GoTM advice for new players
Some players have requested more detail and advice. I am going to try to do this in this post. And will use this GoTM as a practical example. I will be re-playing GoTM12 while I write, the run will not be exactly the same as the game I posted, as I don't have the save games anymore, but it will be similar.
DISCLAIMER: I wrote this somewhere else, but also needs to be here. I am a good GoTM player but by no means the best, I think I have won a grand total of 1 and I got lucky on that one
But I am one of the top players, on par with
@Ballcrusher @GoblinMatron @pmarc @ABigCivFan and some others I forget right now. The BEST sources of information are the GoTMs themselves and if you read and study the games by these players you will learn a lot. The second best source is a thread called Fast Science created by
@Manpanzee in Strategy and Tips where a bunch of us, mostly GoTM players plus a few players that do not like GoTMs but are amazing like
@Salamis or
@ValleTomate. In that thread we discuss strategies and post personal bests that some times illustrate the strategies. The game updates are also discussed and tested.
EDIT: while I was replaying to get the screenshots I must have done something slightly different as I noticed a discrepancy in t20 it is microscopic and everything applies. I will hide the screenshots as spoilers for easy scrolling but I warn you, there are a ton of screenshots.
My recommendation though is that you fire up the GoTM12 and play alongside me in this post.
General advice:
- Playing the Game of the Month (GoTM) is one of the most fun ways to play Civilization. Not being able to replay turns makes everything more real, and forces you to think carefully and have a strategy before you even start. Although theoretically a competition, this is mostly about trying your absolute best and learning from the other players.
- Do not hesitate to play GoTM because you think you cannot get a great result. We all started with poor results and every mistake is a learning experience. The community is very polite and responsive and appreciates every single game that is posted, I promise you that. Players are always willing to answer questions and offer advice.
- Playing speed games (and most GoTMs have the condition "fewest turns") is a very different animal to slowly and carefully building your empire. Here you do not really play against the AIs but against the rest of the players and every decision, every move counts.
- First bit of advice, when playing GoTM get into the habit of moving your units title by tile instead of all movement in one go. What you discover during the first part of the movement may influence the second part. And it sucks to have your settler killed because you moved them into the middle of a horde of barbarians.
- Exploration is essential. You need to know the map, decide locations for your 2nd and 3rd settlements, get as many huts as you can. It is rare for a top players to not open scout-scout. Let's kick off the game but first some strategic considerations.
- To get a good result (85-95), this will be necessarily a game of conquest, as I I will explain later to get that result you need to wipe 1 or 2 AIs. We have to learn to calculate how many turns we are targeting. In this game, it is unlikely we will get any future techs or future civics, as the leader and the civilization are not scientific or cultural (well Lafayette is cultural but not OP enough to get to future civic). But at Sovereign level, wiping 2 AIs is relatively easy. Each completed legacy path is 20, the era lasts 200 turns and reduces 1 turn for each turn played. So, if we target ending the era at 90 turns, we need 200-90=110 advance through the legacy bonuses and civ wipes. Say we get 3322 on the legacy paths, this is doable with this combo, (3 legacies for 20 turns, 2 legacies 10 turns). That's 60 turns. The remaining 50 turns will come from 2 AI wipes, at 25 turns each. That's 110 turns, so 90 turns play to get the 200 turns that will finish the age. In real life, I was hoping to finish the cultural path and get a 87/88 turns result, but in my game I realized by t50 or so that was not going to happen. If you look at the other 2 top games so far,
@Manpanzee the top player in the site, decided to go for 3333 or 3332 and 2 civ wipes, for a sub t90 but had bad luck with Ashoka planting 2 extra settlements. That is not possible for me, Manpanze is a significantly better player and I have some weaknesses in my game. To beat him I would need to get lucky. And I would exchange his t95 finish with 3333 legacies for my t90 finish with 3322 in a second.
@Ballcrusher played a game very similar to mine and looks like he was targeting 3322 and t90, like me. His game was slightly better than mine, in my opinion, but very comparable. I have also just seen
@Mazrak submission, I think he is a new player, and he posted a really nice result, I opened his save, his settlement limit is a little low and 105 is relatively slow but his KPIs (spt, cpt) are sound and he has some prep for exploration I can see the settler. A second settler would have been powerful. Also, only 2 IPs befriended, and as he says in his post, he did not befriend the food IP, which is why his settlement cap is 7. But a good result nonetheless, will be interesting what he gets in exploration.
@TalHawk welcome to the GoTM! Hope you had fun. It was difficult for me to check your game, as the saves are Explo, but nice game anyway and for a first attempt, quite extraordinary. Seems your main issue was not getting rid of Ben Franklin. If you have any specific questions, we will be more than happy to answer them.
Anyway, each of you have to do your own calculations understanding what is possible for you and what needs to happen to achieve the result you want.
- The conquest means we will open with Discipline, to get an early army. We should wipe our first civ between t50-t60 to have time to get to the next AI and wipe it. We also want to have three settlements before building our army, to get the snowball going, so that means planting the second and third settlement between the turns of 15 and 25, doable in most maps. Lets see what happens:
- EDIT: Realized we have not discussed urban planning, adjancencies and wonder building, will do that later apologies, I just forgot.
t1: The economic attribute point will give you 1gpt extra (gpt=gold per turn, spt=science per turn, fpt=food per turn and so on) and the other memento will not affect the game, it will give you a one off 10 gold. By the time you use another attribute point your reward of 10 yield of anything will be meaningless. So we use attribute point, settle in place and choose to build a scout.
t2: The is a ruin 2 moves away from your scout. The scout spawns and moves south to get it. As first tech, animal husbandry (AH). I very often choose this tech, unless my first worked tiles are going to be clay pits or plantations. In this case with a quarry, a mine and woodcutters as potential expansions, it is a no brainer. We start building a second scout.
t3: The city grows, we choose to work the tile to the south west, with 1 happiness 1 production. Production is KING at the start. I cannot stress this enough. Focus on production for your first growth events. Scout pops the ruin (called goody hut by old timers like me) and we are given a choice between 100 happiness but no science for 2 turns or 45 culture. 100 happiness is a big deal, it will accelerate the next celebration and thus the extra policy by 13/14 turns, but slowing science down is not a good idea at this time as the sooner we get AH the sooner we will start on our sawmill and the sooner we will reach pop 5 to get our second settler. And getting the second settler out as soon as possible is an overriding priority. Also, 45 culture is 4 turns of culture meaning we will be able to slot our first policy earlier. We choose culture.
t4: We go southeast 2 tiles with the scout. 1 scout will go South, the other North and the third scout will go East. This one is going South, we will call him SC1.
t5: We go one tile southeast with the scout and a ruin appears 2 tiles southwest. We still have one movement west, but we don't need it to reach the tile, as the scout will get there in the next move by moving 2 tiles. So we use the spare movement for Search. That discovers another ruin directly to our East and another to the far West. This is great.
t6: We go to pop the ruin on the East, with the idea of circling down to get the other ruins immediately after. We pop the ruin and we are given the choice of no culture for 3 turns and a free archer or 50 gold. This is a difficult choice, we need to accumulate 200 gold by t16 or so to be able to buy our settler and this would be a good start, plus we will lose most of the culture benefit of the previous ruin. But the archer will cost 200 gold, its an advanced unit and will dominate for the next 15-20 turns, and getting it so early means I will have a third unit to explore that will pay for itself the moment it discovers a hut or helps defeat an IP. I choose the archer. The other players may have chosen otherwise and there is a strong argument to choose the gold. Anyway, archer chosen and oh this hurts, I have one turn left to get my government but no culture, I wish I had got ot this ruin one movement later. Archer appears in my capital and I move it 1 tile northwest.
t7: I move my first scout (SC1) 2 tiles southwest to reach the other ruin. My second scout (SC2) is ready and I move it one tile northwest, sharing the tile with my archer. My city grows and I start working the Gold resource tile (more production, more gold). This was a mistake, as Manpanzee pointed out, there are other tiles that offer better production and you don't need the Gold tile so early. But this is a GoTM and you don't replay turns.
Anyway, we are at pop 3, at pop 5 I will hopefully be able to buy my settler. The way to get from 3 to 5 pop is to get 1 pop by building a warehouse building, in our case the sawmill, and by the natural growth of the city. Right now city will grow in 12 turns and although we have not finished researching AH, three turns left, I know that building the sawmill will take 7 turns aprox. So, we need to have 200 gold saved in 10 turns. T17 is a little late for a first settler, we will try to improve that. We move the archer 1 tile north east towards the elephant. As Animal Husbandry (AH) has not finished yet, I start work on my third scout but will put it on the queue as soon as AH finishes and I can start the Sawmill.
t8: I move archer 1 tile northeast and discover another ruin. SC2 moves 2 tiles straight north. SC1 pops the ruin on the West. Boost to next tech but no production for three turns. Tempting but no. I have only 2 turns left of AH, so not a lot of benefit, and production is KING. I take the 50 gold alternative and start saving for my settler. I see SC1 needs to continue to move West as there is another ruin in sight. This guy is supposed to go south but a ruin is a ruin, oh well.
t9: I encounter a hostile scout, from Shengle. I happen to remember that Shengle is a military IP. We will train our Army commander there. I forgot to say that we had encountered another hostile scout before, but I did not recognize the name of the Independent Power (IP). 2 hostiles in my more or less immediate vicinity. Gotta be careful with my scouts. Archer pops the ruin and we are offered 30 science and 20 food, which is exactly what we need to finish AH and make the city grow faster. The alternative 45 culture not so attractive as we are just one turn away from finishing chiefdom and in no great hurry to get discipline later. The food makes it 6 turns until next growth and finishing AH allows us to slot in the sawmill, 7 turns while moving the third scout down in the production queue. We have a nice synergy, as the growth event and the building will get us to pop 5 in 7 turns. We need to get the 200 gold, and we only have 109 but we have another ruin in sight. SC2 meanwhile moves 2 tiles northeast to cross a river.
t10: SC1 pops the ruin and get offered 45 science and 50 happiness for 50% damage. We take the deal. Archer moves 1 tile East and gets into the river. I like to follow rivers, there is usually interesting stuff and you have 2 moves guaranteed for the archer, who does not do well in rough terrain or woods. Also, although the archer is exploring, I don't want it to roam too far away from my city, I want the archer to do a wide circle and explore locally, as eventually I will want him to join my Army commander. SC2 continues straight northeast and discovers another ruin and Anuradhapura, a beautiful, friendly food IP. Culture or science Ips would be better but food is great as it will allow us to up the settlement limit and expand faster than expected. We get a narrative event called Humanism, and we choose option 2, Start a Trade Route. I checked this out in the xml files at the time, I seem to remember it leads to an economic attribute point eventually. Check out the Fast Science thread in Strategy and Tips,
@pmarc answers my question about a Narrative Event with a phenomenal miniguide of how to check all of the Narrative threads in the xml files of the game.
We choose Discipline as our next civic, we want that army commander and almost as badly we want the Survey policy that increases the movement and sight of our scouts. We choose the Oligarchy government for the food, I think in my game I chose culture for the wonders, whichis a good choice also but now we prefer food, we want to grow our settlements fast. We choose our first policy, 1 science and 1 production. I usually choose the other, 2 culture, but I am not in a hurry with the commander and I want to research Sailing and Pottery as soon as possible.
t11: SC2 pops the ruin, and we get 50 gold and 50 happiness. This is great as it takes our gold to 173 when we are 5 turns away from 5 pop, at 7 gold per turn we will have the money we need. Also the happiness bump will leave us 4 turns away from the first celebration and our second policy slot. The other option is culture and we are not in a hurry to get the commander, we don't even have an enemy to point him to. So happy gold it is. Our next tech is sailing. Two reasons, I want to build a galley soon to explore the coast and the ability to navigate can save the scouts if they get in trouble. I very often get Sailing in slow starts like this, as I will not need Irrigation extra settlement limit until at least 20 turns from now, so I can fit Sailing in. SC1 meanwhile is recovering health in a well deserved rest. 50% health is too low to continue scouting immediately, you need to be able to survive at least one hit and there are 2 hostile IPs around, I consider 80 health the minimum.
t12: SC2 continues north. Archer continues to follow the river. SC1 continues to recover.
t13: While healing, SC1 meets a scout from Gungnae, friendly, I remember this is a diplomatic IP, not great but better than nothing. Archer pops a ruin found at the end of the river. 50 gold 50 happiness. Now we have more than 200 gold, 3 turns ahead of schedule. SC2 continues north.
t14: SC1 is 80/100 health, time to start moving again. Move south to finish the movement on a minor river. SC2 goes north and finds a lake. Archer moves East. First celebration comes, we choose the food and we add another policy, 2 culture on palace.
t15: SC2 meets Longcheng scout, military IP, hostile. Moves north. SC1 moves south. Archer moves south east. City grows and we build a woodcutter for 2 production 1 tiles southeast of Roma. 1 turn left for pop 5. EDIT: I made a mistake here, we had enough money (8 gold) to pay for the reminder of the sawmill and still have 200 to buy the settler in this turn, one turn earlier.
t16: Sawmill finishes, pop 5 is achieved, we buy our settler (S1). Could have build it in three turns, and buy the second settler for 260 gold in t19, probably better, but I just want the settler now. I make a mistake and move my scout 2 tiles behind a mountain with SC2 and find a hostile warrior that hits me. Ouch. Never move 2 tiles. SC2 will retreat. Archer moves south east. SC1 moves carefully east, we will do a search next turn.
t17: We turn on the settler lens and there is really only one location for our second settlement, south east, on top of a minor river, next to cotton. A little too close to our capital, but its OK for Antiquity and I am very likely going to change the capital before Modern, when I will need every tile. The second settlement will have immediate access to 2 cotton, to feed itself and the capital, fantastic. SC1 moves one tile and encounters an enemy warrior, no escape. Also discovers Shengle, a military IP (I call it "training ground"
) We are so happy we healed SC1, he has a good probability of survival. We start building our second settler (S2, 5 turns left). Our third scout finishes (SC3), and starts moving East. Meanwhile the archer pops another ruin and we get 15 production to Roma, that takes the turns to build S2 from 5 to 4. SC2 is healing up north.
t18: SC2 continues to heal. SC1 also survives, barely, and also retreats. SC3 continues East. S1 moves towards its destination. Archer continues its long arch of exploration.
t19: SC2 healing. SC1 retreats farther. SC3 continues East. Archer continues the long arch and meets Ben Franklin. Oh. Ben is quick to befriend or to anger so we need to decide fast what he will be. We designate him as our first future victim. We neutral greet him no other option as we just started befriending Anuradhapura, we should have started last turn but we forgot and we have no influence left. ALWAYS before you finish your turn check you influence and money and figure out whether you want to spend some of either, that will prevent mistakes like this, I just lost one turn before the IP is befriended. SC1 heals and moves East. S1 reaches destination.
t20: Neapolis founded. Neapolis grows to one of the cottons. Next tech is Writing. Sc1 continues to heal. Sci1 moves East and discovers a ruin.
t21: SC2 pops ruin and gets the best prize ever a free tech! Masonry in this case. I of course knew this ruin was somewhere around here from my own game, in my game I did not get a completely free tech as I was 2 turns into Irrigation and I got Irrigation, but this is great, full tech Masonry. Why oh why could it not be Irrigation or Writing? Oh well. Can't complain. This will now be a very different game from mine. Discipline finishes and my Army Commander spaws in the capital. I chose Mysticism as next civic. Start work on a warrior. Settler is ready and we choose the location, the only water tile on the south next to the camels.
I will stop here, as it gets too complicated from now, and this takes a really long time to write. As a sneak pick, what comes next is that we will spend 4 turns building 1 warrior, one slinger and buying another warrior. The archer will join the Army Commander, the 2 warriors and a slinger and train against Shengle to get the Assault and Maneuver promotions, in that order. Then the Army will go to try to kill Ben, with a couple more units, probably bought in the towns, maybe eliminating the other hostile IP on the way. Killing the military IP used for training will help build the first wonder, likely Great Steele. Mysticism civic is next and then the mastery. Our Pantheon will probably be God of the Sun. We will continue to try to expand as quickly as possible, using settlement limits from Irrigation and the food IP, so need to fit in 2-3 more settlers in the next 20 turns in the build/buy queue.
I hope this was useful. This is not a perfect first 20 turns, but it has allowed us to discuss some of the basics for early decisions and the mechanics of exploration. We got a good amount of ruins, mostly because there was little or no competition, the AIs seem to be not very close and in Sovereign they do not seem to spam units as quickly as in Deity.
If anybody has any suggestions on how to improve, or catches any mistakes in my calculations, please please chip in.
I have included some screenshots, to make it easier to follow the moves. I had a lot more but apparently I can only attach 20 files, so I choose the most important ones.
EDIT: Just realized we have not discussed other early decisions like urban planning, adjacencies and the Wonder strategy. Will do that as soon as I can, probably in the placeholder post below.
