News: WOTM-02 Pre-Game Discussion

[Murky]

The leader traits, UB and UU seem to point more towards going for space race more than domination or conquest.

 

[Manic_]

I actually allways think raging barbs on higher difficulties helps the human, as the AI has more stuff to defend and probably gets some tile improvements wiped out.
Although this doesn't really count on prince level.
I'll look for a domination win this time, conquest if dom is going to be hard, (lets hope we won't need astro)

Also, 4 beavers? omg ...

Manic_

 

[malekithe]

I actually allways think raging barbs on higher difficulties helps the human, as the AI has more stuff to defend and probably gets some tile improvements wiped out.

Really? I would think that, starting with one or more archers and the ability to build more immediately, it is actually the AI opponents who are at a considerable advantage with respect to raging barbarians.

 

[Murky]

I've been playing the practice saves but still not sure of the optimal paths to take.

The first practice save I went with agriculture, ah, hunting, archery, masonry and worker>warrior>warrior>warrior>settler>archer. With the huge growth curve from the food, I was able to knock out GW, Pyramids (GE from gw) and do the Oracle>CS slingshot. Was also able to found Confucianism with CoL. Having both the GW and Pryamids resulted in a lot of GEs being generated.

The 2nd practice save I went with agriculture, hunting, archery, ah and worker>warrior>warrior>archer>archer>settler. This works good against the barbarians but not as good for quick growth. Can still do the GW but the Oracle/CS slingshot is a bit iffy.

I guess which one depends how how much risk you want to take with the barbarians and how important the wonders are to your strategy.

 

[Gnejs]

I am in exactly the same boat as you! Epic GOTMs just kick my butt, time-wise. I submitted incomplete GOTM9 and 10s and will not even submit WOTM1. GOTM11 is even taking longer than expected for me (you too, I guess) and that is regular speed!

I have a new strategy though. I think that things take so damn long because I tend to try for domination wins. All that troop movement takes forever!

Anyway my solution is to try for a cultural victory for this WOTM. I have never done it - but this leader & setup seem especially well suited for it. Shouldn't take nearly as much real-world time to pull off a cultural victory vs. a domination one (at least that's what I am hoping!)

Cultural is a good idea, but I have an even better one:

I am going to run this game as a one-city challenge. Starting position is actually fairly nice for this, although the traits of the civ are not well suited. Industrious or Philosophical would have been better. Anyway, this is only Prince, so I actually have some hopes despite not having the major benefit of a real OCC: the ability to build all national wonders in one city.

Wish me luck, I might need it.

 

[Pudd'nhead]

well, i just barely got WOTM1 done yesterday, so maybe if I start now I can finish by 1am 11/15 ! In the push to get WOTM1 done I'm still only around 500 bc in GOTM11, so I think I'll just give up on that & throw myself into this.

I'm a pretty vanilla Civ4 player, always play normal speed, continents, etc. WOTM1 was my first GOTM. The fractal part I figure I can't know what will happen anyway, but ... regarding the epic speed, can anyone point me to anything that will at least give me some idea of the major differences in how things play? And about how much longer it takes than a normal game (1.5x? 2x? 60x?!?) I know, I know, play apractivce game, but ... I think I'll barely get done as it is. I just want to spend 20 mintues learning the general idea of what's different, not go into training like it was a marathon or something. Anyone? Thanks.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm a pretty vanilla Civ4 player, always play normal speed, continents, etc. WOTM1 was my first GOTM. The fractal part I figure I can't know what will happen anyway, but ... regarding the epic speed, can anyone point me to anything that will at least give me some idea of the major differences in how things play? And about how much longer it takes than a normal game (1.5x? 2x? 60x?!?) I know, I know, play apractivce game, but ... I think I'll barely get done as it is. I just want to spend 20 mintues learning the general idea of what's different, not go into training like it was a marathon or something. Anyone? Thanks.

Basically, on epic, everything (except unit movement) takes 1.5 times as long as on normal. You need 1.5 times as many beakers to research each tech, 1.5 times as many great-person-points to get a great person (so the first one is 150 gpp instead of 100), 1.5 times as many hammers to build stuff. All worker actions take 1.5 times as many turns to complete, but chopping a forest gives you 1.5 times as many hammers. And there's 1.5 times as many turns before the game ends (the years progress more slowly with turns). Cities need 1.5 times as much culture to grow too (culture borders expand on 15, 150, 750, etc. instead of 10, 100, 500, etc.) and to get a cultural victory your 3 cities need 75K culture instead of 50K.

Where the difference comes in is that that means your units get to move 1.5 times as far per technology-period, and potentially you can fight 1.5 times as many battles etc. before a unit gets obsolete (The period for peace treaties etc. is still 10 turns, same as normal speed btw). That most likely means that games will take 1.5 times as long as a normal-speed game if you're playing to the end game, eg. for a space race victory, but if you're going for something like a fast conquest, you'll probably complete the game in similar real-time to a normal game.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Cultural is a good idea, but I have an even better one:

I am going to run this game as a one-city challenge. Starting position is actually fairly nice for this, although the traits of the civ are not well suited. Industrious or Philosophical would have been better. Anyway, this is only Prince, so I actually have some hopes despite not having the major benefit of a real OCC: the ability to build all national wonders in one city.

Wish me luck, I might need it.

Good luck!

I'm intrigued. I don't know much about the one city challenge - I guess you only build one city and can't build or capture any the whole game?

Don't know if you can spare some time to explain it to me. How do you win with only one city?

If viable (maybe only at the low difficulty levels) this might allow me to participate in more of these GOTMs and WOTMs especially at epic speeds.

 

[Gnejs]

Good luck!

I'm intrigued. I don't know much about the one city challenge - I guess you only build one city and can't build or capture any the whole game?

Don't know if you can spare some time to explain it to me. How do you win with only one city?

If viable (maybe only at the low difficulty levels) this might allow me to participate in more of these GOTMs and WOTMs especially at epic speeds.

If you start a custom game there is an option for playing a one-city challenge. As far as I remember, these are the differences to a normal game:

• You can't build settlers
• Can't capture cities, they are always razed instead
• Can build all national wonders in one city - a huge benefit!
• ....hmm, can't remember anything else

But this option is not enabled for the WOTM, so the one-city part of it is going to be self-imposed. This also means that there is a limit to two national wonders in the city which makes it much more challenging.

I guess all victories are theoretically possible except domination and cultural. The only one that seems to have a half-decent chance on this map has to be a diplomatic - which will require some serious skill to pull off.

Check in the strategy forum, there are some guides to winning a OCC even on higher difficulties...

Edit: Here are a few recent

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185305

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=172882

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185970

 

[Manic_]

Really? I would think that, starting with one or more archers and the ability to build more immediately, it is actually the AI opponents who are at a considerable advantage with respect to raging barbarians.

Yes - but compared to no barbs the ai cannot expand as quickley. Although you can't either, but usually i don't expand as much as the ai, as maintanance costs (happy and health also) at higher levels kills more.
And if you make total 4 cities, you can go military for a bit and capture the now numerous barb cities which usually only have warrioir/archer defences early on.

Well that was my reasoning, guess it depends what you play.

 

[Murky]

I think the raging barbs option is actually a difficulty lowering option in Warlords. The main reason is the Great Wall. You will know to beeline for it but the AIs don't seem to care. With RBs on, whoever builds the GW has a huge advantage over their rivals in the early part of the game.

 

[Heroic]

If the camp is on a forest....can you chop the forest after the camp is built?

 

[EricStratton]

Doesn't the AI get a bonus against barbarians anyway? I wouldn't think raging barbs would effect them much.

 

[Murky]

Doesn't the AI get a bonus against barbarians anyway? I wouldn't think raging barbs would effect them much.

It does in many ways. The first is they will be slowed in their expansion efforts and will have their improvements pillaged or not built by the time they usually do. In one practice game two barbarian axemen took a city from a AI civ which I soon took from the barbarians with no political consequences.

The one downside is that it tends to give their city defenders lots of promotions which makes early conquest against them a bit tougher.

 

[Heroic]

One more question.

Last game I wanted to gift a conquered Arab city to Zulu. It came up as red on my side, and I couldnt gift it. Is there some tech required for city gifting that I am missing?

I really wish I could find a summary of the techs that open diplomacy options. Some of them I know, like alpha, paper, and haveing cities connected to trade resources. But apparenetly there are some I dont know. I ended up havint to keep that city, and I know it would have benefitted zulu better than me.

 

[Murky]

AIs won't accept a city as a gift if it's a bad deal for them.

Sailing opens up trade on the Seas. I think Astronomy opens trade on Oceans.

 

[godotnut]

@Gnejs:

You may want to reconsider the notion of a self-imposed one city challenge. For one, it might not be possible. Your one city will likely be pumping out a considerable amount of culture later in the game (all wonders concentrated in one city, etc.). Someone--barbs or AI--will try to settle on your borders, and you will likely flip such a city in an OCC. But without the OCC option actually checked, you will be forced to keep the city--no more OCC. For those who haven't tried it, culture flipping a city with the OCC option checked makes the city explode an amusing little puff.

Also consider the fact that not only will you only be able to build two national wonder in your capital, you will not be able to build the one national wonder absolutely critical to OCC games--the Globe Theater. I seldom build this wonder at all, so it's easy to forget that it requires five theaters in other cities, which will be impossible with a self-imposed OCC. (The OCC option lets you build it with only the one theater in your capital.)

My experiece is that OCC games rely heavily on the fact that with the Globe Theater, you have no happiness cap in your capital. Thus the dirth of luxury resources created by your lack of expansive terrain is no longer a problem. You can trade away any luxury resources that you have for health resources, which you will need badly. Without the Globe Theater, your city's population growth will be drastically cut off.

A self-imposed OCC also prevents access to the other big advantage of normal OCCs (besides being able to build all national wonders in one city). That is, early access to the Oxford University. With normal OCCs, you only need one university to build the Oxford U. With a self-imposed OCC, you won't be able to build the Oxford U. at all.

 

[godotnut]

Oh and I wanted to say welcome to the new faces around here. We're a helpful bunch, I think. And lurkers, please don't feel intimidated by the conversations here. If you join in, in no time, you'll feel right at home. And to me, the write ups and comments of newer players are often as fun to read as the ones from the pros. It gives me a fresh perspective on the game and "keeps things real," as the saying goes.

 

[Sir Og]

@Gnejs:

You may want to reconsider the notion of a self-imposed one city challenge. For one, it might not be possible. Your one city will likely be pumping out a considerable amount of culture later in the game (all wonders concentrated in one city, etc.). Someone--barbs or AI--will try to settle on your borders, and you will likely flip such a city in an OCC. But without the OCC option actually checked, you will be forced to keep the city--no more OCC. For those who haven't tried it, culture flipping a city with the OCC option checked makes the city explode an amusing little puff.

When a city flips you get an option if you want keep it or raze it. It is the same as when you capture a city. This won't be a problem for a self imposed OCC game. The other points you razed are valid however.
Happines can be dealt with by hereditary rule but still it is going to be tought with so much land at that difficulty level. I guess that a very good player can pull off a space race victory.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Someone--barbs or AI--will try to settle on your borders, and you will likely flip such a city in an OCC. But without the OCC option actually checked, you will be forced to keep the city--no more OCC.

I think this was changed in one of the patches, so you can decide whether to keep a city that flips.