GOTM-02: Pre-Game discussion

[Quantum7]

I can just see it now. First writeup and 90% of the people beelined to writing and built 1300BC academies in London. I have to admit it's a very appealing strategy. So much for the bronze working first, chop chop chop dominant strategy.

LOL. I doubt that. You can probably get Bronze Working first and chop the library. Without loosing alot of turns (and getting other, probably better advantages).

 

[Jar Jar Binks]

You can build not only a lighthouse but Colosus too so all fresh water tiles give +3C +3F, salt water give +3C +2F add in the +1C for financial and there is a potential for a lot of income from water alone. I tried a simulation and the other civs were making contact almost right away with me. Archery is a must at least due to the barbarian hords. I think I will settle in place now and turn London into a GP factory, ie farm/irrigate like crazy. Look for a hilly local for my factory city and try to set up a money factory along a river or two.

Also, in my simulation the fresh water lake provides a link with cities along the river with out sailing.

 

[Shillen]

Why would we have two different results? Here are the screenshots from my game.

Before sailing:

After sailing:

 

[DaviddesJ]

Why would we have two different results? Here are the screenshots from my game.

It wouldn't surprise me too much if a size-1 lake works differently than a larger lake. Or, if a river flowing out of a lake creates a connection to tiles adjacent to that one lake space that the river touches, but to connect through other spaces of the same lake, you need Sailing.

 

[KindOfBlue]

For me it's the first game on Prince, Epic and Lake too. At least I played Liz before and liked her traits. With a little prep and attention vic should be possible, though.

My simulation revealed what could be read in previous post too: There are lots of Barbarians and money is tight.

But at least we can wrap around the world. Can't wait until it's our turn!

/Blue

 

[Shillen]

Yeah I tried a test game with my strategy of not building many settlers and going to conquer another AI early. Well, it didn't work out. I built 3 cities, one next to an iron source, then started to build nothing but swordsmen. Only I couldn't even take my swordsmen anywhere because I was getting attacked by barbarians like crazy. In a span of 20 turns I must have killed 6 or 7 barbarian axemen, 4 or 5 archers, and a few warriors. Even on emperor I don't usually get it that badly. I think it's mainly due to all the tundra on one border and the desert on the other border (which I also had in my test game). It will be important to settle a bunch of cities and send units out to break up fog.

edit: Some more research on connecting via lakes. In this game I'm on a lakes map and a coastal lake connects my cities without sailing:

My best guess is that lakes will connect without sailing on lakes maps, but not other maps. My other screenshots were from a pangaea map.

 

[Memphus]

On the lakes:

On thing from all the screen shots, maybe there is no connection on the lakes but the edge of the cultural borders to the river, allow for the city to city connection?

I don't know and can't test it right now

 

[whb]

ISTR (but maybe my memory is tricking me) in GOTM1 I had two cities trading along a sea cost before sailing because their cultural borders touched, and a third coastal city not connected where its border was isolated. So it's possible that sailing allows trade connection along coast outside your borders but you always have it inside.

 

[LTU_doode]

Can't wait for this gotm2!
What are your plans about religion? Will you go for an early one (hinduism budism or judaism) or planning to 'start incarnations' later?
Imo early religion is not a very good idea, cause you have to hook up those resources and research bronze for chopping.
I myself plan to build The Oracle for that free tech right after I researched writing so that I could choose Code of Laws and gain Confucianism Stonhenge would be nice too if only the second city had many hammers I think I would have some chance to pull it off.
I think I'll aim for either 1) culture, diplo victory or 2) domination
Also my first game on Prince Imo everyone will have a hella good time playing this one Cheers!

 

[Ribannah]

We'll have to see who else is there. Building the Oracle may not be easy if there is no site with more hammers neaby.

 

[Jar Jar Binks]

I seem to have issues with keeping my population happy. London seems to grow very rapidly and I had cranked out a couple of Great Scientist before by the time I was entering the AD side of time.

I also declared an early war on Asoka and got a couple of fast workers before he sued for peace. The workers seem to keep their fast work ability.

 

[Jar Jar Binks]

Given that my test games seem to indicate barbarian problems. I will research hunting then get archery for protection, bronze working for slavery and chop, wheel, pottery for cottages then start racing up the tech tree towards a spaceship launch. London will be my Great Scientist factory, will attempt to settle my second city along the river as a money factory, third city will focus on production.

I hope to expand to 4-5 cities by Anno Domini.

I hope to build The Colossus, The Great Lighthouse, The Great Library, The Hanging Gardens, The Kremlin, The Statue of Liberty, The Taj Mahal, The Three Gorges Dam, The Space Elevator

 

[Islandia]

I seem to have issues with keeping my population happy. London seems to grow very rapidly and I had cranked out a couple of Great Scientist before by the time I was entering the AD side of time.

I also declared an early war on Asoka and got a couple of fast workers before he sued for peace. The workers seem to keep their fast work ability.

As far as I have been able to tell - when you capture a worker you actually "destroy" it and a new one for your side is created in its place. This is why when you capture one, you always have full movement on it even if it had been "doing" something that turn.

However, if you were gifted the fast worker they should retain their 3 speed movement.

 

[bigphesta]

I've edited many ini files for my game, such as nukes, the power of SDI, things of that nature in the C folder where cIV is located. Does that mean I can't play this game? How do I get back the original files?

 

[DaveMcW]

If you edited the original files, the only way to get them back is reinstall the game. You can't play GOTM with modified files.

A safer way to edit XML files is to put a copy of the file in \My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CustomAssets\XML.

Or for mods, C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\MyMod\XML.

 

[Monthar]

I ain't even been able to do better than a time vicory on Noble yet. So, I'll most likely lose this GOTM rather quickly.

 

[StanNP]

I'm going to move from the starting location, if only to get a look around, as DaveMcW suggested. The desert tile SW, SW of the starting location is very interesting. It appears to be a fresh water desert tile. This would be a nice city location if any of the desert tiles around it are actually flood plains. So one advantage of moving from the starting location is to make that desert tile a potential city site.

I may try and place my cities closer then normal, maybe only 3 tiles apart and then use shared cottages to grow them up to towns around my science cities. This allows me to have maximum specialists and production in my science cities and still grow cottages into towns.

I'll start by moving the Settler SE one tile. Then I'll move the warrior, either NW or SW. Then I decide what to do with my Settlers second move. If I see gold in the hills to the south, I might settle in place. Otherwise I would expect to move N into the first forest tile. If fishes show up in the tile north of the plains hill, I won't see it before I settle so that will have to used by a later city.

StanNP

 

[Jar Jar Binks]

I thought about moving too, but if you build a lighthouse and Collosis you can get 3F and 4C from the 3 freshwater tiles. The sea will give you 2F and 4C each. toss in the 3 food bonus for farmed wheat and London will grow very large provide decent income and be a GP factory.

 

[caeru71]

I'm really looking forward to getting into the new gotm last month was my first try at a gotm and i won a space race victory (I didn't post it as plenty people had won space race quicker than i did) the prince challenge will be good and i will post this time. Good luck all and a happy healthy new year.

 

[t4lruum]

Gee, how disappointing. There's no way I'm going to invest many, many hours in another game at Noble level. I like to participate in the GOTM, but it's just not very interesting to play when I know I'm going to be way ahead throughout the whole game.

Go play RB Extreme challenge then. GOTM is meant to cover most of CIV4 playerbase...

Regarding the mod, IMHO, play with no mod enabled. That way, we saves a lot of time for GOTM staff and there will be no mistakes on the players part since they literally just need to install and patch the game.