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

[AlanH]

The gotm site is down at the moment, so the image is not available. (has been for several hours)

 

[shortguy]

Pyramids only gives you the 5 government civics (first column). You still have to research the other 20, including State Property.

Oh. Oops.

 

[Vardis]

Worker first: Everything finished after 53 turns. Total science value 1090, improvement value 33 turns (5 were lost due to movement and waiting for techs)

Worker at size 3: Also exactly 53 turns. Science 990, improvements 25. A small production bonus (obelisk prebuild).

Worker at size 3, but chop to rush granary before irrigating the corn (my worker even waited 2(road)+2 turns on the silk for bronze working): Took 1 turn more (54), but 1 additional warrior was built. Rest exactly as above, 990/25.

How are you averaging 20 research over the 53 turns? The most you can get for the first 15 is 10, leaving you to average 25 the rest of the way...

Also, why build a road on the silk early on? Seems like a waste of worker productivity.

 

[Tubby Rower]

Am I the only one that runs for Alpha right off the bat? With a monopoly on Alpha and a bunch of contacts, you can dominate the early tech tree. Eventually someone will research Alpha too, but if you don't trade Alpha you will be able to be the sole civ with tech trading ability.

I find this strategy to be quite useful. One downside to it is that the largest opponent will stop trading with you eventually because "We fear you are becoming too advanced." You also lose out on the early religions which IMO are more valuable do to the passive spread than the later religions which you have to "force" onto your neighbors.

 

[Shillen]

Going for alpha right away speeds up the tech pace for everyone. Which is probably not a good thing if you're going for a military or cultural victory. But it can be a good idea for a fast space/diplo victory.

 

[hendu]

If anyone wants to play in a SG game with the same settings, you can sign up at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141072

I'm tired of waiting for the patch.

 

[wakkoxc]

Just wondering, if you were to settle on the hill without moving, and later discover iron on that hill, would you be able to use it, or would it be inaccessible because there is no mine?

 

[RoddyVR]

If anyone wants to play in a SG game with the same settings, you can sign up at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141072

I'm tired of waiting for the patch.

hope the starting location is as interesting as the one here.
i joined... i'm tired of waiting for patch and IVOTM's beggining too.

Just wondering, if you were to settle on the hill without moving, and later discover iron on that hill, would you be able to use it, or would it be inaccessible because there is no mine?

you can use the iron if it appears under your city. same for any resourse.
the only thing you lose is the bonus hammers that working a tile with iron would give its city.

 

[Ribannah]

Am I the only one that runs for Alpha right off the bat? With a monopoly on Alpha and a bunch of contacts, you can dominate the early tech tree.

Only if they are willing to trade with you. In my test games it was never worth the trouble.

 

[Puppeteer]

Am I the only one that runs for Alpha right off the bat? With a monopoly on Alpha and a bunch of contacts, you can dominate the early tech tree. Eventually someone will research Alpha too, but if you don't trade Alpha you will be able to be the sole civ with tech trading ability.

I haven't beelined for Alpha, but after a certain point I've gone for it to try to pick up my skipped techs in trade. I've found it very difficult to trade, though. From my experience I suspect the AI protects certain branches of tech, especially the religious branch even if all the religions down it are founded and all the wonders built.

My tech strategy has been to get the techs I feel I need: usually certain worker actions at first depending on terrain, then I like techs that enable existing resources (farm for rice, corn, pastures for pigs or fishing for seafood) and copper and iron working to reveal. That keeps me busy for a while--especially if I also decided to go for an early religion--then when I'm not sure what I need next I'll go for Alpha.

 

[Tubby Rower]

I'm surprised that you guys are having trouble trading.... I've played like that in 2 games and haven't had trouble. I've also had contact with 5-7 civs. I wonder if that makes a difference.

Like I said though there is always one civ that won't trade you for anything. I've played as Ghengis Khan and Mansa Musa on Noble and both times it worked out. They don't have any traits in common so that's not the issue.

 

[RonnieSoak]

I often find (on noble) that AI civs refuse to tech trade if they have a monoply on that tech, especially if the tech give acess to a wonder or military unit. Once a few other civs have also researched it it becomes avaliable, though I've had civs still refusing to trade a tech with me while their neighbours will.

 

[LeSphinx]

I have the same thing as you RonnieSoak! Even is the tech is an old one!
LeSphinx

 

[Shillen]

If you get an early religion expect to have trouble trading techs until you can convert your neighbors. If you don't go for an early religion they're generally willing to trade most of the time. That's been my experience anyway. Sure there are some monopoly techs the AI is very reluctant to give up (usually military and wonder techs), but most of them they are willing to give up. It's mostly about your relations with them. If you sign open borders right off the bat and don't trade with their enemies and don't use a different religion than they have then you should be able to trade for most techs.

 

[Ribannah]

They tend to refuse all tech trade even if my relations are +5 or more ...

 

[Shillen]

Well I just found out you're right in my game tonight. I was playing a custom continents game with 6 continents and 7 civs. So almost 1 continent per civ (the 1 per team option doesn't seem to work or I'm using it wrong). Anyway, I made early contact with one civ because we were connected by coastal squares. She would not trade me a single tech ever. Until the turn that another civ sailed into view with his caravel. Then all of a sudden the first civ would trade all the techs she had that the other AI also had. It seems they will not trade a monopoly tech no matter what. I had like +12 relations with her.

 

[whb]

I noticed that in a game too. It seems to be a bit of a flaw in the AI - assuming that the only players in the game are the ones it already knows. In a game where only 2 civs share a continent it's a disastrous strategy because it prevents tech trading between those 2 civs until Optics, giving the remaining undiscovered civs an enormous advantage.

 

[Tubby Rower]

The first patch is In Process. Here's the link

A Note from Firaxis Concerning the Civilization IV Patch
November 16, 2005

Hello everyone!
I've heard from many of you via the Firaxis website Contact Us form (many thanks for all the dxdiag files and savegames) and wanted to say thanks for all the feedback and detailed bug reports that were sent up.

I just wanted to let everyone know that as of Monday afternoon, the patch was sent to 2K for final testing, so barring any problems in QA, we will be releasing it shortly.

Some of the highlights include multiple AI improvements and tweaks, worker behavior tweaks, MANY game play improvements (ex Animal Husbandry reveals horses), promotion tweaks, a softer pillage sound (requested by many, many people), fixed diplomatic exploits (gold for gold, peace treaty exploit), multiplayer tweaks (Hot seat, Lobby, etc.), memory, caching and performance improvements, etc. There were also a number of video card specific fixes.

To those of you having problems, thanks for your patience. Our guys were working around the clock with your detailed feedback to produce this patch. For those of you having no problems, it's only going to get better. =)

Dennis Shirk
Firaxis Games

 

[remconius]

That should get this GOTM started very soon!

 

[grahamiam]

what programs are people using for logs? I find alt-tabbing to be a lot slower in CIV than in C3C, so I am trying to not use Excel, but Notepad instead (for my current SG's, i've switched from Word to Notepad). However, it still takes a long time to alt-tab back and forth.