GOTM 03 Pre-Game Discussion

[solenoozerec]

goal
Domination. Date – primary. Score – secondary.

first movements
warrior -sw
If nothing significant, settler s sw.

I think moving in that direction is a good choice. Not only because of a hill plains. According to river location a good chance is that the lake is in the western direction. Somebody mentioned that we are in the northern hemisphere. If this is correct we are most likely in the northeastern part of our world (makes sense for Japan). Going towards the center is not a bad idea. Besides we know fishing and can take advantage of water resources straight away. I might move even further than those hills if I will see the lake with attractive resources. I may consider building a coastal capital.
Though moving away from the cow is against my civ3 instincts

If nothing very interesting can be seen from that hill, I will settle. I prefer s sw over sw sw for two reasons:
1. Saving forest for chopping
2. sw sw spot gives 3 hammers which makes it very valuable spot especially during worker/settler building. This will be particularly important, if sw sw s spot is the only floodplain in the area.

Research
Mining-BW-Agriculture-…
I certainly will emphasize research in the top of the tech tree and will attempt to trade techs from the bottom of the tree.

Builds
If I settle on the coast, first build will be a work boat. If I settle on s sw, then I will build a warrior or maybe even barracks depending on exact terrain. Whether I will start my first worker at pop2 or pop3 also depends on terrain

Goody huts
I will avoid stepping on goody huts very early in the game. There is a little chance of waking barbs. My warrior has a little chance to stand against two barbs despite upgrade. I will step on goody hut only if a distance between a goody hut and my capital is similar to a number of turns required to build my next warrior.

Overall strategy
Emphasize growth and science in the beginning of the game. Start warfare with samurais and cats. Sounds as a very interesting combination. If I feel strong, I’ll go in both directions of our bagel-looking world.

 

[The-Hawk]

Looking forward to this challenge. I missed 4OTM1 since I didn't own the game and was sloppy in 4OTM2 because I was in a hurry (started late) and hadn't had much practice. So, my main goal is to finally be able to take my time, think things through, and maybe play a little cleaner. I'm certainly not worried about scoring well, will be happy to finish with a victory.

Warmongering seems like the safest way to go. But somehow I am feeling an urge to try culture, mostly because it is something new for me. However, I'm still somewhat new to Civ IV and have never played Monarch (find Prince pretty easy though). I'm wondering if culture win with Tokugawa at this level is too difficult, would be really nice to have Philosophical or Financial traits. Also seems like 75K per city is a lonnnngggg way to go.

Any advice from the veterans? Is a culture win reasonably do-able under the 4OTM3 conditions, or should I stick to warmongering?

 

[DaveMcW]

I wouldn't use this GOTM to try your first culture win. There are many things that can go wrong, and if you don't play a top-quality game you will lose to a spaceship.

The only thing that can go wrong with warmongering is choking on city maintenence, so raze early and often.

 

[Adonias]

@Velvet-Glove
Confusionism is fairly easy to get. After getting some techs you really need (BW, agri/AH), beeline for writing (to get you set up with some libraries) and then beeline for priesthood. Build that oracle as fast as you can and there you go... Code of Laws (generally the choise at that moment for your free tech is COL or metal casting... hey.. great! They're both needed for samurai, so if you want that religion, get COL, if you want early forges to be able to build up your empire quickly, get metal casting). Some people even manage to complete COL before the oracle, in that case Civil Service is the choise for your free tech

 

[Greenlocke]

The only thing that can go wrong with warmongering is choking on city maintenence, so raze early and often.

Maybe this answers one of my warmongering questions. How do you maintain your empire whenever destroying civs in civ4? My Maintenance goes through the roof and I fall behind in techs.

Do you just keep the major cities and expand them culturally?
Do you ever settle new cities?
Doesn't razing make any type of trade/diplomacy almost impossible?

I ask because I had a pretty dismal gotm1 time victory because I attacked 2 civs early and fell behind the leaders. It took me the rest of the game to "grow into" my new empire using Currency and specific civics.

What is the best strategy for conquering empires without dilluting the force of your own?

 

[Mauer]

Well, I haven't played a GOTM in about a year. That obviously means I haven't played a Civ4 GOTM. I've only completed one game of it so far and only got half way in 2 others before it crashed. With my RAM and video card upgraded I might give this one a go. As I don't have much experience, especially on this level, we'll see how that works out

On second thought, I think I'll pass. I've been playing a game with the same perameters as this one, and I'm not enjoying it all that much. 1000 AD plus and I'm still fending off barbs with warriors. I know it's because of the choices I've made, but sucking so bad isn't very enjoyable.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

In my test game, I got placed in the east. I decided to beeline for Iron working. Even though I didn't start with mining, I was the first to Iron working. I used a settler to get Iron, and started churning out swordsmen. I attacked China. When I attacked, China had only 3 archers guarding it CAPTIOL (I expected more guarding its capitol.) I took two of three cities of China and will soon take another, all without seeing anything besides archers. All in all a quick military rush can still work to take out on or two of you neighbors quickly.

 

[solenoozerec]

Do you just keep the major cities and expand them culturally?
Do you ever settle new cities?
Doesn't razing make any type of trade/diplomacy almost impossible?

In both previous games I played domination. Below are my answers to these questions. Keep in mind that this may not be the optimal way. Perhaps raising is more efficient, but I am afraid in this case you are more likely to win by conquest.


1. I never raised a captured city.
2. Yes I do if I see that it will help to claim substantial amount of territory.
3. I am not sure that diplomacy and trading are important at the last stages of domination game.

 

[A+ombomb]

No doubt I'm going two south west to the river shore with plains/hills. I always go to plains/hills if I can find them!

 

[Shillen]

I retract any negative comments I had about pottery first cottage spam. I tested it out today. My capital had 3 flood plains and was on a plains hill. I researched pottery->mining->bronze working->writing->alphabet. I had alphabet in 1225BC! I think this was the first game I actually traded for agriculture and animal husbandry. I had 4 ciites by 960BC so expansion wasn't that slow, even. Although I didn't found any more cities after that since all the good locations were taken (Cyrus took my first ring away before I founded my 2nd city). From the time I discovered alphabet onward I had a dominant tech lead. I even managed to found confucianism through self-research. I also built the oracle without marble to get metal casting. Cyrus adopted confucianism from me and I had the shrine built by 300AD. By 400AD I had samurais and am ready to go to war. I'm up 2 techs on Mansa Musa and 4+ techs on everyone else. So obviously I found the pottery first, cottage spam extremely effective.

 

[Sparts]

I retract any negative comments I had about pottery first cottage spam. I tested it out today. My capital had 3 flood plains and was on a plains hill. I researched pottery->mining->bronze working->writing->alphabet. I had alphabet in 1225BC!

It would be interesting to see whether you'd have done better chopping a second worker and then a settler first. Could you give me your initial save so I can test that out?

 

[shadow2k]

I retract any negative comments I had about pottery first cottage spam. I tested it out today. My capital had 3 flood plains and was on a plains hill. I researched pottery->mining->bronze working->writing->alphabet. I had alphabet in 1225BC! I think this was the first game I actually traded for agriculture and animal husbandry. I had 4 ciites by 960BC so expansion wasn't that slow, even. Although I didn't found any more cities after that since all the good locations were taken (Cyrus took my first ring away before I founded my 2nd city). From the time I discovered alphabet onward I had a dominant tech lead. I even managed to found confucianism through self-research. I also built the oracle without marble to get metal casting. Cyrus adopted confucianism from me and I had the shrine built by 300AD. By 400AD I had samurais and am ready to go to war. I'm up 2 techs on Mansa Musa and 4+ techs on everyone else. So obviously I found the pottery first, cottage spam extremely effective.

Interesting. I tried a variant of the Civil Service slingshot on a inland sea map with the same settings, but didn't alter the terrain, just played what I got handed. My start had corn for food, but no flood plains, so cottage spam wasn't a strategy I really considered. I didn't get to start on a plains hill either.

I chopped Stonehenge and Oracle in my second city, while my capital did the normal expansion builds. I couldn't use Marble/Stone, because I had to skip Masonry for what I planned to use the Prophet for (I guess I could have settled on top of it). I used Oracle to get CoL first, then used the GProphet from the two wonders to research most of Civil Service, leaving a handful of turns to do myself. If you know Masonry, then the GProphet gives you some other tech.

I got Samurai at right around the same time as you did. I had six total cities, but no shrine yet. But I had another GProphet coming shortly, sped up by using a priest + the wonders.

My main issue was that I had to delay certain techs for so long in this strategy, you don't have a lot of room to take detours with these starting techs and no commerce bonuses. I also didn't get Alpha until after Civil Service, and this caused some civs to do the "We fear you are becoming too advanced" thing.

 

[beestar]

I chopped Stonehenge and Oracle in my second city, while my capital did the normal expansion builds. I couldn't use Marble/Stone, because I had to skip Masonry for what I planned to use the Prophet for (I guess I could have settled on top of it). I used Oracle to get CoL first, then used the GProphet from the two wonders to research most of Civil Service, leaving a handful of turns to do myself. If you know Masonry, then the GProphet gives you some other tech.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I believe that even if you settle on top of stone/marble, you still need to develop Masonry before you can utilize the resource. It does save you from having to build the quarry though.

I've sometimes held on to Great People when the tech they grant me is useless. For example, if the Great Prophet can give me Masonry, one option is to research Masonry on my own, then the Great Prophet will offer you a different religion. Whether it's worth putting the Great Prophet on hold for those turns is a different question ...

 

[Shillen]

I got Samurai at right around the same time as you did.

You had both civil service and machinery at 400AD? Or just civil service? I also had math, currency, construction, iron working, alphabet, monarchy, calendar and literature, though. Also over 400g in the bank.

edit: I attached my starting sav file. I didn't use world builder to make it like the GOTM map or anything, but the starting situation is pretty similar. I moved the settler 2 south onto the plains hill.

edit2: There weren't enough forests to warrant a second worker right away. I actually didn't chop much at all.

 

[shadow2k]

You had both civil service and machinery at 400AD? Or just civil service? I also had math, currency, construction, iron working, alphabet, monarchy, calendar and literature, though.

I had Civil Service, and Machinery by 400AD. Iron Working also, and those three techs allowed me to build Samurai. You got alpha much earlier than I did, and seem to have more techs overall. I had to research Alpha and IW on my own after Civil Service, then Metal Cast and Machinery. I traded for Math and Calendar.

Nobody had Currency or Lit. One civ did have Monarchy, and another had Construction, niether would trade them. I was up Metal Cast, Machinery, and Civil Service on everyone...but I think most of them knew the rest of what I knew.

 

[shadow2k]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I believe that even if you settle on top of stone/marble, you still need to develop Masonry before you can utilize the resource. It does save you from having to build the quarry though.

I've sometimes held on to Great People when the tech they grant me is useless. For example, if the Great Prophet can give me Masonry, one option is to research Masonry on my own, then the Great Prophet will offer you a different religion. Whether it's worth putting the Great Prophet on hold for those turns is a different question ...

Not sure about the resources. I know you can settle on resources to get the health/happy bonuses. I really never tried to use a strategic resource without the tech like this though, so I don't know.

As far as the Great Prophet, the specific strategy is that if you know Masonry, the Prophet wants to give you Monotheism I believe. And if you know Mono, I think it goes to Theology. So by holding off on Masonry on purpose, you can get something like 1350+ beakers towards Civil Service...which still requries a decent amount of self-research, but getting into Bureacracy early, and also a req tech for your UU...well, it's pretty powerful obviously.

 

[Shillen]

I had Civil Service, and Machinery by 400AD. Iron Working also, and those three techs allowed me to build Samurai. You got alpha much earlier than I did, and seem to have more techs overall. I had to research Alpha and IW on my own after Civil Service, then Metal Cast and Machinery. I traded for Math and Calendar.

Nobody had Currency or Lit. One civ did have Monarchy, and another had Construction, niether would trade them. I was up Metal Cast, Machinery, and Civil Service on everyone...but I think most of them knew the rest of what I knew.

Yeah I think the problem was my only 4 cities so even with my built up towns you started researching faster due to more cities. The problem was starting next to Cyrus. He expands faster than any other civ and he's cultural so he always takes up all your land if you start next to him. On the other side the barbs founded a city so I basically lost 2 good cities to cyrus/barbs. I couldnt' capture the barb city because I didn't have iron working until very late and was busy building forges in preparation for samurai. I still think cottage spam is the way to go. Hopefully in the GOTM 1) Cyrus won't be next to us and 2) there will be more trees available to chop. I also lost a worker to barbs while I was chopping the oracle, which was extremely bad luck (was 1 tile outside my border).

edit: I actually did capture that barb city around the 400AD mark with a war elephant and a couple cats. That's where I stopped playing.

 

[shadow2k]

Shillen, to be fair...one of my cities was a barb city captured with axes, which had a gold hill and was my second commerce city. I just didn't have floodplains, and cottage spamming grassland at the start wouldn't be nearly as effective.

I started next to Inca and Germany, so no real early worries for me as far as expansion. I'm not sure what the deal was, but my neighbors seemed to expand very slow towards me. Maybe they filled out their corners first, or had issues with barbs, I'm not sure...but something seemed off.

I think the Civil Service slingshot is nice, but would work much better in a different situation. The main point of it is to get into Bureacracy to amplify a commerce heavy start, which I didn't have (even getting an Academy early as well if you're Philo). So even though I got CService very early, it didn't do much for me. I still needed IW/Machinery for the UU, and my capital didn't have a lot of commerce to boost...the shields were nice though.

 

[DaveMcW]

edit: I attached my starting sav file. I didn't use world builder to make it like the GOTM map or anything, but the starting situation is pretty similar. I moved the settler 2 south onto the plains hill.

That is one sweet start. In my test games I restart when I see gold, because I don't want to rely on it it showing up in the GOTM.

I played OCC until I completed the CS slingshot, and got Samurai in 340BC.

 

[Memphus]

So I am seeing how everyone is starting up test games and so do I if I have time, and just now I got this crazy thought.

What are the odds that while generating the map that you get the same one as the GOTM?

I mean from as far as I can tell they are not specially created like the ones in CIv3 were.

So theoretically couldn't someone generate it? If this is possible, what are the odds?