GOTM 09: Pre-Game discussion

[Murky]

My practice game has went better than I expected it would so far.

Some things that I noted.

Your first bunch of Quechas have to be dedicated to fog busting or else the sheer numbers of barbarians will overwhelm you.

Cottages are a high prority if you want to maintain tech parity.

CS slingshot or MC slingshot are possible in the practice game but this may not be true in the real gotm game.

The AI cities tend to be lightly defended unless at war so you have plenty of time to build up a larger force but this could also change with having different leaders in the real gotm game.

 

[Big Pig]

From resource bubbles we´re on northern hemisphere,

I never realised you could tell what hemisphere you were in by the resource bubbles - but going back and checking other GOTMs, you are quite correct.

Very useful info in deciding which way to send the quechua

 

[blastoidstalker]

I have been trying a few test starts, including the one someone put up here (thanks) and some more just by regenterating the map until I get an inland start with either floodplains ocasionaly getting gold as well. I seem to have settled in starting by producing 2 Quechuas then either usualy a worker. I send the quechelas off in three different directions looking for a nearby CIV and sitting for a worker steal. If A nearby civ is present then I send two of the three queschelas there.
For tech I have found that you can usualy get polythism first if you work the floodplains. I then go after mining, Wheel, pottery At this point depending on location of enemy's go BW, IW for swordsmen, placing 2-3 city near iron or religion rout if I have hindu and other civs are far away.

I have found an all out quechua rush, though it can be effective costs to much for further deveopment. They are very good though At taking out workers, Archers escourting settlers and smaller secondary cities.

 

[PeteJ]

I'd be interested to hear the views of the good players on here on the benefits of the quechua rush, particularly if the enemies cities aren't close by. Sure, I've knocked out a rival already, but only at the expense of crippling my own research. Perhaps I'd have been better razing the cities, or instead using a few quechuas to pillage and harry a couple of opponents to slow their development while I consolidated mine? Or ignoring quechua altogether (although that does seem a waste of a UU)?

I'm not very experienced with emperor, but from my limited experience I know that it is not worth taking cities which are far away from your capital. The maintenance costs will hurt you more than those cities will help you. It is probably worth it to raze those cities in order to get rid of your opponent, but that also leaves more room for barbs and for other civs to expand. It is a tough call.

I'd say that the quecha rush is very effective if your enemy is close by, otherwise quechas should be used for scouting/barb busting/worker stealing. Wait until axemen and perhaps COL before you start stealing cities. An Oracle COL slingshot could be useful here but you might not have time for it.

EDIT: By the way, when I say the enemy should be close, I mean CLOSE... Like seeing his border when your border expands.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Actually, I think FP's give .4 unhealthiness a pop, rounded down. So 3 fp's are 1 unhealthy, 5 are 2, and 7 are 3. Moving 1n would save you a health (but might cost you food.)

You're completely right, but my point was to emphasize my (debatable) decision to limit -1 unhealth penalty by having up to 4 fp's in fat cross.

Anyways, I also tried Blub’s start save yesterday. I started pumping quechuas and managed to steal 1 worker from each neighbor and despite the long distance, thanks to jungle policemen they made it to their new homes safely. I played up to about 800BC. In the meantime I stationed 1 quechua near London pillaging everything. I intended to do the same in France but that guy got unlucky and was killed on duty. Due to those different circumstances, France scores soared while England was kept below mine all the time. In real game I´ll try to keep the closest neighbors under check at all times in early game.

While that was happening in foreign lands, back home I was able to get capital (Buddhist holy city) size 6 working the gold mine, sheep and 4 cottaged fp´s. 2nd city was size 5 and about to start axemen from new barracks. Oracle CS slingshot completed around 900BC. Barbarians, while a nuisance were kept under control. They even founded a barb city nearby, just asking to be taken with axes. Last time I checked statistics and I had killed some 20 archers and 5 warriors, mostly barbs, with few losses. Not sure if from that point on, thing would change for worse, but I think so.

Besides that test save, I also tried a handful of random starts with gotm9 settings, everytime map generator gave me 2 large continents both resembling America, stretching from North to South, separated by miles and miles from each other by the ocean. Each continent had 3 or 4 civs.

Conclusions? Even with a 50/50 chance I still think I’ll go for an early religion (not sure which) for happiness/cultural purposes before worker techs (wheel, pottery, mining, AH and BW) as it will take a while for them to arrive home. Also I don't think diplomatic penalties would matter, the neighbors will be already annoyed at me .

But I’ll have to forget my original plans on alphabet, useless here for a while. Having never played Emperor before, I wonder if, in the unlikely event of my initial plans work properly and I succeed at controlling my neighbors, that would be enough to keep up with the guys at the other side of the world.

 

[cas]

Conclusions? Even with a 50/50 chance I still think I’ll go for an early religion (not sure which) for happiness/cultural purposes before worker techs (wheel, pottery, mining, AH and BW) as it will take a while for them to arrive home. Also I don't think diplomatic penalties would matter, the neighbors will be already annoyed at me

I thought the early religion gambit would be <50% but with several practice games Budhism is probably 50% shot working a floodplain and there is a very good chance of getting Hinduism. However, working a fp makes your first Quecha take forever, so I will probably work the sheep until the first Quecha pops and then switch to fp. Quecha -> Quecha -> worker (may wait until I grow to size 3). And it DOES take a while for the stolen worker to get back home...especially if you take it safe & slow to avoid animals. So now I'm thinking of going Polytheism -> mining -> either BW or wheel.

Elizabeth was protecting her worker with an archer, but I went ahead and declared war...lost my first quechua on her archer, and they both retreated into her city, where I camped my second quechua outside on a forested hill.

That didn't help, as my quechua only took down one of her archers before dying.

I generally work the Quecha in pairs. When worker stealing, a lot of it is luck/timing. If they are escorted by an archer and on a hill or forest...your chances are pretty slim with a single Q. Best to wait until they are on flat ground or just send the 2 Q's next to the capital on a forest/hill. When the AI is down to 2 or less archers in the capital, it is very rare they attack...so that is when you pillage any improvements...then get back to the forest hill before another archer is produced. It is definitely a gambit...the RNG can be unkind and really screw you.

cas

 

[Murky]

In my practice game I was able to nab Buddism right away.

I first built a Quecha (let the city grow) then a worker.

My tech order: meditation, mining, animal husbandry, wheel, pottery, priesthood.

 

[Markus5]

Another advantage in this game setup may be the jungle. If lucky, we'll be in a large enough temperate area to allow expansion while the jungle provides a buffer. Hopefully, the other civs will be on the other side of the jungle. In my test game on my map, the other civs needed to expand into the jungle to grow. That really slowed them down.

And, maybe we'll be placed so that the coastline reduces the land frontiers that need to be guarded.

The advice to pair-up the quechas is good. But a quecha on each worker if you can't get sentry-pairs posted to bust the fog and draw the barbs when they appear. And they will appear. The numbers will be huge if you haven't busted the fog.

Finally, in the several test games on different maps, getting Hinduism seems to be pretty easy. That will be my initial research. Confusianism is a reasonable expectation, too. I'll research to get Hinduism, then Mining, followed by Animal Hubandry, Wheels, Bronze Working in an order to be determined. Then, I'll research to the oracle and start building it, then research to Code of Laws. I don't expect to get the CS slingshot and would probably take Hereditary Rule if I got the oracle. The CoL, if lucky, would give Confusianism. If there isn't any copper, then I'll toss the plans and research to reveal iron or horses.

 

[Civgeek]

I think I got this correct (man, drawing rivers in Worldbuilder is pain! ). Have fun!

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I think I got this correct (man, drawing rivers in Worldbuilder is pain! ). Have fun!

Much appreciated! I love the practice games, and it really helps not only with the GOTM, but overall.

How hard would it be to add a settler and a worker? I'm thinking the Adventure Class will at least get that... Can I do it myself using your game save? (I've never used Worldbuilder)

 

[brianbenedict]

The first problem, as always, is starting location. Last month the answer seemed obvious. This month, I'm not sure.

One thing I noted--in Civgeek's practice build, you don't get the blue circle telling you to found in place. Is that indicative that something good IS in the three fog tiles SS SSE and SSW of the settler, or is it just a quirk caused by modding???

If there is nothing there, founding your capital NW seems attractive because of the extra forests you pick up. You don't lose a turn, and they give you a +2 health bonus at the start and lots of chops later on. The last game with the expansive trait sort of spoiled me with respect to health--I barely ever saw the green sick face the entire game, and when I did, it was trivial to set right. This game is going to be different. Without improvements, starting in place, we'll see sickness at size 4. Pasturing the sheep gives us just one more health. Unless there is a grain resource somewhere (that gets doubled with granary), I foresee health being an issue at least in the early game. If we mine the gold and found an early religion, that means we'll want to grow to size 6--maybe even size 7 with a temple--to max out our happiness. I understand that health isn't nearly the worry that happiness is, but it does have the potential to limit early growth here.

So keeping all of that in mind, would anyone consider exploring S with the settler on the first turn? If the move S shows nothing, go right back to the starting location and found the capital NW of there. If the move shows something, we could then use the second move of the first turn to go on the sheep square, and then go back and found in the original tile on turn 2. The one-turn delay is not quite as painful at epic speed. I don't think I'll do this, but it's a thought.

So, my first move is to go NW with the quecha. Assuming that he sees nothing new, what next.
(1) Found in place
(2) Found NW--gain all those forests, which are great in the early game. Lose a couple flood plains squares, which are good in the mid-late game when the city is a trading powerhouse working all the flood plains it can. You also risk losing resources down there.
(3) Spend a turn to explore with the settler to make an informed decision.

I'm leaing towards option 2, but it does make me very nervous. I would be absoultely sick if there were wheat or corn down there.

 

[PeteJ]

I know I'm just following the crowd, but here is one more save to check out once you do the other 2..... And yes, drawing rivers are a HUGE pain, especially if you want them to look right.

Have fun.

 

[Murky]

Thanks a bunch for all the practice saves. Should help a lot.

 

[Civgeek]

Much appreciated! I love the practice games, and it really helps not only with the GOTM, but overall.

How hard would it be to add a settler and a worker? I'm thinking the Adventure Class will at least get that... Can I do it myself using your game save? (I've never used Worldbuilder)

I enjoy them too. Adding units yourself is very easy, but would spoil the "unknown" since it is hard not to see the local map and resources when you open WorldBuilder. However, ask and yee shall receive ... (added an extra settler and a worker).

 

[warbasse]

Generic GOTM question: On the # of Rivals setting, is that 6 total civs, including your own, or is that 6 OTHER civs?

And if I set everything as indicated in the setup, will I get the exact same starting position? Or is there a 4000 BC saved game to download?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Generic GOTM question: On the # of Rivals setting, is that 6 total civs, including your own, or is that 6 OTHER civs?

And if I set everything as indicated in the setup, will I get the exact same starting position? Or is there a 4000 BC saved game to download?

It's 6 other Civs, 7 including yourself.

And no, you shouldn't try to set up the game yourself as you'll get a completely different map - great to practice on but it won't be the actual GOTM. There will be an announcement (most likely on 1 August) giving the link where you can download the game.

 

[godotnut]

The question of whether or not to Quecha rush is, to a large extent, dependent on what victory condition you are going for. If going for Domination or Conquest, Quecha rushing almost always makes sense, and the question becomes whether or not to keep the cities, which of course depends on how far away they are.

If going for Space Race, Culture, or Diplo, Quecha rushing makes much less sense, esp on a continents map, where you will only have 1-3 neighbors for early tech trading. Pissing off those neighbors means less trades, meaning a less than optimal research rate and little chance of achieving a really fast finish. On Deity, this is different since the AI settles so fast that Quecha rushing is useful just to get any decent cities at all. But on Emporer, we shouldn't have any problem founding some good cities nearby in the early game.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I enjoy them too. Adding units yourself is very easy, but would spoil the "unknown" since it is hard not to see the local map and resources when you open WorldBuilder. However, ask and yee shall receive ... (added an extra settler and a worker).

You... are my hero. (Heroine?) I can't wait to get home and give this one a try!

 

[bshumbera]

Wow, I've been playing Civgeek's save (THANKS) and am doing much better than I would have thought. Looking at the resource bubbles as suggested earlier, it was obvious that we are in the southern hemisphere. So, I went due north with my UU in the hopes of a quick rival encounter and a worker steal. This worked awesome. I stole the worker and carefully moved my UU and my new worker back home. In the meantime, I settled in place and hammered out a few UUs. I then had four (I think) UUs out busting the fog. I was able to research polytheism first for a quick religion. I founded a second city and then quickly captured two barb cities with axes and cats. Then, i founded my second religion (confusionism) and spread it to the rival I stole the worker from to ease tensions. I then founded my 5th city, and built a small stack of axes and cats. Ooops, almost forgot to mention that I also managed to pull off an Oracle-CS slingshot too! I was able to chop out the Sistine Chapel in case I decide to go cultural. Now, I'm taking my axes, cats, and a few swords and spears to my worker steal rival and have already captured 5 of his cities (razed 2). I'm now in about 800AD and poised to hopefully wipe him from the map... although he just managed to start making his UU . I think my goal will be to push towards gunpowder and steel and hopefully hit my second rival with some nasty cannons!

Regarding he health issues with the floodplains... it isn't that big of a deal. All the extra food from the fps make up for the -1 food from health issues. I quickly spammed three cottages, hooked up the gold and the sheep, and I was able to play with +1 unhappiness just fine. Then it became time for some MASSIVE . This more than kept things in check for the early game health issues.

 

[Thrallia]

what do you mean by looking at resource bubbles? how exactly do they tell you what hemisphere you are in?