News: GOTM 13 Pre-Game Discussion

[slowrider]

I can't see the starting screen shot provided by ainwood ... couldn't see it last month either. I've had this problem since reinstalling Windows so maybe there is some sort of internet setting problem.

Thankfully I can download the practice game and track the pre-game discussion.

 

[lroumen]

1. You would need to research hunting (but not the wheel) for the happy face
2. Yes
3. You get 2F/2H/1C (that happens immediately, even before you research hunting)

Thank you for the information.


The ocean to the north definately cuts to the west, at least 2 squares and north-north-west seems to be forest.

I think I will settle on the ivory and not lose my first turn. The hills to the north-west seem to be grassland, so a nice mining spot for the future. Additionally, the potential chopping of all the grassland forests allows fast creation of a settler and expanding to a better capital site.

I think the ivory/starting place site look good for a decent teching city, which is okay mid-game after you switch capital and get some cottages going and get food/commerce from the sea. I think the Colossus or the Great Lighthouse could be nice in this huge sea-map and you could choose to chop them with all those trees nearby... seems like a decent choice.

I think I will settle on the ivory.
1. Workboat (1F/2H tile)
2. Warrior (Clams + 2F/xx tile or Clams + 1F/2H tile)
3. Maybe grow to size 3 dependantly on outcome
4. Worker
5. Chop Settler
6. Expand
7. ??

And the sequence of teching will be.
1. Mining
2. Bronze Working -> find copper
3. Maybe press on to Iron working or go find out that horses are for riding and discover that square cement blocks don't pull the warchariots very fast.

Dependant:
4. Hunting (ivory bonus) and continuing: Archery

 

[slowrider]

Settling ivory could be a good idea (although I doubt it) but doing it on turn one is way too risky production wise. You can’t walk away from two of only three known production tiles in the original starting position and blindly hope for replacement north of the woods as you press the build button. Turn two could make sense but only after moving the settler north to peek beyond the forest.

 

[Svelte]

Another test save for your civving pleasure. Let me know if I missed anything.
View attachment 143227 (HOF 1.61.008)

 

[Harok]

Certainly looks like I will be using my new favorite strategy....Oracle used for Feudalism (on the way to Guilds, great civics for early development and promoted units), early chariots for defense, horse archers for taking out a close civ and/or making sure I have Iron, mass upgrades to Conquistadors to take over the world. Elephant/Cat backup plan if horses or iron are no where nearby. Surely Ainwood wouldn't make it impossible to use our UU, he isn't nearly as evil as that Gyathaar guy.

Haven't decided on an exact tech path or settling spot until I mess around with a couple of test games but I am leaning towards going W with the warrior (NW on turn 2) and N then any of N/NW/W with the settler depending on what shows up after moving N. If something nice has shown up I will settle there, otherwise I will probably move back to the elephant and settle on it as the loss of one turn shouldn't hurt.

 

[Jove]

This one looks like fun.

I've wanted to use an Expansive leader to try the Feudalism slingshot.

We get the extra health bonus. Add Monarchy and fast workers into the mix and we can have a big population working lots of developed tiles. We even start with a happy bonus. Faster workers also give us better cottage spamming to get the requisite techs and then chop what we want quickly.

So. I'll probably build a workboat and a worker or two next, then a settler if I can get away with it. Research a religion since it seems within reach, then Bronze Working, then probably pottery or hunting depending on the surroundings.

This strategy may be good for any VC, but I'll probably go for Conquest or Domination again. With the emphasis on lots of fast workers I think this strat lends itself well to the economic needs of domination. Early Vassal Longbows will allow for taking out other civs' secondary cities early just to give 'em a good whack.

I'd probably settle in place. There's food, there's water, and the ivory and plains hill will allow for decent if not exactly super early production. I'm guessing with the high water Astronomy will be necessary, but with fractal maps you just never know.

EDIT: hmmm, looking at the test start, the above strategy doesn't look so hot anymore. Epic is too slow for me and Izzy's strengths are different. So, scratch that, sorry.

 

[Thrallia]

Jove, what do you mean by fast workers? Izzy has normal workers, the only civ with fast ones is India.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I've wanted to use an Expansive leader to try the Feudalism slingshot.

We get the extra health bonus. Add Monarchy and fast workers into the mix and we can have a big population working lots of developed tiles. We even start with a happy bonus. Faster workers also give us better cottage spamming to get the requisite techs and then chop what we want quickly.

Are you confusing vanilla expansive and warlords expansive, by any chance?

 

[Conquistador 63]

I guess he refers to serfdom civic from feudalism, which allows worker to build improvements 50% faster.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I guess he refers to serfdom civic from feudalism, which allows worker to build improvements 50% faster.

Ah yes, that could be it. I was assuming (perhaps mistakenly) he was referring to the fast worker builds that expansive gives you in Warlords. Hence my post.

DS hangs head in embarrassment

 

[BLubmuz]

Feudalism slingshot on Monarch?
With that start?
With a non-financial leader?

IMHO a suicide ... but if someone can manage it ... wow

It worths a test (in a test game, of course).

 

[Bart_civ]

A question about the religion-path:
I assume it's obvious we take buddhism, but do we also need to take hinduism?
Sure, the extra culture and possible shrine is nice, but instead we could get BW much earlier.
I usually don't care much for religion. In this case it seems easier to go that way.
And what about Judaism? My preferred strategy on Monarch, sofar, has been to do a CoL slingshot and use the GP from Oracle to give me CS. But this means I have to delay masonry for a while. (which also delays monotheism)
In a testgame I was on a big island and founded 3 religions. When I met the other civs, they were locked into one huge judist block and teching like crazy. In that case, wouldn't it be better to leave hinduism alone? That way, it's easier to do a divide-and-conquer once the UU becomes available.

 

[Jove]

Yeah, I was thinking of fast workers from Feudalism. Coupled with the health bonus of Expansive and the happy bonus from Monarchy, we could have some very big, productive cities. What better strength does Izzy really have?

But I have to agree with BLubmuz... okay, maybe suicide is a strong word, but after trying a test game the Feudalism slingshot seems risky at best. If we even started with Mining we'd have a much better chance, but we don't...

Is it possible for a Great Prophet to lightbulb Feudalism? Say you built Stonehenge, then a 'fast' temple and put up a priest, then perhaps chopped the Parthenon (probably in a 2nd city)... we could get more than a few prophets with a start like that, for what it's worth.

 

[ainwood]

I can't see the starting screen shot provided by ainwood ... couldn't see it last month either. I've had this problem since reinstalling Windows so maybe there is some sort of internet setting problem.

Thankfully I can download the practice game and track the pre-game discussion.

What do you actually see? Do you see a red "X" or similar? It might be that windows security settings have changed not to display pictures.

Try downloading it from here:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/gotm13large.jpg

 

[godotnut]

A question about the religion-path:
I assume it's obvious we take buddhism, but do we also need to take hinduism?
Sure, the extra culture and possible shrine is nice, but instead we could get BW much earlier.
I usually don't care much for religion. In this case it seems easier to go that way.
And what about Judaism? My preferred strategy on Monarch, sofar, has been to do a CoL slingshot and use the GP from Oracle to give me CS. But this means I have to delay masonry for a while. (which also delays monotheism)
In a testgame I was on a big island and founded 3 religions. When I met the other civs, they were locked into one huge judist block and teching like crazy. In that case, wouldn't it be better to leave hinduism alone? That way, it's easier to do a divide-and-conquer once the UU becomes available.

Another option is to skip Buddhism, letting the AI take that one and then setting up whoever founds it as your (and your allies') enemy. Then, as your post suggests, there are many other opportunities for later religions, and you can usually squeeze in a couple "worker techs" like agriculture and mining after poly and before any other religion you might want.

 

[Meatbuster]

How about taking Buddhism and letting the AI take Hinduism? This would (if you're successful) delay anyone who is trying to found Buddhism to start. Of course this sucks if you feel the need to build the Parthenon, but I find that in trades the AI values Meditation more than Polytheism (per beaker).

As for the start, I might settle at 2N or N,NE at the cost of 1 turn. Granted this will lose Buddhism, but there's always Hinduism.

 

[Khalid]

Are you guys really looking forward to founding budhism? My experience is that no matter what I do, the AI researches budhism faster than me on monarch and above. So I'm heading towards hinduism for sure and let the AI have budhism.

 

[jesusin]

If you are going for a cultural victory, I can understand you go after a religion.

For all other victory conditions, what about not founding any early religion?
Benefits:
- More AI will lose more time teching religious techs.
- More religions will be founded in "the other continent".
- You will have useful worker techs sooner.

If and when you need a religion, you can always found conf or tao, or even better, use one religion that has spread to you and let the founder AI spread it to all your cities with his missionaries.

 

[Adonias]

The combo
- budism: early spreading by early missionaries through the monastaries
- early stonehenge (+ early oracle): quick Great Prophet for a shrine
is nice for early economy boost

 

[Erkon]

If you are going for a cultural victory, I can understand you go after a religion.

For all other victory conditions, what about not founding any early religion?
Benefits:
- More AI will lose more time teching religious techs.
- More religions will be founded in "the other continent".
- You will have useful worker techs sooner.

I'm going for Hinduism since I want it to spread and make AI cities visible. I also like the faster border expansion to provide better warning for barbarians, and hopefully my second city will be close enough to work tiles in my capitals cultural border. Also, I don't need to build obelisk in second city if religion spread. I did not plan to found a religion, but since it's a big map, there will be lots of cities and the shrine may be profitable. It's not a simple choice, and perhaps not even the best choice. It just suits my playing style.

I don't want to race for mid/late religions, since I prefer to research non-AI tech (Literature for example) for trade.

This is how I plan to play:

Settle on Ivory, work forest until border exansion, then work silk
Build workboat for clam
Research Hinduism
Move the worker clockwise around capital to explore if the north cost is suitable for settling (fish/clam/crabs).

If I find a very attractive spot for second city and predict that I won't have problems with barbarians, I will build a settler (I will wait for two turns for population expansion and waste two turns of production). Else I will build two warriors and grow city to size 3 before building settler. Research will then be hunting, animal husbandry, archery, wheel, writing and alphabet (at around 800 BC). A.H. will enable me to plan second city. Extra warriors will enable me to risk a worker steal or send first warrior on exploration. Second city will not cost maintenance on large map if it's close enough...

Summary:
build workboat, warrior, warrior, settler, worker?, archer?, archer?
research polytheism, hunting, animal husbandry, archery, wheel, writing, alphabet

Regarding settling on ivory (something I did not consider until reading the post in this thread) : the extra production is permanent and does not need to be worked, which will enable me to work another tile. This "another tile" should be compared to a camped ivory (1/3/1) or rather (1/2/1) which is the net difference. This is comparable to a mined hill, so it's not a big deal.

The short term drawback is that I can't work silk, which will reduce my commerce with one for eight turns (until border expansion). Research points will then be reduced from about 13 to 12, so it's not a big deal. On turn 16/17 I can work clam which provides 2 commerce, so I don't even think polytheism is going to be delayed. Another benefit is that I don't have to build a worker at the start (which suits my research path).

I also consider playing challenger to increase tech trade. Perhaps hubris or plain stupidity, but if vanillla Civ is going to be Blakefied, it may be the last chance to play challenger for me ;-)