News: COTM44 Pre-Game Discussion

[civ_steve]

COTM 44: France!

There's still 2 weeks to finish COTM43, so we'll go a little easy on you! Drop the difficulty down to Regent, and set up a game as France. Happy New Year!

Civilization: France
Rivals: 7 pre-selected.
Barbarians: Roaming
Difficulty: Regent
Land Form: Continents, 70% ocean, Standard map.
Geology:4 billion years old, Normal and Temperate.
AI Aggression: Normal

Conquest-Class Bonuses:

1. 
   2 bonus Warriors
   Knowledge of Pottery
   50 bonus Gold

Open-Class Bonuses
None

Predator-Class Obstacles:

1. 
   No Knowledge of Masonry
   AI Bonus Unit Support set to Monarch Levels
   Your Musketeers will not start a Golden Age

 

[Niklas]

Ouch, still far from completion of #43. I really hope I'll make it...

But regardless, this game should be finished in a few days after the 43 deadline.

 

[megistatos]

France- my first regent game and first GOTM were with this civ(lost both).

Industrious and Commercial don't really dictate playing style. The settings for this game make it probably the most balanced map possible. The UU isn't worth basing a game plan on.

So maybe they'll be scope for all sorts of creativity in playing this game.

The starting position isn't very impressive. I can't make out anything special in the fog, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Chamnix]

I'm still deep in #43 also, but hopefully I'll still get to this one too...

The only question on the start for this one seems to be whether or not we move the worker to the mountain before settling. I almost never move a worker in the "wrong" direction to explore, but I think I will on this one. First spreadsheet draft shows that either way, we get 3 warriors before the settler on growth to size 3. Moving the worker directly to a BG would get a few more coins from earlier roads, but that's pretty insignificant if it turns out moving gets a food bonus.

Research will probably be Pottery first so I don't have to rely on trading for it. It should be effortless to get the Republic slingshot next on this level starting with Alphabet.

Musketeers not starting the GA doesn't sound bad since most likely knights will be all that are required (assuming we can reach the other continent pre-Astronomy) so open players also may have to find an alternate way to kick off the GA. The Great Lighthouse is often useful on 70% continents and satisfies commercial if we have a decent coastal city. Capture an industrious wonder before building the Great Lighthouse? Now I know why civ_steve took away Masonry for Predator....

 

[civ_steve]

... Capture an industrious wonder before building the Great Lighthouse? Now I know why civ_steve took away Masonry for Predator....

Trading or giving away Masonry was a standard strategy of SirPleb's, to set up a future Pyramids capture.

 

[ahman]

Pyramids could take a long time to be built and/or be built on another continent. I'm thinking about building it in the capital after the three warriors and the settler. By then, the warriors should have found a more foodrich place.

Research = Writing, CoL, Philosophy. What about using Writing for trading? Could there be risk of losing the Philosophy race?

Approximate pyramid build time - no more BGs, tiles developed and without joining workers or chopping forests:

[pre]Turns Spt Sum
20 - -
10 3 30
10 5 50
10 7 70
10 8 80
10 9 90
8 10 8
[/pre]

78 turns. Turn 80 is 1000 BC so I should be in Republic by then and maybe even get a GA from the Pyramids?

That's my plan, but I always miscalculate one or more things

 

[AutomatedTeller]

France is a good 20K civ in a game like this.

You can't get a GA from just Pyramids - you need collosus/Lighthouse/something else commercial.

I think that hanging gardens are industrious, too.

 

[ahman]

Having wonder(s) for both traits triggers GA?!

I've always thought "May trigger..." meant like random. Perhaps I'll read the whole manual some day.

Thanks.

 

[civ_steve]

Yes, you must have just built a Wonder with one of your traits, and possess Wonders with both of your traits. (... or can you build any Wonder, and have Wonder's with both traits ; it's been a while! )

By the way, the game is on!

 

[eldar]

All you need for a GA is to own two Wonders with your traits, then complete any other regardless of its traits.

So as France you could capture Pyramids (Ind) and Lighthouse (Com), then complete Sun Tzu (Mil) - and you'd get a GA.

 

[Paul#42]

Even a small wonder is enough to trigger they say. So building the Forbidden Palace should do the job after capturing the wonders to fit your traits.

(I think I never did this so it's just a rumor...)

 

[Più Freddo]

Even a small wonder is enough to trigger they say. So building the Forbidden Palace should do the job after capturing the wonders to fit your traits.

(I think I never did this so it's just a rumor...)

I did this and it did NOT work. Was probably Conquests.

 

[civ_steve]

Thanks for clarifying, eldar! So basically, completing a Great Wonder triggers a check for Wonders with both of your traits; if you have that and haven't had a Golden Age yet, it's triggered.

@Paul#42 - I'm pretty sure that rumor is incorrect

 

[Tuna]

Hi,

The instructions for COTM 44 mention changing a setting as copied below to standardize barbarian behavior. I play in Mac and do not know how to accomplish this. Can anyone help?

Thanks, Tuna

"NoAIPatrol Setting:There has been a lot of discussion regarding the barb behavior in C3C and how the NoAIPatrol flag controls that behavior. For the COTM competition it is highly recommended that all players set the NoAIPatrol flag to 0 to permit fairly consistent barb behavior across all player's games. This is done by opening the "conquests.ini" file in your favorite editor, adding the line "NoAIPatrol=0" to it, and saving"

 

[AlanH]

The isntructions are the same. Your conquests.ini file on a Mac is at:

/Users/<user_name>/Library/Preferences/Civilization 3 Complete/conquests.ini

The equivalent file for PtW is at:

/Users/<user_name>/Library/Preferences/Civilization 3 Play the World/ptw.ini

TextEdit is fine for editing the file, just make sure you save it as plain text.

 

[Schalke 04]

Hi,

The instructions for COTM 44 mention changing a setting as copied below to standardize barbarian behavior. I play in Mac and do not know how to accomplish this. Can anyone help?

Sh.... I've just read this instruction here in this thread, after the submission of my file.

 

[megistatos]

I believe the noaipatrol modification is strictly optional, though strongly recommended. I wouldn't worry about it this time, though remember to change it for next time.

Spoiler :

But when you win, we'll all know why....

 

[AlanH]

It's not compulsory, because players tend to forget to do it, and we have no way to enforce it. However it makes for more comparable games if everyone plays with the same setting, and the preferred setting reduces the effect of a real bug in the game software..

It's not clear that it makes the game easier or harder - it's just different. With active barbs you are more likely to promote units to elites before fighting the AI. But you might lose a few as well.