News: GOTM 10 Pre-game Discussion

[Pious_Pete]

When I read all the "Eeek! I´ve never played Monarch before" stuff in the GOTM8 pre-game discussion, I inwardly thought "Pah, don´t be such a scaredy-cat".

When I real all the "Eeek! I´ve never played Emperor before" stuff in the GOTM9 pre-game discussion, I inwardly thought, "Pah, don´tbe such a wuss".

Now we´ve got to the GOTM10 pre-game discussion, I´m inwardly thinking "Eeek! I´ve never played Immortal before".

What a wussy, scaredy-cat, eh?

(I´ll probably be a cry-baby too when I lose on turn 10!)

 

[cas]

Immortal with a strong set of leader traits. Hoorah. Probably 10% chance to win and 99% chance to learn a lot.

I'll move the warrior 1SE to get a look at the land. The settler will move at least 1SE, possibly 2SE to the hill depending what I see. If I don't like the hill, I can move back 1NW the next turn and still settle in turn2. Fresh water on immortal for the health bonus, river tiles, and possibly increased number of forests for chopping are more important than the 2nd fish IMO.

Going for culture win (as usual)...with some variation of cottage economy + Pyramids similar to godonut's strategy. If we have marble close I might switch that to Oracle/MC sling and pray for Pyramids from GEngineer. Building wonders on immortal...even with industrious...is a big gamble on archi map.

cas

 

[Pious_Pete]

O.K. Having got that off my chest, I´m going to need some help to survive this one. So I´m shamelessly going to ask for advice from everyone.

The first question might seem rather naive, but exactly how do you pop-rush to best effect? I haven´t really been able to get the hang of using the whip.

I either seem to be in a position where I can whip 1 pop to save myself 4 turns of building, or whip 2 or 3 pops to save 9 or 10. Intuitively, this doesn´t seem like a great deal to me.

So, what´s the key to effective pop-rushing?

 

[Pious_Pete]

One of the keys to GOTM9 (and most Emperor games I´ve played) was effective fog-busting.

What are the barbs like in Immortal? I assume that they will be a step up in ferocity from Emperor.

However, what are barbs like on archepelago (a variant I don´t have much experience of).

On the face of it, it would seem that with your back to the sea, and relatively thin land-masses it ought to be possible to push back the fog of war with fewer units.

What does anyone else think?

 

[Niklas]

Hmm, I figured it might be time to step up to the challenge and play my first solo CIV game. GOTM games are always nice, so here we go, but.... Immortal! Eh, hehe, ok, why not, I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it. It's been a while since an AI kicked my back side...

 

[culdeus]

I think you have to go SE in search of more hammers otherwise it's gonna be a 22 turn + work boat construction.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I think you have to go SE in search of more hammers otherwise it's gonna be a 22 turn + work boat construction.

How long does it take to research Fishing? I think you will be size 2 by then, which means 3 hpt from two forests.

 

[culdeus]

Some notes from test games:

You go to size 4 max without any bonus happy faces. Ouch.

A second city will run you 4 gpt and will max at size 3. Ouch.

I started a ton of maps and found that there are rarely any metals nearby. Best case you get some fur that isn't too deep in the tundra for your size 3 city to cover.

Barbs are out of control. You have to chain your fogbusting very well or else you are dead by the time you pop your first settler.

I think you have to seriously think about a warrior warrior start or you could be looking at a death by barb. These snaky islands are actually alot for two warriors to bust up.

The start we have is not that good. No hills mean that we are stuck with a very slow workboat production and slow production in general. You gotta at least take a peek with the settler to the SE. .

This looks to be way out of my league. You need to be able to work that chopping bug to the extreme to use this start and that's something I've never figured out how to do right.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I think you have to go SE in search of more hammers otherwise it's gonna be a 22 turn + work boat construction.

I wonder whether in this case, building a worker first would help. It'll keep your city at size 1 for a while, but then you get to mine the hills earlier to get workboats out. Plus if you research fishing -> AH first, getting those cows hooked up early will give you better production to complete the workboat(s).

Either that or start with warrior and swap to worker as soon as you hit size 2 (won't particularly help build your worker much faster, but at least at size 2 you can get research out of a sea square while using the (unpastured) cow for worker-building.

Personally I'm inclined not to move (unless the warrior sees something amazing to the east) because having those two fish will allow fairly rapid building using pop-rushing, which I suspect is going to be essential to stand much chance of keeping up with the AI on this level.

Using the river requires cottages and offhand I can't see much scope to research pottery in the very beginning game. You gotta have fishing for very early research, you gotta have BW to find out where the copper is before the AI nabs it all, you gotta have AH for similar reasons and to work those cows properly. Unless you get very lucky with city placement you'll probably need mysticism for an obolisk for your 2nd city. Sailing is also going to be important to make full use of the fish for pop-rushing. And unless you get incredibly lucky with copper in the capital's radius, hunting->archery is going to be an absolute must to defend against barbs. I just can't see where you can fit in early pottery. Even if you do get it, the cottages are going to give you one more thing to have to defend from barbs. Personally (and I may be wrong as I've not played on immortal before) I'd much rather use those fish, and devote my limited resources to stealing a worker from someone, and finding some copper and gold to pop a city by.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The start we have is not that good. No hills mean that we are stuck with a very slow workboat production and slow production in general.

Uhh? There's a hill NE of the start position (plus another one SW, though that's not mineable till you have a galley to get a worker across). That cow will give you two hammers two once you have AH.

I'm more concerned about the lack of any visible happiness resources.

Simon
http://www.simonrobinson.com

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

Anyone making test games? What do you think the Adventurer bonus will be?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Anyone making test games? What do you think the Adventurer bonus will be?

I'll vote for a free modern armour unit. Just to help explore the terrain, y'know (Although I can't play adventurer anyway)

 

[volfan37132]

In other games, I found that lack of health was too much of a problem.
I don't want to do that again. I'll more than likely settle one space SE to get
the fresh water bonus and save the forest, although the hill 2 se might not be
bad either. One move SE then E might be a good spot as well. But just like the
hill you would settle on turn 2. The downside is all would lose the fish to the
west.

I'll start researching fishing and if the island is large go for hunting / archery
to defend against barbs from the south / southeast. If the island is small I
would go for sailing first. I would not be surprised at all if the location to
the west turns out to be a very good spot for city #2 or #3.

Moderator Action: Post edited to remove minor spoiler

 

[jayeffaar]

I just got my ass kicked by the barbs on a Prince test start on the same type of map at this GOTM. Immortal is going to be... interesting, and probably mercifully short.

Note to self: if BW doesn't reveal any copper nearby, research archery before the barb axemen show up.

 

[Tech Step]

Yeah. I agree that settling in place is probably the best thing to do. However I will be moving the warrior South/East to the hill to get a better perspective. It would have to be a pretty amazing set of circumstances to change the settling position.

I think that we have to assume that there will be noone else on our island and that an early religion might help with happiness. Perhaps research fishing then hinduism??

Nic.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Yeah. I agree that settling in place is probably the best thing to do. However I will be moving the warrior South/East to the hill to get a better perspective. It would have to be a pretty amazing set of circumstances to change the settling position.

Not at all. Spot wheat or gold 3E of our starting position, and moving will seem obvious. It's not unlikely at all. But there are too many possibilities to speculate on.

I'm getting more tempted to move 2SE even if the warrior on the hill doesn't see anything. The odds of getting one more resource in exchange for giving up the fish (plus extra health, plus more commerce) are pretty good.

I think that we have to assume that there will be noone else on our island and that an early religion might help with happiness. Perhaps research fishing then hinduism??

The odds of researching Fishing, Mysticism, and Polytheism before a single Immortal-level AI can research the latter seems... remote, to say the least. The odds aren't particularly good even if you skip Fishing.

 

[klarius]

All the options, in place, 1SE and 2SE have to much coast for my taste.
In the long run we want land tiles to work cottages, not coast.
Best bet from what I see is SE-E. Because there we can not settle on the first turn, I think it best to move 2SE with the settler first to make an educated decision.
Fishing first will not cut it IMO. It takes to long to build a work boat w/o improved land tiles. I would build a worker first and research hunting-AH.
Hunting first makes AH cheaper and leads to archery which we will need anyway pretty soon. I don't think one should gamble on copper to be able to defend against barbs.

 

[BLubmuz]

Perhaps I miss something :
Why most people says we are in a small island? for what I know, Archip/Sneaky continents map means small continents with even 3 civs in one.
Then different from GotM8, (Archi/Archi) with a lot of small islands but ours (2 civs).
Of course we can be in a small island, but is NOT a sure thing.

This time I have no initial plans, apart i'll don't even try a CS sling, if I'll build Oracle will be for CoL or MC.
Settle on the river could be a good choice, to loose 1 turn is not so important if you don't go for an early religion, but the final decision will be after warrior on the hill.

 

[Obormot]

Unless the warrior move to the hill reveals a resource I'll settle in place to get all three bonus resources for fastest possible expansion. I am going for a relatively short military win again, so working the coast is perfectly fine with me (will try something peacefull when the difficulty drops again, since it is not fun to crush AI on noble).

I didn't do any calculations yet, but intuitively I feel that starting with a worker is more optimal then starting with a WB.

I have generated 10 maps with similar settings, and they look a lot like civ3 archipelago with 60% water. Sometimes Astronomy is required to reach all the AI, sometimes not. Sometimes a culture bridge is enough (such places can be discovered by just caravells and then a city can be built in the right place to make a culture bridge).

I am going to beeline along the lower military tech branch to get Cho-ko-nu's, then knights, then grendiers and astronomy if it is required, taking several techs by great people. I might try to take MC with Oracle, but I don't know how likely it is on this level. I might also build colossus and great library.

 

[DaviddesJ]

In the long run we want land tiles to work cottages, not coast.

In the long run, we'll have more than one city. Why is it better to work the river tiles with your first city instead of a second or third city?

If we settle in place, we aren't going to work any simple coast tiles for a long time. It looks like we have 2 fish, cows, 3 grassland/river, 2 grassland/hill. Those are all pretty good tiles, and that takes us to size 8; by the time we grow beyond that, we will have several other cities, that can be working any favorable tiles along the river.