GOTM #14: Chitchat (spoiler thread)

[Bamspeedy]

Most of the time (but not always), yes you would have to commit to it early. That is why building a few warriors first to explore is so important (and makes expansionists much more powerful because you get the extra scout 4-5 turns before anyone else has them), so you can get a feel for how much room you have before the first settler would be complete.

With ICS (and works best with an industrious civ), you can have roads in place, so you build a city the very same turn the settler was built (except when you have to cross rivers). Spending time having settlers walking around is lost production.

Actually, on this map, the capital having a granary could build a settler every FOUR turns! From my calculations, the only thing that could possibly even compete with that is by using ICS where you build cities the same turn the settler was built, and having every city building settlers ASAP.

Another great tactic is using an early OCP, with a late ICS. You build your 'core' cities OCP style, so they can grow to large sizes and be very productive, then ICS your high-corrupt areas. You build infrastructure and military in your OCP cities, and the ICS cities no infrastructure (or minimal infrastructure, like just a marketplace and aqueduct) and irrigate these ICS cities to get specialists and improve score and build just workers/settlers in these cities or just cheap military units that you will upgrade. Cartouche Bee calls this 'fringe ICS'.

I think alot of people use a style that is in between ICS and OCP. They let each city use 12-15 tiles. A city can only use a max of 12 tiles up until hospitals anyways (and that's a very long period of the game!). And if the game does last until after hospitals, the cities can still benefit a little from the hospitals.

 

[drewshark]

It's funny, I've played so many games but until I came on to CFC and GOTM, I always considered overlapping tiles as a very bad thing. Sure I realized that settlers traveling long distances was bad, but if I got to a good settling area in a few extra turns, the long term benefit would outweight the extra time. It is a great way to exploit the game, which is one of many popular tricks I'm sure I'll pick up by reading these threads. I guess the best players all know these tricks, but tweak them in their own way to make them better than the others. The key, I would think, is the recognition of the map and what type of strategy to adopt early. I think only players that can take these advantages and tweak them had a realistic shot in this deity game. As for me, I understand the game very well, but I approached the game like any other, without taking into account the deity level. I figured, just play it like normal and everyone will of course have a tougher time and that will bring us all down to the same level. Obviously, that is wrong and I need to start looking at the game differently to improve with tactics such as these. Thanks again and any other imput you have is greatly appreciated. I'm really looking forward to January's game!

 

[Bamspeedy]

Originally posted by drewshark
The key, I would think, is the recognition of the map and what type of strategy to adopt early. I think only players that can take these advantages and tweak them had a realistic shot in this deity game. As for me, I understand the game very well, but I approached the game like any other, without taking into account the deity level. I figured, just play it like normal and everyone will of course have a tougher time and that will bring us all down to the same level. Obviously, that is wrong and I need to start looking at the game differently to improve with tactics such as these. Thanks again and any other imput you have is greatly appreciated. I'm really looking forward to January's game!

Recognition of the map is very important. Knowing the map size, # of opponents and land type (pangea-continents-island) helps a great deal in estimating how much room you'll have to expand (and this information was given to us). Knowing the water %, climate, and age of the world also would help 'guesstimate' as to what the map would look like (we didn't know this- and of course, we never know exactly how big our starting continent is).

By generating maps in the editor, you'll start to see some patterns in the so-called 'random' maps. And some of this comes just from experience. Aeson talked about some of these 'patterns' in this thread:
Scouting

Many tactics that work on Chieftain won't work on Regent. Some Regent tactics won't work on Emperor. Some emporer tactics won't work on Deity. OCP and ICS is winnable on any level or map, but some levels may make it more difficult, or require more skills/micromanaging for one style or the other.