Gotm18-Celts - Pregame Discussion

[Singularity]

@Borealis
All sounds sencible. Actually you probably will be able to scout with the two first warriors and go at 0% lux while you go for pottery. And like SirPleb mentioned the value of having a valuable 40 round tech after pottery would make the choice quite easy. Alphabet or mysticism are both good techs to trade for before you finish pottery.

Buildorder would then be warrior - warrior - prebuild granary with temple - settler.

 

[ControlFreak]

Celts prefered government ... despotism.

Anyone planning on staying in despotism for style points?

I'm thinking about beelining up to monarchy. We should start with the first tech and polythesism always seems to be a good trading tech. This should get me out of despotism a little faster than going for republic, minimizing the chance for a GA in the wrong government. After that, hopefully I can buy/find alphabet and writing. Being able to trade contacts will be important if my exploration goes well.

I'm praying that the pyramids and the great library are built by my two neighbors

@TedJackson
Thanks for your mockup. It was informative for two reasons.
1. Worker North shows same northern tiles as worker on hill but not the ones east.
2. There is definitely something different on the tile two north. Your mockup doesn't have the "2 legs" sticking down. Of course there are a bunch of forest transition tiles so it still may be a grassland with a different combination of forests further N.

 

[Shillen]

2. There is definitely something different on the tile two north. Your mockup doesn't have the "2 legs" sticking down. Of course there are a bunch of forest transition tiles so it still may be a grassland with a different combination of forests further N.

His mockup has those as jungle. I'm fairly sure they're really forest.

 

[ltcoljt]

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Celts prefered government ... despotism.

Anyone planning on staying in despotism for style points?

I'm thinking about beelining up to monarchy. We should start with the first tech and polythesism always seems to be a good trading tech. This should get me out of despotism a little faster than going for republic, minimizing the chance for a GA in the wrong government. After that, hopefully I can buy/find alphabet and writing. Being able to trade contacts will be important if my exploration goes well.

I'm praying that the pyramids and the great library are built by my two neighbors

Playing a warm up game I managed to build the great library by 950 bc. I hope cracker's game is easier than the warm up though. I got hemmed in by a lot of civs with great early uu and no iron.

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Celts prefered government ... despotism.

Anyone planning on staying in despotism for style points?

I'm thinking about beelining up to monarchy. We should start with the first tech and polythesism always seems to be a good trading tech. This should get me out of despotism a little faster than going for republic, minimizing the chance for a GA in the wrong government. After that, hopefully I can buy/find alphabet and writing. Being able to trade contacts will be important if my exploration goes well.

I think that Monarchy will be my preferred Gov for the early ages mainly because of the increased MP benefit/increased production. But... I could be wrong!

I'm praying that the pyramids and the great library are built by my two neighbors

I'll light a candle for that possibiliity too

@TedJackson
Thanks for your mockup. It was informative for two reasons.
1. Worker North shows same northern tiles as worker on hill but not the ones east.
2. There is definitely something different on the tile two north. Your mockup doesn't have the "2 legs" sticking down. Of course there are a bunch of forest transition tiles so it still may be a grassland with a different combination of forests further N.

Glad you found it useful.
1. This was the main reason I bothered to create a mock up. To illustrate that particular difference

2. I used jungle there for 2 reasons: a) Some people would immediately think "No Way!", b) Others would think "What if?"

SirPleb

Taking an aggressive approach to tech will probably render the Gallic Swordsman less useful because:
1) If researching flat out we'll be short of cash, there won't be much money available for the expensive Warrior -> Gallic Swordsman upgrades.
2) They'll be obsolete relatively quickly. I think these units will rock in Ancient Times. They're expensive (overpriced I think) but they sure are strong and fast. I've tested an important characteristic - they do get a "retreat roll" which adds to their value.

Thanks for point 2 especially


Shillen

His mockup has those as jungle. I'm fairly sure they're really forest.

I'm not sure whether it's forest or jungle, so I thought I'd push the boat out.

Ted

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by ltcoljt
I'm praying that the pyramids and the great library are built by my two neighbors

If they will answer your prayers, that would also take you out of the loop for the 20K Culture victory.

Anyway, I'm hopping that I can build the Pyramid and the Great Library myself in this game. The location of my second city will be very important because I will have it to build the palace all year round to stock up shields for whatever Great Wonder that come along.

 

[ControlFreak]

Originally posted by Moonsinger

If they will answer your prayers, that would also take you out of the loop for the 20K Culture victory.

Whats a 20K Culture victory?

If I didn't go for 20K in GOTM16 where I could hide on my little island and keep up with regent AI in tech by self-research, why would I do that now on a panagea monarch game?

I've never done a conquest victory. I think I will try that this time. Not that I could ever come close to matching the great Moonsinger, but your 20K victory is safe from me.

 

[hotrod0823]

CF how about an always war 20K victory. I have only had a 20K victory 2 times. One was epic 14 always war as the Greeks the other was tourney Season 2 with that crazy island start.

I am probably going to go for a space race as the tech pace will be fast.

 

[Ribannah]

If it is really a Pangea map, an OCC conquest victory might not be impossible with those super-swordsmen running around.

 

[hotrod0823]

wouldnt surprise me if charis tried that!

 

[ControlFreak]

Having never gone with a conquest attempt, how do you keep the remaining AI from filling in all the areas you lay waste to?

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Having never gone with a conquest attempt, how do you keep the remaining AI from filling in all the areas you lay waste to?

I solve that problem by building a new city there within a few turn (if not right away). Usually, after I liberate a city, I have it constantly rush settlers and workers to reduce it to size 1. Therefore, I don't have any problem with filling up all the areas that I lay waste to.

 

[Shillen]

Well you don't start razing cities until you've got like 60% of the land mass. By then you'll probably have wiped out 7-8 of the 11 civ's. At this point it's probably best to be at war with all the remaining civ's. Areas that you've razed, leave a couple offensive units sitting around. Intercept any settlers that come through or just destroy their town if you miss the settler. They'll usually only have one defensive unit and half the time it's not an up to date one. Hell sometimes I see them escorting settlers with cavalry in the modern age. Those last few civ's go down so quickly usually they don't get much chance to even try to settle new cities anyway.

It also helps to railroad up the vacant area if you have steam power.

 

[Renata]

But that'll lead to a domination victory eventually if you keep doing it. I think what CF was getting at was either

1) you play as if for domination until you think you're getting close to the limit and then start razing - if you save the weakest civs for last they won't be able to resettle significantly before they're destroyed
2) you 'wall off' areas with units and/or captured workers
3) you keep some units behind in cleared areas to destroy any interloping settler pairs and raze any cities that the AI manages to found
4) you ignore resettlement entirely for long periods (the new-founded cities will be hopelessly behind anyway and won't amount to much quickly) then go back and mop them up later

Renata

 

[ControlFreak]

Thank you all for the wonderful descriptions/advice. I look forward to using all of these tactics.

 

[Xevious]

I'm bored at work today and was playing with the editor and discovered a couple things.

First, I am 99% certain that the square N,NW of the settler is grassland (obviously can't tell if it's bonus or not). I discovered that after covering a large area with forest, the forest get's overlaid with additional trees. These are not removed when you later replace a large number of the forest tiles with grassland. I was able to exactly reproduce the forest part with one forest tile (N,N of the settler). It's also possible that that single forest tile could be the southern tip of a large forested area.

Next I played with the water to the west and was able to create the exact same look with both a closed lake and an open waterway to the sea. So I guess a check on how much food is there will be needed to see if it's a lake or not.

Third, I am pretty sure that there are plains NE of the northern most hill, but grass to the NW and SE of those plains.

Last, in addition to the square W,W,SW of settler, the square W,W,NW of the settler appears to be a hill also.

 

[alamo]

Hey TedJackson, what about moving worker S? It should reveal 5 or 6 tiles. Knowing that we would analyze this to death the world creator may have made the non-intutive move the best.

So most people say plop down where you stand, move at most 1 square to get bonus.

That warrior-rush then upgrade for 120g sounds interesting, but you have to be in republic! The barbs and civs will be crowding in fast, methinks.

How about city placement? Do you run for the resources, or try to build a core?

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by alamo
Hey TedJackson, what about moving worker S? It should reveal 5 or 6 tiles. Knowing that we would analyze this to death the world creator may have made the non-intutive move the best.

So most people say plop down where you stand, move at most 1 square to get bonus.

That warrior-rush then upgrade for 120g sounds interesting, but you have to be in republic! The barbs and civs will be crowding in fast, methinks.

How about city placement? Do you run for the resources, or try to build a core?

Personally I wouldn't move the worker South as the payoff in extra tiles visible doesn't justify the move (in my view). I certainly won't be moving my settler unless there is a compelling reason.

The only possibilies I've identified are the square 2 tiles North of the settler and the square 2 NE of the settler. Both of which become visible if you move the worker onto the hill first.

I'm not saying that the grass is greener, just that it might be. I'm willing to lose the worker turn to find out. Others aren't/won't. There is no "perfect" decision. I just happen to favour moving the worker onto the hill before deciding what (if anything) to do with the settler.

I'm sure Cracker is at all this speculation. But I guess in the end that's what a "pre-game" discussion is all about.

Ted

 

[Shillen]

That warrior-rush then upgrade for 120g sounds interesting, but you have to be in republic! The barbs and civs will be crowding in fast, methinks.

I wasn't really saying you should rush the warriors. I was just putting a value to the shield cost. Even in a republic it would be kind of silly to rush a warrior when you can build them in 1 or 2 turns.

 

[TedJackson]

Just to round off my mockup screenshots here's one from settling on the start position:

The only point I'll make here is that if the jungle tile contains a resource/luxury then it will be unavailable until Entremont expands twice or you sacrifice a worker to colonise it or you found a second city to encompass it.


Ted