News: GOTM 11 Pre-Game Discussion

[Shillen]

So I played the test map someone provided. I planted 4 cities on the island. I built every wonder save the pyramids. I founded the 3 late religions.

Seems like a cakewalk, honestly.

Hehe, that test map is unbelievably good, though (hope I'm not spoiling it for people who want to use it - you'd find out it's an unbelievable start location in the first 10 turns of the game anyway). I don't think ainwood would go to the trouble of using a highlands map with raging barbarians and aggressive AI if he's going to give us such a dream start.

 

[Pudd'nhead]

Allright so, let's examine our map.

1) It appears we can expect some resources to our NorthEast, as evidenced by the 2nd blue circle almost directly North of our starting location. Our warrior is practically useless for exploring the map on turn 1. I also think that our initial settler location is suboptimal. I'd like to get two cities in on that coast (lighthouse, GL, CoL) and possibly a third to our west. It would be nice to carve out a barbarian reserve and level up our units whilst also guaranteeing expansion room.

So with that said, I believe I will move 2E and settle on the coast there. This will keep the clams in my fat cross, but potentially gain another visible resource. It will also allow me to plop down another city on that shoreline.

First, I freely confess that I am a relative newbie. Though I've played & win on monarch & been playing about 6 months, I haven't had time to play more than a handful of games & I am only now barely into my first GOTM ever (the WOTM one). And I *definitely* don't have the familiarity of map setup that many here appear to have (it blows me away that people know exactly what rows junge can appear in on different sea levels, etc!) So please take this as a question motivated by me trying to understand rather than as criticism of your idea:

I can understand the defensive motivation to move to the blue circle hill, but can't understand at all why you'd want to move 2E. looking at the pic it seems clear the square 3E1N of the settler is ocean, and the square 3E may be too. I kind of follow your thoughts about fitting more cities on the coast, but ... that first city would likely have a lot of non-coast ocean squares in the fat cross, and getting good production while still being able to grow would be tough until you could get a worker & mining & build a mine ... whereas the forest in the starting loc first cross does the job from the start. Second, that looks like a decent starting loc to me. Sure it doesn't appear to have much non-sea resources, but, if I count right, there are TEN fresh water squares in the fat cross, plus 4 hills to mine and 5 ocean squares, all coastal & 2 with resources. Seems like a guaranteed good long term city as well as short, while the square 2E is probably going to give you only one more land square that you don't already see (2N1E of that location), besides the city site itself. Doesn't seem like a lot of upside there. Also the strating location will have the fresh water health bonus, which the other will not. Finally you have the motivation because of barbarian aggressiveness & early appearance to hurry up on getting established, with reasonably good production squares to work almost right out the blocks.

I just don't see the incentives to gamble on that square 2E. It seems like you are giving the desire to squeeze cities on the starting coast a lot more weight than it really needs? If anything I like the idea of staking out more land mass right away, as a way to cut down on the area of fog that barbs could wander in from ...

 

[Shillen]

You are definitely correct in that a city built 2E will have less land squares to work and less production. The main benefits to moving the settler over there would be 1) leaving room for a city on the western edge of the map so you don't waste tiles (settling in place wastes the far western strip of tiles) and 2) allowing for a second coastal city (if you intend to work coastal tiles or build the great lighthouse/colossus).

That said, I don't agree with moving 2E at all for a couple reasons. First, as you said settling in place is an unbelievably nice location. Two clams is plenty of food to work all 4 grassland hills with mines on them and you get at least 9 different river tiles (at least 5 of which are flat grassland for cottages). The capital can be both a great research city and a great production city right away if founded in place.

As for the wasted tiles on the western border I think people make too much of a deal about maximizing tile usage. It was a lot more important in civ3 than it is in civ4. I likely won't be founding more than 4 cities anyway. That said, on this type of map there's a decent chance there won't be 4 good city locations (although since we're in the fertile part of the map there probably will be). But anyway I'm not too worried about wasting tiles since I plan to go to war by the time catapults roll around.

 

[JerichoHill]

Hehe, that test map is unbelievably good, though (hope I'm not spoiling it for people who want to use it - you'd find out it's an unbelievable start location in the first 10 turns of the game anyway). I don't think ainwood would go to the trouble of using a highlands map with raging barbarians and aggressive AI if he's going to give us such a dream start.

That's why I stopped playing it. Our start can't be that good. I was well on my way to an insanely quick cultural victory.

I do not expect copper or iron in our radius.

 

[JerichoHill]

The 2E thing was a thought I had. Its an incredibly risky gambit, partially because I doubt we're going to have anything near us like copper and iron.

Shillen is right that settling in place is a great start location. I just saw the 2E as yet another option. I'm sure someone , maybe me, will do it

 

[JerichoHill]

Q: What are the odds that a mined hill pops iron or copper, say, in 50 turns?

 

[lilnev]

I did several test starts last night. The barbs were a pretty big problem. The first I saw was 2520 (wandering into my view, not with WB), and the latest I saw my first barb was around 2300, in about 6 games. That doesn't seem unduly early. But:
1) There were a lot of them. In one game that I played to 600 BC, I killed 47, about 1/turn.
2) Archers appeared from the start -- there was no warrior-only honeymoon. Archers and warriors appeared in about equal numbers. I didn't see any axemen by 600 BC.
3) They beelined towards my cities from the start, rather than lurking outside cultural boundaries.
4) Fogbusting didn't work very well. Even with a radical build order (warrior-warrior-warrior-warrior-warrior-warrior-warrior-warrior-warrior-worker), I couldn't bust enough. These maps have little water, so the effective area is too high. We'll see if our particular map is an exception, but for now I'm thinking defense>busting.

The third point was really the key problem. I found that I couldn't use my second city to hook up copper or horses. There just wasn't time, and I got overrun. So I think early Archery is necessary (unless copper of horse appears in the fat cross of the capital).

This particular start does have some advantages. The edge of the board and the water barrier will be a big help in limiting the onslaught. Mid-lattitude is a pretty big advantage too; no jungle to fight through, and no useless tundra to police forever. Finally, it's worth pointing out that clams can't be pillaged. That's a permanent source of food and commerce. In my best test games, I did a reasonable job of defending my mines with archers, but farms and pastures were harder. And even the mines got periodically sacked, when they swarmed me three or four at a time.

Looks like fun. I think we might be seeing some unhappy spoilers, though, if people suffer big setbacks early.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Markus5]

I played a random Highlands/Seas test game. It had lots of the same features: a Sea; Crabs; a western boarder; etc. It was very enlightening.

I built Work Boat, Worker, Archer, Archer, Settler, Work Boat. I researched to Archery first, then to Bronze working. Since my map was happiness-resource poor, I used the axe and whip. I was using the HOF-mod, so I didn't look for the whip window. I just whipped when two citizens would finish with one unhappy and enough time had passed. After whipping, I micro-managed to slow growth and maximize hammers until enough time passed.

I placed all of my cities on the Sea. No roads were build connecting the cities until much later. Workers connected resources and chopped. I chopped Stonehenge, Great Lighthouse, and Colossus. The AIs will not take advantage of the sea. They don't plan ahead. My fledgling civ was rapidly becoming an economic power.

I was lucky to get several plains hills for city sites. I made sure that every city build an archer as its first build unless the settler was escorted by two units. Barbs, even axemen, tended to bounce off rather than win. I worked hard to build cities rather than big-time fog busting. And, I didn't see hordes of barbs, which was nice. They popped out in ones and twos. I posted sentries on wood hills when ever possible. Close borders with my neighbors (Hatty to the southeast and Freddy to the north) squeezed out the barbs, too.

I think this can be a really fun game. I'll take advantage of the sea, the AI's lack of planning, and hope for the same luck as I got in my test game.

 

[malekithe]

Q: What are the odds that a mined hill pops iron or copper, say, in 50 turns?

If you're just working a single mine for 50 turns, it's going to be somewhere in the vicinity of 1% (a 1 in 10,000 chance every turn for every worked mine for each each resource possible). Adding a second mine would, more or less, double those chances. Of course, if the hill is already slated to have coal or uranium later in the game, your chances are actually 0%.

Also, in those same 50 turns, there's going to be a 1.5% chance of the same mine striking gold, silver, or gems instead.

 

[bio_hazard]

We better hope for some neighbors both for fogbusting and threat dilution. I had a brutal game last night where my two exploring warriors got eaten by animals (both were on hills at the time). I met NO other civs, which meant Washington was like a giant barb magnet. No Copper visible anywhere, and I didn't survive to IronWorking. Thought that Archers fortified on forest/hills vs barb archers would be ok by themselves, but apparently not if the RNG doesn't like you. Eventually got swarmed, so even garrison-promoted archers in my capital got killed because of the sheer volume of barbs. I haven't opened the autosave to see what the AI's managed to do during this time- might be educational...

Other than the barbs, it was a pretty amazing start, with corn, silver, fur, and 3 deer in the fat cross, and a nice second city site on the coast next to a river (assuming I could have stopped making archers for a second and switched back to my settler!)

Good luck to everyone! (we may need it)

 

[Grampaw]

I notice that when "Highlands" are selected for the Map settings, three new options pop up, which are "Mountain Pattern", "Mountain Density", and "Water Setting". All these have several choices, but the default seems to be "Ridgelines", "Normal Peaks", and "Small Lakes". My question for Ainwood is: are we using these default settings for Highlands, or did you customize the map further?

 

[Grampaw]

The reason I ask that is that the starting position next to a lot of sea tiles doesn't look anything like "Small Lakes" to me.

 

[JerichoHill]

In the test game last night, it was large lakes I believe. That was giving me something close to what the map shows

 

[LowtherCastle]

Finally, it's worth pointing out that clams can't be pillaged. That's a permanent source of food and commerce.

As I understand it, barbarian galleys can pillage the nets, although I have't played enough for it to happen to me. But I have protected my nets with galleys, just in case, and have suucessfully fought of barb galleys.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Did you try washing it with windex? I just had happen with my Civ4 CD yesterday and windex worked (I watch a lot of DVD's from Netflix so I often have to do this.)

Interesting. I didn't realize glass cleaner would work for cds, though I guess it makes sense if the problem is they are greasy etc. In my case, the surface looks and feels pretty clean but it has some very obvious and very large scratches so I'd have a strong suspicion they are the culprit.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

As I understand it, barbarian galleys can pillage the nets, although I have't played enough for it to happen to me. But I have protected my nets with galleys, just in case, and have suucessfully fought of barb galleys.

Yeah, in theory the fishing nets are vulnerable to barb galleys. In practice barb galleys spawn at a far lower rate than land units, and there's not really enough water to give much chance of one coming up (even assuming you don't fairly quickly get cities around the water that eliminate any water FOW). So the chance of your nets getting pillaged by barbs is very small (but not zero). I'm certainly not going to be building galleys just to prevent what's already such an unlikely scenario.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

btw am I correct in thinking that the 1-food yields on the sea tiles indicates they are coast, not fresh water lake, and that therefore it is absolutely certain that if we settle in place, that city will be able to build a lighthouse? (I'd be veeeeery frustrating to find out too late that you can't).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

We better hope for some neighbors both for fogbusting and threat dilution. I had a brutal game last night where my two exploring warriors got eaten by animals (both were on hills at the time). I met NO other civs, which meant Washington was like a giant barb magnet.

Agreed. Before my disk died I tried a couple of equally brutal test games to ~ 1000BC, with much the same experience. Normally I send a scout or two out to explore and pick up goody huts. I'm now thinking I won't do that in this GOTM, as need to concentrate on building enough units to sit around my cities and defend against the barb waves. And all the hills and forests means scouts can't move that much faster than warriors anyway.

I will send one, mebbe two, warriors out in the hope of worker-stealing but it is a small chance. On a highlands map, actually finding where the other civs are in time to usefully worker-steal is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The plus side for any builders is there's no huge hurry to settle the land before it's all gone. There should be lots of land available for a looong time (if you can remove the barbs from it first)

 

[JerichoHill]

btw am I correct in thinking that the 1-food yields on the sea tiles indicates they are coast, not fresh water lake, and that therefore it is absolutely certain that if we settle in place, that city will be able to build a lighthouse? (I'd be veeeeery frustrating to find out too late that you can't).

lighthouses are a GO!

 

[bio_hazard]

Agreed. Before my disk died I tried a couple of equally brutal test games to ~ 1000BC, with much the same experience. Normally I send a scout or two out to explore and pick up goody huts. I'm now thinking I won't do that in this GOTM, as need to concentrate on building enough units to sit around my cities and defend against the barb waves. And all the hills and forests means scouts can't move that much faster than warriors anyway.

Units with Woodsman II might be handy if you happen to pop a goody hut and get unit experience... Scouts are going to be pretty vulnerable.

I'd guess in this game if you could actually keep your improvements mostly unpillaged and keep your worker working constantly, then you'd be doing better than the AI. I may use my first worker or 2 to scout out my next couple of city locaitons, but after than bring them home (hopefully to turn them into Axemen).