News: COTM57 Pre-Game Discussion

[civ_steve]

COTM 57: Iroquois!

For February I thought I'd bring back last February's concept - all the UU's will have their bonus stat upped by 1. This was received pretty well last year, and it should shake things up, make the game a little fresher this time around as well.

So the Iroquois, now with a 4-1-2 Mounted Warrior seemed like a nice civ to do this with. We just played the Iroquois last fall in a Warlord PTW game, but it was a bit more constrained than I was trying for, so here's a chance for Hiawatha to regain his honor in a C3C game.

Civilization: Iroquois
Rivals: 9 pre-selected
Barbarians: Raging
Difficulty: Monarch
Land Form: Continents, 60% ocean, Standard map.
Geology:4 billion years old, Normal and Temperate.
AI Aggression: Normal




Conquest-Class Bonuses:

1. 
   2 Bonus Chariots
   Wheel for Free
   100 Bonus Gold

Open-Class Bonuses
None

Predator-Class Obstacles:

1. 
   No Pottery
   MW's increased to 40 Shields cost
   AI gets 1 Bonus Unit Support per City

 

[Elear]

I'll play this one. I finally recovered from the heartbreak of my Polynesian loss due to my own blunders.

 

[Spoonwood]

Hmmm... you start with Alphabet and you're on a coast with a river. More 20k? In terms of conquest, only the Zulu and Sumeria have any real defense to speak of. Then again, lots of barbies raging around... but not all that hard to kill them.

 

[Yilar]

Beefed up horse on easy monarchy eh? Seems rather easy...

The real question is wether or not it is "real" continents, or there is a passage to the other continent. I'm assuming we have horses within 10-15 tiles, since the bonus is there in the first place

The micro is fairly simple. Move worker to wines and irragate if nothing better pops up.

 

[eldar]

I foresee hoplites, Numidian mercs, Impi, Enkidu, legionnaires all hiding in the fog for this one! (IIRC the last time this cropped up, 5-2-1 immortals really weren't an issue; 3-1-2 war chariots, though, gave me a relatively high amount of bother for some reason!)

 

[DWetzel]

Hmmm... you start with Alphabet and you're on a coast with a river. More 20k? In terms of conquest, only the Zulu and Sumeria have any real defense to speak of. Then again, lots of barbies raging around... but not all that hard to kill them.

Not many shields about, but otherwise I had the same thought.

Perhaps I'll go the Sima Qian route and go for the OCC.

 

[DWetzel]

Oh,and 3/4/1 legionaries = eeeeew.

Bowmen (2/3/1 with a defensive freeshot) will also be annoying, IMO.

 

[Più Freddo]

Move worker to wines and irragate

Irrigated Wine gives 3 fpt, which is better than 2 fpt but still not very good. What about the Whale? If it is worth it to get the extra food seven turns later, I wonder?

if nothing better pops up.

Right. It is civ_steve, after all.

 

[eldar]

The whale will only give extra food with a harbor and out of despotism. Until then it's only as good as a mined river grassland. Hardly worth moving for.

The wines will give +3fpt but we do get 3fpt in the city center being argi. So that jacks us up to +4fpt.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Anyone want the .biq I whipped up to duplicate the parameters of this game? I'd have to modify it further if you want the predator version. I wasn't sure what to boost on Conqistadors, F-15s, Cossacks or H'wachas, but I did boost all stats on other UU's. If Civ-Steve did what I did with Numidian Mercs...pray Carthage isn't an opponent. NMs replace the 1/2/1 spear with 2/3/1 so they would be 3/4/1 if he added 1 to their boosted stats. I'm not sure what a boosted War Elephant will be like with 6 hp veterans, but that could be a whammy too. This looks like it could be pretty fun.

 

[Schalke 04]

The SID-game was too much for me and the last regent game not challenging enough. So I was hoping for Emperor this COTM, which is my comfort level. But I think Monarch will do it as well, especially with one of my favourite civs and a boosted UU.

Question: I want to go for the republic slingshot. What to do after writing on this level? Researching COL on my own, or going directly to Philosophy and hoping that another civ can deliver me COL?

I assume that the other civs will have problems to get Writing faster than me, and after that they will concentrate on Map Making, which means that it I should research the whole way up to Republic completely on my own.

Am I right?



After the slingshot the strategy is very clear to me. It has something to do with horses

 

[eldar]

With this start on Monarch with a commercial civ, getting the Republic slingshot will be easy. Never ever rely on AIs getting CoL for you - they will invariably go for Philosophy anyway (since it leads to a wonder), if they can't get Map Making.

 

[Più Freddo]

After the slingshot the strategy is very clear to me. It has something to do with horses

On Continents, you will need some kind of overseas transport as well. Usually Navigation. So you might want to research Literature. But you could do without it. There's still room for strategy.

 

[Schalke 04]

@eldar: yes, I think I will research COL first

On Continents, you will need some kind of overseas transport as well. Usually Navigation. So you might want to research Literature. But you could do without it. There's still room for strategy.

Of course everything depends on terrain. I hope our continent is big enough for an extensive crusade. I like it to have a continent / island own my own. Then it is easy to concentrate on infrastructure / research to get to Navigation asap. Suicide galleys will help too, of course

 

[Spoonwood]

Oh... and 1/4 hoplites and 3/4 numidian mercs. Why couldn't we do this as Carthage? Of course, now I realize it... we don't have horses on our continent anywhere.

 

[PaperBeetle]

On Continents, you will need some kind of overseas transport as well. Usually Navigation. So you might want to research Literature. But you could do without it. There's still room for strategy.

Sneaky. You're trying to trick Shalke into wasting 50 turns of research right? This is only 60% water. The Lighthouse should certainly be sufficient to reach all landmasses.

 

[Più Freddo]

This is only 60% water. The Lighthouse should certainly be sufficient to reach all landmasses.

Recently, Navigation was necessary on Pangaea.

Anyway, then one should try to make sure to get the Lighthouse. If you just build units and kill off the neighbours too fast, it's not going to be built on your half of the world, most likely.

Going for MT should be a viable strategy on Continents. Especially on 60% water against UU's on steroids.

 

[stvnjsph]

Question: I want to go for the republic slingshot. What to do after writing on this level? Researching COL on my own, or going directly to Philosophy and hoping that another civ can deliver me COL?

Monarch is a good level to go for the Great Library. Especially starting with alphabet, research writing, literature and trade pottery for any of BW, WC, the wheel or masonry. With 9 rival civs, shouldn't be any time at all to get through the ancient era and end up with republic or at least monarchy to get out of despotism.

 

[stvnjsph]

oh yeah, and don't trade alphabet for anything, ever.

 

[Più Freddo]

Question: I want to go for the republic slingshot. What to do after writing on this level? Researching COL on my own

This question was just answered in this thread. You research CoL yourself, then Philosophy. And don't forget to road all worked tiles and work the ones with the most commerce.