News: GOTM 15 Pre-game Discussion

[DynamicSpirit]

Have you ever tried what I would call "the capital gambit" ?
Assuming the following (not unlikely at all, I did it in one of my tests):

(1) your capital is not so great
(2) you have the possibility to capture (by Quechua rush) 3 cities of another Civ, eliminating it .
(3) the captured capital is absolutely great, but far away from your capital (e.g. maintenance for distance=5 gp)
(4) you have BW and it is 2500 BC or later

Definitely an intriguing idea. My instinct from a couple of deity test games is that it's so hard to keep up with the AIs that your capital would have to be pretty bad indeed to make it worth abandoning, thus weakening yourself. Given this is an Ainwood-modified map, I would imagine our starting area is going to be pretty decent.

 

[DaviddesJ]

If the barbarians capture a city, and then you recapture it, does it remember the unhappiness you have accumulated from pop rushing?

 

[VitalSol]

>> If the barbarians capture a city, and then you recapture it, does it remember the unhappiness you have accumulated from pop rushing?

Yes, it does.

 

[Ribannah]

* Wonders when people will stop raising cities they don't want and start razing them ... *

 

[Lexad]

And everybody is sure the capital will transfer to the city you want? Palace costs only 240 hammers against 150 for settler.

 

[JerichoHill]

Given that it is custom continents, I'm betting that a diplomatic victory is easily achievable.

Why? Because Ainwood has set up the map to be favorable, which makes me think we'll be able to Quecha Rush somone and eventually dominate our continent, hopefully before we meet others on the next continent, and from then on its a diplo juggling game.

 

[Adonias]

Diplo means you have to tech quite far into the tree... is there enough time for that before any or all of the AI hop of the planet?

 

[Gnejs]

Here is another test map. I hope I got it right.

View attachment Gnejs trial BC-4000.Civ4SavedGame

Good luck!


Edit: It is a challenger save...

 

[Ramzes XIII]

Moonsinger has successfully taken out ALL opponents on a standard Deity map with a Quecha rush (kids, don't try this at home).

OK! What would you do if we'd have 7 continents and no neighbours on the same continent? Then Quechua rush will look like that I think it will be our case. Soon we'll see.

 

[Erkon]

By the way, it will be critical to guess the techs AIs are researching in the mid-game. One file can help us in order to do so:

Assets\XML\Civilizations\CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml in the Civilization installation folder.

For instance, have a look at the tag "Flavors" and you can have an idea of each leader trends.

I found the excel version at the downloads page (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3359). It's a virtual goldmine and will be of great help when deciding how to treat the neighbors. Thanks for the hint!

 

[JerichoHill]

Diplo means you have to tech quite far into the tree... is there enough time for that before any or all of the AI hop of the planet?

Point...yes.

 

[godotnut]

OK! What would you do if we'd have 7 continents and no neighbours on the same continent? Then Quechua rush will look like that I think it will be our case. Soon we'll see.

I would think if the continent were that small, I would notice pretty quickly, stop building Quecha and change plans, using the Quecha I've built to fog bust.

 

[Bart_civ]

Hi all,

I've tried to create a suitable startsave for those of you who want a taste of this months GOTM. I've added the contender bonus, which can be disbanded by those of you who plan to play challenger.

I didn't manage to get the blue circles right, even by moving around hidden resources, and I'm pretty sure I didn't get all tiles correct on the visibility boundary.

The starting position is moved by a couple of tiles compared to the initial random map but that did not effect the distance to any (potential) nearby AI.

Finally, I used the random setting for number of continents, so remember that the real game will probably be very different (and probably require a very different strategy). Still, you can get a feeling of the tech progress pace, maintenance costs and barbarian problems.

Thanks for the save. After some research and a try on the map, I feel confident to do a Q-rush, if necessary.
Barbarians can be dealt with by placing Q's on strategic locations and maintenance is a matter of having good cities (e.g. food+gold/silver/gems) combined with early cottages (which I need to practice some more).
The tech pace is very fast, but with some good trading and enough neighbours (2), it should be possible to catch up.
And just when you start feeling good about your game, Khan drops his entire army on you...

Which leads me to my main issue at the moment: how to balance military vs. research? I mean, you need a strong economy no matter which path you go, but I feel like you can't do both: build up your power rating AND keep up in the tech race, because keeping a large army costs a lot of gold and even more when it's moving on enemy ground.
Is it worth delaying research at some point, collect the gold and upgrade the existing Q's to axes? Or should one city just pump out new units?

How many cities should we aim for? I think 3 is the right number to get you started up to 1500BC or so.

Of course, all of this could be a non-issue when we find ourselves alone on a continent with Monty, just of range...

 

[Adonias]

In most of the testmaps I saw the oponents are far away. Not very interesting to take over their cities, at least not in the early stages of the game.

I will spam Q's like mad, but only to either take an oponent out (raze everything) and then to bust FOW, or othertwise just to bust FOW. Barb spawning is crazy on diety.

Therefore, I plan to have covered the continent with Q's before barbs find out how to use axes and then, and only then start building an empire

(hmm... empire... sounds optimistic... :X)

 

[Markus5]

It does seem very likely that the continent will be large enough that a Quecha Rush won't be effective. As several have suggested, scouting and fog-busting will be the Quecha's job.

I think expansion will need to be measured. Typically, these are rather large continents. With fog-busting Quechas and well-placed cities, maybe I can keep maintenance costs under control. I should look to see what the sweet-spot is for the number of cities.

 

[Lexad]

It seems like the community still wets the pants recalling WOTM3. Relax, that was evil Gyathaar, not the kind ainwood - the author of this map. Quechuarush is the way

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It seems like the community still wets the pants recalling WOTM3. Relax, that was evil Gyathaar, not the kind ainwood - the author of this map. Quechuarush is the way

No doubt one day we'll have a Gyathaar-generated deity WOTM...

Seriously, I've tried a few practices and it looks to me like quecha rush only works if the AI is very close. More than about 15 tiles or so away and your quechas keep getting killed by barbs en route. OTOH if the nearest AI is that far away, you're quite likely to have some barb cities popping up nearby that you can quecha-rush instead.

For further AIs I've tried declaring war and leaving - maybe two groups of two quechas each in their territory to pillage and stop them hooking up copper/horses while my main quecha force deals with the barbs nearer home, but I've got very mixed results from doing that; it's quite expensive, and you only have to miss one resource for a few turns (easy to do when almost before you blink, the AI has about 5 cities you have to watch over) and before you know it, the AI has a chariot and all your quechas are dead

 

[Thrallia]

hm...despite my doing better than expected thus far on GOTM14 and WOTM4, I seriously doubt I'll survive the opening stages of this game.

WOTM4 is the first time I've actually even partially succeeded with an early war...and that early war wasn't really very early....still, it'll be nice to compare my game with the other losses

 

[Erkon]

Good luck everyone. I look forward to read the first spoiler, where I believe it will be evident which strategy and tactics will be succesful (or at least promising).

I will probably go for fishing, mining, BW and then towards writing, alphabet and literature. Build queue will be Quechua, Work Boat, Worker. Then it all depends on how close the AI is located...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Cheers Erkon! (And thanks for your test map, I actually played it to 1600AD before deciding I had learned enough about what deity games are like).

I'm going into this with the intention of trying for spacerace but I'm very open to changing my mind according to circumstance, I'm expecting a high probability of deciding between 0 and 500AD that spacerace ahead of the AI is not achievable. I'll probably research fishing-mining-bronze working-wheel-pottery (but may leave BW till after pottery depending on the situation). Then beeline first for alphabet, then for mathematics/construction.