GOTM 41 Spoiler 1: Entering the middle ages


This is the first spoiler for GOTM 41: Persia.

To qualify to participate in this spoiler, you must:
Be able to research a middle-age technology.
Have a full map of the starting continent.
have contacts with all civs on the starting continent.


Please do not post any screenshots that show any details of anything other than the starting continent (including galley routes etc).
Please do not discuss any other civilizations other than those on the starting continent.



In this game, you have a starting location that appears to have enough food to encourage swift growth, and you have a powerful early Unit Unit in the Immortals. How did you go about your early expansion? Did you prefer to expand peacefully simply through using a settler factory? Or did you choose the militaristic route? How did you strike the ideal balance?

Open PTW

This time I wanted to get full use of the Persian UU, the Immortals, so I decided to go for a conquest victory.

As discussed in the pregame tread, settler SE gives a 4 turn settler factory. Since it requires a lot of forest work, my builds were warrior, worker, granary.
It took until 2630 BC to have the factory going.

Here is the development of my empire during the AA:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Ronald_gotm41_1.JPG

and here a view at the end of the QSC period:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Ronald_gotm41_5.JPG

The statistics for the QSC are:

12 cities
37 population
3 barracks
2 granaries
1 settler
6 workers
14 warriors
1 galley

I had Persepolis as my settler factory and pasargadea as my worker factory. The other cities have or will have barracks to build warriors for an upgrade to immortals.

I switched to Republic as soon as possible to research more quickly. My research path was pottery, writing, CoL, Philosophy, Republic, literature and currency. all other AA techs were traded.

The first target for war was Rome. Rome built the Pyramids very early, but a few turns after they were mine. I only encountered one legion, therefore rome was no match for my immortals.

At the end of the AA Rome had just one city left and this will fall in the next turn.

My free tech was monotheism which was wonderfull, it saves one tech for navigation.

My first experience on a GOTM game and my first experience on Monarch. I settled on the furs/forrest to the SE, which seemed kinda obvious, then built my second city to the south east and third to the north east
Immortals are the most obvious thing to go for so i grabbed iron working real quick. My first mistake was letting the romans get the iron to the east. :cry: Instead i had to spend like 30 turns hacking a road to the north to get to that before Japan did. Any way i started pumping immortals, all the while expecting the monarch difficulty AI to laugh at my attempt at war, and was suprised at how easy it was. By the end of the ancient age I was just about to take rome from memory, and had about 25 immortals in the feild :D .
The thing im interested in is city placement, any comments about this map would be cool :)

Oh and how do you insert pics??!?!?!

GOTM 41
Player: Grogs
Class: Open
Version: PTW 1.27f

Goal: 20k Victory (my first ever)

I tripped so many times coming out of the starting gate on this one, it's a wonder I made it through the AA at all. I founded Persepolis 1 tile SE of the start, claiming the furs and the 2spt that went with it.

The best spot I could find for a 20k city was 5 tiles SW of Persepolis. It was on the coast, beside a river, and had a couple of BG tiles. I could have done a bit better, but not on the coast. I founded Pasargadae in 2510. Only the survival of my Empire was given higher priority than Pasargadae's growth.

DISEASE: I used a lot of 4-letter words in the start of this game. Disease really tore me up in Persepolis. It struck 3 times (2-turn cycles) in 2430 BC, 2030 BC, and 1870 BC. It was a huge kick in the pants, occurring *each* time just as the city was supposed to reach size 5, dropping it to size 1 or 2 after it finished its settler. I finally gave up on Persepolis as a settler factory and founded Arbela near the Plains/Cow in 1700 BC. Not surprisingly, once I did that, I didn't have any more problems with disease.

NEIGHBORS: We met Japan in 2950 BC and Rome in 2800 BC.

WAR!: In 900 BC, I ask 2 Roman Warriors to leave the lands around Susa. They declare war! Rome also declares on Japan (What was he thinking?) My Immortals (and the GA they start) are easily able to hold off the archers/warriors Caesar sends my way and (auto)raze his outer ring of towns. As we approach Rome, I do the thing I dread most: I lose a fight to a Legion. Doh! Rome becomes much tougher in it's GA (610 BC.) I spend the years from 470 BC to and 10 AD slogging my forces into Rome and taking out their perimeter forces. I manage to pop a MGL during this time, form an Immortal Army, and then lose it against a regular legion. :( In 130 AD, I sign peace with Caesar. He's willing to give me everything he has for peace (all his gold, cities, and tech), so there's no point fighting any longer.

MIDDLE AGES!: I traded the captured Roman techs with Japan for Polytheism, bringing the Persian Empire into the Middle Ages in 150 AD. At this point, I still lack the 2 optional government techs. Luckily, Rome has Republic and Japan has Monarchy, so a little bit of trading nets both techs. I'll be waiting 4 turns while Pasargadae completes the Heroic Epic and then switching over to Republic, but that's a story for another day. ;)

TECHNOLOGY:
4000 BC: BW/Masonry: 4000 BC
3150 BC: Pottery (Researched)
2950 BC: Wheel, Warrior Code, CB (Japan)
2800 BC: Alphabet (Rome)
2390 BC: IW (Rome); Mysticism (Japan)
1750 BC: Writing (Rome)
1075 BC: HBR (Rome), MM (Japan)
750 BC: Literature (Researched)
670 BC: Math (Researched)
430 BC: CoL (Great Library)
150 AD: Philosophy, Construction, Republic (Rome); Polytheism, Monarchy (Japan); Feudalism (Scientific Trait)


QSC Stats: 5 cities, 1 settler, 5 workers, population 16, 1 temple, 2 barracks, 2 granaries, 1 Colossus, Know: All 1st tier techs; All 2nd tier ex. Mathematics; MM+HBR. Wow, that's sad.

20K CITY BUILDS:
1830 BC: Temple
1050 BC: Colossus
450 BC: Great Library
370 BC: Library
50 BC: Forbidden Palace
Heroic Epic in 4 turns



http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GOTM41_0150AD2.jpg

My Empire in 150 AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/GOTM41_0150AD-Pasargadae.jpg

My 20K City (Pasargadae) in 150 AD

After my humiliating cultural defeat at the hands of the celts in cotm 10, I decided that this time I would try for 100k, but with the intention of having flexibility so I could change this goal.

After reading the pre-game thread it became clear that the capitol was a potential 4-turn settler factory. As I have never managed to get this working before I thought I’d concentrate on learning this skill in the AA. However firstly I wanted to have some ancient culture, and therefore researched Ceremonial Burial so I could build a temple. While researching CB I built a couple of warriors to go exploring. I managed to get CB quickly and built a temple just before reaching size 5. I decided to quickly build a settler before starting on the Granary.

After these initial moves my factory was ready, however disaster struck in the form of disease, so it was only at around 1500 BC that I managed to get the factory up and running, and it took a few tries before I managed to successfully manage settlers in 4-turns.

Despite this setback I remained optimistic, and exploring had revealed the location of the other civs. My expansion was slower than I would have liked, but was still satisfactory. However, with my goal in mind, I set all new settlements to build temples before they started to build up a military (by this time I had obtained IW via trading and knew where the Iron was). I had decided the Romans were going to be the first target, and I would let Japan expand into the jungle. My cultural strategy started to pay off even before the war with Rome when one of its outlying cities decided my religion was the true way and defected.

This defection was excellent news as it allowed me closer to Rome’s main cities, and I had about 15 Immortals ready. A couple of turns later I attacked and triggered the Golden age in 280 AD. 100 years later Rome fell and the War was effectively over. I spent a few turns sweeping up their remaining cities, before agreeing to peace. The peace deal left the Romans with 2 small cities on the Jungle Peninsular, and more importantly, gave me the techs to send me into the Middle ages. Almost immediately after, Japan decided it would be fun to kick a man when he is down, and attacked the weak Cesar. :lol:

BTW – How do you do screenshots?

Open.

I thought I was starting this pretty well. I settled SE of the start and I built granary (3200bc), warrior, settler (2800bc) warrior, settler (2550bc) by which time I had a fully operational 4 turn settler factory working.

The worker irrigated 3 flood plains then chopped and irrigated the fur forests, then irrigated a plain. I was trying a compromise route of working forest a lot rather than flood plains in an attempt to build the granary faster. All planned on my spreadsheet. I don't believe an early worker is needed.

3350bc Pottery researched. Go for iron working at max

3050bc first warrior built: sent east

2800bc settler finished on time. Need to plan a bit more. I can't see enough of the map to judge well but think I will try a ring at 4. Send first settler east.

2950. Find Rome itself: what a site.
2470 Give Rome Masonry and Pottery for alphabet and 10g.
2390 Rome has iron working now.

2350 we learn iron a turn after the Romans.


2110 My southern warrior is next to an undefended Roman town but I can't afford to attack as there is a roman warrior next to my undefended towns.

1910 Meet Japan. I give masonry and alphabet for WC CB and wheel.
Tarsus founded in north near the plains cow. Rome has founded a town near but not right next to the iron in the SE so My new settler will try to claim that.

AND THEN: I took my eye off the ball:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/1910bc.GIF

Action was required very urgently, but hey, the Romans are polite, we have traded, they are just wandering...

Next turn:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/1870bc.GIF

and now I attempted to sweet talk the odious Caesar (I renegotiated peace, paying them gpt) , but it looked hopeless. He declared anyway and:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/1830bc.GIF


That's that for gotm41. I haven't been sneak attacked that early in a long time. I guess the game is winnable easily enough, but a good score isn't going to happen. A pity as I really had played OK until then.

If anything it is surprising how rarely sneak attacks happen.
I initially thought I was just unlucky, but have replayed it and the situation is retrievable from the 1910bc position.

For the people asking about how to post screenshots - take a look at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2097140&postcount=9).

@Offa,
Tough luck, it could have happened to anyone. I'm sure you'll think of very sinister schemes for the next XOTM now.

PREDATOR [ptw]

I was certainly harrassed by the Romans too. They seem to be a very agressive sort. This was the suspicious situation of 1990 BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/1990mu.gif

We fended off both the attackers and then a 3rd one. By then I was pretty confident, remembering how Dynamic had gotten a very good peace deal when he was 2-0 up on battles in a recent game. So I tried to get my settler production started. But the Romans would not settle for peace and in 1650 BC disaster struck:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/1650mu.jpg

After this, the Romans would hardly accept anything for peace and their archers were really starting to swarm. In 1350 BC we paid 16 gpt and Philosophy for a peace treaty and had to live with it for 9 turns, until the Romans demanded 7 gold. We had a negative gpt and refused to lose our granary so of course we were at war again. This war was basically a draw, but my number of warriors was stagnant.

In 350 BC we have a fair number of immortals and so incite Rome to declare war for the third time. Of course, by this time they have a foul number of legionaries. We take Veii easily but the stack that goes to Rome is too small so in 190 BC we're at peace again, and the Romans have a Golden Age just as we do.

In 150 BC we disconnect our iron. Most towns have libraries and have started warriors, three of them 1 warrior per turn.

In 110 BC we enter the Middle Ages. We actually paid Rome 14 gpt and 2 luxuries to save 3 turns on construction. We think we shall keep neither this deal nor the peace deal of 190 BC. The Romans have already proved to be the worst villains in the world anyway.

Forbidden Palace and great Lighthouse are both due in 5 turns.

QSC (Sigh)
7 towns, 3 settlers, pop 12
5 workers
6 warriors
Very few techs
2 contacts

Expansion
I chose RCP5. I can see two advantages and one disadvantage with this. The advantages are that we can fit in no less than 12 towns at that distance, and that we can have several strong coastal towns to build galleys. The disadvantage is that a few flood plains will be left unused.

Goal
I'm going for domination.

Timeline (galley routes removed) - Warning: Contains Comic Book Cuss Words Like #,! and ¤

4000 BC - Worker E, settler SE.

3950 - Perspolis founded. Worker irrigates. Researh pottery 0%. i want to be able to buy alphabet.

3850 - Worker roads.

3750 - Worker SE.

3700 - Warrior 1 NE, NE. Happily, no wheat. Worker irrigates. Building warrior.

3650 - Warrior 1 NE.

3600 - Warrior 1 E. Worker roads.

3550 - Warrior 1 E.

3500 - Warrior 1 E. Coast (?) visible. Worker SW. Warrior2 W. Slow research on pottery started.

3450 - Worker irrigates. Warrior 2 W, Warrior 1 turns N.

3400 - Warrior 1 N. Warrior 2 S. Delta found.

3350 - Worker roads. Warrior 1 N in jungle and sees hut. Warrior 2 E.

3300 - Warrior 2 E. The big question is if warrior 1 should pop hut. He would be hard to replace if killed, now that warrior 2 is just floating around near Persepolis. But if not killed, the barbs may get the AI moving so I find them. I pop and get barbs.

3250 - The barbs do not attack. Worker N,N. Warrior 1 NW. Warrior 2 S.

3200 - Warrior 1 NW. So much jungle! Warrior 2 S. Worker irrigates. Pottery 13 turns.

3150 - A Roman archer appears. Warrior 2 W. Roman borders spotted; they are close. Warrior 1 N. Traded alphabet for masonry and 32 gold. Luxury tax at 10%.

3100 - Barb attacks and warrior 1 is yellow. NE to mountain, meets Japan. We trade The wheel, Ceremonial burial, Warrior code, 10g for our 3 techs. We then trade Ceremonial burial to Rome for 42g. Worker roads. Warrior 2 SE.

3050 - Warrior 2 SE, taking a chance as the Roman archer approaches Persepolis. Sppeding up pottery a little. Prebuild is switched from barracks to temple.

3000 - Warrior 1 N. Warrior 2 E. Worker S.

2950 - Warrior 1 NE. Warrior 2 E to coast. He had done better as MP. Worker SW,S to furs.

2900 - Worker roads (too soon/late to chop.) Warrior 2 returns northwards. Warrior 1 N. Pottery discovered. Researching writing flat out at 80%.

2850 - Warrior 1 E.

2800 - Warrior 1 E.

2750 - Worker chops. Warrior 1 N.

2710 - Warrior 1 N. Persepolis reaches size 6. Disease in Perspolis. Granted, we worked too many flood plains avoiding wasted shields and trying to gain food. Granary complete.

2670 - Warrior 1 E to ivory. Building warrior. Changed to settler on the interturn becasue of more disease.

2630 - Warrior 1 E.

2590 - Warrior 1 E. Warrior 2 MP, 0% luxury.

2550 - Chop finished, now irrigating. Warrior 1 done exploring westwards.

2470 - More disease! Perspolis from size 5 to 2 as settler is completed. Settler NE,N towards the northern cow followed by warrior 2. Building barracks. Worker SW to second fur.

2430 - 4th blow of disease as expected. Writing is back at what it was when I started it in 2900.

2390 - Warrior encounters barb. Unfortunately, he has separated himself from the settler so now the settler is in some danger.

2350 - Rome has iron working. We trade it for the wheel, pottery and 15 gold. The barb moves off. The settler is about 6 steps from the iron. Should he go there? I decide against it, because of the rather low difficulty of the game.

2310 - Japan also knows iron working. Traded an equi-worker from Japan for pottery and 40g. Equi-worker goes to road towards iron (E,NE).

2270 - Pasargadae founded W of cow, building warrior. I prefer RCP5 since this can give us at least 3 strong coastal towns.

2230 - Chop finished. Worker irrigates. We're now working 3 FPs. Let's have some good vaccine, right?

2150 - Worker 1 roads. Equiworker W,SW,W to forest.

2110 - Equi-worker chops.

2070 - Worker N to forest. Warrior 3 finished. Settler factory finally tuned up. There was only time for 1 vet warrior, but more disease will enable more, as will the chops we're doing right now.

2030 - Rome moves into my territory with 3 units!!! Might as well ask them to leave. And war it is... Two reg Roman warrior stand at the gates. One step further away is a reg Roman archer. Our garrison consists of 1 reg and 1 vet warrior, both fortified. We switch to another warrior (1 turn). Worker NW.

1990 - The first Roman warrior redlined our vet warrior, the second detroyed FP improvements. The archer moves closer onto the hill to the north of Persepolis. It threatens my workers but dare we move a warrior to the mountain to protect them? That means Persepolis is under serious threat. I go to have dinner in order to show my self-confidence to the bloody Romans and inspire calm in my own people.

Upon my return I decide to fortify my third warrior and move both workers away from the forest. Yohoo! Vet warrior survives archer attack and is upgraded to elite. Writing discovered. Researching Philosophy. (Yes, I know there will be no free tech but since Philosophy is much cheaper than Code of Laws it makes sense to research it before CoL.

(See screeny)

1950 - Elite warrior attacks Roman reg warrior and wins redlined.

1910 - Elite warrior returns to Persepolis. Warrior 1 finds another iron source in the jungle to the N. No luxury needed at size 6. Pasargadae builds worker 2, starting warrior. Vet warrior scouts to gold mountain.

1870 - Workers chop (4 turns). There will be a growth delay though. I want some warriors anyway. Vet warrior returns to flood plain.

1830 - Elite warrior NE, E, E to gold mountain. Settler 3 follows. Vet warrior follows. Pasargadae warrior garrisons Persepoils. Worker 2 roads cow. Warrior 1 finally fortifies to heal.

1790 - Settler group E.

1750 - Warriors turn south wile settler moves to the tile W of the iron. There is a nice path across a hill and a mountain towards what looks like a Roman coastal town. Warrior 1 meets a barb far north. Chopping and Settler 4 ready, building warrior.

1725 - Warrior 1 redlined by barb. roman warrior appears N,N of elite/vet warriors. Elite warrior N to mountain. Vet warrior S (taking a risk). Settler 3 founds Susa, building warrior. Worker E to Perspolis. Equiworker Settler 4 Rome does not accept peace. Settler S, but will turn W for fear of Roman units. Reg warrior follows. Worker 2 roads. Japan seems to have bought writing from Rome. Rome does not accept peace. I find that strange because they have lost 3 fights and won none.

1700 - Lots of Roman troops approach Persepolis. Settler SW, W to turn northwards. Elite warrior SW Susa. reg warrior returns to Persepolis. Vet warrior W. Worker 1 and equi-worker forced to return W, they can't venture onto the flood plains.

1675 - Darn, archer and reg warrior threaten Susa. I put too much confidence in my elite warrior and realize it too late. New warrior NE,E,E to gold mountain to intimidate the archer, followed by a regular warrior. Passagarde connected. Settler 4 W. Worker 2 irrigates W of Persepolis. Pasargadaes 2nd warrior enters Persepolis. Vet warrior north to intimidate archer.

(See screeny)

1650 - Terrible. Reg warrior kills fortified elite warrior without getting a single blemish, and is upgraded, razing Susa. Roman archer then kills vet warrior. As I try to retaliate my last vet warrior is killed by a reg who is upgraded. At least I killed that bastard with a reg.

Settler NW.

1600 - Finally a break as another warrior is upgraded to elite. Built Arbela on the coast, building warrior. End of war happiness. Philosophy discovered.

1525 - Settler 5 finished. Moving westwards. Equi-worker completes 3rd FP again. Warriors go south across the mountain ridge, headed by the elite one.

1500 - I wanted a warrior on growth but the stupid computer chose to work a flood plain. (Thanks to Niclas for explaining why, although too late for me)

1425 - Good night. Elite warrior fails to kill a reg archer. Antioch founded.

1375 - Settler 6 finished.

1350 - More bad RNG luck: Vet warrior fortified on mountain loses to reg archer. I'm fed up with writing, will do an archer rush to shut up the Romans but I really can't be bothered to write about it. The disgusting Romans are even sending a reg spearman to trample around on our pretty land. As we try to kill him with three warriors on flood plains he is upgraded to elite WITHOUT LOSING A #¤#%¤#%¤%½!!!!! HIT POINT! And now they won't accept 10 gpt and philosophy for peace. We get peace for 16 gpt(!) and philosophy.

1225 - Japan demands philosophy and we give in because of an unprotected settler.

1200 - Gordium founded next to iron where Susa was.

1075 - Bactra founded. Rome demands my 7 gold and I'm running a deficit. And so we are at war again.

1050 - 3 archers step out from Veii. 5 fortified warriors will be able to defend in Bactra.

1025 - Two more archers step out from Veii.

1000 - Embassy with Japan. Kyoto is a coastal town but hasn't started a wonder yet.

--- QSC Stats ---

7 towns, 3 settlers, pop 12
5 workers
6 warriors
Very few techs
2 contacts

--- Further misery? ---

975 - First onslaught on Bactra results in 1 loss and victory, 1 upgrade to vet.

950 - Second wave is caught, but the worse is yet to come. Oh, and I messed up the settler factory. Sidon founded. Tyre founded. Sardis founded. CoL researched, traded to Japan for 4g, World Map, Map Making and Mysticism. I considered building an alliance but didn't think it would affect my war with Rome very much. Spectacular land bridge discovered.

Settler heads towards spices/land bridge.

850 - Peace with Rome, giving 3gpt.

490 - Iron connected, Republic discovered. traded to rome for 149g. Revolt > 7 turns. reroll > 4 turns. Offer furs to Rome for 90 gold. 6 warriors upgraded. researching literature.

430 - Peace renewed. Republic.

390 - Luxury 10%.

370 - Polytheism, HB traded from Japan for Republic. Immortal hurried in Samaria.

350 - We incite the Romans to declare war. Golden age starts.

330 - Veii captured.

290 - Literature researched. 4 libraries completed.

270 - Poor attempt to pillage roman iron results in Roman GA.

190 - Peace with Rome. My stack was too small.

150 - Disconnected iron.

110 - Rome knows Construction. I should not have sold them Currency for cash. We buy Construction for 2 luxuries and 14 gpt. Enter middle ages. Feudalism for free, researching Engineering. With the expansion of Veii we now have our own gems and will smite the Romans before long.


Misc
The first Roman attack came at the worst possible time, apart from the fact that I happened to have some warriors around Persepolis. I had hardly built any towns, whereas the Romans probably had several with their excellent starting location. Since the AI consider territory a big power factor, my lack of towns was probably the reason why they would not accept peace.

Also, this is probably the game where the predator handicap has affected me the most. While you're trying a settler gambit, two extra offensive units are quite a threat.

[ptw] - Open

Moved SE settled on plains, fur. Builds were 3 warriors and a worker and then settler in 2710BC.

By 1500BC, I had 3 cities, 13 pop, 2 settlers, 3 workers, 1 slave, and 11 warriors. I had built 2 Barracks and 1 Granary. Rome has placed a city near the closest iron, leaving me with only the iron in the jungles to the north. IBT 1525BC, Rome made a demand which I refused, recieving the expected declaration of war. I had 4 vertern warriors near the iron city (Cumae) with a 5th moving in that direction.

By 1425BC, I had 6 warriors (5 Vet) next to Cumae. I was confident I could take a reg spearman or two. What I didn't realize was that Cumae had been founded on a hill. :( I lost 5 of the 6 warriors before I figured out it wasn't just bad RNG. I retreated the surviving warrior leaving behind an elite spearman defender.

I immediately changed my production to a war footing by switching my two Barracks equiped cities from settlers to archers. While the capitol, which had just finished a settler, started building a barracks. The settler went north to settle the iron in the jungle.

In 1000BC, I had 6 cities with 24 pop, 3 workers, 1 slave (Japanese trade), 8 Archers (1 Elite, 7 vet), and 3 warriors (1 vet). I had 5 barracks and 1 granary. I was short Math, Ploy, CoL (in 2 turns), Curr and Constr as well as the governments. I had destroyed one roman city founded 1 turn before I could catch the warrior/settler pair encrouching just south of my area. I was able to fend off the warriors and archers coming NW and had 4 Archers nearing Veii. Unfortuneately, the first Legion had also made an appearance.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/denniz_g41_1000bc.JPG

In 950BC, I was up to 11 archers. The 5 archers on hand were able to destroy the reg legion on a hill and auto-raze Veii. Not without triggering Romes GA, though. I was researching Republic and had my workers roading toward the northern iron. Time to quit while I was ahead. With his recent losses, I was able to get two cities from Rome for peace.

I discovered Republic in 490BC, using the big picture to revolt. I got 5 turns and tried again but got 6 instead. :( With the establishment of a Persian republic in 370BC, I was ready to renew the war with Rome. I had used the time to established 6 more cities and build my military up to 11 archers and 12 immortals. I had positioned 6 immortals next to Cumae and another 4 along with 6 archers next to Hispalis (founded on the site of Veii). With republic and strong core, I was ready to for my GA as well.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/dennizfixed2.jpg

Normally, I like to wage wars like this in Monarchy instead of Republic due to the costs of maintaining a large army. But since I have observed that the top players routinely use republic, I decided to do it that way. Lack of horses on the continent would make for a slow expensive war. War weariness would also be a factor.

I discovered currency in 110BC and entered the MA with Feudalism as my free tech. I had captured Cumae, Hiapalis and Rome (w/Pyramids). In addition, I had auto-razed 2 other cities. I was down to 6 archers but was up to 34 Immortals and was paying 62 gpt for unit support. Rome still had 6 cities, including one on the long, skinny pennisula and two on an island to the east.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/dennizfixed.jpg

continued in the next spoiler...

Contacts:
Rome - 2900BC
Japan - 2310BC
(I never built a single galley in the AA.)

AA Research:
3950 BC - Bronze Working; Masonry
2900 BC - Alphabet (Trade)
2270 BC - The Wheel (Trade); Warrior Code (Trade); Ceremonial Burial (Trade); Iron Working
2070 BC - Pottery (Trade); Mysticism (Trade)
1725 BC - Writing
1700 BC - Horseback Riding (Trade)
1200 BC - Philosophy
1000 BC - Map Making (Trade)
950 BC - Code of Laws
490 BC - The Republic
370 BC - Mathematics (Trade); Polytheism (Trade)
310 BC - Literature
190 BC - Construction
110 BC - Currency; Feudalism (Free)

Very odd behavior from the AI this game, but I see now that its a common occurance. I had Rome sneak attack me in gotm39, of course they just attacked I don't leave my border cities undefended.
This game I see 3 warriors marching towards me and knew something was going down, it was 1600 BC when he declared, pretty early for an AI war, I put my warriors in position to get attacked and hopefully win out with the odds, but I did have to retreat a settler a few turns to get an escort. All told I lose a warrior and he lost 3, I had no intention of warring this early without iron and with mere warriors so I got peace as soon as possible and I think was able to get his maps, not much else.

The other oddity was Japan settled right next to me, with lots of room inbetween. The first made a bit of sense since he wanted some furs, the other I thought for sure he was going for the spices but instead he settled in the middle of nowhere, by a river. Strange. I let em waste his time in the jungle, I'll take those cities no problem with this start.

I went RCP of 3 and then 5 I think, sent my second city southeast to do workers, without a granary I'm doing 5 turn workers with 3 pop, that should be plenty. My second and third both also settled furs, and quickly built libraries then barracks and cranked out 2 turn warriors for a while after that, my warring began right after 1000 BC, once getting iron roaded. This also coincided with me finishing republic.

My tech route was pottery, burial, then traded for alphabet and went up writing to maps then clear out the techs to get to republic. Sadly, other than getting Iron, Mysticism, Wheel and Alphabet, Caesar seemed to be following my tech route and Toku while getting me Mysticism has fallen behind. I gave up Masonry early and Caesar built the Pyramids for me, some other civ got the Oracle in the cascade, but it stopped there.

As for how my game developed, I'm not going for conquest or domination so spent more time with cities and infrastructure than would be needed in this map. With the production available I would suspect you could skip the upgrade route and build immortals normally, that is if you do research.

All in all its been fun so far, despite the excellent starts the AI had, and the quick expansion they were able to handle.

Jeez and here I was moaning about an early bout of disease! Sorry about the bad Roman breaks guys.

Open PTW
100k Culture (SGOTM whetted my appetite for cramming towns and building stuff)

Opening Moves

Three guesses where I placed Persepolis! ;) My initial builds were warrior, warrior, granary, settler, warrior, warrior, warrior, warrior, settler. I had everything planned out nicely after playing with Excel for about half an hour and of course it all gets thrown out the window 11 turns in when Persepolis loses a pop to disease. Luckily Persepolis was only at pop 2 and the damage was limited. A quick reconnaissance led me to getting a 2nd settler out before the factory was ready. This 2nd town, placed 4 tiles to the NE, made up for the delay by developing into a 6-turn settler factory. My main factory was up and running in 2190bc, the second in 1625bc.

My starting research was Pottery at 100%, followed by a string of 40-turn techs led by Iron Working and Mathematics. My goal was to build up cash (and all that population working on rivers, my gold built up fast! :D ) and trade or conquer most of the AA techs.

1000bc

Very little happened up to this point. Settlers, workers and warriors were built along with a couple temples to put the squeeze on the Roman town next to my iron. Did anyone NOT have the Romans place a town there? I settled right on top of the iron and the temple placed my border against their town in the hopes of flipping it.

1000bc stats:
Towns - 12
Pop - 24
Settlers - 2
Workers - 5
Warriors - 10
Granaries - 2
Temples - 2
Barracks - 1
Gold - 1032 +32/t
Tech - 1st tier, Math, Writing, MM, HR, Myst
Score - 213 (2nd to Rome - 239)(Japan is third with 200)

Rome

In 825bc Rome built the Pyramids and sealed their fate. In 470bc I declared on them and made quick work of their towns west of Rome. Unfortunately my stack of 14 immortals were not enough to take out the city of Rome. Those legions on the hill, combined with some bad RNG luck were devestating. A 15th immortal would have done the job. When my attack was done all that remained was 1 redlined spear. Between turns several more legions entered Rome. I decided my heavily damaged forces were not enough for the task and I retreated them out to heal. A couple turns later I researched Currency, leaving just the two techs Rome was willing to give for researching. I bit the bullet and gave them peace (for around 20 turns ;) ) for the techs and found myself in the Middle Ages in 190bc.

Random Notes

The immortals are a nice unit, but are they slow! Due to the layout of the terrain, all my military building towns were on the west side of the nation (the east side was busy building settlers and workers) and it took 5-6 turns just to get them to front lines even with a good road system.

Early on Japan settled a town in the middle of the jungle for no apparent reason. Do they know something I don't? Hmmmm. Japan is hopelessly behind in tech (yay! no samurai!), so the town will be mine sooner or later. It'll be interesting to see what drew them there.

No horses anywhere on the continent? The Knights fanatics will not be happy. :lol:

I ended up taking my Golden Age in Despotism. I wanted to get Rome as a second core as soon as possible and I didn't want to wait for Republic. I used the GA to build libraries and temples everywhere and got a nice early start on my culture push.

That peninsula to the east got my hopes up for a bit, but of course it ended up as a long road to nowhere. My warrior enjoyed hacking his way through the steamy jungle though and sends his thanks to Ainwood. ;)

Research
3400 - Pottery
2430 - Ceremonial Burial (Japan for Mas, Pott)
2430 - Warrior Code (Japan for Mas, Pott)
2430 - Alphabet (Rome for Mas, Pott)
2430 - The Wheel (Japan for Alph)
2270 - Iron Working (Rome for CB, Whl)
2270 - Mysticism (Japan for IW)
1650 - Writing (Rome for Myst)
1075 - Mathematics
1025 - Map Making (Japan for Math)
1025 - Horseback Riding (Rome for Math)
430 - Philosophy
350 - Literature
270 - Polytheism
190 - Currency
190 - Code of Laws (Rome for peace)
190 - Construction (Rome for peace)

Persia at 1000bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Persia1000bc_copy.jpg

My minimap at 190bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/PersiaMAminimap1.jpg

My start went very much according to my planning. I founded Persepolis on the fur SE, like everyone else, and built warrior-warrior-settler (3200 bc) (with a chop)-granary- worker (for calibration) then turned Persepolis into a 5-turn settler factory. I guess I could have had it as a 4-turn factory, but I couldn't afford to get allow it to reach pop 6 - I wanted luxury slider at 0 to max research to get huge tech lead early on neighbors.

The only exception was that I grabbed the Iron SE of Persepolis with the third city (Susa). Since Susa was going to be another 5-turn settler factory running by 1200 bc, my 1000 bc population was a little short of what I expected. Nevertheless, it was my best 1000 bc start ever without the benefit of popping a settler.

Pasargadae was cranking warriors and built a barracks in 2070 bc. Iron was hooked up in 1475 bc, and I had 7 Immortals upgraded from veteran warriors headed for Rome in no time at all. I actually started the war in 1250 bc and took my first Roman city (Veii) in 1225...triggering a despotism golden age. No worries. Rome was begging for peace in 1050, but I wouldn't give it to them. Happily, Rome built the Pyramids in 1025, sealing the fate of Rome. Romans never hooked up iron for very long, they only produced a single legion, which did enough damage, thank you very much (wiping out an Army of Immortals). Rome fell in 710 bc. I kept them around for a while, though, into the time when I hit the Middle Ages.

I turned North to hit the Japanese, but taking only 8 Immortals for the task (only 6 vets) was dumb, and cost me many, many turns. I went straight up the Japanese main street, taking Kagoshima, Osaka (iron city), and Kyoto, but lost Osaka and Kyoto right back. Had to settle for peace and one Japanese city in 30 bc. Could not launch a new invasion through the jungles until the middle ages.

Hit the Middle Ages in 250 bc, shortly after launching a few suicide galleys.

Here are my QSC stats:

11 CITIES
28 POPULATION
2 GRANARIES
2 BARRACKS
1 SETTLER
4 WORKERS
8 WARRIORS
5 SPEARMAN
11 IMMORTALS (1 Elite, 8 Veteran, 2 Regular)

Techs:

4000 bc- BRONZE WORKING, MASONRY (starting techs)
3350 bc- POTTERY (researched)
3050 bc- ALPHABET (Romans)
3000 bc- CEREMONIAL BURIAL, THE WHEEL, WARRIOR CODE (Japanese)
2350 bc- IRON WORKING (researched)
1790 bc- WRITING (researched)
1625 bc- MYSTICISM (Japanese)
1600 bc- PHILOSOPHY (researched), HORSEBACK RIDING (Japanese)
1175 bc- POLYTHEISM (researched)
1050 bc- MAPMAKING (Japanese)

Here are the cities, in order:

3950 bc- Persepolis
3050 bc- Pasargadae at RCP 4.0 (chosen because 4 of 6 cities would have fresh water access)
2030 bc- Susa at RCP 6.5 (would become second ring)
1950 bc- Arbela
1725 bc- Antioch
1625 bc- Tarsus
1425 bc- Gordium (spices for second lux)
1350 bc- Bactra
1225 bc- Veii (captured)
1200 bc- Sidon
1125 bc- Tyre

And the screenie:

Odd about the roman aggression. I spose my paranoid self (first game on monarch) built enough warriors and spears early to scare them off, it was funny tho, when i had about 6 immortals and building 1-2 per turn i tried to declare war by demanding all their money (around 40), which they gave!!??! Still im not one to give in to bribary.

I see now i moved a little slow, compared with you guys, mainly due to my lack of effort in secureing iron asap. Oh well, first Gotm and first monarch, still alive and going strong in industrial age (but enough of that here) so im happy :D

Another thing i noticed from the pregame discussion thread, was talk of wheat to the NW and grassland north etc etc, stop analysing dudes :p

This 2nd town, placed 4 tiles to the NE, made up for the delay by developing into a 6-turn settler factory.Great move, great scouting!

Settlers, workers and warriors were built along with a couple temples to put the squeeze on the Roman town next to my iron. Did anyone NOT have the Romans place a town there? Yes :D for me the Romans razed a town there :sad:

Open class, learning domination (Teach me, tiger!)

Founding

Persepolis was founded in 3950 BC south-east of the starting
position. The worker went east to irrigate. Science on maximum
researching Pottery. Build order: Warrior, then Worker.

In 3550 BC Warrior1 had found lots of jungle to the north-east. A
decision was made to keep production on Worker rather than switch to
Settler, since no contact had been made and no superior location had
been found -- it's good all around!

In 3400 BC Pottery was discovered, and a pre-build in Persepolis
changed to Granary. Science raised back to 100% researching Iron
Working.

As predicted by sooth-sayers, roaming cattle were found to the
north-west of the capital. This happened in 3200 BC. The western sea
was located in 3050 BC.

The Granary was completed in 2800 BC and in 2710 BC the two workers
had completed all improvements for a four-turn 4-6 settler factory in
Persepolis. We paused briefly to consider ring city placements and
decided to go for rings 3, 6 and 9. With four cities in ring 3, the
five inner core cities could each have twelwe tiles supporting twelve
citizens. Four of them would be placed on rivers. Ring 6 then would have three
coastal cities and nicely touch the river in the jungle to the
north-east for a reasonable limes city towards the lower-standing
civilizations. Eventually, eight cities would be build in ring 6.

Meeting Rome

A red border had been spotted in the south-east in 2590 BC. This made
Xerxes change his mind from founding his second city to the north-east
in favour of settling towards the Romans in the south-east. When
contact was taken in 2510 BC, we traded Pottery and Masonry for
Alphabet. Rome still had Warrior Code which we lacked.

The First Few Cities

We spotted our first iron in the east in 2430 BC and then more of it
closer to the Romans a few turns later. After Pasargadae was founded
3SE of Persepolis, Susa would be founded in ring 6 next to the first
iron deposit. This occurred according to plan in 2190 BC. We spotted
our only goody hut close to Susa, but left it, since our cities are
undefended. Pasargadae built two Warriors, which were both sent as
military police to Persepolis. Susa built a Worker. Arbela was founded
3NE and then disease struck Pasargadae. Thank RNG that Persepolis was
saved!

Growth and Preparation

A Settler was cranked out every four turns between 2470 BC and 1000 BC,
that's 13 Settlers. Rings 3 and 6 were filled except for two locations
in ring 6 close to the Romans, which were left in order not to provoke
a too early war. In ring 9 one city was founded as soon as possible to
claim the spices in the jungle and another one on the coast to the
north-west to fill the space south of the jungle.

Japan was met in 1910 BC, and we traded Alphabet and Masonry for The
Wheel, Warrior Code, Ceremonial Burial and 10 gold. Later we trade
Mathematics and Ceremonial Burial to the Romans for Writing. In 1325
BC, the Romans demanded Polytheism, which they got. We were going
directly for Monarchy with the plan to have our golden age under that
form of government when we eventually attacked the Romans. We would
let the Japanese settle the jungles and do the tedious clearing and
roading before we would pick them like a ripe apple. Our side of the
jungle was densely settled before any Japanese had ventured to far. As
it turned out, even Rome founded a city in the middle of the jungle.

Our two scouting Warriors mapped the whole continent often stepping on
the territory of the other two civilizations until they were thrown
out. They avoided the long peninsula since there-and-back-again
movements are inefficient for scouting.

A few turns before 1000 BC, we lowered science in order to time the
discovery of Monarchy to after population-rushing a Temple in our
spices city, Bactra. This was to be our only population rush in
despotic times. We were then building mainly Spearmen in preparation
for the attack on Rome or an attack from them.

Status 1000 BC

13 Cities
38 Citizens
1 Settler
8 Workers
6 Warriors
6 Spearmen
2 Catapults
13 First and second tier technologies plus Polytheism and Monarchy

The Ketchup Effect

A revolution was made in 975 BC resulting in no less than eight turns
of anarchy. Monarchy was finally established in 775 BC. We got Map
Making, Horseback Riding, World Map and 2 gold from the Japanese for
Polytheism, Mathematics and Territory Map. We built up our forces of
Immortals and, from cities without a barracks, catapults. We also
founded the two missing cities in ring 6 towards the Romans. The
progress seemed very slow indeed when in 530 BC the Romans demanded
Literature, we refused and they declared war on us. Our first
Immortals win triggered a golden age with a complete 13-city
high-population core under monarchy, and our production skyrocketed.
Workers had been toiling long with the aim to have at least one sheld
produced on as many tiles a possible before the golden age set in.

Soon we had ammassed a sizeable force which wasn't daunted by the
recent completion in Rome of The Great Wall, but went on and captured
that city including its Wall and The Pyramids. Production was now so
high, that we were tempted to start building all kinds of improvements
in our cities, including great wonders such as The Great Library and
The Great Lighthouse. Improvements, after all, remain when the golden age has gone.

The luck of war waned and so did our forces,
bringing the operations in Roman lands to slow down. We offered Rome
peace in return for cities, but we used the peace only to reinforce
and relocate our forces. When Ceasar didn't withdraw his forces fast
enough, we provoked him to declare war on us again, bringing down his own
destruction upon him. That Roman peninsula, however, went on and on...

I got conquered by the pesky romans :cry:

I built a warrior and sent him east and found rome. I built another warrior and sent him north and found japan. I was doing good on trades, I achieved parity without giving either one of them Bronze working (I would have had a IW monoploy for a bit). However, in my zeal for rapid expansion, I forgot to build third warrior to keep in town and started right away on my second settler. Pretty soon a roman warrior marched into my undefended capitol and that was all she wrote.

Sheesh! How embarrasing.

Open PTW

Hurray, finally a game where the X-man is on my side. :dance:

If I ever want to gain the eptathlon I have to do military victorygoals as well. This will be my first attempt at a military victorytype in GOTM. The Persians have a strong but slow UU and cheap culture (library), so I rather go for domination then conquest.

I performed the Klarius/Eldar-1 opening, buiding warrior, worker, warrior, granary and settlers. Second city between the cow and the deer, building granary and then wokers. Other cities on military duty (barracks, warriors, immortals).
The cities were placed in RCP5. More outlaying cities were not placed in RCP but followed the terrain-features.

Having an early and strong UU, I want to get a gouverment-tech asap. In the beginning both Monarchy and Republic need an extra four techs before they can be researched. So I let it depend upon the trading situation before making a choice. My own research starts full on Pottery and then Iron Working. After meeting the Romans and Japanese and trading around, I got all the first tier techs. So upon completing Iron Working there are two techs towards Monarchy and three towards Republic. I go for Monarchy and start on Mysticism. 9 Turns before finishing Mysticism the Japanese got it and I traded, then I started full on Polytheism.

950BC Monarchy is researched and I get a four turn anarchy. The Romans, who have build the Pyramids in 1075BC, sneak me. They’ve sneaked me twice in the Greek-game, but this time they won’t get away with it. Their first assaults only include warriors and spears, no legionairs. I ally Japan and start upgrading my warriors. When the first legionairs arrive, I have some 6 immortals and am in Monarchy. So, it’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and, unfortunatly for Caesar, I’m all out of bubblegum. My Golden Age starts in 825BC.

After some 6 turns the Japanese back out of the MA-deal. Oh well, just as good, we wouldn’t have stayed friends for ever anyway. Though I will not come across such a tough defender as the legionaire again in this game, they cannot hold against the immortals. Despite having their Golden Age started in 610BC, the Roman Empire slowly falls apart and in 390BC it’s all over for Caesar. I got one MGL which I used for the FP in Rome.
Towards the end of the Roman war I started diverting troops towards Japan to teach them the immortal way of doing business. I’ve already conquered some outlaying cities. With the destruction of the Romans the Japanese are in no position to resist and in 110BC we’re forced to say goodby.

I enter the MA is 70BC

GOTM 41
Class: Open
Version: PTW 1.27f
Goal: 20k Victory

I tripped so many times coming out of the starting gate on this one, it's a wonder I made it through the AA at all. I founded Persepolis 1 tile SE of the start, claiming the furs and the 2spt that went with it.

The best spot I could find for a 20k city was 5 tiles SW of Persepolis. It was on the coast, beside a river, and had a couple of BG tiles. I could have done a bit better, but not on the coast. I founded Pasargadae in 2510. Only the survival of my Empire was given higher priority than Pasargadae's growth.
I had almost the same setup as Grogs. and our QCS data are also quite similar. fortunately my Persepolis was only struck by disease once. :)
My 20K CITY BUILDS:
2190 BC: Temple
1075BC: Oracle
630 BC: Colossus
70 BC: Great Library
50 AD: Library
270 AD hanging garden
400 AD: Lighthouse
560 AD: Forbidden Palace
some of them may actually be built in the MA, but since i didn't really remember when the MA started, i just list all those buildings requiring no MA tech here.

When the first legionairs arrive, I have some 6 immortals and am in Monarchy. So, it’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and, unfortunatly for Caesar, I’m all out of bubblegum. My Golden Age starts in 825BC.


:lol: :lol:

Wow, a reference to "They Live"!

I really shoulda thought about getting Monarchy first and then starting my GA. I just didn't want to deal with legions defending at 3 - especially on the hills of Rome. I decided taking out the Romans before they hooked up Iron and had legions was too important, so I waxed them starting in 1250 bc.

What I truly regret, now that I think about it, was wasting my first MGL on building an Immortal Army for the purposes of the Heroic Epic. I should have immediately built the FP in Rome. This would have dramatically shortened all future wars as I produce more units from Rome and vicinity. The Immortal Army got killed by the single Roman legion I faced...it lasted all of about 10 turns. The FP eventually got built in Rome anyway, although at a time where the game was already pretty much over.

After reading about all of the people that were given a hard time (even one person crushed - sorry Budweiser!) by the bloody Roman's, I feel even better about what I did to Ceasar.

There were more than a few turns in my game where Rome could have 'sneak attacked', and I'm not quite sure why he did not. I must have had the right amount of Warriors to deter him, although if things had not gone as follows, I'm sure he would have jumped me anyway.

Initial build was: Warrior, Warrior, Worker, Granary. Sent 1 Warrior east and the other North-west.

Research was: Pottery, Iron Working, Writing, Literature. Met the Romans and Japanese. Traded for all 1st-tier techs.

Expanded TOWARDS the Romans, as it seemed that Japan was to the north, on the other side of a huge expanse of jungle. I was getting VERY nervous about the Roman units moving through my territories, coming dangerously close to un-defended cities. Just then, Japan made a demand of me (some Tech or other), and I refused. He declared war. This could not have been timed more perfectly, as I had a Tech lead on Rome and was able to get him to ally with me against Japan for a tech and GPT. Whew! One or 2 more turns, and I'm sure that Rome would have attacked me.

Then, about 5 turns into the war, Japan shows up at one of my north-west cities with a surprising force of like 4 Archers and 3 Warriors. No way could my defense of 1 Regular Warrior stand up to that. So, it was either lose the city, or break my deal with Rome by making peace with Japan. Without a second thought, I made peace, stabbing Rome in the back :lol: Then, as Rome and Japan slugged it out in the midst of my territory, I continued to expand :lol:

Rome had his GA, but lost a city, which I immediatley filled in! Ha! Meanwhile, I built Veteran Warriors and some Immortals. I then waited out Rome's GA, massing a force of Spear & Immortals on the borders. Then, 2 turns after becomming Republic, I upgraded as many Warriors to Immortal as I could afford, and pounced on him, taking all of his cities on the continent. The best thing was, a Great Leader was born on the very last attack on a Roman city. The FP went up in Rome the very next turn. Talk about a VERY productive 2nd-core!

The city of Rome had the Great Library, which later netted me Monarchy, Monotheism, and Chivalry.

ONe other lucky thing about my game - I had ZERO disease problems. I settled Persipolis on the Plains-Fur square like everyone else. As mentioned, I build Warrior, Warrior, Worker, Granary. I then pumped Settlers out like mad, working 3 Irrigated Flood Plains, a Forest/Fur, and a Mined Hill.

Also in my game, I blockaded the choke-point to the peninsula, sending Settlers through to secure the Spices and the entire arm of the peninsula.

My game was a wreck from the beginning. I went to the NE mountain with worker, but finding nothing, settled the SE fur. I built a warrior that found the land bridge that dead ended in a long cape, then started a settler. A few turns before settler finished I got hit with disease twice in a row :mad: dropping pop to 2, meaning settler wouldn't complete. Switch to granary. Finish that and start settler. Realize that I'm going to lose most of a forest chop, so build worker first, then start settler. I miss the unhappiness at size 4 and have a riot. Next turn, riot is over and I get disease for 2 turns again. Finally pop my first settler at 2350BC and decide I've had enough. Sure I could probably play to a win but I'll be so far behind everyone else it's not worth it. :p My time is short during the week, and with family down for Easter, I think I'll just wait for COTM11.

Xevious:
Only one word for your misfortune: Yikes!

The disease thing is kinda like getting a City from a goody hut - unfair to those who do not get one. In my case (no disease whatsoever), I'm beginnning to feel was almost an unfair advantage to me.

[ptw] Open Class - going for Conquest, Domination, or Diplomatic

I will post a more detailed spoiler later when I get home from work. I did a farmers gambit at the start and didn't build any military (not even warior-scouts) until the Romans started fishing around. I had 5 cities sharing all the wonderful flood plains to some degree although only city 001 had built a Granary first. Never had even a single bout of Disease.

Cesear eventually declared war on me shortly after I was a Republic. Rome had the Pyramids and The Great Wall at this point. I needed to gift one jungle city to Japan to avoid capture and I was able to capture 3 cities and got 2 more and some GPT in the peace deal. 8 Immortals attacked Rome and I failed to capture it on the first round of war. I need to see my notes and review some saves to see if the second war is in the range of this Spoiler.

My very first coastal cities both built galley's to try and find other lands. I think I lost 4 or 5 that all managed to spot borders in the distance before they sank. At least one of these sank with a Settler/warrior combo on board. One eventually managed to make it across with a Settler/warrior and I settled an inland location after being ejected from someone's territory (cash rushed a Library, Barracks, Spear, then Worker). Flip % is somewhere near 1%, but I'm hoping to get a settler out of it before it flips and agressively settle and expand my territory.) I will eventually dare to ship chain more Military across but need to take out Rome and Japan first.

I will do a second core as soon as I get a great Leader. I've had very few unit promotions so far and have just 2 Elite Immortals at this point.

Wow, now that I realize it...I was not hit once with disease in Persepolis. It just wasn't an issue while I was MM the settler factory there.

I also wish I had just used the lux slider and gotten the pop 5/6/7 4 turn settler factory in Persepolis. Looks like 2 extra cities by 1000 bc at least, not counting the jump start on the other cities for settler factories. Oh well.

I was really surprised to get such an early Golden Age. I'll post details later, but as I remember it, I had just connected up iron and was building Immortals in 4 of my 6 cites. Rome demanded Literature, and I refused. The declared war. I saw one lone Roman warrior coming from the north east jungle towards a city with no protection. I moved one available warrior to intercept and won with 1 red pip left. That one Roman warrior could have ruined everything. But, a turn later I had 2 more Immortals. When the might Roman army showed up several turns later, they were easily dispatched. 2 regular warriors and 1 regular archer. Mighty army indeed. I wasn't able to move much into Roman territory at this time. When my first Immortal attacked, I entered a Golden Age. Not wanting to waste it, I didn't build a large invasion force. Then the Japanese demanded Literature and I refused, and they declared. Not wanting to fight on two fronts while using a Golden Age to build libraries and temples, I settled with Rome and moved the Immortals to defend the Japanese invading hordes. After the easy defense of the Japanese invasion, I settled with them, and finished out the Golden Age. 2 turns after the GA, I finished research on Republic, and revolted. It was a short revolution, and I began building hordes of veteran Immortals. Rome obliged by demanding tribute again and declaring war. This time I made good inroads into the Roman empire. A third war set up up for a final Roman solution in the Middle ages, which I reached in 10BC. Tonight I will push the Romans off the continent. Lear fishing has been unsucessful to this point.

@markus5,
Instead of eliminating the Romans (and later the Japanese) you should consider locking them both up in an inland city (preferable in ICS jungle land). You can stay at war with them (one or the other or both) for nearly the entire game and get war-happiness from them.

I did this with 2 of the Civs that had declared war on me in GOTM38 and it is a nice way to be able to wage more war in Republic later as it takes a while for the WW from another war to eat into the war happiness points. Its like an extra Luxury!

The disease thing is kinda like getting a City from a goody hut - unfair to those who do not get one. In my case (no disease whatsoever), I'm beginnning to feel was almost an unfair advantage to me.

I can't tell you how many 4 letter words (actually I just substitute in #$#@$ as such) are in my log from the 6 turn the disease reduced the population in Persepolis. I estimated I lost ~18 settler building turns because of all the building back up I had to do after the disease. Still, during that time I usually built a warrior (for lack of anything else) and so I had a pretty decent military by the time Rome started rattling their sabres.

I know what you mean about feeling a little fortunate though. Things could easily have gone different in my Roman war. Fortunately for me, my Romans were very stupid. The same turn they declared on me, they declared on Japan. :cool: Now the only Roman city Japan actually took out was on the Jungle peninsula, but they always had a steady dribble of archers/swords flowing into Roman territory. While I was gathering Immortals to take Roman cities, Roman forces were busy running around killing off the Japanese. Also, although they had 2 sources of iron hooked up, the iron towns weren't hooked up to the rest of the empire. This meant they could only build a legion about every 4 turns or so by pop-rushing. Smarter Romans or a few unlucky breaks, and I may well have been begging them for peace instead of the other way around.

In my game, Rome made peace with Japan just a couple of turns after entering their GA. This allowed the Romans to build the Great Library. I wish it would have been Pyramids instead.
I knew that Rome would go into 'builder' mode, having just fought a fairly long war with Japan. I also did not want to fight him during a GA when he could really pump out the Legionary's. Thirdly, I myself did not want a Despotic GA. Rome did expand quickly, but there was precious little room left on the home continent, as I was expanding while he warred with Japan, and then I was playing blockade games with his settlers. When I hit him with the Immortals, it was over in like 5 or 6 turns, with his only remaining cities located out on an island, one of which he was kind enough to give to me for peace.

Yes, Rome will be banished to the island. My plan is to cut off Rome's iron and walk down with a stack o' Immortals to finish them off. They have two iron sources, but I can easily cut off one of them. I can't remember the territory details of the other iron, but I'd galley in enough to cut it off quickly. I think I could even found a city and pour in units without entering their territory.

I too am surprised at the Roman stupidity. I only wish I had taken advantage of it a little more.

What, generally speaking, causes such an early trigger of a Golden Age? Were things stacked so that would happen?

Nothing really to report, but this was my first time trying a GotM. I play as the Persians a lot, but usually on the next-highest difficulty (forget what it's called).

Since this was my first time, I didn't really take notes and, like an idiot, I didn't know to save at 1000BC and whatnot. I'm sure my score is nowhere near what some of you guys must have done. I found this to be a pretty good game with a very nice starting spot (like almost everyone else it seems, I went SE to found Persepolis and irrigated and roaded the flood plains E).

I'm actually reading this and the pre-start thread after having completed the game and I'm very impressed by the techniques and planning you guys use. Is there someplace I can find the excel spreadsheets, for example?

I'm more of a turn-by-turn player, not a micromanager. I come up with my general strategies and just have to remember everything. I can't even imagine how many points I lose on stupid little things like not lowering research the turn before I get an advance.

Going back and watching the recap, it seems I got off to a very slow start compared to most of what I'm seeing here. I built my 2nd city in 2510BC just mostly west and a little north of my capitol. The next was in 2350BC almost due east of my capitol. As I recall, that locked up the precious iron for me. In 1910BC I founded another city just west and south of the capitol on the shore near the river. The plan was to use that to start cranking out the culture, but I never really got going with that plan. I founded my next city almost due north of the capitol in 1675BC. All this time I was cranking settlers out of the capitol. Somewhere around this time I started focusing on culture in the city by the river and the city north of the capitol. The others cranked out barracks and warriors (and later, immortals). Up to this time, I was doing a nice business of skimming a little for myself as I brokered trades among myself, the Japanese and the Romans.

Around 1500 BC, Rome built a city just south of my capitol (which meant that it was basically surrounded by my cities). One turn later I sacked and autorazed it. I believe I got into the war by refusing Rome's extortion attempt. It was really a bad choice for Rome as I had about a dozen immortals ready to go. I pretty much steamrolled right through Rome, taking three cities on my way to Rome, which I captured in 925BC.

I took a break in the action here to regroup. I switched my capitol back to making settlers so I could fill in the land that was cleared of Romans as well as rebuilding my army. I made a stupid mistake here when I sued Rome for peace as I simply failed to make them hand over at least a couple of cities.

In 530BC, the Romans got tired of not being destroyed and, idiotically, picked another fight with me. I sacked and autorazed one of their cities and captured another in that turn. In 410 I captured another and destroyed another city, leaving them with just one city.

While I had been enjoying my romp through the southern half of the continent, the Japanese were slowly settling the north. I had placed a few spare immortals on my northern border to keep an eye on their activities. Sure enough, in 270BC, they did something to get us into a war, but I can't remember what, I just see that I destroyed the first of their cities that year.

In 230BC I captured the last of the Roman cities, wiping them out. This left me with a rather large army that I had to move up to the northern front for the new hostilities with the Japanese. At the time, I had 12 cities in my borders. I don't think I had created or captured any of the Great Wonders, as there seems to have been a flurry of activity on the other continent.

By 10BC I had captured 2 more Japanese cities and razed 3 or 4 more. Again, I set Persepolis to push out settlers while all but 2 of my other cities built up the army. This was probably overkill. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to stop posting my history, so I'll just stop there.

I'd like to learn more about city placement, I guess. I see people pay a lot of attention to the ring strategy (I've skimmed the article), but I'm still more of a resource-based placer. I also never was able to get a 4-turn settler factory, but I think I had 5 for most of the early turns. I've skimmed that article also but I'll have to go back and look.

Since my game is a washout, I decided to use my civ downtime to buff up my starting spreadsheet. In particular I wanted to automate the allocation of extra shields on growth, a constant problem in accurate planning. So I replayed a bit to try to understand it a bit more.

The position before first growth, 3fpt.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/first_growth.GIF

After growth the extra citizen is allocated to a forest so 2 extra shields accrue.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/after_first_growth.GIF

I played on a bit longer until the second growth, still at +3fpt (granary just built):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/second_growth.GIF

but now the extra citizen is allocated to a flood plain.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/after_second_growth.GIF

Why is a forest allocated the first time and a useless flood plain the next, when both times the town is getting +3fpt before growth?

If early on you banish a civ to an island, won't they tell the new civs you meet of your evil ways (rep hit)?

Good news - No disease... yet. :)

Bad news - Iron source used up after I had build only 4 immortals.
Kinda puts the kbosch on quick conquest of the continent. :(

If early on you banish a civ to an island, won't they tell the new civs you meet of your evil ways (rep hit)?

If you haven't done anything really bad your rep won't be hit too hard. If you declare war before entering their territory and don't go crazy with the razings the other civs won't have too much of a problem with your violent past. You might drop from Polite to Cautious or Cautious to Annoyed but that can be reversed if you deal with them fairly for a bit.

Predator http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif PtW

I settled were everybody settled. Build was warrior-warrior-granary. I did a short-poprush @20sh to speed the granary.
I settled @ ring 4 and 7. No disease early.
Warriors met Rome in 3300 and Japanese in 2850.
A galley met xxx in 690 and contact with the rest of the world was established.

cities

3950 Persepolis
2550 Pasargadae
2310 Susa
2110 Arbela
1790 Antioch
1725 Tarsus (already agressive in Roman land)
1625 Gordium
1525 Bactra
1400 Sidon
1275 Tyre
1150 Sardis
1075 Bactra
12 cities, 34 pop
2 granaries, 2 barracks, 1 temple
10 workers, 11 warriors, 1 archer
all AA techs except polytheism, monarchy, currenca and construction.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/klarius_g41_0.jpg

900 Hamadan
875 Ergili
800 Veii (captured)
710 Dariush Kabir
690 Ghulaman, Cumae(captured)
670 Zohak
630 Istakhr
610 Rome (captured)


science

3400 pottery (researched)
3250 alphabet (traded)
2800 TW, WC, CB (traded)
2230 writing (researched), IW (traded)
2190 mysticism (traded)
1920 philosophy (researched)
1650 HBR (traded)
1575 CoL (researched)
1300 MM (traded)
1125 republic (researched) 4-turn anarchy
1100 mathematics (traded)
925 literature (researched)
690 currency (researched)
610 polytheism (researched)
590 construction (traded)

war
Rome built pyramides early.
So war started at 800BC.
I had 8 immortals (+4 warriors to upgrade) at that time, but that would go up quickly.
Got Rome in 610 BC.
I met only 1 legion in the meantime. The only roman iron wasn't connected to the capital.
Rome will fold quickly in the next spoiler.

Goal was still undecided at that time.
100k and high research would still have been viable options, but it will turn out in the next spoiler that it was more military like ;).

If early on you banish a civ to an island, won't they tell the new civs you meet of your evil ways (rep hit)?

That is why I never banish them to an island. I always put them in a cage surrounded by 4 ICS style cities that each have more culture. This ends up that the AI gets a 1 Tile City Cage. If any AI ventures around then I block the city with units. Every once in a while they get a warrior or other military unit that will venture out and I can then squash with an Elite unit and get a chance at a Leader.

In GOTM38 I wasn't paying attention and one of my inmates got out with the warrior and captured one of my cities just a few turns before the end of the game.

Here is my trimmed down QSC timeline:
Decide on a heavy farmers gambit.
4000: Worker East, Settler SE. Worker will irrigate and road FP and then 2 FPs to the SE of 001.
3950: 001 is founded and starts on Settler. Research Pottery on Max.
3400: Pottery completes and start on IronWorking at Max.
3200: 002 Settled
2550: 001 completes Granary starts on settler.
IW completed just recently and started on TW.
2390: 001 finishes settler and keeps on settler.
2350: 003 settled and starts on settler.
2270: The Wheel completes and start on Alphabet at 20%. No Iron or horses to be seen.
2190: 001 completes settler4 who heads to the SW to RCP3.
IBT: see Roman warrior. It might be time to end this Farmers gambit.
2150: Tech Parity with Rome learning Alphabet and WC and start on Math at max.
2110: 004 founded and starts on Barracks (which will be helped by chop).
1870: 005 settled and starts on barracks.
1750: 001 makes settler and factory is now in sync except for the cop coming in.
004 finishes barracks and starts on our first warrior.
Math is done and we start on currency. I'm hoping to trade for writing.
1700: 003 builds a settler which heads east towards the Roman borders to RCP 6 and spots Iron.
006 is founded start on barracks.
1650: 004 builds our first warrior. Rome has CB.
007 is founded near the Iron.
1625: Rome has Writing and contact with the Japanese.
1600: 008 is founded near the NW cow at RCP3 and starts on Forbidden Palace.
1525: 009 built near Roman border at RCP6.
1425: Discover Currency and do trades. Get CB, HBR, Myst, and Writing in exchange for Math and Currency. I'm up slightly in techs but they will probably exchange in the IBT. Start on Philo at 4 turn max.
1400: Get Slave from Japan for Currency.
1375: 010 built near Rome.
1325: Learn Philo go for CoL. 002 builds worker9. Hit shift-b instead of shift-n and join back to the city. :(
1275: 011 founded in NW at RCP 6 near Japan.
1250: 012 founded in the SW on the coast.
1175: 013 founded in NE at RCP 6 near Japan
Get CoL and start on Republic.
1075: Trade for MM.
1050: 001>Settler, 014 founded near spices.

1000: QSC Stats:
14 cities, 41 population, 1 settler, 12 workers, 11 vet warriors
2 Granaries, 3 barracks
In progress: settler in 1, settler in 1 or 2, settler in 2, galley in 3, worker in 3, worker in 4, barracks in 4, worker in 5, barracks in 5, temple in 6, temple in 14, FP in 21
All AA techs except: Republic (in 8), Literature, Construction, Polytheism, Monarchy

Other Important Dates:
800BC - Romans finish the Pyramids. We learn Republic and get a 5 turn Anarchy on both RNG attempts.
450BC - My first suicide galley makes it across the seas with a settler and warrior on board.
410BC - Romans finish the Great Wall.
390BC - Enter Middle Ages and get Engineering for free.
Romans declare war when I boot them and lose Veii.
330BC - My first city on another land mass is founded!
270BC - Peace with Rome. I got a total of 6 cities from Rome and gifted 1 to Japan to avoid capture.

... I got hit with disease twice in a row :mad: ...
I often find that if disease hits once and you continue working flood plain / jungle then it hits again. Is that common?

Disease always strikes two turns in a row unless the first strike takes your pop down to 1.

As threatened, I mean, promised, here are my notes from the Ancient Age.

GOTM 41 Open

4000BC And away we go!
3400BC Pottery researched. Iron Working research started.
3150BC Meet Japan. We have a different set of techs. We trade Bronze + Masonry for The Wheel + Ceremonial Burial + 2g. And A red border to the SE. Too close for me...
3100BC It Rome. Geez, tough opponents.
3050BC The Roman city of Veii seems undefended. Take it now? A deal first. We trade Masonry + The Wheel for Warrior Code + Alphabet + 10g. Maybe not the best idea to give Rome chariots, but its just a game.
3000BC Veii is now guarded by a warrior. Looks like an RCP of 4 will work nice. Lots of good terrain in a second ring, too. Rome will grow the other direction, I hope. Still, the first cities will be to the south. Hope that Japan doesn't grow from the north too fast. That warrior showed up pretty early. They can't be far away.
2750BC Happy slider 10% until the first MP is built.
2630BC Happy slider 0%. One more warrior MP, then crank settlers.
2550BC The pump is up. Settler in 4 turns.
2510BC Iron Working researched. Writing in 18 turns at max, but we can't sustain that rate. Is there easy iron? Nope. But there is iron due south near the end of land.
2430BC First settler. Next settler in 5 turns. I have two city sites prepared at RCP 4. With the industrious workers, the new cities shouldn't need to build a worker first. Barracks first, I think. Now about that iron... I'm leaving a warrior guarding it.
2030BC Third settler. I'm sneaking a warrior (2 turns) into the pump. I want some protection.
1910BC Thank you! Iron to the east. Parking a warrior on it. It would be in the second ring. RCP 6.5 or 7.
1500BC Literature researched.
1425BC Romans demand Literature. I say no. They declare war. I am so under defended. This is going to be ugly. I should have given in to the demand. May this will be a false war.
1300BC There's a cow on my RCP 4 site. I think I might have to build on it. No Roman invasion, yet.
1200BC Code of Laws. Still no Roman invasion. I'm planning on starting the Great Library when the most productive inner ring city finishes its Immortal. I now have a stack of 4 workers that are working together very efficiently.
1175BC OK, here comes Rome's might army. 2 regular warriors and 1 regular archer. It looks like they will attack from a hill to a city that is defended by 2 regular warriors and 2 veteran Immortals.
1150BC I attack and kill a warrior. We have entered a golden age. Now that was completely unexpected. I'm saving the game. And then, take a careful look at every thing. I don't want to waste this opportunity.
1100BC Philosophy researched. The Republic in 21 turns. Just after the golden age ends.
1075BC Rome will make peace in a even deal. The Immortal is great. Roman can't send anything. But, they have iron and will connect it up eventually.

I don't see how I can produce enough units to sustain a war. I have three cities that can Immortals. Two are builidng barracks. One is building the Great Library, and one is producing settlers. There will need tp be units to attack and units to be left as MPs in the defeated cities. Can't do it.

1075BC Well, its settled. Japan demanded Philosophy, and I said no. They declared war. I'll make peace with Rome pretty soon.
975BC Peace with Rome. Got Peace + Mysticism + Horseback Riding + World Map for Peace + Philosophy. Lost one Immortal in the war. Save game. Forgot to get a 1000BC save. Grabbed an 1000BC autosave. Hope that's OK.
850BC Autorazed Japanese city. Now they talk peace. Got Peace + Map Making + 8g + Ter Map for Peace.
670BC Revolt to Republic. 4 turn anarchy says the advisor. And the Golden Age ends.
650BC Rome wants Literature. They are aggressive. But I have sufficient strength to fend them off if the declare. So I'll say no. The declare war.
550BC 10% Happy slider for a while.
490BC Peace with Rome. Got a city + maps + 3g for peace.
470BC 20% happy slider.
370BC Someone else completed the great library. Switch to building palace and hope to get to another wonder first.
10BC The middle ages have started. Got Feudalism. Changed palace pre-build to Sun-Tzu. May change again to Leonardos, if I reseach to Invention in time. No Chivalry for knights because I don't see horses. The settler pump has stopped and is catching up with a Temple, Market and library. Other cities are alternating improvement and Immortals. Soon, I'll try to take down Rome. They have iron connected to their trade network. But, they don't seem to like to build barracks.

Summary.
Score 406.
1 Settler
9 Workers
5 Warriors
1 Galley
35 Immortals
16 Cities

Build progress:
i started with settler E, worker SE
3950BC Persepolis, worker clear forest and citizen work on forest to get a 4 turns worrior. 100% researching pottery.
3735BC finished first warrior, and the second one finished in the next turn using the forest shields.
and then build granary --> keep on building settler

tech:
100% research pottery,
Masonry + pottery = Alphabet+10 (Rome)
100% research Wrinting --> Republic
trade Ceremonial Burial + Warrior Code + The Wheel + Mysticism + Horseback Riding(Japan)
got Iron Working for peace with Rome
Literature from hut

War:
3300BC met Rome, after trade some tech, i saw their settler and worrior step into the grassland :crazyeye: . so i decreared war on Rome 3000BC, capture their settler and we loss a worrior. i fortify my only worrior on mountains, and Caesar play 1 city challenge :D from then on.
we got a Leader :lol: hurry up the FP.


1000BC summary:
12 city
26 pop
2 Granary
2 Library
2 Barracks
2 settlers
7 worrior
2 worker
3 slave worker
1 turn to Republic

Entered MA at 610BC, got Feudalism as free tech, trade Monotheism from other civ. i will attack Janpanese and start GA at this moment.

Everyone seems to understand when their Golden Age will come. Is there a good summary that explains it? The articles I've seen say that attacking with a Unique Unit will trigger a golden age. Is it that simple?

Everyone seems to understand when their Golden Age will come. Is there a good summary that explains it? The articles I've seen say that attacking with a Unique Unit will trigger a golden age. Is it that simple?

3 Ways:

Your UU wins a battle
You build 2 wonders with your Civs traits
You build a specific wonder that starts your civs GA

Markus: Winning a battle with your UU starts a GA, thats offense or defense. And building wonders to satisfy both your Civ traits will start the GA. The latter could be a single wonder for some Civs, or multiple, to start GA you have to build the wonder but to satisfy your traits you can use captured wonders. Meaning with Persian you can capture a wonder that has a scientific trait, and then build one with industrious and start your GA.

Oh, yes. It's that simple. Well, your unique unit must win its battle, not just attack.

Certain wonders (one for each of your civ's traits) will, as I'm sure you know, also start the golden age. That includes captured wonders, but those will not trigger the golden age until the moment you construct another wonder (any wonder) somewhere in you civ.

Edit: aren't we a helpful bunch?

Well, I understood all about Wonders and Civ traits and Golden Ages, but this is the first time I've heard about UU and Golden Ages.

Something new everytime you play...

... to start GA you have to build the wonder but to satisfy your traits you can use captured wonders. Meaning with Persian you can capture a wonder that has a scientific trait, and then build one with industrious and start your GA.

You could also capture one with science, another with industrious, and then build ANY wonder to start your GA. The whole point being you have to build a wonder on your own to get a GA that way.

Think of it this way, after building a wonder, if you have wonders with both of your traits in your posession, your GA will start.

Roman isn't that aggressive in my game and i guess it has something to do with the fact that my warrior killed the warrior accompanying Roman's 2nd settler and later on i got one worker from Roman when negotiating for peace. :) i am wondering whether this also happened to other people here. but Roman did a good job in my game, considering their severely crippled start later in my game.

Why is a forest allocated the first time and a useless flood plain the next, when both times the town is getting +3fpt before growth?

I wish I knew. The same thing happened to me, making my plan less excellent. Later, a forest tile was always chosen, also when an irrigated flood plain was available (intended to be used in a neighbouring city).

Edit:

I replayed my start in a few different ways. It originally had the new citizen automatically choose a flood plains tile at the second growth. The flood plains were irrigated and roaded, giving a total of five goods, the same as the furs forest tile. Surplus was 3 fpt before growth. But if, in the replay, the flood plains were not roaded, the citizen chose the forest, as intended. For the two shields I would have to pay some worker moves and a little gold.

Offa however had the citizen choose an unroaded flood plains tile before the furs forest. That contradicts my findings.

I had the governor emphasize production but not manage citizen moods, but I suppose that is understood.

nevermind
:blush:

My current game is actually going very well! Considering my cultural defeat in COTM10 it's nice to know that I'm not a total loss on Monarch difficulty games.

Like some of the other lucky few, I was totally untouched by disease from the floodplains. Sorry Guys. I did have several riots because I wasn't paying that close attention if it makes you feel any better :)

Like many others Romes demand for Literature started my first war and shortly thereafter GA. The ended after we both razed some cities and realized that I wasn't quite prepared to dominate them. So peace briefly came while I built up my forces and made the jump to Monarchy. The second Roman War resulted in them finally getting kicked off the continent.

I'm currently repositioning/rebuilding my forces for a sneak attack on Japan. Hopefully I can wipe them out before they get samurai.

Man, I really suck at keeping track. I made a save at 1000bc, and that's about all I did.

Some things I did remember:

I'm going for 20k (hopefully my first win of this type... I just got bored the other times), and wanted pottery fairly early on. I didn't have many cities nor units, and Rome declared pretty early. After some frantic maneuvering, got peace from Rome. Not too long later, Japan declared, and brought in LOADS of archers. However, They were warring with Rome also. I think I had like 3 or 4 towns at the time (I tend to expand really slowly fast enough if I'm going for 20k). A lot of desperate moves, trying for peace every round, and about 3 turns from them able to overrun me, they acknowledge my presence for peace. PHEW.

By 1000BC, I think I had like 4 or 5 cities. At some point, Persepolis (where people mentioned the 4 turn factory) became a 4 turn factory (with Monarchy), then I got to expand a bit better.

Rome has most of the bottom Island, and even the Spices peninsula. I'm thinking I'll need to culture absorb them or something...

Upon completing GL (the tech pace is somewhat slow... I was able to grab Oracle and HG and GL, and still wasn't in MA), I hit my GA. I have a prebuild going, and need to cross the ocean (I saw the borders twice, then my galley sunk) to trade for construction (Ottomans completed GW, so I know I can get to MA from them). I really don't want to waste my GA on a small item, so getting to Sistine ASAP is important.

Sorry for the lack of dates. I just wanted to share (I'm going pretty slow for a fast 20k win. And with my low power throughout the game, I doubt I'll have a good score... :( )

Question for 20k:

Is it a good idea to trigger an Ancient Age GA to get some of the big items built earlier, so they accumulate more time? I didn't get GL till some time in the AD, and think that'll hurt me (I'm currently getting 25 cpt, and in like 200 or 300 AD...?)

Question for 20k:

Is it a good idea to trigger an Ancient Age GA to get some of the big items built earlier, so they accumulate more time? I didn't get GL till some time in the AD, and think that'll hurt me (I'm currently getting 25 cpt, and in like 200 or 300 AD...?)

The GA is probably largely wasted in the AA. 2 shield tiles, like mined BG's and mined plains won't produce any extra shields. Also, if your pop is significantly less than 12, you'll also get fewer shields from the GA.

BTW, 25 cpt sounds ok to me. My 20k city was producing 21 in 150 AD so we're in the same ball park.

Question for 20k:

Is it a good idea to trigger an Ancient Age GA to get some of the big items built earlier, so they accumulate more time? I didn't get GL till some time in the AD, and think that'll hurt me (I'm currently getting 25 cpt, and in like 200 or 300 AD...?)
An early golden-age is fine, if you've got a decent number of cities (eg. if you'd got a good settler-factory working).

The thing you don't want is a golden-age whilst you're still in despotism - make sure you've got monarchy or republic first.

The reason is that a golden-age gives you an extra shield and an extra commerce in every tile that is alrady producing one. In despotism, any tile producing 3 or more food/shields/gold has the output reduced by one: Ie the extra gold/shield from the golden age can be 'lost' due to the despotic penalty.

I had a worse than despotism expierence in this game as the turn after I revolted to Republic, I was sneak attacked and spent the first 6 turns of my GA in anarchy :cry:

I agree that most of the time you don't want a Despotic Golden Age, but sometimes if you wait you might miss a good opportunity to attack. In this game I went ahead and attacked Rome as soon as I had enough forces. The Golden Age helped me pump out Immortals and I figured gaining Rome as a second core 20 - 30 turns earlier would offset the hit my GA production took. My towns all had enough production to get Temples and Libraries built while maintaining enough of a force to deal with both Rome and Japan and also managing 4-turn research. If I had waited I would also have had to face more Legions, who ended up being a good match to the Immortal. I think the no-Despot rule is generally the way to go, but there are exceptions.

I hope this post is not too revealing. If so would staff remove it or what ever needs to be done? Thanks

I'm just wondering if everyone experienced an conspicious resource missing from the home continent?

How is it that the GOTM "gods" always seem to graciously provide some things, yet force us to cooperate (trade) with others in order to get others?

Thanks for all the replies.

Note: I didn't mean a Despotic GA, but rather a fairly early GA after Monarchy/Rep. As I was gunning for 20k, I more or less shot down the Monarchy path for the cultural items, and thought I could trade for Lit if necessary. So, I had Monarchy relative early. I was wondering if it would be wise to trigger it around then to go for a cultural wonder (and start on a second), so that the wonders would be around early enough to try to build the 1000 year doubling. (Then again, it's unlikely another wonder would be completed before 500 BC or later, and thus the 1000 year won't kick in till late-ish in the game).

Anyone know whether the 1000 year is prorated, so that a building around for 500 years will get some bonus culture?

re: missing resource. Actually, the lack of the resource was very helpful. Imagine if everyone on the continent but us had it.

So far, this is most fun game I've had in a long time.

this shouldn't be too much of a spoiler since everyone should see that pretty well.. and you need to have the map of the starting continent anyway to view this thread. the lack of resource doesn't bother me at all since we have immortal. :)

I hope this post is not too revealing. If so would staff remove it or what ever needs to be done? Thanks

I'm just wondering if everyone experienced an conspicious resource missing from the home continent?

How is it that the GOTM "gods" always seem to graciously provide some things, yet force us to cooperate (trade) with others in order to get others?

@King Of America

I would have to agree this map has proven to be a blast, the lack of horses has forced a shift in my normal warmongering tactics. The use of Immortals has proven to be an effective alternative.

I haven't even tried to find the other civs(though from them completing Great Wonders I know who the other civs are) since I figure that once I conquer the starting continent and the nearby islands I will be in good position for a nonmilitary win.

Thank you ainwood for an excellent map. Admittedly this is my first GOTM (I've also played a couple of COTM maps) but I'm having a hell of a time once again Thanks!

I hope this post is not too revealing. If so would staff remove it or what ever needs to be done? Thanks
No problem! To view this spoiler you have to be able to research a MA tech, so you have to have the Wheel. And players have to have a full map of the start continent, so they must either know that there are no horses around, or not care!

Anyone know whether the 1000 year is prorated, so that a building around for 500 years will get some bonus culture?No - they don't. Its a doubling after 1000 years, and just the standard rate up to 999 years old.

I was unconcerned about the lack of Horses. I figured that by the time I needed/wanted them, I would be in a position to take/trade for them.

i wasn't aware of the lack of horse until i had too many immortals and wanted to build something that requires more shields so that i can have fewer pop-up messages asking me what to build next. :)

I thought it was interesting to not have horses, but knowing I had immortals made it much more palatable :). Also, when I go for a 20k win, I tend to not think about military as much (which could be a bad thing, since GL is so important...).

well, this is my first GOTM, second if you count COTM. Didn't do write in any spoiler threads last time just because it was my first and I wasn't sure. I don't really have any saves from the past, but I remember pretty well what happened. Started scouting, met up with Rome almost right away, and right away felt like destroying them. I had two warriors in the vicinity of a brand new town, so I smashed it. I never like playing so close to another country, and soon after found that japan was expanding to my north fast. Didn't like that either. Grabbed iron and used my immortals to their best. Rome was gone, and Japan was next. I read that many didn't want a despotic GA, but I hope the fact that I destroyed Rome made up for it... Anyways by the middle ages, I now have all of my southern continent, with a strong second core an FP in Rome (never actually realized leaders could do that, I always just made tons of armies :crazyeye: ), and half of Japan.

Now, I think what I really need is direction. I'll have the entire continent in a few turns, so I'll be able to start focusing on whatever I want for victory. I was thinking 100k, seeing as I've never won that way before. Any advice for it? Also, if I destroy both Japan before we meet with the other civs, will those other civs know what I did to them? Will I have diplomatic problems because of my wars or will it be as if Japan and Rome never existed? thanks all, it's a lot of fun =)

For 100k you'll need lots and lots of cities. Pack them in as tight as you can in the areas outside your productive zones. Be very aggressive in rushing culture buildings. Build a few more towns. Get as much cash as possible while keeping up in tech. Trading well helps. You sure you can't squeeze any more towns in?

I had a Despotic Golden Age and I did pretty well with it. It really depends on how large your civ is and what you have to gain with an early war. Usually I like to get it in the early Middle Ages after getting into Republic so I can get Universities and Cathedrals built quicker and boost a tough tech pace, but this game I really wanted Rome ASAP and felt the reward was worth the Despotic penalty. Of course, I didn't end up taking Rome as fast as I wanted (stupid Legions on a hill!) but I stand behind my choice in theory. ;)

As for your rep, if the others never meet Japan, then it's all good. :)

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gifhttp://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg1.27 Predator

Goal: High score - a milk run if time permits, otherwise an unhurried domination.

Opening

I settled at the popular SE location on furs. And built the popular sequence warrior, granary, settler. My worker irrigated two flood plains, chopped and irrigated furs, irrigated another flood plain, then chopped and irrigated another furs. I got my granary in 2950BC and first settler in 2750BC.

Shortly after producing my first settler I was hit by disease. That was the only time disease struck in ancient times. Not the best of luck but not nearly as bad as some people had.

Exploration and Expansion

I decided to build at ring 3 and 7.

Like Smirk I built my second and third towns on plains+furs giving them a nice production boost.

By the time I built my fifth settler in 1990BC I could see iron. He went to claim the eastern iron before Rome took it.

I sent a warrior along the narrow land bridge and even used a second warrior to block the west end while the first warrior explored. Dead end. Oh well, I think it was a good shot, there might have been another Civ over there.

My QSC Status:
16 towns, population 37
10 workers
13 warriors
1 granary, 3 barracks

At 1000BC my area looked like this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/sirpleb41-1a.jpg

Research

Pottery first of course, for the granary build.

After that I turned off research for a few turns waiting to make some contacts. At 3000BC I'd met Japan and Rome. I traded for Alphabet, Ceremonial Burial, The Wheel, and Warrior Code. I was happy to share my knowledge of Masonry in these trades so that my neighbors could work on Pyramids.

I then started research again heading directly for Republic. I figured I'd be able to trade for Iron Working soon enough, it is a high priority for Rome. And I didn't branch off for Literature before Republic - that would be best for a maximum research pace I think, but I was more after maximum growth along with a good research pace.

I learned Writing in 2110, Code Of Laws in 1675, Philosophy in 1525, and Republic in 1075. I revolted immediately drawing a five turn anarchy. I didn't gamble on a second throw for a shorter anarchy.

Along the way I'd traded for Iron Working. In 1050BC I did a bit more trading to get up to date. Rome and Japan weren't researching very quickly. I got Map Making, Mysticism, Horseback Riding, and their maps. And at this date could see the entire homeland and that there were no horses.

Next I researched Literature and then turned off research for eight turns while I rushed a few things and built some libraries to make subsequent research cheaper.

In 710BC I was able to trade for Mathematics and I also started research again. I learned Currency, Polytheism, and then Construction in 410BC to enter the Middle Ages at that date.

War

In 1600BC Japan extorted Writing and in 1225BC Rome extorted Philosophy. I gave in both times, preferring to delay war until a time that suited me better.

I did want war of course, and if possible I wanted it before Rome connected iron. But I didn't want it until I could fight with Immortals. And I didn't want to use them too early - wanted my Golden Age after being in Republic and having a bit larger an empire.

In 730BC I had 13 Immortals and decided it was time. I gifted Republic to Rome to stop her from pop rushing, annoyed her with demands, then told her to leave my territory. She declared. I attacked immediately and began my Golden Age.

Progress was slow but steady. I recaptured one city which flipped back to Rome and pressed on. I took her capital with the coveted Pyramids in 550BC.

When I entered the Middle Ages at 410BC I was still fighting Rome. She was down to three small towns - one in her home region, one on the peninsula to the north, and one on an island.

Preparations for a Palace Jump

In 570BC I completed the Forbidden Palace in one of my original ring 3 cities. In 470BC I settled a new town in the heart of the captured Roman region to become my new Palace.

At the start of the Middle Ages in 410BC I was up to 26 Immortals and only a small number were needed to mop up the remnants of Rome. The rest were on their way to celebrate the imminent relocation of my Palace. I also had a number of workers there, ready to increase its population. I'd be moving the Palace very soon :)

What a rash of bad luck in this GOTM! A few people nailed badly by disease, a few nailed by an aggressive Rome (perhaps that's avoidable bad luck but it is bad luck nonetheless - other people took the same risks and got away with it), and Iver-P even got nailed by early iron depletion.

I have a thought about the disease and iron depletion luck elements. I was going to start a new thread about it but then thought better not - it would be hard to avoid spoiler information getting mixed in.

How about modding the GOTMs/COTMs so that there's no floodplain disease and no resource depletion? I don't think either of those things adds anything to the game except frustration, especially in the context of GOTM.

The effect of disease in GOTM41 can I think produce a larger difference between games than a goody hut settler. Usually when disease strikes two citizens are lost. If it happens in the early game and in the capital that translates over time fairly directly to one lost settler. Getting hit three times in the QSC period is a huge impact.

The effect of losing iron due to depletion in GOTM41 is even greater I think. It changes the map to an entirely different game than the rest of us are playing, no longer a comparable game at all.

Turning off resource depletion is straightforward in the game editor. Turning off floodplain disease is trickier I think. But can be done by checking the "disables disease ..." flag for all first tier Ancient techs. Doing that should also ensure that the AIs don't get hit by disease.

The other oddity was Japan settled right next to me, with lots of room inbetween. The first made a bit of sense since he wanted some furs, the other I thought for sure he was going for the spices but instead he settled in the middle of nowhere, by a river.
Early on Japan settled a town in the middle of the jungle for no apparent reason. Do they know something I don't? Hmmmm. Japan is hopelessly behind in tech (yay! no samurai!), so the town will be mine sooner or later. It'll be interesting to see what drew them there.
For those who don't know about this:

When choosing settle locations the AIs do take into account the locations of resources they don't yet have knowledge of. So it is good odds that later in the game we'll find something of interest there, e.g. coal or rubber.

Why is a forest allocated the first time and a useless flood plain the next, when both times the town is getting +3fpt before growth?
Very puzzling. I hope someone finds the answer to this. I'll poke at it too after finishing this game.

Open, goal is space (building & some warring;-) ).
The aim is to build an empire early on strong enough to sustain 4 turn R&D later on in I.A. and Modern.

Settled on the same spot as anyone else, following the discussion on the forum decided on early worker. Used tthree chops for granary which completes right before Persepolis grows fom 34. From then Persepolis would produce settlers.
I was rather lucky in my AA compared to others I think. Firstly, no disease struck the settler factory and secondly Rome wasno problem. She was not aggressive early on and although she was on heaps of iron and had IW early she did not connect it.
No horses meant I could simply concentrate on research towards republic, not tempted to do conquest with horsemen.

I gave long thought on the build and settled for 1st ring 4 (nice sites on rivers) and a rather far away 9 second ring. That way, my first ring cities would eventually be able to grow to the really powerfull cities needed to build space ship parts etc.

I discovered republic in 1100, revolted , 5 turns later was republic, suspended research a bit to save money for warrior – immortal upgrade ( Susa and Pasargardae had been pumping out vet warriors, writing this spoieler I noticed the rather large amount of warriors which might have prevented rome from being agressive in my game) and declared on Rome in 750 (gave 'm republic for all their gold+math, ask them to remove and they declared actually;-)

The roman war was smooth, if prolonged a bit, I obviously entered my GA in 730 with the first immortal kill, captured Rome in 670 with the pyramids, but somehow they sneaked a settler out and I gave them peace in 450 BC. I never met a single Legion. That year I also entered the M.A. (since republic I have been able to research anything in 4 turns) Unfortunately I have already built my FP near my capitol (thought was playing C3C) so will not really develop the roman core. Actually, I will ICS anythinhg beyond Rome.
Plans for the immediate future are to cleanse our continent of japanese and romans, meet other civs and ICS the roman and jap lands, meanwhile building our core cities up with universities and other nice stuff.

Cities
3950 Persepolis
2390 Pasargardae
2230 Susa
2030 Arbela
1750 Tarsus (northern iron)
1750 Antioch
1625 Gordium
1500 Bactra
1425 Sidon
1275 Tyre
1175 Sardis
1050 Samaria


Research
Started out pottery on max, wanted to bypass IW as figured I might trade it eventually, at least I did not need it soon as I definitely did not want GA in despotism. Started IW anyway after pottery though as I didn’t meet anyone by that stage, but met rome few turns after that. As soon as I spotted the red border I set research at 0% and first traded for Alfabet in 3200. I then researched full steam towards republic.

3400 Pottery
3200 Alfabet (from Rome)
2310 Writing
2270 Iron Working & Warrior Code (from Rome for wheel, CB and contact with Japan)
1750 Mysticism from Japan
1725 Code of Laws
1550 Philosophy
1250 HBR from Japan
1100 Republic
750 Math (from rome)
690 Writing
610 Polytheism
530 Currency
450 Construction, enter MA

QSC stats12 cities
34 pops
10 workers
19 warriors
1 granary
2 barracks

How about modding the GOTMs/COTMs so that there's no floodplain disease and no resource depletion? I don't think either of those things adds anything to the game except frustration, especially in the context of GOTM.

Having had a good week or so to calm down from my fight with the disease-ravaged floodplains of Persepolis, I think I've got a better perspective on it. What upset me so much about the whole incident wasn't that disease was hitting Persepolis, it was that it was the only location I could find for a 4-turn factory (at least until I conquered Rome. :lol: ) Had I just decided to use FP's+Plains for a 4-turn factory when other options were available, it would have been a different story. As it was, I felt I was more or less forced to roll the dice and I came up snake-eyes quite a few times.

I'm in agreement with your suggestions though. The resource depletion especially sounds like a pretty big change in the difficulty level.

....... a few nailed by an aggressive Rome (perhaps that's avoidable bad luck but it is bad luck nonetheless - other people took the same risks and got away with it).......

Not so sure about this one, looking at my game and reading this spoilers I first had the same thought, but then I realised I had two cities pumping out warriors from round 2000BC onwards, that might have deterred Rome a bit. I paid a price in somewhat less QSC stats, both in number of towns and improvements, but it allowed me to conquer rome (and later japan) swiftly at the moment I choose....

I am not sure whether all players that did not ran into trouble with Rome had a respectable military force, if others had no military and still were not bothered Sir Pleb's point holds true obviously.

I am not sure whether all players that did not ran into trouble with Rome had a respectable military force, if others had no military and still were not bothered Sir Pleb's point holds true obviously.
I ran into no trouble at all with rome, and I hardly had any military but a few disposable reg warriors before republic came in. For some odd reason, Rome did not go for any of its farther-stretched iron sources (the 2 ones near east and south coast) and did not connect its close-by iron (wtf ! :crazyeye: ).
Therefore, I was able to conquer roman lands with some republican immortals way, way faster than I would have expected.

On a side spoiler note, this gave me 2 armies, which I used to grab all of japan before samu's kicked in. I rushed FP in the japanese silk/iron city in the middle of the land, before finishing off the research to MA in 90AD (pretty late, but future is pretty golden for Xerxes alone on his continent. Suicide galley galore coming methinks).

Not so sure about this one, looking at my game and reading this spoilers I first had the same thought, but then I realised I had two cities pumping out warriors from round 2000BC onwards, ... Well, if you pumped them out from somewhere around that time you probably didn't have a very deterring army in 1990 BC, when I was attacked. :) But of course the Romans could still have been more superior to me than to you because I play predator where the AI get extra starting military units.

It doesn't matter to me. There should always be a risk of failure. Helps us keep the sweet taste of success.

I have looked in a bit more to my own problem of tile allocation on growth. As I wrote before, a shieldless flood plain was allocated when my capital grew to size 3, despite having +3fpt. The governor as always was set to maximize production only.



http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/second_growth.GIF

the extra citizen is allocated to a flood plain.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/after_second_growth.GIF



This isn't to do with happiness or the granary being built, but appears to be due to gold, as I replayed ( in a rather artificial way) to produce this result:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/pre_expansion1.GIF

by chopping and irrigating the forest fur that isn't on a river. Expansion now leads to:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/post_expansion.GIF

The only difference is the gold production between the fur forests so this must be affecting the tile allocation. It does make planning the start a bit harder if gold has to be factored in like this.

Offa: That's not making sense to me either. Commerce definitely seems to have *something* to do with it, but I don't think it's the sole number 1 factor. For example, in scenario 1, if you stick a section of road on the unused forest/fur (1f,2s,2c), the governor will then pick it up instead of the FP(3f,0s,1c). However, if you put a road on the plains tile N-NE of Persepolis (1f,1s,2c), the governor will pick up the FP instead.

I always thought tiles were picked based on a set of rules, like 1) get enough food, 2) maximize shields, 3) maximize commerce. What's going on with this scenario seems to be a combination of the 3.

in scenario 1, if you stick a section of road on the unused forest/fur (1f,2s,2c), the governor will then pick it up instead of the FP(3f,0s,1c). However, if you put a road on the plains tile N-NE of Persepolis (1f,1s,2c), the governor will pick up the FP instead.

The sum 1f+1s+2c=4x is less than 1f+2s+2c=5x. But how does the game select when sums are equal? I think it depends on city population size.

I always thought tiles were picked based on a set of rules, like 1) get enough food, 2) maximize shields, 3) maximize commerce. What's going on with this scenario seems to be a combination of the 3.

Perhaps more like 1) maximize "production" meaning the sum of fpt, spt and gpt, 2) get enough food, 3) whatever is set in the governor screen.

There's always been a little fuzziness about the way this works when there would only be two surplus food after growth, and it looks as though Offa has found one of the cases which has caused the past confusion. Either it's a bug in the governor, or there's a subtle logic to this decision that escapes me :confused:

In 570BC I completed the Forbidden Palace in one of my original ring 3 cities. In 470BC I settled a new town in the heart of the captured Roman region to become my new Palace.

I must have missed something. Why would you prefer to start the second core around a Palace rather than a Forbidden Palace? Isn't this ruining the function of the ring city placements in the original core?

@Più Freddo: I see two main alternative palace strategies:

1. Build tight rings around your first palace and an FP in one of those cities. Leader-build or jump your palace to an AI capital. The tight build puts a lot of cities in close proximity to your FP, and your new Palace has ready-made and widely-spaced rings created by the AI. Their first ring is typically at 5.x, so all cities at or nearer than 5.x to your FP get minimum corruption, along with all the ex-AI first ring.

2. Build a wider ring system round your Palace and leader-build or hand-build an FP somewhere else. Build a tight new core round your FP, which seems to be what you are suggesting.

I usually prefer option 1, as you seem to get a faster start for your second core from the ready-made AI ring. It looks like SirPleb is using it, but he doesn't like Rome as a new capital for some reason.

[ptw] Predator

Like most people, I moved the settler southeast and started construction of a settler factory on the furs. It would take until 2470 BC to get my first settler out of the factory because Persepolis got hit by disease during construction. Fortunately it was only size two at the time so I only lost one pop.

It would get hit again. I took the second strike to build a barracks since finishing the settler would only make things worse. FWIW, I discovered the hard way that you will lose the second pop point even if you have NO workers on the flood plains :eek: The governor put the new citizen on the flood plain in the inter-turn. Would it have made a difference if I didn't grow and therefore had neither old nor new citizens on the fp? I dunno. Is there someone who does?

I later lost the barracks because I was careless and ran out of money for maintenance. I think this is the first time I have made this stupid mistake. OTOH, the boo-boo didn't cost very much since I wasn't using the silly building anyway. Still... :blush:

Despite the disease, I have no reason to complain about bad luck, since I popped a settler from a hut the year that Persepolis was first struck! I would have to think that the second settler more than compensates for the disease, even though it took several turns to get it home. Sir Pleb is, I think, right that the difference is small. It would be interesting to compare results either way. The first strike cost me several hundred years getting the factory going. The second cost me more than a full settler. Is an early settler sufficient compensation? I really don't know.

Pasargadae eventually turned into a two-turn worker factory, although it took until the end of QSC to get it set up. It may not really have been worth it.

In reading the thread, I noticed that a lot of people had trouble with Caesar. While I followed a full-blown farmers gambit and Julius sometimes wandered through my lands next to cities which had no defence at all, he never attacked. I believe at one point I had 6 cities and only one warrior amongst them. Meanwhile I had a warrior out exploring that weird peninsula and another blocking the AI from getting on it, in case it went somewhere interesting. It didn't though.

I think the reason I had no problem with aggressive AIs may be because I was quite generous with both of them throughout the game, giving little gifts of money and tech. Best to give away the money in the form of gpt, so they have an interest in peace ;) If you give a bit of money, it's only a loan anyway. You'll get it all back on the next trading round. As for the tech, you want the AI to research for you. And if it makes them happy, that's a bonus. I gave away Writing at a discount and Math outright to open up research of the techs higher up the tree. OTOH, maybe I have no idea what I am talking about and was just lucky :scan:

QSC stats
14 cities pop 35
Missing Math, Poly, Currency, Construction and the governments. Seven turns to Republic
1 settler, 13 workers, 14 warriors, 1 galley and a slave
2 granaries, 2 barracks and a library
A second library and a second lux due next turn.
Score: Firaxis: 268, just one point behind Rome Mapstat QSC: 4154

Most of those warriors were vets, built recently out of my two barracks with the intention of going out and kicking some AI butt.

In 850BC, I learned the republic and revolted in the inter-turn, getting a 6-turn anarchy. Re-revolt drew three :) Next turn, Rome built the Pyramids and started the Great Library. Yum! I decided to let Rome complete the Library before finishing him off. Who knows? It might be of some use if a suicide galley found the other continent(s). No reason not to turn him into an OCC first though :devil:

Running at a deficit, I then managed to learn Math in 3 turns (three turns was possible because I had already started during the anarchy). I then gifted it to both civs, hoping they might research something useful to bring us into the next age. I then turned science off. Next turn, having made a bit of money, I established embassies with both civs, discovering that the GL is due in 24 rounds. In the hopes of speeding that up, I gave Republic to the Romans for the piddling price of Polytheism and 12g. I got ROPs with both civs. I used the Roman one to move troops into position. When I declared war, I did so honourably however. All my troops were outside their borders... just a little further south than they would have been otherwise :D

In 430BC, war was declared. The following year, I razed Ravenna and Veii. Antium fell too. However, the attack on Pompeii fell short. Both immortals and legions won during the conflict so both GAs started. Whether it was the right thing to do or not, I got what I aimed for: a Roman Golden Age in Republic :ack: In the next few years, skirmishes brought me a few more slaves. Then in 370BC, Caesar offered peace in exchange for two towns. I took it. We then traded Currency for Construction straight up and both countries entered the Middle Ages. I drew Feudalism as my free tech. Not ideal.

My only suicide galley died in its first turn at sea. As the new era starts, more are moving into position. The Persian people pray for the souls of these brave men.

It would get hit again. I took the second strike to build a barracks since finishing the settler would only make things worse. FWIW, I discovered the hard way that you will lose the second pop point even if you have NO workers on the flood plains :eek: The governor put the new citizen on the flood plain in the inter-turn. Would it have made a difference if I didn't grow and therefore had neither old nor new citizens on the fp? I dunno. Is there someone who does?

It would have made no difference. Once the disease starts striking, it always seems to hit for 2 turns. Even with all 3 citizens on forests I got hit a 2nd time.

Hi! :wavey: I started settling SE on furs, researching pottery and preparing the settler factory. I discovered the neighbors, traded techs, research was on and off, sometimes saving gold, sometimes researching techs as trade tokens.

I attacked Rome very early, still while in despotism, as soon as I had 7-8 Immortals around. I've been using the hook on/off thing for iron resources for several games now, thus depletion becomes very unlikely to happen. I haven't had no deseases yet.

The Romans started Pyramids, so I made peace for several cities and waited until the pyramids were finished and re-attacked them as soon as the 20 turns peace deal were over. I revolted to Republic and I think I'll stay with it for the rest of the game.

I started a lot of libraries for culture. Currently, I am rearranging my Immortals for attack on Japan. I will move them through the jungle and attack one of their inner core cities first. Moreover, two galleys are on their way to deliver 4 Immortals at a coastal city to add confusion. I want a quick war.

I am planning a palace jump to the Japanese core. My FP is located in a city south of Persepolis.

I thought about 100k and space race as victory condition. I think, I'll go for space race, stopping expansion after I conquered the continent and focussing on science, discover the rest of the world and use them as trading partners.

I am trying something else this time with a milking run. Its my first.

EDIT: Ouch, I see SirPleb might go for milking. Just my kind of luck ;) At least I can compare my game with someone who knows how to do it.

Exploration and War
I settled like everyone else. I later decided for a ring 3 and 8. I built two warrior scouts and then a granary. First one is sent east then south and he meets the Romans in 3250BC. Romans have a fantastic starting location, and I decide to give them a hard time. The second warrior joins up with the first and when a Roman settler shows up escorted by a regular warrior I attack and win two new slaves. The second warrior attacks a lone worker and I get a third slave. My warriors fortify on mountain and not even archers can take them down.

Around 1800BC I give peace to war battered Romans. After countless archers dying against my fortified warrior they are basically out of the game. No leaders unfortunately, not even promotions to elites.

In 570BC I send out an expedition of 4 galleys and two of them will later find land. I make the rest of the contacts.

Go to war against Japan in 800BC and trigger GA. Move slowly north to exterminate. Unfortunately their cities are small and they are autorazed. I need to fill in with settlers. By the start of middle ages they are more or less gone and my forces reorient towards Romans.

Research
I research Pottery on max and then start Alphabet. I can trade it from Romans in 3250BC. Writing discovered in 2310BC. Philosophy discovered in 1950BC. Code of Laws discovered in 1600BC. Republic discovered in 1100BC. Pull 3 turns anarchy. Discover Mapmaking in 925BC. Discover Literature in 730BC.

I have to research most techs myself, except the basic ones. This includes math, currency, construction and polytheism. I enter MA when researching Polytheism in 470BC.

Wonders
I build the Pyramids in 730BC, which seems like a good thing to have when going for milking.

QSC stats:
14 towns
41 citizens
9 workers
10 warriors
3 granaries
2 barracks
102 gold
Missing most techs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/1000BC_gotm41_minime.JPG

Their first ring is typically at 5.x, so all cities at or nearer than 5.x to your FP get minimum corruption, along with all the ex-AI first ring.

Thanks. I knew corruption was buggy in PTW, but I didn't realize it was so bad. Since I heard about RCP I quit playing PTW, didn't study the further details as it appeared too morbid for my taste.

Seeing that PTW (with patches) was the approximately fiftieth bug fix from the released original, it makes me look forward to Civ IV with mixed emotions.

Hello, everybody. I swam by briefly during GOTM 34, and now I'm back again (probably just as briefly).

Looking over the maps and tactics people used (yes: spoilers; I am disqualified, and will not be submitting), I was struck by how much really good territory there is around. Sir Pleb is always a pleasure to watch, and I liked his RCP3, but I'm never comfortable cramping myself that much (even when I know I'm going to be jumping my Palace).

I decided to try the standard SE opener, and build Warrior - Worker - Granary. In more detail, actions of the units were:

Build War, Wrk, Granary, War, Settler x10 ... interrupted (see below)
Wrk1 E-Irr, Rd, S-Irr, Rd, SW-Chop, Irr, Rd
War scouted NE, then clockwise along mountains
Wrk2 SW-Chop, S-Chop, Irr, Rd
War2 was used for MP

Using 3 chops really pushed out the Granary fast, and I was able to sneak out a second Warrior before the factory was ready. I thought it was a great start. But then ....

Interrupted
On the turn the first settler was completed (Pop -> 7), I got hit with disease. :( The settler did get produced, but Pop dropped to 4, and then to 3 the next turn. I made the best of a bad situation by pumping out 2 more Warriors -- useful for scouting, which I was still light on. It really set me back to lose 2 pop to disease before I had even placed my second city, though.

RCP 5
Early scouting showed what I already knew to be true: there was a huge supply of really nice city sites at RCP 5. The hill NE was mentioned before (makes a 6-turn factory). The cow/deer/beaver NW also make a 6-turn factory, only requiring 2 chops to prep for irrigation ... and has tons of forest nearby to assist in building the second granary. The spot SW at the base of the river had access to beaver, and also multiple nearby forest chops to assist with building a barracks. All of this (and more) was at RCP 5, so I decided to focus on a strong initial 9 cities and expand from there.

The best laid plans
Contact with the enemy interrupted my plans even before the first settler had gotten out of the gate, however. The Roman border was spotted SE of me, and I felt pressure to claim my SE location to avoid him ruining my RCP 5 designs.

The first settler plunked down 5 tiles SE of the capital, in range of two floodplains. Workers had moved in that direction as soon as the border was spotted, and irrigated fields were waiting.

Plans for a second granary in the NW were further interrupted when I managed to trade for Iron Working. My second (delayed by disease) settler raced East to claim the Iron, and my third settler moved to the RCP 5 spot due east and a touch SE to close the border against further Roman advances along the coast. Thanks to roads, Arbela and Susa went up on the same turn.

Capital + 3 cities, and I still hadn't touched the NW. If only the Romans hadn't been so close!

I was now in a quandary. As nice as that second factory NW would have been, I didn't seem to have the workers to spare for it. I decided to use my workers more efficiently and focus on irrigating floodplains / mining BG / connecting the iron.

Looking back, I think I could have prioritized the NW factory, and used my capital to turn out 2 workers for specifically that purpose.

The way it went, however, I placed my fifth settler NE on the hill (accessing two irrigated FP and a mined/roaded BG), and used the sixth settler to plant my barracks location SW (at the base of the river). The Iron would be connected soon, and I felt I should have the barracks ready (just in case).

The screenshot from 1525 shows the board just after I placed my seventh city. Note that I have Embassies with both neighbors; I also have Rite of Passage with Rome (who was briefly Gracious when I created my Embassy there :eek: ).

Did something go right?
The diplomatic/tech aspects of the strategy seemed to work like a charm, unlike the mangled build order.

I determined that I didn't want to fight until I was a Republic, and that meant I wanted Embassies quickly. I decided to focus on my Pottery and then rush straight for Republic, coming back to Ironworking if necessary (it wasn't; I traded for it).

I researched the following, all on max:

Pottery
Alphabet (I actually ended up trading for this at the last minute, but only because I wanted to improve relations with Rome.)
Writing (I think this was involved in the trade for Iron Working.)
Code of Laws (I was hoping Japan would come up with Philosophy I could trade for; he didn't.)
Philosophy (I think this took 6 turns!)

I had 6 turns left on Republic when QSC ended. Rome never attacked me, and he never even tried to extort me. :lol: I don't know if that's because I didn't have anything to extort, or if he was a little afraid of me. I never had as much military strength as he did, but boy, did I have GNP! :p

QSC Stats (Again: this is disqualified. I just did it for fun, not to turn in.)

17 cities
27 population
1 barracks
1 granary
0 settlers
12 workers
13 warriors

6 turns to go on Republic
Need Math, Construction, Currency, and Polytheism

I will note that I handicapped myself by not taking the goody hut in the East. The only disease I got (through 1000BC, where all my settlers were complete and I was pumping out workers) was the one right at the beginning. I let the enemy come to me, I researched Alphabet instead of rushing out to trade for it, and I generally think this is a representative result for RCP5 on this map (perhaps even a little weak).

Republic in 6 turns + Anarchy, Roman RoP wears out in 9, Iron connected, 13 warriors waiting to be upgraded .... GA before 600BC, with 45ish population to enjoy it.

What a rash of bad luck in this GOTM! A few people nailed badly by disease, a few nailed by an aggressive Rome ....Yes, this is a "bad" game. Persepolis was hit by disease the turn before building its first settler - thus I lost 4 pop. :(

I had scores of elite immortal wins withour a Great Leader. :(

A spear crossing the jungle towards Japan (I always put some cheap spears in my immortal SODs to get the heat from attacks) died of disease. :(

I didn't get a single tech from the Great Library before it expired. :(

The turn I attacked Rome, 2 immortals died attacking warriors. :(

All this in my 2nd 20k culture approach after missing victory in gotm39 by 3 turns IIRC.

PS: Full report will follow once I find the time.

While we're moaning about bad luck, how about two bouts of double disease in Persepolis just as it was getting into settler production, followed by iron expiring before I'd built a barracks in its town or connected it to the rest of my empire. Ten vet warriors all dressed up and nowhere to go to upgrade :cry:

tao - Wow, you might want to sacrifice a chicken to appease the RNG Gods or something. That's some mighty bad luck!

Mursilis looked at the landing survey as he reviewed the available leaders in his mind. “This is a nice spot for an industrious type guy, someone with smarts”. As he flipped a coin in the air he said “heads it’s Xerxes and tails it’ll be Osman”. He looked down at Moonsinger’s face smiling back at him from the 100 credit piece and said to his aide, “Tell Xerxes to pack his bag’s, I’ve got another job for him”

Xerxes assessed the area around he colony pod and came to a couple of quick decisions. “We’ll settler over to the northeast on that flood plain. I need two volunteers for scouting duty and I want our researchers to begin work on discovering the Wheel. I’d like to develop a mobile force for attacking and defense” were his orders. His western scout, Thor, discovered a small herd of cattle before reaching the coast and turning back to the west. His northern scout, Odin was more productive meeting a Japanese explorer (so much for a tech monopoly) and discovering a supply of fur-bearing mammals.

Thor’s foray east was more productive as he soon encountered a Roman worker. These two contacts allowed Xerxes to partake in a quick tech exchange and with research completing on Pottery, he found himself as the science leader of his known world. After 1500 hundred years of rule however he had only 2 towns that flew his flag, Pasagarde had completed a barracks and was producing veteran warriors and the second, his capital Persepolis now had a granary and was dedicated to providing new settlers for his empire. Both of Rome and Japan soon would take advantage of Persia’s lack of a military by extorting technology and gold.

Upon Odin’s trek to the Japanese homeland, spices were discovered and what would prove to be the only barbarian warrior encountered would die attacking Odin on his mountain perch. Thor’s return trip from the Rome’s eastern shore, it was determined that Rome could only expand westward, where Persia was and that each of the first three Roman cities had their own cattle ranch. During Thor’s stroll home another exchange of technology by the island inhabitants brought horseback riding and iron working to Persia’s cache of knowledge. At this time, no horses were in sight and the only known location of iron was within the Rome’s borders. Just as Xerxes was preparing to distribute bows to all of his troops Odin spotted an unclaimed source of iron and a settler was dispatched to claim the hill. Japan’s extortion of iron working was the final straw for Xerxes. A mighty army would now be assembled for conquest of these abusive neighbors.

With the founding of Arbela in 1525 BC, Xerxes was now confident that he would soon be able to repay Caesar & Tokugawa for their bullying ways.

At the end of his third millennia of rule, Xerxes commanded seven towns (with a settler on the move), 4 worker teams and 8 warriors. With the impending discovery of Code of Laws, he would be the wisest and richest nation on the island. Much to his delight the Romans completed the Pyramids for him and a pair of off island nation completed the Great Wall and Colossus.

Xerxes was shocked to learn that his feeling of technological superiority was ill founded when a report by Livy put his at the bottom of the list of researching nations.

The year was 170 AD, when a fateful decision was made by Rome. Either Caesar had ignored all of the intelligence reports or he had grown overconfident in his demands on Xerxes. The Roman ambassador swaggered into Xerxes’ office and laid a new ultimatum on his desk. Forty one gold pieces were the tribute this time. Xerxes’ laughed at the fool and told him to be gone while his head was still attached (Xerxes had a smaller temper that Temujin). The Roman Ambassador shouted something about war and the might legions of Rome as he was tossed from the balcony into the pond below. What had been either overlooked or ignored by the Roman leadership was the over 40 divisions of Persian immortals stationed on the border with Rome (waiting for trade deal to expire).

This was not what Xerxes had planned. His country was in the process of going from despotism to an elected republic and he knew that his first victory would begin the Golden Age of Persia, but Caesar had left him no choice, so with a muttering about best laid plans, he ordered his forces to advance. The Roman spearmen defending the four cities were no match for the powerful Immortals and they died quickly. The first Roman Legionaries appeared outside of Rome and though the fought bravely killing several Persian units, they too soon fell to the overwhelming numbers before them. The fall of Rome (with the Pyramids) was the pre-curser of the more defeats for the remains of Caesar’s armies. Three more Roman cities fell and Caesar had lost local access to iron, when Xerxes researchers discovered currency and the Republic of Persia enter the Middle Ages.

The First War of Roman Conquest (as would be known by historians) was raging and the Persian colors were being added to newly founded cities in the west and conquered cities in the east, there remained a potentially dangerous foe in the north. It had been determined by scouts that horses were not available on this island, so the Japanese Samurai, would be a very formidable opponent if Tokugawa was allowed to bring them to the field of battle.

If anyone wants it, here is my spreadsheet for planning starts. It includes a blank, and a sample set up for this game and for cotm10 and gotm38.

offa's planner (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/start_plan1.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/startplan_gotm411.GIF

If you look carefully you can see where I had to change my plans because of the lost shields on growth.

If only I had planned on the Romans doing me wrong....

PTW Open 20K

Cities:
I settled SE. City #2 went NE, N, N and was my 20K city, built in 3100 BC. City 3 came 19 turns later, and it wasn't until much later that Persepolis got a granary. I had 6 cities at 1000 BC, when I finally got Persepolis spitting out settlers nicely.

Research:
I started on CB at max, then iron working as I wanted to be sure I had it for my Immortals. I met the Japanese in 3350 BC but didn't trade for the wheel, which was all they had. After IW (2630 BC) I started on mysticism. When I met Rome (2330 BC) I traded for warrior code, the wheel, and the alphabet. Pottery didn't come until after mysticism, then I started to research writing, but ended up trading for it. Then I learned lit, then poly, then monarchy. The great library then brings me some techs and I research some others, but I didn't write them down. I don't hit the middle ages until 10 AD.

Culture:
Pasargadae grows nicely and I add in a couple of workers. I was reasonably happy with the ancient ages here. I built:
Temple (2150 BC)
Great Library (750 BC)
Library (670 BC)
Hanging Gardens (290 BC)
Colosseum (190 BC)
Forbidden Palace (10 AD, just before entering the middle ages)
I hadn't learned monarchy when I finished the GL, so the library couldn't be rushed. I don't remember if I didn't have enough cash for the colosseum or if I was waiting on construction. (I've got 4 pages of notes on the ancient ages, and still I'm not recording all the stuff I want.)

Wars:
In 570 BC Caesar demands literature and I refuse. He declares on me. Despite this, when I learn monarchy in the same interturn, I revolt. Wars fought in anarchy are the best, right? It's only 5 turns of anarchy, surely it will be a piece of cake. Two turns later, though, when Japan demands monarchy, I decide to give in. In 530 BC an archer dies attacking an immortal and my golden age begins. This is nice for my HG build, which is somewhat disrupted by the revolt. I capture a couple of settlers and then make peace. I save the real wars for the middle ages, when I have more immortals.

I guess I must have done something right in this game. No disease in any cities until the AD period and Rome didn't get agressive (though he did get tribute a couple of times) until I had a sizeable army (his mistake).

Vanilla civ, open class.

I first decided to go for a science victory, maybe space, or if time would ran short then diplo. However these plans didn't last.

Starting moves

As many others, I settled SE on the furs, and developed a 4-turn settler factory. My building order was warrior, warrior, settler, granary, warrior and the settlers. Before my second settler I got two-turn disease, so I built another warrior before it. My first warrior was ready in 3000 BC, and my second city was founded 4 tiles NE from the capital to build warrior and then worker. So I went for RCP of distance 4. After seeing iron in the east, I decided to have my second ring at distance 8. It was a bit far, but it worked quite well.

Research

First tech to researc was, like for many others, pottery, so that we could build granary in Persepolis. After that, we traded and researced techs as followed:

Pottery 3400 BC (own research)
Warrior Code 2950 BC (From Rome)
Alphabet 2950 BC (from Rome)
Ceremonial Burial 2950 BC (Japan)
The Wheel 2950 BC (Japan)
Iron Working 2390 BC (Rome)
Writing 1790 BC (Rome)
Philo 1550 BC (own)
HBR 1550 (Rome)
Mysticism 1350 BC (Japan)
CoL 1325 BC (own)
Republic 875 BC (own)
MM 875 BC (Japan)
Literature 650 BC (own)
Construction 410 BC (other civ)
Polytheism 410 BC (other civ)
Monotheism 410 BC (free tech)

Important dates

1450 BC We get our first coastal city on the western coast, which starts immediately a prebuild for the ship.
1000 BC The future Persian pyramides are ready in Rome.
875 BC We discover the Republic, and revolt. Get 5 turn anarchy, and do not take a re-roll.
800 BC Finally remember to switch tho galey prebuild to a galley, and as it has already gone over, we build our first sea-vessel. (still in anarchy)
775 BC Republic! We connect the iron, and get ready for a massive warrior-upgrade
650 BC Rome demands republic, and after we refuse, they declare war on us. What fools!
630 BC First immortal attack triggers GA.
410 BC We enter the middle ages.

Numerical Data

1000BC
11 towns, 31 citizen
1 settler, 8 workers, 26 warriors
Contact with Romans and Japanese.

At the dawn of the new era in 410 BC:

20 towns, 62 citizen
1 settler, 13 workers, 11 warriors, 31 immortals and 2 galleys
8 libraries, 1 temple, 2 granaries, 6 barracs.
contact with everybody

All in all, I think I did quite nicely so far. I managed to end AA quite quickly, and also I succeeded in one of my primary goals, which was to have GA while we were republic. Oh yes, I also had for the first time in my civ playing carear a 3-turn settler pump after we became republic.

And at the time we entered MA I decided, that we would not send our young men into space. And we would not rule other nations through the diplomacy. In fact, we would not rule them at all. We were going to destroy them!

Just submited this game. I did not have time to read all the spoilers yet. I will post more details in a few days in a second spoiler, because it contains information about land other than a starting continent. But briefly: I finished it in AA (my favorit AAC).

PTW OPEN 20K

My first attempt at a 20k victory. I founded Pasargadae in 2800BC at the exact same position as davidcrazy and Grogs did. (5 SW of Persepolis). Persepolis was founded on the furs of course.

It all started out quite peaceful untill the Romans declared war on me somewhere around 1500BC. We made peace in 1200BC, with the Romans giving us two cities. Later on the Japanese declared war and an immortal-win in that war gave us a golden age in 50AD. We had entered the middle-ages just before that, so no info about that war for now.

Pasargadae
Pasargadae was building cultural city improvements or wonders all the time, while Persepolis provided the city with the necessary workers.
Here is a list of all cultural buildings in Pasargadae:
Temple 2190BC
The Colossus 1200BC
The Great Library 270BC
Library 190BC
Collosseum 10AD
This gives the city a total culture of 547 in 50AD, gaining 21 culture per turn.

1.29 [civ3mac] Open going for 20K

The Beginning
I did not want to waste the fur bonus and thus my worker went east seeing 2 gold mountains (looks like a nice city site) and my settler went south learing nothing new. Persepolis was founded 3950BC building 2 warriors, granary, settler. When we were ready to build the settler, disease struck and we lost 4 pop.

Pasargadae (the 20K city) was founded 2270BC on the coast at rcp 4 and started building culture. I joined a couple of workers, but the early disease was quite a set-back. And after meeting the Romans 3150BC and the Japanese 2710BC, I decided to build quite some settlers to strengthen for the unavoidable wars. This further delayed Pasargadae growth.

Research
Research was full speed on pottery, and afterwards iron. Rome gave alphabet for masonry and pottery. Japan gave ceremonial burial and wheel for masonry and alphabet. I wanted to leave despotism asap and thus research continued with writing, philosopy, col, republic. The techs were either traded (for hbr, map making, mysticism) or extorted from us (pottery, philosophy, republic). 590BC we learn republic and after only 2 turns of anarchy the Republic of Persia is established 550BC.

Research continued with literature, (get math for it), monarchy, and currency entering the Middle Ages 190AD. Late, but we were in no particular hurry.

War Preperation and War
When we learned iron working, we saw the resource on a hill northeast of us. Our settler founded a city directly on top of it 1300BC. This may have been a mistake, because I could not disconnect the iron without also disconnecting the spices. To overcome this issue, I founded Tarsus northeast of Persepolis and built barracks. Connected to its own furs, it was able to build a warrior every 2 turns, every turn once the Golden Age started. These warriors then went towards Rome for upgrade to immortals and fighting.

290BC we were ready for war against the Romans. We did not know at that time that they were at war with the Japanese, because we had not yet espablished embassies. But we knew that Rome had the Pyramids and that we wanted them. The war for us started by 2 immortals dieing in their attack on warriors. :( But afterwards the Romans were no match. They only managed to build 4 legionaries, and these were weaklings and died attacking or being attacked, no Golden Age for Rome. The Japanese razed 2 Roman cities west of us, but were too late for the real fights. At the dawn of the Middle Ages (190AD) the Romans were reduced to 1 city in the very east of their former lands.

Overseas Contacts
Galley construction only started after we captured the coastal Pisae from the Romans. The first suicide galleys was lost and the second made contact the turn after we entered the Middle Ages. Thus there is nothing to report in this spoiler.

20k Pasargadae
In my last 20K attempt (gotm39) I missed the award by 3 turns after not managing to build any AA Wonder. This time it was better, but compared to some other spoiler reports I still have to struggle in overtaking the competition in the MA and IA. :D

Since 310BC Pasargadae was at pop 12 and producing 18 shields per turn after corruption.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/tao_gotm41_170AD.jpg
1550BC temple
750BC Colossus
190BC Great Library
170BC library
50AD Hanging Gardens
110AD colosseum
All hand-build (or hurried), because despite of many elite immortal wins, no Great Leader appeared.

PTW Open.

Industrious and Scientific - hmm, that sounds like a Space Ship, and I haven't built one in a while.
So Spaceship it will be, with the fresh challenge for me to research as fast as possible.

4000BC. Settler S, Worker S-E irrigate. Research Pottery in 14. Warrior, Warrior, Granary.

Now that might seem a strange start, but I misunderstood the pregame discussion: I thought that only cities with pop>=7 will get 2 shields from Fur in the city center, so I desided to settle away from Furs and use it immediately.

But in fact it proved to be an excellent location, with access to 4 Furs at once instead of 3, and with yummy, perfect RCP4: 8 cities in a circle exactly 3 tiles from each other, 2 on the coast, 5 on rivers, 7 with a bonus resourse or FP. (see 1000BC attachment).

And it still can give 4-settler factory with micromanagement, but I replayed all of it after I submitted the game: for the game itself I didn't realize for a long time that I had to chop the forest to get 2f/2sh from Furs. D'oh! And I was wondering why this 4-settler factory never materialized...

In short, this stupidity lead to a slow start, I missed on eastern Iron and had to connect the one in the Northern jungle and thus it took a long time till I got Immortals.

But on the bright side: no disease and no Roman aggression. They just kept expanding all around me: my slow start gave them a lot of room to grow, I guess, so they didn't need a war.

1000BC: 6 towns, 1 settler, 1 worker, 16 pop, 1 granary, 1 barraks, 1 temple, 2 vet.archers, 8 warriors.
Contacts with Romans & Japan, 3 tuns to Lit.

210AD - enter MA, get Engineeering, we are the Republic.
Dow on Romans. Enter GA from Immortals.
GLH is being built, it will complete in 300s and then it'll be time for suiside Galleys.

PTW Open.

And it still can give 4-settler factory with micromanagement,

I'm confused. To get 2-turn growth, you need +5 food. The only way to get that is using 3 of the floodplains.

At size 5, that leaves 2 workers for fur squares. 1 shield for the city center + 2 for each worker = 5 shields at size 5. You end up with a 4-turn sequence that looks like this:

turn 1 = 5 shields
turn 2 = 7 shields
turn 3 = 7 shields
turn 4 = 9 shields (when populating grows to 7)

That's only 28 shields. Are you sure you didn't have a 5-turn pump, and just think it was 4 turns? If you are sure it works, which squares did you use at size 5?

turn 1 = 5 shields
turn 2 = 7 shields
turn 3 = 7 shields
turn 4 = 9 shields (when populating grows to 7)

That's only 28 shields. Are you sure you didn't have a 5-turn pump, and just think it was 4 turns? If you are sure it works, which squares did you use at size 5?

Nata may well start the 4 turn sequence at size 5.5. That would mean 7 shields on the first turn (hopefully) and the rest will work itself out.

But that doesn't work, does it? If you build a settler at size 7 with 15 food in the bin, the town drops to size 5 with 10 food.
5.5 -> 6.0 -> 6.5 -> 7.0 -> 7.5 (5.0)
At least that's what I thought, and what I experienced in GOTM40. Is this wrong?

Are you sure you didn't have a 5-turn pump, and just think it was 4 turns? If you are sure it works, which squares did you use at size 5?
He said a 4-turn factory never did materialise during his game. I think you've demonstrated why :D.

I wasn't sure, Alan, since he implied he went back an replayed the game later (for educational purposes).

I was taught that settler pumps can't go to 7.5 population (because the granary drops to 0 when it changes from 10-capacity to 20-capacity). You can avoid that by popping out a settler or worker on the in-between-turns when you would have hit 7, but if you ever actually see 7 on the map, you'll have an empty granary, and defeat the whole benefit of having one.

I agree. I don't think you can do 4-turn settlers without building on fur.

No, I just tested it. As long as you have +5 food when you're size 7.0 you will keep 15 food i.e. full granary and 5 more. <--- Edit: Wrong, but you do get a full granary.

Starting situation:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/start552.jpg

Granary emptied:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/size70sm2.jpg

Settler finished. Granary full again. As usual, the governor doesn't know about settler factories:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/end55sm2.jpg

Pretty expensive though, luxury wise.

But you're not back to your starting situation, so you won't build another settler in another 4 turns :hmm:

You're right, Alan. You'd have to build a warrior in between. How could I miss that?

Hi all!
My game is going well. I will post details later, when I have more time.

I just wanted to address Offa et.al. questions about governor allocation

Govenors
This is my (unconfirmed) EDIT: AND SOMEWHAT WRONG (SEE LATER POST) understanding of governor logic.
Find the most valuable tile (sum of food, sheild and commerce)
In the event of a tie: Check that food will be >=+3fpt after the tile is added.
If there is still a tie (food is the same): Check if any emphasis was player-selected. (If shields emphasized, pick the tile with greater shields)
If there is still a tie:Pick one based on city location (I haven't confirmed if there is a tile order or if it's just a random act)


So in Offa's first case (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2642458&postcount=33), the FP (3f+1c=4) and the FurForest (1f+2s+1c=4) tied, but the tie breaker is the +3fpt. If the governor picks the FurForest, Persepolis only makes +2fpt.

In Offa's second case (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2654447&postcount=81), the RiverFurForest (1f+2S+2g=5) is the highest tile and is picked over the FP (3f+1c=4).

I have never been surprized by the governor using this rational, but I haven't tested it thouroughly. Let me know if you find an example that refutes this.

Megalou, thanks for clarification!

It was indeed more like 4.5 turns settler factories but I could get a settler in 4 turns.

I thought that +5 food on size 7 will carry over to +5 food on a half-granary in size 5.

So I thought it should work like this (copying from someone's pregame post):

Size 5.5->6, 7 shields (City, 3FPs, 2 furs + forest on growth)
Size 6->6.5, 7 shields (City, 3FPs, 3 furs)
Size 6.5->7, 9 shields (City, 3FPs, 3 furs + forest on growth)
Size 7->7.5(5.5), 9 shields (City, 3FPs, 4 furs + 5 food to carry over to 5)

So we'll get 32 shields, with a bit spilled over.
It worked like this on and off, but I did build stuff in between.

Thanks again, Megalou, I will know now that it doesn't work.
Also, I finally figured out how settler factories work, and how to add up shields and food. I hope it helps me in the next game.

Open, PtW
No real plan as yet.

I founded on the Flood Plain to the SE, and set up Persepolis as a 4-turn Settler factory. Almost as soon as it was ready, I got disease :( I also messed up my RCP - I went for 4, whereas 5 was more logical, given where the coast is.

Eschewing the jungle to the north - aside from the one Iron source - I settled to the south, west, and east, towards Rome.

In around 850BC, I declared on Rome and sent in half a dozen Archers, with more following.

I entered the Middle Ages in 250BC, after an eventful enough Ancient Age. I haven't revolted yet so my pronlonged war with Rome - culminating in the taking of the capital, repleat with The Pyramids and The Great Library - was fought with Archers. Rome being on a hill, I needed all but one of the 10 I took to its walls for it to fall.

Rome still has two Iron sources. In 20 turns' time, I'll hit them with Immortals and it'll all be over for Julius. I should be able to split my forces and go after Japan at the same time.

In 250BC, here is my world:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/eldar_GOTM41_250BC.jpg

Neil. :cool:

Thanks ControlFreak.

Would that mean even if you have >3fpt you may not get to work the forest?
I had assumed you were safe with high food towns.

Thanks ControlFreak.

Would that mean even if you have >3fpt you may not get to work the forest?
I had assumed you were safe with high food towns.
At greater than 3fpt, assuming equal number of icons (sum of food, shield, commerce), it will chose the forest unless you emphasize food. And if the forest square has more icons then it will pick the forest even with food emphasized. That's annoying to me because there are towns that don't need the shields on growth, that I would like to keep at 5fpt. I must keep micromanaging them back to high food. :mad:

Suppose I have an unused roaded floodplain (3fpt+2gpt = 5) and my city is at pop 5, 15 food in the bin, producing 5fpt, and about to grow. Are you saying that, with the governor set to emphasise shields, my extra citizen will *not* work a forest (1fpt+2spt = 3) to give me 2 shields in the interturn?

Vanilla, open class.

This is my 1st GOTM attempt and some interesting events happened, both lucky and unlucky. I got very early contacts with Rome and Japan, and made some very profitable trades. I was hit by the disease only once, in the capital, but the city was size 2 so it lost only 1 pop instead of 2, and i got only 1 turn of anarchy when switching to monarchy. On the other hand, my immortals had abysmal results. Lost 4 units attacking Roman weak harassers. 2 were spears, 1 archer and 1 warrior!!! All the attacks made in open terrain to unfortified units and without crossing a river. Then, i got some unlucky strikes that slowed my assimilation of Rome. Two attacks were repealed.

Off the game, i had a major system failure that ended up in 2 days lost reformatting my box and reinstalling everything. I lost a few turns played (didn't remember to copy the autosaves damn me!), then when replaying the missing part things went far worse than in the "lost timeline".

Entered middle ages in 70BC. I've almost assimilated Rome (2 cities left) and i'm already building up troops for the obliteration of Japan. Still no contact with other civilizations.

I'll post a detailed log tomorrow. I'm going for the military option, what else? :evil:

Suppose I have an unused roaded floodplain (3fpt+2gpt = 5) and my city is at pop 5, 15 food in the bin, producing 5fpt, and about to grow. Are you saying that, with the governor set to emphasise shields, my extra citizen will *not* work a forest (1fpt+2spt = 3) to give me 2 shields in the interturn?
You know, AlanH, I was somewhat happy in my ignorant bliss. No longer. :sad:

I did a editted map with Irrigated, Roaded FPs, and Unimproved Deserts and Forest. What I found DID surprize me.

Growing to size 2, even with production emphasis on, the governor still picked the FP. No surprize there, because it has more icons.

Growing to size 3 using 2 FP, the governor picks the forest.:eek: Despite the forests being worth 3 and the FP worth 5. Emphasizing food does make the Govenor pick FP(OK that's expected). Emphasizing Commerce makes the Governor pick...The Forest :crazyeye:

Growing to size 3 using FP and desert, Emphasizing Commerce makes the Governor pick FP.

Growing to size 4 using three FP, picks the Forest with the same rules as growing to size 3.

Interestingly, Growing to size 4 using 2FP and the Forest with Emphasizing Production picks the Desert (worth 1) :crazyeye:

Last, Growing to size 5 using 2FP, Forest and Desert, govenor picks FP.

So I modify my previous statement.

When picking a new tile on a growth turn: EDIT: THIS RATIONAL DOES NOT WORK EITHER, MORE RESEARCH TO BE CONDUCTED
If no emphasis, pick the highest shield tile that either keep you at least 3fpt, or will give you the most food possible if 3fpt is not possible.
If food emphasis, pick the highest food tile (my test, the Governor never stopped picking FP)
If production emphasis, pick the highest shield tile that either keep you at least 2fpt, or will give you the highest food possible if 2fpt is not possible.
If commerce emphasis, pick the highest shield tile that keeps you at least 3fpt and at least 2spt.

In short, with no emphasis the governor will always try to get at least 3fpt and at least 2spt. If Production is emphasized, keep at least 2fpt. When those are satisfied, it picks the highest tile by emphasized gain (Food, Production or Commerce) or Total Worth if no emphasis specified.

I attached the test file at 4000BC. Have fun.

If Production is emphasized, keep at least 2fpt. When those are satisfied, it picks the highest tile by emphasized gain (Food, Production or Commerce).
This was my understanding, and I think it's what I said some posts ago. But then it doesn't explain Offa's result. With 3fpt and a choice between forest and FP on growth, the production emphasis should choose the forest as it still gives 2fpt.

Ancient Age
[civ3] v1.29f Open
I decided to look at good math advices on the best start and settled SE search Pottery at max and did the following Irrigate 3xFPs , Chop+Irrigate 2 Furs, Irrigate Plain. I have also roaded every thing. My build list was Warrior-Worker-Warrior-Granary-Warrior-Settler. My settler factory is working fine at a settler every 4 turns. First settler is produced in 2430 BC.
2430 BC : First settler is produced. I have just met Japan and finished IW. IBT: I have arrange the following trades Rome: Alphabet & 10 GP vs Masonry & Pottery / Japan: The Wheel & WC & CB & 4 GP vs Masonry & Alphabet. I am now going towards Republic at max speed. I will settle towards Rome to limit their area and secure the closest Iron by going E with my first settlers. I cannot spot any horse in the area :(
1750 BC : Japan just found mysticism, so I trade Mysticism & 6 GP vs Pottery & Writing. At the end of this turn, Rome extorts Contact with Japan :( . I have 5 towns – 4 Wa – 3 Wo – 1 Settler.
1325 BC : 9 towns – 8 Wo – 7 Wa – 1 Se. I have one barrack on my 2nd town that will be pumping Warriors and one granary – my only infrastructure. I will only be building barracks in anticipation for libraries / galleys in the event I can gain Litterature / Map Making from contacts. I am at the moment searching Republic as fast as possible and roading a 2nd lux to help maintaining the luxury bar at minimum and research at maximum. I wish I had done this earlier. I may have cut some more turns from Republic search in 18 turns.
1300 BC : I trade Rome : WM & MM vs CB & HB & Philosophy & WM / Japan : WM vs WM so that I have a full view of the starting continent. Immediately changes where I can some builds to galleys.
1000 BC: Republic is next turn. I have 12 towns - 10 Wo – 14 Wa – 1 Ar – 1 Galley. I will then search towards Maths and next age. I get 3 turns of Anarchy to revolt towards Republic.

900 BC : My first galley survives. This is another lucky break with the fact I did not have any disease during all this period. I continue to have 4 turns settler factory working so that I continue to build towns (RCP 4 / RCP 7 / RCP 10). I have just roaded my Iron source so that I can produce Immortals. I will build a strong force to kill Rome (before too many Legions appear and Japan before any Samurai). I am not able to build any knights and do not want to face samurais, by no means.
775 BC : Keltoi : TM & 66 GP & Contact with Iroquois for WM. I exchange WM to all TM and finally to England WM. With all the cash, I can upgrade 4 Wa to Immortals. I have full view on old & new continent and will keep contact separated. With WM, I can now spot some land not settled with an Horse resource available. Unfortunately, I do not want to try too much my luck by crossing attempting a suicide cross with a galley+settler. I will wait a bit a try to first position 2 galleys in both side of the path. I will return the first one to starting continent and then will try to cross the next turn.
- If the first galley survives, settler will change galley to cross to the new continent.
- If the first galley sinks, I hope RNG will not make the second galley also sinking thus having the settler crossing.
570 BC : Rome is in Republic and I am strong against them. It is time to attack.
Spain has just found Code Of Law but has not currency. Spain : Litt & WM & 1 GP vs Currency. I can switch some builds to Libraries so that I gain some Culture.

Roman War (550 BC – 110 BC)
550 BC: I have repositioned my army so that I can cover wandering pair of settler / warrior. I have now 16 towns – 2 settlers – 11 Wo – 10 Wa (that I am keeping for MP / defence as I can upgrade them if needed to Immortals) – 1 Arc – 3 Galley – 19 Immortals. I gain 8 slaves, starting my GA.
530 BC : Cumae & Veii are captured by my 2 piles of 6 Immortals.
490 BC : I have the Galley settler pair ready. My long waiting galley crosses the ocean back to home soil.
470 BC : IBT: Eager galley was so pleased to join home soil that it did not pay attention to treacherous ocean. It sunk. Nevertheless, second galley with the settler tries the crossing and survives…
410 BC : Rome with Pyramids is captured :) . It was really nice of Rome to build such a valuable wonder rather than piles of legions and barracks ! Up to now, I only faced Reg Spears. I am moving a settler to grab gems. I was forced to research Polytheism because nobody had it !
I will change area in the next turn. I have now 20 towns – 2 settlers – 11 Wo – 10 Wa – 1 Ar – 2 Galley – 18 Immortals & 10 slaves.

To be followed ...

I have a thought about the disease and iron depletion luck elements. I was going to start a new thread about it but then thought better not - it would be hard to avoid spoiler information getting mixed in.

I had exactly the same thoughts, before I even started. I was another of the ones to get hit be disease, literally the turn I completed my Granary and went into 4-turn mode. Only the once, at least.

Vanilla - Open class - Here's the detailed log of the ancient age.

Opening moves.

Settled SE and moved the worker east to work the floodplain tiles. At this point going east and north seems to be the best (and suggested) path. Mountains, hills, rivers... I take the risk to send the 1st and the 2nd warrior around that area, thus leaving my capital undefended for a few turns. If there was a strong opponents west i was doomed... but i wasnt.

Research is set to Iron Working at minimum. I want to see iron as soon as possible, and with Bronze Working already known the path is short.

Expansion

3500BC - several things are spotted. A probable sea east and a fine source of spices, far in the NE.

3200BC - spotted the border of Rome SE of Persia- approaching

3100BC - settler built in Persepolis. Roman warrior + settler approaching. Made contact. Traded Alphabet for Masonry+40 gold. This sucker already knows Bronze Working. Probably a hut. Persepolis is building a warrior, i cannot risk something coming from west or north (it's difficult that there's someone south, not enough landmass)

3050BC - Founded Pasagardae.

3000BC - first warrior, now SE, is heading west. The roman warrior+settler follows in the same direction 2 tiles south.

2900BC - Romans found Veii. Spotted sea west?

2850BC - Sea west. Persepolis produces a warrior. Unit sent north exploring. Once again, there seems to be a suggested path (north of Pasagardae) made of mountains and hills. I follow it.

2470BC - The 2 wandering warriors are following a sort of spiral path. Lots of terrain discovered. Sea at west, for sure. Possibly spotted the end of the jungle at north.

2350BC - Disease strikes Persepolis damnit! But the city is size 2 so it should suffer only 1 pop loss instead of 2. Meet the japanese to the north. Trade everything. Alphabet + Masonry for Wheel, Ceremonial Burial and Warrior Code. Rome has already Iron Working. I was short 6 turns... btw, i can buy it in return of the Wheel and 20 gold. The trade is done. Spotted 2 sources of iron!

2030BC - Founded Susa. Beaten the romans that were headed in the same zone. They retreat. Rome starts the Pyramids. Fine addiction to my empire.

1990BC - Spotted a roman warrior not too distant from Japan. Probably they will meet each other. See Japan. He has Mysticism. Sold Iron Working for Mysticism + 20 gold. Sold Ceremonial Burial to Caesar for 62 gold (all he's got).

1725BC - Founded Arbela. The romans have Writing. Bought it it for Misticism and 160 gold.

1700BC - Pottery can be researched in 4 turns, at 2.8.0. It costs less than buying it. I decide to research it.

1600BC - Done with pottery. Polytheism in 16 turns. Good.

1450BC - Found Antioch. Its place claims the iron tile and a spice tile. I leave the iron tile unconnected, so to build el-cheapo warriors and upgrade them later.

1375BC - Spotted a roman warrior+settler heading for the zone that i selected for my next city, south and west of Persepolis. They'll arrive first. No problem. Once war starts, it will be an easy conquest, and i'll have spared the settler to found it :)

1325BC - Founded Tarsus

1275BC - Rome founds Pisae exactly where i wanted to put my coastal city.

1100BC - Researched Polytheism

1050BC - Founded Gordium. Some readjustements in production. Budget set to 1.9.0. Monarchy due in 16 turns (was 19)

1000BC - Celts have built the oracle. Rome has discovered Code of Laws. Japan has Map Making. The reason why i'm not trading Polytheism is that i want Rome to go for the republic path rather than monarchy. The same for Japan, but i'm not counting on that too much. That's why i'm waiting another turn or 2. I'm at risk of being screwed up if someone research it...

975BC - Rome has completed the Pyramids. Japan (Kyoto) was building it as well and switches to the Great Lighthouse.

950BC - Another check at Rome. Time to trade. Polytheism and 20 bucks for Code of Laws, territory map and a fine roman worker. Sold Code of Laws and Polytheism to Japan for Map Making, Horseback Riding and a world map. Back to Rome. My world map and 30 gold for Caesar's world map. And now i know the whole continent.

775BC - Founded Bactra.

710BC - Can found a city... but it's better wait to discover monarchy (1 turn left). I've heard that the more cities you have, the more turns of anarchy you may suffer. 1 turn late won't harm. Troops amassment continues. The turn ends. In the interturn i discover monarchy and hold a revolution immediately, as i did before. Domestic advisor tell me that i have to go on 1 turn of anarchy. Phew...

690BC - anarchy. 3 workers arrive to the iron tile, ready to connect it next turn. Research set to philosophy at minimum (i'm not sure if i did it or not). Founded Sidon, while in anarchy.

670BC - established monarchy. Now i need a few turns to gather the necessary money for a mass upgrade of all the warriors.

The Roman war

650BC - Caesar try to extort monarchy. I refuse. He declares. Iron is connected, and the 2 first warriors are upgraded to immortals.

590BC - An immortal attacks an archer in open plains and my golden age begins.

510BC - Captured Veii. Lost 1 immortal. Lost another one attacking a spearman damn it!

490BC - Failed to capture Hispalis. 3 immortals. All 3 dead against 2 spearmen. The city is size 4 on grassland and no walls are present. Go figure.

450BC - Captured Hispalis. Killed some pesters. An immortal attack a warrior and lose. Their name starts to look like a mockery.

370BC - Captured Neapolis. I was planning a blitz war... but it's better to prosecute it. I'm in a golden age and cranking up military like crazy. Rome has still iron unconnected, except for one city that i'm going to attack now. Set budget to 3.7.0 and philosophy is due in 1 turn.

350BC - Researched Philosophy

330BC - Captured Pompeii, but an immortal is killed by a legionary. Golden age for Rome. But immortals continue flowing from north, and an attack to the Roman capital seems all but impossible.

310BC - Traded monarchy to the Japanese for 130 golds. Rushed a temple in Veii

250BC - Triggering a golden age for Rome has turned out to be good. Colossus completed in Cumae.

230BC - Adjusted budget to 4.6.0 to research Currency in 1 turn.

210BC - Mastered Currency

190BC - Founded Tyre. Rome has Construction! Good. Since it's the only tech of the ancient ages (compulsory) that i miss, research is set to Absolute Zero.

170BC - Captured Roma, with heavy losses.

150BC - Captured Cumae, and the Colossus.

130BC - Failed attack on Lutetia! Once again, incredibly bad odds. And they are called "Immortals"...

90BC - Captured Lutetia and Ravenna.

70BC - Got Construction from Japan, in return for Currency. Acquired Monotheism as a free tech. I'm in Middle Ages now. Research set to Feudalism at minimum (10.0.0 with a specialist). I have 19 cities and judging from the demographic screen i'm #1 almost everywhere. I'm also in possess of 2 useful wonders: the Pyramids (Rome) and the Colossus (Cumae)

------------

Contacts:

3100BC - Rome
2350BC - Japan

Research:

4000BC - Bronze Working (prerequisite)
4000BC - Masonry (prerequisite)
3100BC - Alphabet (trade with Rome)
2350BC - The Wheel (trade with Japan)
2350BC - Ceremonial Burial (Japan)
2350BC - Warrior Code (Japan)
2350BC - Iron Working (Rome)
1990BC - Mysticism (Japan)
1600BC - Pottery (own research)
1100BC - Polytheism (own)
950BC - Code of Laws (Rome)
950BC - Map Making (Japan)
950BC - Horseback Riding (Japan)
710BC - Monarchy (own)
350BC - Philosophy (own)
210BC - Currency (own)
70BC - Construction (Japan)
70BC - Monotheism (scientific free tech)

No screenshots at the moment. I haven't one timed at 70BC and i don't want to reload past turns. Will post them once the game is over.

DBear's GotM41o Ancient Age highlights:

Towns founded:
3950BC Persepolis
2430 Pasagardae
2150 Susa
1675 Arbela
1575 Antioch
1200 Tarsus
1075 Gordium
950 Bactra
850 Sidon
630 Tyre
470 Sardis
410 Samaria
390 Hamadan
330 Ergili
290 Dariush Kabir


Technologies:
4000BC Mason + Bronze (start)
3450 Pottery (learn)
2550 Ironwork (learn)
1870 Alpha (learn)
1790 CB (trade)
1600 Wheel (learn)
1250 Math (learn), Writing + Mystic + War Code (trade)
775 Poly (learn), Map + Horse (trade)
470 Philo (trade)
310 Monarch (learn), Law + Construct (trade)
70 Currency (learn), Mono (bonus)

Wars:
370BC- Japan. Rome had been hittin' them bad and I decided to pile on.

contacts:
1790BC Romans
1350BC Japanese

Scores:
QSC: 208 Firaxis, 2109 QSC.
Ancient: Persia 436, Rome 407, Japan 294

In the 700s BC, I see that Rome and Japan are at war. And they have to go thru my lands to kill each other.

370BC: Golden Age begins
310 4 turn revolt to monarchy


Rome must've got a GL, because I got a notice that they started and built the GWall on the same turn.

Damn Romans built Byz on the peninsula in 590BC

[ptw], open.
Goal: Diplomacy probably.

After missing the diplomacy award in GotM40 by a mere 3 turns, I decided to give it another try in this game. At least that was the plan, but in this game it was easy to diverge. You'll see how well I could stick to the plan... :crazyeye:

My early game was similar to most others, settling SE and setting up a 4-turn factory. I got hit by disease in 2070 in Persepolis and Pasagardae at the same time, Pasagardae was only pop 2 though so I lost 3 pop in total. What I did different from most others (I think) was my perhaps biggest mistake in the AA: My early build sequence was warrior-worker-granary. Yeah, that's right, only one scouting warrior, which cost me valuable turns of research. Here's the full story:

Major events:
Met Japan in 3300 BC.
Met Rome in 2470 BC(!!).
The remaining AA was rather uneventful. Rome flaunted some archers along my borders, but played (foolishly) nice. Japan kept to their side of the jungle. I kept amassing warriors, waiting for a chance to upgrade them once I had Republic.
Rome tried to steal my iron...

http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d00nibro/img/civ/irontheft.jpg

... so there was only one thing to do - steal it back! :lol:

http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d00nibro/img/civ/ironretake.jpg

QSC stats
----------------------------
Towns:
11 towns, 34 pop (34 happy...)

Buildings:
2 granaries
1 library
4 barracks

Units:
1 settler
9 workers
1 galley
23 warriors (15 vets, 8 regs)

Techs:
Missing techs Maths, Curr, Constr, Poly and govs. Republic due in 5 turns.

Contacts:
Know Rome and Japan, embassy in Rome.

Misc:
37 gp
-2 gpt
----------------------------

http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d00nibro/img/civ/qsc.jpg

I finished Republic in 875 BC, got 5/3 turns of anarchy.
Connected to Iron in 850 BC.
Came out of anarchy in 800 BC, and lo and behold, I'm paying 60gpt in troop upkeep! Big miscalculation, need to go to war at once. But what have we here, a Roman settler/spear pair entering my lands. I tell them to leave and he declares on me. :D
My immortals were swift (eh, or not) and vengeful, despite some early bad RNG luck. I lost 4 veteran immortals to regular spears on flat land in the first turn, before the fifth survived (redlined) and started our golden age. The war with Rome continued into the MA, but they never posed a problem since they never bothered to connect either of their iron sources. :eek:

In 750 BC a galley made it across and met the others, securing some but not all remaining techs. I finally researched Currency in 550 BC and entered the MA.

Tech:
4000 BC: Bronze Working (free)
4000 BC: Masonry (free)
3400 BC: Pottery (researched)
3300 BC: Ceremonial Burial (from Japan)
3300 BC: The Wheel (from Japan)
2590 BC: Alphabet (researched, met Rome 3 turns later)
2590 BC: Mysticism (from Japan)
2470 BC: Warrior Code (from Rome)
2390 BC: Iron Working (from Rome)
1990 BC: Writing (researched)
1600 BC: Literature (researched)
1450 BC: Philosophy (researched)
1400 BC: Horseback Riding (from Rome)
1250 BC: Code of Laws (researched)
1075 BC: Map Making (from Rome)
875 BC: Republic (researched)
750 BC: Mathematics (from [purple AI])
750 BC: Construction (from [yellow AI])
630 BC: Polytheism (researched)
550 BC: Currency (researched), enter MA.

Things I did right
* I set up a nice RCP at 3 and 6. My RCP 3 towns would continue to be highly productive throughout the game, and the RCP 6 towns provided plenty of both beakers and units.
* I had enough units when I went to war. So many other times I've been standing there with the long face, watching the single remaining redlined now-elite spear in the enemy capitol. Not this time.

Things I could have done better...
* I built only one scouting warrior. Because of this I didn't meet Rome early, and had to research Alphabet on my own. I estimate that this cost me about 4 turns to Republic, and possibly more to MA. Rome was one of my better trading partners despite being isolated in the early game. Had we met earlier I might have gotten help with one or two techs more before the war.
* I researched Literature before the Republic. I figured libraries would help me towards Republic, but as this was in the middle of my most aggressive expansion I had no time to build the libraries anyway.
* I badly underestimated the upkeep I had to pay to sustain my army. I would probably have been better off, research-wise, by connecting the iron quickly and hand-build fewer immortals instead of upgrading ~20 warriors. I had to turn off research for a few turns just to get that army going.

Off to the MA...

http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d00nibro/img/civ/world.jpg

Vanilla, Mac, Open
(now braver after my first Game last month)

I don't settle the fur! I head for the hill NE and settle, start on Iron immediately. I want to know where I need to go ASAP. Hopefully we aren't cursed.

I don't have many notes - I will start next month with taking better notes.
Meet Rome first, trade low level techs. Japan not too much later (they don't have a lot to trade.)

I then beeline to Monarchy. I see the 2 irons east and north and make roads to both for my settlers to get there quick. Both times, I just barely beat the Japanese and Romans to the spots!

Just after my switch to Monarchy around 1000 BC, sneak attack! Romans hit with their legions - now in a GA (and they were already fighting Japanese). I have about 6 immortals at that point, so I trigger mine as well. We are both strong, I take Pompeii on the coast, attack Veii but cannot hold. Then the Roman counter and take my iron city (on a hill - spearman goes down to archer who doesn't lose a HP. :rolleyes:

Sue for peace in 190 BC, gaining 1 tech. If I'd done it before losing Bactra, I would've gotten 2 plus a pot full of gold. Oh well.

I get construction in 10 BC - and get mono. At the same time, my other iron city flips to the Japanese!! No more Immortals! Obviously, this means war - and I pick the Japanese, so hopefully I don't ever face Samurai. They are weaker than Rome also.

This ends my AA...

(Things go much better in the MA...)

Goal: Domination

I decided I was going to go after my neighbors first before exploring. Since this one was Monarch and basically I'd be setting the research pace, I decided to "help" Japan & Rome along.

I was hit with 2 or 3 diseases. That really sucked. I wasn't able to expand like I wanted but I was able to get caught up. It probably cost me quite a few turns on my final victory.

Rome started to come through my territory and at first I let them due to lack of military. Then after I had some immortals I asked them to leave and Caesar told me that my mom had hairy thighs and then it was on. I signed on Japan and the war continued into the early MA

AA techs
researched
Pots (3400)
Alpha (2900)
Writing (2150)
Math(1575)
CoL (1250
Phil(1125)
The Republic (670)
Currency (470)
Constr (350) <into MA free tech = Feud

Contacts
Romans (2950)
Japan (2950)
Celts (775)
Iroquois(750)
Ottomans (750)
English (725)
Spanish (725)

4000 - worker E
settler SE
3950 - found Perssepolis on furs
worker irrigate
research pots @ max
3900 - zzz
3850 - worker road
3800 - zzz
3750 - worker SE
3700 - worker irrigate
Persep warrior -> warrior
warrior to mountain NE-NE
3650 - warrior N
3600 - worker road
MM Persep to work FP
warrior N
3550 - warrior NE see lots of Jungle
3500 - worker SW
Persep warrior -> warrior
warrior2 to Mountain E-E
warrior1 to N
research down to 50%
3450 - warrior1 N
warrior2 NE
worker irrigate
3400 - pots in -> Alpha @ max
warrior2 E
warrior1 N
Persep switched to Granary
3350 - worker SW
warrior1 N
warrior2 E
3000 - worker chop
warrior1 N
warrior2 E
3250 - warrior2 S
warrior1 E
3200 - warrior1 N
warrior2 S
3150 - warrior2 W
warrior1 NE
bump lux to 10%
3100 - warrior2 s
warrior1 NE
3050 - disease strikes.....
sci back to 100%
worker irrigate
warrior2 SE
warrior1 NE
3000 - disease strikes.....
warrior2 SE
warrior1 NE
2950 - meet Rome and Japan
buy Alpha, WC, 10G for Masonry from Rome
buy CB, wheels, & 2 G for Masonry & BW from Japs
Writing @ max
worker road
warrior2 S
warrior1 E
I think that by moving my warrior next to a roman worker he lost some turns roading the mountain gems :lol:
2900 - warrior1 E
warrior2 SW
2850 - worker SW
warrior2 S
Warrior1 NE
2800 - worker chop
warrior1 gets booted to the south moves E
warrior2 S
2750 - warrior1 E
warrior2 S
2710 - warrior2 E
warrior1 E
MM persep not to waste shields
2670 - Persep granary just before growth -> warrior
warrior2 W
warrior1 E
2630 - warrior2 w
warrior1 NE
lux to 10%
2590- Persep warrior -> warrior
lux -> 0
worker irrigate
warrior2 W
warrior1 NE
2550 - warrior2 W
warrior1 NE
bump lux 10%
switch persep to worker
2510 - Persep worker -> warrior
worker1 road
worker2 NE-N
warrior2 NW
warrior1 N to discover ivory that makes 4 luxes I'll have locally eventually
sci -> 100%
2470 - switch warrior build to settler factory kicked in
warrior2 N
warrior1 NW
lux 10%
warrior2 N
warrior1 W
worker1 N
2390 - disease again!!!!
worker1 road
worker2 road
warrior2 N
warrior1 W
2350 - disease of course
MM to get a settler next turn....this FP sucks!!!
warrior2 W
warrior1 N
2310 - Persep settler -> warrior
settler NE-E
worker2 SE
sci 100%
warrior2 W
warrior1 SE
2270 - warrior2 W
warrior1 SE
worker1 E
worker2 E
Settler E
2230 - settler E
worker1 road
worker2 irrigate
warrior2
warrior1 E
2190 - Pasargadae founded
warrior2 NW
warrior1 SE
trade Alpha for Myst & 8 G
trade CB, wheels, & pots 12G for IW
I guessed right I have iron outside PAsargadae
drop sci to 90% with no impact on scedule
2150 - drop sci to 80% with no impact on scedule
warrior2 NW
warrior1 E
2110 - warrior2 N
worker1 road
worker2 mine
warrior1 S
bump sci up to 90
2070 - Persep warrior -> settler
warrior E-E to move to Pasar
warrior2 N
warrior1 S
sci back to 80
2030 - worker1 NW
warrior5 E
warrior2 N
warrior1 SW
1990 - writing -> Math @ 90%
worker2 road
worker1 road
warrior5 NE
warrior2 N
warrior1 SW
1950 - bump lux to 10%
MM Persep
warrior2 N
warrior1 W
1910 - worker2 S
worker1 E
warrior2 N
warrior1 SW
1870 - Persep settler -> settler MM
worker2 irrigate
worker1 south
warrior2 N
warrior1 SW
settler SW
lux back to 0
1830 - warrior2 W
warrior1 W
settler S-S
1790 - worker2 W
warrior2 NE
warrior1 SW
settler S
MM Persep
bump lux
trade Edo Writing & Pots for HBR & slave
slave SW
1750 - found Susa -> barracks
worker2 road
worker1 NE
slave S-s
warrior2 NE
warrior1 SW
1725 - Persep settler -> settler MM
drop lux
settler NE-E-NE
worker1 mine
slave SW
warrior2 NE
warrior1 SW
1700 - worker2 NE
slave SW
warrior2 NE
warrior1 SW
settler N
1675 - worker2 road
slave mine
settler N
warrior1 S
warrior2 N
bump lux lower sci
MM persep
1650 - Arbela founded
warrior1 S
warrior2 N
1625 - Persep settler -> settler MM
drop lux
worker1 NE
worker2 mine
warrior1 S
warrior2 SW
1600 - warrior1 S (see spices)
Settler E diverted to spices
sci dropped to 60%
warrior2 S
1575 - Math -> CoL @ 90%
Settler E-NE-NE
warrior1 S
warrior2 S
lux to 10
MM Persep
1550 - Pasar barracks -> archer
worker1 W-NW-NW
settler N
warrior SW
looks like the Romans built a city there just for me
1525 - Persep settler -> settler MM
Susa worker -> barracks
worker 1 NW
worker 2 n
slave road
settler NW
trade Japan IW + 1 gpt for 1 slave
1500 - Found Antioch -> barracks (connected iron)
worker1 road
worker2 road
slave2 NE-E-N
worker2 N
settler NW
1475 - Japan demands contact with the Romans & I give him the raspberry
So does Rome and I cave
demand Caesar to leave precious Persian soil. He says OK
MM Persep
I'm going to stop describing every worker action.... from here on out
1450 - zz
1425 - Persep settler -> move to SW
drop lux
1400 - Tarsus founded near cow & game in NW
1375 - MM Persep
1350 - zz
1325 - Persep settler -> to the west of the circle
Gordium founded
1300 - zz
1275 - switched Antioch to worker
spices connected
1250- Antioch worker -> worker
1225 - Bactra founded -> barracks
Persep settler ->settler MM
1200 - zz
1175 - Sidon founded to the North
MM Persep
1150 - Philosophy -> Republic
1125 - Persep settler -> settler MM
settler to NE of circle
1100 - zz
1075 - MM Persep
1050 - found Tyre
1025 - Roman warrior & archer to the west look menacing
Persep settler -> settler MM
move him to the west might divert if sneak attack is coming
1000 - Arbela Immortals -> immortals


QSC stats
Units:
1 settler
5 workers
2 slaves
5 warriors
4 Immortals

I decided to put up my spoiler before investigating the unpredictable Governor tile selection.

PTW Open - Goal: Domination

Opening Moves
I founded on the SE furs as many have. Persepolis made 2 warriors for scouting and a worker to help the forest chops before starting it's granary. Granary was built in 2710BC and the first settler took 5 turns, finishing in 2550BC. There after, settlers were four turns each.

After looking at the map, I decided I would be sacrificing too many good tiles if I stuck to RCP so I ended up building a hybrid R4-5 (three at R4 and five at R5). The outer cities would be at R10. In fact my fourth city was at R10 and helped grab the iron with culture expansion. This approach worked well as my R10 cities were still fairly productive and I covered a lot of territory early with cheap librarys.

Stunting Rome
I found Rome in 3100BC. Two turns later, I was on a mountain next to a Roman worker and decided to snatch and run. I also noted a warrior/settler pair two tiles to the north. I declared war, captured the worker and moved him next to the settler pair, hoping the warrior would come down to grab the worker and I could hit him for all three pop points. The settler pair ignored my bait and ended up founding Veii before I could catch up to them. After some debate, I decided to attach Veii with my solo warrior. Luck was on my side and I ended up razing the town. My slave and wounded warrior were able to retreat to safety before the archers came. I settled for peace when the enemy was at the gate for techs and all their gold.

This seemingly insignificant war CRIPPLED Rome. They had much fewer cities, no terrain improvements including roads. I think I took their only worker and they never built another until near the end.

Technology
3950BC - Start Potteryat MAX
3400BC - Pottery, turn off Science
2900BC - Wheel, CB from Japan for Bronze and Masonry
2750BC - Alphabet, Warrior Code from Rome for Peace.
2750BC - Start Writing at MAX
2150BC - IW from Rome for CB, Wheel, Pot (they never met Japan)
2150BC - Mystism from Japan for Alpha
2030BC - Writing Learned, Start Literature at Max
1600BC - Literature Learned, Start Code at Max
1375BC - Code Learned, Start Phil at Max
1250BC - Phil Learned, Start Republic at Max
0825BC - Republic Learned, Big picture Anarchy gives 6 turns, Revolt at pop up gives 3:)

Map Making was bought from Japan at some point, all other techs were free (learned via the Great Library or Scientific trait).

The Fall of Rome (The Rise of the Persians)
After the worker theft, I switched to mostly builder mode. Most towns got a barracks before starting warriors. I built some libraries where I could to have more workable tiles and to build culture for my plan of eventually capturing and keeping of cities. I had only a few warriors on defense when Rome sneak attacked me. They had two archers, one outside two different cities. The resident MP warriors were luckily able to fend off both attacks, and that was the extent of Rome's offense. I started building up warriors, but as I didn't want a Golden Age in despotism, I sent them as is to Rome, just to harrass them. I danced on the Mountains, staying on the opposite side of the river. On defense, my warriors killed many archers by the defensive advantages of the mountains/rivers (and we were a bit lucky with the RNG). On offense, I attacked archers that strayed out into the flatlands near my warriors. I had a benefitial win/loss record that was amplified by the fact that my units cost 10s while the opponents cost 20s. Rome started to be gassed and my dances had fewer and fewer partners. I decided I was going to have to hit their cities before Republic so I started amassing archers. A stack of seven headed for Rome but ended up being decimated by the spear on defense there. So I went back to dancing and waited for Republic/Immortals.
...
I got really bogged down trying to get my immortals down to Rome. I also lost track of the southern iron supply and let Rome found Neopolis on the iron hill before I realized it. Up to then, they hadn't connected the Iron to the SE so I faced no legionary. Now that Neopolis was founded on iron, I had to take on a legionary just to raze their iron source. Rome's Golden Age started. Retasking my army from dancing to eliminating Neopolis allowed Cumae to hook up their iron also. (WHAT A MISTAKE) My Golden Age came and went before Rome was eliminated in 70BC (Although, some of the slowness was because I hesitated sending a lot of troops South, knowing they had to turn around and march North against Japan.)

Wonders
Having been on the under-populated continent, I feared that the rest of the world might be way ahead in tech by the time I got there. I had beelined to literature for the culture aspect but used the tech to begin the Great Library. The turn before it was due, I realized that only the Oracle had been completed. I could have whichever Wonder I wanted. I chose the pyramids because of the size of our continent. I could quickly outpace the other civs with a granary in every town captured/founded on our continent. I had started another prebuild that would eventually grab the Great Library anyway.

I also managed to build the Great Lighthouse and the Colosus back to back in an R5 coastal city and the Hanging Gardens in an inland core city. One civ on the other continent managed to build the Oracle and the Great Wall. I'm not sure what the other AI were working on but what ever it was, they weren't fast enough.

Playing dirty with the Japanese
I wanted to make up time lost in the Roman War so I dedided to use ROP Rape against Japan. I had found the other continent and there was no doubt I could eliminate Japan before they could ever get the word out. So I sent several strike forces through the Japanese Road system. And when they were in place Japan never knew what hit them. In the first turn of war (70BC), four towns were razed and two captured. It seemed that they had been in a farmer's gambit as well. Most towns had no population points and only had a warrior defending. By 30AD, all their towns were captured or auto-razed, but they had at least one settler floating on a boat. The first showed up along the spice pennisula and was quickly destroyed with local troops.

"Iron"ically, they ended up founding Hakodate in 70AD on the remains of Neapolis (I CANT BELIEVE I MADE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE:mad: ) It took me a long time to re-task my troops back to the south. Japan was finally eliminated in 230AD.

More growth
With Rome being pitiful and Japan autorazing 60% of their cities, I had a lot of territory to found, so after the Pyramid build, Persepolis went back to settler production. The first few were 2 or three turns each until I fell back to 4-turn factory mode. I also needed lots of workers to get the new citys of the Republic connected and eating. (Almost all worker improvements were irrigation.) I mixed several workers in between settlers and had three or four productive cities just building workers.

Productive city-wise, I had three coastal cities building galleys and everyone else was building barracks and then immortals. Non-productive cities slowly built towards librarys and then temples or workers. I had a plan to conquer the world but that story is to be told in the next spoiler.

QSC
9 cities, 9 workers, 18 warriors, 2 archers, 3 barracks, a granary and a library. QSC score is 3771 according to CrpMapStat.

My Empire at 1000BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ControlFreak_QSC_Map.jpg

My R10 Iron town at 1000BC and the dancing army outside of Rome:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/ControlFreak_QSC_Map2.jpg

I settled on the fur hill and build warrior, worker, granary, then started on settlers. I met Rome in 2800BC and Japan in 2070BC. Here is my editted event log from Dianthus’ Viewer program.

Turn 2 : 3950BC
Persia settled Persepolis

Turn 33 : 2470BC
Persia settled Pasargadae

Turn 40 : 2190BC
Persia settled Susa

Turn 49 : 1830BC
Persia settled Arbela

Turn 51 : 1750BC
Persia settled Antioch

Turn 57 : 1600BC
Persia settled Tarsus

Turn 60 : 1525BC
Persia settled Gordium

Turn 63 : 1450BC
Persia settled Bactra

Turn 70 : 1275BC
Persia settled Sidon

Turn 73 : 1200BC
Persia settled Tyre

Turn 74 : 1175BC
Persia settled Sardis

Turn 80 : 1025BC
Persia settled Samaria

QSC Summary
5 workers, 15 warriors
6 barracks, 2 granaries
12 cities, pop 31, tiles 101


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G41_01.jpg

I issue DOW on Rome in 825BC, after noticing that Rome’s 2 iron sources are not connected to the rest of their empire. I kick off the war by autorazing Veii and kicking off my DESPOTIC Golden Age. I receive good news in 800BC Rome has built the Pyramids.

Turn 87 : 850BC
Persia settled Hamadan

Turn 93 : 710BC
Persia captured the Roman city Rome
Rome has 9 cities left, but only 1 is above size 1 so I sue for peace gaining 4 more cities.
Persia captured the Roman city Viroconium
Persia captured the Roman city Hispalis
Persia captured the Roman city Pisae
Persia captured the Roman city Neapolis
I also sign a ROP with Japan this turn

So after razing 1 city and capturing another my war with Rome is over and Rome has been crippled.

Turn 97 : 630BC
Persia settled Ergili

Turn 98 : 610BC
Persia settled Dariush Kabir
Persia settled Ghulaman
Persia settled Zohak

Turn 100 : 570BC
Persia settled Istakhr
Persia settled Jinjan

430BC – my galley sinks just off the coast of the other continent but luckily one of the AI’s sent out a galley so contact was established. I proceed to make contact with everyone and acquire a world map. I also trade my way into the Middle Ages.

Reach Middle Ages 430BC
24 cities, pop 72, tiles 217

6 workers, 10 warriors, 32 immortals

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/Gator_G41_02.jpg

Still looking for the fastest 20K award
I settled NE, then built warrior, worker, granary, warrior. The settler factory was ready in 2630BC.
I built at ring 4 and 7.
Discovered Pottery in 3400BC, then stopped research because there was no second level tech I could research. In 3300BC I met Rome, buy Alphabet and start researching Writing. Discovered Writing in 2310BC, Literature in 1750BC, Philosophy in 1600BC, Code of Laws in 1425BC and eventually Republic 1075BC.
Meet Japan in 2390BC.
I got a 2 turns anarchy therefore Persia became a Republic in 1025BC.
I had no problem with barbarians, no illness, nobody attacked me. I accepted few requests for money and tech by Rome and Japan.
My culture city Pasargadae was founded in 2390BC, built Temple in 1830BC, Library in 1650BC. I decided to build Forbidden Palace in Pasargadae both because it has a decent culture per shield ratio and to decrease corruption. FP was ready in 1175BC. At that time Pasargadae was a 7 citizens city (the maximum I could afford). It reached 9 around 1000BC.

At the end of the QSC period I had:
13 cities
44 citizens
5 warriors
7 workers + 1 slave
2 Barracks
4 Libraries
1 Temples
1 Granary
Forbidden Palace

I connected Iron in 710BC and started the warrior upgrade. In 590BC I decided I was ready for the Golden Age and attacked Rome.
In the meanwhile I discovered Mathemtics in 925BC, Currency in 825BC, Construction in 730BC and Polytheism in 650BC. I entered MA and get Engineering as a free tech.

Wow, everybody is going for 20k! I hoped maybe it would be under-represented, given the uninspiring start position - few hills and bonus graslands.
Also, there seems to be a lot of interest in the SW coast. I had a look down there with my scouting warriors, but I think it's a red herring. I am going for 20k in the capital, which can do 20spt in Republic without much effort, and maybe squeeze another shield or two if I work at it.

Culture builds (dates are F5 style)...
palace -3950
temple -2390
Pyramids -1250
library -1175
Great Library -370
Hanging Gardens -90
cathedral 30
colosseum 70

As an afterthought, has anyone tried doing 20k in the capital, building a palace elsewhere while prebuilding for Forbidden in the capital, timed to finish in quick succession? This gives the 20k city the capital's benefit of being quick off the mark culturally, and later the Forbidden's benefit of palace prebuilding and, if done early enough, 4cpt instead of the palace's 2cpt.
But then again, maybe one should have better things to do with one's shields...

As an afterthought, has anyone tried doing 20k in the capital, building a palace elsewhere while prebuilding for Forbidden in the capital, timed to finish in quick succession? This gives the 20k city the capital's benefit of being quick off the mark culturally, and later the Forbidden's benefit of palace prebuilding and, if done early enough, 4cpt instead of the palace's 2cpt.
But then again, maybe one should have better things to do with one's shields...

I did that in COTM10. I started 20K in the capitol. My fourth or fifth city was totally dedicated to building the palace. After an entire era buiding the palace it was finished at the time the capitol had a Sun Tzu prebuild for FP ready.

I don't know if it was worth the trouble?

I don't know if it was worth the trouble?

My guess would be, it's probably not worth the trouble building the palace by hand. However, if you are expanding through conquest (to make sure you have the tech to build Wonders, and your enemy doesn't), you probably want to set up a second center. Using a leader to rush the Palace for a second center does sound worth the cost of 200 shield to prebuild the FP for your capital, if you get lucky enough to coordinate it. Timing of the Leader would be key: if he appears when you have 170 - 220 shields in your capital, then I like the option. If not, it's probably better to use him to rush a wonder in your capital.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif [ptw] 1.27f

Opening sequence is very similar to several others: move Settler SE, found on Furs, build Warrior, Warrior, Worker, Granary, Settler, etc. Founding on Furs and getting the extra shield is very nice!! Granary was on-line about 2750, and first Settler in 2510. I was hit with disease once, just as I was finishing my second Settler (2350 BC). I pretty much built Settlers in Persepolis after that, except for a short period where I bulked up my worker force.

Initial Research was on Pottery, then Alphabet. Contacted Rome in the late 3000's (actually, one of their Archers passed by and said hello - my 2 warrior scouts headed to the North, including that tantalizing spur of Jungle going east to ... nowhere :( ) I was able to trade Masonry and Pottery to Ceasar for Alphabet. Decided to leave Writing to the AI, and to research Mathmatics next. Met Japan in 2900 BC, trading for Wheel and CerBur, then going back to Ceasar was able to trade CerBur for WarCode, keeping Wheel out of his hands (for now). No Horses (so far) anyway.

Pasargadae was founded 3 NE of Persepolis; I thought this a very powerful location with some Floodplains, furs, several Hills and Mountains and getting both Gold Mountains within it's radius. After that I designed a RCP-5 distance ring figuring that 1 city at rank 1 would not increase the corruption for this main ring too much. Regarding Iron, here's how I placed my cities to grab the Iron - I wanted more river spaces, and a connection to Spice so this placement got me both and culture over the Iron.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/cvst_g41_bc1350Iron.JPG

AI Relations. Both Rome and Japan are militaristic, so some aggression can be anticipated. Ceasar shows up demanding Wheel - I give it to him, at the time I had maybe 4 Warriors. :) After I'd learned Math, Japan shows up demanding it. I see no Japanese units nearby, and I had the feeling that Rome and Japan were at war (based on Roman troop movements), so I said no, and he backed down. A few turns later, I see some more Roman units move within 2 spaces of some undefended Persian cities, so I contact Ceaser - still polite - and borrow 17 Gold, paying back 1 gpt. He was probably heading off for Japan, but I hoped to keep his mind off me, and either way, he didn't attack. That was it except for a horrible backstabbing that occured in 710 BC. (more about that later)

I'd learned Math (around 2390 BC), and Writing wasn't available yet (Japan knew Mysticism, so I traded Math for Mysticism right after he had demanded Math.) I powered on to Currency, learned in 1500 BC. Now Rome knew Writing, but wouldn't trade it for Math and Myst. At 100% I could learn Writing in 6 turns, so I did one turn of Research on Writing, and now Math and Myst were enough to get it in Trade - 1475 BC. After that, Philosophy in 1350 and Code of Laws in 1150. I started on a minimum research of Literature. That was it for the QSC period. My QSC stats: 9 towns, 26 citizens, 1 Granary and 2 Barracks, 13 Workers and 18 Warriors (10 are Vets), 281 Gold and gaining at 41 gpt, and missing Lit, Poly, HBackRiding (which Ceasar knows) and Construction, and the 2 Govt. Techs.

Here's a picture of the backstabbing of 710 BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/cvst_g41_bc710ROP.JPG
:D

In 1150 BC, I established an embassy with Rome and saw that they were 4 turns from completing the Pyramids, and had no Iron connected. I signed a ROP, and sent some Workers off to build a road system so I could move my Immortals into position quickly. So I've got stacks of 3 Immortals next to 6 Roman cities, with not a Legionaire in sight! In 730 BC I got notice that Ceasar had started building the Great Wall; I decided to use my Currency and about 6 gpt to get Construction and HorsebackRiding from him prior to attacking. In 710 BC I attack, taking 4 cities and razing 2. I turned research back on, finishing off Literature, and learning Poly (no help from Japan) in 570 BC, entering the Middle Ages. After healing and Regrouping, a 10 high stack of Immortals captures Rome in 550 BC - I have one Elite that I saved for his Roman archer, and after taking out 4 Spearmen losing only 1 Immortal, my Elite gets pincushioned by this stupid Archer taking 5 HP's without landing one on the Archer!!! The next Immortal remedies the situation, but no Elite and no shot at GL. I will say I signed Peace with Rome in 510 BC, gaining 2 cities, and leaving him with just 2 ... for now!

I've yet to make contact with anyone else, so it's just me, a very weak Rome and a very backward Japan left on the continent. I wonder if anyone else will survive to tell of my misdeeds? :mischief: My goal for this GOTM is to shoot for a 100K victory, if I have the time.

Open Game.
Immortal Rush? Get IW. Barracks. Early GA. No!!
Peace! Expansion. Granary, Worker. Settlers.

Settling
3950 founded Persepolis on furs SE.
1870 Persepolis suffers floodplain-desease.
RCP 4,6

Research
3450 Pottery
3200 Warrior Code from Rome
2550 Iron Working
2350 Ceremonial Burial
1990 Mysticism
1830 The Wheel from Japan
1625 Horseback Riding. Trade Alphabet
1425 Writing
1125 Mapmaking


Roman War
1425 Rome has not hooked up Iron yet. Maybe I should make a quick archer-rush. Pyramides are due in 16 turns.
1225 6 archers, 1 Warrior prepare to attack Rome.
1025 IBT Rome built Pyramides.
1050 Capturing Rome (size 6).
1000 BC made peace.
210 AD Erased Romans.


QSC Data:
11 Cities, pop 28. 2 Settler, 5 Worker, 1 Slave.
41 Gold in treasury.
8 Warrior, 3 Archer, 3 Spear.
Contacts: Rome, Japan.
Wonders: Pyramides captured (Rome).

Target: 100k. The continent should fit the task.