News: GOTM 20 Pre-Game Discussion

[jesusin]

One possibility:

1. Settle on plains hill N.
2. Build wkr first. (Avoid stealing wkrs before immortals are in production. Be ingratiating to AIs till then.)
3. Research Mng>AH>Wheel or AH>Mng>Wheel but make sure mining is done before wkr so you can mine gold asap.
4. Wkr mines/roads gold, then farms corn, then mines plains hill S of capital (for production of immortals). Wkr connects horses asap.
5. Scout everywhere near capital so you know where the closest horses are. (This is immortal so almost surely we have horses nearby because ainwood wants everyone to have a chance, imo.) Then scout to find out where all AIs on our landmass are.
6. Grow capital to at least size 3 before making settler. Maybe grow to 4 first it you have horses within 2nd cultural expansion.
7. Connect horses (build settler if necessary) and build enough immortals to pillage and steal wkrs from all AIs on our landmass. (1 immortal/AI)
8. Build your glorious empire as you mercilessly impede AI growth with your plundering immortals.
9. Wonder to yourself, is this really Immortal or is this Settler level?

A lot of good advice here. However there are two things that jumped to my eyes immediately as mistakes:

- I would farm the corn before mining the gold.
- I would build the settler asap, at pop2.

LowtherCastle, I am writing this in order to learn. It could be me who is mistaken! For example, I would prioritize the settler because it is a crowded map, but investing my hammers in taking more land peacefully could mean a big delay in churning out Immortals, thus delaying my victory.

What do you all think?

Is there any difference in being able to build a lighthouse? I'm guessing no either way, even the big lake is too small right?

Sure it would make a difference. I am assuming we can’t build a lighthouse here.

I like 1N. Worrying about turns > 300, or saving the rice for potential second city, seems WAY too finicky, at least to a player of my limited ability. I have to maximize my start -- especially with immortals + such an early UU. For me it'd be putting the cart before the horse, worrying about my second city on turn 0 .

I agree. In addition, I wouldn’t settle my second city too close to my capital. This is a crowded map and we are creative. The further we claim our land, the more space we will have for fill-in cities (and the less cities we will have to take from AIs).


Finally, I am also intrigued. Will the early rushers build barracks?

 

[Lexad]

I would farm the corn before mining the gold

Second that, unless you want much commerce soon - like for early religion grabbing or reveailing copper - and you're willing to sacrifice some growth for it.

 

[Harbourboy]

Who has had a go at JungleIII's handy test game? If so, how have you gone?

Spoiler :

At 1600 BC, I have two cities and only 2 immortals. My immediate neighbours both have spearmen and axemen already and I can't see their copper or iron so it is not anywhere handy. So need lots more immortals before taking them on. How much better can I expect to be at this point?

 

[dfi]

I made a test game to experiment. Used near identical setup as picture (but reversed) and assumptions of horses were in fat cross and that adventurer would get worker and one of the first rank techs. Forgot to save at 4000BC, but here is a 3960BC if anyone is interested. View attachment Daobhaidh BC-3960.Civ4SavedGame

I used the tactics everyone is discussing in here (mainly be aggressive & Medic I & 1N).. I made a couple of bad mistakes, but I'm doing really well compared to normal. I'm starting to get nervous around 250BC, though, and would appreciate any pointers on some of my problems. I really feel that I could win this if it doesn't fall all apart, and it would be my first victory above monarch difficulty.

I don't think I can SS or explain well enough so here's a save: View attachment Daobhaidh BC-0250.Civ4SavedGame

I am having trouble with $$ and it is becoming a research problem. War with Japan is over and I don't have rape & pillage income flowing in. My current plans are

• move my capital to 'New Delhi' which is the center of my empire and hopefully reduce maintenance.
• working on $$ improvements around and hoping this will help a tiny bit.
• move all my immortals over towards mansa and invade asap. go pillage everything and take out the less protected cities.

Any thoughts would be helpful =)

 

[dfi]

Who has had a go at JungleIII's handy test game? If so, how have you gone?

Oh crud, somehow I missed that... I spent an hour making my own. I'll give it a go tomorrow if I can find time.

If it is anything like the map I made (assuming similar, based off picture?) at 1640BC I have 2 towns i made, 1 razed town, 1 captured capital, 10 Immortals (still alive)

 

[Harbourboy]

Man! How did you manage to have 10 immortals by 1640 BC. I haven't seen your game, but did you have horses in your first city's zone? I just can't seem to be able to do anything fast enough.

 

[Diamondeye]

Lexad, is it worth the shields to build a barracks?

 

[Lexad]

Baracks = 60 shields on normal IIRC, while immortal is 25 - about 2,5 immortals cost. Therefore, if you have horses right away, I'd first build a bunch of immortals (4-7) to cripple/kill nearest couple of AI, and only then barracks. You basicly need 2 immortals for each archer in the city - 1 to weaken (may survive) and 1 to finish; waiting for escorted settler and destroying both escort in the open and the weakened city defence is a classic move.
If you wait for border expansion, you can put in barracks having nothing else to build with your starting techs. Then finishing it would give you some useful tech advantage.
Chop your early units.
Luckily in Vanilla AI has no custom to settle on resources, so you can usually cut off enemy's horses and metals.

 

[Diamondeye]

Luckily in Vanilla AI has no custom to settle on resources, so you can usually cut off enemy's horses and metals.

However, they do seem to protect them with archer/skirmisher/swordsman/axemen units...?

 

[LowtherCastle]

A lot of good advice here. However there are two things that jumped to my eyes immediately as mistakes:

- I would farm the corn before mining the gold.
- I would build the settler asap, at pop2.

LowtherCastle, I am writing this in order to learn. It could be me who is mistaken! For example, I would prioritize the settler because it is a crowded map, but investing my hammers in taking more land peacefully could mean a big delay in churning out Immortals, thus delaying my victory.

What do you all think?

I tried this strategy using JungleIII's goodjob: thx) test map.

• The first thing I noticed was that I had to leave the gold mine idle for 3 turns growing to pop2, so Lexad's analysis is right on target.
• BUilding the farm first has the additional benefit of allowing you to research AH before mining, so you know whether you even need the second settler for horses, which addresses your second point. That is clearly the better overall solution.
• Also noticed that needing the second settler drastically slows down this overall strategy, if your goal is to cripple more than 2-3 nearby AIs. So, my original strategy, with the above alteration may only apply to having horses within capital's borders. I defer to Balbes if he can do it no matter what...

The alternative, "traditional" strategy, which Lexad briefly describes is probably much safer if we need a second settler. This is the strategy of crippling your nearby neighbors to facilitate your own territorial REX. THis strategy, incidentally may be useful for most any victory condition you have at this level, although it's not the only possibility. If your goal is to then continue on a conquest strategy, then as I see it, you need BW next for axes for your second wave of pillaging more distant AIs.

Here are some changes I'll try tonight:

• Research AH>mng>wheel>BW
• Farm corn, then mine gold, EDIT: then road to horses, then chop
• Build first wave of Immortals (pre-barracks) whose priorities are
  1. steal at least 1-2 wkrs, The additional wkrs are critical to fast-chopping brracks and more immortals. I'm not sure about the barracks, but my thinking is that eventually we're going to being paying too much maintenance on units so there's a point where barracks are more cost-effective. I may be wrong on this.
  2. pillage 1-2 nearby AIs,
  3. REXing so I have at least 2 more prod centers and maybe a finance/resource center or two.
• Connect copper asap. When BW is done, check to see if I can capture my access to copper, otherwise, chop/poprush(?)/build a settler asap.
• Send out pillaging stacks that also have an axe (or two?). These stacks prepare for the ensuing total conquest.

 

[culdeus]

Man! How did you manage to have 10 immortals by 1640 BC. I haven't seen your game, but did you have horses in your first city's zone? I just can't seem to be able to do anything fast enough.

I pulled off nearly that many with horses on one of the grasses. It takes constant chopping and whipping. A worker steal can really speed things up. Steal two and you can be turning one out every few turns till you've run out of trees.

 

[Tosti11]

Luckily in Vanilla AI has no custom to settle on resources, so you can usually cut off enemy's horses and metals.

Thanks for the analysis. If we don't have copper/horses in city radius and neet to build a city to claim them is it a good idea to build on the resource at this level with aggressive AI?

 

[Tosti11]

Also, I might need some directions like Tosti above... is a pillage war a no-brainer? (atleast -3 relation even after the war is over, eventually a minus with other AIs aswell.)

Just to clarify, i meant that when at war, pillaging if you can't take a city is a no brainer. My question was about starting a war just to worker steal and/or pillage, which the quote helps to quantify the consequences. Other posts from the top players seem to indicate that pillaging is a must to cripple the AI at this level. But obviously long term goals will dictate actions towards AI who are not immediate neighbors, assuming nearest 2-3 neighbors will be attacked for workers and city/resources sites.

 

[Harbourboy]

I have played the JungleIII map five times now and only on my fifth game have I been able to make any progress at all (even with the foreknowledge that comes with repeating the same map).

The problem is that my success in the fifth game was only because China somehow took much longer to get their copper connected, so was not actually due to anything I did better.

No matter what I do, by the time I get my horses connected, the AI all have spearmen and don't hesitate to rip a stack of immortals to shreds as soon as you declare war.

 

[LowtherCastle]

No matter what I do, by the time I get my horses connected, the AI all have spearmen and don't hesitate to rip a stack of immortals to shreds as soon as you declare war.

The AI is also thinking, "Dumb humanoid, why did he DoW me with only immortals against my spears?"

It's always a matter of timing. Each game is different. If he beats you to copper, then you re-evaluate and wait for axes to protect your immortals.

 

[Harbourboy]

That sounds like a nice theory (and I am sure it works for you because you are more skilled than me), but I tried that in my 3rd game, but by the time I had copper and horses hooked up and built a stack of immortal, spearmen, and axemen, the Chinese had catapults and longbowmen! And the Chinese are the weakest AI – the English have all this stuff long before the Chinese.

 

[JungleIII]

Harbourboy... I think you are moving too late - no expert, but my guess.

Using my test map, I made my first two immortals and wiped out a English settlement party, then wiped out one city north of London with just newly made immortals, then took over London, then last city just settled north of my capital, all before any axeman appeared - English were gone. Then took on Chinese with their axeman, not to hard with all the promotions now obtained, etc....

Now I'm at the stage I have to sit back and just research because I am having trouble proceeding with so much territory taken and such high maintenance costs at this skill level. The advise from Lexad and Lowthercastle worked a trick to get to here... now what?

 

[Harbourboy]

JungleIII, can you let me know exactly when you built your two immortals so I can see if I can replicate the tactics? By the time I had two immortals, England had spearmen in all their cities, so 2 immortals would have been ineffectual in taking cities.

Therefore I must have somehow been too slow in hooking up horses, but I can't think how I could do it any more quickly.

 

[dfi]

Now I'm at the stage I have to sit back and just research because I am having trouble proceeding with so much territory taken and such high maintenance costs at this skill level. The advise from Lexad and Lowthercastle worked a trick to get to here... now what?

Same here.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Now I'm at the stage I have to sit back and just research because I am having trouble proceeding with so much territory taken Maybe too much. At this stage you don't want to kill your economy, unless you're sure you can conquer the world without catapults. and such high maintenance costs at this skill level. The advise from Lexad and Lowthercastle worked a trick to get to here... now what?

For conquest, I think there are two basic strategies here:

• Rapid conquest of the world. Produce nothing but units by builds, chopping, and poprushing. Slave wkrs build roads to your next victim and chop units. Only build barracks in your initial prod centers. Selectively raze or keep conquered cities (depending on Conquest or Domination VC). At this difficulty level, a high-risk, do-or-die strategy, usually either avoided or "experimented with" by top players in GOTMs, by my observation (and I repeat, I don't rate myself a top player). You see this strategy in HOF games because they can select the maps/AIs, etc., to make it workable.
• REX a formidable empire by pilfering neighboring cities. By formidable, I mean one that can out-produce and out-research the AIs up to the point where you can then conquer, using cats/swords/war elephants, or maces instead of swords, or maces/knights instead of swords/elephants, etc. You have to balance unit costs with research ability for a while.

Basically, what you have probably done, JungleIII, should have set you up for an easily won game. My guess is that what you need to test now is exactly how many and which cities to conquer to give yourself an excellent research engine and a solid production engine. Don't overdo it. Your capital and 1-2 other prod cities may be all you need for now, plus 1-2-3 cities with lots of commerce (gems or maybe an AI's capital with some cottages--don't pillage the cottages if you need the commerce). Offhand, I'd guess you'd want about 1.5x or 2x of the AIs to play it safe.

Hopefully, Lexad or Balbesor someone else will point out where I've led you astray...