GOTM-05 Pre-Game Discussion

[The Duff Man]

I will try a cultural victory this game. Not the best "recommended" one on this type of game & leader, but I failed to obtain such one in the last 2 games and I became a little frustrated about this ...

What do you belive - it' possible to build most of wonders on warlord level ? Is recomended to found a religion asap ( buddism or hiduism ) in that aproach ?

Regards all

I got a 1700AD cultural victory on one of the practice maps, and that was despite messing around and missing out on Oracle. I got SH, Pyramids, GL no problem.

I missed the first two religions but founded the rest.

 

[rguymon]

Great. The difficulty level has come back down. I was concerned the difficulty level was going to keep ramping up from emp. I was loosing interest. I think keeping some variety is good.

 

[Sparts]

its sad to see that the people who are not able to compete at higher levels are more willing to give them a go and stretch themselves out than the people who like higher levels are willing to play lower for the benefit of the others.

People who are stretching in order to give an emperor GOTM a go, with all the feedback they can be reading, will be learning 10 times as fast as when they would play a monarch game by themselves. On the other hand, people who are used to monarch/emperor playing a warlord game are barely learning anything. I would feel like wasting my time on a boring game (especially since I am not interested in 'competing' with other players for the best result).

what fun would it be if gotm5 had been on diety and only 40 people had won? what fun would it be to just ramp up the difficulty over and over again until only the best 30 or 40 players were even playing the gotm?

You are mistaken. The top 30 or 40 players will be playing this game and competing with eachother for the prizes. It's the players that come below that top for whom this is a boring GOTM. No offence to anybody.

Varying the difficulty around so much, covering the entire spectrum, is the only way to allow so many people to be interested in the gotm and play them. Yes, warlord is a lower level than anyone anticipated...but I think it is childish and immature to refuse to play down some difficulty levels (and then complain about it!) when others were willing to play up(and for the most part only commented that they expected to lose).

Note that I am not complaining about it, I'm just not playing it. I absolutely think it's a good idea to throw in a much easier game for players new to the game. It's just that I would not enjoy playing this game, so I won't. I don't think that's childish and immature.

 

[The Duff Man]

Admist all this discussion about the difficulty I'd like to say thanks to those that donate their time and run these every month so we can all have fun and learn.

To those that are posting to say they won't play here is a newsflash: no one cares. If you prefer things be run differently feel free to start up a second GOTM yourself, but that might take a little more effort than a post on a message board letting everyone know that you find Warlord boring.

 

[culdeus]

The Duff Man > hi

 

[Thrallia]

I agree that people who wouldn't enjoy a game shouldn't play it, and I completely understand why you would not play it. Regardless of the competition involved, if you aren't going to enjoy a game there is very little reason to play it. I just got tired of the seemingly large number of people who complained about such an easy GOTM, so after AU Armageddon posted that he is QUITTING Civ 4 completely because of the difficulty level of this one gotm, I decided to just post about it. His reaction and post were completely immature and childish, and I might have projected that to include many others who posted complaints and may not have been.

Note: I dont consider saying you won't play a complaint, only when people actually did complain that it was too easy.

 

[AU_Armageddon]

Well it was meant to just be a sincere thanks and cya, but I guess didn't come out that way.

I don't blame Ainwood and team. I appreciate the fun I've had and reality you can't please everyone, and the difficulty of this. A parting suggestion that starting at Chieftain and working up might have worked better and maybe should be considered for Civ5 or the x-pac or whatever.

Clearly, comparitively, a lot of people didn't play the harder diffuclties, and those that did mostly didn't submit. Fair enough, back to a simpler level.

For me, Monarchy is tolerable, and can be fun, but mostly still a walkover going through the motions, and Emporer, Immortal, and Deity is where all the fun is at. Only one in 5 so far, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the distinct impression the difficulty will be slowly scaling back up again to let the community keep up. The challenger settings aren't difficulty based and don't change much (I was one of the few who played the Monarchy one on Challenger and it had no effect on spicing it up except shaving a few points of end score), hence I don't foresee any games that I would find fun for next couple months either.

As GotM is my only SP Civ gaming, and MP is unfortunately already dying out these last several weeks due to bad peer problems and lack of support (I log in every day, but last weeks can't get a ladder game, and frequently can't even get any game due to low numbers and prevalency of bad peers), it seems that's really just that. It's more about Civ4 really. The chopping and comparitive ease of military route (combined with ultra military scoring bonus) means there's only two real ways to play this game. The right way, and the handicapped way.

Many people have no problem handicapping themselves, not chop chop chopping their way to victory, not abusing the ******ed AI's military routine and stomping it to a guaranteed victory, cheerfully accepting the comparitvely ludcirous crap score for alternative more challenging ways of playing. I commend those people, but I simply can't do it. Feels contrived. Why not just skip the first 10 turns, or 25 turns? Same diff to me as choosing not to chop, or to go for cultural. I can't get into that headspace of playing without pulling out all stops and giving it my best for my best result I can get. Maybe a patch + x-pac will fix these things, and if so I try again then. But, in the meantime, a few long challenging GotM games would've kept my interest but it is not to be. If that is immature then fine, I stick my tongue out, am takin my candy cane, and going home.

So, as I meant to say befre without giving offence, thanks, and so long.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I think the challenger equalizer in this is rather cunning. As quite a few people have mentioned, the stuff you get from goody huts is going to be very significant in the early game (And on warlord level, with a couple of scouts, you can pick up a *lot* of goody huts before the AI gets to them).

On challenger, you have no scout (I love the 'gone walkabout' description btw) which slows down the going-goodying. But then without any techs, you won't even be able to build a scout for a while! That's going to make a huge difference in the early game (though for people accustomed to playing at higher difficulty levels, it's not going to make much difference in the long run, just some % off the final score).

OTOH I can't see the adventurer bonus making too much difference. The worker will speed up your early growth a bit as it'll mean you can mine the hills immediately, and you don't have to spend time building a worker. And the extra mysticism tech will help if you want to get a very early religion, but on warlord and with a creative civ, I can't see the early religion making much difference to the game.

 

[ZerrorR]

I recently joined GOTM... I learned much from write-ups... I even won on emperor level... I would like to learn more... so exp/players should write theirs write-ups and I will learn even more... It would be easy to win this one... but how you win is important... First spoiler will be at 500 AD... who will win by then???

 

[Adonias]

would you be able to pop a scout with the settler without knowing how to build one?

 

[ZerrorR]

Are you sure you want to search for goody huts with your inital settler???
And later on you will have a warrior. To answer your question: yes, you can pop a scout with your settler without knowing to make one.

 

[malekithe]

you can pop a scout with your settler without knowing to make one.

True. But there's a slim chance you could get something like the attached screenshot as well...

That's a completely un-doctored image. It's a settler that I got from a hut and was using to scout (I didn't want to use settlers popped from huts in my practice games). He happened upon another hut and, well, you can see how it went from there...

 

[12Voltman]

True. But there's a slim chance you could get something like the attached screenshot as well...

That's a completely un-doctored image. It's a settler that I got from a hut and was using to scout (I didn't want to use settlers popped from huts in my practice games). He happened upon another hut and, well, you can see how it went from there...

I would advise against using a settler to recon.

 

[Velvet-Glove]

I just want to say that I'm happy to see an easier game this month. I am a very average player (perhaps not even that as I am a 10 percenter... the bottom 10%! ) and didn't do terribly well on the first couple of GoTMs (I got the red ambulance on one of them, hehe) so something vaguely achievable is a welcome sight this month. I didn't bother with the last two games (too hard for me) so thank you admins, I'm glad to have the opportunity to play again this month.

 

[kkev]

One thing to bear in mind on a great plains map is that you're going to need a lot of workers. On continents or archipelago, a large proportion of your worked tiles are going to be sea tiles which only need a light-house or workboat to maxmise out-put.

On great plains maps, probably all your tiles are going to be land tiles and will need worker improvement.

 

[al_thor]

Like they did in CivIII, I wonder if they removed the Settler as one of the things you can get from a hut. A settler is too advantageous for the few who were lucky enough to get them.

In C4, I could see removing BOTH the Settler and the Worker as things you can get from a hut in the GOTM's.

GOTM Staff: what are your views on this?

Moderator Action: Paragraph deleted. I hope you guys are getting as bored with this mantra as I am with typing it, then maybe you'lll all cease and desist.

PLEASE DON'T POST HERE ONCE YOU'VE STARTED THE GAME

 

[Mahatmajon]

Moderator Action: Post deleted. I hope you guys are getting as bored with this mantra as I am with typing it, then maybe you'lll all cease and desist.

PLEASE DON'T POST HERE ONCE YOU'VE STARTED THE GAME

 

[malekithe]

Moderator Action: Spoiler quote deleted

I really think this discussion should wait until the spoiler thread(s). Already, you've informed many of things that were uncertain until you opened the save file.

 

[Orion071]

Both of you are already providing spoilers ... Moderator Action: deleted .

 

[JerichoHill]

Those posts about the hut should be deleted. Moderator Action: Done ... well after the horse had bolted