News: GOTM 11 Pre-Game Discussion

[Bart_civ]

I'm just settling in at the Monarch level, so I'll give this GOTM a try.
Only played once with the raging barb option and I'm going for Archery asap.
I'm thinking the starting position will be great: production, commerce, food, all options are available. Also, it seems we're at the edge of the map, so after border expantion, that's one side we won't have to fogbust.

 

[Cabledawg]

I couldnt generate this start or even close to it without worldbuilder. Ill bet you that our landmass is a small island in the upper west corner and the rest of the map is highlands. We prolly only have room for 3 decent cities before we have to sail over.
The good news is, barbs prolly wont be much of a problem for us once we fog bust.
If thats the case, we will know well before 30 turns and archery wont be a priority.

 

[bio_hazard]

Although I'm willing to give Diety a try for the heck of it, glad we're down closer to my comfort level. I'm just starting to get the hang of Prince. Have never played with aggressive AI/Barbs before, so if I can squeeze in a practice game, will definitely do so. Now the question is whether I take the Adventurer bonus or not...

 

[Cabledawg]

I made a test game by going into worldbuilder, its seems a good match...well see.



http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7127/civ4screenshot0003zu9.jpg

Highlands Island2.Civ4SavedGame

 

[thundermonkey]

You think we will be on our own island? Hopeully not I think.

 

[ShannonCT]

I couldnt generate this start or even close to it without worldbuilder. Ill bet you that our landmass is a small island in the upper west corner and the rest of the map is highlands. We prolly only have room for 3 decent cities before we have to sail over.

If this is true, it would have required some serious hand alteration by the designer. I tried generating a bunch of highlands maps with large seas and only a couple had an island in one of the corners. And in no case were these corner islands more than 20 tiles, and in no case were they the starting location for a civ.

I would be very surprised if we started on an island. There would be no point to the Raging Barbs setting if we were on an island that could be easily fogbusted. I see the coastal tiles to the east, but it is proabably just an inland sea that snakes north for a few tiles.

 

[malekithe]

...I note that the resource ballons are not on, so we cant tell if we are north or south of the equator. We will of course see that as soon as we get the save, and if we find out we are north, then....

Judging from the trees, we are almost certainly in the upper third of the map. Most likely we are no more than about a 8-10 tiles from the northern edge and there is jungle starting just to the north of the visible area.

 

[JerichoHill]

Umm, there's no jungle to the north

Look at the river, it flows south, so we're in the northern hemisphere

 

[ShannonCT]

Judging from the trees, we are almost certainly in the upper third of the map. Most likely we are no more than about a 8-10 tiles from the northern edge and there is jungle starting just to the north of the visible area.

Huh? Are you just trying to confuse us because you know we are your competition for the gold medal?

On standard size highland maps, jungle can only appear in the bottom 7 rows. Furthermore, in the top 12 rows, the trees are always snowy-looking. I dont see any snowy-looking trees in the screenshot, so I have to assume that we are at least 13 tiles from the northern border. Considering that we have clams and not crabs, I would guess we're at least 15 tiles from the northern border. We could be as far south as 11-12 tiles north of the southern border. I dont think the river flowing south guarantees that we are in the northern hemisphere. I have found a good number of south-flowing rivers in the southern hemispere in my map generating tests.

 

[cas]

Huh? Are you just trying to confuse us because you know we are your competition for the gold medal?

On standard size highland maps, jungle can only appear in the bottom 7 rows. Furthermore, in the top 12 rows, the trees are always snowy-looking. I dont see any snowy-looking trees in the screenshot, so I have to assume that we are at least 13 tiles from the northern border. Considering that we have clams and not crabs, I would guess we're at least 15 tiles from the northern border. We could be as far south as 11-12 tiles north of the southern border. I dont think the river flowing south guarantees that we are in the northern hemisphere. I have found a good number of south-flowing rivers in the southern hemispere in my map generating tests.

Eh, no. I generated a highlands map last night that had snow trees in the southern hemisphere and mostly jungle/floodplains in the north (edit) 10-15 tiles of the map.

cas

 

[Conquistador 63]

@ cas & ShannonCT:
Transcription from Sirian´s map script guide:

Regional Map: No world wrap
Large Land-Heavy Map: 64 plots wide, 40 plots tall, at "Standard" map size
Regional Climate: Ranging from Snowy to Tropical. Can be north or south of equator!

Also, will the mountain pattern and density be disclosed before the save is available? We have to set these parameters when generating our own test custom games.

 

[ungy]

Thanks Ainwood for what looks to be an interesting game.

The sea resources combined with the raging barbs lead to some interesting choices early on--I think tough to build a wb, worker and enough warriors by the time barbs show up.

I think at raging barbs the spawn rate is also higher but I don't have the numbers.

My guess is that we are not on an island--please can someone post a non-island practice game?

 

[ShannonCT]

Eh, no. I generated a highlands map last night that had snow trees in the southern hemisphere and mostly jungle/floodplains in the 10-15 tiles of the map.

cas

I think it makes a difference what water variant you use. Small lakes always (as far I found) puts you in the southern hemisphere, with tropics in the north and tundra/ice in the south. Large lakes and Seas always put you in the northern hemisphere, with tropics in the south and tundra/ice in the north. The starting screenshot is definitely not showing a small lake. Given its width, I would assume it is a Sea. So I am standing by my previous statement unless someone can show me a counterexample.

 

[Shillen]

I think it makes a difference what water variant you use. Small lakes always (as far I found) puts you in the southern hemisphere, with tropics in the north and tundra/ice in the south. Large lakes and Seas always put you in the northern hemisphere, with tropics in the south and tundra/ice in the north. The starting screenshot is definitely not showing a small lake. Given its width, I would assume it is a Sea. So I am standing by my previous statement unless someone can show me a counterexample.

I can post a counterexample when I get home. I played only one test game last night (with seas setting) and I started on the southern border and I was completely surrounded by ice and tundra.

 

[Cabledawg]

Think about this, we can safely assume that the start was done by hand in worldbuilder. That amount of ocean tiles...and it is ocean, doesnt show up on any random highlands map. Certainly there would be more trees around us if it were random.
Assuming the above statement is true, why would the worldbuilder "artist" do it in that way if it wasnt an island. Ill take a knife in the back from Julius if im wrong.

 

[Markus5]

If you use custom game settings, you can specify small lakes, large lakes, or seas. You can also specify other settings for things like mountain ranges. Does anyone know if this is a custom game map and (if so) what the settings are?

I'm guessing that this is a custom game with seas selected. I doubt there were many things done by hand in WorldBuilder.

 

[malekithe]

Regional Climate: Ranging from Snowy to Tropical. Can be north or south of equator!

Interesting. I suppose, then, we can't say for certain which hemisphere we are in. Every map I looked at last night was tropical in the north, but it appears others have seen tropical in the south.

 

[ainwood]

I think it makes a difference what water variant you use. Small lakes always (as far I found) puts you in the southern hemisphere, with tropics in the north and tundra/ice in the south. Large lakes and Seas always put you in the northern hemisphere, with tropics in the south and tundra/ice in the north. The starting screenshot is definitely not showing a small lake. Given its width, I would assume it is a Sea. So I am standing by my previous statement unless someone can show me a counterexample.

When I was generating the map, in several attempts using "regenerate map" I believe I got a mix of southern & northern hemisphere variants.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I think it makes a difference what water variant you use. Small lakes always (as far I found) puts you in the southern hemisphere, with tropics in the north and tundra/ice in the south. Large lakes and Seas always put you in the northern hemisphere, with tropics in the south and tundra/ice in the north. The starting screenshot is definitely not showing a small lake. Given its width, I would assume it is a Sea. So I am standing by my previous statement unless someone can show me a counterexample.

Again, if you look here there are 6 map samples. All maps in the 2nd and 3rd row are small lakes, but 2 of them have snow north and jungle/desert south, while in the other 2 the situation is the opposite.

Fog-gazing once more, is it a desert hill 3S of warrior? If so, desert/jungle is south, snow is north in our map, and we're probably just slightly above the middle of the map, in its "forest belt".

Not sure about the strategic implications of this finding. Maybe BW for chopping (food won't as plentiful as in GOTM10 for whipping, I suppose), and Math earlier than usual.

Also, if this map is not edited, can anyone tell about the expected resource distribution in this map? I played 2 test games last night and in none of them I was able to see copper, even though I had scouted a lot. Iron was also scarce: some 8/9 tiles away from starting plot. OTOH I had stone or marble in fat cross.

 

[Shillen]

Maybe BW for chopping (food won't as plentiful as in GOTM10 for whipping, I suppose), and Math earlier than usual.

This was actually one thing I learned from my test game last night. Well I learned a couple things actually.

1. Building two workboats early before the barbs come is pretty easy even without whipping. (It was a little easier in my test, though, since i had a 0f3h and 1f2h tile to work to get them out quicker, which we don't have in this game). I'll likely go workboat->worker->workboat->archer with my builds. I might do the archer before the second workboat...I'll have to test it out.

2. Archery is definitely my first tech path. Even with our hemmed in start I don't think you can prevent barbs entirely by fog-busting that early in the game.

3. I ended up having to do bronzeworking fairly early anyway in my test game because I wanted to mine the forested hills in my city's radius. That's the good thing about this map is that our hills have no forests on them. So I might just delay bronzeworking and maybe even trade for it when I get alphabet. It will depend on whether my 2nd and 3rd cities need any chopping or whipping.

4. I learned that catapults can take out longbow-defended cities. I declared war on Cyrus and he learned feudalism like the next turn (before he even had code of laws which is highly unusual). Anyway he had one city with a longbow and an archer in it...I used 3 catapults to take that city (1 retreated, other 2 won with 50%+ odds) then I took his capital defended by 3 longbowmen with 5 catapults and 2 axemen (losing only 2 catapults). Maybe I was a bit lucky but I was amazed at being able to do that.

Anyway in the main game I'll probably do something similar and try to get catapults early and start warring. It will probably be even easier with this map since like I said my test game was almost all tundra and ice...