Txurce
Deity
1) I wondered what the 5000 tiles meant myself, since all I know is the standard size settings.
2) The wheel and 25g.
2) The wheel and 25g.
Gotm20-Spain Pregame Discussion
- Thread starter cracker
- Start date
Hmm, I made 3 quick experience games settling on floodplains, with nearly the same tiles as in this GOTM. 3 times of 3 my pop died before I even cranked out my first settler!?
Is the disease striking harder on Deity or was my tries just "tough luck"?
To move the first settler more than one step can cost too much...by then your opponents are almost settling their 3rd city already
I'm a brave loser on Deity and lose 2 of 3 games, but usually fight to the end...luck and good choices can make you survive sometimes. (read thro some SG games). But this startposition is an "outofcontrol-position" and I will move my worker up on the hill to start with, then as Moonsinger maybe move the settler ontop of it, if the lands are greeener over there.
And just hope the disease strikes someplace else
Is the disease striking harder on Deity or was my tries just "tough luck"?
To move the first settler more than one step can cost too much...by then your opponents are almost settling their 3rd city already
I'm a brave loser on Deity and lose 2 of 3 games, but usually fight to the end...luck and good choices can make you survive sometimes. (read thro some SG games). But this startposition is an "outofcontrol-position" and I will move my worker up on the hill to start with, then as Moonsinger maybe move the settler ontop of it, if the lands are greeener over there.
And just hope the disease strikes someplace else
cracker
Gil Favor's Sidekick
here you go
(you get the honor of writing the install instructions compatible with getting them stored in the proper place for both the PTW version an Civ3v1.29 version since you made the special request.)
cracker
Gil Favor's Sidekick
The map setting ds for this game are out-of-the-box for tech rate, corruptions, etc. The 5000 tiles map was originally generated from a random map setting using the 100x100 standard world size. All that was shifted was the water ratio and then extra civs were added to hold the land/civ ratio constant.
The open class gets the 25gold + "the wheel"
The conquest class gets 25gold + "the wheel" + 50 extra gold + the other goodies
The predator class gets a rosary and my best wishes.
Urrrrghhh. I think plains/floodplains is my least favorite start position of all. (Not counting the one grassland tile in tundra/mountains/jungle-type starts, of course.) No shields! Takes 10 turns just to get the first exploring warrior out -- eeewww. While meanwhile 10 deity opponents are wandering the map, sending piles of starting units hither and yon, and settling dozens of cities.
Urk.
Renata <----- skeered
Urk.
Renata <----- skeered
serttech2003
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2003
- Messages
- 143
Don't like this one bit, but I refuse to chicken out. Even if I have never won on deity before, ever. Going to have to move the settler i think, the hill looks like the best place for a last stand, but i don't think that helps much. This is what we get for complaining about the graphics peeking out of the fog.
Going to have to listen to what my betters are saying and adjust accordingly.
Scared but not terrified...serttech2003
Going to have to listen to what my betters are saying and adjust accordingly.
Scared but not terrified...serttech2003
hotrod0823
Deity
I think I agree with Moonsinger and will be moving to the hill top to settle. This will get what looks like grassland to the NE in the initial radius and hopefully will have addional grassland to the NE beyond the grass we can see. Couple that with floodplains and possibly a cow or wheat under the fog to the NE and we may get a few settler from this city after all.
Possibly the best bet is an early settler pre-granary to find a better settler factory location and use this city as a worker factory, much more manageable with all the floodplains and reasonable shields to maintain a worker factory. If there is any doubt the problems too much food and not enough shields can cause check out LK48.
Possibly the best bet is an early settler pre-granary to find a better settler factory location and use this city as a worker factory, much more manageable with all the floodplains and reasonable shields to maintain a worker factory. If there is any doubt the problems too much food and not enough shields can cause check out LK48.
Zwingli
Prince
The last two times I started near floodplains, I was hit by double disease before 3000 BC. If you are planning for an early granery in the capital that is almost like losing 2 settlers to barbarians (provided the disease hits before granery completion). That should be rather unlikely as floodplain disease is rare, but I think Dave's advice on an early settler is a good way to mitigate such a disaster. Judging from the last few GOTMs, information about the start location is quite valuable, so moving the worker onto the nearby hill will probably be worth a wasted worker turn.
The local terrain suggests that we are on the West coast of a landmass. Hot and dry terrain like deserts (floodplains) and plains tends to occur in a band between the equatorial jungle and temperate grasslands, so I would guess that we are just North of a patch of jungle and South of clear grassland and grassland forests (unless cracker pulled another tropical North Pole trick like in GOTM 17 ). Therefore, I would probably scout North and East for future settling terrain provided the Ocean doesn't get in the way.
The local terrain suggests that we are on the West coast of a landmass. Hot and dry terrain like deserts (floodplains) and plains tends to occur in a band between the equatorial jungle and temperate grasslands, so I would guess that we are just North of a patch of jungle and South of clear grassland and grassland forests (unless cracker pulled another tropical North Pole trick like in GOTM 17
). Therefore, I would probably scout North and East for future settling terrain provided the Ocean doesn't get in the way.Drathis
Chieftain
are you sure building on the hills is a good idea? It's one of the few good sources of shield income,although it would take a bit to get going
hotrod0823
Deity
This is true but early it will not get worked and mining it that soon may not be the best use of worker turns. By settling on the hill you get a defensive bonuse, may be helpful in Deity, and you get grassland to the NE. There are at least a couple you can see and hopefully more that we can't . Maybe a food bonus as well.
Hotrod
P.s. I think Moonsingers reason for settling on hills, I read somewhere. Is to get 2 food from a normally 1 food tile. And the defensive bonuses.
. Maybe a food bonus as well. Hotrod
P.s. I think Moonsingers reason for settling on hills, I read somewhere. Is to get 2 food from a normally 1 food tile. And the defensive bonuses.
Uhmm, I must have an exceptional monitor. I didn't even need to blow the picture up and I can clearly see wheat two tiles south of the start position. This means it's initially out of range and you'll need to move one tile to reach it. I think the tiles 2 NE and E/NE of the start are grassland and hopefully bonus grassland. That would warrant moving the settler one tile SE to settle on the floodplain. You'll have the wheat, at least one forest, and 2 grassland (potential bg) tiles in the expanded city radius.
I don't have time to post more now. I'll post more of my personal strategy later.
edit: Sorry for the mis-info. After getting a good night's sleep I looked at the picture again and there is no visible wheat two tiles south of the start position.
I don't have time to post more now. I'll post more of my personal strategy later.
edit: Sorry for the mis-info. After getting a good night's sleep I looked at the picture again and there is no visible wheat two tiles south of the start position.
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2001
- Messages
- 19,638
A floodplains start in a competition game has the potential to be a total disaster. I have seen disease at 3000BC and that is the kiss of death for trying to get a top slot. I am debating between west (at least one grassland) and northeast (at least two grassland). The wheel is only known to Japan at the beginning of the game. If they are not it the game we have a monopoly, military tech that we need to take advantage of. A warrior every turn 10 turns fails to achieve that goal. I want shields, to suicide food. We need ASAP contacts to take advantage of having the wheel.
I'll try to post more later on, but my first impression is that Cracker's opening play website could be very useful here : it describes a floodplains opening in great detail, including pop-rushing and relocating to a hill. I think I'm going to analyze those options to dead before starting...
@DaveMcW & Smirk : why do you think pop-rushing is not an option ??
@DaveMcW & Smirk : why do you think pop-rushing is not an option ??
SirPleb
Shaken, not stirred.
My scattered thoughts:
Start Position:
The hill to the west looks like it is on a coast to its NW and SW, and probably to the N. But what is west of it? There might be just a little peninsula there. There might be a land bridge to another area.
The land E and NE of the eastern hill looks like grassland.
The tile W,SW from start doesn't seem to be simple plains. I think there's something on it, perhaps forest.
The start position looks rather poor at the outset. It might turn out to be good if there are bonuses in its radius. There are nine tiles which could turn out to be cattle, game, wheat, or BG. But settling seems a harsh way to check them out - if there aren't any bonuses in sight that would result in a tough start indeed. And even if there are bonuses it might be worth a turn to move the settler closer to them.
So I'm going to start by moving the worker NE. That should reveal six of those nine tiles the start position can use, plus five additional ones. And perhaps a better feel for the overall local geography. After that move everything depends on what the worker sees. Settle at the start position if that looks good. Move NE to the hills if that will bring some good tiles further in that direction into range. Possibly even move a second step but that's unlikely. If things look bad everywhere after moving the worker to the hill then I'll gamble and move the settler SW.
Wonders
At Deity there's not much chance of building a wonder in Ancient Times. Especially with 10 rivals - they'll cascade their wonders a fair bit. I suggest not even trying. If you do try to build one then I suggest making sure it is in a city where you can switch it to build Forbidden Palace if it doesn't work.
Wonders which can trigger a Golden Age for us:
Any one of: Colossus, Great Lighthouse, Magellan's, Smith's, UN, plus any one of Oracle, Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, JS Bach's.
Captured wonders count toward the prerequisites - they count as triggers at the time when you next complete any wonder.
Early research
I think there's no point competing with Deity AIs in very early research. So that leaves three possibilities:
1) Do none at all. I don't plan on this choice.
2) Research Pottery to ensure we get it.
3) Gamble on 40 turn research.
Pottery should be learnable in 15 to 20 turns on this standard size map. I'll go this route if after the opening I decide a Granary is a top priority. And then if I can make a very early trade for Pottery I'll flip to approach (3).
If I decide to start with a settler or two (no early Granary) then I'll go for (3), researching Writing at minimum cost. I think there's roughly a 50/50 chance of learning Writing before the AIs learn it, it seems a worthwhile gamble. If early exploration happens to show that we're isolated on an island then I'd probably abandon this and flip to Pottery after all.
After Writing is known the choices are less clear. There's little point researching Map Making - the AIs emphasize it and they'll get there quicker. It may make sense to gamble on learning CodeOfLaws, Literature, or Philosophy before the AIs in 40 turns. Or to research one of those techs at a higher speed if there's income to support that. It depends on how quickly the AIs are advancing at that time.
Later tech
Remember that you can get tech for less in trades when more of the Civs you know have the tech. So don't pay high prices for recently discovered techs unless A) you really want the tech now for a specific purpose (e.g. Chivalry to do some upgrades and go on the offensive), or B) you can gain back the premium price by trading the new tech to other Civs.
If we're on a continents map, and inter-continent travel is not possible even with the Great Lighthouse (or is possible and by some chance we get the Lighthouse) then suicide galleys could pay off. They are of course a gamble and one which is only possible if we can afford the price of the bet, i.e. can divert some production to galleys. (Pop rushing in low production coastal towns can help with this.) The payoff for first contact on such a map can be very large. (Greebley's game on the Moonsinger practice trading thread provides an extreme example - on that map first contact could result in gaining a dozen techs and a few thousand gold.)
In a Deity game it is often important to plan ahead for the "Theory of Evolution slingshot". The way that can work is along these lines:
* You're behind in tech all the way into the Industrial Age.
* You guess when some Civ will learn Scientific Method and start a prebuild of Palace to finish a bit after that. (Or you save a leader for this.)
* You research and/or trade, doing whatever it takes, to get Steam Power, Medicine, Electricity, and finally Scientific Method soon after any Civ discovers it.
* You build Theory Of Evolution while starting research on an expensive tech, get that tech free and another as well. I find that good choices (if you build Theory of Evolution soon after Scientific Method is available) are Atomic Theory and Electronics.
* You trade Atomic Theory for a small fortune, including all tech known to anyone.
* You sit on Electronics for a while, trading it later on. (Because it needs Atomic Theory as a prerequisite, you know none of the AIs will be getting it right away.)
* During this time you research at max, having built up libraries, universities, etc before this date. You now try to stay ahead of the AIs in tech, selling things you learn to keep them drained.
Conquistadors
I haven't played the Spanish before and am not sure what to make of this unit.
One thing seems clear: If we haven't triggered a Golden Age already they could be used for that. They're weak so this will require care - they'll have to find and attack obsolete or weakened units somewhere. It may take more than one Conquistador.
If the right kind of opportunity is available I'm looking forward to warfare with Conquistadors involved. They could make some interesting tactics possible, allowing a smaller invading force than usual to be successful. They could be used to pillage resources, roads, and luxuries. I normally don't focus on those tactics but the Conquistador could make them more useful. Conquistadors might also be used as decoys. Heavy use of them in that capacity might turn out to be so powerful as to feel exploitive. (Or perhaps not )
War
It can be helpful in early wars at Deity level to have an ally. Conversely, one of the worst things which can happen is if the other Civs all gang up on you. It isn't necessarily game over but it isn't pretty either. So if you are forced into an early war, consider bribing someone nearby to join your side. As well as improving your immediate position, that reduces the chances of a gang-up against you. Also, if one of your neighbors is involved in an early war with someone else and faring badly, consider joining in against them - that can be the best time to start fighting at Deity.
Miscellaneous
Give in to all early AI demands unless you want a war. If you refuse a demand odds are they'll attack.
I suggest not opening goody huts with a warrior unless the hut is on a tile with a defense bonus. Odds are high of popping barbarians, and on plains or grasslands odds are they'll kill the warrior. Even huts on defense bonus tiles are somewhat risky. If playing with PTW remember that popped barbarians may head for your towns instead of attacking your unit.
One of our advantages as a religious Civ is that temples are cheap, just 30 shields. If you're still in Despotism when you build some outlying towns where waste is noticeable, pop rushing Temples can be a good idea. Religious Civs can build the first 10 shields while the town grows to size 2 and then rush a Temple. This can give some much needed culture at not too great a cost. But I don't generally pop rush Temples in productive core towns. That can make sense if they grow quickly, especially if you find yourself forced to assign entertainers. But generally in a core town you'll gain more production by keeping an extra citizen working than by pop rushing.
Start Position:
The hill to the west looks like it is on a coast to its NW and SW, and probably to the N. But what is west of it? There might be just a little peninsula there. There might be a land bridge to another area.
The land E and NE of the eastern hill looks like grassland.
The tile W,SW from start doesn't seem to be simple plains. I think there's something on it, perhaps forest.
The start position looks rather poor at the outset. It might turn out to be good if there are bonuses in its radius. There are nine tiles which could turn out to be cattle, game, wheat, or BG. But settling seems a harsh way to check them out - if there aren't any bonuses in sight that would result in a tough start indeed. And even if there are bonuses it might be worth a turn to move the settler closer to them.
So I'm going to start by moving the worker NE. That should reveal six of those nine tiles the start position can use, plus five additional ones. And perhaps a better feel for the overall local geography. After that move everything depends on what the worker sees. Settle at the start position if that looks good. Move NE to the hills if that will bring some good tiles further in that direction into range. Possibly even move a second step but that's unlikely. If things look bad everywhere after moving the worker to the hill then I'll gamble and move the settler SW.
Wonders
At Deity there's not much chance of building a wonder in Ancient Times. Especially with 10 rivals - they'll cascade their wonders a fair bit. I suggest not even trying. If you do try to build one then I suggest making sure it is in a city where you can switch it to build Forbidden Palace if it doesn't work.
Wonders which can trigger a Golden Age for us:
Any one of: Colossus, Great Lighthouse, Magellan's, Smith's, UN, plus any one of Oracle, Pyramids, Sistine Chapel, JS Bach's.
Captured wonders count toward the prerequisites - they count as triggers at the time when you next complete any wonder.
Early research
I think there's no point competing with Deity AIs in very early research. So that leaves three possibilities:
1) Do none at all. I don't plan on this choice.
2) Research Pottery to ensure we get it.
3) Gamble on 40 turn research.
Pottery should be learnable in 15 to 20 turns on this standard size map. I'll go this route if after the opening I decide a Granary is a top priority. And then if I can make a very early trade for Pottery I'll flip to approach (3).
If I decide to start with a settler or two (no early Granary) then I'll go for (3), researching Writing at minimum cost. I think there's roughly a 50/50 chance of learning Writing before the AIs learn it, it seems a worthwhile gamble. If early exploration happens to show that we're isolated on an island then I'd probably abandon this and flip to Pottery after all.
After Writing is known the choices are less clear. There's little point researching Map Making - the AIs emphasize it and they'll get there quicker. It may make sense to gamble on learning CodeOfLaws, Literature, or Philosophy before the AIs in 40 turns. Or to research one of those techs at a higher speed if there's income to support that. It depends on how quickly the AIs are advancing at that time.
Later tech
Remember that you can get tech for less in trades when more of the Civs you know have the tech. So don't pay high prices for recently discovered techs unless A) you really want the tech now for a specific purpose (e.g. Chivalry to do some upgrades and go on the offensive), or B) you can gain back the premium price by trading the new tech to other Civs.
If we're on a continents map, and inter-continent travel is not possible even with the Great Lighthouse (or is possible and by some chance we get the Lighthouse) then suicide galleys could pay off. They are of course a gamble and one which is only possible if we can afford the price of the bet, i.e. can divert some production to galleys. (Pop rushing in low production coastal towns can help with this.) The payoff for first contact on such a map can be very large. (Greebley's game on the Moonsinger practice trading thread provides an extreme example - on that map first contact could result in gaining a dozen techs and a few thousand gold.)
In a Deity game it is often important to plan ahead for the "Theory of Evolution slingshot". The way that can work is along these lines:
* You're behind in tech all the way into the Industrial Age.
* You guess when some Civ will learn Scientific Method and start a prebuild of Palace to finish a bit after that. (Or you save a leader for this.)
* You research and/or trade, doing whatever it takes, to get Steam Power, Medicine, Electricity, and finally Scientific Method soon after any Civ discovers it.
* You build Theory Of Evolution while starting research on an expensive tech, get that tech free and another as well. I find that good choices (if you build Theory of Evolution soon after Scientific Method is available) are Atomic Theory and Electronics.
* You trade Atomic Theory for a small fortune, including all tech known to anyone.
* You sit on Electronics for a while, trading it later on. (Because it needs Atomic Theory as a prerequisite, you know none of the AIs will be getting it right away.)
* During this time you research at max, having built up libraries, universities, etc before this date. You now try to stay ahead of the AIs in tech, selling things you learn to keep them drained.
Conquistadors
I haven't played the Spanish before and am not sure what to make of this unit.
One thing seems clear: If we haven't triggered a Golden Age already they could be used for that. They're weak so this will require care - they'll have to find and attack obsolete or weakened units somewhere. It may take more than one Conquistador.
If the right kind of opportunity is available I'm looking forward to warfare with Conquistadors involved. They could make some interesting tactics possible, allowing a smaller invading force than usual to be successful. They could be used to pillage resources, roads, and luxuries. I normally don't focus on those tactics but the Conquistador could make them more useful. Conquistadors might also be used as decoys. Heavy use of them in that capacity might turn out to be so powerful as to feel exploitive. (Or perhaps not
)War
It can be helpful in early wars at Deity level to have an ally. Conversely, one of the worst things which can happen is if the other Civs all gang up on you. It isn't necessarily game over but it isn't pretty either. So if you are forced into an early war, consider bribing someone nearby to join your side. As well as improving your immediate position, that reduces the chances of a gang-up against you. Also, if one of your neighbors is involved in an early war with someone else and faring badly, consider joining in against them - that can be the best time to start fighting at Deity.
Miscellaneous
Give in to all early AI demands unless you want a war. If you refuse a demand odds are they'll attack.
I suggest not opening goody huts with a warrior unless the hut is on a tile with a defense bonus. Odds are high of popping barbarians, and on plains or grasslands odds are they'll kill the warrior. Even huts on defense bonus tiles are somewhat risky. If playing with PTW remember that popped barbarians may head for your towns instead of attacking your unit.
One of our advantages as a religious Civ is that temples are cheap, just 30 shields. If you're still in Despotism when you build some outlying towns where waste is noticeable, pop rushing Temples can be a good idea. Religious Civs can build the first 10 shields while the town grows to size 2 and then rush a Temple. This can give some much needed culture at not too great a cost. But I don't generally pop rush Temples in productive core towns. That can make sense if they grow quickly, especially if you find yourself forced to assign entertainers. But generally in a core town you'll gain more production by keeping an extra citizen working than by pop rushing.
Ribannah
Fighter Druid
Thanks, that is very generous.
With floodplains there is always a decent chance of finding some wheat. Since the first move is almost free (it takes the Worker to 3750 BC to irrigate one of them), I'm inclined to move 1 tile southeast, which keeps the potential grasslands within the radius.
It's very risky, but if no better tiles turn up I am considering to primarily build Workers and Settlers early on and let the AI deal with the Barbs, as they did such a good job already on Emperor in GOTM#19.
A Granary is hardly worth the time if the 2nd, 3rd and 4th cities are also on the floodplains and their growth outweighs the benefits of the investment in the capital.
There are many rivals, all of them with extra units, so we're bound to run into some early without having to do much exploring ourselves. So that saves the need to build many units for that task.
It depends on who else is in the game, some of the civs do ignore treaties and attack undefended cities while others don't.
Also, if we're the only ones with Alphabet, a 40-turn research project on Writing may be worth it, and combine nicely with the need to use the luxury slider.
Otoh, Writing costs 320 gold to research, and being Commercial, with the river and a fairly fast growth we might beat that by going maximum science, which would prevent any extortions for money. Tough choice!
But surely there must be something helpful nearby to give us a chance to survive on this map ...
I am considering moving the settler to the NE hill like Moonsinger wrote, the main reason being barb protection. I am considering building one warrior for initial scouting, then a worker, Ribbanah style, then a second warrior for barb protection, then one or two settlers to get the good spots around. Still, if Shillen's monitor confirms there's wheat down south ...
I'm planning to get all the floodplains before I move to shield intensive tiles, so I'll have a rather large capitol, but the extra commerce from the river will help and even with 30% lux tax, I'll still be making a lot of money.
I would take the chance for a Writing min research, an possibly not trade Alphabet to increase my shots. It all depends if there are other civs starting with Alphabet on the map.
I'll go for some suicide galleys but I'm not 100% convinced.
I'm planning to get all the floodplains before I move to shield intensive tiles, so I'll have a rather large capitol, but the extra commerce from the river will help and even with 30% lux tax, I'll still be making a lot of money.
I would take the chance for a Writing min research, an possibly not trade Alphabet to increase my shots. It all depends if there are other civs starting with Alphabet on the map.
I'll go for some suicide galleys but I'm not 100% convinced.
Qitai
.
Cracker> Can we have a world map view to see at which part of the map we are in? This is available when loading up the save and affects planning as well.
Ribannah
Fighter Druid
Cracker,
Which resources_shadows.pcx file is to go with the blips only graphics?
Which resources_shadows.pcx file is to go with the blips only graphics?
CdB
Warlord
Just a question from a non expert gamer. Why do you prefer cities on hills? You do not benefit of the mining facility later in the game
