GOTM 03 Pre-Game Discussion

[Shillen]

Should be a fun one. Should be a bit more challenging than the last couple GOTM's, but IMO monarch is still pretty easy. So I, for one, am glad to see the difficulty ramped up. I sincerely hope next month is emperor.

On monarch at least 50% of the early barbs will be archers with the other half warriors and a rare axeman. You can manage to defend your empire with warriors only but it would be quite difficult. I will research bronze working fairly early for chopping and if I find no copper anywhere near (and no horses either) then I will research archery. On lower difficulties I like to go with iron working when I find no copper/horses but I think that would take too long on monarch.

This game clearly favors a military victory. A high sea level inland sea map is good for warmongering. It's basically about 8-12 tiles between the edge of the map and the sea. That provides a nice narrow front so you can defend against attacks easily. Tropical is a good thing, since otherwise 2 out of those 8-10 tiles would have been tundra in the north and south of the map. On a temperate map the best land is in the east and west but I'm betting on tropical the best will be north and south with jungle in the east and west. The corners give the most room for expansion while the north/south/east/west can be cramped.

Toku's traits and UU are great for warmongering also. I think ainwood undervalues the organized trait. It really saves you a ton of money in a military game. You can afford to use the medium and high upkeep civics and you can get courthouses built in new cities twice as fast. The starting techs are somewhat of a handicap, though.

Expanding quickly is important because land will be tight. I'd use an outside in approach. You can relatively easily choke off your neighbors since the distance between the map edge and the coast is so short. Resources will also be fairly rare I believe. So my first priority while settling will be to grab as many as I can. If I go for a wonder it will be the pyramids, unless we have marble. Expect the Oracle to be built around 900BC. The oracle is a great boost but I find researching down the priesthood path to be a big sacrifice especially when it's not easy to beat the AI's to building it.

 

[Lanstro]

Oooh the Japs. I for one do like them, I usually go for a militaristic victory, and I let the computer select my civilization for me, and I usually do the best with the Japanese - those Samurai just simply carve up anything else in their era, while the organized trait allows you to conquer every moving thing while keeping your economy intact.

Time to try an inland sea map with high sea lvels to see what it's like then!

 

[Methos]

@GOTM Staff: I'm not seeing the barb settings. Do you mind informing us or will it be a surprise?

 

[dithadder]

Any chance of having a second, easier GOTM? I got owned (by barbarians...embarrassing) in the last one. Same scenario, two or so levels easier.

 

[T_Raccoon]

i've only played tokugawa on noble difficulty and Japan has got to be one of my favorite civs. That organized trait comes in handy especially when COL comes in couple that with the aggressive trait and you got the perfect warmonger not to mention it's UU is awesome.

Still like i said i've only played Japan on Noble difficulty and i think I'll have to be ten times more aggressive in Monarch then i will on Noble.

BTW this will be my first Monarch game.

 

[Obormot]

I haven't played a full game of civ4 yet, but i'll try to play gotm3 (well, i said that last time about gotm2, but didn't play. Hope it works out better for me this time). I am too lazy to start a test game and i don't know at what date do the AI usually complete wonders at this level. Maybe someone of the more experienced players can post a list of approximate dates of when the AI usually build the key wonders at this level?

 

[colony]

The tech pace on Monarch can vary a lot, and the date at which wonders are built even more so, but in general the dates for some of the key early-mid game techs and wonder seem to be very roughly (based on Epic speed, which is what I normally play on):

Alphabet: 1AD
Mathematics: 100BC
Feudalism: 600AD (not quite sure, as it is one of the more random dates, and aggressive AIs go for it more)

Stonehenge: 1000BC (if not earlier)
Oracle: 800BC
Pyramids: 200BC

This is the most I can remember off the top of my head, but if you've never played on Monarch before I'd definately recommend a test game, as it's quite a bit harder than Prince

 

[astute1]

Considering I still can't win a game at Prince, a Monarch game should be interesting. I'm going to give it a shot anyway, though. I'll probably go for a few practice games first. I've yet to try the Inland Sea map, but it seems really good for a tech-heavy civ - plenty of finance from all those water squares.

 

[Greenlocke]

This is a stupid question, but what are the rule modifiers for Monarch vs. Noble? How many base happy citizens, etc? Thanks.

As for strategy, I'll check out the hill SW, like everyone else...

I may try a worker-barracks-warrior build, however that could earn me an early defeat if the barbs come a knocking. I think I'll settle one of the hills for the early production bonus.

City placement will be interesting, and dependent upon the barb activity. If I can, I sill stretch a few cities to control chokes...however if the barbs are very active then I'll have a hard time re-supplying choke cities.

I just played the greek world scenario and the barbs were absolutely crazy. And I wasn't playing on monarch. In fact, I had 6-10 barbs showing up inside my borders every few turns! Is this normal? Or are they just part of a trigger, and I expanded into their spawn point?

Anyways...it will certainly be challenging. I can appreciate why the better players would prefer harder difficulties, but this is only the 3rd GOTM. Aren't we trying to grow the community a bit? Personally, I would have rather taken another shot at prince before moving on to Monarch. I'm sure this will turn off quite a few players, and the number of submissions will be much lower. Unless that's the whole plan...

 

[fbouthil]

I read the previous post and I am surprised of a few things:

• Lots of people are surprised about the difficulty setting while I was expecting it. Hopefully, there are going to be multiple class for the starting game to help the players who can't usually play on that level. Don't worry about difficulty settings, there should be an easier game in a month or two.
  
• Lots of players complain about early barbarians and I don't know why. I never played at Monarch level, but at prince level or lower, barbs are a nuisance, nothing more. Animals can't go inside your territory, so you simply need to escort your settlers until they build a city. Once you get real barbarians, not animals, you should be able to defend your cities, even if you have to rebuild that farm 5 times because barbarians destroy it every time before attacking the city.
  
• Most players say they will play test games. While that sounds like a good idea, I don't have the time to play that many games in a month. I still find that a very good idea and I will play it up to the middle-ages to get a good feeling of the implications of this setting, then start GOTM3. Of course, I should finish GOTM2 first... but I should finish it today anyway.

Finally, let me give you a very important advice: HAVE FUN!

Good luck to everyone!

 

[jayeffaar]

This will be my first Monarch game too and considering I barely made it on Prince last game, it will certainly be challenging. But what the hell, I willing to try it!

I see a few posts talking about how awesome the samurai is but according to Ainwood's intro, it seems to be just like a maceman but with one free promotion. Is that it or am I missing something?

 

[shadow2k]

I see a few posts talking about how awesome the samurai is but according to Ainwood's intro, they seem to be just like macemen but with one free promotion. Is that it or am I missing something?

They require Iron, so if you only have copper, no Samurai. But Samurai get two first strikes, which is like having Drill 2...and Combat 1 because of agressive. At their time, they are normally going up against Longbows that start with one first strike...so it cancels that out, and gives you one first strike against them.

Crossbows or Knights are about the only danger to them during their era. But this is vs the AI, so you'll see more Longbows than anything else if you're on the offensive.

 

[Smirk]

Warrior SW.

Comtemplate a settler move, SW, [SW | W | NW] seem possible. The traits here suggest a very powerful early mongering start so settling on the plains hill seems a fair sacrifice. Although you could be moving away from copper or iron as another poster mentioned.

I'll have to play an inland sea game before the start to get a feel for whats needed for domination, like last months this map may require a large amount of land. So its not really suited for domination (its not easy or anything) but the high land needed allows you to get a huge score.

Anyway, I figure my strategy will be early war then domination for teh win. High production cities with a bit of commerce production to get to the UU quickly. If its doable I'll begin mongering with axemen, although I expect Iron Working to be higher in my tech priority so I may have swords before axemen could be produced in number. I'll want to be settling some Iron in my first few cities to prevent any major problems down the road.
I may sidestep for Iron and delay Writing or Alphabet. The question with writing will be whether my capital can produce enough commerce to make the library useful that early.



As to the difficulty, I agree with zxe, while many experienced players may want emperor and above looking at the submission numbers alone tells me that there are as many new players to the gotm as there were for civ3 as its height. Beyond that the difficulty creates such a variance in strategy that all of them are fun, if your strategy is flexible enough to change.

 

[Adonias]

Nice! Monarch... I lost the last GOTM, but just won an emperor game with Louis. I never did inland sea, nor Toku, but I'm defenitly going to warmonger.

Steps:
Get good spot for capital
Build 2 wariors while researching mining,
Build worker and build a mine while researching BW
Chop a settler, maybe two
I hope to have Animal husbandry by then, so I can get the worker to do something usefull
Get writing early for an early library
Go for code of laws... either through research or through oracle (depends on how many forrest I have)

Furthermore.... get enough workers, build axes in barracks, upgrade them when knowing what they are going to attack, get a worker along to chop courthouses.

I'll see from there on what to do

 

[shadow2k]

This is a stupid question, but what are the rule modifiers for Monarch vs. Noble? How many base happy citizens, etc? Thanks.

As for strategy, I'll check out the hill SW, like everyone else...

I may try a worker-barracks-warrior build, however that could earn me an early defeat if the barbs come a knocking. I think I'll settle one of the hills for the early production bonus.

City placement will be interesting, and dependent upon the barb activity. If I can, I sill stretch a few cities to control chokes...however if the barbs are very active then I'll have a hard time re-supplying choke cities.

I just played the greek world scenario and the barbs were absolutely crazy. And I wasn't playing on monarch. In fact, I had 6-10 barbs showing up inside my borders every few turns! Is this normal? Or are they just part of a trigger, and I expanded into their spawn point?

Anyways...it will certainly be challenging. I can appreciate why the better players would prefer harder difficulties, but this is only the 3rd GOTM. Aren't we trying to grow the community a bit? Personally, I would have rather taken another shot at prince before moving on to Monarch. I'm sure this will turn off quite a few players, and the number of submissions will be much lower. Unless that's the whole plan...

I don't know the exact bonuses the AI gets, but as for your other questions...

Greek Scenario barbs are NOT normal. That scenario is trying to mirror history. On normal Monarch games, barbs will be similar to Prince. The difference is that they become archers and possibly axes slightly faster, and spawn a little bit more. The key is that the more fog there is, the more barbs will spawn...because every fogged land tile (except mountains) have the chance to spawn them. So having more fogbusters, even if they can't cover every tile near you, reduces the chance and rate that barbs spawn.

Barbs can't even cross cultural boundaries for a while, so your first builds don't really need to be city defense. In fact, if you run an undefended settler out (I don't recommend it), you can actually found a city right next to a barb with no defender, and the barb will run out of your borders instead of razing the city. I don't know what time period they can start crossing into your borders, but you'll start seeing archers before they can attack your cities.

With Inland Sea, it's not that bad at all. You've got natural barriers at the edges, as well as the sea (and high sea level as well). There won't be that much area for barbs to spawn once you get up to three cities or so. Building a few extra units to station on hills and keep the FOW back is a great way to deal with them, although I normally just try and get Axes early.

 

[Shillen]

As to the difficulty, I agree with zxe, while many experienced players may want emperor and above looking at the submission numbers alone tells me that there are as many new players to the gotm as there were for civ3 as its height. Beyond that the difficulty creates such a variance in strategy that all of them are fun, if your strategy is flexible enough to change.

How long do you want to wait for the higher difficulties? The game's been out for 4 months now. If I keep playing prince for more months I'm going to get very bored. I'd like to see an immortal game by the 6 month point and deity by the 8 month. I mean what do you think we should wait a year to play higher difficulties? The game shouldn't take that long to learn. I wouldn't mind if multiple difficulties were given each month but if we're only given one then I don't want them all to be ridiculously easy. I've played two attempts at the beta gauntlet 4 for the hall of fame and I'm already done trying. It's no fun to play on noble.

 

[suspendinlight]

Barbs can't even cross cultural boundaries for a while, so your first builds don't really need to be city defense. In fact, if you run an undefended settler out (I don't recommend it), you can actually found a city right next to a barb with no defender, and the barb will run out of your borders instead of razing the city. I don't know what time period they can start crossing into your borders, but you'll start seeing archers before they can attack your cities.

Are you sure about this? Anyway, on Monarch (with raging barbs set at least...), the first barbs will appear around 2200 BC and they will be 50/50 archers/warriors. I have never seen a barbarian unit wait outside my borders but maybe it does happen on lower difficulty levels. On Monarch though, I think you will see them coming for your cities without hesitation.

The tropical setting could produce some nice patches of grassland near the center of the map after the jungles are cut down. I haven't played inland sea before but the fact that there is a desert square makes me think we are probably on the east or west side of the sea and since the river is to the west, we are probably on the east side of the sea. I will have to try a practice game to get used to the standard rules again.

Like everyone else I will be moving my warrior to the SW hill and taking a look for places to settle. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that there are horses, copper or iron in our starting city radius, but I have to at least see what is out there.

 

[Memphus]

Well I see two possible plans here:

Plan A: Red which is in red and almost everyone would do,
it is the safe thing, a good start
1.Warrior shows the terrain just to be sure it is the right move
2. Bonus health for on the river, defensive and production bonus for the hill

Plan B: Blue Not a safe thing, I may be the only one to do this

1.Sending that warrior to the NE first he shows alot of land, and my guess is there is a hut in that direction because it is such an illogical move. In defence to this the staff who are probably cutomizing the map now know that everyone is going for the plains hill and so the terrain around there will be suitable
2. By putting the settler on the plainshill without the forest you are going to lose the river (and the health) but gain a chop. As well as the extra commerce for that plains hill.


With the difficulty being Monarch playing the Red move might be the best way to go, but the risky and potentially huge payoff way would be Blue

After having now extrapolated the map data, I think I might Go with the Blue move for the Warrior and the Red Move for the Settler.
Bah who knows it's my B-day this month Maybe i'll flip a coin

 

[DaveMcW]

The square SW, SW, S of the settler looks like a flood plain.

 

[jayeffaar]

I just generated a few inland sea maps using this game's parameters, and loaded them into the world builder to see what kind of world I can expect from this game.

One thing I noticed is that all other civs started the game with four units, one settler, one worker and two military units, usually archers.

I understand they're supposed to get bonuses at the Monarch level, but does that mean they also start the game knowing Archery, or do they still have to research that to build more archers?