news: WOTM 14 Pre-Game Discussion

[ainwood]

WOTM 14: Saladin

[img=right]http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/info/leaders/leaders0022.jpg[/img]

This game MUST be played in Warlords patch version 2.13. 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 2.13.001



Game settings:
Civilization: Arabs (Leader: Saladin. Traits: Spiritual & Protective)
Rivals: 7
Difficulty: Immortal
Map: Pangea
Mapsize: Standard
Climate: Temperate
Water level: high
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Victory Conditions: All enabled
Other settings: No Tribal Villages. You are the ONLY spiritual civilization.


Saladin:
Saladin is Spiritual and Protective; starting with The Wheel and Mysticism. Spiritual receives no anarchy period when switching state religion or civics, and receive a +100% production bonus when building temples. Protective receive free City Garrison I and Drill I promotions for all archery and gunpowder units. In addition, it gets double production speed of walls & castles.

Unique unit: Camel Archer (Guilds, Horseback Riding and archery)
The Camel Archer replaces the normal Knight. The Camel Archer has the same stats as the normal Knight, but it is resourceless (requiring neither horses nor iron). It also has a 25% chance of withdrawing from combat.

Unique building: Madrassa (Writing)
The Madrassa replaces the normal library. In addition to the normal library stats, it generates an extra 2 culture-per-turn, and allows 2 priests.

The starting screenshot is here (Click for larger version)


Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Start with a free worker (on the same tile as the warrior)
2. Start with a free workboat (on the clams)
3. Start with additional knowledge of fishing

Challenger Class Equalizers:

1. Start without knowledge of mysticism.
2. Start without the warrior.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Uh oh. This one looks brutal, at least for me, since my goal is to shed the Wimp of the Week aWard. I will attempt the fastest conquest again (in hopes that I can pull off conquest at all...). Not sure I'll be doing it with Camel Archers though...

 

[Cactus Pete]

What does "no tribal villages" imply?

LtC . . . You think one of those early rushes will work on Immortal, given the AI's extra starting units?

 

[ainwood]

What does "no tribal villages" imply?

LtC . . . You think one of those early rushes will work on Immortal, given the AI's extra starting units?

It means "no goody huts".

 

[Cactus Pete]

It means "no goody huts".

Well, that's a big change.

 

[LowtherCastle]

What does "no tribal villages" imply?

LtC . . . You think one of those early rushes will work on Immortal, given the AI's extra starting units?

Axeman rush would be the only possibility for a really "early" rush and without mining as a starting tech and needing to research fishing first (I guess), BW isn't going to be too early. I'm going to have to do some testing. I've never won on immortal and only played it in that one GOTM with Cyrus (?).

HOw would you go about a fastest conquest?

EDIT: Come to think of it, with Wheel as a starting tech, I guess a chariot rush is a possibility, but AH isn't too close either.

The easiest victory would probably to use Godotnut's guide to peaceful victory.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Axeman rush would be the only possibility for a really "early" rush and without mining as a starting tech and needing to research fishing first (I guess), BW isn't going to be too early. I'm going to have to do some testing. I've never won on immortal and only played it in that one GOTM with Cyrus (?).

HOw would you go about a fastest conquest?

I'd research BW to take advantage of the forests and see what my exploring warrior turns up. Flexibility = speed.

EDIT: Come to think of it, with Wheel as a starting tech, I guess a chariot rush is a possibility, but AH isn't too close either.

The easiest victory would probably to use Godotnut's guide to peaceful victory.

Where do I find this guide? Is it written for mere mortals, or does it inform the gods?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Where do I find this guide? Is it written for mere mortals, or does it inform the gods?

Definitely for mere mortals. Here is Godotnut's Guide to Totally Peaceful Deity Cultural Victory.

There are two deity-level cultural-victory experts who regularly play GOTMs, jesusin and Lexad, along with the other all-around geniuses, like Balbes. jesusin started this excellent thread on Deity level cultural victories. Of course, HOF games start with optimum maps, AIs and resources. So another way to get some good ideas would be to look at some of the saves that have won GOTM fastest cultural.

Maybe jesusin, Lexad, or any other deity level player might throw in their two cents on how they would go about playing cultural in this GOTM. I've played for a cultural victory in any version of Civilization precisely ZERO times. No, I take that back. Once in a CivGOld GOTM I accidentally got 100,000, while going for domination....

 

[DaviddesJ]

What's the chance of founding all three early religions?

Not saying that's a good plan.

 

[Erkon]

This game looks terrific!

We've had three (?) Immortal games so far, one GOTM as the Chinese (GOTM9?), then one each of GOTM(20) and WOTM(7) as Cyrus. This game seems tougher.

7 Rivals on Pangea & High level makes it a very crowded map. Settle second city quick, and then perhaps a third. Then all good city sites may be gone :-(. So the question is if it's clever or not to go for three cities in the beginning or only two

Normal speed makes conquest much harder. Perhaps you can take out one AI with a Chariot rush, but you will probably need cats. The crowded map makes domination tricky too, since the AI will start building lots of units when they run out of space to expand.

This kind of map makes alphabet very rewarding. Lot's of AI to trade with

The year to beat with conquest is 10 BC , achieved by Obermot in WOTM7 (although that was on Epic). He started the war against Saladin in 1090 BC. There are lots of things to learn from this Replay Events log.

Civ's that are not included: <see DynamicSpirit's post below>. Note that all of these have early UU

 

[JungleIII]

Hello all again... Here is a test game to try your skills for the first bit of the game.

It's a tough game... but with that little advice from the "Creator" of our nation being the ONLY spiritial nation (which is in the test game also) this leaves all sorts of tactics available...

Enjoy playing Saladin of Arabia!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You are the ONLY spiritual civilization.

Hmmmm. So that means we know that the following leaders are NOT in the game:

Brennus (Celts)
Montezuma (Aztecs)
Ramesses/Hatshepsut (Egypt)
Gandhi/Asoka (India)
Mansa (Mali)
Isabella (Spain)

Why would Ainwood have gone to the trouble of telling us that? Offhand I can't see how having that knowledge upfront is going to change our strategy.

 

[Erkon]

What's the chance of founding all three early religions?

Not saying that's a good plan.

EDIT: The only other leaders have Mysticism as starting tech are Wang Kon & Huayna Capac. Since we don't have any commerce-tiles to work until the border expands, I would say that the chance to get both first religions is very slim if one of them is included.

EDIT: Dynamic: DaviddesJ has a point that going for a religion may be possible.

EDIT: Other conclusions that can be drawn for the list of AI's that are not included is what early UU we know we won't face, and that tech trading may be a bit more difficult

 

[EEO]

Why would Ainwood have gone to the trouble of telling us that? Offhand I can't see how having that knowledge upfront is going to change our strategy.

I think Daviddes' question is the answer to your question. If we have a chance to found all three early religions, cultural victory will be easier and diplomatic control better. I am not sure either it's the best plan to win ...

What's the chance of founding all three early religions?
Not saying that's a good plan.

Intuitively, I would say :
- 75% provided no other leader begins with Mysticism (i.e. ainwood hint AND no Wang Kon & Huayna Capac)
- 30% if exactly one other leader begins with Mysticism
- < 5% in the other cases

 

[greatbeyond]

I created these last night and tested the contender save. This looks to be a very challenging game with all the civs very close together. I created it to be just like the initial screen shot. No resources were added or deleted, only moved slightly to match what is shown.

I manually edited the Civs to make sure there weren't any other spiritual Civs besides
Saladin

 

[Erkon]

One way to play is to quickly go for the Alphabet: Fishing, Hunting (or agriculture), Animal Husbandry, Writing, Alphabet

Thats 65 + 65 + 162 + 195 + 487 = 974

At ~13 / turn, that would take 75 turns => 1000 BC.

With seven rivals, it should be possible to trade away writing for most of the first layer of tech (mining, masonry, archery, pottery, polytheism and agriculture). Second trade phase would then bring in BW, Pottery, Meditation, Priesthood and Monotheism).

The next research could then be Literature (as Obermot did) to help the trade for Mathematics and IW.

This way of play would then ignore whipping and chopping, but fit nicely with:
Warrior (8 turns), WB (11 turns), Settler (11) turns.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

@Erkon/EEO: Yeah I can see the logic of the extra info being relevent to founding religions.

@LowtherCastle: I agree this is going to be a brutal game (I have horrid memories of a conquest loss in the last immortal WOTM, after I allowed - think it was either Hannibal or Brennus - to get ahead in military techs.) What's going to make this one harder I think is the lack of production at the beginning. I'm tempted to go fishing (to work those seafoods for whipping) - archery (for worker steals) - BW (for whipping/axes), but it's going to take sooo long to build a workboat or anything else (other than settler/worker once the seafood is hooked up) until we can whip in the start location. Another possibility would be to go BW first and then whip the workboats; that may force delaying a worker steal though (due to no archers).

Anyone thinking of not settling in place?

 

[Markus5]

I like the way Ekron is thinking. I might use that opening gambit.

I'm not going to try any sample games. I'll just play the real thing when it arrives.

However, I'll be very interested in all the pre-game discussion.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Anyone thinking of not settling in place?

I thought about settling 1) on the E sugar for the extra , 2) the other sugar or 3) S to get more river grass in the fat cross. Settling in place is decent by itself, if you use it to chop-rush stuff and then spam cottages.

I'd be wary of doing anything other than beelining Alpha, though. Otherwise the AIs will be so far ahead of you, you'll never see them again. If you want BW, get it from Alpha. Same with Archery.

Research: Fishing>Pottery>Writing>Alpha.

Quickly find out if that W isthmus is a choke point. If so, settle toward the AIs until you run out of room, then settle behind the choke point. Try to meet all AIs before you get Alpha. Wait till you have axes to steal workers. If you don't have a worker before BW, poprush one.

That's the way to do it, imo, regardless of your VC. (One alternative for cultural might be Fishing>Poly>...>Alpha)

 

[godotnut]

Hey there Civfanatics. Lowthercastle PMed me, suggesting that this game might be an interesting one for me and hinting that I should come out of my "retirement" and play it. And he's right--this is a tasty looking GOTM. Although I prefer the old Saladin (protective isn't my favorite), this game provides ample opportunities and challenges for my two favorite victory conditions--cultural and diplo.

I'm thinking with the crowded map that diplo might be the most fun. It might be a bit difficult to acquire the real estate necessary for a cultural win (at least with my play style). But with no other spirituals, the chance to control world religions is ripe, and when you can control the spread of religion (and tech fast enough), a diplo game is in the bag for a savvy player.

So if I can find the time to do this, I will probably try to found two of the three early religions and make whoever gets the third my designated voting opponent come UN time. Careful use of military and war declaration bribing will be geared to enlarging the kingdom of this declared enemy, so that I can ensure that the vote is between me and him. (If that fails, I may have to gift him some of my cities toward the endgame.) At that point, my religiously converted allies will save the day and vote me in.

To achieve this strategy, one usually needs to get the U.N. vote going before others declare free religion and you lose the religious diplo bonus. So it involves a careful balance on the tech trading front--not overtrading with the technologically backwards military kingdoms that you have converted to your state religion.

The other option (for my playstyle) would be an early axe or chariot rush in which you wipe out one nearby opponent to secure the land necessary for a respectable cultural win. Simply rush down an early opponent and follow some modified version of my Cultural guide.