GOTM 03 Pre-Game Discussion

[A+ombomb]

The way I see it, early barbs are a huge pain, but you can manipulate them to attack workers without fail. So I weigh these options: Is it better to lose 1 or 2 workers, baiting barbs to go where you want and easily taking them out from there, or losing the research time from two techs? Thinking about the worker costs in terms of beakers, I am going with losing workers > losing techs. I'll give some better examples of how this works in the spoiler thread .

 

[shadow2k]

The way I see it, early barbs are a huge pain, but you can manipulate them to attack workers without fail. So I weigh these options: Is it better to lose 1 or 2 workers, baiting barbs to go where you want and easily taking them out from there, or losing the research time from two techs? Thinking about the worker costs in terms of beakers, I am going with losing workers > losing techs. I'll give some better examples of how this works in the spoiler thread .

You're sacrificing workers to barbs? How in the world do barbs take research time from two techs?

I have to say, in all the games I've played, most on Monarch/Emperor, I've had a total of one farm pillaged. I've just never seen these streaming hordes people talk about. In most cases, barb problems are caused by the player. Ignoring military (either numbers or quality...or both), slow expansion (especially with strategies that require vertical growth), or simply not clearing the FOW.

 

[Rain]

In most cases, barb problems are caused by the player. Ignoring military (either numbers or quality...or both), slow expansion (especially with strategies that require vertical growth), or simply not clearing the FOW.

I think in general thats an accurate statement. Why you would choose to have workers to sacrifice instead of military to deal with them seems a trifle curious as well.

 

[Maestro_Innit]

Blimey - this'll be ma first game on Monarch and ma first game as Tokugawa-san. Piece'o'cake/ I'm giong for world domination by 3500BC

 

[whb]

Well, having said I wouldn't play a practice game, I couldn't resist after I'd submitted one of the papers I had due. Having won a space race win with only one war, and finding it easier than expected to out-tech the AI in the late game, I have to take back what I said about these game parameters being too geared towards war. Of course a war strategy will still score much more highly, but oh well.

(Oh, I also did a fun experiment - on a different map went into the world builder and set up a nation of 16 cities in a tight-packed 4x4 block. Monarch, inland sea with the sea replaced by grassland - so lots of barb territory.
Built only warriors, which were mostly self-disband due to money worries. The nation survived the barbarian era entirely, lasted longer than one AI civ, and was finally conquered in about 1000AD by the Aztecs!!)

 

[culdeus]

Well, did some test games and also brainstormed about this adventurer thingy. I don't see how that would help very much as the worker could only build roads till you get pottery or ag.

I would think that potentially the start would be with the easy path would be to get agriculture to farm first the fresh water tiles. This gives the extra production to rush a second settler out because it seems this start is forest light and chopping it would take too long (no mining).

Otherwise I don't see why it's that big of a deal to get a free worker to start with. It's still 30 turns+ before you have an improved tile. I guess it helps for exploring a bit, but huts on Monarch are far too often "villagers provide you with a map"

In test games the hardest thing on this map is the fact that resources appear at the edge of the map and the world doesn't wrap at all. So you end up creating cities with three squares cut off alot. May not be a big deal, but probably would kill a chance at a cultural victory I would think if you were so inclined that way.

Having an inland lake it helps to have a city on the water as the AI tends to do so and you can get trade with far-away places sooner.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Well, this one looks fun, so I'm going to take a stab at it. I'm not exactly sure which way I'm going to send the warrior, and I *believe* that I will either settle SW SW or on the spot. I kinda like the idea of sending the warrior in the *non* SW direction.... I think that there is more to the placement of the units than meets the eye. Determining our starting location in the world via river placement alone seems problematic in a GOTM.

Then again, I'm no expert.

I simply go for a win in these games, and if this GOTM is even remotely as fun as the Civ3 ones, it will be well worth the effort. Thanks for keeping the GOTM alive for hopefully years to come!

 

[CaptainEO]

I played three test games with similar settings... Lost the first two but am on my way to winning the third.

Both losses were due to getting into wars of attrition, and being overwhelmed by AI stacks. My winning technique was to attack early and often, pausing when necessary to rebuild my military and economy.

As soon as I got swordsmen (or even axemen) I'd go pick on one or two neighbors. Experience bonuses from the Aggressive trait and barracks were a major help. The main goal was to cripple the development of neighbor civs - I'd back off if it looked like I couldn't take another city. But I always tried for annihilation, since even a small civ can become a major pain if allowed to tech up and build an army.

After killing off the two neighbors to my "right" and "left" around the inland sea circle, I am pretty comfortable. I can't touch the two other major civs on the other side of the sea, but with my extra cities I will be able to outmaneuver them.

I was pretty surprised at how small the map felt. One nice feature of high-water inland sea is that the land gets narrow in places and forms natural chokepoints. It's easy to attack and defend since you only need two army groups - one at the "left" side and one at the "right." I didn't bother developing a navy.

 

[Starship]

I've never played a GOTM before, so I'm looking forward to it. I play pretty exclusively on Monarch, a habit from Civ3, and consequently gotten better at this version of Civ faster. I almost always play with raging barbs as well, so I feel pretty primed.

I like the starting spot. Lots of hills. Just build a worker to start, and research mining first/animal husbandry second, to get things going...meanwhile pump warriors till your city hits three, and then pop a settler. Voila! Functioning all purpose early city with food and great production to get the military going. The barbarians are a blessing sometimes too because they'll get your aggressive civ off to war with units that are already veteran. This is how I generally start my games, and I've been pretty successful at Monarch, in situations similar to those in this GOTM.

We shall see.....

 

[budweiser]

OK, I may be late but I am ready for the challenge now. After much contemplation here is my strategy.

Settle towards the lake.
Build large metalic robot-like stuctures; colossus, statue of liberty.
Use amphibious samurai to capture all coastal cities and world restrict trade.
Invent radios and export them to world market.
Build hollywood and flood world market with monster movies.

I hope this works.

 

[moopie]

I'm having a problem loading the GOTM. I get two messages saying I have failed to load python module CV event interface and another that says the application has requested the game to terminate in an unusual way, please contact support technicians.
I have the new patch. I'm not great with computers.
Can anyone offer any advice? THanks.

 

[Jesper Portus]

Hello! I am new at civfanatics and I will trie this GOTM. I hope, I have enough time...

 

[AlanH]

Welcome

@Jesper Portus: good luck

@moopie: There's nothing very special about the GOTM 3 starting save. I suggest you try reinstalling your Civ4 software. Does it play ordinary games OK?

 

[ReccaSquirrel]

I'm going to give it a try. I haven't played above Noble yet so I fully expect to lose. But I'll try the adventurer class and see how well I fair.

 

[baboonfan]

I'll be trying as well. I have two games on noble behind me with two narrow victories, so I don't see a chance here, but you gotta start sometime. I don't want a -15% reduction, so off with the regular settings we go.

 

[Jesper Portus]

Welcome

@Jesper Portus: good luck

Thank you.
I´ve played the game - and I won!

My Opinion for the Start: settle imidietly. My goal was to research BW, built 1 settler, steal workers from neighbours, built 1 city near an bronze, built strong units an conquer the world. Therfore time is critical. More after the results are official...