GOTM26-Asian Melee Pregame Discussion

[HookEmHorns]

Open Class--PTW 1.27f

The two sites are virtually identical so this doesn't help in choosing a save file for the Open class. The only other piece of information is the minimap. Since the northern site is more central, I expect it will have more neighbors. The higher production of the capital will be needed more there then.

As mentioned by others, the treasure chests will be more valuable at the second, more corrupt site. I will, therefore, take the units at the southern site.

As far as using the chests, grabbing land is always the first priority so I'm planning to use them to help build settlers. Shields will be harder to come by than food so a granary is not as good.

A palace jump definitely sounds like a good idea. Setting up two good disperse cores and building to the modern era will be important for getting the ship. Trading will be crucial.

Research will start at max towards Pottery, then zero or min towards Republic.

Confucius himself had a simple moral and political teaching: to love others; to honor one's parents; to do what is right instead of what is of advantage; to practice "reciprocity," i.e. "don't do to others what you would not want yourself"; to rule by moral example (dé) instead of by force and violence; and so forth. Confucius thought that a ruler who had to resort to force had already failed as a ruler -- "Your job is to govern, not to kill" (Analects XII:19). [from http://www.friesian.com/confuci.htm]

Good luck to all!

 

[denyd]

Sheesh!!

I go away for a couple of days and Crackers gone, the GOTM has 2 settlers and Bush is still President.

My first thought, since I'm playing open class (1 extra warrior + 3 treasure chests) is to add the bonus units to the southern settler group and send that group on a NE route home. I'll move the worker east to check for a better spot for my capital. If none are found I'll settle in place and the worker can connect the dyes to boost the happiness, then move to improve local tiles. I’ll research at max for pottery while building a couple of scouting warriors. After scouting the local terrain, I'll be able to decide which city is going to be for settlers and which is for military as well as probable city placement for my nearest cities. When the wanderers arrive I'll found a second city and use the 3 chests as a production boost in one of the cities for a granary. I've found I like the spacing of a 4-8-12 RCP setup, so I'll probably settle the arriving city somewhere S on the 4 ring. The other city will build a barracks and start pumping out veteran warriors and one available veteran horseman. Hopefully, I'll be able to trade around to get the rest of the 1st level techs and be able to find out if/where the iron & horses are. I'm planning on a late Ancient Age Swordsman war against any weak neighbor(s) using 10-15 units for growing space.

Things likely to change this plan:
If this map turns out to have as much room as GOTM 25
If the 2 groups are on separate islands
If there is a 'sweet' spot (lots of luxuries) found along the way
Lots of barbarians (though usually no barbs until after 3000 BC)
Finding neighbors 'too close'

 

[RowAndLive]

Building in place at both locations, with the capital to the North. Alas, the loss of Cracker... I hope that this doesn't spell the end of QSC!

 

[civ_steve]

I like the idea for the Palace Jump. I'll probably settle in both places (moving workers first to see if there's any better place to move to nearby), and use the 2nd city to build warrior-scouts and see what's around, maybe make new and different contacts, etc.

Since it is Deity, I have to recommend that when the AI makes a demand, you pay it!! This way you wont have 5 civs all at war with you 2 turns later.

 

[Offa]

I hope this deity game is quicker than GOTM 20 which took forever. I am sure Cracker meant us to settle at both sites, and I will respect this. A palace jump sounds good; I've never done one before.

I will play predator just so I don't have to work out what to do with treasure chests.

 

[Txurce]

Offa, this is the second time you've made me laugh today. I hope you and Samildanach keep up the good work.

 

[CdB]

It is a Melee, I bet all civs have 2 settlers far apart just like us so that we all have two cores thus
- communication issues
- diplomacy is a must

It is going to be fun

 

[jeffelammar]

Most of you have probably already started, so maybe this is useless, but it looks to me like the minimap clearly shows which start is which.

The northern start is the dye start, The southern is the spice.

evidence:
The northern start minimap has the dark spot on the east corner. (This would be the forest with the dye)
The southern start has a light northern tip with a darker center. (The northern tip is the plains, the darker part represents the forests)

This looks like a clear time to scout. If you have chests, use them to scout. If not I would waste a worker move in hopes of finding some some guidence of which one of my cities should be capitol, and maybe even some food bonus.

Don't know if I'll find time to play this, but it does look interesting.

 

[AlanH]

Glad to see you agree with my conclusion, posted on the previous page.

Originally posted by AlanH
To try to resolve which start is which, instead of blowing up the minimap I reduced the start images to the size of the minimap areas and then compared them to the minimap as published. It looks to me as if spice town is the southern site and dye town is to the north, FWIW.

 

[akots]

I am sort of exhausted by the Crackers gotm pace and constant wars. This time I want to try a peaceful game aiming not to rob the AIs and let them do the research as fast as possible for a rapid finish. May be crush some minor opponents with Riders. Starting locations look great and there should be something for early expansion probably at both locations. There always was some bonus resource and this gotm should not be an exclusion.

It would be nice to know the Jasons score coefficients before the game starts. Otherwise it is still possible that warmongering can give a better score.

 

[Megalou]

There are so many options as to the second settler that it seems almost impossible to make an active decision. No one (I think) has mentioned a Forbidden Palace built from scratch, so I will brainstorm about it a bit.

Initially, the non-capital will have a good ranking v/s corruption, but I doubt that it will even bring in 2 shields/turn. There will be no roads to the capital for a long while and I believe this also influences corruption negatively. On the other hand, three warriors will surely be enough to fend off barbarians and deter other civs, so the maximum time a hand-build will take is 230 turns + anarchy turns. That means around the year 1200 AD and is way too late.

One can also move the settler some 5 turns closer to the capital to get it within a second RCP ring. But then it's good-bye to a luxury.

If I was not playing predator I think I would move the 2nd settler with protection from the free warrior. But someone said barbarians don't tend to appear before 3000 BC, so maybe it will work on predator too. If I do this and find a goodie hut on the way, I will probably stalk around in my room for an hour before I can decide how to safely pop it!

I think I will try RCP5-5.5 around the capital in this game, just to ensure some big, strong core cities. I tend to have RCP4 or even RCP3, but since I usually don't manage to build a well-structured second ring anyway, I think it will be a better choice for me to try RCP5 and maybe have room for more cities in that ring instead. One advantage with RCP5, seldom mentioned, is that the workers get to improve tiles well inside the borders for a bigger part of the time. Another advantage is the free tiles that you get between the capital and the core town while the capital is a 2 in the culture ranking (10-98 c).

Does anybody know more about if/why barbarians don't show up until 3000 BC?

 

[Grey Fox]

Ignore this post...

 

[OneFastWarrior]

I just looked at this game and it looks really awesome. I think I may give deity a try again. I also probably will settle in the starting positions with the capitol to the north(unless thats what they want me to think. )

I don't know for sure if I will play open, but I may as well. Good luck everyone!!

 

[deadloss]

I'm thrilled with this GOTM.

This is the kind of diversity that makes playing the GOTMs interesting.

It's mentally tough right from the beginning (even before that actually when you consider that, at the time of posting, I haven't even seen the download yet), knowing full well that if you make the wrong decision, you'll kick yourself for it later on.

I've struggled in the last few GOTMs (Mongols, Korea) but I'm absolutely and positively excited with the thought of playing this one.

If it was Cracker's last effort before throwing in the towel, then thankyou (already). 'Way to go!?!