News: GOTM 13 Pre-Game Discussion

[LowtherCastle]

Does that give our city a prod of 2 shields instead of one? That would open up the space for a fishing town, too, and could still be done on turn one if you're going for the religion. I'm concerned that any of these coastal locations are shield poor. Not being on the lake isn't so bad since we have +3 health anyway (or does the lake even help with that? I forget).

 

[Alraun]

I like moving 2 north. It keeps the clams, allows for another city for the fish and enables 12 possible bonus squares for our capitol instead of the 3 left in fog on the starting view. I'm not terribly thrilled with this city as a capitol.

 

[Jar Jar Binks]

Got my first test map out the door, enjoy.

 

[Thrallia]

I was thinking of moving 2N as well. I will definitely do that just to see what's there before settling...it doesn't seem too great a spot for a capitol, although I will want a city in that area eventually.

 

[Adonias]

Got my first test map out the door, enjoy.

Should be a plainshill beneath the warrior...

Thanks though!!

 

[da_Vinci]

Hi All,

Is it just me, or is settling in place getting a bad rap?

First of all, I am not sure that a second city on the warrior hill is anything to write home about. We can see the entire fat cross that such city would have, and for resources it is just the fish and the silk. We lose the ability to mine the hill by settling on it.

What does settling in place have? Two happiness resources (one we can get early with a camp), two production tiles (mined hill, camped ivory), clams, watered grassland (cottage or farm as you please), plenty of forest to chop, and coastal location.

What more do we want? How spoiled have the recent juicy starts made us?

I think that the only reason not to settle in place and let go of the fish is if you think that we are on a tiny island. If that is the fear, then 2N rather than settling on the elephant seems to make more sense to me, so the two cities are not crowded.

But I'm seeing land tile to the west, so I think I'll settle in place and explore north and west for next city.

dV

 

[BLubmuz]

I enlarged the SS, and there seems to be an hill W/NW of the settler.
Anyway not a powerhouse, but a good starting position, with food, luxuries, production and forests to (eventually) chop.

The island seems not so small ... have you noticed the river SW of the mountains?

Then i'll settle in place, and try to make good use of a (finally) good UU.

I agree this is not the best site for a capital, but a palace move is possible if we manage to settle a powerhuose somewhere.
Last but not least: if the site 2N looks similar, we'll loose 1 turn if we settle there, or 2 if we'll find better go back, in change of ... 1 or 2 turns lost, and with the warrior in that position we can't do anything to help our decision

 

[LowtherCastle]

Is it just me, or is settling in place getting a bad rap?

From what we currently see, I don't see this town specializing in anything. Not enough shields for production powerhouse, not enough commerce without colossus and a zillion towns to make it an average research center, not enough food. It's just an all-around mediocre capital. What good is it?

Not only is it commerce poor, but it will take forever to squeeze the first gold pieces out of it.

You need to research hunting to get the ivory, fishing to get the clams, make a workboat and research sailing to get a measly five bushels of food, and then calendar for the silk. Then there's pottery before you can start making your umpteen cottages.

Bottom line, it has a schizo smorgasboard of unrelated resources that don't add up to much of anything.

 

[KingdomBrunel]

You will have approx. 6 weeks to complete this game.

Oh, six weeks, on monarch. I love you. Errm, I mean that's great. I can play and know I'll be able to finish.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

From what we currently see, I don't see this town specializing in anything. Not enough shields for production powerhouse, not enough commerce without colossus and a zillion towns to make it an average research center, not enough food. It's just an all-around mediocre capital. What good is it?

Not only is it commerce poor, but it will take forever to squeeze the first gold pieces out of it.

You need to research hunting to get the ivory, fishing to get the clams, make a workboat and research sailing to get a measly five bushels of food, and then calendar for the silk. Then there's pottery before you can start making your umpteen cottages.

Isabella starts with fishing, so the first gold can come immediately if you want (at a cost in production). Making a workboat is nicer than making a worker (it doesn't stop growth) and then once you have the workboat you can make a worker more quickly.

Pottery's always a bit of a slog at the beginning, but at least with Isabella we start knowing one of its prerequisites.

I do agree though that this looks like not nearly as good a start as we have had in many previous games. I can see myself moving capitals very quickly, especially once I get civil service. On the positive size though, it offers a lot of scope for swapping between commerce and hammers during the early game, according to the needs of the moment. And sure, clams aren't quite as good foodwise as - say grassland/wheat or grassland/corn, but they do come with the benefit that you get commerce for using them.

The fact that there's only three resources (typically I'd expect four-ish) makes me suspect there is something we can't see yet in the fat cross. (Well, at least, if this was a random map I'd suspect that, but there's no telling what Ainwood might have done )

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Does anyone know if the debate over whether blue circles identifying good city spots take into account resources you don't yet have the techs to see ever got definitively resolved?

I notice that there's no blue circles on the starting screenshot. I'm guessing Ainwood just happened to have them switched off when he took it. If so I'd be curious to switch them back on when I start the game and see if they do give any useful tips. (But obviously, if they take account only of information that you can see anyway, there's no point doing that).

 

[Sabre]

It looks from the screenshot that the warriors are selected so no blue circle would be visible.

 

[Thrallia]

I think ainwood and Gyathaar have been showing the screenshots with the warriors/scouts selected so as to prevent us from guessing what might be hidden based on the blue circles.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I think ainwood and Gyathaar have been showing the screenshots with the warriors/scouts selected so as to prevent us from guessing what might be hidden based on the blue circles.

What's the point of that? When you load the save, you'll be able to see where the blue circles are.

 

[Khalid]

I notice that there's no blue circles on the starting screenshot. I'm guessing Ainwood just happened to have them switched off when he took it. If so I'd be curious to switch them back on when I start the game and see if they do give any useful tips.

There's always a blue circle on the spot with the settler.

I'm really looking forward to this game. Isabella was my first leader in civ4 randomly drawn by the game and conquistadors are really powerful. And I play almost exclusively fractal games as they are really unpredictable what to get. But as the water level is high I'm sure that for conquest and maybe for domination also astronomy would be needed.

I will settle in place. I agree with DynamicSpirit that there's probably a hidden resource somwhere, either the grassland or the hill NW. So with 2 hills, ivory and forests the city is a good eary production city.

My plan is to go for fast domination and I hope i wouldn't be distracted too much by my builder habits. I want to try to get guilds early, as Harok did in GOTM12, maybe using Oracle for feudalism and go straight for guilds. Attack soon with HA and upgrade them to conquistadors later. (hopefully there is someone to attack and the resources)

I hope we have horses and iron nearby and I won't end like in GOTM12 when I cheared to have knights, but didn't have iron to build them

 

[Khalid]

I was also thinking about lighbulbing guilds, but its quite down the preference tree. Somebody has any reasonable suggestions?

 

[jesusin]

Large and Epic, I thought I would skip this one. Six weeks makes it better.

My settler will move N and NW on the first turn to take a look. Then he can keep on wandering. Or he might come back to one of the tiles that have been discussed, settling on turn 3. Not a big loss on Epic, and I will settle on the best spot, making an informed decision.

I will lose my chances to have an early religion, so what? This game I could go for culture again (less RT required) or maybe conquest (with my country-fellow UU, which I have never used before). Confucianism is very easy to get on Monarch, it spreads faster and it brings a free missionary.

This game I will force myself to declare a religion (for the first time in a GOTM) and I will switch often between religious civics, thus putting the spiritual trait to good use.


As for the blue circles, I would prefer that ainwood would let us see it. The discussions here will be richer the more information we have about the starting position. And it is an information we are going to have before the first move, anyway. On the other hand, I would like to suggest that the HOF MOD eliminates the possibility to see the blue circles, specially if it is true that they use information the human can not yet see.

 

[BLubmuz]

What's the point of that? When you load the save, you'll be able to see where the blue circles are.

i'll try to answer for thrallia:
what you say it's obvious, but he's meaning that in the pre-game discussion is not possible to talk about the blue circles suggestion.
Sometimes your answers could let people think that you're not so smart, but probably you're only a bit arrogant.
Moderator Action: No need for accusations like that, please.

 

[DaviddesJ]

i'll try to answer for thrallia:
what you say it's obvious, but he's meaning that in the pre-game discussion is not possible to talk about the blue circles suggestion.
[Flames deleted.]

This doesn't answer the question. Why would Ainwood or Gyathaar want to prevent this information from being available in the pre-game discussion, when it's going to be available to the players when they start the game? The whole idea of the pre-game discussion is to give players a chance to compare their analyses of the available information at start. Deleting some of that information just makes the pre-game discussion that much less productive.

 

[BLubmuz]

This is a good answer, and probably this was what the Staff intended to be (i mean a less productive discussion).
Anyway you was right, with the save loaded we'll can see our beloved (or hated, or useless) blue circles.