GOTM26-Asian Melee Pregame Discussion

[Aeson]

This is the pregame discussion thread for GOTM26-Asian Melee. Feel free to share insights as to how to approach the game based on the information given in the game announcement page. The starting saves will be made available on December 1, 2003. Allowing for the hollidays, you will have until January 7, 2004 to submit your game.

Once you download the starting save game file and open it to begin play you may no longer participate in this discussion thread.

Game Announcement Page for Gotm26-Asian Melee

Minimap:



Starting Positions:

 

[barbslinger]

They are my most hated enemies. Now I have to love them! After playing the Koreans against them and now Oda against them in redux I have truly developed a dislike for them.
Well, maybe some serious butt-kicking with them will change my mind.

 

[Xerol]

Interesting concept. Without scouts deciding on a capital may be difficult, but since we start spread out getting FP early and setting it up in the second core city sounds like a good idea.

There are no additional setup files required to play this game beyond the Gotm25 game packs.

Whoo!

Anyway, back to evaluating the start positions...both have a luxury, both have a river, both have coast nearby, both have 1 bonus grassland, one hill, and one mountain. The only difference is that the Spices start has more forest around it. We won't know which is the upper or lower start until we actually get the starting save. The ultimate challenge in my opinion is figuring out which of the two coasts actually is linked up to a body of water, and which is just part of a lake.
Of course, it could be that both are linked to the ocean or both are the shores of small lakes, but that wouldn't be like the GOTM Team to do that. And if one was a lake it would probably be 22 tiles so they both show up as salt water.

 

[Boyd]

Looks brilliant! It'll take a bit of thinking to get my head around this one and I must finish conquering the world first as Temujin.

By the way, no offence Aeson, but where is cracker? I hope he hasn't left yet and this is just an early US thanksgiving.

ciao

 

[gozpel]

I hate to move workers if I don't really have to, but the BIG diarrhea in this game is to understand where we are?

Are those waters fresh or lakes? Easy rightclick.

One way way to use the workers is to move them onto the mountains, it would give us a better view of the inland, But that would cost us worker turns. Just pray there is a cow or something if you do this move, if not 2 good worker turns could be wasted.

Decisions, decisions! Two settlers are EVIL and against everything we learnt so far from GOTM. the temptation to reload is too big after failing the first steps!!

Deity. EVIL!

What settler will settle the capitol? EVIL!

10 + 2 minor Civs against us. EVIL!

And of course raging barbarians. EVIL!

The makers of this game are EVIL!

But we love ya

Space Race as winning condition? EVIL!

 

[burkina]

Ciao!

Unfortunately I did not have the time to a proper GOTM25, but I played a bit to have a look at it.
I have PTW 1.27 and installed all that wa requested to play with the new UUs.
However, when I reached the scientific advance needed to have the first unique UU (I'm sorry I don't have the game here and can't be more precise), I never had the chance to build them, even if I also had all the necessary resources (horses and iron if I remember correctly). The Civilopaedia had the new units and told me when I could build them, but I had only the possibility to build the usual units.
What was wrong?
Would it be a problem for GOTM26?

Stefano

P.S: I'm sorry to repost: this originally appeared in the GOTM26 speculation thread but it seems disbanded now....

 

[BerzerkerJoe]

Moving the settlers on to the luxuries could be a smart move - having and extra content citicen at the start would allow the workers to do something more useful.
I'm betting we are given a starting warrier for each city so moving both to the mountains will help see the terrain.

Looking forward to it and the later submission date means I will have time to finish this one.

 

[Hammurodi]

Wow,

TWO starts. Just when I thought I had my early game under some degree of control, out come the stops and I have to deal with two.
Both positions are evenly matched, the top one might be better as it is potentially more central. But with mystery landmass, both could be on two different continents for all we know, how would that be for evil? I really really hope they are on one continent. PLEASE...

Yesterday I speculated on what this game might hold in store for us (see speculation thread), but clearly my limited imagination is no match for the GOTM team - this is even more twisted. And I'm sure it's just the tip of the iceberg - Well done, guys!

The victory condition actually suits me well, I am much better as builder/researcher than as a warmonger and if I manage to survive the middle ages I usually manage to slingshot to a comfortable space race victory. But for that my main goal is always to become sole occupant of one nice continent and then stop expanding and concentrate on research. With 12 (10+2) opponents on a standard size map, that will be challenging as well.

One thing I will have to pay attention to is FP building. As one approaches the optimal number of cities (evenly divided between both locations, I guess, it depends on what terrain is revealed), one city in the non-capital cluster should start a FP early, while it is still productive. Timing will be crucial, and I am not sure both cores will be able to build up a good military for protection, and early expansion. This will play like two games at the same time, only one starting with much heavier corruption penalties. One might almost say, without raging barbarians and two minor civs to milk for at least ONE leader (for FP) the game could be even harder.

And do I sacrifice a worker to attempt a connecting road? Probably not, until I'm sure that they _can_ be connected by road...

I can't wait - forward the Han!

Hammurodi

PS: I'll definitely remain in conquest for this one - my respect to all of you who can keep up with predator or deity level in general - I'm usually toast much too quickly to enjoy the game on those levels. But gotm has already worked wonders for my overall game, it'll just be a question of time until I get tempted to try open.

 

[TriviAl]

I'm guessing, that at the separation distance of those 2 cities, the 2nd one is going to be completely corrupt... but still useful for advanced scouting, possibly a slow settler or 2 to secure vital resources...

Which one to choose is the million dollar question. On Open, you get bonus units in 1 or other city, and have to choose before downloading the saves, so don't get to make the worker moves before deciding... still better than no bonus units at predator! Whether to put the bonus units in the start or 2nd city is another awkward decision...

Now where are the mist prediction guys...

RL meant no time for Gotm-25, and I'm gutted to have missed out on that game. Looking forward to this one a great deal, feeling rested and ready to go!

 

[BerzerkerJoe]

It could be worth getting the bonuses for the city you don't want as the capital (if you are playing on open level). That way it somewhat compensates for the corruption this city will face. Then using the chests to get an early granary could allow the growth of the two cities to be similar. I guess researching pottery at 100% will be my first tech.
Decisions, decisions

 

[Hammurodi]

Hi,

correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the starting units are ready assigned and you get no choice. Still, at least we have one worker for each city. and I might be willing to use them for two turns as early lookouts on the mountains.

Four more days to go, and it comes out on the monday, whatever will I do on the weekend? ;*)

 

[cybergogo]

Who said that the two cities have to be so far apart?

What if we bring the second settler back to the capital and build a city that will be much closer?

Clearly, having two cities far apart is one of major challenges in this game, but the second city with its huge corruption should be such a pain in the ass...

If we bring back the settler, we'll lose about 20 turns worth of shields and gold from the second city, but at Deity, chances are that it will not produce more than 1 shield+1 gold per turn...

So, instead of settling on the spot and after a long march through the rice fields, our settler could found a nice, productive city close to the capital...
...
...that's if the settler succeeds avoiding barbarian attacks...
...and if there is a land route between the two starting locations

Well, just another crazy idea...

Decisions, decisions, decisions

 

[gogoK]

Hmm, Cybergogo, that actually sounds like an interesting topic to discuss...
I was worried also about the grim prospects of the use of an useless nonproductive and corrupted city far away from the capital... I do not see any reason for keeping a territory so far away, especially in early ages...
So it is NOT another crazy idea, actually...

 

[karmina]

Originally posted by Hammurodi
correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the starting units are ready assigned and you get no choice. Still, at least we have one worker for each city. and I might be willing to use them for two turns as early lookouts on the mountains.

The anouncement says that open class players will have the choice between two savegames, with warrior + 3 chests at one or the other location. However I'm wondering how we are supposed to choose when we not even know which one is the northern, slightly more central location?!
Anyway, apart from optional hidden boni there are no real differences between the two locations. And if there are no cattle(-likes), expansion will be a pain in the ***. Both starting spots seem to have a total of 4-5 wood tiles. The upper one probably only has two grassland tiles, the lower one 3. But the outer tiles could also be hills. No flood plains in sight.

Which means: My first build has to be settler unless I want to end up with less than half a dozend cities at 1000BC. On the other hand, we can still hope for 4x cattle in the upper city radius, and up to 9x cattle in the lower city.

But this I doubt.

Really.

Four more days to go, and it comes out on the monday, whatever will I do on the weekend? ;*)

Well, I will try to finish gotm25 in time. Been quite busy with both RL and C3C this month...

 

[karmina]

Two questions: If we settle on the very starting spots,
1. Do we need an aqueduct in the upper city and
2. Can we immediately irrigate the bonus grasslands? (yes I know it would be idiotic to actually do this; just curious if its possible)

Originally posted by gogoK
Hmm, Cybergogo, that actually sounds like an interesting topic to discuss...
...So it is NOT another crazy idea, actually...

Sure, if you don't mind wandering 10+ turns and then finding a nice little ocean.
And if you don't mind wandering into barb territory with one or none single warrior.

 

[karmina]

Originally posted by burkina
...The Civilopaedia had the new units and told me when I could build them, but I had only the possibility to build the usual units.
What was wrong?
Would it be a problem for GOTM26?

If you played some random game as Mongols that's perfectly normal. But if you played from the actual gotm25 starting saves, you should be able to build the first UU with Feudalism, horses and iron. If you were not, you probably will get problems with GOTM26, too. Make sure you installed the proper versions of everything including the starting save (there are packages for gotm21, 24 and 25, each different for vanilla civ and ptw).

But on technical problems you should generally PM or email Cracker (forum rules!)

 

[Megalou]

Originally posted by karmina
Two questions: If we settle on the very starting spots,
1. Do we need an aqueduct in the upper city and
2. Can we immediately irrigate the bonus grasslands?

1. No. The river in the upper location counts as being adjacent to the starting tile.
2. Yes, once we have built a city on the starting tiles. The "waterways" usually go through a city.

This is unless something has been changed in cracker's game setup.

Rightclick any land tile and check the gold output. If a tile has no road or luxury or other resource, and does not already contain a town, and still gives 1 gold, then it must be adjacent to a river. This means that a town placed on the tile will not require an acqueduct.

Think twice about irrigating grassland while in despotism...

 

[Hammurodi]

Hi,

@karmina, thanks, found it. Case of eyes wide shut...

I've just ran alexman's excellent corruption calculator and depending on the distance the other city will be between 54% (dist=15) and 72% (dist=20) corrupt, as long as these are the only two cities. It goes downhill after that. I am sure someone will go and count pixels and tell us exactly what the distance between the cities is, my feeling is closer to 15 than 20.

So the first build or two in the second city should be made to count, and if you are a wimp like me and have treasure in it (open/conquest), then wait until you have built one or two more cities before using it. My priority for the workers will be connecting the lux, then mine the bonus grassland (of course depending on what is revealed once I had a look around!)

Cheers
Hammurodi

 

[BerzerkerJoe]

"I've just ran alexman's excellent corruption calculator "

Where can I find this corruption calculator?

 

[gogoK]

Originally posted by karmina
Sure, if you don't mind wandering 10+ turns and then finding a nice little ocean.
And if you don't mind wandering into barb territory with one or none single warrior. [/B]

Well 10 or 15 turns is not so much actually. You will still have a big advantage, as you CANNOT have a second settler in ten turns in a normal one-starting-settler game. Furthermore, the closer to the capital, the better, even if there is an ocean five or ten tiles away from the starting spot of the second settler.
wandering into barbarians is a risk that everyone has to decide for himself to take or to not take, I will probably be willing to take that risk...
What do you think will be the use of second slow nonproductive city so far away? Even if you use the bonus chests there to help the starting production, it will help with 10-max 30 shields.
Explain please, I am probably missing something.