GOTM26-Asian Melee Pregame Discussion

[jsut]

If you were going to move one of the settlers, would you be better off moving the lower settler up towards the center start, or the center one down?

If you don't move one of them, the only thing i can really see the far city being good for is popping out warriors or scouts. If there are barbs or a minor civ around and you can luck into a leader, and then get the FP built up there, than maybe that city will end up being more useful sooner rather than later. I don't see any possible expansion at the secondary city otherwise.

but then again, i'm a newb

 

[gozpel]

The second city will not have bad corruption before you found a city near your first core, so it can still build warriors and such at a decent pace.
Using the second settler as a scout and move him closer to "home" is a waste I think, you can build a couple of warriors instead.
Raging barbs will be a problem for a city far away from the core, so every warrior you can crank out before you settle a third town will be essential.
The maps are EVIL, if you settle cities by the shore and they are sea, you only have one food for a number of turns. I will probably move inland to use the bonusgrass for maximum growth (I bet there will be no cows there, not with 2 settlers)
The settlers are placed far away from each other, so there are possibly someone in between, hopefully a minor civ with 20 starting units, but a good sport
My second city will build a warrior for scouting, then a worker for connecting the 2 cities, then warriors for barbcontrol.

cracker said we have to make choices for our opening turns in this game, and YIKES! wasn't he right. But I stick to my "inland-theory". I just hate to waste worker turns.

 

[gogoK]

Originally posted by jsut
If you were going to move one of the settlers, would you be better off moving the lower settler up towards the center start, or the center one down?

It depends on many things.
Gold from the luxuries for example. I would rather prefer to keep the settler that is located near the one that gives more cash, as it is scarce in the early ages...
Sea - we cannot see is there any close to one of the two.
It is always good to be able to control a part of the world with a dead-end (I mean close to the poles or to a long sea shore), as you don't have to defend youself on too many opposite war fronts later in the game. This is especially true in the case of a game with numerous opponents like this one. Being located in the center of the map (as in the arab and mongolian games) is a challenge to many for the reason mentioned above. At least this is true for earlier pre-railway wars and not necessarily true for the skilled players. Which would probably prefer the central position (which probably gives you the opportunity to get fast contacts with most of the civs around you - if there is no sea around, that is).

If you don't move one of them, the only thing i can really see the far city being good for is popping out warriors or scouts. If there are barbs or a minor civ around and you can luck into a leader, and then get the FP built up there, than maybe that city will end up being more useful sooner rather than later. I don't see any possible expansion at the secondary city otherwise.

but then again, i'm a newb

That is not necessarily true, you can get a leader, but sometime you don't get one trough the whole game no matter how hard you try. For example in my mongolian game after so many wars and so many elite forces sent in combat with the hope of getting a leader, I got my first and ONLY one around 1500AD...

But this suggestion in theory is a viable one

 

[jsut]

yeah, i know all about not getting leaders ever. i don't think i've ever gotten more than a single one in a game probably because i don't tend to be that agressive.

I just pulled the images up in photoslop to have a look, my first guess is that the lower start point in 15 tiles south, and 5 tiles east of the higher one. I could be off though. I also think that the order in the initial post is reflects their layout on the map (ie, dyes is the middle start, spices is the southern start). i'm making that guess based on the colours of the squares in the minimap. of course, i could be completely wrong.

 

[Boyd]

Well here are my thoughts for what they are worth.

Starting Position:

An important part of this is that both starting positions are VERY similar. Both have a mountain immediately adjacent, both have a river immediately adjacent, both have a bonus grassland immediately adjacent and both have a luxury immediately adjacent.

The body of water is also a similar distance from the starting point of each.

Now, would cracker and company go to all the work of creating this gotm with the idea that we should march our second tribe all the way to the first? NO, that is not his style.

That means there must be an advantage, or at the very least a reason to settle in those general areas. More on this below.

I have tried peeking under the mist but either there is nothing that I can see or cracker et al. have gone to some lengths to obscure any goodies. My bet is that it is the former and thus another design reason for us to stay put.

I blew up the mini map to see if I could determine which starting position was which but to no avail... too grainy.

Given the title of this gotm "A Tale of Two Cities" I really think the game is designed for us to go initially with a dispersed kingdom.

Scouting:

I will be playing Conquest level (Deity is too much for me) so I will have a Spearman in each starting location so the spearman can go onto the mountain for a first view.

Workers:

Barring a sighting of Xanadu, my workers will connect my two "citiies" with the luxuries. We are industrious so that will be four turns. Then back to the grasslands (one move), road (two), then mine (three). so in ten turns I'll have a luxury in the woods with a road and a bonus grassland mined and hooked up.

Water Body:

I think... ack. The view from the mountains will not help, but the worker on the dyes will have a better sight line. So I agree with the earlier comment that a right click on the water body will tell us all we need to know.

It would be nice if it was a connected coastline to the other tribe.

Corruption:

I agree with the analysis above that corruption in our second city will begin to be unbearable as our cities increase and therefore to save the chests for turns when our production drops (for the Predators this is a completely useless statement I know) and we need to get that temple or grainery.

Initial Builds:

2nd City - Warriors... and lots of them. We have gold to burn and I think we will need to fight our way to the capital clearing a route and building towns along it.

Capital - Warriors and start toward a grainery? What about a barracks?

I don't see either of these sites/areas as settler factory material.

Other Thoughts:

China is/was known as the Middle Kingdom. It is the fourth (or third, I forget) largest country in the world. Our mini map starting position puts us into a central position and can result in a large kingdom.

The 10 rivals will, I hope, be scattered around the outside, while the two minors will be between our cities. Historically, China was a collage of competing smaller kingdoms until the Han unified most of what we now know as China. Then there were the barbarians!

The game announcement makes several references to good diplomacy and betrayal and treachery. I think a quick brush up with Sun Tzu and Lao Tzu is required.

Summary:

Unless my Spearmen find a better site, I will probably start where we are (although moving the settler to the water and still adjacent ot the dyes would be good... Shanghai? but that would lose the bonus grassland).

Workers to the luxuries and then the bonus grasslands.

Build warriors.

Trust that cracker et al. have designed this layout a) to work b) to make sense and c) to be fun.

Ciao

 

[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.

 

[AlanH]

I missed out on several GOTM's and just made a come-back by submitting a marathon GOTM25. Now this one is a must-have. I can't wait!

Two starting settlers should give a big advantage. There seem to be too many negative vibrations here about how difficult the second settler will be to exploit. He's a bonus. Make the best of him, but you still have a basic job to do around your capital. As someone has said, you don't usually pop your first settler until turn 20 or so. Moving him around for 20 turns still gives you two settlers at turn 20 instead of one. o you get to choose which start to use? Do your best to choose between them logically. If they come out even when we have all the information available from starting unit moves then toss a coin, whatever. I doubt if Cracker has made two identical start options into a huge lottery. He usually avoids making random dice rolls by player or RNG into game-breakers.

For information, we recently ran an SG using the GOTM23 start. During that game our team popped a settler out of a hut about 20 turns away from our start. We had a choice - build a corrupt city with poor defences near the ex hut, or trek back towards our capital and settle in a location near enough to contribute to our core. We chose what I believe to be the correct option - to move back towards home. In that situation, of course, we knew there was a land route back home, and we knew part of the terrain along that route, although we used the journey to push back some fog. Sure there were a couple of interesting moments with barbs, but fast footwork and luck pulled us through. This time we don't know we can get home, but so what? We'll know a lot more about the landscape and we'll know more about where we want to settle, whether that's near our capital or back where we started or somewhere else.

The Han (a.k.a Chinese) have got to be a great civ to play, having fought against them in GOTM25, where the AI totally wasted the opportunity. They are industrious/militaristic. Cheap barracks and fast workers. The Rider is my favorite kind of attack unit - faster than a speeding bullet. I enjoyed the Cataphract/Ansai Warrior in GOTM23, and a Rider has all that plus stronger defence. Riders arrive early in the Medieval, so if your Ancient Age development has been sound you get a Golden Age at a great time to sling shot research with a few 4 turn projects, and they upgrade to Cavalry.

 

[SirPleb]

I haven't worked out the details of how to approach this yet, but...

This might be an ideal setup for a fast Palace jump.

I.e. build up population in one location to serve as the final Palace location; build a Forbidden Palace as soon as possible near the other location, jump the Palace, and have two productive regions running sooner than is normally possible.

 

[samildanach]

Yes it does look like the GOTM team have set it up so that we will be considering a Palace jump. But why? I have a sneaking suspicion that we are alone on an island with no potential for generating GLs for the FP. The starting bonuses given to open class would virtually guarantee victory on a standard map for most of the Open class players at diety - there must be some sort of nasty twist aside from the probably SiD level tech rate arising from the number of AI rivals.

 

[Hurricane]

I also though about a palace jump, but it really depends on a number of circumstances. But I will definitely consider this option, and probably start on the FP as soon as possible.

 

[BerzerkerJoe]

Ok here is a question for corruption experts - If you have a number of cities at the same distance from your capital for RCP purposes and a similar ring around the forbiden palace city, at the same distance, will you have low level coruption in all cities or will the palace be more effective than the forbidden palace giving high corruption around the second city? I guess I am asking, is the forbidden palace identical to the palace for corruption purposes?

 

[killerloop]

just a funny thought....

what if one location is on an island (Taiwan-like)
and the other on the main land (China-like)

....in the end, till now, most GOTM-games were very close to the real world history.....

 

[cybergogo]

Originally posted by killerloop
just a funny thought....

what if one location is on an island (Taiwan-like)
and the other on the main land (China-like)

....in the end, till now, most GOTM-games were very close to the real world history.....

Now, that's a very interesting thought.... and a rather chilling one

THIS will be really EVIL ...

But then, hey, no one said it should be easy

Can't wait for the save game and the first moves around the starting locations - until we have discovered a few more tiles, all the strategical options will be open.

As someone suggested, I might move the workers over the bonus ressources to see the surrounding tiles and then decide where to locate the capital (even if for the moment I would rather choose the central start, which seems to be the one with the dyes)

Judging from the visible tiles, we might not be able to set up a settler factory ...unles there are a few hidden cows.

Well, whatever the fog might hide for us, once again Cracker and Co have brought us a new challenge and a GOTM that should be lots of fun

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by BerzerkerJoe
If you have a number of cities at the same distance from your capital for RCP purposes and a similar ring around the forbiden palace city, at the same distance, will you have low level coruption in all cities or will the palace be more effective than the forbidden palace giving high corruption around the second city? I guess I am asking, is the forbidden palace identical to the palace for corruption purposes?

The Forbidden Palace ought to be identical to the Palace for corruption purposes but, due to a bug, it is not. This thread has a description of the bug. There might be a chance to exploit the bug in this GOTM with the two settler start. I'm not sure, I don't intend to deliberately take advantage of it, to me it seems outside the spirit of GOTM.

Fortunately, in the specific situation you describe where there is a ring at the same distance around each of the FP and the Palace, the rank bug will have no effect. The corruption for all of the cities will come out the same (due to the RCP build), just as if the bug didn't exist at all.

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by gozpel
Are those waters fresh or lakes? Easy rightclick.

Don't know whether someone has responded to this, but No, it's not so easy. You first have to move to expose the water tiles fully. A right click as they are in the start pictures would give you a "no information" response.

 

[gozpel]

Originally posted by AlanH

Don't know whether someone has responded to this, but No, it's not so easy. You first have to move to expose the water tiles fully. A right click as they are in the start pictures would give you a "no information" response.

Yikes, what did I think?

I blame the heat!

 

[GenMarshall]

Hmm, I have never played a game with 2 settlers. I can see this would be interesting.

 

[Grey Fox]

Originally posted by SirPleb

The Forbidden Palace ought to be identical to the Palace for corruption purposes but, due to a bug, it is not. This thread has a description of the bug. There might be a chance to exploit the bug in this GOTM with the two settler start. I'm not sure, I don't intend to deliberately take advantage of it, to me it seems outside the spirit of GOTM.

Fortunately, in the specific situation you describe where there is a ring at the same distance around each of the FP and the Palace, the rank bug will have no effect. The corruption for all of the cities will come out the same (due to the RCP build), just as if the bug didn't exist at all.

This won't matter though, I think... as you can't play the GOTM with Conquests anyways...

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Grey Fox
This won't matter though, I think... as you can't play the GOTM with Conquests anyways...

Actually, it is the other way around This matters because we can't play with Conquests. In Conquests this particular bug has been fixed, at the cost of introducing yet another corruption related problem, but that's another story

 

[BerzerkerJoe]

Thanks for the advice SirPleb, sounds like a patch should be made to cover this exploit. It would certainly create an unfair advantage to a player utilizing this bug, especially in this GOTM!