Featured Game 2 Pre-Discussion

[Thalassicus]

Download Game 2
Domination victory required for Game 2!

• About the GotVEM competition.
• Early game discussion (pre-Astronomy).
• Late game discussion & post final victory save.

This thread is for discussing strategies ahead of time for the Game 2 start location. Please DO NOT post details here after you start. Two spoiler threads will be opened to discuss games in progress.

Game 2 Start Location


(Several tiles revealed for deeper first-turn strategizing.)

• Domination victory required.
• King difficulty.
• Normal speed.
• Normal map size (9 players).
• Created with Pangaea Plus map script.
• Advanced game options: Low sea level, 9 players (+1), 18 citystates (+2).
• Harun al-Rashid of Arabia:
  • Each luxury resource increases gross Gold income by 5%, and units move faster in Desert terrain.
  • Bazaars replace Markets, providing double supply of luxuries near the city, and +2 on Oasis and Oil tiles.
  • Camel Archers replace Knights, which are ranged and therefore do not have a vulnerability to pikemen.

No paid DLCs will be used for this game. Before the game starts on Friday, take these 2 simple steps to temporarily disable any paid DLCs you have:

1. On your Windows desktop, create a new folder "DLC - Backup."
2. Move all paid DLCs* to the backup folder from:
   C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\Assets\DLC

*Leave the Shared folder and DLC_01, the free Mongolia pack.

Pangaea-Plus has more powerful islands and offshore citystates than Pangaea maps. If you like the maps used for the VEM Game of the Month series, I highly recommend downloading the Explorers DLC for the capability to use the Continents-Plus and Pangaea-Plus map scripts in your own games. I feel this is the best DLC for Civ 5. These map scripts quickly became my favorites in the Civilization series, and provide better VEM gameplay than the standard maps.

[tlaurila]

Oh noes! I'm only halfway through the first one

[Thalassicus]

One week remains until the end of September's Game of the Month, so you still have time. A schedule of events is posted on the website civmodding.wordpress.com.

[black213]

Quite odd that I don't see any Oasis nearby.

[Thalassicus]

Oasis appear only on flat and featureless desert, and there's just 2 tiles like that visible from here, so the odds weren't high when the map generated. Something else to note for players less familiar with Arabia is the movement speed bonus essentially turns floodplains into roads. Arabian 2 units can move 4 tiles along desert rivers.

[EsoEs]

Hell of a starting location, might be worth going Stonehenge again :P

[Sneaks]

Not a huge fan of the start. The carrot is obviously the marble, but that Marble is minimum 4 techs out from use (Pottery, Sailing, Mining, Masonry). The nearby stone is not going to be high value given the low starting yield. Depending on what is to the west, I would even consider moving inland E NE a hill to grab 2 resources faster.

[glider1]

I played a king pangaea standard game the other day on VEM 1084. Gee it was a fun game and contrary to popular belief, was largely peaceful (except for significant barb spawning and a dogpile diplomacy on Catherine in the center of the continent). The problem was that I basically quit when a runaway civ (Darius) just blew the game out of the water with massive population growth and then gold income pulling +500g/turn. He was buying tiles towards me like there was no tomorrow (1 tile a turn) and supporting many CS's as well. Then came the wonders one after another. So yeah it was peaceful, but how do you stop the runaway civ? That will be the question for this GotVEM. As far as I can tell, basically you have to scout like mad and pre-guess which civ will explode and then assume a strategy to curb them based off that. If you guess wrong and the runaway is someone else, too bad. There's not enough time to wait to find out who it will be.
Cheers

[Seek]

Originally Posted by Sneaks

Not a huge fan of the start. The carrot is obviously the marble, but that Marble is minimum 4 techs out from use (Pottery, Sailing, Mining, Masonry). The nearby stone is not going to be high value given the low starting yield. Depending on what is to the west, I would even consider moving inland E NE a hill to grab 2 resources faster.

Isn't embark at Compass? We're looking at a very long time before that offshore marble becomes available. Given the extra movement of the warrior (which I always thought was a bug!), I think I'll move it one east then onto the wheat and continue north if the terrain looks promising or push inland to the east if not. What is revealed will determine where I settle, of course, though the hill you mentioned is a serious contender.

[glider1]

Pangaea plus is a mystery but thanks to Thal's encouragement, I've downloaded it to give it a try. Basically on standard Pangaea, I think the strategy revolves around who get's the center civs. Essentially I'm assuming that if you are in the center, you are doomed because everyone on the coast wants a piece of you.

In my last game, Cath and Nap were in the center. Cath actually captured the capital of Egypt on the coast, because Egypt tended to go for high population and under-defended itself against Cath's military capabilities. However global diplomacy became consensus driven against Cath. This is where Napoleon in the center had an important effect. Nap tried to join in with the good guys on the coast in global condemnation of what Cath had done. However Nap himself is vulnerable because he's in the middle and next to Cath!

The issue is that one civ on the coast will draw huge benefit from a good location and it probably will not be the human. What do you do if that civ is on the opposite side of Pangaea? I think for the human, it is about gaining a foothold in the center. If there are two civs in the center, go for the one that is diplomatically condemned. With a foothold in the center, the human can then reach the other dominant civs anywhere on the continent. The issue is that all the coastal civs will hate you, but they will draw their vengeance on your presence in the center, and not your coastal capital. So the coastal capital has to be productive and well defended while going for the center.

That's my two cents worth on Pangaea. Honestly and personally speaking only, I think that Info-addict is a bit of an exploit for us humans because it reveals far too much information that should be gathered through the hard work of scouting. It would make king level a lot more challenging without it because there would be a lot more unknowns. The other thing is that let's keep the fingers crossed that the barbs spawn in this GotVEM, because I think it was bugged in the first and made king level easier (must be an issue in the DLL?). Just a couple of hours ago on king, I lost a scout to a couple of barbarians that surrounded it on a little coastal promontory. It was a big blow to me, but would have have been less of a blow to the AI because of it's bonuses.

Enjoy

[Txurce]

Originally Posted by Seek

Isn't embark at Compass?

What is revealed will determine where I settle, of course, though the hill you mentioned is a serious contender.

Embarkation is at Optics, but in reference to Sneaks' tech order, I don't see why Sailing would come ahead of Masonry, either, unless Optics also did.

Sneaks' hill would tempt me to send the warrior NE first as well as the direction you mentioned.

Originally Posted by glider1

The other thing is that let's keep the fingers crossed that the barbs spawn in this GotVEM, because I think it was bugged in the first and made king level easier (must be an issue in the DLL?)

I wondered the same thing about the barbs in GotVEM 1.

In Pangaea-Plus with low sea level, what are we to expect? A larger single continental land mass and no need for Astronomy to win by Conquest? Anything else?

[glider1]

The observatories in astronomy are pretty cool if you have a city next to a mountain. Astronomy is good on Pangaea -plus because it will open up the occasional useful island and some extra city states, as well as allowing naval attacks via open ocean. It would be a boost, but not nearly as critical as it is on continents maps.

You know I think Info-Addict unbalances the game. This is because we get to know every detail about all trade details and arrangements, it's like dropping down a level in difficulty. Therefore we info-addicts play on a more difficult level, and then inadvertently spend our time exploiting the AI more than we would otherwise do. If this is true, then without Info-Addict, we would be playing a level down from King (is that emperor?).

This has four benefits:
1) The runaway civs will not build incredible economic leads as quickly.
2) Humans would have to invest more in scouting and especially critically on Pangaea, valuing open border arrangements for scouting and shipping.
3) We would have to remember more details during diplomacy rather than relying on info-addict
4) A difficulty easier will bring in more players to GotVEM

Info-addict would be good if it only told you what you already know, but brought it together in one place. That would be fair enough. But it tells you everything that the AI is trading and all their diplomatic ties!

Civwillard is excellent without question. The other issue is that InfoAddict is actually bugged. Every second reload, the linkages on the political screen go missing.

Enjoy.

[Txurce]

In terms of diplomatic relations, I think Info Addict doesn't tell you any more than the vanilla game - it's just organized more conveniently. Trade relations are a different story - same with CivWillard - but I recall this being part of earlier versions of Civ. What may be unique to InfoAddict is the Demographic Rankings. In particular I find the military rankings borderline OP in terms of tipping me off as to what I'm up against. On the other hand, the AI already has this information.

[Thalassicus]

It looks like early game will be similar to the last since the start location is again coastal with rivers. I do like starts similar to this because it gives us more options of what to go for. Settle inland or on the coast? Go for sea techs? Push to islands or go inland? Stonehenge is also a much stronger contender in this game than the last:

• Lots of appetizing resources on the 3rd ring.
• Haruun does not have a purchase cost trait like Washington.
• Cultural border expansion is slower in VEM now than in Game 1.

Pangaea leads to more diplomacy and warfare. The sea level is low, but with +1 extra player it's about the same player density as normal settings. Haruun is somewhat better at conquest victories than Washington, but still one of the most flexible leaders, which is why I picked them two for Games 1 and 2. There's also other factors that make this map different while I won't spoil.

The main benefit of Astronomy on Pangaea-Plus is to reach the citystates out in the ocean. It's not a high priority tech like Continents-Plus, but still has value if pursuing a citystate strategy. The right side of the Patronage tree got two significant improvements recently (Aesthetics and Educated Elite) and Haruun an obvious contender for citystate alliances.

Originally Posted by glider1

Info-addict would be good if it only told you what you already know, but brought it together in one place. That would be fair enough. But it tells you everything that the AI is trading and all their diplomatic ties!

I don't use InfoAddict and was not aware of this (I included it just because many people do use it). I thought it gives information like... what everyone's score is, how much food they have, their military status. I do agree that knowledge of every opponent's trade deal seems like too much... we know which players to target to disadvantage other players.

[Sneaks]

Originally Posted by Txurce

Embarkation is at Optics, but in reference to Sneaks' tech order, I don't see why Sailing would come ahead of Masonry, either, unless Optics also did.

Sneaks' hill would tempt me to send the warrior NE first as well as the direction you mentioned.



I wondered the same thing about the barbs in GotVEM 1.

In Pangaea-Plus with low sea level, what are we to expect? A larger single continental land mass and no need for Astronomy to win by Conquest? Anything else?

I meant 5, including Optics. Totally mistyped that. Anyhow, early Sailing would be a huge boon simply for all the +30 from meeting CS friends. On the other hand, its a major investment, one I am not sure is worth the lag to the rest of the start.

[EsoEs]

I've been playing a few games on Continents + and its a pretty nice map script. In addition to better CS placement (on the edges of continents, islands in the ocean) the terrain just feels smoother. What I mean by this is territories are better defined by more realistic mountain chains which give way to rolling hills and finally lowland, and coastal resources and isles appear more frequently (like in Continents +)

[EsoEs]

Oh which reminds me, Thal, how much work did you do to the island chains North of Washington in the GotM 1? The reason I ask is that I have yet to see anything like those islands in all subsequent Continents+ games. I see plenty of little archipelago areas, 1 tile islands surrounded by fish and other 1 tile islands, but nothing like what we saw in that game. How much did you edit exactly?

[EsoEs]

Oops forum lag repost sorry!

[glider1]

Here are a few screenshots from InfoAddict. I totally respect the mod and what has been done with it. However I think that it is trying to be an espionage system in Civ5, when there is no espionage system in Civ5. The first screen shot is very exploitative because it reveals all AI trade arrangements in detail. The second screen shot shows how I can know all open border arrangements. The third screen shot shows how I can know the attitude of all AI's towards each other. It also reveals many other things I could not know directly from the game, like military power etc that I would otherwise have to infer.

I think prince level without info-addict is probably still too easy, while king would be challenging enough on Pangaea+ for a majority of players without info-addict. It depends on if the barb spawn issue is resolved. Civwillard is great no question. The issue with info-addict is that we play at difficulty levels beyond what we would normally do, which causes us to find *gamey* ways to exploit the AI like allowing the AI to expand massively on a higher difficulty level, and then through info-addict and terrain knowledge learn now to exploit the AI's tactical weaknesses and win that way.

Pangaea+ will be more challenging because I've noticed that it's difficult to traverse the interior of Pangaea+ by scouting without open borders. It is important to explore the coast by boat for contact with more civs and CS's, but this too needs open borders. We players will have to be very focused on OB deals and also learn to infer what AI's have open borders between them based on what the game actually reveals (rather than what info-addict tells us). Astronomy is probably still an important technology if we are to slow down huge civs on the opposite end of Pangaea+, unless we can secure reliable OB paths through the interior or along the coast.

I totally respect that playing without info-addict would not be as much fun, because Civ5 badly needs an espionage system. But an espionage system needs a better AI.

Cheers

EDIT: Notice that the lines that relate the different civs are missing (bug)

[Seek]

@glider1 - I'm sorry, but you have failed to convince me that InfoAddict makes the game actually easier in any significant way: all the crucial information can be found in the diplomacy screen, victory progress screen, or the advisors' window. I don't see how knowing who has mutual OB or who is trading luxuries has any impact whatsoever on our games - I know it never has for me! The only real information that isn't available somewhere in vanilla is "leader attitudes" but this really should be included in vanilla IMO (in civ4 you could ask leaders "what do you think of X?" Why can't we here?) - but even here, with a little investigation one can determine more or less what the attitudes are. InfoAddict 1) allows the player to check on these attitudes while stuck in the inbetween turn AI trade/diplomatic screens (which, again, should be available in vanilla) where one could potentially make a fatal mistake and 2) simply makes all the disparate diplomatic information spread over many screens available in one place, removing (truly) annoying micro and dozens of mouse clicks and note-taking.

__________

On a different subject, I'd like to propose (again) that we have favored Vitory Conditions like vanilla GotM. It would create more discussion, I think, since more players would be directly pursuing the same goals, would be more helpful in providing general balance information about the mod (what is working, what's not, potential strategies or exploits, etc.) and might make the competitive aspect more thrilling.