News: GOTM132 Greece - Pre-game discussion

[mad-bax]

GOTM132 Greece - Pre-game discussion

Hi everyone and welcome to this very late announcement thread for GOTM132.

Once again, following our new format, we will be sponsoring a specific victory condition. For this game it is Conquest. Of course, you can play and submit a game played to any victory (or loss) condition, but medals and other awards will only be made for conquest victories. You can lose any way you like. Those awards are unaffected.

This is an emperor level game and you play as Alexander of the Greeks. The Greek tribe is scientific and commercial and their unique unit is an old favourite, the hoplite. The hoplite is an upgrade of the spearman unit (which the Greeks cannot build) and is stronger in defence.

This game continues to use a modified form of the standard PTW scenario, and although no bugs have been reported in some time, it is possible that play testing has not been exhaustive. Any in-game event or behaviour that a player feels is unintended should be reported to the GOTM staff immediately.

Remember that it is not mandatory to play to the sponsored victory condition. All wins and losses will be accepted. There will be no Jason score adjustments for other types of wins and losses. However, no awards will be made for victories other than conquest.

The map parameters are:-

Civilization: Greece
Difficulty: Emperor
Map size: 100(X) X 100(Y) - standard
Map topology: Cylindrical continents (x-wrap on)
Rivals: 14 pre-selected opponents
Victory conditions: Conquest
Submissions due by: 12th April 2014

Here is your start position:

Your starting save game can be found here.

 

[greatbeyond]

It looks like a move is in order but which way? 1SE gives us fresh water for growth and is on the coast. In addition, if we should want to establish a shortcut through the continent, another city could go either 1N, 1NW, 1N1NE.

The dyes will help for early happiness, but I don't see any production or growth bonuses. I hate to waste worker turns but 1W to the mountaintop might be worthwhile.

I usually try to expand rapidly before I go warmongering. With such a strong defensive unit, perhaps early war is better than building infrastructure.

A lot of unknowns here. I would like to cast a vote for letting us know what the Barb status is in each game description. It makes a big difference in planning between sedentary and raging, or even restless.

 

[tR1cKy]

I already opened the save so i can't say much. But i don't think it would be beyond the scope of this thread if i share the thoughts i had before opened it, wouldn't it?

Emperor. Standard map. Lots of opponents. No food bonuses in sight. This means a slow progression, where the AS are likely to outpace us at first and not give us much room to expand. But it can't be that bad. I assume the game is at least manageable to the average player. Therefore the question is: what lies beyond the fog?

We need to figure out the surroundings quickly, but we can't waste too much time wandering either. So the best initial stragegy seems to settle fast, build some warriors, send them exploring and build the 2nd settler as soon as possible. What happens next depends on what the explorers will discover.

I see two possibilities for the capital: one is N directly over dyes, one is E-SE. Both of them will benefit of an uncapped growth, some extra money and at least two bonus grasslands in the city radius.

On the research front, slow growth means little money to spend on it, so i tend to favour a min run on Writing, and to rely on contacts to purchase Pottery and other useful things.

That's all for now. See you all in the spoilers (hopefully).

 

[Più Freddo]

I've started as well.

The first spoiler says change government, which sort of loosely defines a point in time much dependent on strategy, and in PTW not very soon no matter how hard you try. I guess, from the settings, that a despotic challenge would be a very brave undertaking indeed. I hope that a reasonable comparison of games will be possible.

 

[mad-bax]

...I hope that a reasonable comparison of games will be possible.

I should think it will be OK.