*Spoiler1* Gotm21-Melee - Full World Map+Middle Ages

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by ainwood
I started by moving the settler one square down the coast, and built a settler factory by rushing to pottery and building a granary.

Which direction is "down the coast"? Moving SE looks like a net win given the sheep and lake (for irrigation) in that direction, but I didn't see any clues in the initial position to lead in that direction. What motivated this for you?

 

[gozpel]

Originally posted by Dianthus


SirPleb, that seems like a very low number of workers per town/settler! I've heard others mention a rule of thumb of 1 worker per town.

Have you managed to do much more than just connecting up roads? Few of the bonus tiles were worth developing (other than roading) during Despotism, but I still felt I needed all of my workers (9) and I only had 10 towns!

Just a thought about workers. If my territory is in deep need of improvement from the beginning, I usually try to build up my workforce quite early. This also goes if I intend to build an early wonder.
But this map was already set in many places that food and such wouldn't be improved until a government change, so I mainly used my few workers to connect a roadnet. I think I had 2 workers all the time only building roads to forward city-sites, the rest was irrigating/mining.
By 1000bc I had 6 workers for 18 cities in Despotism.
By 250bc I had 21 workers for 23 cities in Republic and had 5 new workers coming in the next few turns.

At this time and forward I used my workers in gangs and they moved like a swarm of grasshoppers from city to city

 

[Txurce]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ


I don't think the Predator setting makes the game easier to win. Of course, a "moderately experienced" player wouldn't have trouble winning at this difficulty. (Or any difficulty? Depends what you mean by "moderately experienced".)

I do think it might enable faster space-race victories, but that's often true with higher difficulty levels. (And it's not an issue for the tournament, because victory rates will only be compared within groups playing at the same level, as I understand it.)

I do think it makes the game at least bit more interesting, and I'm glad to have the Predator option, although Monarch difficulty is just too low for me, I think.

By "moderately experienced," I specifically meant a player who knows enough to shrug off the AI edge of extra units and lower ancient-era overhead, once the map is revealed and it's evident that there's lots of room to expand peacefully, before war needs to be considered.

To be more clear, I meant that the Predator version ought to lead to quicker (therefore easier) victories for a moderately experienced player, without any significant price being paid.

Regarding the tourney, you're right that any research edge Predator players may have will only apply to their level - my point is that this level may have been more advantageous to attempt this time around, than a lower level.

Finally, I agree with you that the Predator option makes the game more interesting, and feel I better address why I didn't choose it, given my opinion about its relative difficulty. I expected an archipelago map, with Greece starting either alone or with the Minoans. In such a scenario, the Predator factor would have been more difficult to overcome, because Greece could have fallen significantly behind in tech in the ancient era. At this point in my development, I'm looking to score as high as you more than I am for a bigger challenge - so Open it was!

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by DaviddesJ


Which direction is "down the coast"? Moving SE looks like a net win given the sheep and lake (for irrigation) in that direction, but I didn't see any clues in the initial position to lead in that direction. What motivated this for you?

Look closely at the start map.

To the north-west, you can see the outline of more forest. To the south west, it looks like two out of three tiles are more hills. To the south-east it looks open-ish, and to the east it looks like it might be a bit open.

The start square location isn't too bad in that it has two bonus resources in the start 9 squares, and another in the first culture expansion. I alsways move the worker first, in order to try and see a more favourable square, but if things look OK, then I usually only move one or max two squares before founding the first city. I decided not to send the worker north-west/west/south-west, because it wasn't realy going to reveal much that could be reached within a turn or two. However, to the east I would reveal some more grassland, possibly a bonus shield.

Whent he worker moved, the sheep was exposed. I therefore moved to found athens with the fish & sheep in the initial 9 squares, and to have the lamb in the first culture expansion.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by ainwood
I always move the worker first, in order to try and see a more favourable square, but if things look OK, then I usually only move one or max two squares before founding the first city.

Me too (been learning lessons from cracker), but I also try and move the worker to a tile I'll want to work 1st if I settle on the start location. I moved my worker W to the Lambs ready to irrigate. I didn't notice the lack of water until next turn when I didn't have the option to irrigate .

 

[AlanH]

Originally posted by Dianthus

Me too (been learning lessons from cracker), but I also try and move the worker to a tile I'll want to work 1st if I settle on the start location. I moved my worker W to the Lambs ready to irrigate. I didn't notice the lack of water until next turn when I didn't have the option to irrigate .

Here are the notes I wrote on my expected worker actions before I opened the start file:

• Initial work sequence until we can find fresh water, seems to be:
  
  - move worker to lamb/plain
  - settle at start position unless there's a major revelation from the worker move
  - assign citizen to lamb/plain tile to get 1spt plus 1spt from city
  - road lamb/plain (turn 4?)
  - if we can see water then plan irrigation for lamb/plain
  - else mine and road olives/hills ready for turn 10, mine lamb/plain.

For some strange reason my actual first action was to mine and road the lamb/plain tile. Just not concentrating I guess . By the time that was done (turn 10) my first warrior had found the lake and sheep, so my worker then roaded south towards the sheep and my second city site by the lake. I went back and irrigated the original mined lamb and worked the olives much later on.

My first explorers were reluctant to head off over the eastern edge of the world, so I didn't spot the bonus grass, and the powerful city site between that and the sheep, until I was ready to build city #4. Another lesson learned - ignore the E/W edges of the map.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Conquest.

Note: I've finished the game. Here's my QSC log.

4000 BC - Settled Athens in place. Started Warrior. Plan to mine then road lambs. Wow!! Treasure! Extra workers!! A Warrior!! Started researching Writing for embassy contact and Great Library. Set my science budget at 20% since that is the minimum to reach writing in 40 turns.

3650 BC - I’ve explored to the north and west of Athens. Directly west looks pretty good for a city given the rocks, goats, and olives. There is also some incense that could be a future source of lux. I’ve got water to the south so I’ll put two workers on irrigating towards Athens. I popped my second Warrior two turns ago and he’s exploring southward. My gold is running -2 per turn so I think I’ll have to watch my city’s population to make money. My third warrior pops next turn and I’ll go east.

3350 BC - Wow! Never seen squid before. Those look like they could mess with my galleys. I’m irrigating towards Athens from the lake to the south. I’ve got a river to the east and to the south. Two more good settlement sites. I’m going to place my second city directly west of Athens in all the bonus tiles and I’ve started building a road to it through the olives.

3250 BC - I think I made a mistake. I mined the sheep to the SE of Athens and the lambs to the W. I should have waited to irrigate them. I’m going to irrigate both the sheep and the lambs to maximize food. Then start a road to the east for the third city.

2900 BC - Founded Sparta west of Athens based on food and lux resources. Found a landmass to the north. I will need a galley soon to explore that. Started harvesting the forests NW of Athens to get irrigation over to Sparta. I now have positive cash flow. I’m going to settle city #3 due South of Athens near the mouth of the river. Started a road in that direction.

2750 BC - Made contact with the Minoans. Volak was polite and I traded Masonry for the Alphabet.

2150 BC - Founded Thermopylae directly south of Athens on Eastside of river delta. Almost have a road to it. Finally completed Writing and established an embassy in Knossos (Minoan capitol). They are running 100% Science. It looks like they have at least three cities, but their infrastructure sucks. Not many roads.

2070 BC - Decided to settle city #4 on the coast south of Sparta. Got a road almost there. Almost have the road to Thermo finished, then I can work on improvements. Also plan on putting city #5 to the East on that river.

1790 BC - Founded Corinth south of Sparta on coast. Road completed to it and my workers are irrigating towards it. Irrigating around Thermo.

1575 BC - Met Otto, he’s annoyed. Traded Ceremonial Burial for the Alphabet.

1500 BC - Founded Delphi East of Athens. Also planning on settling on the west coast of the inland sea.

1450 BC - Traded Volak 140 gold for contact with the Ottomans. Also checked out his techs and he is five ahead of me.

1425 BC - Traded Suleyman Pottery for Writing. He was polite. This might be a mistake since he might get a head start towards the library. He is four techs ahead of me.

1400 BC - Founded Pharsalos South of Delphi.

1325 BC - Traded Volak 110 gold for Mysticism. He will only be 3 techs ahead of me. Tried to get The Wheel from Otto for Writing, but he would only give me 6 gold for it. He’s annoyed with me so this may be a mistake but I’m declining his offer. I think, I’ll scout out Otto’s position.

1225 BC - The Romans have been destroyed and I haven’t a clue about any of it. There must be one powerful civ out there that I’ll have to contend with. Scouting out Otto, Germany has a very poor infrastructure. Some of his cities may be sitting ducks.

1050 BC - Founded Argos on east side of Inland sea. Trying to settle on far side of Argos also.

Well I’m at 1000 BC, I have 7 cities with another settler almost in place. I am one turn away from Literature. I have a good defense set up and I’m not completely hurting in tech. I think I have a decent infrastructure. My road network saved me against a wandering Pict conscript. In hindsight I think I should have done two things differently. I should have made Monarchy my first Tech goal. I think getting out of Despotism would have helped my productivity much more. Also I’m not taking my time between turns to check on the productivity of my cities.

 

[Dianthus]

Originally posted by Sir Bugsy
It looks like they have at least three cities, but their infrastructure sucks.

A little tip. If you have contact with a civ you can tell exactly how many cities they have via the diplomacy screen. All of their cities except their capital are listed as available for trading.

Here's what the Minoans had at 2150BC in my game :

So at 2150BC the Minoans had 3 cities in my game.

 

[Ronald]

This is how my ancient age went:
Unlike the previous two games, it took somewhat longer to expand, but as soon as the settler factory was ready everything went as planned:

I aggressively explored the map, making contact with 14 rivals untill 1175BC, only the last one (Persia) stayed hidden until 610 BC:

3350 BC contact with Minoans
3150 BC contact with Germany
2150 BC contact with Ottomans, trade contact with Celts, French and Russians
1175 BC made contact with Atlantis (galley) traded contact with Rome and Spain
1175 BC made contact with Hitittes (warrior across coast tile), traded contacts with Carthago, Egypt, Zulus and Babylon
610 BC traded contact with Persia

There were at least two additional expansionist civs in the game (Minoans and Germans) I don't know what Atlantis, Hitittes were and how Persia was modded.
Given the expansionists, there must have been very little goodie huts, otherwise the tech progress would have been faster.
Atlantis was quite strange with a huge cultural boost in the early game (free temples?).

The resource mods looked nice, but I always had to look very carefully what it is ands what to do with it (irrigate, mine or road).

The map is just tooooo large. It will take ages to finish the game with a high score. I would prefer smaller maps. Hopefully the medal series games will be in the spirit of the tourney and small maps.

Ronald

 

[Txurce]

Originally posted by AlanH
For some strange reason my actual first action was to mine and road the lamb/plain tile. Just not concentrating I guess .

Mining the lamb first gave you the option to produce four, rather than three, warriors before you had the food needed for a settler. I think the extra warrior was well worth the loss in gold by delaying the building of the road for a few turns.

 

[jeffelammar]

Edit: PTW 1.21 - Class Open

Well, I finally qualify for this thread.

Quick summary.
1. Built at start location.
Sent worker to mine the Lambs.
2. First warrrior went east and then north, eventually finding Germany
3. Second Warrior went south and then cut east at the coast, eventually running into the Minoans.

Fought short war around 2500 BC with Russia. Captured a settler waited a while and sued for peace. (Should have tried for a city, but didn't think of it)

Bought 4 slaves. 2 from Germany, 2 from Minoa.

I got off to a slow start for 2 reasons.
1. I don't think I did a good job of adjusting to the resources.
2. I am going for 20K (shoot looks like several others are as well), so Athens stopped producing settlers early.

In 1000 I was 7 turns from completing the Pyramids.

By the end of the Ancient ages, I had Pyramids and Colossus. I also have taken out most of Minoa (those UU's of theirs were tough.)

As I enter the middle ages, I still lack Republic and Monarchy (nobody was kind enough to research them for me, I am close to getting Republic though)

I also have a leader that I will use to rush an early Middle Age Wonder that will depend on my bonus tech.

Don't think I'm any kind of record setting pace to 20K, but I figured what the heck. I've never done 20K in a GOTM.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by Txurce
Mining the lamb first gave you the option to produce four, rather than three, warriors before you had the food needed for a settler. I think the extra warrior was well worth the loss in gold by delaying the building of the road for a few turns.

Mining the lamb also gave me the chance to discover something more important than building a road right away, which turned out to be true (I found the lake to the south, and immediately moved that way to begin irrigating toward my territory).

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
In 1000 I was 7 turns from completing the Pyramids.

I assume you're playing Open? At the Predator level, I'm not sure it was possible to build the Pyramids. I thought about trying, but I was glad I didn't, as Persia completed them in 1375BC.

 

[jeffelammar]

Absolutely open, sorry I forgot to mention that. I'll update my post to reflect it.

What was it about Predator that makes you say its not possible to get Pyramids?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by jeffelammar
What was it about Predator that makes you say its not possible to get Pyramids?

Just that the advanced start for the AI players meant that they would finish it before the human player realistically could. I did some calculations on how fast I could build the Pyramids, and I could have finished them in the QSC period, but certainly not by 1375BC.

 

[denyd]

Just add the version & level playing to your signature (under the user cp -> edit profile section) and you won't have to worry about adding it to any new posts.

With the large expansion areas available in the last couple of GOTM's, it seems to be counterproductive to build a wonder instead of pumping out 6-8 settlers instead. I've been content to expand as much as possible, then go take the early wonders I want (pyramids, hanging gardens, colossus...) from the local AI. Of course, sometimes that wonder is built too far away to be worth anything, but the early expansion seems to have larger return in the Middle & Industrial ages.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Originally posted by denyd
With the large expansion areas available in the last couple of GOTM's, it seems to be counterproductive to build a wonder instead of pumping out 6-8 settlers instead.

I don't much agree.

First, I don't think of building a wonder instead of settlers. When I was considering building the Pyramids (and calculating I could complete them at 1000BC or shortly before), it was in my capital, and it wouldn't affect the rate at which I built settlers at all, because all of my settlers (after the first one) came from the settler pump I set up to the southeast.

Secondly, on a huge map, the Pyramids becomes more valuable, not less, because there's plenty of territory, and low corruption (i.e., you can work a much larger area effectively than on a smaller map, plus the commercial civ increases that effect further), so mid-game growth to fill up all of that available territory is very important. Again, the wonder doesn't cost people, just shields. It might slow your expansion a bit, because you have to concentrate more on improving the area around the wonder city to the maximum possible extent right away, but otherwise the main thing I'd be sacrificing by trying to build it would have been military units. I had over 20 vet warriors, and a hoplite, and a couple of galleys, at the end of the QSC period; almost all of these were built in my capital, and all of those shields (including 40 for the barracks) could have gone into the Pyramids instead, without slowing my growth at all. Of course, I would have been disappointed if I'd actually tried this and then the Persians beat me to it, as none of the other available wonders are nearly as good. Which is why I didn't try, and just built up my swordsman-trainee army in preparation for beating up my neighbors, plus galleys for making some useful contacts and gathering map data to trade.

 

[jeffelammar]

Originally posted by denyd
With the large expansion areas available in the last couple of GOTM's, it seems to be counterproductive to build a wonder instead of pumping out 6-8 settlers instead. I've been content to expand as much as possible, then go take the early wonders I want (pyramids, hanging gardens, colossus...) from the local AI.

I would agree with you in most cases. In this case howevery, I am gunning for a 20K culture victory, so I wanted to ensure as many early wonders in the capitol as possible.

If I was going for a QSC score or even for any other victory, I would never have started the Pyramids so early. I am pretty sure I would have had at least 3 more cities if I had kept on producing expansion with Athens. In this case I wanted to do something that I had never done. I wanted to win with 20K in a game where I wasn't doing OCC.

 

[alexman]

Originally posted by Ronald
The map is just tooooo large. It will take ages to finish the game with a high score. I would prefer smaller maps. Hopefully the medal series games will be in the spirit of the tourney and small maps.

I second that. It doesn't look like I will be able to finish this month.

 

[Moonsinger]

Yes, I thought the map is too big too, so I just focusing on mass producing horseman for upgrade to the top-secret super fast unit that has 3 movement points. With about 200 of these babies, I think I can finish the game on time.