BOTM 04 Pregame Discussion

[blastoidstalker]

Also, thats 3 (or 2) turns used up in order to take a lot of unknown tiles. On Fractal maps, it could turn out to be dogsh*t. Then what? Use 2 turns to get back to start pos? Its a risk... could pay off, or could cost you. Frankly, I don't think I can lose on Prince level unless I take a lot of gambles, so I am not keen on that hill.

It only takes two turns. Crossig the river negates the 1/2 mp you would have for a road because ytou do not knbow how to build a bridge. Try it in the test game.

I actualy agree that if I was just building 1 city, 1 W would be ideal, but I am thinking of two cities not one and maximizing my pace to get to city 2.

the big drawback in my opinion to going SW SW is you can not mine the gold for some early commerece, but at this level I am not worried about losing a few extra commerece early on from the gold as they are not great tiles for worker and settler production.

 

[Conquistador 63]

By the way, what setting puts that green bar over the warrior?

IIRC it is in options-graphics(or game?)- show unit health bar.

You mean there is a good chance of having a rather small (british) island and space for maybe only one more city before we have to move to the continent.

That is a nice idea, but unfortunately it has already been used (to the extreme) in WOTM10 a while ago.

I reconsidered my first plans, and if warrior S doesn't show anything in the E fog, I am also going 1W (as Harok already pointed out).

 

[MarkM]

I haven't given a lot of thought to this (just killing a couple minutes here while waiting for something), but my initial thoughts appear to be going a different direction than what I've read so far. I'm seriously thinking going NE+NE -- or more accurately, moving warrior E to see what's in that direction, then going that way if it looks acceptable (who knows, it may even be a plains hill?). It looks like I'll get a couple tundra to the E but I can live with that, like some have pointed out this is probably way N and the capital may have to be moved later anyway. My shotgun reasoning here is that 1) lake corn + inland lake for food, two gold mines for hammers + commerce make a fantastic size 4 city to drive tech & geographic expansion, 2) more forests to chop to also boost expansion, 3) gives a chance to explore with early workboats & later galleys & possibly squeeze in more cities -- enables putting another one on one of those river plains hills as city #2 -- if the theory of DS's vision of Churchill being "alone on his little island" turns out to be true. If you settle in place/1W you might end up wasting lake corn?

I'm not certain I'll do this, just thinking out loud while I keep trying to decide. IF I don't do that, then 1W does look good -- at least better than in place anyway.

 

[morpheus11]

@ MarkM, I was looking at the same thing, except I wasn't looking at it as my first city. I was using that city location to determine where I want to put my first city so that my tundra city wouldn't have too many overlapping tiles.

I am starting to lean towards settling NE NE. It will have at least 2 river tiles that could be used as cottages, and at least 1 more hill for production.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I was thinking of NE,NE at first as well, but I like it better for city #2.

 

[Bleys]

Fract usually means lots of coastal tiles too, Prince means maybe I can finally get my "ambitious wonder list" in one of these, LOL.

I lost GOTM #28 so fast, I have been dying to redeem myself. Still 0-fer on a winning a single G/W/B OTM, though. Oh well, its a blast and helps me try to break my horrible "oops, need to re-load" habits.

 

[MarkM]

But I think most of the "charm" for NE+NE is that you can get going in the game much more quickly vs in place or 1W, or possibly gong S ...

I'm thinking you build a worker first, then either go BW to be able to chop all those forest right away, or ag to get the corn up, then BW for whip + chop a bit later. I'm thinking the latter, ag, first because that'll let the city grow quickly to size 2 & 3 & get gold mines worked, which will make research on BW & beyond go quickly.

I guess I'm saying most of the point of the city there is that you can grow more quickly, so settling there second defeats most of the point for me.

 

[morpheus11]

I agree MarkM. I was originally think of this spot as my second city, but after further examination I think it is a better short term 1st city. I am really leaning toward this and using the pigs and the river in my second city.

IMO, agriculture should be researched first with the first build a worker. Then the worker can build the gold mine while waiting for agriculture to finish, and then move to the corn. The corn will jump start growth while, the gold is finished. Then chop a settler once BW is done.

MarkM, thanks for making me look at this differently. I am starting to really like this start better. Now, I just have to wait another 3 days before I can start playing.

 

[MarkM]

Thanks, it's always nice to have an idea validated. I'm already considering tweaking slightly, maybe NE+N. It looks like there may be tundra to the E in the fog. Settling there would still leave space for another city one square W of pig on plains river hill with no overlap.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Then the worker can build the gold mine while waiting for agriculture to finish, and then move to the corn. The corn will jump start growth while, the gold is finished. Then chop a settler once BW is done.

I think you'll finish agriculture well before your worker, btw. Northern tundra often has deer or furs. If furs, it would be nice use the corn for your fur city.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I am going to try the NE NE spot in the test to see how it pans out.

I agree that it is the best spot to quickly get city two and still get some solid research. I am worried that the spot will be at the edge of the landsmass and result in larger distances to later cities. This can of course be resolved by moving the capital. I do wounder if putting the city in the NE corner will lead to more Fog of war and more need to fog busting.

SW SW to me is a gamble, but i feel that at monarch I can take a gamble and still win the game if it does not pan out.

 

[Harok]

I made a quick comparison of the tiles you get with 1W and 2NE. 2NE would probably be my 2nd favorite move but I'm still liking 1W the best. Especially given DS's "interesting" placement of resources in past games, 2 gold a corn and pig might be the only resources on the entire continent.

 

[Bleys]

Wow, you guys get quite technical. I hope I am not the only one who sort of just "wings it", LOL.

BTW, how much do playing the "practice" games actually help? I mean, obviously this wont be the same map, or the same AI civs (maybe some in common), so is it mostly to get a "feel" for the leader? Even starting moves are nearly impossible to duplicate. I have a strong desire to have my first city on the coast, and go for Colossus, especially with a Fractal map, but its hard to gauge. Especially with that little surprise this practice game offers (2W + 2S, I think). I purposely avoided settling that particular bonus so I WOULDNT be influenced by it . . . but I dunno.

I will certainly agree practicing with the leader himself is solid. Especially one with these traits, and I rarely play them. This months LHC has given me a newfound respect for the PRO trait, though, holy moly those Rifles are STRONG!

 

[Harok]

Wow, you guys get quite technical. I hope I am not the only one who sort of just "wings it", LOL.

I'm just excited I get to post in the pregame thread before everyone has started the game. I usually am still finishing previous games instead of thinking about the next one but I had to skip BotM3 so that caught me up.

BTW, how much do playing the "practice" games actually help? I mean, obviously this wont be the same map, or the same AI civs (maybe some in common), so is it mostly to get a "feel" for the leader? Even starting moves are nearly impossible to duplicate.

For me they make all the difference in the world. The most important things I get from them is a feel for when techs, builds, and growth will happen early on and a feeling for what that type of map looks like. If the actual map throws a major curve with a power tile that needs a tech I had no intention of using I will sometimes save and then go edit the test game to match. I can't do all the fancy micromanagement stuff many do, see any Murky SGotM thead, and I need to play through the first few techs and builds to see what will work.

Thanks to those who take the time to make them.

 

[Htadus]

No blue rings??

The selected unit is the warrior. That is why it is not showing any blue rings.
Once you select the settler it will show blue rings if it find a spot to recommend. Some of those have been poor in the past.


First, thanks DS for giving us builders another chance to try to build all the wonders. Its a madness I tell you (and deviate me from playing an efficient game) but I love those wonder movies..

As for the game, I would like to settle on either:

1. The PH 2 SW, but those damn jungles are there. I rarely research IW. So that may not be a good idea. That spot would give us the fastest worker (turn18) and research before landscaping but no gold.

2. Can settle 1S on turn 0 and keep one gold for the capitol. If there are other food source in the fog, this could be a killer production site as well as having a few cottagable tiles. But that is a big if and the first worker will take 4 more turns (T22).

3. Last option for the Cap is 1W. It too would make a good combo city, but the worker will be 6 turns later than the site 1 (T24) That is nearly a completed mine.

The second city (2NE) will have 2 gold and corn in the fat cross and will be coastal. So looking at what we can see right now, ther are at least enough tiles to build 4 decent cities. I am Okay with that.

As for the game plan: I want to build some banks. So it will be either space or the UN. Along the way, kill some trouble makers, build some wonders and be an overall nice guy.

I have never had a score greater than 98K. I wonder if that can be done while going to get elected to the UN.....hummmmmm.. I guess that would require alot of killing.

 

[kcd_swede]

1. The PH 2 SW, but those damn jungles are there. I rarely research IW. So that may not be a good idea. That spot would give us the fastest worker (turn18) and research before landscaping but no gold.

What will your worker do in turn 18??? Hunt > AH should take about 28 turns if you are stuck at pop1 building worker(s). You could get mining in 10 turns (Challenger start I'm thinking) and start mining the gold, but you can't effectively use the gold until you get the pig (AH).

If I am starting with no techs and 3 barbs that reach me in 8 turns, I can't see any reason not to build warriors until pop2 then switch to worker. But I suck, so don't take this as advice, just jump in and tell me why my thinking is screwed up.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I don't see the 3 barbs as a handicap, but rather a benefit. They won't pillage for quite some time and won't attack cities for an even longer time. You can use them for XP if you want or you can leave them to dillute the archer pool later on. If there are AIs that start with scouts on our landmass, they may be killed by the barbs. The only possible handicap that I see is that they might allow the barb nation to know where you capital is as soon as they start spawning.

Otherwise, how are they a handicap?

 

[blastoidstalker]

What will your worker do in turn 18???

I see tewo options of how to apporach SW SW.
building worker first makes much more sense on contender than challenger. on contended you research Agriculture- AH - Build a mine, it looks like there is another hill to the W of the SW SW hill, mine this hill then you should have AH by the time you are done with the mine. If there is not a hill there then you can build a mine on the pigs, which would yield 2F 3H 1C until you pave it over with a pasture.

On challenger I would think to build 1-2 warriors first. If we are not alone, then use them for worker steal or just to create general mayhem. I like the knee cap the closest civs so that they go down easy later. The SW-SW has 3 production form the start so it is a good site to produce early warriors quickly.

 

[blastoidstalker]

I played a couple of test starts last night, coimapring three starting positioins
1) SW, SW
2) NE, NE
3) W

In each start I built a worker first, then at least 1 warrior then a settler.

For the SW and W starts I researched AG-AH-BW-Med-Wheel
For NE,NE i researched AG-BW-AH-Med-Wheel

I worked each one up to sixty turns.

On each start I was able to be a settler out before turn 60. for NE,NE it was produced on turn 49 (with a whip), on SW SW on turn 50 (with no whipping), and with W on turn 54 (with Whip). At turn sixty SW SW was 5 turns away from bieng able to whip finish a settler, NE NE was 6 turns away. W was atl east 8-9 turns away with some creative whipping. Both SW and NE cut down 1 forest to help move things along. SW SW is set up at this point to pre-whip settler #2 and is at a better place in terms of food stored.


All cities were able to produce 3 warriors at this time and SW,SW had produced 4 (the extra comes after worker). All three cities are running at around 18 commerece though the W city isw ahead in total research by 61 beaker. it could have been ahead by around 100 if the settler was not whipped.


In conclusion i think all three are good sites and whoich one to pick depends on overall goals.

I think for an aggressive start with rival civs in the vicinity that SW SW is best. The extra warrior could net a worker with a steal and i think the capital will be better positioned towards other civs. It also has the largest risks for long term quality becasue we do not know what is on the other side of the hill. I did cut a forest that is not in the orginal area. If there are no forests in its fat cross, its build times will decrease and the attractiveness of the location is less.

NE NE is slightly superior for REX but not as strong for production, probably better if we are alone on an island (coastal capital) but not as strong at early production. It still has 2 forests left to cut

W is best for early tech push and would be the best late game commerece city, but is slow in early development. No forest in fat cross and few 4X or better resources hinder its ability to produce settler and workers. The fact ytou can work the gold early though, gives you a jump start on tech.



To me I see SW SW and NE NE as the best options and my gut is saying SW SW.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Barb uprising. Reports have been heard that three barbarian warriors are on the prowl, somewhere between 8 and 13 tiles away from your settler start position.

What can we learn from this? My hunch:

1. 13 tiles almost surely makes this a significantly bigger landmass than a small island. What we see doesn't look like snaky continents or archipelago, so 13x5=65 tiles minimum in all likelihood. That's enough for a lot of cities.

2. Any AIs are probably farther away, because otherwise these barbs would be meaningless as a 'challenger handicap.' So we're either isolated on a reasonably large island or any AIs are pretty far away. This means worker stealing won't help early on, but a counter-attack is also unlikely. Fogbusting might be necessary after a while.

3. There are probably some AIs only reachable by sea.

4. Early game focus should be research, exploration (maybe with wb), and REX.