GOTM 07 Pre-Game Discussion

ainwood

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GOTM-07: Pre Game Discussion



This game MUST be played in patch version 1.61. We will NOT accept any games played under any other patch versions.

Further, this game will have its assets protected, so your custom mods won't work. I will investigate with the HOF staff about releasing a version of the save that supports the HOF mod, however.


Game settings:
Civilization: Arabia (Leader: Saladin; Traits: Spiritual & Philosophical)
Rivals: 6 (Random)
Difficulty: Prince
Map: Pangea (Pressed coastline)
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Tropical
Water level: Low
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Epic
Victory Conditions: all enabled

Unique unit: Camel Archer: Replaces knight, strength 10, move 2, cost = 135. Immune to first strikes, doesn't receive defensive bonuses, 25% withdrawl chance.

Unlike the knight, which needs iron & horses, this UU needs no resources. The 25% combat withdrawl chance is pretty powerful as well - almost like starting with both flanking one & two!

The starting screenshot is here:


Adventurer Class bonuses:
To be confirmed.


Challenger Class Equalisers:
To be confirmed.
 
Here at last. I won't be able to play Civ until mid-month, so my strategy has to adapt to my real life time constraints.

Pangea and Epic push towards quick Conquest.
Philosofical, pigs and floodplains are good for Cultural.

I think I will go the Culture way again, maybe taking out 1 oponent early.
 
I hope I'll have time for this, cause I'm still struggling with GOTM06.

The position looks good, but I'm affraid it is at the end of a penninsula. There's water east of the wine.

I think go for cultural either and hope there are no other religious fanatics like Isabella.

I want to settle on the first turn to grab the early religion, but I'm tempted to move 1NW. I wonder what is hidden out there.
 
Hmmm, a very interesting start position - and one that looks like you really need more info on where to settle. The square the settler is on looks very good - near floodplains, on the coast, but with not too many coastal squares - so it can benefit from the great lighthouse and colossus but without losing too much production. Ideally suited to having rapid growth combined with high-ish production initially and then converting to a science-centre once you have some other good cities. Navy is going to be largely irrelevent on pangea, but the map is suggestive of being able to expand along the coast to a large extent, so a great-lighthouse/colossus strategy might be very useful for science. Especially because on pangea it's likely that several other civs will be inland so less likelihood of other civs building them quickly.

Two snags about settling in-place though: 1. You lose a forest, and 2. It does look like it might be near the end of a peninsula - just the wrong distance that settling there might lose you some land for a city to the SE (good land outside the city radius but still too close to be able to put another city there). Plus you end up with a capital at the end of your empire and so higher distance maintenance costs. You could move East and settle on the plains-hill for higher initial production, but with a greater risk of losing what might have been good land. Alternatively, moving West looks like it'll avoid wasting the land, and allow you to still found on the first turn, but I doubt I'll do that because the resultant location looks less good (and you lose the pigs). I'm a little nervous too because the presence of flood plains suggests there's likely to be desert nearby - moving west (or NW) just might give you a capital with lots of useless desert squares.

I think I'm most likely to start by moving the warrior SE, to try and get a better view of how much land there actually is down there, and then decide what to do with the settler. But I also suspect, based on the limited map so far, that I will settle in-place as being the best all-round compromise.

One other point. The flood-plains implies we're near the equator, so probably not at the southern tip of the land mass. To me that suggests we're at the eastern tip, so quite possibly the land dips down to the West. (I might be wrong, there might be more land dipping down to the East, but that looks a bit less likely from the map).
 
The flood-plains implies we're near the equator, so probably not at the southern tip of the land mass.

I'm not sure about this in this game. We have a tropical climate. I don't have much exp in this types of game, but I would say that there is a lot of jungles near the equator. This one looks really cold for a tropical climate.

The one thing I'm tempted to move is that in place you have only one resource - pigs. There might be some other resources hidden in the black area to NW, which might be worth of getting into the fat cross.

I would love to have stone nearby.
 
First a question...

Can someone with experience with these settings fill me in on what is "safe" as a date for finishing the Oracle? I just did one test start where I was able to build it just after 900BC. Is that typical, or was that lucky?


As for the start, I like founding in place based on the follow "blue-circle logic".... Of course, we all know blue-cirlces can be fickle-friends, so use this as your own risk, but...


Whay are the circles where they are? From what we see, the plains hill is clearly a better single city site in that it gains wine, and two other decent tiles, without losing anything of significance. Why is the circle on the starting point then? I am guessing there is a resourse on the west edge of our fat cross. Either a something like a cow or horse, or maybe some metal.

I am not too worried about losing land to the SE... Again, look at the blue-circle... Why south of the wine, instead of just north of it on a river, and in range of the pig? There must be something juicy down there. Either good resources in the tip, or see resources out in the ocean. In either event, I will be happy enough to build a city there to get tohose resources. The fact that is has significant overlap with my captitle is of little concern, and I dont see this as I dont plan to go culteral, so will not need to be building my second city past the point where it will crowed the capital (I expect it to support a population of about 14 without hurting the capital).
 
Jastrow said:
Whay are the circles where they are? From what we see, the plains hill is clearly a better single city site in that it gains wine, and two other decent tiles, without losing anything of significance. Why is the circle on the starting point then? I am guessing there is a resourse on the west edge of our fat cross. Either a something like a cow or horse, or maybe some metal.

It's also possible there's something (copper or iron?) on the hill east of the starting point itself, which is why it's not recommended I don't think the game normally (ever?) recommends settling on top of resources
 
East to the plains hill is clearly the best long-term location.

However, moving to the plains hill gives a research penalty until borders expand. You probably won't be able to get Meditation first.
 
I would probably move settler one square to the right, onto the hill - get that wine in, plus a few more land squares, still remain with access to the sea, and also avoid what I fear may be a couple of desert squares to the left of those floodplains in the blackness.

I will probably move the warrior south-east onto the hill first to have a look at the potential city surrounding area.
 
DaveMcW said:
East to the plains hill is clearly the best long-term location.

However, moving to the plains hill gives a research penalty until borders expand. You probably won't be able to get Meditation first.

Why is there a research penalty? What tile would you be working if you settled in place vs settling east? Are you assuming a specific unit being built first?

Normally, I'd research towards Bronze Working and build warriors and scouts until size 2 then build a worker to chop chop. But, lately I've been building a worker first. I'll read and learn how everyone else is planning to start.
 
Looks awesome!

My first read plans:

~ Settle in place for good early reasearch.
~ Go for an early religion.
~ Aim for a cultural victory (Philosophical Trait) with a gaggle of GP's.
~ Research to aim for an Oracle/ CS slingshot.
~ Take full advantage of Spiritual Trait (one of my favorites).


I've never palyed on TROPICAL, so I am guessing there will be a lot of jungles and therefore Metal Casting may be a bee-line priority in my tech research after CS, or maybe even grab it with the Oracle if I cannot grab an early religion.
 
Wow, maybe a camel blitz this month.

Pangea with low sea levels suggests a map similar to last month. IW will be a priority for chopping and metals are usually rare in the tropics.

Epic really favors conquest/domination victories. I'll be curious if anyone can complete a conquest before 1AD. I think I may have trouble finishing this one.

I'll look SE with the worker to see if there is another resource within the fat cross of the hill. Probably settle on the hill anyway. Early production is often a problem on jungle maps.
 
By moving, you lose the flood plains for the first 5 turn (until the first expansion). In starting location, you get 3F1C during those 5 turns. Moving to the hill, the best tile is a 2F1H.

After 10 turns:

Start location... FP= 30F, 10C.

Moving: after 10 turns, (9 production + move), you have:
5 * 2F+1H
4 * 3F+1C
9 * extra hammer

Total: 22F + 4C + 14 H

Looking only at research...

Meditation costs 171 with these settings.
We get a 20% premium on research from prerequisits.

With the palace, founding in place, after 10 turns, we have invested 120 beakers.... On the hill, 102.... After that, we are putting in 12 per turn in both cases. So, founding on the hill puts you two turns behind when trying for meditation. Wether that is important in missing it or not, I have no idea...
 
Markus5 said:
Why is there a research penalty? What tile would you be working if you settled in place vs settling east? Are you assuming a specific unit being built first?

If you settle in place, you will work one of the floodplains. If you move east to the hill, none of the tiles you can work has any commerce.

But I would move east without hesitation, if I were playing.
 
Isn't there commerce on the sea tile?
 
Jastrow said:
Fishing is required to work the see tiles, and we dont start with it.

And, even if you did have Fishing, working a coast tile instead of a more productive land tile would cost you much more than the increased commerce would be worth.
 
Jastrow said:
Fishing is required to work the see tiles, and we dont start with it.

D'oh. :blush:
 
Prince? Ok, I feel intimidated now since I just finieshed my first Noble two weeks ago :s.
 
Trying my hand at a bit of map gazing. The three tiles to the east (NE,E,SE) of the wine all appear to be ocean/lake. This worries me with regard to settling in place, as it may be impossible to get a city in to work the wine without significant overlap with the capital. If it's a narrow lake, this isn't an issue though. Warrior SE onto the hill will check this out and give a better idea of the land to the south. If placing a second city on the other side of the (hopefully) lake is possible, then settle in place.

The two sqaures W,W and W,NW (other side of the floodplains) appear to be grasland/plains, and the suggestion of the blue circle gods to settle in place hints that there may be a resource on one of them, so I'm hesitant to move east to grab the wine with the capital.

If the warrior's scoutign doesn't lead to settling in place, then I'll move the settler one NW, with intentions to either settle in place, move back to the starting posistion or move NE (2N of starting posistion). A lot depends on what the scouting of both units reveals.

Going to have to play a few test games with Saladin, haven't used him before, tough i suspect a cultural or domination win is going to be the way to go, depending on how the first few thousand years unfold.

Edited because I can't spell.
 
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