GOTM 07 Pre-Game Discussion

[BLubmuz]

Warrior in the hill SE, IMO wine is not so important as a city resource, you'll get it anyway for happiness.

I yhink i'll go for Poly (Hinduism) and try a domination with camels eventually promoted to cavalry.


Someone knows how the new patch affects anarchy for non-religious civs?
Not important with Saladin, but i'm playing with Russia and experienced 3 turns of anarchy to change only 1 civic

 

[DynamicSpirit]

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.

Personally I'm not overly interested in getting the wine into the capital's city radius because you can't use it till you've got monarchy - which is no help in the early game. I don't think wine, even with a winery, gives a huge bonus as a worked tile - the main useful effect is happiness, but by the time you have monarchy, that wine will be in your cultural borders anyway and so can give you the the happiness, even if you settle in place.

I agree with you about the hints of resources. There's only one resource currently visible and it would seem highly unlikely the AI would recommend a square with only one resource in, or pick such a starting location (unless Ainwood has been editing the map of course!). So I'm betting there's going to be at least one of copper, horses or iron available if you settle in place.

(Aside: What on earth is the historical rationale behind needing monarchy before you can build a winery?)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

East to the plains hill is clearly the best long-term location.

I'm not convinced of that. Long term, it gives you only two flood plains in your capital, as opposed to a likely three. And you lose the production bonus from mining the hill. ISTM the hill gives you a very early pre-mining production boost, at the expense of a little commerce. Long-term, the hill may give you the potential for higher production in your capital (because of the forests and hill further east), at the expense of lower commerce. Of course to some extent the merits of that depend on your long term strategy.

The two unknowns of course are (a) whether by moving you end up settling on top of copper or iron, and thereby lose most of the production bonus, and (b) whether that hill will allow you to make better use of any useful land that may or may not lie to the SE.

 

[RonnieSoak]

Someone knows how the new patch affects anarchy for non-religious civs?
Not important with Saladin, but i'm playing with Russia and experienced 3 turns of anarchy to change only 1 civic

You were playing a marathon game right? They increased the length of anarchy for chaning civics slightly, doesn't show up so much on slower speeds (as it rounded up to 1 turn anyway), but has a noticable effect on higher speeds. It also means that changing multiple civics at once often results in more than one turn of anarchy now at normal speed.

 

[RonnieSoak]

Personally I'm not overly interested in getting the wine into the capital's city radius because you can't use it till you've got monarchy - which is no help in the early game. I don't think wine, even with a winery, gives a huge bonus as a worked tile - the main useful effect is happiness, but by the time you have monarchy, that wine will be in your cultural borders anyway and so can give you the the happiness, even if you settle in place.

You're probably right. I tend to get a little fixated on working every resource i can. I tending more and more towards settling in place, both on the probability of unknown resources and a shot at an early religion.

(Aside: What on earth is the historical rationale behind needing monarchy before you can build a winery?)

According to Wikipedia the likely candidate for the first large scale wine production is the royal wineries of the Egyptian Pharos. About the best lead i can turn up. (Your question made me curious too.)

 

[DaviddesJ]

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.

I thought the two tiles you mention are desert. Usually the floodplains border on a desert. The starting tile seems always to be a "suggested city location", so I don't think that you can put much weight on that. And if there's a desert resource, it's probably something like incense that isn't so useful.

 

[DaviddesJ]

There's only one resource currently visible and it would seem highly unlikely the AI would recommend a square with only one resource in, or pick such a starting location (unless Ainwood has been editing the map of course!). So I'm betting there's going to be at least one of copper, horses or iron available if you settle in place.

I don't believe that the hint algorithm takes hidden resources into account.

Now, it's true that the map building algorithm tends to spread resources out, so, it's more likely that other hidden resources will show up where you don't see anything at first.

 

[drkodos]

I don't believe that the hint algorithm takes hidden resources into account.

I thought I had myself covinced that the opposite is the case by all too often seeing oil/aluminum pop up into an area that had been suggested, but I admit I don't know.

 

[Jastrow]

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......

The two sqaures W,W and W,NW (other side of the floodplains) appear to be grasland/plains.....

I disagree with some of the gazing... my view follows...


First, in reply to other comments... I have NEVER seen a desert in the fat cross of a starting location. I have seen many places that *should* be deserts, were green lands were magically carved into the shape of a fat cross, so I am convinced that the map algorithm is designed to force workable tiles in the fat cross, and am discounting the option of deserts to the W.

Now for the gazing...

NE/E/SE of wine... I am pretty convinced the water we see to the NE is a river, and my guess is that there is land to the NE, and quite possibly to the E as well. Even the SE might be a river, tho that could also be a tiny lake.

Behind the FP, I agree WW is definitly grassland. I could go either frassland or plains on W.NW. I also think that there is a 3rd FP north of the two visible ones.

 

[Xerol]

I thought I had myself covinced that the opposite is the case by all too often seeing oil/aluminum pop up into an area that had been suggested, but I admit I don't know.

I know it takes into account TILES you can't see yet (due to fog) but I'm not sure about resources. (The circle once suggested I move away from 4 forest tiles only to bring 3 visible desert tiles into the radius, but beyond that was pigs and cows.)

 

[DaviddesJ]

First, in reply to other comments... I have NEVER seen a desert in the fat cross of a starting location. I have seen many places that *should* be deserts, were green lands were magically carved into the shape of a fat cross, so I am convinced that the map algorithm is designed to force workable tiles in the fat cross, and am discounting the option of deserts to the W.

That makes sense. I think you're right: it's taking a random map and "editing" it by modifying what would normally be deserts, in the fat cross of the starting position.

 

[Markus5]

The 'pressed' coastline makes for interesting maps. A few map regenerations gives me the feeling that there will be lots of room for initial expansion. The terrain should be varied and interesting with lots of fjords and lochs. With the room, we'll see barb activities as it will take time to fill the continent and squeeze them out. It might be possible to do a fast land grab and get the CS slingshot before your economy totally tanks.

The comment about no deserts in the fat cross ring true to me. I've seen several maps with the fat cross of starting locations carved into ice and tundra. They're like little edens in the cold climes. I think we have three grasslands to the west.

I'm looking forward to playing this map. I haven't played pangea for a long time and the 'pressed' coastline will make the map interesting. And, at this level I won't be frustrated with my inadequate play.

 

[jayeffaar]

The description of "pressed coastline" pangeas on the map script reference page talks about a main continent with a few attached sub-continents, which makes me think that the area to the south-east of the starting position may be a land-bridge to another large area, rather than a dead-end peninsula.

 

[Kalleyao]

First, in reply to other comments... I have NEVER seen a desert in the fat cross of a starting location.

Play Deity and you'll see.

 

[ChrTh]

This looks like a fun game to play for a Cultural victory on. Since Team VQ is so damn slow in the SGOTM, I may add this one to my list.

Definitely settling in place.

 

[culdeus]

I hate settling capitals on coastline. It gives so few options for development and the capital can be maxed out in the middle ages in terms of workable tiles.

This and settling on the coast will mean increased distance to other cities. I haven't done this lately, but moving the palace at some point might be an option.

I am the worst with philo. I can't figure out how to use it at all. It seems to play in to culture via GA the best.

I'm sure I'll just try to roll a domination victory, but camels probably come too late to help out.

 

[ChrTh]

I am the worst with philo. I can't figure out how to use it at all. It seems to play in to culture via GA the best.

Besides the GA generation for a cultural victory, you can essentially do a GPerson slingshot. For example, if you want to beef up on early religious techs/shrines, you can build Stonehenge and then rack up double GProphet points, so you can either research the next religious tech faster or get a shrine built sooner. Another thing to do is to build the Pyramids then use the quicker GE to build another wonder you're interested in, maybe even an Oracle-based slingshot. Heck, get to Philsophy quicker, go for Pacifism, and you're generating GPersons practically non-stop.

Granted, it's not that easy, but if you plan with Philosophical correctly, you can give yourself an early boost, and with Saladin you can ride that boost to Camel Archers and victory (if you choose to go that route).

 

[culdeus]

I guess I should try to lay out a guilds slingshot using GP to get key techs. Or something. I'll tinker around with Saladin a bit this weekend.

 

[ducker]

hm... I'm not so sure there are actual desert squares to the west after the FP - as I can make out some green on the southern most tile.

 

[GenMarshall]

By the looks of the map. My first instinct is to just settle ontop of that hill east of that settler.