GOTM 03 Pre-Game Discussion

[AlanH]

if you have any suggestions, dont hesitate to reply.

.... But don't do it if you have opened the start file for GOTM 3.

Moderator Action: I'm moving this into the pre-game discussion thread where it belongs.

Please don't open your own discussion threads for games in progress.

 

[solenoozerec]

It would be very nice to have a minimap as it was for Civ3 for these kinds of map. Otherwise, it is very tricky to pick up the right place for the capital.

Minimap cannot be generated because you need to build the stonehenge or reseach calendar (what else gives it?).
When you start you still have no idea where you are.

 

[Shillen]

I'm glad I resisted the urge to start playing GOTM3 tonight. I decided to do another test game instead and the barbarians completely decimated me. At first they seemed to only want to pillage non-stop. I lost 5 cottages, 1 pasture, 1 mine and 1 road in a span of 4 turns. I'd never seen barbarians pillage that much. It's usually 90% of the time if there's a unit they'll attack it, but not this game. They even walked right past my cities (1 tile away from it) to go to the other side of my city and pillage a tile on the other side. I was completely awestruck. I had never seen barbarians act that way. Then in 1000BC an axeman came along while I still only had warriors. That's game over, the axe can have whatever city it wants when all I have are warriors. Of course it took my holy city. So while defending with warriors will work most of the time, if you happen to get really unlucky it can ruin the entire game for you. I'm betting at least one person will write a spoiler for gotm3 that they got decimated by barbarians. Me, I'm going to re-think my strategy and get some archers or axemen online MUCH sooner. Better safe than sorry, even if safe will lower the end result of my game. I'd rather not lose in 1000BC and pretty much waste an entire month of GOTM due to bad luck.

 

[pnp_dredd]

It seems that in the inner sea maps, the contacts are significantly delayed compared to Pangea

On the contrary, it's easy to get contact with everyone on an inner sea map, because you know exactly where everyone is! Just stay close to the water (shortest path) and keep your warrior on hills/forests/jungle as much as possible.

I'll be sending off 2 warriors - One will charge around the sea, the other will explore close by, and then head the opposite direction to the first warrior. Once they meet, just set em to auto-explore, then disband them when they get hemmed in (assuming you don't have open borders with everyone). I'll probably also have another warrior to suss out the nearest neighbors and then fortify on a wooded hill close to my city as an anti-barb measure.

Potenital slingshot:

Well, I wrote the following as a description of my Civil Service slingshot, but it got a bit out of hand. Hopefully it’s useful.

I saw a few people discussing this. Not sure if the following is what you meant, but it works good for me. You’re going to be cottaging most of your land early on, so I honestly don’t see the point in going for BW. This strat is a bit risky, you will hurt if you miss out on building the Oracle. You also need to watch out for barbarians, and chop archers if you have to.

I've been playing a one city start, cottage spamming and researching pottery -> writing -> alphabet with a single city. Try to have 2 workers and the above 3 warriors, and some shields into library by the time you finish alphabet. You want all the contacts if possible, and I've been getting open borders with everyone but my closest neighbours. I didn't bother having any defence in my capital until after I saw the first human barbarian.

Start trading for techs, focussing particularly on getting Meditation and Bronze Working ASAP. Finish off your Library, and your capital should have a healthy 25-30 research per turn. I've found that you have to research Priesthood yourself, as it takes ages for the AI to trade it to you.

Research Code of Laws as fast as you possibly can. Forget growth or shields, just get as many cottaged squares worked as you can. At the same time, chop another worker (and an archer if you really need it) and then the Oracle in your city, timing it to finish the turn you finish C.O.L. (Later on, use the Prophet from the Oracle to build the Kong Miao.) Don’t make Confucianism your state religion unless you think it’s worth it (probably not at this stage) Take Civil Service as your free tech. Switch to Beurocracy.

Now research metal casting -> machinery, and you should be easily able to trade for everything else you need (which is mainly IW and Construction). Chop ~3 settlers with archers, and set these cities up in high-shield areas (be sure to grab some iron!). There’s no need to spread these cities out, just find some spots on rivers with nearby hills, and preferably lots of forests. Now be sure to improve some high-shield squares around your capital – with Beurocracy and a forge you can get to 100 shields/turn. Chop barracks and axemen/catapults until you get Samurai. Once you have 5 Samurai, you are set to start expanding. Build Heroic epic in your capital.

Cottage spam in most cities you capture, and chop markets/banks, or upkeep is going to kill you. Note that you can probably afford to turn research down for a short period of time – you should still have plenty of techs to trade – getting Civil Service early is a huge bonus, as it can usually be traded for 2-3 other techs. Find one city with good food output and make it a GL farm. Early on, choose 5 cities for courthouses and get those build quickly so that you can build a FP.

I quit my test game after taking Qin and half of Caesar (praetorians make it difficult to hold cities!). You are well set up to beeline for Military Tradition/Gunpowder and Cavalry.

 

[Shillen]

Yeah I'm thinking that's the best strategy pnp_dredd. I'm really worried about barbarians now, though, after my recent test game. I guess it depends how many cottageable squares our capital has. I'd really need to get alphabet by 1800BC at the latest to get archery/bronze working and get some units to fight off barbs with. Also, I was thinking of researching math/currency/construction before machinery. That's what I did in my 400AD samurai game, which is probably why everyone else got samurai earlier than I did. I'm not really in a rush to expand at that point. Samurai aren't going to take you to the domination limit so I'll just use them to expand slowly and keep my research up. Catapults will lower my casualties so I won't have to build as many samurais, both keeping unit support costs down and allowing my cities to build infrastructure.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Im not sure if anyones asked this yet but what are the chances of popping something good with goody huts using warriors on Monarch?

I think it's given in the XML file Civ4HandicapInfo:

5% high gold
20% low gold
10% map
10% warrior
5% scout
10% experience
5% healing
10% technology
15% weak barbarians
10% strong barbarians

So it's 75% good (although some of the "good" outcomes are of minimal value), and 25% bad.

 

[DaveMcW]

So it's 75% good (although some of the "good" outcomes are of minimal value), and 25% bad.

In other words, your warrior is likely to die after 3-4 huts. I think it may be better to avoid huts and collect contacts to use with Alphabet.

 

[DaviddesJ]

In other words, your warrior is likely to die after 3-4 huts. I think it may be better to avoid huts and collect contacts to use with Alphabet.

Of course, while you're looking for contacts your warrior might get killed by barbs or animals anyway. That's what happened to me in GOTM2.

If I make up some nominal values for the outcomes, in gold:

5% high gold (70)
20% low gold (40)
10% map (10)
10% warrior (50)
5% scout (50)
10% experience (10)
5% healing (10)
10% technology (100)
15% weak barbarians (-50)
10% strong barbarians (-50)

then the "expected value" comes out to +19.

If you increase the value of losing your warrior to barbs, then you should also increase the value of gaining a 2nd warrior or a scout from the barbs, so the net value should still be significantly positive.

 

[ewokimpi]

Originally posted by Shillen
I decided to do another test game instead and the barbarians completely decimated me.

That's been my experience in a couple of practice games. If the openning position is such that you have no near neighbors, and lots of open space around you, then get ready, because they are coming.

In one game I was fooling around with chopping the Pyramid because I had stone in the capital radius. I got the Great Pyramid in 860BC. I had only one other city settled, fortunately on Copper (the ONLY practice game I've managed that, out of six!). I had not researched hunting and archery, as I was focused on Masonry, Writing, and Iron Working.

Within a few turns, waves of barbs showed up, archers, then Axes, and that was before I connected Cu. Also, I missed the point that my capital and the 2nd city weren't on the same river. Didn't matter, within 20 turns I didn't have any remaining improvements in my capital anyway.

The only reason that I survived is slavery. I pop rushed a couple of warriors in the capital and one axe from the second city and just survived, albeit with a total pop of 3. Had a little help from Isabella too, she just took a barb city immediately west of my position.

So at 160BC, when I generally stop my practice games, I had 5 pop, 4 axes, 6 warrior (4 in my cap, another reason I survived - warm bodies garrisoning the capital while the enemy lays waste to the fields), and two workers. The only connected resource is Cu in the second city. The capital and second city are still not in a trading network. And the East is open, unexplored wastelands....

A mere 41 turns to Alphabet...

So probably I'll not be chopping the Great Pyramid in GOTM3, if I see lots of open spaces around my starting position.

 

[Smirk]

I think the existence of desert next to a river, without floodplains, is a bug. I don't know the exact circumstances that trigger it, though.

If you see these early on in the game, which I haven't then I don't know what may have happened. But there is a confirmed and easily reproducible situation, settling on a floodplain makes it desert. If that city is later razed you've got a worthless desert + river tile. Floodplain appears to be a tile mod like a forest or jungle, despite its obvious differences.

I have never seen any freshwater desert tile that was not floodplains, nor heard of any case where this is so.

 

[Methos]

So probably I'll not be chopping the Great Pyramid in GOTM3, if I see lots of open spaces around my starting position.

In my first test game I attempted to get Pyramids. I came to the realization it wasn't worth it. Takes too long, even with the chopping, when I could have been expanding or building military and infrastructure. Instead I'll just go with hoping the Pyramids aren't too far away and capturing them.

I still don't yet feel comfortable enough to start, so will continue playing some test games.

Definitely going Open class.

 

[akots]

... Better safe than sorry, even if safe will lower the end result of my game. ...

Must completely agree with this. Bronze Working is a way to go even if that means not getting Civil Service from Oracle. This map script is somewhat risky for a single city as well if considering a military win. There are just too many forests to chop axemen and swordsmen and this makes early expansion very attractive.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I have never seen any freshwater desert tile that was not floodplains, nor heard of any case where this is so.

I had one game where 7 out of 8 tiles adjacent to a river were desert and not floodplains. I tried to find it so you could take a peek at it, but I must have deleted it. I have seen a couple of river/deserts in other games as well.

 

[ajil]

I've also noticed the desert river but not a floodplain tiles. Never noticed that before though. On a side note, most of my test games have had very little bronze, and lots of marble. Barbs are usually a problem unless you have close neighbors. Of course thats b/c of the lack of bronze and my refusal to ever research archery ;p

 

[Shillen]

From Handy26 SG:

 

[Frooty]

Isn't anybody simply going to fund the city just where the settler popped up?

Personally I think it's a good place. The cow gives extra growth (combided with pop sacrificing we will be able to produce all we need for the other citi(es) if ever we can fond them...

I think I will only need to focus on growing my capital city even without those so much needed resources. I plan on exploring all terrains in the surrounding area. With a big capital you'll be able to pop sacrifice/produce settlers or military (depending on the situation).

This is in my opinion the most secure way of fining the best locations and taking advantage of the resources.

 

[Boppy]

Hi,

Going back to the earlier discussion of whether to send Warriors into goody huts or not.

I tend to always do it as I often find that if I don't the hut soon gets grabbed by an AI scout. I feel they have enough advantage as it is without them getting "my" huts.

I think I need to practice some more before trying this GOTM - I still find myself Tech lagging even with improving my strategy to go for Alphabet and build Cottages.

One question: After people get Alphabet do they then exchange Alphabet for other Techs or is the idea that you keep Alphabet to yourself (to stop the AIs exchanging) and exchange other Techs (like Writing) when you get them?

Thanks,

Boppy.

P.S. Just wanted to say that some of the investigations done on this thread are excellent. I may even survive this GOTM thanks to them (if I'm really lucky). Cheers everyone.

 

[Boppo]

One question: After people get Alphabet do they then exchange Alphabet for other Techs or is the idea that you keep Alphabet to yourself (to stop the AIs exchanging) and exchange other Techs (like Writing) when you get them?

I know I will hold onto Alphabet until the last moment. I won't trade it until the AI really has something I need that I can not get without giving up Alphabet. Of course once one of them has it you are mostly out of luck, so it is a good idea to trade it to as many Civs as possible when you do finally trade it.

 

[JerichoHill]

I am taking the road much less traveled.

I'll be moving my settler SE

Why? I think there's forests over there, plus if we're in the NW corner, I want to start sealing borders.

I know that I can go west with my second settler, or north, to capture the resources there (cow to the north, with hills) and floodplains/hills/plainshill to the west.

I doubt many people will do that, but I am planning on putting down three good cities, then two cities to seal the border. Ill keep fogbusters in the corner, and probably attack with axemen (I will be making a beeline for it after pottery) to whoever is on my east. Hopefully Monty won't be on my southern/western border.

I pretty much figure I will be trading alphabet, because we ARE going to be behind in techs fast, even with cottage spamming. Best plan of action I can think of is.

1) Found 3 cities like above.
2) Cottage spam
3) Find bronze
4) Build AxeStackODoom
5) Attack eastwards, cut off opponent's expansion. Raze cities
6) Found 2nd line cities (seal western border)
7) Finish destroying the eastern civ with axemen.
8) Consolidate. Improve the economy, get heroic epic built, solidify the eastern border. Begin to build army to west. It is at this point that I will begin to catch up to the AI tech lead.
9) Determine what victory condition to try for.

 

[colony]

Isn't anybody simply going to fund the city just where the settler popped up?

Personally I think it's a good place. The cow gives extra growth (combided with pop sacrificing we will be able to produce all we need for the other citi(es) if ever we can fond them...

I am very tempted to settle on the starting spot. I generally find that if you can only see one resource in your starting radius then you're likely to find copper, horses, or iron there later on, although iron and horses generally come too late with our starting techs to help against barbs much, or to let you skip archery.

But I'm hoping the GOTM staff felt nice this month and gave us some copper nearby