GOTM 03 Pre-Game Discussion

[Shillen]

Barbs can spawn in 1 tile of fog, but the chances are unlikely unless that's one of the only tiles of fog on the map. I don't know if it has to be foggy for a certain number of turns, but I doubt it.

 

[Littlewolf]

A few tips/impressions from playing 2 short test games:

1. Chopping is great, if you have enough forests. You get 45 hammers from a chop. And due to japanese traits, being argessive, you get 90 hammers for 1 chop towards barracks, and can build it in one turn! I chopped axeman too.

2. Research bronze working pretty soon, to see if you have copper. If you do, and also see a close enemy, don't wait a second and take him out, keeping the cities which are well placed. Taking cities is cheaper than building them yourself: you need a settler, 1-2 axeman, 1-2 worker and a lot of time. For taking a city with 3 archers, you need 6 axeman (3 usually die, 3 finish the archers off, that's just some 160 hammers or so and you get a partially improved land for free!). Also, the 3 surviving axeman usually get the second promotion, so taking the next city is usually 'cheaper' - you lose less and less axeman as they improve. In my test game, I also took over a holy city of an early religion, so I could focus on researching non religious techs. By the way, that enemy was the romans, so I knew that it was my first and last chance to take them out. If they got to iron, then...) Do just one chop in the conquered cities and you have barracks! Build a few axeman then to allow the new cities to grow in size. This barrack rush allows you to focus on wonders or whatever else you want in your 'old' core cities.

3. If you don't have copper, then I strongly suggest you go for iron working although it is deadly expensive to research early on. Without copper or iron, you are an easy target...if you don't have iron either, animal husbandry to see the horses. If no horses, then prey

Just my 5 cents. I didn't play the games longer than maybe 1000 bc, so I can't say if this early warmongering hurts your economy/science too badly.

 

[Samson]

2. Research bronze working pretty soon, to see if you have copper. If you do, and also see a close enemy, don't wait a second and take him out, keeping the cities which are well placed. Taking cities is cheaper than building them yourself: you need a settler, 1-2 axeman, 1-2 worker and a lot of time. For taking a city with 3 archers, you need 6 axeman (3 usually die, 3 finish the archers off, that's just some 160 hammers or so and you get a partially improved land for free!).

I agree with a lot of what you say, but dissagree that taking a city is cheaper than building them yourself. You need 1 setler, sure. This is the equivalent of just less that 3 axe men. You need 1 unit to sentry it, but I probably had a unit ther keeping away barbs. You need a worker to improve the terain but most caputered cities will need some work. You are also at war with another civ, so that is a few units that you do not need.

I think the really big advantage is that there is one less enemy, and that much less competion for city spots.

 

[Rane Khan]

Been playing a few test games, and although I'm pretty much lacking behind the AI I haven't had much problems with barbs. Last Gotm (and my test games with that map) had a LOT more barbarians. With a bit of training I think even people that only barely had a victory on last game should be able to play this one out (but might not win now, though ).

 

[Rad Chris]

Cool a Monarch game. Ive been stagnating on Prince for a while, GOTM might just be the thing I need to boost up my game another notch.

 

[Ribannah]

Bah. I started two test games and both crashed. In neither of the two did I have horses, copper or iron nearby, or even stone or marble ... hopefully the 4OTM is a bit more generous.

 

[Greenlocke]

A few people have said that they will build worker->barracks->warrior->...
I presume the idea behind this is that there are so many barbarians out there that you need to beef up your warriors to handle them!

Nope! I just wanted to take advantage of the double unit upgrade right from the start. Although I'm not dead set on the barracks strategy yet, my test game gave me several warriors who could hold their own pretty quickly.

(Obviously, the worker-barracks-warrior is planned in this order so that the worker can chop the barracks.)

I think that unit promotions are often underrated in the forums. If you upgrade your units rather than disband them, you will have many powerhouse pawns to play with. Kind of like kings in checkers (or the second queen in chess.) And since your first units will probably be the ones seeing the most action (and easy action at that...) doesn't it make sense to give them a little headstart?


Plus, I have tended towards underfunding my military in both of the previous GOTMs. Perhaps this build will focus me a bit better and provide a better militaristic foundation.

Just a thought...

 

[DaviddesJ]

I think that unit promotions are often underrated in the forums. If you upgrade your units rather than disband them, you will have many powerhouse pawns to play with. Kind of like kings in checkers (or the second queen in chess.) And since your first units will probably be the ones seeing the most action (and easy action at that...) doesn't it make sense to give them a little headstart?

Conversely, as your early units gain experience from killing animals and barbarians, they may reach the 5XP/10XP cap, in which case giving them a headstart doesn't make them any stronger in the long run.

(I still think an early barracks is generally a good idea for Aggressive civs, though.)

 

[mboza]

I think that unit promotions are often underrated in the forums. If you upgrade your units rather than disband them, you will have many powerhouse pawns to play with. ...

And since your first units will probably be the ones seeing the most action (and easy action at that...) doesn't it make sense to give them a little headstart?

I would be surprised by this. Starting a worker stealing war had been discouraged somewhere in this topic because the AI starts with free units, and will be unwilling to make peace. And if you are not going for a really early war, might as well wait until you have horses/copper + barracks to really push your military.

Yes, upgrade your axemen all the way to city raiding mech inf, but I would be surprised if your warriors are really strong enough to upgrade.


Just played another test game, same strat as mentioned above, but I did go for hunting 2nd because I had no cows, and two nearby huts. Was losing the wonder races, so built an axe army to rush Saladin. Decided to delay slightly to get construction (next tech) to get past Saladins multiple city walls but built so many axes and swords that the tech rate dropped to 20%. Oops. Alex and Monty prompty declared war on me for trading with enemies and having no religion, from the far side of the sea, and that kept the army occupied defending a city on the far side of Arabia. So I was massively behind the peaceful leaders, and stuck on 4 cities until I made peace with Alex and Monty. One quick war against Saladin, and I have lost my army for a gain of 2 cities, and Alex has declared war again. Think I will need another practice game. Might just try the early barracks, or perhaps go straight for libraries.

 

[ionimplant]

maybe a stupid question:
for most randomly generated civ4 games, settling in place is a good idea (unlike civ3 which sometimes may generate very poor starting positions).
so can we assume the same rule will apply to gotm for civ4? i.e., does ainwood (or other map designers) tweak the map so much that the above rule of thumb is no longer applicable?

and does a city need to be next to a river to enjoy the health bonus or does it only need to have a river tile within its 21 city radius?

 

[Rain]

Playing a practice start provided me with a classic example of why huts distort gameplay even if not to the degree of civ 3 's settler pops.

I start on a map approximately looking like the proposed game start - there turn out to be two huts in proximity to my capital and i pop them with my warrior getting gold and then a scout. That scout then finds a hut and pops a second scout. Each scout then finds a hut and in quick succession i get mining and BW from the two huts. Now while i have to say this is exceptionally good luck - the fact that this all occurred by 3680 bc when i still hadnt finished researching pottery - my first tech nor finished building my first worker is esssentially a sufficient edge to easily win the game.

 

[fbouthil]

In GOTM, the starting game is usually done in such a way that setting in place is not automatic. You usually have a few possible choices that could give you an edge compared to other players. Of course, it can also give you a handicap if the tiles that were still hidden when you settled are all deserts...

Watch out for military resources too. In the GOTM for civ3, we could almost be sure that the closest horse or iron would be much closer to another civs capital. Most of the time, we would have to conquer it. You can expect that will be the same for either horse, bronze or iron (and maybe 2 of them?).

 

[A+ombomb]

I agree with a lot of what you say, but dissagree that taking a city is cheaper than building them yourself. You need 1 setler, sure. This is the equivalent of just less that 3 axe men. You need 1 unit to sentry it, but I probably had a unit ther keeping away barbs. You need a worker to improve the terain but most caputered cities will need some work. You are also at war with another civ, so that is a few units that you do not need.

You are forgetting that if the enemy builds the city, then you aren't paying to maintain it. Therefore, a quick domination force of axemen becomes much better for fast teching and still expanding quickly (through the axemen). The other disadvantage of only self expansion lies in the opportunity cost of building settlers early. By not building too many settlers, your cities will be larger and more able to build axemen, and fast. I think you will find that it is good to stop at 3-4 cities and pump axemen out to trash someone to expand rather than expanding yourself.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

You are forgetting that if the enemy builds the city, then you aren't paying to maintain it. Therefore, a quick domination force of axemen becomes much better for fast teching and still expanding quickly (through the axemen). The other disadvantage of only self expansion lies in the opportunity cost of building settlers early. By not building too many settlers, your cities will be larger and more able to build axemen, and fast. I think you will find that it is good to stop at 3-4 cities and pump axemen out to trash someone to expand rather than expanding yourself.

Also, you get a city that has already grown. You don't have to wait for that city's population to increase for it to become productive. And it also makes your opponent weaker, while if you founded a city yourself, it wouldn't.

Also another point about barbs: animals cannot enter your cultural borders , any other barbs (warriors, archers, axes etc.) can .

 

[shadow2k]

By building the city yourself, you get it when and where you want it. Yes, capturing an AI city will give you a city with pop and some improvements, and maybe a building or two. Building it yourself you get all that earlier, and don't have to wait for it to come out of resistance. On top of that, captured cities are much more likely to be under cultural pressure, and often times get engulfed by enemy culture before it's even out of resistance. Not to mention it's more than likely fairly far from your capital compared to where you would have built a city, adding to the maint cost.

You also have to pay maintenance on the troops you used to take it out, and supply costs while they were in enemy territory. Not to mention troops you lost while taking the city. On top of that, you have a new enemy and are at war. You'll also have pissed off "yearn for motherland" citizens there, on top of added war weariness anytime you are at war with that civ.

Yes, there are positives to capturing cities. But it's still cheaper to build them yourself. Both strategies have their time and place, neither is always the right answer.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Well, I played a half dozen test games, trying to psych myself up for the jump to Monarch -- I made the jump from Noble to Prince for GOTM2 and I'm still getting the hang of Prince, so Monarch seemed somewhat out of my league when Ainwood started this thread. My practice games went a little like the guy who built the castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You know -- my first practice game sank into the swamp. My second practice game sank into the swamp. My third practice game burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp. My fourth practice game ... well, actually, that didn't go too well, either.

The common denominator in all my practice games was I got into an early war and failed miserably. Sometimes, it wasn't surprising -- once, I had no iron, no copper, no horses, and the AIs included Caesar, Alex, Monty, and Saladin. I was easy pickings, to say the least. Sometimes, it was surprising -- Gandhi sent a couple of settlers across my territory, so he had two isolated cities, and I still couldn't conquer them with my axemen!

The game where I was (almost) successful, I decided to make nice. In fact, I didn't fight a single non-barb until I had infantry. That one went really well and I was literally two turns from a culture victory when Caesar launched his spaceship. If I hadn't made two of the most boneheaded mistakes I ever made (don't ask)*, I would have won. Of course, I got lucky there, too, since I wound up having 5 religions spread to me, and was therefore able to build 5 cathedrals in each of my culture cities.

So what does it mean for the GOTM? I'm definitely going to play a defensive, submissive game. I'm not going to pick a fight with anyone, as long as I can fit in my nine cities -- nine cities gives me nine temples, which gives me three cathedrals. If I get lucky with the religions and wind up having a few spread to me, I'll go for culture. Otherwise, I'll go for space and/or diplomatic.

* I told you not to ask. Oh, OK. Mistake #1 -- I kept researching for a dozen or so turns more than I should have before switching myself over to 100% culture. Mistake #2 -- I confused a merchant specialist with an artist specialist, and so wound up running my cities at about 40 CPT less than they should have been run.

 

[A+ombomb]

Shillen, I tried out your start, and I also opted for the fast pottery approach with great results. I decided to build the first city 2 sw just as I will in the future gotm3, and I went settler first to found a quick second city. I then produced a worker in each of those cities so I could produce cottages at twice speed. I used a half ring formation to keep maintenance down to a minimum, and stopped at 4 cities to start pumping out axemen for cyrus' demise. I'm pretty sure I ended up with alphabet about 1300bc, and my samurai's were out and going at 210ad (included saves). Unlike you, I used the oracle for feudalism then researched civil service myself. This was a bit slower, since code is alot less beakers, but It allowed me to kick into feudal civics for the double city attack promotion once I could start making samurai's. In addition, since I didn't found conf., I am free to trade with some of the civs that otherwise would be angry at my religion. The downside is of course that I can't found a shrine with the inevitable prophet from the oracle, but I wouldn't expect to have conf. spread that much anyway by the time I had the prophet.

In conclusion, I really like the pottery first build when adjacent to floodplains. It's a pretty amazing science booster. Alphabet rush is great too against computers - like you said they just don't see the value in alphabet, and you can trade techs for a long time without them trading any amongst themselves. I really think you should try the tightly packed ring of cities on that map, too, as it also seems to give enough early game advantage to more than make up for smaller cities later.

Here's my 1275bc and 210ad saves.

I think I might try switching up the path and going for guilds instead of civil service, just to see how that fairs. The big plus about knights being that their mobility means much faster conquest, and they are already very effective against archers. I figured I would give them bonus against melee to make the spear counter pretty ineffective. The other option could be going for boats alot sooner, and simply carrying my samurai around the inland sea. This could allow you to conquer the world with only samurai?

 

[DuncanIdaho v.1]

I played Shillen's test start (post#94) and had great results. The gold mine to the south of the plains hill where I settled was a huge tech advantage, and something to definitely watch for. Researching pottery -- mining -- BW -- writing -- alpha made me a tech contender, and setting up a copper mine ASAP let me chop a kick-ass axeman army really early. Nearest neighbor was Persia, and with a barracks-induced cover promotion, my axemen easily took out two cities guarded by archers. Another promotion of city attack made these axemen unstoppable killing machines in the early game.

I founded two cities, including the capital, and accomplished this. I am now fully stoked for the real thing, and after my humbling defeat in GOTM2, I'm looking for rewenge.

 

[Greenlocke]

Conversely, as your early units gain experience from killing animals and barbarians, they may reach the 5XP/10XP cap, in which case giving them a headstart doesn't make them any stronger in the long run.

What?!?
Is this a Monarch limitation? Or GOTM? I know that I have upgraded units as high as at least 23-27XP before! (Although, the only example I can think of was in a scenario.) Is it a 5 or 10XP cap? Man, if this is true than that really sucks for a militaristic civ...

I would be surprised by this. Starting a worker stealing war had been discouraged somewhere in this topic because the AI starts with free units, and will be unwilling to make peace. And if you are not going for a really early war, might as well wait until you have horses/copper + barracks to really push your military.

I guess I wasn't really specific enough. I am not much of a warmonger anyways (hence my reasoning for forcing the barracks build), but the easy action I was referring to are the barbs/animals that roam around...not the AI workers - although I wouldn't hesitate to take a worker if given the right situation.

I don't think you really understood the fundamental reasons for my early barracks build. #1. It will mean that all of my units will be automatically upgraded twice. (Or will at least gain the XP for me to upgrade them later to quickly counter any unexpected invasion.) #2. It will force me to devote a substantial portion of my production to military units during the early game (where I feel I will be most vulnerable because I have yet to play a game at Monarch - save for the 20turn test game I tried the other night.)

 

[kingjoshi]

zxe,

1) DaviddeJ is referring to the cap against barbarians.

2) mboza is responding to another poster on the worker stealing tactic.