GOTM 03 Pre-Game Discussion

[ainwood]

GOTM-03: Pre Game Discussion

This game MUST be played in patch version 1.52.

In addition, if any further patches are released before the end of February, you will have to complete your game in v152 and submit before patching.

Game settings:
Civilization: Japan (Leader: Tokugawa; Traits: Aggressive & Organised)
Rivals: 6 (Random)
Difficulty: Monarch
Map: Inland Sea
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Tropical
Waterlevel: High
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Epic
Victory Conditions: all enabled

The starting screenshot is here:

 

[ainwood]

Leader Traits
First up, Tokugawa is Aggressive and Organised.

Aggressive:

1. Free Combat I promotion of melee and gunpowder units.
2. Double production speed of Barracks and Drydock.

The aggressive trait is (IMHO) great, as the combat 1 promotion unlocks other useful promotions, and you get a second promotion in the early game with just a barracks. Using this to give cover or shock to axemen or swordsmen can give you very powerful early units - especially with cover against AI's who love to use lots of archers for city defence! Considering that the barracks are also cheaper, taking early advantage of this trait is a warmongers' dream.


Organised:

1. Civic upkeep reduced 50 percent.
2. Double production speed of Lighthouse and Courthouse.

Maybe one of the weaker traits, especially in the early game. The early civics are fairly cheap, so the reduced upkeep doesn't provide much benefit. In the later game, cash-flow doesn't tend to be as big of an issue as in the early game, so again the higher civics can be supported with not too many problems.

Construction of lighthouses can be useful though - they provided one extra food / water tile, and helps grow a coastal city large enough that it can provide a good commercial boost to your civ. They require research of sailing to build them.

Courthouses are useful in reducing maintenance costs. To build them, you have to research Code Of Laws - this can be a good tech to get after early, especially if you have missed-out on one of the early religions (first to Code Of Laws founds Confucianism). In addition, to build the Forbidden Palace, you need to build 5 courthouses (and have at least 8 cities).



Unique Unit

You unique unit is the Samurai; a replacement for the maceman. It has a strength of 8 and costs 87 hammers (in the epic game), which is actually exactly the same as the maceman. Also like the maceman, it gets +50% vs melee units, and becomes available once you have discovered machinery and civil service. A slight difference from the maceman is that it requires iron to build (whereas the maceman can make use of copper or iron).

The real benefit of the samurai is the two first strikes - this is a great advantage, and with suitable promotions, it can be a very powerful unit. Remember: As a melee unit, it gets the initial combat I promotion.

Starting Technologies:

1. Fishing
2. The Wheel.

Fishing and the wheel means that Japan can start researching pottery right away. The top-half of the tech tree is immediately opened-up, making a quick run to writing / alphabet viable. The downside is that this ignores the bottom techs, and the early religions. Still, there are many, many tech paths open to you!

 

[Seraphinus]

From the first look it will be harder than so far:
1. emperor difficulty
2. just cows visible.

First move will be warrior to SW onto the hill, then ...

Thanks ainwood for the challenge.

 

[kommie]

Hey guys, never participated in GOTM but sounds like some awesome fun. Good time to join too, as Monarch difficulty is where I'm at at the moment.
I'm usually a builder, never go for conquest or domination, so trying it this way will be something new, but i'm sure i'll be able to adapt.

So yeah, looking a bit tricky so far, i prefer to have lots of food resources for my capital, but looks like i'll have to manage without. 1st move definititely for warrior SW onto the hill to get a good view of the surroundings. I know most ppl discourage this move, but i may be quite tempted to waste 1 turn and move the settler to the river, especially if there's more resources out that way. Hopefully the 1 turn wasted wont impact growth/expansion too much. Speed is epic, so 1 turn isnt as important as at faster gamespeeds.

Looking forward to it!

 

[kingjoshi]

I'm going to practice on Monarch before doing the 4otm. I think many others will as well.

I think with Epic at Monarch, we'll have more losers and short games and people ready for the next 4otm early. And we'll have many more people taking longer because the domination/victory/loss will take longer (I assume).

 

[playshogi]

Inland sea is a regional map so no world-wrap. Move the warrior SW to check out the river in the west to see if its worthwhile to move the settler that direction. 2 sq. SW is a plains hill on a river for example, but would lose the cow.

 

[AU_Armageddon]

I found Inland Sea to be one of the hardest maps on Monarchy when I first got Civ4. On this map the Barbarians seem to come at you in brutal numbers even on default settings.

On Monarchy this early into Civ4 I would expect an awful lot of folks to be crippled or even obliterated by the barbarian hordes.

When considering whether to plant on the spot or move your settler, I'd like to remind people that a city on a plains hill has two hammers instead of one (is purely a bonus - food and commerce are as normal), and that plains hill comes with fresh water as well. Moving the warrior southwest onto that hill as everyone will do will no doubt make this choice clearer.

I find Japanese more challenging than most other civs, but aggression will provide some reprieve on a challening map like this.

All in all, this early on I think this will prove a pretty grim start for most of the GotM players and would expect most to be crushed or crippled into last place, just hopefully not enough so crushed as to not bother submitting their game.

After the GotM1 results with scores biased to Domination above all other game types, and given an aggressive civ in a commerce poor start of a totally land connected map, the popular strategy for GotM3 is a no-brainer. I'm gonna try swim against the current and gun for an early cultural win on this. Early for me being like 1950

GL HF.

 

[Sparts]

Some remarks,

With the Inland Sea and no world-wrap, securing your own corner in the world should be relatively easy. Early expansion is not a big issue, as there will be numerous good commerce spots to settle. I don't see why barbarians would be a big problem.

On the other hand, since domination will be a regular theme, it might not be a bad idea to stop your expansion at a couple of cities and start cranking out Axemen and getting city raider promotions. An early visit to neighbors and focused research on Civil Service and Machinery will naturally be a common.

Note: once you get the game running, look at the river. It will be flowing in the direction of the Inland sea. Might be wise to check and see if there are any sea resources at the end of that river.

 

[Seraphinus]

It will be allowed to use HOF mod?

 

[colony]

Courthouses are useful in reducing maintenance costs. To build them, you have to research Code Of Laws - this can be a good tech to get after early, especially if you have missed-out on one of the early religions (first to Code Of Laws founds Confucianism). In addition, to build the Forbidden Palace, you need to build 5 courthouses (and have at least 8 cities).

I thought the Forbidden Palace took 6 courthouses to build? [/Nitpicking]

Anyway, after missing GOTM2 to concentrate on exams this will be interesting. With only one cow in the capital I am tempted to move the Settler. Also not starting with Mining or Hunting will make coping with barbs early on a pain, as it adds about 12 turns onto being able to get to BW, and I expect I'll have to be far more careful about expanding than I normally am.

I'm expecting to go for a war early on with swords/axes, depending on if I can find iron. With only 1 resource I think it'll be quite likely that there'll be either iron or copper in our capital's starting radius. After Alphabet/CoL/Currency I expect I'll go for Civil Service and Machinery. Having Samurai does make the choice about whether to take Metal Casting or CoL from the Oracle harder, provided I can even get it built. After that I'll either have to research Theology myself for Theocracy, or extort it off another civ for peace to get that extra promotion.

This should be a nice challenge, and it will be interesting to see how many people manage to get a win here

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

I haven't tried SpaceShip or Diplomatic, so I'll be trying one of them this time. Though similar to colony above, I see the Samurai getting a bit of a workout early on.

I can't see settling in place. It just feels (looks) wrong on this one, but normally I love to settler in place. Hmph!

The tech has me in a quandry also. Considering making a beeline for Alphabet, but not sure if I want to go Pottery or Agriculture->Animal Husbandry. First is quicker, second is more useful and important for quicker expansion. I want literature and the Great Library to speed that tech pace.

In the previous IV GOTMs I started with a worker. If I build Pottery first and beeline for Alphabet that doesn't seem as useful, so I may start with warriors, which may help slow the barbs while they are on 'sentry' duty for future cities...or start with a barracks and build lots of early 'killer' warriors, especially if they meet a barb on the way to my closest neighbors.

I don't see getting many early wonders at this level, especially if I go for Alphabet quick as they may be built before I start trading for the techs.

Well, I think I'm rambling instead of providing a strategy, but lots to think about before starting this one.

 

[azzaman333]

I'm probably going to get killed by the barbs in the BC's, so i'll have time to play it.

 

[KindOfBlue]

Monarch level for my 3rd GOTM? Why not Deity - that would make things even more frustrating!
If your intention is to keep the community tight, or just to limit the number of submissions - you succeeded. I'm off! Nothing to learn here for me.

/Blue

 

[azzaman333]

Monarch level for my 3rd GOTM? Why not Deity - that would make things even more frustrating!
If your intention is to keep the community tight, or just to limit the number of submissions - you succeeded. I'm off! Nothing to learn here for me.

/Blue

You might as well play, since you cant get better if you dont try.

 

[Ribannah]

Inland sea with high water and lots of jungle (tropical) - that could mean a relatively small patch of good land, initially.
I kinda expect the starting location to have Horses inside its working radius, but the plains hill on the river looks very attractive.
The Great Lighthouse could be a good wonder to aim for.

 

[Rane Khan]

Yet to win a game on Monarch, so this should certainly be interesting... ^^

 

[Velvet-Glove]

This will be a hard challenge for me, having lost miserably at the Prince level GoTM02 within a few turns. However, having hit rock bottom the only way left to go is UP so I will at least give it my best shot, I only have what's left of my pride to lose.

I've not played Tokugawa before, or Monarch, so I will definitely have a practice game ot two first just to get a feel for him on these game settings. I'm normally a builder but, with this aggressive civ and tough level, I will have to try very hard to develop more of a killer instinct and work on cranking out a lot of strong units in the early part of the game.

I notice the map is Tropical - this will mean more jungles which will not only hinder early exploration & movement but will affect the health of other cities after a short while if not cleared reasonably promptly. Researching towards Iron working will probably be an early priority and I think city numbers may have to be limited to just a select few in good locations (if possible!).

My first move on this particular game will be to move the warrior onto that SW hill to see what I can see before choosing a spot to settle.

This is going to be tough! If I can survive the BC years it will be an absolute miracle! I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at the prospect of this game.

 

[Methos]

Monarch level for my 3rd GOTM? Why not Deity - that would make things even more frustrating!
If your intention is to keep the community tight, or just to limit the number of submissions - you succeeded. I'm off! Nothing to learn here for me.

/Blue

I suggest playing anyway, even if you feel this is beyond your capabilities. You'd be surprised at how much you can learn even when you lose.

Definitely move the warrior SW, as I'm sure everyone will do. Other than that I'm unsure. I like the inland sea map so this should definitely be fun. I've only played one Monarch SP game and that was an OCC, and it is extremely easy. I have a feeling that's more to do with the OCC part than anything.

Will definitely be more aggressive in this game due to the traits. Unsure what victory condition I'll go for. Need to do a few practice games.

That is, once I finish IVOTM2.

 

[Stormreaver]

Will go Warrior SW of course before deciding on settler spot. If that doesn't uncover anything out of the ordinary.. not having hunting/agriculture will make that Cow +1F only for quite some time - especially as I'd prefer to go Mining->BW rather early to be able to chop. That renders the starting spot pretty much vanilla. I'll most likely head off SW...

My initial feeling on the terrain is that we're about halfway down on the southern hemisphere (or whatever that translates to on an Inland Lakes map) - but then again, I haven't played much with neither Tropical climate nor this map script, so I might be off. Practice games needed!

All-in-all: Hm. Hmm. This is going to be a tough one, even though I regularly beat Monarch.

Edit: Bad grammar...

 

[whb]

Hmm, the second "dominators' dream" map in a row (epic, connected landmass, etc). Only this time with the level 1 up and the player getting a combat bonus (the AI getting a bigger bonus on everything else), it's pushed just that little bit more towards domination.

Alas, never having played monarch before and certainly not having time for practice games (grand total of 7 games of civ so far), and not being able to start this one til the 15th due to other commitments, I'm tempted to skip this one.