GOTM 70 Pre-Game Discussion

ainwood

ainwood

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GOTM 70 Pre-Game Discussion



Civ_Steve is on holiday, but he put together a game for release before he went. I'm just helping-out in posting the pre-game discussion thread.

Civilization: Spain
Rivals: 7.
Barbarians: Raging
Difficulty: Emperor
Land Form: Continents, 70% ocean, Standard map.
Geology: 4 billion years old, normal, cool



Conquest-Class Bonuses:
  1. Start with an extra 50 Gold
  2. Start with 2 Spearmen
  3. Start with knowledge of The Wheel


Predator-Class Challenges:
  1. Start without Ceremonial Burial
  2. All AI get 2 more bonus offensive units
  3. AI get 2 more starting unit support, and 1 more unit support per city

A reminder: do not post any game information to this thread after you have downloaded the save file. Absolutely no spoiler information for this or any GOTM is to be posted in this thread!
 
A cow and three BGs... but you'll have to settle on one of the BGs. Then again, you can also move NW or NE and wait until your capital expands through palace culture. The river is of course very convenient.

But no coastal capital, and no coast in sight... but if there is a coast nearby, it's most likely somewhere NW, as the river probably goes from the mountains in the east to the sea in the west or northwest. Unless it's an 'odd' river...

And no hills around and only a couple of mountains east won't give you that much production later on, but in the AA those BGs will probably suffice.

Anyway, I won't play this game untill I finish the current COTM, which might take a while as I won't have access to c3c this week...
 
There doesn't seem to be a lot to talk about... worker to the cow, almost certainly settle in place - I can't think of anything my worker could see that would make me move the settler. Settling on a BG is less bad than wasting an entire turn moving the settler IMO.

Predator-Class Challenges:
Start without Masonry
Click to expand...

I think Spain starts with Alphabet and Ceremonial Burial - which one are we really losing?
 
I'll settle NE- I think the BG is too good to waste, and it'll put at least one hill/mountain in the radius.

I've never played Spain before. How does the conquistador compare to the knight? Do they retreat and/or upgrade?
 
megistatos said:
How does the conquistador compare to the knight? Do they retreat and/or upgrade?
Click to expand...
They're like the C3C Ancient Cavalry, with the movement of a Mongol Keshik. No upgrades... but they're plenty fast.
 
The keshik just ignores the movement penalty of mountains (what about hills?). The cortez treats all land tiles as road, which is quite a bit better. And surely it does upgrade from something, i.e. the scout, which is really more important than upgrading to something. It's an expensive upgrade, at 120g, but the cortez does have a resource requirement (horses), so how about using disconnect/reconnect to build a whole army of them... I'm sure we mull this idea over every time Spain comes around but no one ever actually tries it. :)
 
Spain can't build scouts(being commercial and religious) so the conquistadors would have to be built not upgraded. Assuming you have iron, that's 70 shields which could be used to build a knight instead. Having a few around would definitely be useful though, especially if the terrain is rough.
 
megistatos said:
Spain can't build scouts(being commercial and religious) so the conquistadors would have to be built not upgraded. Assuming you have iron, that's 70 shields which could be used to build a knight instead. Having a few around would definitely be useful though, especially if the terrain is rough.
Click to expand...

:wallbash: Ah, that would explain why we don't use that strat! Well, no matter; I'll be going to space anyway, so no cash to spare for upgrading.
 
megistatos said:
Spain can't build scouts(being commercial and religious) so the conquistadors would have to be built not upgraded. Assuming you have iron, that's 70 shields which could be used to build a knight instead. Having a few around would definitely be useful though, especially if the terrain is rough.
Click to expand...
What makes the Conquistador awesome is that, as an army of conquistadors, it can pillage 9 squares in one turn!

:eek: :D
 
Well, with in being Emperor I believe I will just settle 1 NE to still be on the river but keeping the BGL. I would go looking for coast, but I figure why not just do a palace jump for that if things are easy enough to. Or is that stupid?
 
Spain... In my SG we did a palace jump to get away from the coast. Our decision was based on having the Palace be more central. Interesting start, bet the coast isn't far off. Cool means tundra, and this start looks promising with Spain being neary equatorial. With a cow and 3 BG's, can pump out settlers fast.
 
I think I will move the worker to the cow and then depending on what can be seen from there move my settler 1E or 1NE. This will have three benefits:
  1. The capital stays next to the river
  2. The cow is kept inside the 3x3 starting position so can be utilized right from the beginning
  3. I don't have to settle on the BG

I have been reading all the comments in this thread as to whether it is worth wasting a move for not settling on the BG, but it looks like even among the experts there's no agreement on this question...

I'm still a newcomer in terms of Civ3 strategy, but my reasoning goes like this: if I move my settler in the first round, I loose the income of one round, which is basically: 3 food (it's 5 food, but 2 have to be substracted for feeding the town, while my settler doesn't eat anything during the first round...), 2 or 3 shields (depending on whether the cow is on a BG) and 3 gold. However I will gain one extra shield per round for the rest of the game. During the Golden Age and during Mobilization this will be two extra shields and also once the city has a factory and a power plant, it will be two extra shields per round. If the GA or Mobilization period is after I have factory&plant, it will mean 4 extra shields during that time!

So all this could potentially add up to something between 400 - 800 extra shields, depending on how long the game lasts and how much time I spend in Mobilization. This looks like a huge gain to me, or is there anything wrong with my reasoning?!

Cheers, Lanzelot
 
I can never quite remember the details of settling on a shield tile, but I think you get the shield back when you reach city size, i.e. at size 7 a town settled on a bg produces 2 food and 2 shields from the city tile.
Even if that were not the case, we would still be comparing the loss of 2f+2s+4c in the opening phase with a gain in shields later in the game. Because gains in the early game multiply themselves up as we go along, we may decide that the extra turn in the beginning really is more powerful. But it is very hard to quantify, of course.
Personally, I think I will be moving the worker to the moo, then doing another bit of fog-gazing. With the tiles thus identified, I will run some different scenarios "in xls", and so decide whether to settle on the spot or move. After all, the extra bg may be able to beat the extra turn's production, even at the very start of the game, if it enables a better-timed granary (although it is unlikey). Or perhaps that bg is necessary to build a 6-turn combo factory...
 
PaperBeetle said:
I can never quite remember the details of settling on a shield tile, but I think you get the shield back when you reach city size, i.e. at size 7 a town settled on a bg produces 2 food and 2 shields from the city tile.
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert on micromanaging, but I believe that is only the case for industrious civs. I may be wrong there though...
 
Perhaps you need to be out of despotism too? Certainly we had two shields in the city tile of Constantinople in SG12 - settled on plains, government was feudalism of course.
 
sirdanilot said:
I'm not an expert on micromanaging, but I believe that is only the case for industrious civs. I may be wrong there though...
Click to expand...

Industrious tribes get an extra shield regardless where the city was founded. On a bonus grassland tile that adds up to three shields in a city centre.

Side note: When founding a city on Plains/Fur or BG/Fur, a second shield is present in the city centre at all city sizes.
 
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