GOTM 07 Pre-Game Discussion

[A'AbarachAmadan]

I'm thinking about attempting to go for a no-cottage cultural victory. The idea being: Nearly all of my culture would come from specialists, buildings, and wonders.

That is EXACTLY how I got my fastest finish cultural victory. Good luck!!

 

[ZerrorR]

I have tried a few runs of these settings, in certain games I was beaten in an early religion, so I developed a secured way to get it. My first tech is Poly (Parthenon+Hinduism) and my build goes, warrior until pop, switch to worker, all citizens work on tiles with , you are guarantied to get Hindu. And key to this game will be Iron Working+workers... lots of them.

 

[Jastrow]

@Ljdjr,

The top 5 city screen did used to show this... They "fixed" it in the latest patch.

@Memphus,

Thanks. I do know how to calculate the adjusted price for tech for myself. The only information that I would be missing is the bonus "discount" that the AI's get at prince. I assume I can find tht in the XML's....

In any event, thanks for the tip... It (as in many cases) is actually rather obvious once you think about it, but I had never considered the possibility before.

 

[Seraphinus]

The key for "decent" cultural victory is if stone or even better marble is in near of legendary cities. Otherwise will be very hard to get at least more interesting wonders. There is also possibility that some AI opponents will be industrious. In my test game I achieved cultural win in 1838, but marble was in radius of second city.

 

[Velvet-Glove]

I'm not sure how I will get on with this game as I am an average Noble player but offer these thoughts to other players at a similar level to myself, based on starting 3 test games and playing through to the Middle Ages or so (no wins, I just quit because I was falling behind and/or getting bullied mercilessly by bigger rivals).

1. With 6 rivals it tends to get rather crowded very quickly. I was unable to build more than 4 or 5 cities before getting boxed in. An early land grab is a must and very careful thought must be given to optimal tiles to settle on.

2. If looking for an early religion, go straight for Hinduism. There has always been someone else getting to Buddhism first at 10 turns into the game. Having said that, religion is easy for Saladin, I easily founded 2-3 religions in my test games.

3. Terrain typically includes small pockets of desert and productive plains/grassland and vast areas of jungle. Distribution of copper, iron and horses has been fairly good with a reasonable chance of having one or more within your immediate area. You might get jungle elephants too if you're lucky.

4. Barbarians can be a nuisance so defend your cities and key resources as soon as you can as they will come calling with axemen soon enough.

5. Exploring warrior units (or scouts if you have time to build them) are most useful when promoted with Woodsman I and II - they get to move two tiles when travelling through jungle/forest so can cover a lot of difficult country at a time when you are filling in the further flung blank spots on the map and popping the last few undiscovered goody huts. There are plenty of animals out there with which to build up these promotions.

6. The camel archer UU doesn't become available for some time (Guilds req.)

Personally I have found these test games rather tough. In one game I had a respectable score (in top 2 or 3 of the pack) but this was due to culture and tech development and I was rather behind in the power stakes, resulting in the Chinese (with twice the cities and men) coming to kick my sophisticated but puny posterior. In the other games my power rating was more respectable but city count, tech ability and score was much poorer (bottom of the pack on these games), not helped by missing out on several key wonders by a matter of single turns. My problem is that I can't do both at the same time so don't know what strategy to use for the real game when I try it. *sigh*

 

[Sarek]

The key for "decent" cultural victory is if stone or even better marble is in near of legendary cities. Otherwise will be very hard to get at least more interesting wonders.

Have always wanted to know the following:
When told that "X" Wonder is double speed with Stone or Marble, can the resource simply be hooked up anywhere in you Civ or must it be specifically in the fat cross of the city in which you are attempting the specific build?

My thought...Stone or Marble anywhere? But, after reading your post, am I wrong?

 

[culdeus]

Have always wanted to know the following:
When told that "X" Wonder is double speed with Stone or Marble, can the resource simply be hooked up anywhere in you Civ or must it be specifically in the fat cross of the city in which you are attempting the specific build?

My thought...Stone or Marble anywhere? But, after reading your post, am I wrong?

It just needs to be anywhere in the cultural borders.

 

[drkodos]

It just needs to be anywhere in the cultural borders.

I always thought it needed to be "linked" into the specific city building the wonder as well.

 

[MDPhillips]

I always thought it needed to be "linked" into the specific city building the wonder as well.

It needs to be linked to the city building the wonder - which can either be by direct link (i.e. road) to that city OR by having the resource and the city building the wonder both being linked up to your interior trade network via either river or coastline.

 

[drkodos]

It needs to be linked to the city building the wonder - which can either be by direct link (i.e. road) to that city OR by having the resource and the city building the wonder both being linked up to your interior trade network via either river or coastline.

That's what I thought. Anyway, back to topic:

Similar to a user above, I'm an average Noble player so I also ran a few practice games. I did find some early success with a sword rush. When I had only two cities, instead of expanding with settlers I went out to capture a few rival cities and was able to nab a few other Civ's capitals.

In the one instance (out of three games ) I was lucky enough to also get the Oracle CS slingshot and I did very well. I was lucky enough to have just kept pumping out swords and attacking until I teched up to Guilds (UU). Getting alphabet early to trade techs seemed like a key here to keep pressing the offensive while handling the long research times on the way to Guilds and then ultimately, Cavalry.

In each and every game I had to face either Monte or Julius, or both and either I had to bring the attack to them or was brutally beaten when defending. The crux seemed to be iron allocations. There is not a lot of metal resouces in those jungles, so getting access to iron did not happen for me in each game. More than any other single factor, it semed to be the difference because with it I got an early upper hand and without it, the axes weren't strong enough to play agressively.

SO: In the real game, I going to focus on military techs, getting IW working ASAP to see what need be done to secure some iron and then go from there aiming for a conquest game. If I get lucky, I can see three major surges. One with Swords, the next with the Camels, and then final clean up with Cavalry.

Of course, in reality, if I survive at all on this level, I will be satisfied with my results.

 

[Jove]

Ok, I'd like to go diplomatic. I think an early religion is good for that goal. So, should I shoot for Hinduism or Polytheism?
Meditation: 171 beakers. Polytheism: 214 beakers.
The palace and center square yield 9 coins. With a floodplains that's 10. For epic level there's a factor of 1.3 that I guess you have to notice for yourself, we actually earn 13 beakers a turn.
The numbers fall funny. We can grow in 11 turns and pick up another coin. With Polytheism we end up 1 coin short after 16 turns; 17 turns is the fastest we can do it without a 2-coin plot somewhere.
With Meditation, picking up the extra coin on growth is enough to yoink us an extra turn- we can learn in it 13 turns.
The point is, if we're competing against an AI with access to a 2-coin plot, they'll beat us to Polytheism. Competing against the same AI for Meditation, we both learn it in 13 turns. 14 coins*12 turns=168 coins, even if the AI with 2 coins also grows in 11, an extra coin won't be enough for him to finish in 12 turns. He'd be 1 short! A second 2-coin plot would do it, but how likely is that?
So, taking into account the following assumptions:
-If there's a tie for a tech, we win
-The AI's research is governed by the same math as ours
I conclude:
-Unless a 2-coin plot shows up out of the fog, Polytheism is a gamble, Meditation is a sure thing. That's great news to me. Meditation is learned 4 turns faster, I can start on worker techs that much sooner. Maybe I'll chop a monestary for the all-important extra coin. And if I'm wrong, I waste less turns on my first tech.
Of course this means I have to retract my earlier statement about moving to the plains hill. I think a religion is worth more than a hammer and a wasted forest (for my goal), and the margins are too tight to waste even 1 turn!
Anyway I think this point was already made, more succinctly. Is there a mistake I'm missing?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

<snip calculation>
-Unless a 2-coin plot shows up out of the fog, Polytheism is a gamble, Meditation is a sure thing. That's great news to me. Meditation is learned 4 turns faster, I can start on worker techs that much sooner. Maybe I'll chop a monestary for the all-important extra coin. And if I'm wrong, I waste less turns on my first tech.

Of course this means I have to retract my earlier statement about moving to the plains hill. I think a religion is worth more than a hammer and a wasted forest (for my goal), and the margins are too tight to waste even 1 turn!
Anyway I think this point was already made, more succinctly. Is there a mistake I'm missing?

There is a slight matter of the AI researches faster than us at prince level. If I've understood \Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml correctly, each tech costs you 110% of what it costs the AI. Not only that but the AI cities will grow to size 2 faster - growth only takes them 95% of the excess food that it takes you. I think that's the thing that makes meditation a big gamble too (a bigger gamble then polytheism IMO because AI's seem to beeline for meditation much more often).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I may be kicking myself after clearing all the jungle to reveal lucious grassland... we'll see. It'll be interesting, also, to see if I can be anywhere near competitive using this variant. Anyone who wants to join me is more than welcome.

Not sure why you'd be kicking yourself. Surely the grassland will *help* your strategy of using specialists for culture? More food -> more citizens can be assigned to artists.

And ta for the offer of joining you. I like culture wins, but I think I'm going to go for early conquest this time round, simply because it's an epic game and I don't have that much time to play. I suspect conquest, if I can do it early enough, will be the quickest real-time way of winning on epic. (Conquest on epic should take not much longer then conquest on normal. Hopefully a bit shorter as your units can conquer a lot more before the AI gets longbowmen - which always slows down my warmongering. OTOH Cultural on epic = 50% longer than cultural on normal).

 

[Sleijpnir]

I have a stupid question ... This is not the first pre-game GTOM thread I am visitng, but for some reason I ahve never been able to see the strating screensave, so most of the time when people are discussing the starting posiition I have no idea whatsoever what they are talking about...

Anyone knows how to fix that? (in general I do see images in the forum threads)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I have a stupid question ... This is not the first pre-game GTOM thread I am visitng, but for some reason I ahve never been able to see the strating screensave, so most of the time when people are discussing the starting posiition I have no idea whatsoever what they are talking about...

Anyone knows how to fix that? (in general I do see images in the forum threads)

Strange. AFAICS the screenshot is just a normal jpg file. What do you see instead? Nothing or the icon for an undisplayable image? Have you tried looking at the HTML source for the page to see what the URL of the image is and simply pointing your browser directly to it? (In this case it's http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/gotm07large.jpg). Or have you tried using a different browser? Or, if you can do so, saving the image locally and viewing it (eg. in a graphics program, not sure if MS Paint can load jpg's)?

 

[Sleijpnir]

Strange. AFAICS the screenshot is just a normal jpg file. What do you see instead? Nothing or the icon for an undisplayable image? Have you tried looking at the HTML source for the page to see what the URL of the image is and simply pointing your browser directly to it? (In this case it's http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/gotm07large.jpg). Or have you tried using a different browser? Or, if you can do so, saving the image locally and viewing it (eg. in a graphics program, not sure if MS Paint can load jpg's)?

Ah, yes, I see the problem now. Our IT blocks all internet addresses that contain certain words (like "game") and the link to the image contains "game". Which means that I have only ever tried to access the GOTM threads from my work PC. Oh dear

Anyway, thanks for your help, I will give it a try when I get home...

 

[malekithe]

Not sure why you'd be kicking yourself. Surely the grassland will *help* your strategy of using specialists for culture? More food -> more citizens can be assigned to artists.

I know, but I'm used to going cottage-crazy with those ex-jungle cities.

 

[Jove]

each tech costs you 110% of what it costs the AI. Not only that but the AI cities will grow to size 2 faster - growth only takes them 95% of the excess food that it takes you.

Ok, thanks for pointing out those facts and the link. No wonder Civ4 gives me so much trouble. With 1-coin differences affected by 5 and 10% modifiers, a guy pretty much needs a spreadsheet to really know what he's doing, and that ain't my style. But my math-eyeballing doesn't really work on numbers like these. hmm
Anyway, the real conclusion then is that both early religions are a gamble, unless a 2-coin shows up for us, in which case we should get Poly for sure. I've hit Meditation on 1 of 1 test starts, not exactly a representative sample. Hmmm, I'll want the oracle anyway, what should I do...

 

[Xerol]

Poly's more useful to Saladin anyway; Parthenon + Philisophical trait = lots of early GPs. And, as has been mentioned already, the AIs almost never go for Polytheism first, unless there's multiple AIs that can start researching a religion from Turn 1 (and even then it's rare).

 

[Conquistador 63]

Similar to a user above, I'm an average Noble player so I also ran a few practice games. I did find some early success with a sword rush. When I had only two cities, instead of expanding with settlers I went out to capture a few rival cities and was able to nab a few other Civ's capitals.

I had similar results in my test games, except for the fact my swordsmen weren't able to take any capitals (which were at 40% def bonus or higher if sitting on hills). Even lvl3 swords had combat odds below 30% so I didn't even tried to attack. That makes me wonder if I should simply bring more of them, or attack earlier.
If the latter is correct then should I skip early religion and beeline mining/BW/IW, and try to compensate researching CoL for Confucianism (besides an attempt at CS Slingshot)? By doing this I can also chop earlier and plan my 2nd city location in order to grab the metals if not present near capital.

In the one instance (out of three games ) I was lucky enough to also get the Oracle CS slingshot and I did very well. ... The crux seemed to be iron allocations. There is not a lot of metal resouces in those jungles, so getting access to iron did not happen for me in each game.
SO: In the real game, I going to focus on military techs, getting IW working ASAP to see what need be done to secure some iron and then go from there aiming for a conquest game.

I also managed 1 Oracle CS slingshot but in that test game I had a gold mine next to my capital so it was a LOT easier. And besides getting Bureaucracy, not much of an advantage in the short term, machinery was too far away for me to get for the macemen.

Of course, in reality, if I survive at all on this level, I will be satisfied with my results.

Ditto . I have already won games on Prince but that was on 1.52 and on maps better suited for the kinda peaceful builder that I am (and before I had dropped my bad reload habits – thanks to GOTM). In this game I agree with many posters who think there won’t be many good sites to plop new cities.