News: GOTM 14 Pre-Game Discussion

[Sarek]

Thank you for posting the relatively similar starts earlier in this thread. Normally I'm all for opening and playing the real thing and seeing where it takes me first time out, but for this level, REALLY wanted a taste of what it might be like on GOTM day.

Between the starts and re-reading some of the succession threads (like Merz02 for example), I found I was able to survive! Not sure if a victory is at hand, but living to see my "actual birthday", if not winning by that point, is always a goal!

 

[LowtherCastle]

Settling on the gold hill would be reasonable, if there's a fish offshore. But, unfortunately, you can't know before moving, so it seems an unreasonable choice.

Besides, 1 turn to move, 20 turns to build settler, 3 turns to move it to the 2nd city site, might still be too long.

1. Warrior SE and you see the tile E of the gold hill. Of course, you still might not see a possible fish in the fat cross.

 

[LowtherCastle]

2. That's the stiffest Challenger penalty I've seen! I like the 1-crab start, in abstract, but I think it will make the games pretty incomparable with the normal start.

You think this might mean there's more seafood E of the Gold hill? Just a thought.

 

[Drphil]

Playing with both the games from Gnejs and Erkon (Thanks for posting!) I was able to get Oracle by 1600 BC with a bit of micromanaging- still leaving two forests in the fat cross of Paris (health may be a problem). Had two cities at the time. Oracle could be obtained even earlier if MetalCasting were the free tech and went for Med instead of Poly, but needed to wait to get Writing and wanted the whip to cost 1 pop vs 2. I'm thinking about cultural win if either stone is nearby or the Pyr get built by a nearby civ. The two test games were quite a nice contrast in that one (Erkon's) left you isolated and the other by Gnejs had Cyrus breathing right down your neck with the Hindu city next to Paris.

Went Fish/Mine/BW/Pot/Myst/Poly/Priest/Writing/Sail
Built WB/Warrior/WB/Worker/Settler/Warrior/Oracle
Heavy use of whipping and fast grow back due to a *good* case of crabs in Paris

Next techs and strategies depend on level of isolation; Orleans will work on galley ASAP.

Looks like a fun game. I thought I'd need to use the Adventurer bonuses, but this start seem pretty decent as long as a war-like civ isn't withing quick galley landing distance.

In Gnejs's test game, the islands are all galley accessible and they fill up fast with rival civs who like to stomp (Cyrus, Fred, Julius C.).

Just have to wait one.. more.. day to start the real one.

 

[DaviddesJ]

1. Warrior SE and you see the tile E of the gold hill. Of course, you still might not see a possible fish in the fat cross.

Seeing a 3rd crabs 1E of gold hill isn't useful information, because you'll get that tile in your fat cross whether you settle in place or on gold hill. What would be useful is to know if there are any fish 2E from gold hill, where they would be in the fat cross only if you move. Without some benefit like that, moving onto the gold hill, and giving up the extra commerce from the gold mine, seems very hard to justify.

 

[DaviddesJ]

You think this might mean there's more seafood E of the Gold hill? Just a thought.

No. I think it just means what Ainwood said: they are trying to create more of a distinction between the contender and challenger start.

 

[slowrider]

Interesting set-up. We start with Agriculture but there's no fresh water. We have Crabs and Gold nearby but have to research Fishing and Mining before we can use them. The map is tropical but there's frozen-looking terrain visible, so we must be very far north. Not much habitable looking land around to settle on so we may need Sailing early in order to get some city sites. All in all, this has the feel of a difficult game, at least in the early stages.

My thoughts exactly. I can live with the slow visible resource start (what choice do you have anyway) but a hammer-poor capitol is a deal-breaker. Looks a lot like the GOTM 13 start but potentially even lower production. Will be less painful though (with the wonder bonus) to move the capitol if needed.

 

[slowrider]

I'm not tracking the discussion about settling on the gold hill. Seems like almost certain suicide to me.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm not tracking the discussion about settling on the gold hill. Seems like almost certain suicide to me.

I don't know what you mean by "tracking". What I wrote was that, if there happened to be a fish resource 2E of the gold hill, then the extra value of getting the fish into your fat cross, plus the extra hammer from settling on gold hill, would roughly offset the loss of commerce from the gold mine, and the loss of one turn. This doesn't seem too hard to understand (you don't have to agree with it).

I also don't know what you mean by "suicide". Certainly the game can be won either way. I could settle just about anywhere and win, if that's the only goal.

 

[slowrider]

Sorry, that was unclear and flippant. Your posts always deserve thoughtful review and respect.

I had blinders on regarding the hammer-poor appearance of the starting site. In my tunnel vision I wasn't even considering food or gold, only moving the settler 1 tile north or south to maybe add a couple of hammer tiles. It seemed "suicide" to move to the gold hill production-wise, not from a whole game perspective. Now that I study it, moving to the gold hill could include hammers in the darkened tiles due east and due south. As you say, it would be roughly revenue neutral and could have a bonus food so it could indeed be a very good idea all the way around.

Now north, south and east are options. I usually just settle in place before I give myself a headache or put my foot in my mouth!

 

[DaviddesJ]

I'm not seriously thinking about moving the settler onto the hill, anyway. But I do agree that losing the hammers from that hill might be pretty inconvenient. I don't mind getting most of my production from slavery, but, it's nice to have some hammers!

 

[Ramzes XIII]

It will be my second GOTM but i'll try. My first one was victorious, may be this one will become successful too. I wonder how long can i withstand? The set-up looks pretty difficult

 

[Cletus]

Thanks to
Erkon and Gnejs for the practice maps.

 

[clacour]

This is a bit late, but I'm still playing test games (join my thanks to everyone else's for those) myself, so if anyone is in the same boat... (Sorry, horrible pun in this game...)

I'm beginning to think (from playing the test games) that the gold and crabs are a snare for the unwary.

A couple of people were talking about getting Polytheism, Monotheism and the Oracle, with the gist of the conversation being that it was a waste of time to try, because the delay caused by researching Fishing and/or Mining made it impossible.

I would agree Fishing and/or Mining make the others impossible, but after playing a few test scenarios, I'm getting more and more inclined to think you should just play your usual strategy, researching Fishing somewhat earlier than usual. (I assume Mining is pretty early on everybody's list.)

In my tests, if I did NOT try for either Mining or Fishing, I could get both Hinduism and Judaism. I missed the Oracle by about 6 turns. When I tried researching Priest after Hinduism, it cost me Judaism (again, by about 6 turns). While I did succeed in building Oracle, I built it TOO early - I had to settle for Monarchy.

On the occasions when I built Fishing first, I lost out on Hinduism, Monotheism, AND Oracle.

The gold and crabs aren't going anywhere, and the two commerce you get off each one isn't going to give you an overwhelming addition to the 9 you're already getting out of your capital. They ARE nice, but disrupting an already-working strategy to get the oh-so-wonderful goodies looks like a losing strategy to me, hence my comment about them being a snare.

Where I've gotten stuck in this type of game is what to do about the AI's huge advantages. The usual rule (which I'm honestly just beginning to master) is "Attack early and often", taking advantage of the AI's infelicities in the military realm.

Defending should be easier (if you're not on the same island with somebody), but attack is going to be murder.

At Emperor, every AI is going to be outteching AND outproducing me. Even on a land game, it's hard to get enough forces together to reliably take a city against those advantages. If I have to build transports and spend the time to move units relatively long distances, it's going to be a looong uphill battle.


Oh, one side note. One thing I discovered when playing the test maps: always send your galleys out "pregnant" (i.e. with at least one settler). If you discover somplace decent, by the time you come back and get a settler, the good spot will be long gone. (Apologies to anyone for whom I'm stating the obvious. It was an obvious-in-hindsight discovery for me.)

 

[LuckyAC]

I was able to do all right getting fishing first (in test games), getting Stonehenge + CoL with Oracle and founding the religion, or getting Pyramids (but not both of the last two). Only built one fishing boat though, so you have enough surplus to use the gold and still grow, two early on isn't worth the turns, since you just get too much surplus. But yeah, this game really netralizes human advantages. Firstly, we make much smarter terrain improvements, but with so much water, there isn't much to gain there, and as you said, war is hard. Cultural victory is basically a cheap way of bypassing comp advantages, but even that's hard, since religions spread so poorly on archiepelago.

 

[Anjin Sushi]

Could it be worth it to move the settler west before settling to connect the eastern and western "oceans"? This is good for the future navy movements. However, the advantage would depend on how small the island is. If its a very long north-south island it might be worth it. Anyway, there is not much to loose by moving one west before settling.

 

[lroumen]

Hmm... I didn't even start my GOTM13 yet and GOTM14 takes such a short time to complete...

I think my tactic will simply be a conquest victory. Nothing fancy, just amassing many military units and go win battles. Start in place, mining, fishing, sailing, bronze/iron working or maybe go with mass archery or horses if resources permit me to.

I don't like sea maps much and musketeers are only good when beelined for and even then they aren't that great. At least they'll have +1 strength for free. That does save us some time leveling them to get the higher promotions.

 

[da_Vinci]

Just finished GOTM 13 so only starting to look at this one.

If there is fish 2E, would the blue circle be on the hill? Also, looks like 3E is land ... are fish less likely to be on coast? They often seem to be 2 away from land, but maybe that is not a true pattern.

Moving settler west may be inferior, as that sacrifies a grass cottage for a plains cottage. Founding on the plain would seem to be the best use of the plains tile. Moving SW would be justified by a resource in the south. Or am I missing something?

dV

 

[lroumen]

Moderator Action: Please do not post in the pre-game threads once you have started the game

 

[lroumen]

Moderator Action: Please do not post in the pre-game threads once you have started the game