News: WOTM 07 Pre-Game Discussion

[ainwood]

WOTM 07: Cyrus

[img=right]http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/leaders/leaders0004.jpg[/img]

Gyathaar gets a month off this time, allowing me to up the difficulty!


This game MUST be played in Warlords patch version 2.08. We will NOT accept any games played under any other patch versions, and you can't play it in vanilla (plain) Civilization4!

Further, it MUST be played using the latest version of HOF mod for Warlords. This is currently version 2.08.003.



Game settings:
Civilization: Persia (Leader: Cyrus; Traits: Charismatic & Imperialistic)
Rivals: 6
Difficulty: Immortal
Map: Pangea (modified)
Mapsize: Standard, Cylindrical
Climate: Tropical
Water level: low
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: epic
Victory Conditions: All enabled
Other settings: All default


Cyrus:
Cyrus is Imperialistic and Charismatic; starting with Agriculture and Hunting. Imperialistic gives +100% great general emergence, and +50% settler production. Charismatic provides 1 extra happy face per city, -25% experience required for a promotion, and +1 happy face in each city with a monument and/or a broadcast tower.

Unique unit: Immortal (The Wheel)
The immortal replaces the chariot. The immortal exactly has the same stats as a standard chariot, but gets +50% vs archers, in addition to the standard +100% vs axemen & 10% chance of retreating from combat.

Unique building: Apothecary (Guilds, Currency)
The apothecary replaces the grocer. The only difference between this and the standard grocer is that the apothecary provides +2 health.

The starting screenshot is here (Click for larger version)


Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Start with a free worker and archer
2. Start with additional knowledge of The Wheel.

Challenger Class Equalizers:

1. AI civs all start with a bonus technology.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Perhaps settle on the bananas, if there's a seafood resource in range? (Which the blue circle would suggest, but the scout can confirm.)

 

[Priah]

Immortal difficulty has me kind of scared. I wouldnt be suprised at all to find a few grassland gems nearby and some very favorable conditions. Ive only played emperor a couple of times, but I have a feeling immortal is going to be insane. Im going to test out how insane these immortals are in rushing straight through enemy forces. But to be honest why did we have to pick Persia, with 300 just coming out I feel like the bad guys.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm curious now. I'd always imagined that the intention was to change difficulty levels cyclically, usually in a sawtooth manner, which would've put this WOTM at emperor. Is that no longer the intention (or was it never the intention and I just imagined it)?

If there's any horsies nearby, this map is going to be heaven for the fast-conquest-freaks As long as you pillage the AIs resources quickly so they've only got archers left, immortals will be able to walk over most AIs. And get to them quickly. Will be nice revenge for those who felt Cyrus's wrath in WOTM03

@Priah: I don't think immortal is that much harder than emperor. It's certainly a lot closer to emperor than to deity in its feel. Compared to emperor, the AI starts with two workers instead of 1, so it gets off to a stronger start, and the AI can tech and grow about 6% faster. Barbs will spawn slightly faster too and barb cities will tend to be defended by four archers instead of three.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

But to be honest why did we have to pick Persia, with 300 just coming out I feel like the bad guys.

I don't understand the reference to 300???

 

[CliftonBazaar]

I don't understand the reference to 300???

It's the new movie coming out - looks fantasatic.

Map: Pangea (modified)

Modified? - This has got me worried.

Settle on spot and Chop a few settlers, then it's WAR!

 

[Thrallia]

300 is a new movie that came out in the states this week, covering the Battle of Thermopylae. 300 Spartans versus a ton of Persians...as I recall, the Persians won the battle, but took heavy losses...if I'm not mistaken, it was the battle that was the original Pyrrhic victory.

 

[toller pretzl]

I don't understand the reference to 300???

It's about 300 Spartan defenders who beat a million Persion attackers - clearly a reference to civ

 

[Thrallia]

Immortal difficulty has me kind of scared. I wouldnt be suprised at all to find a few grassland gems nearby and some very favorable conditions. Ive only played emperor a couple of times, but I have a feeling immortal is going to be insane. Im going to test out how insane these immortals are in rushing straight through enemy forces. But to be honest why did we have to pick Persia, with 300 just coming out I feel like the bad guys.

To be honest, Immortal isn't worse than Emperor other than the AI gets a slightly faster jump on you at first. I've actually never won Emperor but won the last Immortal GOTM. As for Persia...I have a feeling that its a gift for us, thanks to the Imperialist trait we will actually be able to expand as fast as the AIs are able to.

 

[Thrallia]

As to the actual game...I believe I will start out attempting to go for a conquest/domination win...if that falls apart I'll either go for a Cultural or Space Race victory...At the moment I'm tired of Diplo victories, which seem to be my only submitted victories other than WOTM5 lol

edit: I'll settle in place as well...I see no reason to move when we start on a hill, with 3 food resources, one of which helps production, and lots of forests and hills. It lends itself to a very strong capital, both short term and long term(hills and grassland mixed with 3 food resources means lots of production and commerce)

 

[Mercenary82]

300 is a new movie that came out in the states this week, covering the Battle of Thermopylae. 300 Spartans versus a ton of Persians...as I recall, the Persians won the battle, but took heavy losses...if I'm not mistaken, it was the battle that was the original Pyrrhic victory.

The original Pyrrhic victory involved King Pyrrhus of Epirus against the Romans.

 

[Thrallia]

ah, that would explain why it is called Pyrrhic victory rather than something relating to Xerxes or Leonidas...but it isn't as well known

 

[Harbourboy]

Probably a dumb question, the answer to which must be somewhere easy, but when will this game start?

Also, with all this 300 / Gates of Fire discussion, maybe the Greeks are just around the corner in this game too.....

 

[KurKo]

harbourboy, 15th of March.

and about the game, i have no idea where should i settle, there's lots of food in south but nothing where to use it and lot's of hills in north but no food(that's seen atm)

not that it does matter because my only goal is to survive and have fun doing it i tried to play on these given settings today and everything went wrong, mayby i should try again.

does anyone have any tips about immortal? i usually play at monarch and my test game was just a disaster.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It's about 300 Spartan defenders who beat a million Persion attackers - clearly a reference to civ

Ah, thanks! And to Thrallia!

Guess that shows how many films I don't watch

 

[AgedOne]

I think many of us are really going to need some pointers as to how to play at this level.

If my test game is anything to go by (just up to AD) its extremely hard to keep up with the AI in any form. Science was OK (I went AH and wheel to get Immortals, and then headed straight up the literature branch in order to trade off tech with neighbours).

I found that there were any number of barbarian cities appearing in the unclaimed land. Each of these had 4 archers, and I found that Immortals had a tough time against them, though the balance was in their favour. It left me thinking that attacking my AI rivals would be near-impossible.

I'm off to read up again on playing at Deity, so that my next trial at Immortal might not seem too terrifying.

 

[Priah]

I reproduced a few maps till I got somthing relatively simaler to this start position (ie, same recources, same wood amount, ocean to one side). I went standard worker worker settler, settled near horses. My goal is to try to get a second settler out asap, settle the horses, and get stonehedge out asap. Problem is, I need to get the wheel to even get my immortals, and I need mycticism to get stonehedge. Cept it seems that you can only reliably get stonehedge if you beat 2000 bc. Which makes this goal more or less impossible. Last game I managed to get stonehedge and start getting immortals out asap. Once I was secured from barbs though, montezuma comes out of nowhere and swarms at me with what seems like four new archers every turn. Ive literally killed at least 13 within the first 5 turns.

Im convinced that our start position will be very favorable, wouldnt be suprised at all to get horses in the starting cross. My tech order is gonna be animal husbandry (to work the cows), mining, bronze working, mycticism, then rush out the stonehedge hopefully asap, followed by rushing out my first settler, (im almost positive there will be a happiness recourse nearby), After this, start pumping out those immortals asap, once I have like 8 or so, hitting my nearest enemy all out.

This is going to be pretty tough, and I hope we dont get someone like monty next to us.

 

[Harbourboy]

I plan to attempt this. It will be my first GOTM and I fully expect to suffer all the problems described above and get overwhelmed before the AD years, primarily because I will be prevented from using what is usually my most powerful in-game weapon, the "Plastic Reload Button Wonder". I wonder just how short this game will be for me. I may well be the first to finish! Or be finished, to be more accurate.

 

[Vynd]

This should be an interesting game. Someone (not me) will probably manage to conquer the world using mostly Immortals. Am I the only one who has noticed we're playing Immortal difficulty with Immortals, by the way?

Based purely on what we can already see the starting location would be an excellent location for a specialist city or a cottage city. But it's not the sort of production powerhouse I think most of us think of as a dream capital location.

But with that said, where else is there to go? The forests to the east mean that moving in that direction to settle is a big gamble. It'll be slow to scout, let alone build your city. Going south at least lets you move twice and stay near the Wheat and/or Bananas. North looks kind of empty but who knows what the Scout could reveal...

Then there's west. At first glance, it's interesting. But if that's really an ocean coastline over to there then the other blue circle, or anything in that direction really, is likely to be a lot like the spot we start on. It'll have lots of food and little production. So not that attractive in my mind. For purposes of expansion and centralization I would also rather not put my capital on the western-most edge of a Pangaea continent. Now if that's a fresh water lake to the west, it'd have a lot more potential.

 

[Jove]

Never played as Persia, but those look like whopper bonuses. With a great general we can produce +5xp Immortals pretty early, and with Retreat promotions they should do all right.