BOTM 09 Pregame Discussion

[Welnic]

Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.

I have tried to exactly duplicate the starting picture and location. No guarantees on the other Civs.

These are with the new patch and HOF mod.

Thanks for making the test games. I've had fun playing the game and it will definitely give me a better chance at the real thing.

 

[Warden USA]

Really, I'm just going to try to survive this game. I was wondering though how having a big sea in the middle of the map changes things. any advice?

Also the normal Civ4 had a speed of Normal and I see this is Epic. Is there a difference or does this just give us more turns and everything takes longer?

 

[Eul_Bofo]

Really, I'm just going to try to survive this game. I was wondering though how having a big sea in the middle of the map changes things. any advice?

Is it me, or is this a spoiler ?????

Also the normal Civ4 had a speed of Normal and I see this is Epic. Is there a difference or does this just give us more turns and everything takes longer?

Epic gives more turn, everything takes longer... except army (and other units) movements... So...

\bye

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Is it me, or is this a spoiler ?????

Really, I'm just going to try to survive this game. I was wondering though how having a big sea in the middle of the map changes things. any advice?

We don't consider stating features of the map that can be deduced from the stated map-type to be spoilerish, as it's assumed that everyone knows (or can easily find out from test games) what kind of map the map generator produces. If he'd said something about the map that wasn't obvious from the fact that I've told you this game was an inland sea map (eg. he'd stated the locations of the iron and copper), then that would be a spoiler.

(EDIT: I've just noticed from your smiley that you might not have been serious, but I guess the clarification is useful anyway )

 

[BakeliteRules]

Tried to load BOTM( after new mod.) Using Vista SP1 I gave Firaxis Folder admin rights per Vista problems but still get error notice on attempt to load. I am not sure i understand what Step 3 is asking me to do. I am a single user on a laptop. Do I need to add another user ???

 

[THE WIZ]

Thanks Great Beyond for the test -- it is a great way to show me how much I suck

Anyone want to volunteer to be my Civ Tutor? All the popsicles you can eat.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I was wondering though how having a big sea in the middle of the map changes things. any advice?

The sea often results in each civ bordering exactly two other civs.

 

[Mundungu]

HI guys, need some help, since update to not get the file to load. I posted a thread with details in "svae game available" would u mind have a look ?
thanks a lot, I am impatient to play this one, my first immortal game ever...

edit : the link : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=287315

 

[AlanH]

Tried to load BOTM( after new mod.) Using Vista SP1 I gave Firaxis Folder admin rights per Vista problems but still get error notice on attempt to load. I am not sure i understand what Step 3 is asking me to do. I am a single user on a laptop. Do I need to add another user ???

What is the error message? If it's "The save file you have selected is protected to ensure that assets in you mod folder have not been changed" then there's a set of suggestions you can follow in the FAQ on our web site.

 

[AlanH]

Is it me, or is this a spoiler ?????

As DS said, it's not a spoiler in this case.

However, we do have a simple rule that you should NEVER post in the pre-game or saves available threads once you have opened the start save. That way we don't have to spend time and effort discussing every post to decide whether it's a spoiler or not.

 

[Warden USA]

As DS said, it's not a spoiler in this case.

However, we do have a simple rule that you should NEVER post in the pre-game or saves available threads once you have opened the start save. That way we don't have to spend time and effort discussing every post to decide whether it's a spoiler or not.

I have not opened the start save yet so were good . Played a coulple games with inland sea and it's different then the Pangea map that c4OTM had this month

 

[BakeliteRules]

Thanks AlanH. Methos and Denniz helped me sort out that I was not getting a good 3.17.001 download from CivFanatics but when I downloaded it from a link provided by Methos everything worked as advertised and I am now ready to get clobbered in my first immortal game.

 

[Munro]

Yes, thanks again to greatbeyond for the test save - extremely useful as ever!

With Stone + Industrious, GW seems worthwhile for handling the Immortal barbs (cost 90 which is about 4 warriors).

Some AI benchmarks for these settings:

• Animals appear around turn 6
• Barbs (warriors) appear around turn 38
• Industrious AI completes Stone Henge around turn 40-50 (depending on access to Stone)
• Industrious AI completes GW around turn 70-80 (depending on access to Stone)

I had a surprisingly hard time deciding how to start, and experimented with several different openings (using greatbeyond's test save ) and only the tiles visible in the starting screenshot.

Settling in place - unsurprisingly, given the gems - gives a strong tech advantage. Settling on the stone allowed much faster expansion due to the massive food available from corn + rice (and greater safety from earlier GW). But it wasn't immediately obvious to me which would give the fastest victory. Here's what I tried:

1. Settle in place, 2nd city on stone

• Research: BW > masonry > wheel > agriculture > pottery > writing > alphabet (6/730)
• Builds: worker > warrior > settler > warrior > warrior > GW* > granary > granary* (67/90)
• GW completed turn 56
• overall: superfast techs; medium speed GW; slow expansion

* = built in St Petersburg



2. Settle in place, 2nd city between stone / corn / rice

• Research: BW > wheel > masonry > agriculture > pottery > writing (2 turns)
• Builds: worker > warrior > settler > warrior > warrior > warrior > GW* > granary (55/90) > granary* (41/90)
• GW completed turn 64
• advantages: fast techs; slow GW; moderate expansion

3a. Settle on stone

• Research: agriculture > masonry > BW > wheel > pottery > writing (9 turns)
• Builds: worker > warrior > GW > settler > worker > worker > settler > granary (55/90) > granary* (41/90)
• GW completed turn 48
• overall: moderate techs; fast GW; fast expansion

3b. Settle on stone - alternate (2nd settler before 3rd worker):



I had a hard time deciding between the 2nd and 3rd starts, and played on, discovering that

• the AI was teching surprisingly slowly at the beginning; it was possible to trade writing even when settling on the stone
• there's plenty of land to settle; early AI expansion was not an issue
• the Immortal-level city maintenance costs are significant
• inflitrated great spies are marvellous! At least 6000-7000 of stolen techs and / or plenty of city riots

I reached Bureaucracy at about the same point in each scenario (100-200BC) but was teching more than 50% faster with the settle-in-place start, due to efficiency of having gems (and dye / river / cottage tiles) in my bureaucratic (and academy) capital. With the more advanced civs not that far from feudalism, and maces still 2 techs away, the extra science was going to be significant in securing maces for as much of the pre-feudalism window as possible.

So, I plan to settle in place and follow plan 2 above. City specialisation wins out in the end.

See you all in the spoiler threads.

-----------------------------------------------

110BC - settle in place:


110BC - settle on stone:

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hate to sound like a whiner, but why aren't these Games of the month advertised on the front page anymore? It looks like I've missed a LOAD of great games .

Aussie.

 

[Ronnie1]

Hate to sound like a whiner, but why aren't these Games of the month advertised on the front page anymore? It looks like I've missed a LOAD of great games .

Aussie.

Bookmark this link http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=165, and check for the games. There at least 2 every month!

 

[chopster]

Welcome Aussie Lurker from another Adelaidean.

You don't have to miss out - you can still play the games once they're complete.
The worldbuilder saves are released after the results are published, and you can still go and read spoiler threads to compare your game.

 

[AlanH]

Front page publicity depends on the game designer (a) having authority and (b) having time, to post the advert.

There are plenty of other ways to ensure that you know about the games, though.

• They come around every month, regularly. The only ones that are less frequent are the WOTMs.
• They are publicised on the GOTM site front page.
• You could also subscribe to this forum so that you get email notifications of new threads.
• And this forum has this RSS feed. Most modern browsers can use this to notify you of new threads.

 

[Gosha190]

So, I plan to settle in place and follow plan 2 above. City specialisation wins out in the end.

I agree with you.

My reasons.

I hate choosing start position like this time. I do not see good places at all.

If I'll settle in place I'll build worker 18 turns instead of 24 turn. It's good, but in this case I'll be probably limited in food resources. This is extremely bad for capital.

By the way: your test map got one significant mistake! I do not see river north to the stone on the start screenshort!!! Stone tile has no commerce. So settling on the stone is a bad idea to my mind because of loosing helth bonuses (fresh water).

I do not see another worth locations to settle.

So settling in the place will give me more powerfull start, but may cost me in the future.

Research: BW > wheel > agriculture > pottery > masonry > writing > alphabet....

Production: worker > warrior > settler > warrior ...