COTM 09 Pre-game Discussion

[Ginger_Ale]

Republic slingshot: Researching (Alphabet), Writing, Code of Laws, then Philosophy, and for your free tech if you get there first: Republic, which can give you a very early advantage if you switch early.

I'm set on settling in place; worker to the western bonus grassland, I'll mine and road it, then to road the Ivory, and then mine the rest of the bonus grasslands.

Two curraghs will set out, going opposite directions to meet new civs. Probably will do a Curragh -> Curragh -> Settler start, or maybe a granary if I can trade for that. The Philosophy -> Republic gambit shouldn't be too hard on Monarch, so I'm going to give it a shot.

I'm looking forward to a peaceful AA, and then once we enter the MA, head straight for Invention, upgrade some Archers, fill some Galleys (hopefully we won't have to wait for Caravels) with Bezerks and go fight.

 

[jafa]

@ SirPleb - I was reading your post in COTM2 (I think) about making a settler factory with a city of size 4.5

I think I've just realised that my problem with my settler factory is that I never let them get up to size 4 (or 5). I just build a granary and then pump out settlers regardless. So the size of this city keeps fluctuating from 1 to 3 then back to 1.

Can you confirm to produce an effective settler factory I should let it grow a bit more? If so what do you build while waiting for it to grow?

(and would it be possible to pull off on this map?)

Jafa

 

[Tone]

Also, do people ever care that they're giving out tactics as this is somewhat a competition ?

Ahh, but it's a friendly competition (and I'm never going to win anyway )

 

[ainwood]

@ SirPleb - I was reading your post in COTM2 (I think) about making a settler factory with a city of size 4.5

I think I've just realised that my problem with my settler factory is that I never let them get up to size 4 (or 5). I just build a granary and then pump out settlers regardless. So the size of this city keeps fluctuating from 1 to 3 then back to 1.

Can you confirm to produce an effective settler factory I should let it grow a bit more? If so what do you build while waiting for it to grow?

(and would it be possible to pull off on this map?)

Jafa

I haven't done the numbers, but I think a settler factory on this map will be quite slow.

The key thing is that to build a settler, you need 30 shields. A settler also drops the pop. by 2, so in reality for a "sustainable" settler factory you need 20 surplus food (two pop. points) for every settler.

In general, the benefits of operating a settler factory at a bigger size is that you generate more shields and can therefore build a settler faster - the fastest is normally 4 turns (5 surplus food / turn for four turns) + an average of 7.5 shields (net) per turn to build the settler.

With no food bonuses nearby, getting surplus food on this map will be difficult - you'll get 2 surplus from the city center, but all the other tiles in the immediate vicinity will likely only provide enough food for the citizen working them - unless fresh water can be found for irrigation. In short, growth will be fairly slow.

this article gives a good over-view of settler factories.

 

[solenoozerec]

Also, do people ever care that they're giving out tactics as this is somewhat a competition ?

An interesting question.
I cannot tell for everybody, but I think that most people do not care about it.
Why?
Good opening moves are very important but they are not everything. If your open sequence was successful, it does not guarantee you success at the end. However, if you screw your open sequence it almost guarantees you the lack of success (try walking with your settler for 10 turns if you do not believe me ).
There are plenty of new players who is likely to benefit from a good advice at the beginning. It will help them to achieve better results, but it won’t give them advantage over those who gave this advice.
I do not think that strong players will significantly suffer or benefit from the lack of pre-game discussion. New players will suffer definitely.

Besides, it is fun to have this discussion and there is always a gamble in the game (an advice from a good player can turn out to be not a good one ).

 

[Wanderer]

Hmm - looks like this could be a good time to haul out my Conquests expansion and install it, since I finish GOTM39 pretty early.

Question - I haven't installed Conquests yet ... will I have issues with PTW, will I still be on 1.27 PTW, and able to play GOTM's? Do I need any extra files for COTM's ?

Ta...

 

[Renata]

I installed Conquests right over a pre-existing PTW installation and had no problems. There shouldn't be any interference, in theory.

There aren't any downloads needed to play COTMs at the moment, although the staff reserves the right to make your life more difficult on short notice in the future. There is one requested change to be made beyond the obligatory patching, but a) you don't have to download anything if you don't want to, b) it's a bug-fix, not a COTM-specific thing. Here's what it says on current COTM game release web pages:

A 'fix' for the Barbarians!: As many of you know, the barbarians in C3C are 'broken'. This can be fixed by going to your \Conquest\ folder, and opening your Conquests.ini file, and adding a line noaipatrol=0 to the file. Whilst we cannot force people to do this, it will make the game a bit more interesting if you do. If you are not comfortable editing your .ini file, you can download a utility here to do it automatically.

Good luck!

Renata

 

[Wanderer]

And, I'll need to go to 1.22, is that right?

Hopefully this patch isn't as buggy as the PTW 1.21 to 1.27 route... had sun "fun" with that.

 

[Renata]

That's right. I seem to recall that the latest versions of C3C shipped with 1.22 already installed, but I might be wrong. At any rate, check first.

Renata

 

[Wanderer]

Cool - seems like that patch went through no problems, and ini edited. No I will catch up on this thread.

BTW - any articles I should read to help "convert" my gaming from PTW to CoC

Ta..

 

[AlanH]

SirPleb wrote an excellent summary of the key game play changes in C3C. Let's see ... ahah! Here it is Two posts in succession - 70 and 71 - covering most of it. Read the succeeding discussion as well for more elucidation.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

I plan to initially research Writing at maximum.

OK, what am I missing? It seems it will take so long to get Writing anyway that it is worth it to go at min and build up the gold so I can go into significant negative gold growth later.

 

[Xevious]

Hmm - looks like this could be a good time to haul out my Conquests expansion and install it, since I finish GOTM39 pretty early.

Question - I haven't installed Conquests yet ... will I have issues with PTW, will I still be on 1.27 PTW, and able to play GOTM's? Do I need any extra files for COTM's ?

Ta...

You might consider backing up your saves and any other changes to your PTW install, uninstalling PTW and then allowing it to reinstall with Conquests. Then you can use your C3C disc to play both PTW and C3C and never have to take the CD out of your drive. (You don't play anything OTHER than Civ, right?)

 

[Randy]

Then you can use your C3C disc to play both PTW and C3C and never have to take the CD out of your drive. (You don't play anything OTHER than Civ, right?)

I don't even remember how to open the drive.


Well I don't do as well with C3C as I do with PtW. But I my try to make the AI build a lot of my cities for me.

 

[solenoozerec]

With 80% water we might want to have The Great Lighthouse at some point. I think it also can be used to trigger timely Golden Age.
With no other seafaring civs near by I might go for that.
Any thoughts about it?

 

[jafa]

Thanks very much for a detailed answer on this Ainwood. I'm amazed at how much I'm improving in my playing of Civ3 (at least I think I am improving, I hope that this COTM will be the first I will submit)

John

I haven't done the numbers, but I think a settler factory on this map will be quite slow.

The key thing is that to build a settler, you need 30 shields. A settler also drops the pop. by 2, so in reality for a "sustainable" settler factory you need 20 surplus food (two pop. points) for every settler.

In general, the benefits of operating a settler factory at a bigger size is that you generate more shields and can therefore build a settler faster - the fastest is normally 4 turns (5 surplus food / turn for four turns) + an average of 7.5 shields (net) per turn to build the settler.

With no food bonuses nearby, getting surplus food on this map will be difficult - you'll get 2 surplus from the city center, but all the other tiles in the immediate vicinity will likely only provide enough food for the citizen working them - unless fresh water can be found for irrigation. In short, growth will be fairly slow.

this article gives a good over-view of settler factories.

 

[Riccett]

Is it just me or does there appear to be a cow SW of the elephant. I think something is there for sure (think!! hehe) Therefore...

Worker goes SW to hill

Beef present:
Settler goes SW aswell

Worker N to BG -> Road -> Mine -> SW -> Road -> SW -> (Hope for fresh water) Irrigate then road or if no water Road

No beef present:
Settle on spot

Worker N to BG -> Road -> Mine -> N -> Mine -> Road

Build will be Warrior, Curragh, Settler/Granary depending on more revealings

 

[Xevious]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that's another elephant.

 

[Durkz]

yea thay usualy come in groups but this is custom made map so

 

[klarius]

OK, what am I missing? It seems it will take so long to get Writing anyway that it is worth it to go at min and build up the gold so I can go into significant negative gold growth later.

It will initially show 50 turns, but already the first road will reduce this. With more roads and the second city hopefully also coastal, one will reach writing in less than 40 turns.
You could save around 200g in your min research, but for what? You shouldn't have unit support cost and not much maintenance so that there shouldn't be much negative gpt.
A little bit of trading/brokering or some loans from the AI should fix your needs for gold.
Still I'm always reluctant to leave out pottery first. So my research will be pottery->writing, both at 100%. Even then writing will initially show more than 40 turns, but that will go down quickly.