News: WOTM 05 Pre-Game Discussion

[ewokimpi]

Ugly map, fantasy is fun but bizarre.

I'm glad of the lower difficulty too. And Normal speed. I'm still staggering my way through WOTM4.

I'm probably settling in place on the Plains-Hill. Maybe scout to the west first to see if settling on the Jungle-Plains-Hill would be better.

No idea of my tech path... need to make a practice map and mess around.

Not played Shaka before. Do Impi's get both Combat I and Mobility I out the starting gate? They are like Chariots, then, except they kill any horse unit they meet. I wonder if concentrating on an Impi rush rather than an Axe rush would be better? Sounds like fun.

Of course Cu will turn out to be on a flood plain-Jungle tile, will need Iron to mine it!

Remember to fog bust, and research archery. This is Raging Barbs on a wide open, nearly all land map. Omnidirectional defense will be necessary. And the AI's will probably tech slow, like they did on the last Raging Barb map (WOTM2).

 

[Jenarie]

I'm not really sure what to do with the UU. In the past I've only really needed spear units if someone had hordes of elephants coming at me. Aren't they somewhat useless unless your opponent is mounted? The movement is nice though.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Anyone who's built the great wall - do the barbs lose interest in your borders or do they all congregate just outside your borders ready to pounce on any unit that emerges?

 

[lroumen]

Barbarians just walk past you and tr to raze the roads that lead to other civs, other than that some may straggle but rarely.

 

[Alraun]

Really, dificulty is to low to be any fun.
Common, WOTM3 and 4 were resonalbly low dificulty.
3 was just monarch and 4 on extrimelly slow speed, which lowering dificulty.

I do believe average level of player increase, so games below monarch dificulty are probably not fun for magority now.

Personally, I'd rather see higher as well, but I'm pretty sure the majority actually play below Monarch.

 

[CivSetä]

...I'm pretty sure the majority actually play below Monarch.

I disagree. As Civ4 is relatively old game, most of the sunday players have already forgotten it and went for some other game. All fanatics left have propably made their way at least to the Prince level - majority plays Monarch or higher.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I disagree. As Civ4 is relatively old game, most of the sunday players have already forgotten it and went for some other game. All fanatics left have propably made their way at least to the Prince level - majority plays Monarch or higher.

There's still going to be a steady trickle of players who have only just bought Civ4, or who have had it for a while but have only just started exploring the forums or the competition (and hence haven't learnt all the different strategies that various players here have developed to play on higher levels).

Also, I've certainly had games before that I've played a while, then left, then come back to again, or which I've maintained a low-level interest in for a long time; I'm sure it's plausible that such players exist for Civ too.

(I for one am glad that the GOTMs/WOTMs span a variety of levels going down to prince or lower. Both because I like that newer players get a chance to play them, and because I find GOTMs on lower levels than I'd normally play on interesting for experimenting with different strategies to see how they might play out.)

 

[CivSetä]

It would be interesting to know typical numbers of Civ4s sold weekly worldwide, does anyone have a clue? I admit that this type of game keeps selling much longer than average games, but is the flow of new players big enough compared to old veterans? I doubt that.

 

[Cabledawg]

I made a test game. I regenerated a map till I had most of the features and some resources, then worldbuilt the rest.



The save
http://www.deadzoom.com/member/yoohoo3131/WOTM5TestBC-4000.CivWarlordsSave

 

[Vynd]

Yes, Impis get Combat I and Mobility for free. They're superb pillaging units and pretty good at everything else you might want. Axemen are their only real weakness, but if you can pillage away your enemy's metal...

If you build the Great Wall any barbarians inside of your borders will be forced out. And after that barbarians appear to ignore your territory completely. They'll just skirt the outside edges on their way to attacking your neighbors' cities.

I don't usually play at Prince level either, but this looks like a fun change of pace game to me. For those who think Prince is too easy a difficulty level, I suggest thinking in terms of "how fast can I win?" or "how high can I score?" In other words, consider the challenge to be doing better than the rest of us WOTMers.

 

[vixafox]

Cabledawg

Thanks for the practice map. I have never played this map type before, so some practice will be essential.

Vixafox

 

[bldrnnr]

I'm still relatively new to Civ4/Warlords...I can't consistently win on noble yet. So I for one am glad for an easier game.

 

[Cabledawg]

I played my test map out and the game seemed really easy. Im not sure if its the difficulty level or the fact that the AI dont seem to handle the weird resource placement as well as a human. I was able to get the capitol up to size 16 with 4 specialist. I could have grown it further, but anything beyond that, gains you nothing. I built all the early wonders before the military buildup. Enjoyable game though and looking forward to the WOTM.

One more thing. Im not done with the game and have seen 70% of the map. Theres isnt any Iron anywhere I can see. I went into worldbuilder and there is 4 Iron on the whole map. 3 of them are within 7 tiles of each other. That seems weird.

 

[Duelingground]

This looks like a lot of fun, esp. the Raging Barbs, as I've not been playing with them at all recently.

Not sure which class I'll play, starting with zero techs seems kinda scary, but starting with the extra seems overboard, maybe I'll just flip a coin.

Cabledawg - major thanks for the save, I'm thinking I'll knock off a bit early today(like in an hour or two), and go try it out. Never played the Fantasy Map before, can use the practice.

 

[a space oddity]

Not sure which class I'll play, starting with zero techs seems kinda scary, but starting with the extra seems overboard, maybe I'll just flip a coin.

Alternatively you can play Contender class (no bonusses and no handicaps ).

 

[Duelingground]

Alternatively you can play Contender class (no bonusses and no handicaps ).

Good idea.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I played my test map out and the game seemed really easy. Im not sure if its the difficulty level or the fact that the AI dont seem to handle the weird resource placement as well as a human. I was able to get the capitol up to size 16 with 4 specialist. I could have grown it further, but anything beyond that, gains you nothing. I built all the early wonders before the military buildup. Enjoyable game though and looking forward to the WOTM.

One more thing. Im not done with the game and have seen 70% of the map. Theres isnt any Iron anywhere I can see. I went into worldbuilder and there is 4 Iron on the whole map. 3 of them are within 7 tiles of each other. That seems weird.

Dude! At least write "spoiler" on the post! I didn't want to know that!

 

[Ramzes XIII]

One more thing. Im not done with the game and have seen 70% of the map. Theres isnt any Iron anywhere I can see. I went into worldbuilder and there is 4 Iron on the whole map. 3 of them are within 7 tiles of each other. That seems weird.

It must be a perfect-crazy game with unforeseeable results. The explorering units play a very important role as never they do. It will be definitly funny if we'll get into such situation

 

[kojimanard]

Looks like fun. Like the last game on Marathon, this presents something different that I, and I think many others, would probably never otherwise play.

And Prince level is a wise choice. With two games a month and players of different skill levels, GOTM will attract more participants with varying difficulty levels.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

One more thing. Im not done with the game and have seen 70% of the map. Theres isnt any Iron anywhere I can see. I went into worldbuilder and there is 4 Iron on the whole map. 3 of them are within 7 tiles of each other. That seems weird.

Since I've not played on fantasy world, I was trying a few test maps to see what they look like. It looks to me like on each map, the game picks one or two resources that just go everywhere - eg. on one map there was pigs all over the place, on another map gold scattered everywhere (Imagine how fast science would go on that map), and other resources that are unusually rare.

One thing I did notice about these maps - there's going to be very little resource trading, coz to a good approximation, other than whatever the rare resources are, every civ has everything.