GOTM43 - Pre-Game Discussion.

GOTM43 - Japan

It's Japan... need I say more!

Civilization Japan.
Difficulty: Deity.
World: Standard 5000 tile, Continents, 70% Water.
Climate: Wet, Warm.
Barbarians: Restless.
Goody Huts: Workers, not settlers.
Rivals: 10 pre-selected.

Note: Some usually scientific civs have had their traits altered so as to provide only one scientific civ in the game. Nothing else about those tribes have been altered.

Starting maps:





Conquest class bonus:

1. Knowledge: The knowledge of Masonry and Bronze Working (in addition to The Wheel & Ceremonial Burial).

Predator class equalisers:

1. Knowledge: Your people are backward. You start with no techs whatsoever.

may Wodan, Thor and Donar have mercy on me:
Mad-bax, deity and Japan is too much for poor little me

I'll give it a go. But I may pick conquest.

I see water, so start worker 1W. If it's coastal, move settler, if not, settle in place.

Now if this ain't a good 20K spot or what? It's the only shield I have left to grab, and most likely I will be spending the next 3 months trying to get it. Since submitting GOTM42, I've been preparing assuming Russia would be this month's civ, since that was the civ with the longest time since last being played. I was clearly wrong, but it wouldn't surprise me to see them in the next 2 months.

If the spot 1W is, in fact, coastal(although it doesn't look like it will be, considering the two adjacent tiles(NE and SW) are both land) then it is a near perfect 20k location in my opinion: Several food bonuses(wines), a couple of floodplains, mountains, on a river, and minimal water tiles(4 at most). If not, the hill would make a good OCC spot: River, lux, hill, the only downside being the two desert tiles within the 21, but there's 12 good tiles workable prior to sanitation, so that's good enough.


If the site isn't coastal, the worker's on a forest so I'll start a chop while pumping out 2 exploring warriors(should be able to go 3-3-2-2 on them, and still be 2 turns from the chop completing) then switching to a Temple or a Barracks, which will be hastened by the chop. (Japan is religious/militaristic, right? Or do I have the traits wrong again?) After that I'm ready for a quick settler to get the game rolling, and then start on the 20k run. I'm assuming the OCN hasn't been changed, so I might make this a 10CC so the FP is available. After getting 10 cities out(hopefully I'll have room) I'll probably want to prepare for war with a neighbor, if only to keep the pressure off on at least one side, or at least to secure iron and horses if I don't have them myself. (In my russian test games I've had great success with combined stacks of archers, spears, and cats against larger AIs with the help of one "other-side" alliance.) At least this will give me room to breathe and leave some room between my cities if I choose to do an XCC of some kind.


Actually, looking at it, I'm wondering if moving the worker to the mountain wouldn't be a bad idea - I'd get to see more than moving to the forest, but the chop would be delayed one turn.

What is that thing on the mountain?

budweiser said:

What is that thing on the mountain?

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Looks like mountain goats!


I think I might try this on conquest too. I went back and tried the Iroquois diety GOTM through 1000 BC and got 14 towns built in that time. There are a lot of shields & food here - looks like I could try that route again.

First are questions.

1. What “altered” traits means? Do they have different traits? If they do, are their starting techs correspond to their new traits? If not, how we can learn what traits they have?
2 What is that white stuff in the sw mountain? Is it a bonus lux? Sheep or Goat??? Looks like it gives +2 food. If so, mining this mountain makes sense, it will make very productive tile.
3. Predator handicap looks like a pure handicap instead of usual handicap combined with a possibility of a little bonus. I never won on diety, so I definitely will play open.

Starting sequence.
Settle at the place because starting position looks good enough, we stay on fresh water and lux, there is a handy forest west, flood plains south and plenty of bgs.
Worker s and irrigate. The only thing against settling at the place is that we will loose a nice tile with grapes on a hill (2.2.2)
Research and building – I need to think about it.

Starting techs and UU's for all civs remain unaltered. Only the trait is altered. Instead of being scientific they will be expansionist (with scouts) or industrious for example.

The white stuff on the mountains is one of the mediterranean resources. You can read about them from a link posted in the GOTM reference thread.

mad-bax said:

Instead of being scientific they will be expansionist (with scouts) or industrious for example. The white stuff on the mountains is one of the mediterranean resources.

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Your answer created more questions :

1. Is Ainwood playing this game? (I did not notice that it was not him who posted this thread)
2. Is there a way to determine what are altered traits?
3. Did you use all set of Mediterranean resources, olives, etc. or only some of them.
4. Since there are Mediterranean resources, should we also expect giant squids?

So does it mean it's not out-of-the-box game?

What about the Mod police? I thought GOTMs would never be modded again, and I was very happy about it: Mediterranean resources never worked for me and they crashed my CIV so badly I had to reinstall everything every time.

Oh well, that was Vanilla, maybe I'll be more lucky with PTW.
But if there would ever be a vote about modding GOTMs my vote would be "No". The game is quite fascinating without the mods, IMHO.

As for 20K spot: the spot is great but doing it on Deity would be difficult: what with fast Tech pace, and building bonuses for AI, and the need to expand quickly etc... No, I won't try 20K until Regent.

On the other hand, those Tech bonuses/handicaps could mean we are alone on an island which would allow us to concentrate on 20K for a while. Hmm...

eek deity is higher than emperor right?

What's the big scary deal about japan? I've noted people saying things like go for the wheel unless japan is in the game and so on. What have I missed with that?

I might have a crack at this, AFTER editing the save game to knock the difficulty back to monarch, just out of interest. See how my COTM goes first.

What about 100K?

I am scared of Japan. I have tried them a few times, and I never do well. They are not great for rapid expansion. On diety level you may be stuck with 3-4 towns by the end of the expansion phase.

But the land looks good, many rivers. I would want 2-3 exploring warriors asap to make contacts and exploit the tech monopoly you get with the wheel. Then decide if its worth it to make a granary in the first town.

If you can get samurai, they will make a dent in somebody, allowing you to double or triple your lands. Thats why I am wondering if that would be enough to try for a 100K with packed in towns.

@ THEmike- Japan is the only civ in the game that starts with the wheel, and can therefore see the critical horses from the start.

HA 10 rivals? It looks like a crowded start. Settle in place for sure. I was hoping to avoid using an archer rush for the freakin third game in a row but with this many folk on a standard continents map AND having a militaristic civ, I think thats the way the wind will blow. I had considered playing Predator for COTM 12, no pottery's not that big a deal, but here its gotta be open for me. Starting with the wheel is one of Japan's biggest attributes.

My moneys on Greece being on our continent as one of those crazy non sci peoples. I like the challenge.

I second Soleno in that we should know the changed civs (we're just gonna F10 who our rivals are anyway) and their traits. And again on if those bloody squid are running about amongst those crazy sea cloud puffs that you need to defeat, if you have any idea what Im talking about.

As for victory condition Im killin em all.

Well, I'm currently on a run to collect all the shield awards (lowest scoring victories) and 20K is the only one left for me, although someone recently posted a score in a spoiler thread that was _very_ close to mine, but I think I had like 25 firaxis points less as well as finishing some 18 years later, so I think I'm good for Diplo. If not, then Diplo becomes priority target, and I'll leave 20k for next month's Emperor game. I still need to grab a "blue ambulance" or "reverse cow" (something which hasn't been officially implemented) which is just basically the lowest base score out of a winning game. For that, I'll probably do OCC 20k/diplo/space on the next Monarch or Regent game.

um, sorry to ask a noob question, but talking about the Mod - I gather it must be downloaded and installed to play this one? If so, is this the Mod I can get on the GOTM main page?

I'm wondering about the mod myself - the mediterranian resources aren't part of the normal vanilla GOTM expansion, and they're not part of PTW at all, so I'm assuming a graphics pack will be included for those who need it?

yey samuray + arty = great fun
deity + samuray + arty + militaristic = whole bunch of GL

solenoozerec said:

1. Is Ainwood playing this game? (I did not notice that it was not him who posted this thread)

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I certainly hope so! I haven't played a GOTM since GOTM 27, so I might be a bit rusty though.

2. Is there a way to determine what are altered traits?

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Both CivAssist and CrpMapstat will tell you the traits of the other civs I believe.

Twonky said:

um, sorry to ask a noob question, but talking about the Mod - I gather it must be downloaded and installed to play this one? If so, is this the Mod I can get on the GOTM main page?

Click to expand...

It depends on what version you are playing. If you are playing PTW, then the 'mod' is a small pictures file - unzip the folder and dump it in your \Civ3PTW\Scenarios\ folder. If you're playing Vanilla, the standard 'full' installer should suffice (but MB can confirm).

Woohoo Deity.

With a little trick it's possible to build 4 turn settlers in start position.

size 5-7
Turn1 size 5:
shields: center 1, mined BG 2x2 = 5 (5)
food: 2xwines, 1x floodplain = +5
Turn2:
shields: center 1, mined BG 2x2, growth 2 = 7 (12)
food: 2xwines, 1x floodplain = +5
Turn3 size 6:
shields: center 1, mined BG 3x2 = 7 (19)
food: 2xwines, 1x floodplain = +5
Turn4:
shields: center 2, mined BG 3x2, growth 2 = 10 (29)
food: 2xwines, 1x floodplain = +5

For last missing shield. Found one town nearby, 2 tiles East is a good location. Build only warriors in that town and disband warrior during 4 turn cycle in capital.