GOTM-04 Final spoiler - everything else!

[whb]

The thing is, the GOTM staff feel that they need to get cute with the starting position, making it more challenging than the actual difficulty level. Now they will go back to a fairly easy map to make up for this one, but then it will be right back to the "let's be cute" starts.

They were "being cute" by making it easier not harder - only the slight oops is that it is very much easier if you have a little bit of foreknowledge of how they have made it easier (eg - that Alex and Issy won't get copper for a while; there is iron right next to the start; you can get 3 good city sites including copper before invading Alex; your religious rivals are on different continents so you have an advantage with getting religious allies; having a copperless close neighbour makes dealing with barbs less of a worry...). Lots of advantages, but you need to know you've got them to be able to play to them effectively. So when ainwood et al playtested the opening, I imagine they felt it was easier than it turned out to be because they knew all the tricks.

Which is why my second game, where I knew where the resources were, where and when Alex tended to settle, and knew all the other bits I could take advantage of was so much better than my first.

 

[Fifteenpiece]

Tough slog this GOTM (playing regular version) I'm about 1400ad and treading water, I think in the whole game I've had roughly 10 turns without someone trying to kill me

Hella good fun though and I'll post more detail when I actually finish

Btw Karmina I think you answer your own question:

I'm surprised so many people, even adventurer players, had huge problems with this map. Granted, I played the easy version, but compared to my test games this starting position was definitely easier than a normal emperor game. Huge amounts of resources, lots of forests, and if you manage to crush Alex early you even got enough calendar resources to end most happiness & health problems.

and you said in your first post

Thus without the adventurer bonus, I would surely have lost before 1AD...

 

[JerichoHill]

Hey, I've learned a ton from their cute starts.

Keep em coming boys

After reading all the posts about games. I'm very proud of my very sloppy but hell I did it Cultural WIN!

 

[al_thor]

whb:

I disagree. In my first game, Alex nabbed the copper/marble in what seemed to me to be a very early and 'in your face' expansion by him. I had to wait for IW to attack him, and by then it was too late.

Have you played many Emporer games? I have, and I would rate that start as Poor (on a scale of Miserable, Poor, Mediocre, Good, Great)

 

[al_thor]

Nothing to chop.
No huts.
No river.
No luxuries (unless you happened to be lucky enough to get the Fur)

Back to my first attempt, I managed a slight come-back and was starting to turn the tide of battle against Alex. I had the Marble & Copper & Horse. Of course, my tech was in the toilet. And then, out of the blue, Isabella declared on me and unloaded 6 units next to Delhi. Game over.

 

[karmina]

Btw Karmina I think you answer your own question:[...]
and you said in your first post [...]

Hehe, well this was my first emperor game so while playing Adventurer I can't really comment on whether the contender version was easier or more difficult than a normal emperor game.
I'm now replaying the contender version, and doing quite well - but, as whb pointed out, this is with knowing the tricks and traps of a custom map...

Still, I disagree with al_thor about this being a "poor starting location". It's definitely resource-rich, and once you claim the marble site, even forest-rich. There are contender players who managed to quickly crush Alex and pull of an early Domination, e.g. Staffa. I have no doubt that many of the top players will have or had similar games...(well, actually I hope so, I don't want to be in the top 10 with an adventurer game )

BTW Staffa, could you tell us when you conquered the majority of Greek territory, and how many cities you had after that?

 

[mike p]

despite city raider 2 or 3 promotions, fresh cavalry seems to be more powerful than grenadiers most of the time vs. longbows. I guess that's due to a calculation bug: city raider bonus gets substracted from the defender bonus, and e.g. (1+0.75)/2.6 = 0.67 > 0.54 = 1/(2.6-0.75)

Cavalry ignore first strikes, which is also a factor here too, no?

 

[Staffa]

I razed corinth in 975 bc with chariots, this was the city that was founded the turn before right next to me.

I captured athens in 775 BC with just chariots and I captured sparta in 325bc with chariots and horse archers.

At this time I had 5 cities, 3 I built and 2 of alex's, alex was never even remotetly a threat after that and I left him alone for a long time.

This is when I started building courthouses and chopping alot of forests for horse archers to invade vicky, which I did in 125bc

I also agree with you, the starting position was alot nicer then I find in normal games. Starting on a plains hil next to cow crab and deer is pretty amazing. And the next city was on a river with early luxaries and a ton of forest and some more deer. Can't get much better then that imo.

 

[al_thor]

Of course most of the people posting here will not agree with me. It's the drop in downloads/submissions/posts that will agree with me.

The start wasn't terrible. But if you went for Fishing, got worker, chopped for boats, then went for Bronze, Alex had the copper covered before you could get a settler out.
Also in my game, I got srcewed by the lost-hammers-from-chop-timing-thing, causing my settler to be delayed. But I've messed up in normal games too and still been able to found at least 2 decent additional cities. Here you were lucky to get 1 (by the Horse & furs).

Yeah, I was using chariots against Alex and doing pretty decent until Isabella declared out of the blue and dropped a stack of 6 units next to Delhi, taking it. By the time I got it back, I was totally out of the game imo.

But I still don't get you guys. Am I getting THAT different of maps/starts when I just play standard settings? I never get AI that close and settling right in your face that early. My emporer starts have been WAY better than that, and I'm not re-generating the map.

 

[knupp715]

But I still don't get you guys. Am I getting THAT different of maps/starts when I just play standard settings? I never get AI that close and settling right in your face that early. My emporer starts have been WAY better than that, and I'm not re-generating the map.

I definitely agree with you. I don't know why people think this game was a great start for emperor, I've had much better. Like you said, starting so close to Alex and him grabbing one of the only decent city spots close-by made the game much harder IMHO.

 

[whb]

The start wasn't terrible. But if you went for Fishing, got worker, chopped for boats, then went for Bronze, Alex had the copper covered before you could get a settler out.

Ah, I see. This did happen to me in both my games (the losing first one and the winning second one) but in both cases I built Stonehenge, and I was able to just plop down a short distance away from him and outculture my way to getting the copper and marble off him in a few turns.

Of course I'd gone for stonehenge for the early prophet (with the idea of founding Confucianism and getting shrine income) rather than the potential military bonus of getting the copper, but yes this must have made a big difference.

 

[godotnut]

Anybody else play challenger?

 

[al_thor]

If challenger is the one with no bonuses, yeah, that's what I played.

Oops. Sorry. Challenger is for the masochists.

How did you do?

 

[kanderso]

Hi Everybody:

1st Post
1st Emperor Game (Contender)
1st GOTM

General strategy was to try to gain control of the continent that I am on and then go for cultural or space victory.

My initial strategy was to be as follows:
Research:
BW
Fishing
Wheel (For hooking up the copper that I hoped to find.)

Build in Delhi:
Worker (to be timed when BW was done.)
Chop warrior and settler

1. Build Delhi in Place
2. Explored to the West and found Marble site and Alex.
3. BW founded with worker. Great! Copper by marble site.

Strategy now is to try and found three cities, hook up copper and then do some damage to Alex. If possible, also chop a wonder or two.

4. chop warrior and settler
5. head to marble site with settler and worker escorted by warrior
6. PANTHER takes out my warrior and therefore my settler and worker.

Strategy now is to pray. I have no units at all. I think my only hope now is to try for the marble site again.

7. Build warrior.
8. Start build for new settler.
9. Alex settles marble site (and takes copper.)

Strategy now is to really pray. I know I'm really in trouble now. All I can build is archers and Alex has copper and horses. I can't expand because I'm cut off by Alex. I decide to build as many archers as I can without going into STRIKE mode.

10. build 14 archers
11. attach Alex (he has iron now, which I am still researching)
12. I attack Thermopylae. I conquer it losing 10 archers.
13. I discover iron working and use the worker from Thermopylae to work the iron north of Delhi.
14. Alex swoops in with chariots and steals my worker and pillages everything.
15. Alex attacks Th. with swords, axes, and chariots.
16. Th. falls.

Strategy is to put my head between my legs and ... I have two archers and two warriors in Delhi. If I build a worker, I can't escort him enough to get the iron.

17. Alex takes about 5 turns to finish me off.

In hindsight, I probably could have used slavery better to rush a settler after I lost the first one. It would have been tight, but I possibly could have built a city at the marble / copper site before Alex. Another thought is I could have gone for IW immediately after Alex settled the marble site, instead of trying to take him out with archers. The more I think about it, this is probably exactly what I should have done.

I still can't help feeling that I got robbed by a member of the animal kingdom. By taking out my first settler, that panther set me back a long ways.

Thanks GOTM staff and I can't wait until GOTM5.

 

[al_thor]

Wow. That was brutal. I'm not sure even the BEST players could overcome the loss of their Settler, Worker, and Warrior like that. Not on emporer.
I've lost workers, doing 'out of border' chops, but nothing like that.

 

[Thrallia]

ouch...I hate those animals...I've had a few games even on lower difficulty levels ruined by an ill-timed animal killing an escorted settler.

 

[Nick Danger]

The thing is, the GOTM staff feel that they need to get cute with the starting position, making it more challenging than the actual difficulty level. Now they will go back to a fairly easy map to make up for this one, but then it will be right back to the "let's be cute" starts.

That is uncalled for, and you owe them an apology. Expressing your opinion that you feel this GoTM was too hard is fine - personal attacks are not acceptable.

This was a great map, one of the better ones. Yes it was hard when Alex moved east towards the marble/bronze, but that means it offers a great opportunity to improve one's game.

I got my butt kicked in my official attempt and have since been replaying it, trying different strategies&tactics (some have even been successful, including my first ever attempt at a cultural win - and accomplished it with only 3 cities total for the first 90% of the game; currently working on a domination attempt), and have learned more from this GoTM than all the others combined - and that's a "win".

With such a wide variation in GoTM player skills, games will necessarily be "too hard" for some while "too easy" for others. Trying to achieve a good balance for the most players is not easy.

A big Thanks! to the folks that put the time and effort into providing us with these games, and to all the players who provide constructive writeups of their wins and losses so that we all can improve our play.

 

[godotnut]

If challenger is the one with no bonuses, yeah, that's what I played.

Oops. Sorry. Challenger is for the masochists.

How did you do?

I did a short write-up in this thread. It's on screen number two. The even shorter version is that I won a cultural victory in 1928 for a little over 10,000. I knew my score would stink with my intended strategy, but I had hoped for a much earlier finish. My goal was to be the earliest cultural victor overall. I'm sure I won't win that, and I'll only be the earliest cultural victor on challenger if players like BlueRenner, walkerjks, DaveMcW, and Shillen all opt to go for a higher score victory by military means.

I played a strategy similar to those outlined in Beta Gauntlet III, but I failed to take into account how much not having the Pyramids would slow me down. Having to research all the way to Democracy before turning off the science bar took a lot longer than I thought it would.

I didn't feel that the no-technology start hindered me that much though. I might have finished at the end of the 19th century on contender, but neither my score nor my strategy would have varied much. I didn't provide my early research series in the previous post, so in case anyone is curious, it went like this:

Mining>Bronze>Wheel>Mysticism (for Stonehenge)>Masonry>Polytheism (for the Pathenon)>Agriculture>Pottery>Writing>Alphabet

Upon receiving alphabet and trading profusely, any disadvantage posed by the no-tech start was pretty much equalized.

This was a challenging start with a weak leader, and I sympathize with those who had problems. Still, I enjoyed this game and learned a few things too. Thanks again to the GOTM staff. Can't wait for the next one!

- Matt

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Wow. That was brutal. I'm not sure even the BEST players could overcome the loss of their Settler, Worker, and Warrior like that. Not on emporer.
I've lost workers, doing 'out of border' chops, but nothing like that.

True, but I'd suspect the best players would not allow one single warrior to simultaneously escort a settler and a worker into the fog of war.

 

[ungy]

Game wrapup-- contender class cultural 1941 12,699.

Alex boxed me in at the marble but I was able to get the copper and prepare for war. He declared on me around 600BC and it was no cakewalk as he had iron and horse and soon horse archer. By 300 BC I had the two good city sites on the peninsula and he was forever gimped. I had otherwise good relations and decided to go for cultural.

Not too exciting a game from then on--Vicky later attacked Alex and I took 3 more cities effortlessly--not sure if it was worthwhile as I was almost to culture pump time but got me a couple resources and a religion.

I was doing well tech wise and decided to go out to infantry before stopping tech research. I could have saved 12 turns or so if I'd stopped at rifle but I thought I had time. I got there in 1941, only 2 turns ahead of Vicky's spaceship.
In retrospect I should have stopped with rifle as I had pretty good relations all around and did not expect a war and could probably have held my own against all but Vicky with the rifle.

As far as the start goes, I think the proximity to Alex made for a lot of variation in people's game experience. If he took the copper you had big trouble, if he went another direction and you got the good spots it was easy.

As usual I learned a few things from the writeups, although less than the last few games as some of the starts were so different from mine.

Thanks to the GOTM staff for another enjoyable experience.