News: GOTM76 Pre-Game Discussion

[civ_steve]

GOTM 76 Pre-Game Discussion

(finally!)

We'll move the difficulty up a notch to Emperor, and have you take on the world as Tokunaga, leader of the Japanese!

Civilization: Japan
Rivals: 7, preset
Barbarians: Restless
Difficulty: Emperor
Land Form: Continents, 70% ocean, Standard map.
Geology: 3 billion years old, Normal, Warm

Conquest-Class Bonuses:

1. Start with 2 Archers
2. Start with an extra 100 Gold
3. Start with knowledge of Pottery

Predator-Class Challenges:

1. Your Japanese are Athiests and start without CB
2. All AI start with 1 Pike and 1 more Bonus Unit Support
3. Your UU does not start a Golden Age

A reminder: do not post any game information to this thread after you have downloaded the save file. Absolutely no spoiler information for this or any GOTM is to be posted in this thread!

Special Note: we will start this game a day late on Feb 16th, and end it a month later on March 16th. Happy Valentine's Day!

 

[eldar]

Re: Predator handicap.

Japan start with CB+Wheel anyway so "losing" WC is no handicap at all!

And the thread title says "GOTM75".

But a nice starting spot for Emperor. Might even make for a sweet 20K location and well, it is Japan in PTW.

 

[civ_steve]

OK. It's been a long day ... er, week. Drop WC reference and make it CB. (Taking away Wheel would be too mean for me )

 

[Più Freddo]

There's no obvious reason to move. The starting position is at the very beginning low on shields, later (past Despotism) to become high on shields with all those Hills. The prospects for RCP3 are good.

Barbarians are few, so I'm thinking of an early second Worker for the Grasslands in the north while we're working only Flood Plains in the beginning.

We can have a four-turn Settler factory under Despotism only if there's a hidden BG, say 2NE.
But otherwise, we could use the Gold Hill in a six-turner.

 

[eldar]

For 20K I'd be tempted to move the settler 2S, and put the second one back on the starting loc for the 20K city itself. True two FPs will drain some shields but there is still a lot of potential.

 

[Marsden]

For 20K I'd be tempted to move the settler 2S, and put the second one back on the starting loc for the 20K city itself. True two FPs will drain some shields but there is still a lot of potential.

Would settling on a hill be good for 20k?

BTW, I know this is a stupid comment, but I hate it when the Japanese are red. I think I'll stick with the Ottomans this month.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I don't see that we need another shield for the 4 turner. It is an orthodox shield pattern, running at size 5-7: town (2,1) + i_moo (1,2) + i_flood (1,0) + i_flood (1,0) + m_bg (0,2) + m_grass (0,1) = (5,6) @ pop 5. The forest is used on growth, and an i_plain gets an extra (0,1) at the larger size.

 

[DWetzel]

A noob waits to learn what's horribly wrong with settling 1S, making use of the otherwise crappy desert, enabling the cow to get irrigated fastest (worker SE- irrigate-road-move to cow), and still keeping lots of hills in the radius along with the flood plains?

In other thoughts, I'm really curious to see what's on the east side of that hill range.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Valid question. I like eldar's suggestion of playing 20k in this location, but 3 desert tiles is a bit of a drag. Settling on one of them would earn you 2fpt/spt in the long run. But is that worth losing the free aqueduct you get for being on the river? Probably not; in the case of a 20k site, no way - you want to get size 12 long before Construction comes available. And in the case of any other VC, this area can support as a 4-turn settler factory iff you can run at size 5-7, which again requires that free aqueduct.
Mind you, if there is another food bonus hiding somewhere (by which I really mean a flood wheat 3SE) then the whole 4-turn settler business gets a lot easier. I can't see such a food bonus by fog-gazing, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It's not worth planning for just on the off-chance, but is it worth starting with worker:E to have a look?

Edit: in the case of a 20k town, you also wouldn't want to move away from the gold.

 

[Più Freddo]

I don't see that we need another shield for the 4 turner.

Hmm. It seems I must have counted the city centre for a citizen.

The two Grassland tiles on River are better than all the Plains tiles off River, but they take longer to improve. It seems attractive to cut down the nearest forest and then irrigate the Plains from there all the way to the Cattle tile. I wonder if that can be timed with the Granary?

 

[eldar]

I certainly wouldn't want to lose the river for a 20K site. Which leaves settling on the hills or an FP. And setting on the FP loses the gold.

As for the desert - you won't need them 'til Sanitation, by which point you'll have rails and can make use of mined deserts. Problem solved.

The only trouble may be losing the cow (for a settler pump) once the 20K city hits size 12. There may however be other food bonuses elsewhere to compensate.

 

[tR1cKy]

Generally it's better to settler near a river. The town tile gets more gold and, later in the game, the city may grow past size 6 without the aqueduct. This becomes of critical importance once you're in Republic. Without cities size 7+ you're likely to pay a horrible amount of gpt for unit support.

In this case, settling on site is even more advantageous. You can set up a 4-turns settler factory with 2 irrigated floodplains, the gold hill, the bonus grassland and 2 irrigated plains (or 1 plain + 1 mined grass).

Then, if SEx3 is another floodplain it is also possible to set up a 2-turns worker factory Sx2-SE of the spot.

Settling S would still give both the factories, but with significantly less money per turn.

 

[Più Freddo]

settling 1S, making use of the otherwise crappy desert, enabling the cow to get irrigated fastest (worker SE- irrigate-road-move to cow

Bzzt. No water in that town. You'd still have to irrigate a Flood Plains tile first. And irrigating a Flood Plains gives exactly the same food as irrigating the Cattle on Plains tile. So the fastest way is to irrigate the Flood Plains, preferably both for 4 fpt and 5-turn growth. And you also get all the plentiful gold from these tiles.

It is true what has been said about getting 2 fpt out of the Desert tile, but by the time that ploy has started paying off at all you have Railroads and can get that amount from each of the three Desert tiles anyway. Since there are so many other tiles around, it only makes a difference after you've built a Hospital, unless you place cities really, really tightly. So forget the Desert until sometime in the Industrial Age.

Using a Hills tile (lose 1 gpt and 1 or 2 spt, win 1 fpt) is no big deal. At sizes 7..12 the city centre gets a spt bonus (under Republic), and there are a lot of Hills around.

 

[DWetzel]

Bzzt. No water in that town. You'd still have to irrigate a Flood Plains tile first. And irrigating a Flood Plains gives exactly the same food as irrigating the Cattle on Plains tile. So the fastest way is to irrigate the Flood Plains, preferably both for 4 fpt and 5-turn growth. And you also get all the plentiful gold from these tiles.

Hence the worker SE (to irrigate + road that flood plain), then move through the town to the cow. By settling in the desert, you make use of an otherwise craptastic tile, you get the effect of being able to get the cow irrigated faster, and there's nothing to say a second city can't take advantage of the gold hills/etc.

Of course, all that said, there is that min or *ahem* issue of losing the river, which I completely missed, and that may well override everything else.

 

[Chamnix]

Just to be a bit contrary, I don't think founding the capital on fresh water is always that important in PTW. In many games, the capital will build settlers for a while then the palace will be moved somewhere else without your first city ever needing to reach size 7.

However, with a 4-turn factory on the spot and not a guaranteed one if we move, I'll be staying in place here also.

 

[tR1cKy]

In this case, settling on site is even more advantageous. You can set up a 4-turns settler factory with 2 irrigated floodplains, the gold hill, the bonus grassland and 2 irrigated plains (or 1 plain + 1 mined grass).

Then, if SEx3 is another floodplain it is also possible to set up a 2-turns worker factory Sx2-SE of the spot.

Errata: don't follow this schema. It's wrong. I counted the irrigated FP as 4 food per turn, not taking into account the despotism penalty. The 4-turner may still be set up, with 2 FP + irrigated moo + mined bonus grass + grass/plains, but forget about the worker factory.

 

[Più Freddo]

not taking into account the despotism penalty. [...] forget about the worker factory.

And here I was asking myself why you'd think you'd be in Republic really soon...? It's not C3C, after all.

 

[tR1cKy]

ghgh... when reading my notes (before realizing the error) i was asking myself how was is possible that our start location was so food-rich...