GOTM 49 Pre-Game Discussion

[ainwood]

GOTM 49 - Carthage!

Civilization: Carthage (Industrious, Commercial)
Unique Unit: Spartan Hoplite (Civ3) / Numidian Mercenary (PTW): 2/3/1

Map Size: Small
LandForm: Pangea
World Age: 3 Billions
Climate: Arid
Temperature: Warm
Ocean Coverage: 60%

Barbarians: Raging
Rivals: 5 pre-selected
Difficulty: Emperor

Conquest Bonuses:

1. Start with extra settler.
2. Start with a numidian mercenary to defend it!

Predator Equalisers:

1. No attack bonus vs barbarians.
2. Start knowing no technologies

 

[Più Freddo]

How about moving SE to get the Whale? We'll lose the BG for ten turns and the Fish forever.

 

[DBear]

What is with the small maps lately? I hate 'em!

 

[gozpel]

I'll play Conquest, I want that extra settler He can go and grab that whale.

 

[Twonky]

How about moving SE to get the Whale? We'll lose the Fish and the BG for ten turns.

Unfortunately the fish and the whale will never be within the same city limits.

It´s a very food-poor area, so I think about building 2 explorative warriors to start with - especially with those raging barbs. We are in the most remote corner of the mini-map, I just hope we won´t be isolated again.

Predator does not sound to evil this time around, except if the barbarians are manually placed with evil intentions.

 

[Paul#42]

With all those Mountains in a young world these barbs can be quite a pain I think.

My capital won't build to many buildings to prepare an early jump to nicer areas...

 

[tR1cKy]

I'm a bit disappointed with the predator equalizers. Raising, say, free units + unit support or unit support + building bonus to deity level would have been more fun.

 

[Jove]

An award on a small map counts, I'm satisfied with mine..

 

[TheLynx]

To play or not to play,that is the question,i have mastered regant,but emperor is way higher....

 

[shumble]

After eagerly awaiting GOTM 48, I was one of the very few people that totally bombed that game (and that was regent ) by playing too quickly in the early turns. hopefully, I can play slower and do a better job on this one.

That being said, this will probably be the last GOTM that I play because as soon as finals are over in December, I will be purchasing CIV IV and plan on switching to those GOTM when they start.

I don't mind the small maps at all. I don't have much time between school and work so I am satisified with it.

Seeing that we are in the lower corner, there is probably not much more to the south. I guess my first move will probably be to move the worker north to the mountain to see if there is a better looking starting point anywhere. I would like to keep the fish in the city limits for the food bonus and I would hate to lose the bonus grassland since there doesn't look like too many good available shield areas with this start. It will make it difficult to build settlers and units.

Maybe move SE or South with the settler which will keep either fish or whales and Bonus grassland in the city limits(after 10 turns of course), but will give you some hills for production. What is better? Whales or Fish?

We would lose the early gems though if we move? I wouldn't mind trying something besides conquest on this game, but I notice that no matter what you try, everybody spends most of the game conquering and then stops once they have a large portion of the world. So most people who get Diplomacy or Space Race could have easily done conquest.

I'm not good at research though. I keep reading about everybody getting 4-6 turn research right through the middle ages, but usually when I get into the middle ages, my first middle age tech needs like 32 turns and that is when research set to 100% which is not very realistic. Maybe I need to build more early libraries and courthouses??

 

[tR1cKy]

I'm not good at research though. I keep reading about everybody getting 4-6 turn research right through the middle ages, but usually when I get into the middle ages, my first middle age tech needs like 32 turns and that is when research set to 100% which is not very realistic. Maybe I need to build more early libraries and courthouses??

No. You need to improve your money outcome. And if you're in a situation in which you do 32 turns research at 100% science, it's enormously better to do 40 turns at 0% science with a lone specialist. Unless you plan to have your research outcome significantly raised in the near future.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

How about moving SE to get the Whale? We'll lose the BG for ten turns and the Fish forever.

Depends whether the Fish is in a lake or not. If it's a lake, it's +3 food in despo.
In fact, if the lake is fresh, settling NN on hills (hopefully) might be good.

 

[Redbad]

.. to boldly go where noone has gone before...

I won't settle in this nonsense, so I plan on taking a walk , nort by north-west

 

[Smirk]

North, north might be worth the walk, if thats a lake though the fish will be worth settling nearby. Still a slow start if you settle right there.

Carthage isn't a very exciting civ to play, especially with a lot of walking as the unit's offensive usefulness is quickly removed. But on small, raging it certainly has some interesting possibilities.

 

[Own]

If that's fresh water, great start, if not, crappy start.

I'm going for an early NM rush, just build 1 or two more cities, pump NM's (and maybe cats) and conquer until I'm satisfied (66% of the power ).

 

[Niklas]

I guess this thread is the final signal to finish GotM 48.

Agree with Own, if that's fresh water to the north the start isn't that bad. If it isn't, I'll be joining the migratory herds.

 

[denyd]

Settling in place is pretty good if that's fresh water. The +4 commerce that those gems provide will really boost research and if there's anyone to the SE we'll have them bottled up and if there's not all that land will be ours if we get there before galleys.

If it's not fresh water, we've got a minimum 2 turn (and maybe more) walk to the next spot. That's a pretty big cost at emperor and I'm more likely to settle in place and plan a future palace jump to a better spot later. Putting the FP N of those mountains would provide a pretty good advantage and would help reduce the loss of a quality RCP start and might allow us to leave the palace in place if no MGL is ever obtained.

Any thoughts on Golden Age initiation? I'd really prefer not building any early NM to avoid an AA GA. With all the mountains & hills around, iron should be available and swords are the same price as NMs and the AI views you as equally strong with 2 swords as with 3 NMs and with less support costs (I plan to be a long term Republic), I probably won't build many if any at all.

 

[tR1cKy]

With Civ4 out, the Civ3 GotM could become less and less popular... let's try to spice up the thing:

[size="+2"]PREDATOR CHALLENGE[/size]

This is a Predator Challenge. I intend to play this game, in predator class, and take over everything. Conquest victory, nothing else matters. Who dares to test his warmonger skill against mine? The prize is only honour, and glory. Not even the awards, although grabbing one of them would be an extra victory.

The Challenge is here for you, brave players, to take it. See you in the scoreboard!

 

[DBear]

@denyd-- I think Numidians replace pikes, so you'd already be out of the AA by the time they're around.

 

[twinmfg]

Since Civ 4 is not a factor until I get a new PC, I'll be hangin' around the C/GOTM forums for a while. However, I'm not a very aggressive player, so I'll have to pass on the TPC (tricky pedator challenge). I think I can handle raging barbs, but I'm not an Emp player. Open/Diplo/SS/Hist for me.

3NW looks flat. Is it open terrain, or a minor forest (like 1W)? I think my worker will be a conformist and go N with just like everyone elses'.