GOTM 04 - Pre-Game Discussion

[ainwood]

GOTM-04: Pre Game Discussion

This game MUST be played in patch version 1.52.

In addition, if any further patches are released before the end of March, you will have to complete your game in v152 and submit before patching!

Game settings:
Civilization: India (Leader: Gandhi; Traits: Spiritual & Industrious)
Rivals: 6 (Random)
Difficulty: Emperor
Map: Ice-Age
Mapsize: Standard
Map Configuration: Wide Continents
Climate: (N/A for ice-age map)
Water level: Medium
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Victory Conditions: all enabled

The starting screenshot is here:


Adventurer Class bonuses:
To be confirmed.


Challenger Class Equalisers:
To be confirmed.

 

[ainwood]

Leader Traits

First up, Gandhi is Spiritual and Industrious.


Spiritual:

1. No anarchy when changing civics.
2. Double production speed of temple.

The no-anarchy period in Civ4 can be very useful - a seemless change of civics can be very useful for ducking in and out of wars, or even for taking advantage of certain civic traits for a short-term gain.


Industrious:

1. Wonder production rate increased 50%
2. Double production speed of Forges.

Whilst is becomes a bit harder to get wonders on emperor level, the 50% increase in production speed means that you can get a significant advantage (especially if you can grab some resources to help with the builds).

Starting technologies

1. Mysticism
2. Mining

For those of you that like to grab an early religion, mysticism gives you a great chance. If you're a forest-chop-fanatic, mining starts you well on your way.


Unique Unit

You unique unit is the Fast Worker; a replacement for the worker. In many games where you are playing against India, you will often see the Indian empire getting ahead early in the game - due to the fast worker. This is a great UU for helping with your early game - it can give you a huge advantage. Also, any workers that you capture become fast workers.

 

[Icarex]

Great! this will be fun!
I started playing as Gandhi, but I have not played him on emperor yet. It will be a challenge.

No need to move the settler this time. Seems like we start on a peninsula, close to the ice edge.

 

[rguymon]

Yikes I may skip this one. The difficulty is ramping to fast for me. I lost on Monarch.

Ice age and emp will definatly be too hard.


Rick

 

[The-Hawk]

And with the simple click of a mouse, ainwood sends 500 people off to try out Gandhi on an Ice-Age map at Emperor difficulty and normal speed! What power!

Looking forward to it... thanks!

 

[ainwood]

Yikes I may skip this one. The difficulty is ramping to fast for me. I lost on Monarch.

Ice age and emp will definatly be too hard.


Rick

You can try the 'adventurer' version - I haven't completely decided on the bonus yet - but am toying with the idea of a bonus settler.

Secondly, does it really matter if you lose? You can still learn from a loss.

 

[Memphus]

Yikes I may skip this one. The difficulty is ramping to fast for me. I lost on Monarch.

Ice age and emp will definatly be too hard.


Rick

Give it a try, the starting position is pretty generous, plains hill,cow, deer + 2 clam

I would think everyone is going to settle in place, I see no reason not to
I am also willing to bet that because the difficulty did go up that there will be stone or marble near by to go with our industious trait

 

[Thrallia]

a second settler would be an awesome bonus for those who lost on monarch

that starting position looks like gold, especially if we found hinduism or buddhism...lots of food=lots of pop rushing and GP building.

 

[jayeffaar]

I too would have preferred to stick to a lower difficulty level for another month. It's not so much that I lost last month (I did) but that I got toasted and didn't have time to learn from my mistakes before we're moving again to a tougher level. A learning experience is only useful if you get a chance to apply what you learned.

On the other hand, this looks like an interesting setup. I like Ghandi's traits and India's UU, the starting terrain looks pretty good and we seem to be tucked away in the south-east corner of a continent, where we will only have to worry about the northern and western fronts for a while.

Maybe I'm getting influenced by India's border colour , but I'm thinking of trying for a cultural win. I suck at war-mongering, and I have no idea how to go about it at this level. No matter what, if I play, I'm definitely going to go for the adventurer version this time...

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Looks like a desert to the North. Most defenatley ice to the South. I think this is the first GOTM where I will settle before moving my warrior, as I cannot think of a reason I would not want to settle in place. Then with the city showing more land, I will decide where to send my warrior to explore. I think my research path will be Polyethiesm, Preisthood, Writing, Bronze Working, then hopefully a chopped Oracle for Alphabet. I may throw Fishing in their somewhere before Alphabet. Only major problem I see with this start is it only has 3 forests (two vissible, one is NW, W, W on a grassland hill). Food should not be a problem, although research could be.

 

[mushroomshirt]

I'm interested to hear if anyone will try for an early religion. Ghandi gets mysticism for free so it is probably possible to get either meditation or polytheism at the expense of worker techs.

I'm thinking I won't try for an early religion so I can get hunting and animal husbandry and maybe expand a little bit faster.

 

[Foy]

This is going to be the First GOTM I try, and i will definitely use the extra bonus. An extra settler would be great, but to make it fit in with India's UU, how about starting with a free Fast Worker?

 

[jayeffaar]

Industrious:

1. Wonder production rate increased 50%
2. Double production speed of Forges.

Whilst is becomes a bit harder to get wonders on emperor level, the double production rate means that you can get a significant advantage (especially if you can grab some resources to help with the builds).

Just to clarify this, only the forges get a double production rate. The wonders are produced at 150% the normal rate, not double. Which is still nice, of course...

At Emperor level, how does that compare to the AI's production bonus?

 

[ainwood]

Just to clarify this, only the forges get a double production rate. The wonders are produced at 150% the normal rate, not double. Which is still nice, of course...

Thanks - I got a bit carried-away! First post updated.

 

[Mauer]

a second settler would be an awesome bonus for those who lost on monarch

Hear! Hear!

 

[greentea]

Looks very intriguing. Starting resources and civ techs suggest very different choices (fishing/hunting->AH vs BW/an early religion), I think we will see a variety of openings. The jump to emperor is quite a lot for me, but such a city location cannot be skipped, even if I get crushed later. Thanks to the staff, this is what really keeps my interest in this game!

 

[jayeffaar]

I'm interested to hear if anyone will try for an early religion. Ghandi gets mysticism for free so it is probably possible to get either meditation or polytheism at the expense of worker techs.

With no accessible gold within the initial city radius (you need fishing to work the water tiles that produce gold), getting enough research going to beat the AI to Buddhism or Hinduism looks impossible. I just ran a quick test start where I had access to one gold and no matter what I did (I restarted a few times), I couldn't get to those religions before someone else did.

 

[Thrallia]

This is going to be the First GOTM I try, and i will definitely use the extra bonus. An extra settler would be great, but to make it fit in with India's UU, how about starting with a free Fast Worker?

mm, I'd rather an extra settler, since last time we got a free worker and it didn't really help some of us very much...plus with a second city quickly we can get those fast workers faster and also research faster

I'll definitely go for an early religion, then I'll go for fishing and worker techs...hopefully I can get oracle+alphabet, and once I'm able I'm gonna spam my religion all over the place

 

[godotnut]

A cultural victory on Emporer in this position is almost too easy. Just read the strategies from the cultural victory gauntlet thread, that is to say, Beta Gauntlet III.

While the thread provides a much better overview, the basic strategy is build, research, and cottage spam until you get to around Nationalism or Liberalism. Then shut down your research entirely and buy all the religious buildings that add plus 50% to your cities' cultural bonus. In no time, you'll find your legendary cities lining up.

The only real challenge in this kind of game is diplomacy. A single war can bring the whole house of cards down. Still, staying at peace isn't too hard if you manage your religious status correctly.

I've worked this strategy on Immortal, and it works like a charm at that level as well.

I predict we see many, many cultural victories before 1500. These won't win in points, but they will win with great consistency.

 

[ainwood]

With no accessible gold within the initial city radius (you need fishing to work the water tiles that produce gold), getting enough research going to beat the AI to Buddhism or Hinduism looks impossible. I just ran a quick test start where I had access to one gold and no matter what I did (I restarted a few times), I couldn't get to those religions before someone else did.

Were there other spiritual civs in the game?