WOTM-01 Pre-Game Discussion

[ainwood]

WOTM 01: Carthage

Game settings:
Civilization: Carthage (Leader: hannibal; Traits: Financial & Charismatic)
Rivals: 6
Difficulty: Noble
Map: Continents
Mapsize: Standard, flat world!
Climate: Arid
Water level: high
Starting Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Victory Conditions: all enabled

Hannibal:
Hannibal is Financial and Charismatic; starting with fishing and mining. Financial allows +1 commerce on any tile producing 2 or more. Charismatic is a new trait in warlords. It gives +1 happiness per city, 25% less experience points for promotions, and +1 happiness from monuments (the new name for obelisks) and broadcast towers.

Unique unit: Numidian Cavalry
The Numidian Cavalry replaces the horse archer. Whilst the standard horse archer has a strength of 6, the Numidan Cavalry has only a strength of 5, despite still costing the same. The difference is that the Numidian Cavalry gets a +50% bonus against melee units, and starts with flanking 1.

Unique building: Cothon
In warlords, in addition to each civ having a unique unit, they also have unique buildings. For Carthage, it is the Cothon, which replaces the standard harbour. The Cothon, like the harbour, allows extra health from crabs, clams & fish, as well as increasing trade route yields by 50%. The difference is that the cothon also gives the city an extra trade route.

The starting screenshot is here (Click for larger version)




Adventurer Class bonuses:

1. Start with a worker.
2. Start knowing agriculture.

Challenger Class Equalisers:

1. Start knowing no technologies

Finally, for those of you concerned about the immortal difficulty level - we will start the first Warlords game on the 15th - this will be at a gentler difficulty level!

 

[Thrallia]

hm...I really like the start

lots of food, some plains hills and some forests.

If it were epic speed, I'd move both the warrior(North) and settler(SE) onto hills to to check out the surroundings, but since it is, I may just move the warrior onto either the N or SW hill to find out what's out there. Does anyone know how much of an impact losing a turn or two before the first city is built would have on normal speed?

I think I may try for a militaristic victory for once, although to be sure I'll have to find out how many opponents are on our continent. I've discovered I'm fairly good at diplo and cultural victories, so I'll leave them as a backdoor victory type(financial will help with a later cultural conversion).

edit: also, the tile in the fog S of the starting position looks to be a coastal square. if it is, I may need to attempt fast BW to rush a settler or two out and build a coastal economy based on Cothons, the Great Lighthouse, and the Colossus

 

[malekithe]

I'd say move the warrior SW and then decide whether to move the settler to that hill or to the SE.

 

[Kamino]

We could bet the gotm staff has designed this game for a costal economy (arid, water level high, financial trait, cothon...).

I already played Hannibal and the combo Great Lighthouse + cothon + financial + Colossus is nice. At this level, you can reach a huge tech lead.

With ressources, this start would be great. We have to find them first. I think I will the warrior SW and the setller S then E.

 

[Shillen]

Warrior southwest of course. Whether to move the settler SE onto the plains hill or not will be a difficult choice.

Hannibal starts with Fishing and Mining. I'll probably research agriculture, bronze working, wheel, pottery, writing. Tech order could change if animals are revealed. I plan to try and use the whip often this game and see how it turns out. First build will be a worker and I'll probably irrigate all the flood plains. Later on I might turn them into cottages, but more likely I'll make the capital a production powerhouse and try to get some wonders built. The only downside to this is because of the river cottages would be instantly 3 commerce tiles. I'll have to play a few test games and figure out which works best.

I created a test game. It's my first time using world builder though so I might have noobed it up somewhere, but it looks alright to me.

 

[VerbalKint]

Did 3 test games to see when the AI would complete wonders and found religions. In the tests I didn't do anything at all to influence the AI, so I guess if you tech trade these dates will be earlier, if everyone's warring they'll be later.

Oh, and in the 2nd game i suffered a conquest loss to a barbarian archer in about 300 AD The parthenon and christianity had not been completed/founded by then

Buddhism 2920BC 3520BC 3480BC
Hinduism 1960BC 3360BC 3160BC
Judaism 1400BC 1680BC 1360BC
Confucianism 25BC 250BC 560AD
Christianity 500AD N/A 100BC(from oracle)


Stonehenge 575BC 675BC 950BC
Great Wall 50BC 625BC 450BC
Temple of Artremis 520AD 675BC 350BC
Oracle 50BC 175BC 100BC
Parthenon 840AD N/A 100AD
Pyramids 1000AD 25AD 425AD

Hopefully that was readable...

The oracle date looks intresting to me, maybe an education slingshot is possible here ?

 

[drkodos]

All signs seem to point to conquest or domination victories. I'm looking to get pottery (for cottages) Animal Husbandry (to look for horsies) after going for BW first. Looks like decent production and food in the capital district.

Initial build order: worker/ worker (chopped) / settler. Rapid growth in the capital will not be an issue after getting out another settler to find a coastal city.

Since happiness is not going to be an issue, I will probably look to get mathematics and construction as early as possible, and then beeline to optics and astronomy. Then I'll go back into the Feudalism line so I can Vassal as many opponents as possible.

I am going to stay away from CS slings and other wonder building and instead aim for military techs, build a lot of units, and be as aggro as I can.



I suspect that as usual, the UU's and UB's will be downplayed. I would not be surprised to see that there are no horses around and that the Cothon will only be built in a few cities because the better city sites will be in the interior of a large land mass. Since health will be the bigger issue that will keep check on growth, and arid maps usually do not provide a lot of health resources, I might try to get some aqueducts and Hanging Gardens if my warmongering plans need a respite cannot be fully realized.


Looks like a great start to the series.

 

[Déja]

Hm... I'm excited about this map. I will need to test a couple Hannibal games to get a better feel for him. I can't tell if that fog tile to the south is coast, or just a riverhead, but since most people seem to be going in search of water for the capital, I'll probably settle in-place and pop a worker and settler right away. Techwise, I'll probably go for pottery early to pop up cottages on those floodplains to support a quick early expansion. I haven't decided which type of victory I'm going to go for, but I'll probably have a better idea once I've played a couple warm-up games.

 

[karlis]

Finally, for those of you concerned about the immortal difficulty level - we will start the first Warlords game on the 15th - this will be at a gentler difficulty level!

Ctr+C Ctrl+V...

 

[cas]

Does the AI finish spaceship by 2050 on Noble ? I haven't played a noble game since Civ4 GOTM1.

I'll try a 3 city culture win just to make things a more interesting. Warrior 1SW and the settler to another hill to get a good look at the starting area. Probably won't settle until turn 3 or 4...north of the starting location. Build settler->worker unless I see some good resources nearby. 2nd city on the coast and hope for fish/clam/crab. Research towards the bottom of the tech tree with a tangent for pottery.

cas

 

[Déja]

after running a test game (about half-way through) I ended up with a starting position not all that different from the actual screenshot. I didn't find it to be much of a hindrance for the capital to not have ocean access, though all my other cities do. Also, the financial/flood plain makes it quite easy to afford a quick early expansion while still kicking butt on the tech tree. I've also been popping out wonders left and right, so as of about 1400ad, I'm doing pretty well, having founded Islam and Taoism, gotten the free tech from Liberalism and being technologically enough advanced on my neighbors so as to be at the top of the score charts. I will have to play a few more, but my strat seems to give a pretty decent start.

 

[Thalatta]

Six flood plains and four plains hills if we settle in place. I'll probably settle in place as I would be surprised if there isn't something spiffy in the hidden flatland tiles like Pigs, allowing us to cottage all the floodplains and mine all the hills. Even if there's nothing there we'll still have a strong starting location. I'd say it has the potential for a very powerful CS slingshot - Macemen might be possible by 300 BC.
So...what's the catch?

These are actually almost the exact same settings I had when I played my first Warlords game...flat world, barbarions on and Hannibal (I played as Hatshepsut) are the only differences. Arid/high maps can pose some challenges/frustrations as there won't be a lot of useful space inland, but we have Hannibal's coastal tendencies to help us out. Cottages on flood plains and mines on plains hills should do fine, too, especially with bureaucracy. I managed to have horses in my game with Hatshepsut which made things easier, but I'll be planning to take over the starting continent regardless of what victory condition I decide on. Having all the strong inland sites and then filling in the gaps along the sea should allow one to coast to victory. (Pun intended. )

Regarding space race: Assuming that at least one AI has been left well enough alone since the question was posed, I believe an AI should be able to launch a spaceship on Noble - but I'd estimate it at 2025 at the earliest.

 

[ewokimpi]

ainwood, Will there be a save version using the HOF mode for this WOTM game? I'd really hate to play without the mod.

The autolog, Exotic Foreign Advisor, and Modified Special Domestic Advisor really improve the game play.

Yes, I know, there may be a pop-rushing issue.

***

Warrior to SW hill. Probably Settler W, NW to same hill. Two hammers to start, 4 fp, what's not to like?

Haven't played Carthago yet. I'm suspicious that the combination of Charimatic and Financial are overpowered, should be some quick games.

Note: FLAT map. Not Cylindrical. This world has walls. Can only come at other continent from one direction. And it does not seem that ships can acheive the circumnavigate-the-world bonus.

 

[Déja]

ainwood said, in another thread, that they would try to do an HoF version as well.

 

[Tauro]

I completed the test game: I don't know how to play in warlords

I'm VERY slow and grow in the desert is very very hard to me (half of the map is desert...)

Anyway the keys seem to be Great lighthouse, colossus, and of course CS slingshot.
I don't see the need of macemen in noble AND normal speed, I conquered the continent with numidians and knits with only one maceman , even if the time run very fast..

How do you usually play this kind of map?

 

[Tauro]

And it does not seem that ships can acheive the circumnavigate-the-world bonus.

Indeed...no bonus at all

 

[Déja]

It'd be hard to get that bonus with a flat world

 

[Thrallia]

Yes, I know, there may be a pop-rushing issue.

From what I read, Warlords without any mods has fixed the pop-rushing issue, so there shouldn't be any issues at all in that respect using the mod either.

 

[Meatbuster]

Does the AI finish spaceship by 2050 on Noble ?

I remember in one of my older Noble games I estimate Mansa would launch before 2000AD before I blew up his SS Life Support with a spy.

That start looks good! Once I get my hands on the save I'll see what I can do with it.

I was messing around with Ragnar (Fin/Agg) just yesterday and this should be a similar game (similar start too) minus the CS slingshot and the Machinery beeline...

 

[godotnut]

I'm suspicious that the combination of Charimatic and Financial are overpowered

On Emporer and above I agree, but the happiness bonus is far less useful at Noble.