Gotm23-Arabs Speculation Thread

[mordekai]

this will be my first GOTM... arabs.. they were the civ i was most excited to play since getting PTW. I can't wait! Any long time CIVers want to give me some advice for the GOTM's? I'm playing and winning my first game of emporer i think.. so i'm getting better. Diety stilll kicks my butt.

If we have to maintain diplomatic relations throughout this GOTM.. then i assume we can't raze cities, correct? If we can't... then I know we must starve them down to reduce chance of flipping... Is it a good idea to pop-rush temples in all of your cities prior to your first war with a neighboring civ?

Also.. i've seen some awesome "coastal shelf" graphics in some of the screen shots. I was hoping these cool graphics came with PTW, but alas they did not. Any idea where i can pick these up?


thanks!

 

[ControlFreak]

Welcome and congratulations on your first CFC post, mordekai!

CFC has a graphics mods section. I'm guessing you're looking at Snoopy's coast (which does come with PTW IIRC).

As for advice, read the past QSC timelines of the best players. Unfortunately GOTM21 is not available, but 20 and back are. They can be found by following the links to the GOTM home page and then clicking the results links on the left menu bar.

 

[Boyd]

@Tech Step et al,

On the Game of the Month page, gotmXXIII - Arabs, is listed as tournament game 5-5. Babylon is 5-4 and 5-6 is tba.

Each tournament level game, whether it is a gotm or not, has a defined victory condition for submission purposes ONLY (i.e. if you want it to count for the tournament). So for example that is why you will see so many 20K wins/losses for gotmXXII - Vikings.

 

[Xevious]

After reviewing the difficulty levels of the previous GOTM, and using cracker's rule of 1 Deity, 2 Emperor, 2 Monarch, and 1 Regent every 6 months I am betting on Regent this month. Here's a rundown of the games back to GOTM7:

7 D
8 M
9 E
10 R
11 E
12 M
13 M <- odd one in the bunch
14 D
15 M
16 E
17 R
18 M
19 E
20 D
21 M
22 E

You'll note that with GOTM13 omitted, Deity and Regent are taking turns every 3 months. And recently, the inbetween months are getting predictable too (Monarch, Emperor the last 3 times).

I agree with Diplomatic as the likely victory condition, which would speed things up a bit. With that in mind I'm actually hoping for another large map so we have more research partners to speed up research. A smaller map might slow things down.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

mordekai,
Cracker will be putting out a preview thread soon. In that we will get the start picture, and game parameters. Right now we're all just guessing what he's going to throw at us. That thread will probably contain a lot lot of great information along the lines you are asking. You can get some very good information on how to proceed in your first 20-30 turns.

Welcome to CFC too! This is a great place for Civers

 

[mordekai]

thank you guys for the prompt and helpful answers And there ain't nothin like a warm reception =] Sadly, I lost that game of emporer. though persian immortals are inanely powerful as an early attack... they will be cut down over a period of time. hehe. I need to learn to bring some defensive units with me. maybe even some catapults. There just never seems to be enough time to build everything you want to build. <sigh> wo is the wager of war. =]

 

[smackster]

Note that Babylon 5-4 was played on three different difficulty levels, Regent for Conquest, Emperor for Open and Diety for Predator. So we might see something like that for this GOTM. I think that makes sense as putting all the players on Regent might be too easy for some.

Having just been reading some of the GOTM22 spoilers I think we need a new GOTM difficulty level called Qitai where the AI starts with 10 Settlers.

 

[Sphynx]

Hi! Now I am ready to fight! I was hanging around reading GOTM FAQ this thread and some others. Hmmm... Am I right that there is no starting save yet? When will it appear?

Also few more questions:
1. I have 1.21f PTW but FAQ says that only PTW 1.14f and Civ3 1.29 are workable. That's true?
2. If my 1.21 will work should I make a save on every turn?
3. And... I wanna have an avatar - may I, how?

 

[ControlFreak]

These questions would have been better in the FAQ but:
1. Each GOTM lists the appropriate patch level on the scope of the game. Game 5-4 Babylon allows PTW 1.14, 1.21 and 1.27 so I assume GOTM23 will also.

2. Save as often as you like. The important saves are:

• 1000BC for the QSC submission.
• Save after victory or before defeat (AutoSave?)
• somewhere near 2000BC, 1000AD and whatever others just in case something suspisious happens in your game and the GOTM staff want some more information to check for unexplicable changes between saves. (read "cheating")

3. Avitar information is available in the user cp area and pertains to CFC, not just to GOTM. I think you can pick one of the canned avitars now. At 300posts you can upload your own custom one.

EDIT: click on User CP in the header, then click on Edit Options The FAQ in the CFC header has info regarding Avitars.

 

[Sphynx]

Many thanks, ControlFreak! Feel much better now . When will the game start ? And what is QSC? What's the difference with just GOTM? Sorry for spamming - I love learning and I did not find FAQ thread here in GOTM forum to ask these necomer's questions in the right place.

 

[ControlFreak]

Start at: The GOTM Home Page

Read that first page, the click on the navigation bar on the left to go to the 1st time page and the FAQ page. Everything is there if you read closely.

 

[Txurce]

Sphynx, the FAQ thread is one of the dozen or so stickies at the top of the GOTM forum.

 

[denyd]

Prediction: A stanard or large map, using either continents or pangea. Either a difficult Regent or an easy Monach level game. There'll probably be a couple of resource/luxury monopolies. We'll probably be in the middle the Civ's meaning most the the land based trade will pass through our territory. Lost of goats, sheep, olives and incense for our area, but a shortage of iron, coal. Probably nearby horses and saltpeter however. Neighbors the Ottomans, Greeks, Romans, Zulu, Carthage, Babs, India and China. (maybe Minoans again ) For the Medal play, I'm hoping for 100k or Domination, but kind of expect either space or diplomatic. I'm looking forward to the preview thread.

CdB - Check out Satchel's "The Road to Diplomatic Victory" in the War Academy, it's a excellent discussion of the necessary components for a win.

Sphynx - QSC is the Quick Start Challenge - a competition to measure your performance for the first 81 turns of the game. You get points for everything (cities, units, tiles, population, contacts, embassies, techs...). You'll normally find the top QSC players are the top players at the end of the game. What you'll need to do is keep a journal of all the turns up to 1000BC and submit that along with a game save at the end of that turn to compete. This is due about the middle of the month. Early in the next month, all of the QSC entries are ranked and revealed. The last couple of months the entries were grouped by strategies. It's very helpful to study the path taken by the leaders of each path, to pick up tricks (settler factory, fake war city blackmail, early game tech trading tips, etc).

 

[Tech Step]

I think that it is unfair that the GOTM game is released on the 1st of each month (USA standard time)

almost a day has gone past in Australia...

Thats almost 24 hours of constantly checking the web site in eager anticipation of an "early release"

It's enough to send a sane man crazy