scientific Civ in the world that will change things, it will depend on their free tech. But I'll hazard a guess that there's no scientific Civ :)

Feudalism will give us our first special unit, the defender. I won't want to go on the offensive with just this unit. But depending on the world situation it might pay off to start a defensive war at this date. The first defensive win will trigger our Golden Age (or will it? Cracker, could you please tell us?) and this might be a good time to start one, enabling faster research to the other special units.

After that, which will be better: Monotheism and Chivalry, or Engineering and Invention? The first gives us Ordu Archers and Bagatur Hordes. The second gives us Khorchin and a shot at building Leonardo's. I think I'll go for Chivalry first because I want to start building some Bagatur Hordes early on. And if our Golden Age can only be triggered by Ordu Archers then I very much want to research that path first.

After learning Chivalry and Invention it may or may not be worthwhile to research further. If it seems that domination can be reached with just the special units then perhaps no more research. OTOH, Cavalry are a much more powerful hand to hand unit. Learning Military Tradition, and then replacing all Ordu Archers with Cavalry but continuing to travel with the other units would be a powerful combination! And of course if Astronomy or Navigation is necessary to reach Domination then that will call for further research.

One last thought: It may be possible to trigger a Golden Age via wonders before triggering it via our special units. Either Colossus or Great Lighthouse will satisfy the expansionist requirement. Any of Great Wall, Sun Tzu's, or Leonardo's Workshop will satisfy the militaristic requirement.

:eek:
o.k., gotm-staff - you made it very special again indeed! i wonder who will make use of the ptw std. uu now? this quadruple-uu is much more exciting - but the ai would never get it this setup right! :goodjob:

@non-bagatur-builders

:lol: not building bagatur hordes! don't you want to see the special m-unit graphics? at least this is a reason for me to build it! ;)

i'd like to add that these uu-s are available with different techs, e.g. turghaut first with feudalism and khorchin last with invention. so you want to create powerful hordes of the both units, you have to wait "some" turns - maybe four, maybe 20. but time is going to run out as this game has to be won at the end of the middle age - to get a good result.
sirpleb has written down some thoughts about how to make sense/use of the time delays in the tech paths between different uu's availabilities.

the additional uu may "retire" at the end of the middle ages. together with that fact there is mentioned a special settler unit though is isn't explained in the features' feature of gotm25. i suspect these units merely can be disbanded to become citizens, just like workers.
OTOH, that these units "cannot be upgraded for military purposes" could mean in cracker-speak they do can be upgraded for civil purposes.
in this case i would suspect a settler equal to the regular settler or in some way "weaker".
but imagine: you get a settler from each unit? aside from some strategically interesting towns you can raise almost all of the alien cities and resettle the map from scratch during the middle ages.

rcp-ring number 4 to 15 is finally possible :lol: - or two rcp-designed cores at once :crazyeye: !

first moves: the zig-zag movement of the scout by SirPleb seems to be a good idea. i will play open class so i am giong to have an additional warrior, too. I would like to send him onto the hill - where i want to place the capitol, too. I'd like to have some defend bonus against the barbs and such?

i'd like to read more about how to make use of start pos. - if some of wines (at least 3 of them) are on bonus grassland i think i could figure out how to run a settler factory. if not .... hmmmm :rolleyes:

any ideas?

thank you for reading this

Whoa! I just realized that the Khorchin likely have lethal bombard ability! If that's true, they are insanely powerful. No need to build any other units. With enough of them (and you can get enough by building Archers and upgrading) you will not risk ANY losses! :eek:

Am I missing something?

Korchin - dont have blitz ability, and they have only 1 defence. They can pack a punch, but they are as defendable as a tower of cards.

Originally posted by bluebox i wonder who will make use of the ptw std. uu now? this quadruple-uu is much more exciting
I agree, I can't imagine using the PTW standard Mongol unit with this SOOOO intriguing group of alternative units. Not to mention that they're so much stronger :)
Originally posted by bluebox
I would like to send him onto the hill - where i want to place the capitol, too. I'd like to have some defend bonus against the barbs and such?
My feeling is that it is better not to settle that tile. When worked by a citizen, wines on hills are a great combination. In Despotism it produces 2 food, 1 shield per turn, and in this case on a river 2 gold, before improvements. This is even a bit better than an unimproved bonus grassland on a river. Mining it to get 2 shield/turn (in Despotism) is perhaps a low priority because of the cost of mining the hills. That will only a high priority if that's the best way to get a settler factory running. But eventually we'll of course do it and that will make this tile even better for a citizen to be working.

Originally posted by bluebox
i'd like to read more about how to make use of start pos. - if some of wines (at least 3 of them) are on bonus grassland i think i could figure out how to run a settler factory. if not .... hmmmm :rolleyes:

any ideas?
I doubt that any of the wines are on bonus grassland, so I'm with you, I don't think that what we see so far will support a four turn settler factory.

A four turn factory has to start its cycle no later than size 5. With the tiles we can see, at size 5 three citizens would have to work wines (to get us up to five food/turn), leaving just two citizens to produce shields. If both of them produce 2 shields, that's just 5 shields for the first turn. 7 shields on the second turn by using a forest gets us to 12. Similarly the next two turns produce at best 7 and 9 shields, totaling 28 by then and leaving us two shields short of a settler at the time we grow to size seven.

But, if we can build it reasonably quickly, the visible tiles seem to theoretically support two five turn settler factories. That would be a rather complex operation. First we'd need two towns with granaries and both having all four grassland wines in their workable area. One option would be that they use the +1 food from the four irrigated wine grasslands in a five turn cycle as follows:
town1: 2,2,0,4,2
town2: 2,2,4,0,2
Each town would also be adding +2 food/turn from its use of grasslands or hills with wines. So:
Town1 could produce a settler on the third and fifth turn of the cycle above.
Town2 could produce a settler on the first and third turn of the cycle.

The big question with this approach is whether it is worthwhile. Can we quickly build two towns with granaries? That depends on what other resources are nearby. A secondary (but related) question is whether those two towns can produce sufficient shields/turn. This part of the question is likely to be a yes answer - they'd only need to produce an average of 6 shields/turn over 5 turns vs. a four turn factory which must average 7.5 shields/turn over 4 turns.

With 11 rivals on a standard size map, expansion room seems likely to be limited. I think it most likely that two 5 turn factories will not be worth the initial investment it would require. Most likely, a single five turn factory will make sense. A second town without a granary can pick up the excess leftover food. Of course this will depend on initial exploration.

And it might be that expansion room is very limited, in which case an eight turn settler factory without a granary (using four irrigated grassland wines, with excess food in each four turn growth cycle used by another town) may be best. Wish I knew what's just beyond visibility in the map so far, but of course that's part of what makes this so much fun :lol:

This is a very interesting point.

I experimented with the 2*5-turn settler factory in a recent game (which I couldn't finish in time due to too much time spent at work... imagine... :rolleyes: ).

My patience with micromanaging is admittedly short-lived, so I messed it up more than once.
Even taking this into account, though, I found out that the investment is indeed considerable, and by the time you have the thing up and running, you may no longer need that settler output.

The thing may be appealing if you can obtain it from a 'traditional' 4-turn settler factory (which was my case), so that you can still expand while waiting for the second city to be ready.
In fact, the second settler factory allowed me to found several cities just in time to fill the last available land tiles.
In the end, I think that a steady 4-settler factory would have brought the same result, with probably a more balance output of military units vs. settlers.


P.S.: Of course, I am amazed at the range of possibilities offered by the quadruple UU. Simply a wonderful idea :worship: I just can't wait to get started -this time, I won't let work get in my way... ;)

One intersting thing about these UU's is that it's not necessary to build a barracks for units that are to be used only in the bombard role. That means you can avoid wasting shields to produce the barracks and 1gpt on it's upkeep.

I've played around recently with the Mongols (of course before the UU improvement which made much of my play time useless in terms of military thinking) and did some playing around with science. I agree with SirPleb that lacking a clear 2nd tier tech really thows the 40 turn gambits into a loop.

I'm not sure i'm brave enough to do no science and hope to catch up through huts and neighbors. What i have done is start masonry at 40 and race to 4-5 scouts to cover as much territory as possible. In a good game, i quickly find the first tier techs and can often get MYST from a neighbor, allowing me to switch to a 40 turn POLY followed by a 40 turn MONARCHY. With the saved gold I can buy my way into the next age.

Now all this was before the new UU. Do I research behind the others saving gold a massive upgrade or spend the gold to get out of the ancient age?

Anyone ever eat at the Mongolian BBQ (there are two in Chicago). If I were there ( currently in Brazil) I'd take my laptop and play the game while eating, maybe it would inspire me more.

Anyone got ideas for science?

Originally posted by serttech2003
Anyone got ideas for science?
I think I'm going to do as SirPleb suggested and start with 0% science initially. I'll try real hard to find goody huts at the start. After that it will depend on the map type. If I can find lots of AIs then I might continue with 0%/min research. If we're island bound then 0%/min research might not be a very good idea :).

I would be very surprised if we're on an island by ourselves though, as cracker tends to give us a chance to use our UU's, and to make the best use of them we would need horses/iron nearby and AI's within easy reach via land (fingers crossed!).

I'm going to switch to cem burial at 0% research as it should be the cheapest tech... that way can trade for it instead of 'wasting' a hut on it.

Trading should be the way forward at this level, as the AIs have considerable advantages for their own research...

Well don't forget - you can't pop the tech you are researching. If nothing else, you want to have selected a dirt-cheap tech like bronze working.
[composed before seeing TriviAl post]

Now that I saw the main page the UU situation makes more sense. That site is blocked for "gaming", but the forums aren't. :D

Cracker likes to put historically correct into play at some level. I doubt the water is a coastal, as the Mongols didn't start on the coast.

I wouldn't expect seawater near our start, either. But then I don't recall seeing rivers near lakes in Civ3 before, and this is an arid terrain (?!). I think I want to verify the water type before settling.

I'm not much of a settler mover, but if I move the settler I'll get another food bonus to work. But if I leave the settler where he is there will be at least 8 workable tiles with commerce bonus once the borders expand. If I move, say, NE, I'll have 7 river bonuses after expansion. Okay, that's not as big a difference as I first thought, and the second city will likely pick up what the first one misses, anyway.

I have a feeling this starting point is the most fertile spot of land we will have for an age and a half. I want my early city placement to be perfect, so I'm thinking about scouting with the scout and worker for a turn or two before settling.

I haven't done this before, but I understand it's possible to create my own map using the downloaded units and rules for GOTM25. If I do this to test out the unit play and costs and the confusion about apparently retiring the UU's to steppe settlers, is that considered cheating?

peanut - thanks for the document. I will find it quite useful.

here's peanut's unit summary as graphic if it helps:

http://www.discoveryproductions.com/gotm25units.gif

For myself, I think I will stay true to the 'horde' mentality. I'll go for monarchy as fast as I can, and then stay there all game. My cities will build a barracks, and that is about it as far as improvements.

I think I will space cities to get to size 6 or so max with the target of 10spt coming in..they may have to get bigger to hit that number. Once that is done, i'll crank units and upgrade. The rest of my game will be focused around building units and dominating the world.

I'll rely on the dozens of leaders I plan to get for my wonder needs. ;)

Short and simple. Course, my plan will probably get shot all to hell as the map is exposed and then I'll have to punt.

First, a question: Gingerbreadman indicates that the Korchin cannot blitz, and I cannot find any reference to it having blitz ability either. But, it looks like SirPleb is thinking they can blitz. Can anyone give a definitive word on this critical difference?

My plan is subject to the whims of the map, but here are my thoughts:

The Minor tribes may be close to the starting position, so I may build a small military early to take them. This could possibly overrule the need for a settler factory depending on terrain/rival cities proximity. Close enemy proximity may also rule out RCP.

My overall plan is predictable and will revolve around having a large military waiting for upgrade when Feudalism/Chivalry/Invention become available. An immediate invasion will follow. Lots of cities in ancient age will be necessary for units needed.

Like SirPleb, given the number of civs and my starting techs, I probably will not research anything initially. If I make some early trades I may try for 40 turn mysticism or something later. If we happen to be on a landmass with only a few civs, then this plan will change quickly.

Great Library, Leonardo and Pyramids will support this plan (listed in order of importance). If I have a high production city or leaders I may try for one or two. I will probably not build Libraries, Temples, etc. early because of military needs, although a few for culture would be nice, and may be built by default if I have trouble building a large treasurey for unit upgrades. Militaristic trait will virtually eliminate the need for Sun Tzu.

My scout will probably move W unless those two squares on the western side of the river look like plains (I can’t tell from the screenshot). Settler will probably go NE hoping for room for a second food-rich city in the start area, but if there isn’t enough room I may settle on the spot.

I am foretelling my military makeup based on three assumptions:
1) only the Ordu Archer and Bagatur Horde can blitz, not the Khorchin horse or Turghaut Cavalry. That means the two former units can possibly bombard 3 times per turn.
2) the Ordu Archer gets two shots (like a cannon) compared to the Korchin Horse’s one (like a catapult) per bombardment. I believe this gives the Ordu the better bombardment abilities overall, even though his strength is a four compared to a six. Plus, his blitz abilities should make for rapid promotions. AND he can be upgraded to cavalry.
3) Death by lethal bombardment does not give promotions, leaders or a GA. Does anyone know if this is the way lethal bombardment works?

If this is the case, I expect to build 2-3 horsemen (Gosposdar) for each warrior/swordsman and archer. Of course, this ratio will not manifest until just prior to the middle ages. Hopefully, when the upgrade techs become available, I will have about 5 stacks consisting of roughly 8-9 Ordu Archers, 3 Khorchin horse and 3 Turghaut Cavalry. When Bagatur Hordes are available, I will build as many as I can as early as possible. They look both versatile and deadly.

Originally posted by bradleyfeanor
First, a question: Gingerbreadman indicates that the Korchin cannot blitz, and I cannot find any reference to it having blitz ability either. But, it looks like SirPleb is thinking they can blitz.
My understanding is that only the Bagatur Horde can blitz, that none of the other special units can. I think the Ordu Archer gets two shots in the same sense that Cannons do, a single command directing both shots to the same place.

I think the Ordu's can blitz. The post says:

"Your first unique unit is the Ordu Archer...When combined with a zone of control and blitz ability at a cost of 50 shields and an eventual upgrade to cavalry..."

If this is correct, then at full movement that would essentially make it a stack of 6 catapults!!!

Originally posted by bradleyfeanor
I think the Ordu's can blitz. The post says:

"Your first unique unit is the Ordu Archer...When combined with a zone of control and blitz ability at a cost of 50 shields and an eventual upgrade to cavalry..."

If this is correct, then at full movement that would essentially make it a stack of 6 catapults!!!
Wow, so it does! I missed that :blush: That changes my thinking about these guys, they look a lot better now :)

As your average gotm newbie and peaceful vanilla civ player I was quite confused by the game anouncement - therefore I dived straight into the dusty manual, the civopedia and most importantly the scenario editor. My focus was on the special units.

Although I read one or two confusing and probably false statements about bombarding stats in this thread, most people seem to agree that "archery barrage ability of A/B/C" refers to a bombardement ability with
A = attack value (=6 except Ordu=4)
B = range (always =1 = adjacent squares)
C = RoF, rate of fire (=1 except Ordu=2).

Korchins have single lethal shots, able to kill via bombardement. A successful bombardement in Civ3 can either kill a city's PP, destroy a building or do exactly *one* damage to a defending unit. So far so good.

But I wondered how the blitz ability (= multiple attacks pt) would affect bombardement, since at least in vanilla civ there is NO such unit. I made a test scenario and gave my civ a starting land unit with ADM(1/30/3), RoF=2 and blitz ability. The result was - at least to me - astonishing: The unit can REDLINE a regular defender (due to RoF=2) THRICE PER TURN (due to M3).

Now, SirPleb...either you didn't know that (what I doubt;)), or you didn't read the anouncement carefully - but both the Ordu Archer and the Bagatur Horde will have blitz. This means Ordus cannot attack twice per turn at strength 4, but :nuke:SIX TIMES:nuke:!
EDIT: Yes you apparently got that by now before I was able to post this post :rolleyes:

What raises the question, do we need the other attackers? Sure, as Ordus can hardly finish off any D2+. Both Khorchins and Bagaturs can do that task, depending on the defender bonus. Probably lethal shots at Pike-/Musketmen, and the Horde will roll over any D1 stuff left. The Bagatur Horde Arrows might even prove more effective against Musketmen than Ordu Arrows due to their higher attack rating - I'll have to read the bombing math thread again...

All UUs will have a Zone of Control. Not sure if this can get important, probably depends on how many UUs we can raise at all, and of course what the enemies will build (perhaps even something unique?!)

Still there are some important unanswered questions:
1. Can bombardement result in promotion?
2. Can elite bombardement result in GLs?
3. Will all 4 UUs be GA triggers?
4. What does the Turghaut's "defensive archery" mean? I can only think of a bomb-rating for the ZoC, but without the active bomb-ability. If that's the case, how do we (and cracker!) know which attack value will be taken?! The editor doesn't reveal the slightest hint.

And finally: Am I right in assuming the Mongols traits in the Civ1.29f version will be Militaristic and Expansionist? :)

Originally posted by karmina
Still there are some important unanswered questions:
1. Can bombardement result in promotion?
2. Can elite bombardement result in GLs?
3. Will all 4 UUs be GA triggers?
4. What does the Turghaut's "defensive archery" mean?
1. No
2. No
3. Only the GOTM Gods know this.
4. Bombard range of zero.

PS. Still not getting how the AI is going to manage to kill even one of my units in my stacks of gazillion upgraded Archers with their 3-move lethal bombard...

... what exactly are these strange beings that some obsolete military units can retire to become ? Some options :

1) Perhaps they are just like settlers, but faster moving. Very useful !

2) Perhaps they can be sent off into the wilderness (ie. your neighbour's territory) to pitch their dilapidated yurts, from which they occasionally emerge to pillage surrounding lands. Not unlike Terry Pratchett's geriatric barbarians. Lots of fun !

3) Perhaps they just settle in retirement villages on the edge of your cities, complain about their miniscule army pension and the fact that these newfangled units their sons have joined never visit them, and contribute to general unhappiness.

4) Perhaps they camp on the landing between the first and second floors of your palace and whinge about the housing shortage. Oh ... oops ... that's the step settlers ... a different unit ... sorry.

I can't wait to see these and other mysteries of the Central Asian plains unveiled in a few days time.

@Puppeteer:
You cannot play gotm25 material without the save game, because all rules including unit stats are inside the .sav file.
All you got with the 7MBs by now are the graphics, the sounds, and the new civiliopedia, which does not even contain unit stats and requirements.

In essence, you simply cannot cheat until November 1st :)

@alexman:
1.2.3.: Thanks!
4.:"Bombard range of Zero"
?
?
?
fine...and that means...how does it work?!?

@Peanut:
LOL (don't let Cohen hear you! :lol: )

No, honestly, I do think the Steppe Settlers will be the Mercy Game Killer for those players who didn't manage to dominate by entering IA (people like me) :goodjob:

Originally posted by karmina
4.:"Bombard range of Zero"
?
?
?
fine...and that means...how does it work?!?


It means that you get a free shot at units attacking your stack (just like all bombard units do), but you can't actually bombard anything during your turn. See the Peltast in GOTM 21.

Originally posted by Peanut
what exactly are these strange beings that some obsolete military units can retire to become ? Some options : ...
:lol:

5) Perhaps it turns out that they weren't really Mongols, they were adopted? No, wait, that's the other step settler unit...

Seriously though, once the GOTM Gods stop laughing from all the obvious mistakes and things we're missing in this thread (I'm sure that's Cracker's laugh I'm hearing) I hope they will answer another question or two:

What specifically enables the Steppe Settlers? (A particular tech?) And once they're enabled, can we still build the special units, or are those happy days of mayhem over?

I just realized another way the Khorchin may be uniquely valuable.

If we take a city by first raining a gazillion arrows on it, by the time we're ready to take what's left it won't be much :) Badly wounded defenders, some broken buildings, one citizen, lots of ears to be bagged and sent home, and arrows all over the place. The one citizen part is the problem. If the city had no culture and we destroy the remaining defenders in hand to hand combat, poof, the city will be gone. (Auto-razed.) But what if a Khorchin kills the last defender with a lethal shot? Can we just waltz into an undefended size one city and take it over without killing the remaining population?

I don't remember ever doing this. Does anyone know what happens (auto-raze or capture) if a military unit enters an undefended size one city?

Originally posted by SirPleb
I don't remember ever doing this. Does anyone know what happens (auto-raze or capture) if a military unit enters an undefended size one city? As it happens I just did that in SG23. Barbs had raided an Ottoman city down to no defenders, and it was at pop 1. My swordsman walked in and took the city, and it didn't auto-raze. I was a little surprised, but grateful, as we are trying for domination, so that's one less settler to find.

That doesn't sound right, at least in PTW. Whenever you conquer a size-1 city that has less than 10 culture points (for all civs, including previous owners), the city gets auto-razed, even if it had no defenders.

I think in vanilla Civ3 it was sufficient to have 1 culture point for not getting razed, but I can't remember for sure.

Originally posted by AlanH
As it happens I just did that in SG23. Barbs had raided an Ottoman city down to no defenders, and it was at pop 1. My swordsman walked in and took the city, and it didn't auto-raze. I was a little surprised, but grateful, as we are trying for domination, so that's one less settler to find.

This could be very key, as the rampaging hordes, with their moves of 3, will be able to outpace our settlers anyway, and we certainly don't want someone else coming in and taking our new land. This tactic can be used to capture key cities intact, at least until our msyterious Steppe Settlers appear to fill in the gaps.

Edit: Or Not, if Alexman's right, he posted while I was typing. It could still be useful, to take out key defenders, but you would have to start while the population was still a little higher (5-6 maybe, so at least you are past the defensive bonus). Kill off any wounded Muskets, then use brute force to finish off the last few.

The possibilities for using the combined arms of these different UUs is awesome. My only fear at this point is that we must be facing some kind of supercharged opponents, as I know this cannot be the cakewalk that it sounds like.

Hi,

I am not familiar with Demi-God level. I assume this is harder than diety level? Is there a description for this somewhere?

I realize that by asking this question I should not be playing at this difficulty level. Still I may get better someday.

;)

I've walked into size 1 cities with no defenders and had them razed before.

Darn. I just made a PTW scenario with some towns prebuilt, to test autorazing of undefended size one towns. They autorazed when I walked into them. :(

Originally posted by captain chaos
I am not familiar with Demi-God level. I assume this is harder than diety level? Is there a description for this somewhere?


Demi-God is a new level between Emperor and Deity. It will be implemented in the new Conquests game which is supposed to be out in November. However, cracker has already taken advantage of it for us.

Welcome to GOTM. Anyone can play here. Start out on the Conquest level and you will be surprised at how much success you can have.

Originally posted by zagnut


Welcome to GOTM. Anyone can play here. Start out on the Conquest level and you will be surprised at how much success you can have.

Thanks Zagnut

I played gotm24 on conquest and found it hard . I played 6-2 Persia on conquest and found it easy.:)

I will probably play the Mongols on conquest.

Originally posted by SirPleb
Darn. I just made a PTW scenario with some towns prebuilt, to test autorazing of undefended size one towns. They autorazed when I walked into them. :(

SirPleb : Did you let them build up to their first cultural expansion first (ie. culture 10+) ? Could that make any difference ?

and how about ...

6) Steppe settlers, being retired military units, automatically build walled retirement settlements and deduct from treasury the cost of a hospital, temple and a golf course. Their settlements start out very cultured as a result of their world travels, but sadly they are quite incapable of population growth no matter how hard they try. They generate lots of income from their carefully hoarded war booty, and their entertainers are cheap as they can recycle their material from a century earlier. They don't do a lot of new scientific research, but look on the bright side - they will offer you enormous amounts of gratuitious advice on how you should be running your wars, as well as reminding you just how tough life used to be when they were young.

How about:

Steppe settlers can build a city that can not grow beyond it's initial size of 9 tiles, but it can be moved, ala the yurt? It could migrate to follow the herds, if you will, and attach to any local bonuses that it may find (but perhaps also wear them out sooner). Alternately, a city that, being horse based, doesn't require roads to take full advantage of the tiles in it's ZOC? All tiles would work as of fully roaded. Of course, this would lose value in the IA, when railroads are all the rage... Your thoughts on my thoughts would be appreciated.

Also, a thought on "Asian Melee" or whatever it's being called, even if this is the wrong venue: You could play your choice of civ (from a given list, as re-introduced in the past few GOTM's), all competing with the same goal (or perhaps even diffferent VC's)!

Pax Annihilatum!

Just thinking about how the actual rules work, becuase even cracker has to obey them (most of the time ;) ).

I would therefore suggest that the steepes settlers are units that the unique units (and only the unique units) can be upgraded to. Essentially, it is just a means of "upgrading" a unit to a settler. :)

why is it that the Mongol UU's are weaker than the units they replace?

Originally posted by sims2789
why is it that the Mongol UU's are weaker than the units they replace?

I think the point of the apparent "weakness" of the individual units is that they can be a combined arms force that is far more powerful than the original Keshik. As Cracker stated, generalship was essential to the Mongols, and this unique setup will make us also think much more strategicaly than simply moving a SoD next to an AI civ and rolling them over. Should be quite fun :)

Originally posted by Peanut
SirPleb : Did you let them build up to their first cultural expansion first (ie. culture 10+) ? Could that make any difference?
I didn't test that but have done so now. Moving into the city at culture 9 autorazes, moving in at culture 10 gives the option to keep it. (This is with PTW 1.27)

and of course ...

7) Steppe settlers settle steppes. They want to retire with their horses to a plain life on the plains. Plain plains with no forests or luxuries. They should not be confused with the steep settler unit who will only settle on hills and mountains.

Just thinking about the Steppe Settler. If in fact it is an upgrade from our military units to actual Settlers, this could be an unstoppable way to leap to the domination limit. First, of course, by founding multiple towns, we are adding tiles toward the limit, but more significantly, we are taking dozens of military units, and turning them into population points!!! Particularily on an arid map, the potential of maybe doubling our population at that point in time, whether by building new towns or joining them to cities, could be huge.

On second thought, IIRC the eqWorker could not be joined to cities, so maybe Cracker has made it so that the Steppe Settler also cannot be joined to an existing city. Still, by founding mulitple cities, someone who hadn't reached domination yet could quickly "upgrade" their way into dozens of small towns, adding both territory and population.

As a special Halloween treat for all you faithful players,

we have a quick Mongol Treat game available for you to play around with:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67238

If you want to play the Mongol Treat game before you tackle Gotm25. then you can use it as a unit trainer game and go for a little bit of bloody 1 on 2 conquest gaming.

Have fun and don't let the goblins get you! ;)

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/2003images/gotm_treat_frontier_horde.jpg

Here's an interesting thought on the UU's and the GA. What if it takes victories by all 4 units to trigger a GA? Don't know how feasible that would be from the rules editor point of view, but it certainly would be a way to encourage a balanced horde... :eek:

Originally posted by cracker
[B]As a special Halloween treat for all you faithful players,

we have a quick Mongol Treat game available for you to play around with:


Thanks!!!

[dance][dance][dance]

Originally posted by SirPleb

I didn't test that but have done so now. Moving into the city at culture 9 autorazes, moving in at culture 10 gives the option to keep it. (This is with PTW 1.27)
Sounds like the cunning plan may just work - as long as those hordes wait patiently for the borders to expand first ...

... and maybe ...

8) Steeped Settlers are those veterans who overindulged in the produce of those five vinyards back home at their farewell demobilization celebrations. They ended up staggering into the wrong yurts and woke up the next day very confused and nursing a shocking headache.

... Perhaps we should stop before Cracker steps in and stamps this out ...

... "Stopped Settlers"? :D

I have been puzzling about how the UUs have both A/D/M and B/R/F values. No other unit has both. My conclusion is that if you attack (that is, “run into”) another unit, the A value is applied. If you bombard (that is, use the B key and pick a tile), the B value is applied. If you attack and win, you will move automatically (assuming you kill the last unit on the tile), but if you bombard, you stay still.

It will be interesting to see if you can bombard and then move. If so, the Bagatur Hordes will be a lot of fun.

Now that cracker has given us a test game, we can actually chek out some of our theories--thanks!

Back to GOTM 25 itslef:

About early wars: Seems to me a few Archer raids might be a good idea to increase breathing room. The Turghaut Cavalry is an upgraded Swordsman, so maybe a few Sword raids might be useful while waiting for Feudalism. I’m taking small campaigns, a city here and there for more space and booty. In fairness, let me say that I plan to play Conquest; these ideas might play out differently against demi-god build levels (then again an early crippling blow might be even more useful there).

Infrastructure: I think a Temple or Marketplace will be needed in big cities before embarking on campaigns. When the MPs leave demi-god level cities, unrest may follow. (I assume this applies to Conquest-level as well—only the AI build ratio is mentioned as changed, nit the human unhappiness factor).

By the way, I think Steppe Settlers are folks who use exercise machines (SteppeMasters...) before attacking. After all, as Gary Larson taught us all "Even Vikings knew the value of a good stretch before attacking"

A small thought about the UU's....
If a unit has blitz, 3 moves, and bombard shouldn't it be able to bombard then attack three times? Assuming it survives of course.

If so theese units are incredible strong. Combined with steppe settlers domination victory is the flavor of the day.

I belive peace will be as imortant as war in this game. To support the mongol hordes we need o make loads of cash or build lots of cities. To do this we need good trade agreements to sell our wine,atleast at the start when we dont have so many cities. Tech bartering will not be a choice if we wage to much war. I belive that we MUST be the greatest nation in the game by the end of middle ages.

Well i'm a first timer GTOM player so i'll go easy on you. Why use up all the beginners luck at once.

Fun facts about Mongolia:
In mid 80's the Swedish government recieved an official complaint about using the word mongoloid to describe a berson with Down's syndrome, this complaint was straight from the Mongolian ambassador.

I believe they are really Step settlers, they tapdance badly outside the foreign governor's mansion until he flees the field and you get that city for free.

Been thinking of the the starting position, and I remember I had a game long ago when I used irrigated wines for 3 cities to share. They all build settlers and warriors in sequence and of course the random worker in between. We will need workers in this game.

I don't remember exactly how I did it, but something like this:

First city use irrigated wines till they get close to 3 pop, then move citizens to shields, second city takes over and up their pop. First city build settler, on to warrior or whatever..third city uses wines for a few turns to up their population. And round we go. This was made without granaries, I decided barracks was better for that game...but then, this is a different game and it maybe won't work.

I really have to check where I put my first 3 cities and they will be close, like 2 tiles in between. But we know nothing or little of the rest of the area outside our first boundaries, but I think my best bet will be to ignore granary this time to build up a fair force of military as well as a decent amount of settlers AND workers.

IF I only could figure out how to utilize all these new units in a nice way, I would be happy.

And perhaps I should just chicken out and go back to Open, I win on Predator but I never felt comfy since I started that...

FYI, we have the zipped package of support files for the MAC version of the game.

This zip pack includes the same files that were downloaded for the PC v1.29 setup but does not copy over the necessary sound files to support the new units. There is a copy of the script text file included in the download pack to show you all the file locates and copies that the autoinstaller does for the PC Civ3v1.29 players automagically.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/saves/gotm25_files_for_mac.zip

Originally posted by DaveShack
Here's an interesting thought on the UU's and the GA. What if it takes victories by all 4 units to trigger a GA? Don't know how feasible that would be from the rules editor point of view, but it certainly would be a way to encourage a balanced horde... :eek:

There is a "Starts Golden Age" flag in the editor for various units. No way of making it so that four victories are needed....

My Masterplan?
Well, everything depends on if it will be possible to establish at least a mediocre kingdom plus about a dozend unbound units plus enough money for upgrading at the end of the AA. I'll rather wait a really long time for Construction/Currency discount offers than spending all my saved money on rushing into the MA. GL we will only get with luck - with a leader. As somebody already pointed out, SunTzu is not important, since barracks are cheap and bombarding units don't need them anyway. Workshop would be great of course, but rather improbable without a leader. The Great Wall could turn out useful, too...(although cracker might have given it already to some southern Chinese kingdom, who knows ;)?)

About the UUs I've talked enough already. All in all, the Mongolian MA should prove that the ideas of Total War and Blitzkrieg not actually originated in the sick brain of a certain selfnamed Greatest Leader Of All Times, whose name I will not utter here...

On a closer look the mysterious Steppe Settlers seem to make some deeper sense indeed:
We are supposed to wreak havoc on our enemies via bombardement, not sparing civilians, right? And we ought to find mostly arid terrain despite our unusual starting position, right? And we at least want to unleash the Horde over the whole map in a short Blitzkrieg. All this might well result in a completely devastated continent, leaving only a couple of lonely villages.
Now imagine some strong far-away civ, perhaps even on another continent. Although we might easily reach the domination tile limit at that point, the population issue will be something completely different...if it wasn't for the Steppe Settlers! :goodjob:

...So, "Pest Settlers"? :D

Originally posted by King Of America
I have been puzzling about how the UUs have both A/D/M and B/R/F values. No other unit has both.

Except Frigates, Ironclads, Destroyers, Battleships, AEGIS cruisers...
;)

Originally posted by alexman
Except Frigates, Ironclads, Destroyers, Battleships, AEGIS cruisers...
;)
Yes, you are right. Unfortunately we do not have the ability to engage the lobe of the AI brain that implements naval power strategy, just on land for a unit in the land power mode. Instead we get fixated semi-functional one task units in the AI mode unless we apply a more creative set of solutions at theg ame setup level.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Hyland
A small thought about the UU's....
If a unit has blitz, 3 moves, and bombard shouldn't it be able to bombard then attack three times? Assuming it survives of course.


Bombard takes a move, so bombard and move 2 times, based on all other bombard units that I've seen.

Does anyone know how these new unique units will work when loaded into an army? Will we be able to bombard with an army?

Any thoughts on what happens if we have a mixed army? ie a Turgut, an Ordu and a Korchin in the same army

I'm thinking that an early war is necessary to get an early army so we can build the heroic epic by the Middle ages.

I think it will difficult to take walled towns with these units. A fortified pike behind a wall is going to be tough. I wonder if Cracker has modded the AI's to build walls more often?

Thanks to Cracker and company for another extremely intriguing game.

My inclination is to settle across the river to avoid wasting a bonus food (probably rare). With a 5-turn settler factory due to shield shortage, Karakorum will only need 3 grass wines for 2 turns and 2 grass wines for 3 turns. A city to the west will use the other wines.

I'll send my warrior to the hill to the north and my scout to the west to see if there's anything in that direction to make my settler move undesirable.

I appreciate all of the discussion on the units. My thoughts lie in the same direction. Another twist is to use settlers to burrow into the enemies territory to maximize the range of the units (see Moonsinger's article on artillery).

My playing time usually starts late and ends much later after my brain is weak. I intend to try approaching this as a succession game, limiting each session to 10 turns (after the first 20). This will encourage me to make the most of the limited turns and give me time to reflect between sessions.

I'll probably play the Halloween surprise in parallel with the GOTM. The knowledge gained from the quick game will be helpful but won't have a great impact on my very early moves.

May Sitatara (http://www.asianart.com/mongolia/sitatara.html) grant wisdom and long life to all players and staff.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/sitatara.jpg

Originally posted by Justus II
The possibilities for using the combined arms of these different UUs is awesome. My only fear at this point is that we must be facing some kind of supercharged opponents, as I know this cannot be the cakewalk that it sounds like.

I think it might be a cakewalk, once you assemble your horde, if you use them appropriately. It was certainly a cakewalk for the historical Mongols. The catch may be in the difficulty level - it's getting to the key techs in reasonable time that is the main challenge.

I was also thinking that the blitz ability has to be weighed against the overall weakness of the individual unit - in other words, how many times do you want to attack with a weak unit, even if it can? I only have to think of how many times I've lost tanks on the second blitz effort to think twice about abusing this ability.

Edit: thanks for the catch, Svar.

Originally posted by Txurce
I only have to think of how many times I've lost cavalry and tanks on the second blitz effort to think twice about abusing this ability.

My cavalry doesn't have blitz ability only tanks and MA.

I did a quick Deity pre game. All my production was directed to military, and I finished with domination without a single library, aqueduct and only a few marketplaces. This was with the weak default PTW Keshik. I recommend all you builders try something different in this game and just go for domination/conquest, with all those UUs it shouldn't be so hard, but interesting and it will be fun!

First off, what great work by the GOTM leadership. The new units look terrific and the new scenario they present is a very thought provoking one.

My first thoughts on the starting location, is lots of food but not many shields. This may be the case for a couple of small cities, without granaries replacing a single 4-turn settler factory.

I think I’ll move the worker SE to start and the scout W-W to see what’s about. I’ll probably settle my first city NE of starting tile. My initial goal will be to build a couple more scouts to get a quick understanding of the surrounding terrain and who my neighbors are. Trying hard to find as many huts as possible to push my minimally funded science. I’ll probably go for The Wheel first as it should be the cheapest available tech. If I can get the Alphabet either through trade or hut, then Writing will be tech # 2. Between building settlers, I’ll try for a barracks in each city followed by veteran archers for MP duty. My initial expansion goals will be on a north-south axis, hopefully finding a coastline to form a solid defensive rear position for my expansions. The exception to this will be in trying to claim horses and iron as soon as possible. My only AA Wonder target will be the Great Library. If I get it, I’ll turn off science to build an upgrade bank account. If I find myself crowded for either space or resources, an early archer/horse based war is very possible. This should be the third game in a row with less than three naval units

Government wise, I see a get to monarchy and ride it a long way. With the despotism penalties gone, our starting point will probably produce settlers to the end of the game. An early FP near the core is a good probability, with a GL induced capital move happening to create the second core. This is probably not an RCP game.

My probable war strategy, will be to raze opponents smaller cities to remove the culture flip possibilities and to increase the slave population I’ll need to connect my soon to be vast empire. Once the satellite cites are gone encircle the core and quickly reduce it’s production capabilities and take away one large city at time until the are gone, then move on to the next target. I’ll try to stay on honorable footing with the other AI and maybe enlist an ally or to reduce their science pace. Depending on the layout, it might be possible to remove an AI or two before they meet anyone else.

For my attack plans, probably use 2/3 Turghaut Cavalry for stack protection and 6/8 Ordu Archers bombarding to soften up the target, followed by either Korchin or Bagatur attacks to complete the conquest.

Of course, we could end up on a 12 x 12 island with no iron or horses, then it all changes!!! Somebody (besides Cracker), will know in about 8 hours. :D

:beer:

I'm wondering whether this steppes settler business means that you upgrade the unit to a steppes settler, or whether the unit has settling ability. If the latter, then it will be very exploitive - move two squares into AI territory, then settler. This creates room for the next to move another two squares into the next territory, settle etc. Would make blitzkreig a scary reality; but an exploitive one.

I'm thinking this Steppes settler is a small (5-10) charge (maybe even free) upgrade from the current combat unit to a non-combatant unit with settler ablility.

My plan is to raze most AI cities and then fill in their spots later with retiring military units.

:beer:

Quote:Originally posted by denyd
"Of course, we could end up on a 12 x 12 island with no iron or horses, then it all changes!!! Somebody (besides Cracker), will know in about 8 hours."

At what time is the saves aproximately avalible for download?
GMT +?

Is that time also the deadline for submitting finished games?

Its been 1:st for an hour and i'd like a peek at my yurt before nap time ;)

Yeah, where's the game!? It has been UTC/GMT 00:00 since a long time ago!!!

If you just can't wait, I highly recommend trying the Mongols Halloween Treat Game (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67238&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=1). It is good fun and answers many of the questions in this thread. (Check its Civilopedia under "Steppe Settler" for instance.)

We will wait an extra hour to give our friend Drazek a small lesson in expected standards of conduct and patience. ;)

Posting obnoxious "where is it" messages is one of those signs that one may not be paying minimal attention to the things that are available to do all around you in preparation for the real game when it is available.

Past experience has shown us that, quite frankly, those players who are in such an infernal rush to play the game that they fail to take advantage of all the tools that are available around them, end up rushing through the game, playing like total crap, and then can barely contribute coherently to the discussion that follow and or accompany the game.

Be a thoughtful player and thoughtful person. Your whole outlook on life will be enhanced.

Originally posted by cracker
We will wait an extra hour to give our friend Drazek a small lesson in expected standards of conduct and patience. ;)


Blah, I _already_ played a pre-game and the nice Halloween treat game, well, ok, now I'm going to sleep. Perhaps I'll score well after this. Heh, what a thought. :)

The only reasons why I rush through the game is to
A)Get it done and have time for those things I should be doing instead of civving
B)be finished in time for the Medal Play games

Either that, or I'm just having SOOOO much fun!

EDIT: please, I dont want to be a nag, but THE ANTICIPATION IS KILLING ME! I'm going crazy. But this will be worth the wait, I'm sure.

Game files should now be available for all versions of the Gotm25-Mongols game.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/2003images/gotm25_splash.jpg

Just a few quick reminders to make sure you have a successful game experience:

Do not fail to read the readme.txt file that is included with every downloaded package that contains the game starting save files.
Players in all versions of the PTW software will need to manually replace their copy of the Pediacons.txt file that is located in the gotm25 scenario folder before playing.
Players in Civ3v1.29 version of the software will need to make certain that the downloads for Gotm21, Gotm23, Gotm24, and Gotm25 are installed before playing. These downloads fully upgrade your game software to include the equivalent of all the PTW civilizations and unique units.

Remember, that if you have any technical difficulties, contact me by PM or email and include the version of the software you are playing as well as the exact filenames of the gamepacks that you have downloaded and installed plus the exact filename of the starting save game zip file that you have tried to load.

Good luck, and have fun hacking and maiming your way to the preordained birthright of the Mongol people.

I got booted from the game PTW version1.27? I tried to build a Gospodar horseman. gave me a no horseman/horsemandeath.flc file. I didn't know where to post this so I hope it's ok here. I just copied the flc file from the standard horseman file, hope this works. I was playing the open version, save file.

I have a problem with a missing (so called) Anda Awordsman, yes, "Awordsman", probably a typpo, furthermore, after i copied the folder "Anda Swordsman" and renamed it (together with the .ini file in it) the Awordsman-way, and tried again to build an "Awordsman", there where more missing files (the fortify.wav file).
What should I do (not build swordsmen? :lol: )

PM me with specifics of your game and the Anda Swordsman issue and then I might have a chance of hunting down the source of the problem. - cracker

Forgot to say that am playing PTW 1.27f

Have the same problem with all UU's.
Also when they are build i get dumped.

Sad but true....

Yep,

Same for me. Anda Awordsman and Gospodar both give errors. :cry:

PM me with specifics of your game and the Anda Swordsman issue and then I might have a chance of hunting down the source of the problem. - cracker

Ladies and gentleman,

Posting behavior like this instead of sending me a PM has almost no value because it does not get the information to me quickly to solve any potential problems.

It also creates spin off problems and potential confusion.

PM me with the specifics of your software version and the specific version of the game you are playing and I will loacte the problem if one exists.

Thankfully users name "ltccone" and "Hyland" PM'd me as requested and this gave me the info needed to locate a typo in the Gospodar.ini file here is a tiny 1k zip that contains a copy of the Gospodar.ini file that corrects the typo:

I also have an error with the Anda Swordsman.
the game looks for
\Art\units\Anda Awordsman\Anda Awordsman.INI instead of
\Art\units\Anda Swordsman\Anda Swordsman.INI (which is the file I have in this directory)

thanks a lot for your work cracker

EDIT : sorry I didn't see other post speaking about this pb

First timer Question:
In the discussions during play what and how much can you tell without it is considered cheating?

Is there a text somwhere that i overlooked on this subject?

Originally posted by Hyland
First timer Question:
In the discussions during play what and how much can you tell without it is considered cheating?

Is there a text somwhere that i overlooked on this subject?

Look here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/gen/1st_visit.shtml) to start. Also on the Gtom home page there is a link (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/gen/rules2.shtml) to some allowed/disallowed exploits.

Thank you for the links, but I have read thoose pages several times and it dosent say what you are allowed to discuss. Mabye i'm blind or stupid...

...when i think of it probably both ;)

In this thread you are not allowed to post anything you discover while playing the game and you are in fact discouraged from posting here at all after you've started.

After about a week or so, another thread will be opened in which you can discuss what has happened at the start of your game - usually up to the end of the Ancient Age - and that thread will detail what is allowed.

1-2 more threads will be opened as the month goes on to discuss further into the game. If you'd like an example just check out the first post by Cracker in each of the spoiler threads for last months game (GOTM24.)

I hope this is the info you were looking for. :)

PS - After a 2 month hiatus because of a move, I'm glad to be back for what looks like a really cool GOTM!

I'm not starting the game until Monday, so I've had a little longer than usual to give it some thought. The various UU's are so powerful en masse that I don't think there's much difference among the various combinations - circumstances will dictate my ultimate ratio. What's worth keeping in mind is that any combination requires a lot of units to succeed. The key to an early domination win in this game (before cavalry) could well be based on the ability to generate a large enough medieval army. And that, in turn, is only going to happen if you expand enough early to pump out plenty of gold and units prior to samurai code and invention... while keeping up in research, so that you're not facing muskets and cavalry (or riflemen!) by the time your horde gets past your neighbors.

Given the demigod difficulty level, saving gold and keeping abreast in research won't be easy if you don't get the Great Library. As a result, I think contact with all of the unusually large number of civs is essential, as it will allow a great opportunity for tech brokering. I also think at least one war with swords will be required to have enough cities to generate all those units and gold; if we're lucky, it'll be with some of those three mysterious minor civs. One way to encapsulate all this is that the UU half of the game will go only as well as the setup did - there's little chance to bounce back from a slow start with this UU.

Like Txurce, I won't be able to start right away although everyting is loaded up and ready (Open Mac 1.29).

Any time I do find between now and the middle of next week will be spent understanding the UUs capibilities.

One observation I have though of the starting position provided is that I believe there is a sixth wines to the west.

What does this mean interms of city development? Is it possible to get two cities putting out settlers at 5 turns?

Expansion will be key. Lots of towns to create lots of units to upgrade. Gold will be an issue and although it causes me a bit of a headshake, SirPleb's discussion of 0 research amy be the way to go.

With regards to the steppe settlers, there have been a couple of games where I have hammered the enemy but have not been able to fill the gaps as quickly as I would like so as to achieve domination. I believe the steepe settlers (upgrading redundant and superfluous units) are the mechanism to do this beofre the industrial age.

Have fun, I know I will.

Some really great discussion here guys. I thoroughly enjoyed SirPleb's analysis as well as all the others, but my thinking is much like his. I usually build a lot of culture and I think I may change that this time around. It will be tough, because I can be pretty set in my playing pattern, but just so we are clear, the target victory condition here is domination? That means a certain percentage of land mass and population, correct?

I am currently playing a Mongol game and have to say I greatly welcome the new UU's for this GOTM, as the Keshik is useless whenever mountains are not nearby. I will play the Hallowe'en game first, to get an idea of how the UU's will function. This will help with decisions in the real game.

Good luck to all!

Great job by the GOTM staff, btw :goodjob:

The ideas here have really helped, as I am not a dominion type player. I'm not going to play the Halloween game because I really like both the surprise of the new things and {even though I usually lose} I like to compare myself to the others who play the open version of the game.

It would seem essential to get maybe 2 Settler factories if possible. It'll probably be necessary to pack your "villages" a little closer than usual, as you'll be behind in research so you'll have to overwhelm with numbers.

Good luck all.

P.S. I'll probably play this one fast as I'll want to install Conquests and I WON'T until I'm finished with GOTM or Cracker says I can.:mischief:

Originally posted by Sabre


I hope this is the info you were looking for. :)



Exactly that! Thanks

Just for the record, DO NOT install Conquests until you make a mirror install copy of your Existing Civ3 installation that will allow you to continue playing games with PTW and Civ3v1.29 unaltered by the Conquests installation.

Thunderfall has informed me that he has received assurances from Atari's Jesse Smith that the it should not be necessary to create a functional mirror installation as we have had to do in the past. Supposedly, the new software will install independent copies of the new executable and the PTW executable so that it will not deliberately mess up your ability to play ongoing game activities with players who do not have the Civ3Conquests program installed.

Distribution of C3C will not generally be well established until after the first of the year .

We will not be accepting any GOTM or medal play games play in the CONQUESTs executable until at least some time well after the first of the year.

Gotm26 and Gotm27 will certainly not be available in Civ3 CONQUESTS.

Do a little homework first and this will allow you to make your own choices as to what games you play and when instead of being a victim of the quarterly new thing "Civ3 Body Snatchers" bug/patch cycle.

WilliamOf Orange, domination is the target victory condition, if you want this GOTM game to double as an entry in the Medal play series. otherwise, play for whatever victory condition you want. Domination boils down to about 2/3 of the land and coastal tiles. I agree that the only culture likely to be necessary in this game is the sort that expands borders in captured territory.

Hi All New Guy Question here. I'm having some trouble getting the game to start. I'm getting a Load Error! It says that I'm missing this File: "art\advisors\Dal-Riada_Advisor.pcx" Did I do something wrong with my file load, or something like that. Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Eyril,

Perhaps reading one of these two posts and threads will help you answer the same question that otehrs have asked and found out to have already been addressed in the readme.txt file that came with your game:

Thread Titled: "Misplaced dries for help instead of PM's"
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1331219#post1331219

Thread titled: "Gotm-25 Dal_Riada_Advisor file not found"
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67327

Good luck in your game once you get these final setup steps completed.

Thankyou for the quick reply and for the help.

Originally posted by cracker
Just for the record, DO NOT install Conquests until you make a mirror install copy of your Existing Civ3 installation...


Do a little homework first.....

:confused: :confused:

Unfortunately my technical capabilities is not that great, so could anybody give me a helping hand? :help:


Edit: The answer is here I guess

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67399

I'm still playing the treatgame, and noticed something very important: The Khorchins' lethal bombarding can give them combat experience, eventually resulting in great leaders! :goodjob:

This of course only happens when they actually destroy an enemy unit, but in this case the chances seem to be equal to melee combat.

Therefore barracks are only useless for Ordu Archers - which btw seem to be quite ineffective in sieges against even D3 defenders, due to their low bomb-attack rating, compared to the often high defender boni (e.g. 16% for each population point) //EDIT: Forget the last part, the bombardement thread (link on page 1 in Justus' post) suggests something different.

I just finished the treat game last night ( :goodjob: Cracker ) and also discovered the ablility to kickoff a GA with lethal bombardment.

The only thing that caught me by surprise is the number of units required to take a city. The lack of a high attack factor unit (4+) means the bombardment has to do most of the damage and it seems like getting hits on fortified pike is about a 1 in 5 shot (so to kill 2 vet pikes, it takes about 40 shots !!)

I finally ended up my redlining the defenders with bombard, then charging with the Horde.

I might have to adjust my attacking strategy to include pillaging (I dislike destroying useful improvements that will soon be mine), I'll be starting the GOTM tonight so see you all on the first spoiler.

:beer:

I started the Persia game (Medal 6-2) last weekend, but am not that far into it. Work has also restricted my civving this week, so I find myself making the decision to postpone the Persia game (maybe I'll finish during the holidays, or maybe not) and start Gotm25. I simply can not pass the opportunity to use these new units!! Bombard capability with a 3 movement :eek: Lethal bombardment in the middle ages :eek: :eek: I like catapults in general; this is going to be fun! :D (ControlFreak - don't read these threads ;) )