News: GOTM 10 Pre-game Discussion

[culdeus]

Giving away resources early depends on the leader whether it's a good idea or not.

My question to the panel would be what, if anything, would you have to see going SE to make you change your mind and turn back to the starting spot?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

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?

I tried a couple of test starts on random maps - not spent long on them, just played to 500BC or 0AD ish, to get an idea of how different starts can work. All of them left me way behind every AI, but I have to admit the least bad start was the one where I threw all accepted technique aside and went for a settler first (not quite immediately, I expanded to size 2 before building it), deliberately planted that settler in a high-production spot, and then followed up by building settlers everywhere as quickly as possible, throwing in just enough other units (warriors, workboats, workers etc.) to support the fast expansion. That game left me last in every regard in the demographics, except that I was first in production - I think that's significant as I tend to regard production as the best indicator for long-term growth/dominance. (I was helped in that strategy by being on a smallish island that had enough room for 5 cities but only needed 3-4 warriors to almost completely fogbust)

I'm starting to think one way to play this GOTM may be to focus on using every trick (skimping on military, poprushing, etc.) to expand as quickly as possible for an initial land/resource-grab, on the basis that
(a) that then gives you the high production to start building military from 500BC-ish onwards
(b) more resources = more happiness = larger cities
(c) even though it'll hurt your science at first, you will eventually get out of that as you'll be able to build lots of cottages (and financial with lots of sea tiles helps anyway).

Having said that, I will worker-steal from my nearest opponent if at all possible.

And in this particular game, I haven't done the maths, but I suspect that building a workboat first will allow you to get a settler out not that much slower than building a settler first anyway.

 

[volfan37132]

I played a test map as well with the same settings. It wasn't pretty. I
started alone on an island on the south pole slightly larger than the one in test
game posted in this thread. But, this island was full of tundra and ice. There
was no gold, silver, gems, stone, marble or horses on the island. I had two
cities with a total of 2 cows, 3 wine, 1 incense, and 1 copper and plenty
of barbarians even with 4 fogbusters. I encountered Montezuma about 500 BC.
The one positive was I did build the Great Lighthouse, but it didn't help much.
On the info screen I was dead last in EVERYTHING - 3 fold behind the average
and 5 fold behind the leader.

 

[Mad Professor]

I tried a couple of test starts on random maps - not spent long on them, just played to 500BC or 0AD ish, to get an idea of how different starts can work.
[snip]
(a) that then gives you the high production to start building military from 500BC-ish onwards
(b) more resources = more happiness = larger cities
(c) even though it'll hurt your science at first, you will eventually get out of that as you'll be able to build lots of cottages (and financial with lots of sea tiles helps anyway).

Having said that, I will worker-steal from my nearest opponent if at all possible.

And in this particular game, I haven't done the maths, but I suspect that building a workboat first will allow you to get a settler out not that much slower than building a settler first anyway.

It seems to me that one must the most of the financial trait. After the disaster I posted about here earlier, I had another go on a regenerated map to change the civs and the shape of the island I was on, and did much better. I used the whip heavily in Beijing with the two fish within range, and concentrated on putting my first couple of cities after that in excellent commerce spots, on the coast if possible and went berserk with the cottages. It helped this time that I met a few other civs early and was able to wrangle trades. By 500AD I was way behind on empire size - I was pitifully small compared to the others, but I was right up there in tech, with Beijing and one other city becoming science giants.

I'm not sure where it would have left me later on though had I continued. I was fairlly hammer weak for the most part except one city I'd placed for hammers, and probably would not have sustained a space race, or been able to pump out lots of military quickly had I needed it. I was probably on a fair start for a diplo victory in that one. It was a lot more encouraging than my first effort.

So I guess I'll be looking for commerce sites early to put cities on, and making the most I can of city specialisation. I like the idea of the two fish within radius of Beijing because it means you can be quite heavy handed with the whip.

Another things is the barbs. Snaky continents is a bit hit and miss for barbs. It really depends on the shape of the continent you're on. With the right shape, just a few well thought out positions for fog busters, and you can really cheaply just about eliminate barbarian problems. Wrong shape though and they'll be all over you. I'm hoping for a good shape!

 

[pantbash]

Some interesting info on the start techniques there.


What do you guys think about about going for the Great Lighthouse?
No special resources used & China's Industrious will help a lot.


Its generally built quite late on games I play on Archipealago (that is on Emporer level though) and with access to other CIv's could bring in a decent amount of cash over a long period of the game...

Thought's from experienced Immortalers would be nice on this,.

 

[jesusin]

@Jorunkun
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.



I think there's a mistake in your calculations, city won't reach size 3 before BW. I like your idea of starting poprushing asap, nonetheless.
However, the normal approach (working both forests to get the boat out) will get the boat completed 1 turn sooner, if you take the time it takes to revolt into account.
As a result, the normal approach and whipping 2 pop for the first time to get out the Worker gives you more food, much more hammers and much less beakers than your approach. I think it is better this way.

 

[DaviddesJ]

However, the normal approach (working both forests to get the boat out) will get the boat completed 1 turn sooner, if you take the time it takes to revolt into account.

You should ignore the 1 turn of anarchy. You're going to lose 1 turn to anarchy, whether it comes earlier or later; it's mistaken to think that there's a cost to having it before the fish are improved, rather than after.

 

[jesusin]

@DaviddesJ

You are right.
Then, it is the ability to rush 2 pop for a Worker what makes the normal approach better, I guess.

 

[Ribannah]

That's not quite true. You may get 2 civics in one turn, or simply skip slavery.
I'm not a big fan of whipping, and it seems to me that Animal Husbandry should be researched before Bronze Working, perhaps even before Fishing.

 

[Shillen]

Can anyone confirm or deny this? I've played a lot of games of civ4 and the only games I've ever had barbarian axemen show up extremely early are the games where I research bronze working extremely early. I have never seen a barbarian axeman when I didn't already know bronze working. Now I've seen them many times when I had BW but I hadn't hooked up the copper yet, though, or even if I didn't have any copper nearby. But if this is true then it's a reason to avoid early bronze working...

 

[Ribannah]

AFAIK it depends on how many civs know the tech.
What I don't know is whether there are separate counts per landmass.

 

[EEO]

Can anyone confirm or deny this? I've played a lot of games of civ4 and the only games I've ever had barbarian axemen show up extremely early are the games where I research bronze working extremely early. I have never seen a barbarian axeman when I didn't already know bronze working. Now I've seen them many times when I had BW but I hadn't hooked up the copper yet, though, or even if I didn't have any copper nearby. But if this is true then it's a reason to avoid early bronze working...

This was debated in GOTM9 Pre-game discussion. One of the claim was:

"The level of the barbarians is based on the lowest level of common tech among all playing civs."
You can read this from there :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4346607&postcount=128

According to my own experience, I 'd say it is not quite that simple, but not so far from true ...
What seems certain is that probability of axeman appearing grows with civs acquiring (especially player civ ?) BW.

 

[Shillen]

Oops, sorry to rehash an old topic then. Regardless of that issue, as others have said it's generally easier to fog-bust in this map-type so barbarians won't be the issue they normally are on immortal. But I'd still prefer not to meet an axeman if I can prevent it (at least until I have something better than warriors to defend with).

 

[EEO]

Oops, sorry to rehash an old topic then. Regardless of that issue, as others have said it's generally easier to fog-bust in this map-type so barbarians won't be the issue they normally are on immortal. But I'd still prefer not to meet an axeman if I can prevent it (at least until I have something better than warriors to defend with).

Don't be sorry. The topic is still open as nobody can say he has got the final answer. And this answer is certainly important for GOTM10: an optimal opening will surely include an early BW. But if this implies early barb axemen, maybe it is not so optimal ...

Actually I would go for an early BW (second or third tech) , because I think it is necessary at this level regardless the risks ...

Note also that I never saw in my test games barbs attacking inside our territory before 2000 BC (of course, they do outside since 3500 BC).

 

[ingentingg]

This is my first attempt on Immortal, so i have had like 10 test games with the same configuration as gotm10. Played them to about 1AD or something, and i often find myself on big continents with AI, and/or lots of land to fogbust. On some of them i get lucky and can place my warriors on forrest hills, but sometimes it`s almost impossible to do an effective fogbusting.

 

[DaviddesJ]

That's not quite true. You may get 2 civics in one turn, or simply skip slavery.
I'm not a big fan of whipping, and it seems to me that Animal Husbandry should be researched before Bronze Working, perhaps even before Fishing.

Whether you're a fan or not, it seems pretty clear to me that with all that food at the start, if one settles in place, it's going to be very important to adopt slavery fairly early, well before you'll have any other civics to adopt. It's certainly going to be worth more than 1 turn it costs.

 

[jayeffaar]

I'm not a big fan of whipping, and it seems to me that Animal Husbandry should be researched before Bronze Working, perhaps even before Fishing.

I never whipped much before myself but in this case, the population cap is going to be so low early on that you're just going to be throwing good food away if you don't whip. You might as well turn those wonder bread slices into hammers or you'll be wasting an awful lot of them.

 

[NHJ BV]

Im...Immortal?

I think I'll make my goal to not be wiped out before 0 AD

There's some good advice in this thread though, but I simply don't know enough of the small-yet-crucial information like happiness thresholds or hammer decay to take on this difficulty level. Even the last one on Emperor was out of my league. Not to say I won't try though

 

[Ribannah]

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

My computer crashed when I tried to load your savefile.
I had to reboot.

 

[culdeus]

My computer crashed when I tried to load your savefile.
I had to reboot.

Worked fine for me. I freaking pwned the AI that was on the same conty as us in that map.

It really makes me think an early second settler is the play.

I haven't decided if I'm gonna start with the normal save file and then restart in adventurer for fun or what.

I think this GOTM needs an unofficial side contest for one-time restarters this month.