GOTM - 01: A New Beginning. Pre-Game Discussion

[Ribannah]

In my test game I found all civs to be on one single continent.
There is still room on the map for another continent. I can't yet leave the coast though. The game may get finished before I can.
One of my cities has access to no less than 4 gold hills on plains and one iron source, but for the lack of food it can't work them all. A possibility to trade food between cities would be nice!

 

[Gato Loco]

With a low level and a killer UU, there's little question what were supposed to do here. I'm thinking 4 farmed grasslands and 4 mined hills, for 13 base hammers at size 8, 17 or so with organized religion. Then pump out praetorians until you own the continent. Hopefully there will be a few more city spots like this for additional unit pumps.

As for tech, I'd beeline to iron, then beeline to feudalism/theocracy, stopping just enough to pick up the neccesary tile-improvement techs. The trick will be to get the war machine going before the neighbors get lots of culture. Let's hope we aren't surrounded by creative civs.

 

[Tarkeel]

@Gato Loco: Organized reiligions only helps when you're on buildings, not units though.

 

[Shillen]

Well just found out part of my strategy will not work. Holy shrines only generate tax revenue, it does not get converted into research. The game seems to use the same icon whether it's adding commerce or adding tax revenue which is what made it confusing. So given that and the fact that Rome doesn't start with mysticism I will not grab an early religion.

 

[ainwood]

Well just found out part of my strategy will not work. Holy shrines only generate tax revenue, it does not get converted into research. The game seems to use the same icon whether it's adding commerce or adding tax revenue which is what made it confusing. So given that and the fact that Rome doesn't start with mysticism I will not grab an early religion.

Yes, but the extra tax revenue allows you to support more maintenance == more cities == more research (or simply a higher tax rate for longer). I have had success grabbing hinduism or buddhism in this manner.

 

[DaveMcW]

With Rome on Noble, you will always get Hinduism if you beeline for it. The happiness and culture bonus is a great compliment to Rome's natural health and aggression.

The question is, how much does the delay to Farms/Chopping/Iron cost you?

 

[MeteorPunch]

With Rome on Noble, you will always get Hinduism if you beeline for it. The happiness and culture bonus is a great compliment to Rome's natural health and aggression.

The question is, how much does the delay to Farms/Chopping/Iron cost you?

I've found that if I go for a religion, missing those techs early doesn't hurt me if I delay the worker by waiting for pop 3 or 4 to build it.

edit: I won't be going for early religion in this game, though.

 

[Shillen]

I've played 3 test starts with the Romans on standard continents map. Every time Hinduism and Buddhism were taken in the first 10 turns of the game, always by spiritual civs. Now I don't think that's likely to happen every time, but it's definitely not an uncommon thing to happen. I think what you sacrifice in improving your cities is not worth the early religion. Hopefully one of the other civs on our continent will found a religion and I can conquer them and use theirs.

My latest test game with Rome I started on a continent with the Germans. I went with an aggressive settle approach, getting 6-7 cities before my neighbor had 4. I did not found a religion. I instead went with city improvement techs followed by iron working and then towards construction. I built primarily military early on. Lucky for me the Germans founded Confuscianism a few turns before I declared war on them. I took all his cities with only losing a single spearman. The catapults weren't even necessary. Anyway that game ended with a 1715AD diplomatic victory scoring 30k+ points. (edit: I built the UN in around 1580AD, but it's a lot harder to get civs to vote for you in civ4 than it was in civ3.).

I'm definitely going to use a similar approach in the GOTM except I won't bother getting catapults before going to war next time.

Oh yeah and if you claim the entire continent to yourself...be ready to deal with barbs for ages and ages before you can fill in all the cities.

 

[ainwood]

Re an early religion, I agree that happiness isn't actually going to be a problem - and the religion on its own is not the main issue - its getting a priest and a great prophet that's the key - I don't think happiness will be a problem for quite a while (especially with the gems mineable and on the trade-route from the start).

I'll probably go agriculture first, then bronze working. Whether I go for iron working or maybe go towards writing and perhaps to alphabet will depend on what is nearby, including what other civs are around. If we're isolated, or have lots of room to expand, then iron working is a low(er) priority - I'll try to get research up and running instead via writing. If we have (really) close neighbours, then I'll be looking for iron working or perhaps horse-archers (again, depending on the resources) to make sure we can claim some decent land!

 

[remconius]

I tried a few non-religion starts with Romans.

Build worker, settler with 1-2 chops. Expand to 4 cities and start Building Praetorians to roll over the nearest/juiciest or religious opponent. You then have 7-8 cities, which is a great production bsae. The war revenue allows you to keep science at 100% for quite a while. Meanwhile you need to focus several high food cities on commerce with cottages to keep up with maintenance and your in good shape.

Seems very viable with Romans on Noble. I will probably go for that.

 

[Yushal]

I'll move east to settle Rome. NE may cut down on the river tiles available for your second/third city.

Are we sure this save is going to be playable after the patch?

 

[remconius]

I am doing an interesting test on being aggressive.

Playing the Persians now on a huge map at Prince level. Using a very aggressive start. Rolled over neighbours quickly with immortals. Barbarian cities and missed resources forced me to get a few more cities. Looking at 12 cities around 750 AD, finance-wise is tough to manage. Building lots of cottages, markets and courthouses for money. People asked me to join wars but I really cant afford to get more cities. Science-wise I am keeping up, only one civ on my continent (13 out of 18 are on my continent) is more advanced. I missed out on pyramids which landed 500g and a few trades gave me gold to keep tech up. Only at 80% now, though.

I also am noticing it's difficult to dedicate cities to GP production. Need all people working to grow to my happiness limits, which expand slowly, and earn commerce. I have a few good-food cities so I should be able to catch up GP production and I think my 12 city base will allow me to get a decisive lead eventually.

Based on the outcome of this game I'll decide whether to go aggressive on the Romans in Gotm 1

 

[Shillen]

Only at 80% now, though.

I think a lot of people are misled by the science slider. If you have a lot of cities of course your slider is going to be lower. But that does not mean you're losing out on science. I'll give you an example. Let's say you have 1 city that generates 20 commerce per turn. Let's say that 1 city has 1 maintenance cost. You can turn science to 100% and make 20 beakers per turn at -1gpt. Now let's say you found a second city. This city has 2 maintenance cost, so you have a total of 3 maintenance. But it also generates 20 commerce per turn. Turn science to 100% and you're making 40 beakers per turn at -3gpt. Well let's say -3gpt isn't good so you turn the slider down to 90%. Well even at 90% you're still making 36 beakers per turn at +1gpt. So sure your science slider is set lower, but you're making 16 more beakers per turn and 2 more gold per turn as well. It is actually a good thing to not be able to turn your science slider to 100%. If you can turn it to 100% and still make a profit then you're not optimizing your civ. Getting more cities will increase your research rate.

The only time founding more cities is a bad thing is when the amount of maintenance that city has to pay exceeds the commerce it pulls in after it grows. Sure a new city will set you back initially almost always, but it usually does not take long to make that city produce more commerce than it's costing you.

 

[remconius]

You have a point Shillen. But does that mean we should go aggressive and conquer cities continuously as long as you take breathers to build them up a bit?

Is continued expansion a viable strat?

 

[Shillen]

Yeah I think continued steady expansion is optimal. Expanding too quickly equals a lot of cities at once that can't pay for themselves and could cripple your research in the short term. But then again it will get them up faster leading to really fast research once they're fully developed. So it could be worth crippling your research for a little while. There will come a point where your empire is big enough and it's not worth the trouble getting more cities. But in my experience you can grow quite large before you reach that point. Also you must factor in the cost of the war on your infrastructure. If you're building a lot of military then you're not building universities and stuff.

 

[Uty]

I played my practice game as the Romans. (Exact same settings as the upcoming GOTM.) If I can pull off my strategy twice in a row I think I will have a competitive score!

It seems the Romans are ideal for building coastal cities. Building granaries and lighthouses twice as fast really sets them up. Actually, I think Expansive is a great trait.

Going for the later religions seemed to work out well for me. I spent the beginning of my game focusing on infastructure and military, which didn't leave much room for religion. However about the time I discovered taoism I had a few cities that were ready to build monastaries, temples, and missionaries.

What my practice game taught me most of all is the value of going to war early. I was on a continent with two other civs - destroyed the Chinese in the medieval period and the Persians during industrial times. (That will teach those vile Persians to trade with me and adopt my state religion.) My empire was so big I was 50 votes short of passing UN resoutions by myself.

 

[ainwood]

I'll move east to settle Rome. NE may cut down on the river tiles available for your second/third city.

Are we sure this save is going to be playable after the patch?

We certainly hope so. As I understand it, the patches will be backwards-compatable, so the next version should load an earlier save.

If not - absolutely worst-case, we'll generate a save with the same map parameters and edit it to have a land area identicla to the starting area in it.

 

[DaveMcW]

Plains hill is the only 2-hammer city tile in Civ4 (similar to Civ3's plains fur).

I will start by moving the warrior SW to the plains hill. If the tiles revealed are as good as the ones at the start, I will spend 2 turns moving my settler there.

 

[StanNP]

I will start by moving the warrior SW to the plains hill.

I will do the same to get a look around, but I'm very unhappy about the lack of +food tiles and about not being on the coast. If the revealed tiles from the plains hill don't include more +food (flood plains would work), I'm going to walk the settler down river for a turn or two (NE?) and hope to find the coast with a +food water tile, then start on workboats right away.

StanNP

 

[JG99_Korab]

looking forward to this. It will be my first GOTM ever. And if you found a religon you wouold never have to change it when you learn another one right? Since the effects of all religons are the same. The only problem would be if someone converted you somehow