GOTM 09: Pre-Game discussion

[ainwood]

GOTM-09: 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, and you can't play it in warlords!


Game settings:
Civilization: Incans (Leader: Huayna Capac; Traits: Aggressive & Financial)
Rivals: 6
Difficulty: Emperor
Map: Continents
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Tropical
Water level: Low
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: EPIC
Victory Conditions: all enabled

Huayna Capac:
Huayna Capacis Financial and Aggressive; starting with agriculture and mysticism. Aggressive allows double production speed of barrakcs and drydocks, as well as free combat 1 promotion on melee & gunpowder units. Financial allows +1 commerce on any tile producing 2 or more, as well as double production speed banks.

Unique unit: Quechua:
The Quechua replaces the warrior. It has strength of 2 and costs 15 hammers. Like the warrior, it gets +25% city defence, but it also gets +100% vs archery units - quite a useful city defender against early (non-axeman!) barbarians.

The starting screenshot is here:


Adventurer Class bonuses:
To be confirmed. Note that it will be substantial, to help with the increase in difficulty level


Challenger Class Equalisers:
To be confirmed.

 

[Mad Professor]

It looks like a fairly good starting spot for a financial civ with that gold, and the flood plains that can be cottaged for good money while still growing the city.

 

[kkev]

looks like a good starting spot.

i played (and won!) an empreror game with huyana recently. the key is to get those quechas out early on, build three or four in a row and go searching for the nearest capital city. with the 100% bonus against archers you should be able to capture it, as long as you get there before they get copper hooked up.

that will give you an early lead which you should be able to keep all the way through.

 

[AndrewN]

Great, Emperor game , this might be a bit beyond me.

The start looks nice though, floodplain valley. I can count 4 floodplains and 2 further south that can be worked and a gold hill.

The main question of moving, the only viable square seems to be the forest/plains/hill square, but moving there would mean we can't use the gold hill with the capital. None of the other squares seem to offer any advantage so my feeling is to settle in place.

The starting moves seems to be move the Quecha north to see if there is anything of interest there, if no settle in place. An immediate worker would be built and set research for mining to use the gold followed (probably) by AH for the sheep.

 

[BLubmuz]

I see some anticipation took the target.

Nice start
Quechua NW or SW to see if there's something interesting, but probably settle in place
(loose 1 turn is a luxury we can't allow on Emperor)
mining seem to be a priotity meditation for an early religion?? I got to think about it.

Warmogering? probably, very early this time
I'm goin' to edit a map with this start ... let's see

 

[volfan37132]

Initially, move quechua n or nw onto hill to look for any other visible
resources. Then, settle in place, n or nw depending on what quechua sees.
As far as research Inca begins with mysticism, but going for an early religion
may be a gamble on emperor. Mining may be the best first choice to take
advantage of the gold. We may not want to follow with bronze working as
that obseletes our UU. An early rush on a neighbor may be in order. This
is a good rushing civ.

 

[BLubmuz]

I've tried to reproduce the starting location on a a map created with the same parameters.
Sorry for the fog, but the start was too close to the coast, as it seems NOT to be the case in GotM9

View attachment 133820

Also, I removed the goody huts since this seem to be the rule in GotM.

Hope could be useful

Note for the Administrator: an annoiyng redirect put me out when i try to enter the forum ... this happened some 10 days ago, and if i don't use ADwatch it still happens.
This happens only in civ4 forum and its links (and not always), never in other sites. Just to let you know.

 

[Borealis]

Wow, after a week or two playing the game I go to look at the GotM.. didn't have time to work on this month's so I'll be diving right into Emperor. Follows the tradition of my first ever Civ3 GotM happening at Deity!

This starting location looks wonderful, with lots of food and luxuries.. but after looking at the Map Settings, I'm a little wary of the barbarians. Continents + Low Sea Level + Tropical climate = Many Angry Barbarians in the Jungle. A large early army is going to be necessary, not only for the AIs, but for the buffed up Emperor barbarians!

 

[Conquistador 63]

Great, Emperor game , this might be a bit beyond me.

Likewise, I never tried Emperor, but after beating Monarch last GOTM this is exactly what I wanted! I anticipate a lot of useful advice from experts (not from me! ) on worker stealing and quechua rushes on this thread.

The start looks nice though, floodplain valley. I can count 4 floodplains and 2 further south that can be worked and a gold hill.

In fact there are 5 if you count the tile the settler is on now. But due to unhealthiness penalties (-1 from each 4 fp, right?) I guess a clever move would be to settle 1N so you keep 4 fp and all the 3 special resources, while escaping from additional unhealthiness from those (likely) southern fp´s and getting those foggy northeastern forests in our capital´s fat cross.

The main question of moving, the only viable square seems to be the forest/plains/hill square, but moving there would mean we can't use the gold hill with the capital. None of the other squares seem to offer any advantage so my feeling is to settle in place.

I disagree, besides my arguments above you´d also miss chopping that forest later.

The starting moves seems to be move the Quecha north to see if there is anything of interest there, if no settle in place.

I beg to differ again. I might consider moving quechua only after settling 1N, and most likely southbound, over the hills: SW, SE and then following the river. Why? From resource bubbles we´re on northern hemisphere, and at the end of the river we could find some neighbours (maybe steal a worker ) or the coast.

An immediate worker would be built and set research for mining to use the gold followed (probably) by AH for the sheep.

You wont be able to mine that gold until you got enough spare food from fp´s. I´d build 1/2 extra quechuas while growing. While I still haven´t made my mind I think cottages would be better than farms for those fp´s. Also note that while sheep would contribute to alleviate unhealthiness, being on a river hill plain, after pastured they´ll generate 3F/2H/2C, so nothing exceptional foodwise.

We may not want to follow with bronze working as that obseletes our UU.

Good point. But then we won´t be able to chop and poprush in the meantime?

About researching I would consider to start with meditation then wheel/pottery, b4 mining then priesthood/writing (AH somewhere in here?) while trying for an oracle "alphabet" slingshot that could prove useful if we find enough neighbours early (that is, apart from the one(s) we´ll be stealing workers from ). I was lucky enough to manage a CS slingshot last GOTM on monarch, I suppose it is unlikely on Emperor, right?

Of course that are my first impressions, all can change after listening from the more experienced forumers.

My 2¢.

 

[bshumbera]

Got to admit that Emperor scares me. I suffered a loss at my first GOTM last month and it was Monarch. I've yet to complete a Monarch game, let alone even try Emperor. I'll give it a go though :suicide: I'm still relatively new at Civ4 so forgive me if this sounds noobish. Why not settle one spot west? Settling on that forrest spot would still allow you to take advantage of all the visible resources plus allow you to eventually cottage the flood plains in the starting position. You'd also still get one of the two possible floodplains to the south of the visible region. I guess you'd miss out on a future chop by moving west. However, I've never really been good about chopping with any consistency anways Anyhow, all of those floodplains with cottages and that gold sets us up for a great commerce capital... and opens up the door for lots of

 

[Markus5]

With the flood plains, I'll probably save the forests for health reasons and work the capital to produce wealth and science. I'm not sure exactly how to play the early game yet. I expect to build a quecha first, then a worker. After that I expect to get out a settler which may be proceded or followed by another quecha, depending. I might try for an early religion, then mining and bronze. Work the sheep and gold. I think I'll need to road the gold to get the happy, so wheels will need to be researched, too. The starting quecha will head north to look for wooded cities sites and meet the neighbors.

Test games tonight. Maybe a quecha rush?

 

[Markus5]

Bronze working doesn't obsolete the quecha, does it? I'm pretty sure that last night I could build quecha, sword or axe.

I'm hoping that the second city will be in the forest and I'll be able to chop the oracle.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Definitely a very nice starting position. That combined with a financial civ (and aggressive and with very early UU to help with barbs) I think should make this slightly easier than typical for an emperor game - I suspect that's deliberate because of the high difficulty level.

The gold should make for an easy COL slingshot even on this level, and the presence of rivers and starting with mysticism should make getting hinduism a realistic possibility (though still a lot down to chance).

One interesting point: The continents maptype means it's likely (though I guess not absolutely guaranteed) that an early conquest or domination victory will not be possible before astronomy. That means even people who want to go for early conquest are likely to have to focus on science to some degree (probably after conquering a reasonable part of the starting continent). Should make for some interesting different strategies as compared to previous GOTMs.

My immediate thoughts for what I'll be doing (I still have some days to think about it so may change my mind):

I'll:

• Settle in place
• Role out quechas initially and send them off to try and steal workers from nearby civs.
• Research polytheism first (while making sure I'm working floodplains to speed the research) to try and get hinduism. Then I'll research mining (no longer emphasizing research) then priesthood.
• Try and get a settler out fairly quickly to found a production-oriented city, that will start pumping out military
• As soon as my capital has built the settler, focus on the Oracle (for CS slingshot).
• Then beeline for cottage-spamming to get my science up while chopping settlers as fast as possible (the gold and cottaged floodplains should help to support reasonably rapid expansion).
• Whoever I'm at war with, keep them weak by pillaging and using quechas to stop them hooking up any resources, but possibly won't try to take any cities till I have iron working. (Unless I build so many quechas that I decide I can afford to lose some. Taking cities with quechas is I think doable but only with overwhelming numbers and a high mortality rate).
• As soon as I have spare capacity, start churning out missionaries and send them to anywhere I'm not at war with (for the gold from shrines). But unless I run into severe happiness problems I probably won't convert to anything myself for a while, because of the risk of losing open borders.

Because of the difficulty level, I probably won't try for CS slingshot, despite how useful it was in GOTM8. Too much risk of being beaten to the Oracle while researching COL, and on emperor difficulty level, that will hurt! Also CS slingshot does require you to neglect military somewhat until you have CS, which makes it harder to go worker stealing. And depending how far away the other civs are, may leave you unable to cope with the hordes of barbs that can be expected starting around 2000BC. (Though if other people do practice games and report back that CS slingshot is reliably achievable I may change my mind).

This'll definitely be a challenge for me - I usually play on monarch and struggle on emperor. But should be fun.

 

[cas]

Hmmm. Well, Inca gives me SOME chance at emporer...not sure how much.

Quecha SW. Settle in place or move 1N (maybe 1NW). Health becomes an issue on emporer with so many floodplains.

No early religion gambit for me. It is less than 50% odds, IMO. Research mining first...not sure whether I'll go BW or wheel next. I will definitely be using early cottages on a couple of the fp. Lack of early cottages + expanding too fast crippled my economy in the last game.

First builds will be Quecha...probably 2. I'll sacrifice some growth to get the first one out asap. Beyond that I'll have to decide whether to build a worker or if it is possible to steal one.

From my limited experience, early worker stealing is not a guarantee...it depends a lot on timing. If you can't steal a worker quickly, then it is best to build your own and try to ambush a settler for your second worker.

I like to fortify two Quecha on a hill/forest or forest/rivercross next to the AI capital with some opportunistic pillaging and force nothing but archers production (if you get there early enough). This cripples the AI from expanding but doesn't get you a worker. Sometimes the AI still gets out a settler in this camping strategy...I think it depends if it was in the build que before you get there and BW->slavery allows enough hammers to complete it.

Taking out a AI with Quecha is possible, but not if the AI capital is on a hill. If the AI founds an early religion (city defense bonus gets to 40% quickly) it also becomes problematic. You have to expend a lot of resources and time (barracks + 5-7 Quecha) to eliminate a AI early. I'm not sure it is worth it versus just crippling them with worker steal & settler ambush.

cas

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Financial allows +1 commerce on any tile producing 2 or more, as well as double production speed banks.

By the way, patch 1.61 changed financial to not provide production bonus on banks.

As it looks to me, settling in place would make there be seven flood plains in the fat cross (it looks to me like S-S and S-SW are both flood plains). Great commerce, if you can deal with the unhealthiness. I will porbably move quecha one north and make a decsion whether to settle in place one N, or one NW.

 

[BLubmuz]

Well i made some mistake, if someone is interested the following is perfectly similar to the official start (for what we can see)

View attachment 133835

i'm now playing this practice game and:
1) founded buddhism (first tech researched)
2) built quechua first, worker 2nd while researching mining and the wheel
3) built Oracle in 1150 BC, for MC
4) barbarians come in vawes we need a lot of units to keep them away
5) stolen a worker, but i'm afraid this will break tech trading (usually i'm not early warmogering, perhaps I got to learn)

I'm seriously thinking about adventurer class, this time: the 15% cut in score can be hugely compensated by the advantage, as i've seen with a try in GotM8 (after my submission)

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm seriously thinking about adventurer class, this time: the 15% cut in score can be hugely compensated by the advantage, as i've seen with a try in GotM8 (after my submission)

Just to point out the obvious, the 15% score reduction isn't supposed to be enough to offset the adventurer bonuses. Any good player would do much better from the adventurer start, despite the score bonus. The point is that only relatively inexperienced players are supposed to be playing with these bonuses.

 

[volfan37132]

I played blubmuz's sample file and he's not kidding about the barbarians.
It is a very good starting position, but I only found 2 cities before the
barbs started attacking in force and had to focus exclusively on militaty.
I killed like two dozen with a mix of quechuas, archers and chariots - no copper.
They came from every direction and there was always 6 or so on the screen at a time. They overwhelmed me in about 1500 BC.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I love the GOTM... Thanks to the staff. If I were more computer savvy, I'd offer to help. But it's also lots of fun running the practice games, so thanks for setting them up, blubmuz and others.

Oddly, I played HC last night for the first time! Can I see the future?! Probably... I see myself getting my butt kicked on Emperor!

 

[Jove]

I almost expected the staff to save Huayana for the (probably) upcoming Deity game, he's strong. Who does that leave then? Mansa and Mao?
As for this game, I think an early religion would be a good thing. The happiness, the culture growing, defending and fog-busting, and not least keeping the AI from having it. I like to play the haves vs. the AI have-nots
I'm concerned about too much floodplain. The start position is a swamp with eventually 7 floodplain tiles in it's radius. @ .4 unhealthiness per floodplain = -3 health? Moving w/nw to the grass tile would leave only 3 floodplains in the radius, so we 'gain' 2 health. And we don't waste a floodplain by settling on it. And maybe there's some corn or more gold or forest up here... Is all this worth delaying the capitol a turn? I'm inclined to move, but I may change my mind.
Other than that, I can see farming an fp first and then cottaging it later, why not? And we control a cornucopia of food right at the start. I'll think about the Monarchy slingshot, together with the 'bonus' health we could grow some large towns.