News: GOTM 10 Pre-game Discussion

[DaviddesJ]

I was under the impression that this 'bug' was patched.

I don't think the blue circles reveal any information about resources you can't yet see (because you don't have the tech).

But it does seem that perhaps they reveal information about resources you could see, but which are on the areas of the map not yet revealed.

The practice game and the official game have the same revealed tiles on the map, yet, one has a blue circle on the hill, and the other doesn't. This seems to imply that the blue circles are affected by something we can't see.

 

[Mad Professor]

Losing this one will be no dent to my pride. I've won on emperor once, and my first go at immortal was today with a test game of this one. I started with fishing, and as for builds went warrior to size 2, worker, finish warrior, workboat, another warrior to size 3, settler, finish warrior, workboat for exploring.

I found fogbusting fairly easy on the snaky continent. Well placed fogbusters on convenient hills really covered a lot of important territory, clearing one end of my continent. Later, I cleaned up the barbarian cities at the other end of the continent and expanded solidly. I wasn't doing too bad, but reality hit when I met the other civs. I was alone on my continent, and so trading was nil early in the game, and you can imagine where that left me at immortal. I had contact with Tokugawa early, but we all know his propensity to trade...

I was well placed to survive when I stopped playing, as part of a large and powerful militarily buddhist block, but I wasn't in the hunt for empire size, or tech. continuing to play would have been a matter of seeing who built the space ship (not me!) I didn't get the religions early enough to be on the road for a cultural victory, and I was so far behind in tech it was ridiculous. No trading early really hurts at Immortal, I have decided! Hopefully the settings in the GOTM are a little different! We'll see... I'll give it a go.

 

[Jorunkun]

Did you send a workboat out to explore in your testgame? Producing them sure hurts in the early game, but once you can get them island-hopping, they pay huge dividends in trade. More so since the AI usually waits until galleys to explore further.

Also, consider focusing your research on tradeable tech, using GPs to lightbulb one if opportune.

 

[Mad Professor]

Did you send a workboat out to explore in your testgame? Producing them sure hurts in the early game, but once you can get them island-hopping, they pay huge dividends in trade. More so since the AI usually waits until galleys to explore further.

Also, consider focusing your research on tradeable tech, using GPs to lightbulb one if opportune.

Upon reflection, I was probably at least partly victim of unfortunate setup, with the only neighbour I could reach with workboat or galley being Tokugawa who refused to give open borders or trade anything. If I'd met someone there instead who agreed to open borders, I could have the workboat through to meet other civs, and I'd have been trading techs back when I actually had something to trade! Hopefully in the GOTM we don't get in a place where our isolationist friend Tokugawa can refuse our passage to other empires.

 

[Shillen]

Well I had a day off so I played a couple test games up until the early AD's. Things I've learned:

1) Archipelago in general is a lot easier than continents or pangaea. The AI's really don't do a good job with it. The main problem with archipelago, though, is that the AI builds 100,000 boats so invading them can be a tad difficult without getting your galleys sunk.

2) Pay attention to nearby aggressive neighbors. In both of my games Monte went to war extremely early (he seems to do that every game). The first game he fought Washington the whole game, which was good, because both of them fell behind in techs and became great trading partners. The second game Monte sneak-attacked me with 5 jaguars and razed one of my towns on his border. Unfortunately I couldn't get to him because he was on another landmass 1 tile of coast away and had like 10 galleys sitting there so I couldn't have moved troops onto his land if I wanted to. See #1.

3) Keeping up in tech was extremely easy in both games, despite me being in second-to-last or last place in score due to less population and less territory and running 50-60% science most of the time. Just make sure to work those cottages and coastal tiles and of course keep an eye on trades. You'll have to make a lot of tech trades that are completely unfair (like a 2000 beaker tech for a 900 beaker tech) but it's worth it anyway. Almost every tech I learned I was able to trade to 1-3 other civs.

Techs I got the most trade value out of: Alphabet, Metal Casting, Drama, Code of Laws, Philosophy, Civil Service, Paper. Literature and Music can work if Gandhi isn't in the game (he seems to go down that path every time).

edit: I was never the first to Code of Laws or Philosophy but the AI seem to completely avoid the classical religion techs once one AI already knows them so you can usually get really good trade value even though you aren't the first to learn them.

4) Maintenance and unit costs are extremely high. I will likely stick with a small number of cities in the early game, but try to leave room to backfill later on when my economy can handle it. I'm guessing the GOTM staff might give us a little more room to expand than a normal immortal game so this won't be as difficult. I generally only had 1 defender in each city with 1 worker per city and a couple boats and just with that I was already paying unit cost. So I'm not sure how you can manage to build up any military strength without killing your economy in the early game. I had to whip axemen in 3 cities to fight off Monte. So yeah, hopefully we'll have some peaceful neighbors nearby and everyone will be the same religion...

edit: As for wonders I didn't even try building the pyramids or the oracle. I'm sure they can be gotten, but I learned my lesson in GOTM3 I think it was when I was beaten to the oracle by 1 turn while in other people's games the AI didn't build it until much later. I just don't like gambling on wonders. I like to take the safe path.

another edit: You have to pay a lot more attention to trading resources as well. With this map you generally can develop trade routes much faster than continent or archipelago maps so you can get a lot of resources in trade early on. You might even consider trading away your only iron source if you're not using it since you can get like 3 other resources just for iron. Or trading away your only cow source for a rice source and things like that (cow is 1 health until supermarkets, rice is 2 health with a granary). And of course trading health for happy if you're short on happiness and happy to health if you're short on health and stuff like that...

 

[blastoidstalker]

As a result of the discussion in the Understanding Power thread, “leverage your strengths early” is my new credo for playing Immortal. Here’s a proposal for an early start that takes that advice to heart.

The first question is where to settle; in place or on the SE hill. Obviously, a lot depends on what the warrior reveals, but let us assume there’s nothing special there. In this case, I would found in place.

This means we have two fish and a grassland cow, plus some forest if we need shields. Given that we are financial, our best overall yield would be to get two food and three commerce from each fish (five food with a boat). This suggests to me that fishing is prio #1.

Further, we are lucky to have a three-food-tile, which offers us an option to grow more quickly than on most starts. Lets use it to grow to pop two (11 turns) while building a warrior and researching fishing (10 turns).

As a next step, assuming that we haven't found any AI neighbours on the island that necessitate a super early settler, we should leave the warrior to complete later and get a fishing boat out as quickly as we can. Normally, this would mean working the forests, but being financial, we have a unique advantage: Knowing fishing, we can work both fish tiles for six commerce and research up to bronze working in just 15 turns. The boat will come along slowly, but once we switch to slavery, we can whip our then size three city to complete it, and use the spillover to complete the warrior too.

With our happy-threshold at four and an improved fish tile to work, we don’t suffer any disadvantage from the early whip and come out stronger in tech, prod and growth compared to any other start.

From here on, we have a couple of options. Build more warriors to combat barbs or a boat to take further advantage of the start while growing to 4, research animal husbandry while building a worker to improve the cow and chop to accellerate the settler or just build a settler, aided by rushing if necessary.

Thoughts?

J.

In playing around with a test game somebody posted here (thanks), I came to similar but slightly different thoughts on the start.

First 11 turns are done the same way. research fishing, produce warrior, work the cow.

Once fishing is in switch rilkes to the two fish and finish warrior. start researching BW. Once warrior is done start workboat.

once BW is researched immediatly revolt to slavery and whip the workboat. start second workboat until pop is back up to 2 and whip it as well. I definetly work one of the fish with the first workboat and am still debating whther using the second for scouting (keeping my warriors alive and closer) or putting it to work on the second fish. start researching animal husbandry.

work on another warrior until pop is back up to 2 and then start worker. Whip worker when it is possible to start pasturinzing the cows and chopping forest. next will be warrior, workboat or settler depending on circumstances.

long term I am thinking about Great lighthouse and collusus as possible wounders and Am praying for close copper. Great lighthouse will work well if I can fins other civs early. Cloussus if there is copper.

 

[Sarum]

I would start with building a worker. It is much easier to build a workboat after making a pasture on a cow tile.
So my starting sequence in the test game is:
1) settle in place
2) build a worker for 10 turns, researching fishing, work the cow
3) after you have fishing, choose AH as a next tech and switch to work the fish – so that you will have a worker in 17 turns and learn AH in 16 turns
4) a built worker makes a pasture, learn the road tech (don’t remember its name), you work the cow tile and build a workboat
5) after the worker made a pasture, send him to mine a nearby hill
6) when the worker built the mine, you finally get the road tech – your worker starts to make roads
7) your next tech should be BW – for chopping, slavery and looking for copper
8) after completing a workboat, you should build 3-4 warriors for exploring and fog-busting and when you have 4 citizens in a capital (and 1-2 turns to get 5 citizens) - switch to building a settler

Later I researched Writing and Alphabet, whipping the library in the capital.

I suppose it is more optimal than to build a warrior or a workboat first.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I would start with building a worker. It is much easier to build a workboat after making a pasture on a cow tile.

But it's much much easier to build a worker after developing the fish. And Fishing is a lot cheaper than Animal Husbandry (and you need the former, regardless).

 

[Jorunkun]

In playing around with a test game somebody posted here (thanks), I came to similar but slightly different thoughts on the start.

First 11 turns are done the same way. research fishing, produce warrior, work the cow.

Once fishing is in switch rilkes to the two fish and finish warrior. start researching BW. Once warrior is done start workboat.

once BW is researched immediatly revolt to slavery and whip the workboat. start second workboat until pop is back up to 2 and whip it as well. I definetly work one of the fish with the first workboat and am still debating whther using the second for scouting (keeping my warriors alive and closer) or putting it to work on the second fish. start researching animal husbandry.

work on another warrior until pop is back up to 2 and then start worker. Whip worker when it is possible to start pasturinzing the cows and chopping forest. next will be warrior, workboat or settler depending on circumstances.

Beautiful. This is probably as far as one can go in terms of developing your captial in the shortest possible timeframe. Like the whip of the 2nd workboat and see the advantage in going worker next, but wondering whether it is really prudent to delay the settler for so long. Guess it depends on whether you are alone I guess.

Any proponents of starts with an early settler?

 

[LowtherCastle]

once BW is researched immediatly revolt to slavery and whip the workboat. start second workboat until pop is back up to 2 and whip it as well.

Interesting analysis of how to get both WBs out quickly.

As I understand whipping, you generally want to wait 15 turns before whipping a second time or you pay some sort of a double sadness penalty, that is, it takes much longer for the citizen to recover from her sadness. Just food for thought. Not sure about the details or how this works on Epic speed, but people such as DaviddesJ can give you all the precise details.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

No other test games? I was hoping to play another one, like with an adventure bonus, tonight...

But thanks for the one we did have!

 

[EEO]

No other test games? I was hoping to play another one, like with an adventure bonus, tonight...

But thanks for the one we did have!

Don't be afraid to use WorldBuilder. It took me five minutes to add adventurer bonuses to the existing save. I added :

1 settler, 1 worker, 2 archers, 1 scout
Fishing, Hunting, Archery

May be ainwood will be more generous with the adventurer real bonuses...

 

[blastoidstalker]

Interesting analysis of how to get both WBs out quickly.

As I understand whipping, you generally want to wait 15 turns before whipping a second time or you pay some sort of a double sadness penalty, that is, it takes much longer for the citizen to recover from her sadness. Just food for thought. Not sure about the details or how this works on Epic speed, but people such as DaviddesJ can give you all the precise details.

You do pay a penalty of 15 turns - number of turns since last whip. It will proably be 13 extra turns of one unhappy face. But if you only worry in the unhappy it does not make a difference at this point of the game. We have 4 happy to start. With the order I mention in my start plan the city will not grow past size 2 until more than 15 turns from the second whip because of the worker build. and more than 28 before it gets to size 4. in this stragigy my idea is to get that first whip done ASAp so it wears off ASAP. The second whip does not matter when it is after the first so might as well do it immediatly so get the advantage of the second workboat. I am not as sure if I will whip to finish the worker.

For Jorunkens question of a settler. It is next on my list after the worker but I will need to insert a warrior in there to allow the city to grow to 2 or 3. I do not intend to grow tha capital above 3 until the first coulpe of settlers are out.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

Don't be afraid to use WorldBuilder. It took me five minutes to add adventurer bonuses to the existing save. I added :

1 settler, 1 worker, 2 archers, 1 scout
Fishing, Hunting, Archery

May be ainwood will be more generous with the adventurer real bonuses...

Thanks! I'm not real good with worldbuilder, but you do see all the resources and stuff... It kind of blows it. Maybe I can get my wife to do it!

 

[Dagnabit]

You do pay a penalty of 15 turns - number of turns since last whip. It will proably be 13 extra turns of one unhappy face. But if you only worry in the unhappy it does not make a difference at this point of the game. We have 4 happy to start. With the order I mention in my start plan the city will not grow past size 2 until more than 15 turns from the second whip because of the worker build. and more than 28 before it gets to size 4. in this stragigy my idea is to get that first whip done ASAp so it wears off ASAP. The second whip does not matter when it is after the first so might as well do it immediatly so get the advantage of the second workboat. I am not as sure if I will whip to finish the worker.

For Jorunkens question of a settler. It is next on my list after the worker but I will need to insert a warrior in there to allow the city to grow to 2 or 3. I do not intend to grow tha capital above 3 until the first coulpe of settlers are out.

Do you pop-rush the settlers one after another or build a warrior or something between settler pops to minimize unhappy? Or doesn't the unhappy not have much effect this early?

 

[LowtherCastle]

It will proably be 13 extra turns of one unhappy face.

Okay, so if I'm following this, that means after the 2nd WB, you wouldn't be able to grow past pop 2 without having a citizen go home and mope during the first 13 turns ( = while you have 2 unhappy faces)?

But then with your growth of +8, you'l be expanding twice in about 11 turns. let's say, so it will catch up with you and you eventually have to sit out those extra turns if you want to maximize your whipping, that is, whipping 2 citizens ever 15 turns, right?

 

[blastoidstalker]

except I am probably going to send the second workboat exploring rather than fishing.

As for the settler pop-rush question. I think that will depend on what and where the second city site looks like.

 

[Gazaridis]

another edit: You have to pay a lot more attention to trading resources as well. With this map you generally can develop trade routes much faster than continent or archipelago maps so you can get a lot of resources in trade early on. You might even consider trading away your only iron source if you're not using it since you can get like 3 other resources just for iron. Or trading away your only cow source for a rice source and things like that (cow is 1 health until supermarkets, rice is 2 health with a granary). And of course trading health for happy if you're short on happiness and happy to health if you're short on health and stuff like that...

Personally I would consider giving away anything I have for free (even health bonuses I needed) just to get a headstart on good relations.

 

[Shillen]

Personally I would consider giving away anything I have for free (even health bonuses I needed) just to get a headstart on good relations.

I'm still not sure giving resources away increases your rep at all. I know you can get + you've supplied us with resources thing, but you get that even if you trade resource for resource. And I was mostly talking about trading the last source of your resource. I wouldn't do that just for a rep boost. I might give away an extra one if I don't have anything to trade it for, but not my last source.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm still not sure giving resources away increases your rep at all. I know you can get + you've supplied us with resources thing, but you get that even if you trade resource for resource.

I think his point is that, often, early in the game, the AI players won't have any resources to trade to you (especially since they don't always bother to hook theirs up). So, if you want the diplomatic bonus for ongoing resource trades, your only option (before Currency) is to give your resources away.

It seems pretty generous to me, but, it depends on your strategy.