GOTM 04 - Pre-Game Discussion

[ionimplant]

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

i bet that it's close to us but closer to one of our aggressive neighbors so that bloodshed is necessary to get it.

 

[jayeffaar]

Were there other spiritual civs in the game?

Good point. Probably since they got there that quickly but I didn't get far enough to know for sure.

Now, should we take your question as some sort of hint?

Edited to add: looks like there are 7 spiritual leaders out of 26. Since two of them are Indian, that leaves out 5 other possible spiritual leaders out of 24 that could be in the game. In my test game, it turns out I had Isabella and Saladin to compete with, which was just bad luck. But since the GOTM isn't random, can we expect to get a break? Or not? Aaargh...

 

[ainwood]

Good point. Probably since they got there that quickly but I didn't get far enough to know for sure.

Now, should we take your question as some sort of hint?

Maybe - or maybe not!

Actually - I was just offering an observation on your results. Don't take it either-way.

 

[greentea]

If there are two or more spiritual civs, we will probably get beaten to both religions. But if it is only one, waiting to see which religion gets founded and then researching the other one might be doable. And researching fishing meanwhile will definitely help.

 

[Thrallia]

the problem is there would be no way to know whether there is one or more spiritual civs...

then there's also the huts to consider...in my GOTM3, England popped a hut with Meditation in it and founded Buddhism before any of the religious civs could get it.

 

[T_Raccoon]

I think im going to skip out on an early religion and adopt one later depending on the situation. Theres clams, deer, and cows so i think going for worker techs first is probably the best way to go.

 

[ohioastronomy]

Excellent choice. I'm going to go for a cultural win, although that doesn't exclude some early culling of the competition. With no gold in the starting city, an initial religion is not a given - but an early one is entirely possible.
What you need for a cultural win is a minimum of 9 cities, as many religions as you can get, and decent diplomacy.

Ice Age maps means barbarians, but also quite a few luxury resources (e.g. silver, timber). Emperor means that expanding past 5 cities will be tough before CoL. Note that the GoTM is generally easier than random draw games at high difficulty - I think they'll probably avoid the truly ugly starts that you can sometimes get.

Should be fun...off to practice...

 

[Thrallia]

how fast should one expand though? I always seem to either expand too fast or not fast enough

 

[mushroomshirt]

Good point. Probably since they got there that quickly but I didn't get far enough to know for sure.

Now, should we take your question as some sort of hint?

Edited to add: looks like there are 7 spiritual leaders out of 26. Since two of them are Indian, that leaves out 5 other possible spiritual leaders out of 24 that could be in the game. In my test game, it turns out I had Isabella and Saladin to compete with, which was just bad luck. But since the GOTM isn't random, can we expect to get a break? Or not? Aaargh...

Actually I think the situation is that there are 4 (5 counting India) civs that start with mysticism (Spain, Arabs, Incans, Aztecs). Slightly better odds, but chances are at least one of them is in the game.

I tried in practice games to get an early religion and was able to do it both times. Maybe I just had some good luck. I also never saw who was out there.

I think there is something to your comment about gold, though. Since like you say there is no gold available without fishing besides the initial city square, maybe fishing is really the key initial tech here rather than hunting or bronze working. I am thinking maybe the way to go is to build some work boats to get to the clams early on so that research doesn't stagnate before building my first worker.

 

[azzaman333]

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! Not clams again!!!! Every time i play as india, i always have clams!!! Its like a curse! I am confident i am going to have a dramatic loss.

 

[The-Hawk]

If there are two or more spiritual civs, we will probably get beaten to both religions. But if it is only one, waiting to see which religion gets founded and then researching the other one might be doable. And researching fishing meanwhile will definitely help.

In a test, I was able to research Fishing -> Poly and get Hinduism.

My question for the board... when I discovered Hinduism, I did not get a missionary. I thought you always got one when you first discover a religion... am I missing something? (It is rather late in my time zone )

 

[rguymon]

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.

Ok I will give it a shot. I did learn alot from my monarch loss. However, I am still struggling on monarch so I will get waxed bad on emp. I played the normal difficulty last time and lost space race 1915. I will try the adventurer class this time. (a couple gold mines near by would help)

Rick

 

[azzaman333]

In a test, I was able to research Fishing -> Poly and get Hinduism.

My question for the board... when I discovered Hinduism, I did not get a missionary. I thought you always got one when you first discover a religion... am I missing something? (It is rather late in my time zone )

You dont get missionaries from founding Hindu, Buddist or Jewish IIRC.

 

[Methos]

My question for the board... when I discovered Hinduism, I did not get a missionary. I thought you always got one when you first discover a religion... am I missing something? (It is rather late in my time zone )

Not for the early religions. You only get the missionary for the late religions.

Ice Age and Emperor, hmm. IMO an Ice Age map will probably weaken the AI's a little, making this a little more easier than a normal Emperor game. Just my opinion.

Question: I've been in the top 50% on both GOTM 1&2 (doubt I'll finish 3) and wonder if I'll still be able to play the Conquest class. Am I allowed? Other than one OCC Space win on Monarch I haven't played an SP Monarch game. Never tried an SP Emperor game.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

I've never played an Ice Age map. Can somebody who has tell us what are the characteristics of that map?

As for the Adventurer bonus, an extra Settler may be more of a curse than a blessing, given the corruption model in Civ 4. We all know that expanding too fast has brought down as many Civ 4 games as expanding too slowly ...

 

[Thrallia]

hmm...after playing 6 practice starts on the settings given to us, here's my thoughts on early religion vs worker techs

6 games:
each game I went fishing->poly
the first 3 games, I was still able to found Hinduism-had between 1-3 spiritual civs besides myself
the last 3 games, I lost out on hinduism by 1, 3, 9 turns...9 turns had 5 spiritual civs, the other two had 2,3 spiritual civs.

Also, in every single one, Buddhism was founded before 3600 BC which was faster than I could have researched it going meditation first.

So, it appears to me that the best chance at founding an early religion is Hinduism, and that you've got a 50/50 shot at founding it if you go fishing->poly, but you have a 83/17 shot at founding it if you go poly first(would have founded it first in all games except the one where I lost by 9 turns if I'd got poly first)

I also found that for some reason, civ upkeep rose to 2 gc per turn almost immediately, causing my science slider to move down to 80% after I was halfway done with fishing.

Because of that(this is my only experience on emperor, no other games or attempts) I think I still want an extra settler, simply I've never heard of the upkeep for 2 cities being detrimental to your growth, unless the second city was too far away from the capital.

On a side note: does military size have anything to do with civ upkeep? cause if it does that could explain why my upkeep went up, I was building warriors only to try to not impact the research in a positive way.

 

[Jastrow]

Yes it does. You get a few free units, but after that, you have to start paying upkeep. I am trying to find out how many free units you get at Emperor, but did not find a quick reference.

Like a few others here, I have never even opened an emperor game. I am about to go try a test start or two now. While I did win in GOTM3, I still expect to get crushed here, but will at least give it a try.

 

[Thrallia]

hm, then I guess I impacted things negatively lol

do workers get included as military? I'm going to retest this fishing-> poly
and I'll try doing it with some long-term build, like stonehenge or a settler

 

[jayeffaar]

Actually I think the situation is that there are 4 (5 counting India) civs that start with mysticism (Spain, Arabs, Incans, Aztecs). Slightly better odds, but chances are at least one of them is in the game.

True. For some reason, I was thinking Spiritual = Mysticism, which sounds logical, but isn't the way the game works.

I've never played an Ice Age map. Can somebody who has tell us what are the characteristics of that map?

I generated several test maps and loaded them into the world builder to get an idea of what to expect. Ice Age generates wide maps that wrap around. They're not very tall because the ice caps supposedly cover a lot of the planet, leaving only a small band of habitable land.

Wide continents is supposed to generate long strips of land, but I've seen a lot of variety, from a single wide continent to a terra-style map, to intricate shredded land-masses connected by thin land bridges. On some of them, there wasn't much land at all. Not enough for a peaceful cultural win, where you would need 6 cities at least...

As for the Adventurer bonus, an extra Settler may be more of a curse than a blessing, given the corruption model in Civ 4. We all know that expanding too fast has brought down as many Civ 4 games as expanding too slowly ...

Good point. In my latest test, as soon as I founded my second city, my research went from 80% to 50%. Without a good early source of gold, extra cities are going to hurt.

Going for Pottery so we can build cottages may turn out to be more important than trying to found an early religion.

 

[Thrallia]

not necessarily...having an early religion and being able to spread it to your neighbors may give you an edge in relations that you'll need...plus giving you cash that will help stabilize your science rate better than extra commerce can sometimes.

edit: not to mention giving you that extra happiness bonus in your cities, I think that would be even more important on emperor than it was on lower difficulties