GOTM 17 Pre-Game Discussion

ainwood

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GOTM 17: Alexander



A slightly higher difficulty level, and we move to an archipelago map (strong navy NOT OPTIONAL! ;)).

This game MUST be played in patch version 1.61. We will NOT accept any games played under any other patch versions, and you can't play it in warlords!

Further, it MUST be played using HOF mod version 1.61.011.




Game settings:
Civilization: Greece (Leader: Alexander ; Traits: Aggressive, Philosophical)
Rivals: 5
Difficulty: Monarch
Map: Archipelago
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Tropical
Water level: Low
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Epic
Options: <none>
Victory Conditions: all enabled

Alexander:
Alexander is Aggressive and Philosophical; starting with Hunting and Fishing. Aggressive allows a free combat 1 promotion for melee & gunpowder units, and double production speed of barracks and drydocks. Philosophical provides a 100&#37; bonus to the generation of great people, as well as double production speed of universities.

Unique unit: Phalanx:
The Phalanx replaces the standard spearman. The strength is increased by 1 to 5, and the cost remains the same. In addition to the 100% bonus against mounted units, the phalanx also gets a +25% bonus when defending hills.

The starting screenshot is here (click for a bigger version!)


Adventurer Class bonuses:
  1. Player starts with knowledge of agriculture.
  2. Player starts with a workboat.


Challenger Class Equalisers:
  1. All AIs start with a bonus technology.
 
I think my settler is going to walk for a long time, I need to assess the land we have available before settling.

And maybe I will go Cultural, just to go against ainwood and make my navy completely optional. :)
 
I'm usually all for moving, but in this case I can research AGR first and then up to BW for 5 chops.
At size 5 we can work the Rice and 4 Grass hills for 13 spt and still have +1 fpt. With metal nearby (hopefully), that's a very nice early production centre for the capitol.
If a neighbour founds an early religion, I may attack them. If not, Oracle --> CoL have suited me fine in the past.

Of course, scout moves first to see if there's another bonus in the south.
 
Of course, scout moves first to see if there's another bonus in the south.

It seems more important to move W-NW to see if there's another bonus in the west.

If not, then moving SE to the plains hill must be better than settling in place. Trade one turn for an extra hammer every turn for the rest of the game, in an otherwise nearly equivalent position. Maybe you will even pick up an extra resource to the SE by moving, but, even if not, it's a gain.
 
Moving the scout to the west hill seems like the first thing to do. Then, if there isn't any resource, move the settler to the plains hill. Any resource would mean settling in place.

We're in the southern half of the map. I don't know if that changes anything. With the low sea-level it's possible that there are some large land masses, and we might be on one of them. But, this may be a nautical exercise. So, research to get work boats and then galleys might be a priority. The size of the home island will determine that. An Oracle slingshot to CoL will be my early objective, however.

Monarch will be fun.
 
So, research to get work boats and then galleys might be a priority.

I agree. We start with fishing, so workboats can be built immediately if we choose and sailing is one tech away. I think it will be important to get a couple of early exploring workboats out to find the neighbors as well as good city sites.
 
The resource icon's arrow always points to the equator.

Plus, the bottom left-most tile that you can see the edge of looks like tundra.

This would suggest that there isn't a lot of room on this island with useful tiles. To the north it looks like there might be only one tile above the northern blue circle. Not a lot of land - 2 cities at most on the starting island, maybe.

I'm going to explore more, too - possibly go north west with the settler toward the other blue circle (maybe a marine resource there) and south with the scout?
 
It seems more important to move W-NW to see if there's another bonus in the west.

If not, then moving SE to the plains hill must be better than settling in place. Trade one turn for an extra hammer every turn for the rest of the game, in an otherwise nearly equivalent position. Maybe you will even pick up an extra resource to the SE by moving, but, even if not, it's a gain.

I'm a bit undecided on that one. I usually move to plains hills if possible, but in this case you end up with only 3 grass hills if you move. I guess I'd move if the coast ends on distance 3 from the capitol in the north, but there's no way of knowing that on the first turn.

Staying in place I can alternate between an irrigated plain and the plain hills at size 6 for an average of 15.5 hammers per turn.

It's just a feeling I have though, so I'd really like to see the maths on this [pimp]

Edit: could that be another plains hill W NW of the start?
 
This would suggest that there isn't a lot of room on this island with useful tiles. To the north it looks like there might be only one tile above the northern blue circle. Not a lot of land - 2 cities at most on the starting island, maybe.

Unless there are mountains, you can fit at least 4 cities (including the capitol) on the starting island.
 
It seems more important to move W-NW to see if there's another bonus in the west.

If not, then moving SE to the plains hill must be better than settling in place. Trade one turn for an extra hammer every turn for the rest of the game, in an otherwise nearly equivalent position. Maybe you will even pick up an extra resource to the SE by moving, but, even if not, it's a gain.

I agree. I normally look at the starting map and decide on the best spot without regards to hidden tile. Then I move the scout to reveal tiles that may challenge the number one candidate. Unless the scout reveals a better settling site, I settle on my planned site.
 
Of course that's true, but it might be only 3 if you settle in place, and the one in the south might be pretty useless if all that's down there is tundra.



Looking at that, though... Maybe a move to the plains hill isn't so bad after all :lol:
It gives you many more options for city placements in the north, which probably will be our base of operations :cool:
 
Preparing for my first GOTM. I guess I'll have a hard time on Monarch with about one week's experience, and I'm yet to even finish a game :crazyeye:

At the moment I'm trying to decide between two possible starts:

1) Scout W-NW, and depending on what's in the west either settling in place or into plains hill.

2) Scout SW-S, and dependng on what's in the south either settling into plains hill or to S-S. It looks to me that those tiles in the south might have grasslands so there could be some good potential there and it would certainly give more room for another city in the north (looks very likely that there is a sea resource and very little land on that direction).

In a way the northern circle looks like the most interesting spot but I guess there's too much to lose on that strategy; at best you miss 2 turns to get a good spot, at worst you miss those turns and end up in a worse spot than you started.
 
Just recently new to the GOTM (I'm lovin it! <- sorry McDonalds)

Couple of questions that I'm sure have come up before ...

why is the number of rivals, map type, water level, climate, map type etc.. published??? doesn't this kinda give us "an unfair advantage" <- does the AI know this info?

I assume there must be a reason ... just not sure what it is ???


ALSO, any hints etc.. on how the games are setup??? Is there alot of resource manipulation etc.. by the Administrators

thanks fellow Civvers!
 
1. When will this start?

2. I have been playing Warlords exclusively for a while now but find these games of the month to be very educational and fun. How much trouble do you guys find it to chop and change between the rules of Warlords and Vanilla?
 
why is the number of rivals, map type, water level, climate, map type etc.. published??? doesn't this kinda give us "an unfair advantage" <- does the AI know this info?

I assume there must be a reason ... just not sure what it is
Humans know that info in every game they ever play, not just GOTM ...
 
Just recently new to the GOTM (I'm lovin it! <- sorry McDonalds)

Couple of questions that I'm sure have come up before ...

why is the number of rivals, map type, water level, climate, map type etc.. published??? doesn't this kinda give us "an unfair advantage" <- does the AI know this info?

I assume there must be a reason ... just not sure what it is ???


ALSO, any hints etc.. on how the games are setup??? Is there alot of resource manipulation etc.. by the Administrators

thanks fellow Civvers!

Welcome!

The staff presents details that are available once you open the save, which usually is provided on the first of every month (WOTM is 15th). You can find the details in the settings (I think it's the victory advisor / settings). Yes, the AI has access to these details, apart from your starting location ;) There are some details that may not be published, such as options in the map type. This enable players to think about what strategy they want to persue.

The reason for providing this info is to engage players to discuss strategies, perhaps bring up rule questions and most important: for players to quarrel about the best initial settlement spot :) It's also useful for players to give some thought of where to move the scout.

The administrators add/remove/move resources and may also change the terrain. I have not detected any pattern. Sometimes it's best to settle on the inital spot, sometimes its a disaster. Take a look at the map, try to predict how large the city will become for certain tiles, if it will be food rich or hammer rich.

Goody Huts in the immediate vicinity are removed as well. One reason is to reduce the chance in the early stages of the game. One other reason is to reduce the temptation for players to reload the game and alter their actions (which is strictly forbidden).

Good luck!
 
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