GOTM 04 - Pre-Game Discussion

ayed around with some test games last night to check out possibility of getting a religion and found a couple of points.

Research fishing first. Fishing takes 8 turns to research with the type of start we have. Being able to access the costal and lake squares then allow you to shave off 5 turns in researching Polytheism second. This makes fishing only cost 3 tech turns and they occur in a game time where the other civ's do not seem to found a religion (unless they pop a hut).

Look at the top 5 cities list before founding your first city. If I remember from GOTM3 replay, the other cities are founded before yours so I guess they will already be up and you can get a peak of 5 of the 6 civs, if 2 have mysticism or 1 religion and Munsa (he seems to beeline for religion in most of the tests I did) then do not go for a religion, you are very unlikely to get it. If 1 has mysticism or Munsa is in the game then you are likely, if none do you are in very good shape. Mystical civs tend to get there religion between 3640 and 3560, which means that you can switch out of polytheism if it gets researched here with just a small tech delay. the biggest wildcard seems to be Munsa who a couple of times in my tests founded Hinduism around 3400-3200. Which would not allow a swtich. Also check the top 5 cities right after fishing as they may change and reveal another group.

With switching to water tiles you should be able to found Hindu around 3200, but you need to remember to switch research to 90% when fishing is found. You could do better if a hut is popped and you can stay at 100%.

My summery of this is that going poly or meditation first is the wrong choice, start with fishing and do not go for religion if two religion oriented civs (including Munsa) are known to be in the game.

 

Oddly enough, in my last test game, which included Isabella, Mansa Musa, Alexander, Catherine, Tokugawa, and Mao, it was Tokugawa who got Buddhism. I got Judaism and Hinduism. Izzy got Code of Laws while I was still working on Writing (having detoured through Bronze Working and Priesthood). I got Stonehenge, but lost the race for the Parthenon with about 4 turns left to go. At that point, Tokugawa spontaneously declared war and sent a stack of doom on my second city, which was defended by a single axeman and I quit.

In this test game, Delhi had two gold sources in its city radius, which allowed me to research faster than I otherwise would be able to. I'm probably going to try another couple of test starts before I DL the save file. But the goal for me is to squeeze in 9 cities, get as many religions as I can, and try to peacefully amass 50k culture in 3 of the cities.

 

In one game with Japan they founded Buddhism as well. But I have not seen him found Hindu so i do not percieve him as a threat for Poly. He may have preferences that send him that way. I have not seen enough games with him (only 1) to know.

 

For starters I would check out the northern seaborder of the starting location. From the looks of it (the blue circle) there's more seafood there. Perhaps squeezing two cities on this penisula is worth a try.

Other then that I'd dedicate one of those two cities (probably the capital) to construct wonders, Pyramids at first. The second would first secure the military and then expansion. On the other hand, researching BW first and with two cities building axeman, a quick visit to a neighboor might be a possibility.

Alas, I'll just stick to the Contender settings.

 

I will play Adventurer, and here's my basic strategy.

I feel confident I can get Hinduism. This will help my borders expand. My fast worker will likely explore, then come back.

I will not settle a second city until I really need to beeline to a site. What I will do is move an Archer and my settler to my preferred 2nd city site, and wait. If the AI tries to grab that spot, I will settle before they have a chance too. At the best case, I'll settle my 2nd city at a good site and seal off territory for future expansion.

My research path will focus on the Code of Laws Slingshot. Depending on goody hut popping, I may instead go for the CS slingshot, but if I dont pop Writing, BronzeWorking, or a ton of gold, I will play it safe.

I will try and build the Oracle and Stonehenge. Since I have archers and a fast worker and a settler, I think this is very doable. Great prophets are key for my strategy, which is to found 2-3 religions and spread them, so that I can pursue a diplomatic religious victory.

 

...but you don't want to build your second city too quickly because the maintenance costs will kill your research. You're probably better off keeping him locked up in Delhi until you can start working the clams.

 

Nah, as I said, scout out your 2nd city location, then just wait until the last moment before the AI plops theirs down.

 

Then what (if anything) would you have to see in a second city site to make you plop it right away? Gold? Stone? Marble? Those are about the only 3 things I can think of that would push me to settle faster and get the bonus (commerce, or wonder building bonus). I've worked the CS slingshot long enough to know that the CoL slingshot is superior in several ways. That's my religion forget this polyT monoT stuff too risky.

Oracle(CoL)+Pyramids+mucho other wonders = good things.

Good luck to all I'm gonna open the save later today.

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Sub question: Would a red-flag be thrown up if lets say I.

1) Opened save
2) Did 7 turns of exploring waiting for fishing to finish.
3) Took some screenies and digested the area for awhile
4) Started back up again later

I'm not the brightest when it comes to city site picking. I think if I slept on the area for city 2,3 I would do better.

Red flag?

 

I think it would make sense to move west for the first city, hopefully find more commerce. More importanty claim more area and backfill back to the coast. This will allow further western expansion without the distance penalty to capital, then backfill to the east again without distance penalty. I think it is most likely to run into close neighbors west so claim that ground early. Most likely only barbs will fill in behind you on the coast.

 

Some observations from a couple of test games:

I test started 10 games to try and get hinduism. Got it 8 times and once got beat same turn so if I had explored and got gold would have gotten it. However, I played out 2 games and it wasn't as useful as I had hoped. I was on large continents with many religions. Also I was playing a building/wonder strategy and didn't want early wars so ended up forgoing hinduism as state for a time.

Seemed possible to get wonders--the usual early game tradeoff between chopping settlers and stonehenge/oracle. In Ronald's game Hattie surprised me and came for me hard around 400BC--I was about +2 with her so caught me off guard and brought in Vic to finish me off. Won a cultural in my other game--it seems like getting a reasonable position with 6 cities is plenty if you can stay out of war.

Some tips for those new to emperor: the ai still plays pretty bad so you have a chance even if hugely outnumbered in battle as long as you have some way of killing the ai units--either tech advantage or getting them to attack your cities piecemeal. Be prepared for a lot of enemies--my last game I was on culture pump and got attacked by about 50 units--I had about 10 in my city--but the ai never put more than 15 or so at me on one turn so I held (they also didn't reduce first).

If you're down in tech often it makes sense to take a tech with a GP if you will be able to trade it around.

Barbs were less of a problem due to more ai expansion.

tech trading--my personal philosophy is not to trade alpha as you can often keep the trading monopoly for a long time. Metal casting can be a good trader, as the ai will often trade you col, curr, cal, etc. as it costs more.

 

The only things that would make me plop would be those same three things. I'm gonna be sending my fast worker to the East to explore a couple tiles farther than my archers can my first turn...see if there's anything intriguing there. I'm still deciding which settler to even settle first with...the north or south one. If I knew that there was fish or crabs or something at the north end of our peninsula, I'd settle the south one and save the northern half for a later city.

And that idea about Stonehenge, starting it, then putting it on hold for a work boat, is a good idea...I'm not sure why I enver thought about it, but I think I'll do that.

 

I am having problems running Gotm 4. I think I got a "unprotected version" for Gotm 3. Can someone help me?

 

I'm not sure how the top notch players will get by without it. I would like to hear from them about it if any are still paying attention to this thread. I would guess that the top notch guys will be trying for some sort of slingshot to CoL / CS. This will effectively get them an early religion! I don't know how else you solve the happiness problem.

Since this is a risky strategy for me on any level I prefer to go for meditation first. Of course the tech path I'll try (med->fish->BW->priest->writing) doesn't preclude trying for the CoL/CS slingshot either.

 

Top players ignored religion in the first 3 GOTMs because they had to research 4 techs to be sure of founding one. With religion 1 tech away this month, I think everyone will go for it.

 

Yes. Plus on emperor the economy is much more of a concern - so getting early great shrine income would be pretty useful.
My early game goals will be:
1. Research fishing, found Hinduism while building toward Stonehenge
2. Get a second + third city and a library up and running.
3. Build Great Lighthouse & Pyramids in my two cities.
4. Profit.

 

Yarg. Emperor, eh? I've won one Emperor game previously but that was somewhat stacked in my favour (all 18 civs crammed onto a standard map, and I was the Incas, so that wasn't really fair). Since it's my first attempt at a GOTM I'll avail myself of the opportunity to play the Adventurer variant, I think.

Trying to found an early religion is very tempting since Gandhi starts with Mysticism. Since I don't know who else is in the game this is a bit of a gamble; having run through the opening of a couple of test games on similar settings I don't think I have much of a margin, so I believe the second settler will wait around until the religion is founded. I think I'll go for Buddhism since I like monasteries.

 

Edited thanks to karmina!

 

@solvero: You shouldn't post here after opening the actual savegame.

 

My first attempt at a civ4 GOTM. I'm still a noble-dwelling newbie, so I've got the adventurer savegame.

Will try it tomorrow: I've never been to emperor lands before, let's hope everything works out good

 

Is there a way to edit the GOTM-saves to play at a lower difficulty?
Just for those of us who would enjoy playing the same maps and reading the threads as we go along, but aren't really interested in competing.