COTM 25 First Spoiler

To qualify for this spoiler, you must have contact with all other civilizations. In addition, you must know the locations of the capital cities of all other civilizations. You must have reached the middle ages.

So - did you go for the cows or the wines?

Pregame plans:
My goal is a good BC conquest victory, preferably within 100 turns. (An ambitous goal indeed)

I don't need to fear the opposition. They are weak Monarch AI's. They will expand slow. They will tech slow.
I hope to catch them mostly during their rex phase so that defences are even weaker.
Immortals are strong enough to conquer the world, but their mobility sucks.
The limiting factor to my finish date will be the time it takes my immortals to reach the other side of the continent.

To fight their poor mobility, i will start building a road across the continent as soon as possible.
4 industrious workers can build the road at 1 tile/turn. The map is 50 tiles wide,
so crossing the continent should be about 40 tiles max, maybe i can use some AI infrastructure as well.
Captured AI workers will be used to make side roads leading to the north and south.

My first conquest force will immeadiately make its way east, across the continent.
It will destroy only the AI's it crosses on it's path. The goal is to get to the far end asap.
I expect this to take about 50 turns including some healing and conquering as well as using the roads.
While the first force is making its way trough the continent, newly produced units will conquer the
AI's more closeby, but the nearest AI's that are not on the initial cross-country road should be the last to go.

I want to set my first Immortals within about 50 turns.
Therefore, i will not build a big core. I am not gonna need a big core. 6 or so strong cities should be all i need.
I think in 50 turns i can just build this small core and have production started.
I could do a min research on Iron working and be just in time to upgrade on turn 50 and have the gold to do so.
There are 4 AI's with pottery and only one with Masonry, so the chance to trade pottery is huge.
Getting a decent number of veteran warriors within 50 turns will be the critical part.
It will probably take a few more turns, but 100 turns is an imbitious goal and maybe i can win a little on the conquest speed.

I don't really need another technology, although i hope to trade horseback riding.
Horses are a pretty usefull addition to my strategy to take down runaway settlers etc and speed up the last bits of conquest.
While continuous warrior-immortal upgrades will take care of my production at home,
pop rushing in captured cities should replace the losses.
Espescially important for that first force that will soon be too far to receive reenforcements from home.
I hope the Greeks are nearby, as that will be the civ to cause me losses.

I have been in doubt between choosing open and conquest.
Conquest may be better as it will allow the AI to build more infrastructure.
Their opposition will still be insignificant and the more cities they have will also allow me more pop rushing.


The Game:
I move my settler north and see another river. I am too lazy to make excel calculations to see if i should move.
I decide that not moving will cost me enough extra turns before i get the cow irrigated that i can't be losing a lot by moving.
Moving also provides better places for my next cities.
So i move and settler between cow and river. I trade for pottery, quickly make my settler factory and build 5 cities.
Meanwhile, i do a min research on Iron Working as planned.
When one creates a gotm with Persia because the Immortal is one of his favorite units, i expect Iron to be close.

After 50 turns, my barracks are being completed and warrior production gets started. Iron working is discovered. I look around, i don't see any Iron.
So i get ready to build archers and look into my neighbours territory to see where i am gonna get my iron. I still don't see any iron....
Who makes a Persia gotm without iron in the starting area ?? :S

That was the end of this gotm for me. I know it's weak, but i didn't see a lot of reason to play on (won't win the gotm, not much challenge playing against these Ai's either)
Too bad, the idea of a 100 turns conquest game sounded nice to me.

I may bug a member of the GOTM staff for pointers on how to dissect autosaves and replays... because I might try to write put together a spoiler with specific trades, actions, and dates for this one after I've finished it.

The cow v. wines question would have been tougher if it had been any other lux (save ivory). That lux is food... so I went for the wines. When I founded Perseopolis there was a Zulu warrior on my border right off the bat. I traded first-tier techs with Shaka on that turn. The tech trading in the AA was rather brisk... the game felt more like emperor level from that standpoint.

I pulled the Republic Slingshot and drew a single turn of Anarchy for the first time ever. (In all fairness... my empire was still a bit small at this point. ;) )

It took me a long time to meet Theodora, as my boats kept getting killed of by barbarian galleys...

Wars came early and often. First Henry demanded something, and I signed Zulu on against him. That got the Zulu GA out of the way, as well as Henry. Then I grabbed a couple of Korean cities on my northern frontier... just before the Zulu declared on me at the close of the AA.

I drew Engineering as my free MA tech. The Zulu Impi were no match for combined arms task forces of Spears, Archers, and Trebuchets. Trebuchets are perhaps my favorite part of C3C.

Still without Iron, I organized a Longbow Bum Rush on Greece (my Trebuchets were still working their way northward from the Zulu campaigns...). Greece fell more easily than I imagined, probably because Alex had invested too many shields in Wonders. I captured one Wonder that altered my strategy - the Temple of Artemis.

Persia's Golden Age came late. After reducing Greece to a single city on the other end of the continent, the first Immortals saw action against the Koreans. The Golden Age shields were invested in Knights, which were dispatched eastward to be upgraded to Cavalry for a future campaign...

Seoul had three wonders I would ordinarily like to keep: The Mausoleum of Mausa ... Mauso (I can't remember how it's spelled... I never build it) the Hanging Gardens, and The Great Library. That last one would eventually kill off my source of free temples, and the automatic cultural expansions in recently captured lands... hurting my chances for a respectable Domination victory.

For that reason, I torched Seoul. That's right, I burned that sucker to the ground... and all three Great Wonders with it. Dropped a Combat Settler on the rockpile, and got a free temple five turns later. :D

Upon the discovery of Military Tradition, I shut down research completely, and jacked the lux up to 50% (to try to squeeze a few more points out of the game from happy faces). Right now my Cavalry are rampaging across what's left of America, and I've got my sights set on the Iroquois.

I may bug a member of the GOTM staff for pointers on how to dissect autosaves and replays... because I might try to write put together a spoiler with specific trades, actions, and dates for this one after I've finished it.
Only current trades are logged in the save - so you can't get historical ones. :(

Dianthus' CrpSuite has a good replay viewer, though.

Only current trades are logged in the save - so you can't get historical ones. :(Maybe I'll copy the autosaves into another directory (to keep one clean set) and manually analyze them... legal?

Dianthus' CrpSuite has a good replay viewer, though.Thanks for mentioning that... I use an older version of Dianthus' utility, and haven't messed with anything but MapStat since C3C... I've used the "Rings" utility once or twice... but never tried with the replay viewer...forgot it was there. I'll give that a shot when I'm done.

Thanks for jogging my memory ainwood. :)

Wacken, I can't believe that your game is almost identical to mine (except for city placement). I was doing the same, and once I found that there is no iron anywhere close, not even close to geta colony, I completely lost intrest and stopped. A real pity

Looking at the nice starting location with lots of bg, hill, mountains, rivers, I decided to go for a 20K win with my capital. Since i wanted the wines within city range, Persepolis was founded SE of the starting position. I mined 2 bg, next irrigated the wines. My build order was 4 warriors (3 scouts, 1 mp), settler. From now on, Persepolis went on culture builds.

I was lucky with huts and got mysticism, wheel, warrior, barbs.

The scouting warriors met Portugal (get alphabet for masonry, start reseacrh on writing). Zulu gave ceremonial burial, warrior code, pottery for alphabet, bronze, masonry. Greeks are backward. Americas give 35g for alphabet, Koreans iron working for mysticism, warrior code. And there is no iron anywhere nearby.

The problem with 20k is that a lot of effort goes into the culture city and I was hoping to claim territory with immortals. No such luck. And no horses either. Thus I built quite a lot of archers and trebuchets. Whenever possible, I traded for AI workers, since my own where mostly joined to Persepolis.

In 1525bc Koreans declare war4 and their 2 attacking warriors die. In 1200bc Americans try to bully me, no, they declare. I was not very worried about monarchy AIs and used the wars to make alliances and keep the AIs busy and tech progress slow. Thus I assumed to increase my chances to snatch as many Wonders as possible.

I made the philosophy slingshot 1725bc getting code of laws, researched republic (3 turns of anarchy) and literature. End of research, hoping to get The Great Library, using money for unit upkeep to conquer a larger share of the world.

The Pyramids triggered my Golden Age while I still was 2 turns from republic. I revolted despite of the GA and got only 3 turns of anarchy. The Persepolis terrain was so much more powerful in republic, that I preferred this over a despotic Golden Age.

Persepolis built the following culture:

2310bc temple
1450bc Mausollos
825 bc Pyramids (6 turns "more expensive" than Oracle, but valuable for the empire)
670bc library
410bc Great Library
350bc colosseum

I "lost" obviously Colossus (Byzantine) and Great Lighthouse (Portuguese). I also missed Oracle (Korea) and Great Wall (Zulu). No builds are going on when I enter Middle Ages 350bc.

The Persian Space Rush (or in a modern context: Iran gets The Bomb!)

Part One: Ancient Era
The immediate dichotomy was which direction to move in. With the cow giving better growth and factory potential than the wines, north was the decision the settler went in. Unlike Wacken's shorter-term goals, I already had the long game in mind, and two turns is two turns in this cut-throat world. So I settled there.

Next - what to do with the worker? Priority #1 in my mind was getting water to the cow, so that's what the worker did. SE to the bonus grassland, and irrigation all the way, no roads. This worked out beautifully as the irrigation of the cattle timed itself so that the 4 food bosted Persepolis to size 3 that turn.

The settler went south, claiming the wines and a river-side site. With that site's flood plains, a second factory was on the cards, so this city also eventually got a granary, acting as a worker pump to Persepolis's eventual Archer->Warrior->Settler pump. I was glad of all those archers, as Wacken's experience will testify.

Research and contacts (all except the Byzantines, who I took an absolute age to meet - quite literally!) came in thick and fast.

The slingshot was successful, but not before I'd pulled in a good number of ancient techs already. I revolted right away, and got... 7 turns of anarchy, more than one per city at that stage!

By 1000BC, I only had 7 (or so) cities but was also hemmed in by the Koreans, Portugese, Greeks, and Zulus. Greece's second city appearing in my first ring very early on was a bit of a shock! For a 60% map, there was quite a bit of imbalance... 5 civs shoehorned into a small-ish landmass, with a narrow choke leading to a vast tract of land for only 3 civs! Still, once iron became available, the proximity of my immediate enemies became an advantage rather than a problem, of course.

So at 1000BC:
Republic.
7 cities.
Couple of granaries.
3 or so libraries (I got this very early in trade from the Zulus :D ).
Bunch of workers.
Some expectant (and disappointed) warriors.
Some archers.
1 luxury, no resources.
All Ancient techs except Currency (2 turns to go), Construction (known by Zulu, who were also down Phil & Poly), Monarchy.
All contacts except Byzantines.
No wars as yet.

From the above information, it should be easy to deduce that I entered the Middle Ages in 950BC, after trading Currency+Poly to the Zulu for Construction. My free tech was Engineering. Korea and Greece between them came up with Feudalism and Monotheism, and I used my monopolies on Republic and Engineering to get them both. I still hadn't met Theodora, but had a warrior slowly making his way north. It wouldn't have mattered though, as I got the other two first-tier techs anyway.

Coming next:
An episode in which Xerxes decides Henry's furs would look good draped across his missus's shoulders. And Henry's head would look good on a pole.
Wang, Alex, and Shaka are also considered surplus to requirements.

Stay tuned for... "Middle Ages: WAR! WAR! WAR!"

Well I guess I got lucky with my growth pattern as I had Iron inside my empire by the time I discovered Ironworking.

I had gone north toward the cow and built a settler pump, with the bulk of the new cities being north east. When Iron became visible there was a city next to it already.

Needless to say I began to build immortals. Greece was first to suffer, then korea was displaced, then the potugese. Most managed to survive in distant outposts for a time. I was suprised that zulus folded easily

By the time I had rolled up the western continent, america had saltpeter and knights, but I have 100 plus cities cranking out immortals and knights, so I can afford to lose a few. drew the bysantines and Iroquois into the war with america to keep them busy, but mainly to keep their research down.

No pictures?

No pictures?

I posted from work... I don't know what anyone else's excuses are :D

I posted from work... I don't know what anyone else's excuses are :DThe very same. :D

Predator

I settled NE. Started with granary prebuild right away. Pottery 100%.
5 turns later a Zulu scout stepped by and we could buy pottery and alphabet.
->Writing full steam.

Further diplomacy
2750 Contact Greeks
2590 Contact Portuguese
1675 War with Zulu. We need more space. Warriors are on harassing missions.
Archers capture settler pairs and workers and then close in on Ulundi.
1550 Peace with Zulu. We have now enough space for some time.
1325 Contact Koreans
825 Contact Americans
570 Iron online by a rushed library in Istakhr. Alex was so nice and roaded it for me. Upgrade 7 warriors right away.
550 Contact Iroquois
530 War with Zulu again (the final war :) )
510 we gained a great leader to form an immortal army, so one war is not enough anymore ->
490 War with Portuguese by letting them declare after a boot order.
450 Zulu gone


Science
Made the republic slingshot in 1500BC -> 4 turns anarchy.
I did not follow my own advice to go to monarchy :D. That had something to do with iron and the need for archers, which will die in some numbers.
Literature researched in 1325BC
Currency in 1100BC. Then I stopped research waiting for construction to show up.
Everything else I could trade.
There wasn't much to gain in going into MA and I hoped to maybe also find Byzantines before.
Finally I did anyways self research construction in 450BC, without finding Theodora :( . But nevertheless I could make a nice trading session, trading for feudalism and engineering and getting invention as free tech.


Cities
3950BC settled Persepolis
2630BC settled Pasargadae
1950BC settled Arbela
1675BC settled Antioch
1575BC settled Gordium
1550BC captured Ulundi, got Hlobane and Isandhlwana in peace treaty
1275BC settled Bactra
1200BC settled Sidon
1125BC settled Tyre with horses
1100BC settled Sardis

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/klarius_c25_1.jpg
So 12 towns with 36 pop at 1000BC.
3 granaries, 1 barracks, 6 libraries (mainly for culture wars).
All AA techs except monarchy and construction.
8 warriors, 4 archers, 1 curragh, 1 settler, 8 workers, 6 slaves

925BC settled Samaria
900BC settled Hamadan
825BC settled Ergili and Dariush Kabir
775BC settled Ghulaman
730BC settled Zohak
610BC settled Istakhr to finally poach some iron from Greece
550BC settled Jinjan the same with the Korean iron
530BC captured Zimbabwe with an Immortal -> GA, settled Borazjan
510BC captured Bapedi
490BC extorted Portuguese Evora
450BC captured Intombe - last Zulu town

This is supposed to be a military game. Immortals for the neighbors and then Cavs for the rest. The distances are to far for my taste to even do it with knights and for sure I don't want to move hundreds of immortals, though this would maybe still be the fastest way.

Here's my empire at 950BC. It's actually 4 libraries, 2 granaries, 4 workers, and still a bunch of warriors hoping for iron to appear (the Koreans beat me to it).

My main critisism is that I should've put Pasargadae a tile north of where it is, instead of going for the wines+flood plains. Then I'd have had room for two more cities on that river.

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/4231/eldarcotm25950bc9lf.th.jpg (http://img388.imageshack.us/my.php?image=eldarcotm25950bc9lf.jpg)

Like tao, I was tempted by the strong shield position at the beginning and decided to go for a 20K. Like him, I decided to settle to the south-east. In view of the victory type chosen, I decided to play Open for fear of getting hemmed in too badly. Good thing. It was bad enough as it was.

The worker moved south-west and built a road, followed by a mine. Road first is standard with an industrious civ. The worker next worked his way along the BGs towards the cow in the north where a worker factory would be prepared. Built order in the capital: warrior-temple-settler-culture… In the only other 20K I have ever attempted, GOTM40, this worked out well. To arrange this, I started by researching Ceremonial Burial for my Temple, followed by Mysticism for the Oracle.

I fairly quickly met the local civs. The last I found was actually the closest, the Greeks. This came in 2800BC. Early trades went quite well. I got Masonry from the Zulus, Alpha from the Portuguese, and The Wheel from the Koreans. That went to Henry for Mysticism (although I had almost completed myself) and Warrior Code.

Pasgardae was founded in 2710 BC and finished its granary in 1990 BC. Thereafter it settled into a cycle of building two workers and a warrior every six turns. In 1450BC, the capital reached size 12 and was pretty much fully developed. So the turn before that, Pasgardae finally started building some new cities.

In the meantime, research continued with Writing and Philosophy. I chose Literature as my free tech. I got that in 1625 BC, one turn after the Oracle was completed. So my Library went up two turns later, thanks to a small pre-build. This was followed by the Great Library, which duly finished in 1125 BC.

Despite getting the GL, I had no intention of leaning on it for science. My next objective would be the Republic.

QSC stats
5 towns, pop 19, 475g, 542c + 19cpt
3 warriors; 3 workers, 1 galley;
1 temple, 1 library, 1 granary, 1 great library, 1 oracle
All AA techs except Currency, Construction and the govts
Expected completion date: 2210AD
Six turns from completing the MoM
Twelve turns from the Republic.

Interesting event. In 900 BC, a barb horseman appeared from the direction of the Zulu core and pillaged Antioch, yet another demonstration how the AI cowers in its cities when threatened. Shaka had had workers for sale for several turns. I had thought that he must have been at war. But no. It must have been due to this barb. Sure enough, the next turn no more workers were available.

I lost the race for the MoM by one turn to Wang Kon. :mad: He will pay… Perhaps I had made a mistake in trading away Philosophy. I had thought that keeping Literature, the more expensive tech, for later trades would be a better choice. In any case, I switched to the Pyramids instead.

In 825 BC, I got a suprising flip. Emerita joined us from the Portuguese. Admittedly, I had far more culture than them but even so... it was unexpected.

In 730BC, I learnt Republic. I traded it around, gifting it to everyone to speed up the tech rate and to prevent someone from building the Pyramids while I was in anarchy. Everyone was gracious towards me except Shaka who was merely polite. I revolted drawing five turns. I then started research as best I could on Monarchy aiming to get the Hanging Gardens.

In 630BC, I had a spanking new Republic – like everyone else. Two turns later, I learnt Currency from the GL and entered the MA. My free tech was Feudalism and the Koreans had also previously drawn Mono. I traded even up with Wang Kon and then gifted the Greeks into the next age. They drew Engineering! So I traded for it and gifted it to Wang in the objective of encouraging them to go up the bottom side of the tech tree.

The Pyramids came up in 550 BC, firing off my GA. I had been saving a bit of money to cash-rush my Cathedral and Colisseum. I didn't quite make it; it took three turns to get them both up. In any case, I next turned up research on Monarchy with the aim of getting the Hanging Gardens. They duly arrived in 350 BC, my last wonder of the BC years. I made an attempt at the ToA but I didn't really expect to get it - and didn't, missing to Lincoln by eight turns. Sistine's awaits though :king:

In the meantime, I had been squeezing cities in between Greece and Korea to the north-east with the objective of snatching the iron up there. Bactra was built on the flood plains. Sidon planted north-east of the sugar. Finally Tyre landed on the iron in 370BC. This little maneuver would have some ramifications on future events :mischief: but that is a story for another day.

Culture builds:
3950 Palace
3050 Temple
1675 Oracle
1600 Library
1125 Great Library
570 Pyramids
550 Cathedral
510 Coliseum
350 Hanging Gardens
1240 Culture + 39CPT
Estimated completion date: 1959 AD

Attached are a shot of Persepolis at this date and a map of my rather oddly-shaped empire. You'll note that in the shot of the city, I have zero gold. I had forgot to adjust the slider the round before and lost a treb. :blush: I don't remember when that last happened. Could have been worse, I suppose. I might have lost a building. :eek:

I went for the wines, but fog-gazed a few FP's down south so I settled directly on them, 2S of the hill. Shield rich, crowded, archer rush was the opening.

First off I pulled 3 warriors and a second worker, then went for a 6 turns archer-warrior-settler pump in persepolis. Once I planted 4 cities, it was almost 1000BC, I was a republic and my archers were on their way to march on Zimbabwe. from 1100 to 500BC I fought the zulus all the way down to the mountains.

The 3 scouts found the :evil: irons and I sent a settler/worker pair over ASAP. However it was clear that immortals would come too late and knights would already be on-line when they could reach their full potential. Also, my two neighbors Korea had gotten the Pyramids and Greeks ToA, making domination much much easier than conquest. So a war-scientists-fueled beeline to MT and a mounted domination was the plan.

By then, I had horses and iron (harbor rush in the NE peninsula) and started making immortals. I got Monotheism, the other 3 SCI got Feud x2 and Engineering. It was easy trading them all and knights were near at hand; Portugal would be the transition target before going for the pyramids and ToA.

The empire at QSC:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3218/c25qsc1fj.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=c25qsc1fj.jpg)

At 730BC, when I pointy-sticked construction off of the Zulus and boomed into researching chivalry:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/747/c257300wq.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=c257300wq.jpg)

I got 1 leader for an army, which died of malnutrition, gingivitis and of a few yellow archers. I haven't been much luckier in the rest of the game, I barely got a few elites at all and only another army way down the road.

In short, the very first time Persia wished it was Russia instead :lol:

AA Summary

Declared war on Greece as soon as 5 archers were ready. Didnt even need them as the single hoplite in Athens went down easily. Captured 2 more cities from the Greeks. Archers were still needing to be used so sent them north to Korea. Korea later built Pyramids and Lisbon built Great Lighthouse.

QSC

12 cities, 27 pop
2 settlers
10 workers
3 granaries
3 barracks
7 warriors
2 archers
lack Construction+Lit
Iron 3 turns from being connected

Attached are a shot of Persepolis at this date and a map of my rather oddly-shaped empire. You'll note that in the shot of the city, I have zero gold.

You finished a regular mountain before that gold mine? :hmm: :nono:
No wonder you ran out of cash :D :p

I tried 20k in my second city (S of your capital), looking at your screen I realized one big disadvantage - after corruption of my 36 shields I have only 29 left :cry: (time for the fp...)

But it will be nice to compare the results - although I did not use the palace prebuild till now which makes me think, your approach might be more successful. :(

No precise dates here right now, but iirc I had a key turn in ~350 BC when I researched construction, reached MA, finished Hanging Gardens and entered my GA :banana:
Quite a year for my people :cool:

Quite a year for my people :cool:

I sure hope they made a nice expansion to your palace !

I sure hope they made a nice expansion to your palace !

Actually they staged a nice rock festival for me :D

When I passed by a small but famous town called Wacken yesterday I could not prevent thinking of you :wavey:

Quite interesting. In Vanilla, I research as fast as possible towards the high-culture Wonders and fight to get Great Leaders for hurrying them.

Being new to Conquests (without Leader hurrying), I chose to slow tech progress down in order to get as many Wonders as possible. This delays however the high-culture ones. It will be interesting to see how this compares to Abegweit's way of fast research. At least the first round (Ancient Age) was clearly won by him. :)

And also I used the capital as 20k city. At least till now, I never wasted any shields due to loosing a race.

Yes, it's quite a difference to Ptw or Vanilla. I remember my recent attempt in Celts' Gotm with ~17 leaders (but lost due to a way too slow tech pace)... :cry:

This game I did not even get an elite unit yet :mad:
No promotion for my vet archers in about 15 victorious battles against these sneaky portugese... [pissed]

I miss the palace expansions. It has been a part of Civ since civ 1 and was part of vanilla, my daughter always would ask to see it.

It was fun to mix styles up. I usually did the addition in tribute to the most recently vanquished foe. For example if I had just destroyed the aztecs I would do a native american wing. if it was the romans, It would be greco-roman etc. I told myself it helped my couquered peoples assimilate ;)

Being new to Conquests (without Leader hurrying), I chose to slow tech progress down in order to get as many Wonders as possible. This delays however the high-culture ones. It will be interesting to see how this compares to Abegweit's way of fast research. At least the first round (Ancient Age) was clearly won by him. :)One clear advantage of your approach is to break up wonder cascades. I had them going all along, which is why I lost wonders I wanted (like MoM)

And also I used the capital as 20k city. At least till now, I never wasted any shields due to loosing a race.I don't think there's much danger of that at Monarch. We'll see :)

You finished a regular mountain before that gold mine? :hmm: :nono:
No wonder you ran out of cash :D :p I bought a cathedral and a colliseum. As for the Mountain mines, that's preparing for Shake's and I did the regular first because of worker movement mechanism. The real error in in that shot is that the city is working the mountain instead of the hill. :(

I tried 20k in my second city (S of your capital), looking at your screen I realized one big disadvantage - after corruption of my 36 shields I have only 29 left :cry: (time for the fp...)Yep. the FP is a big advantage of the second city approach.

Actually they staged a nice rock festival for me :D

When I passed by a small but famous town called Wacken yesterday I could not prevent thinking of you :wavey:

:)
I'll be there soon again.

The Plan:
Go for 20K (or domination) with the capital since the second city would delay the process by about dozen or more turns and it will have at least 10 percent shield loss. Secure ivory for the statue. Prevent AI from getting important Wonders and of course locate iron. I plan to slow the tech progress and get the sling. Finally wait until Republic and several (about 10) cities to trigger GA.

The Execution:
Persia reached Middle age and have met all but Theodora the Colossus builder.

Well, the settler followed the worker north toward the cow and found another river tile and settled there. Worker built road before irrigating the cow. Perse built a warrior, temple, granary and couple of settlers before starting the Pyramids. CB was the priority followed by Pottery. After that the sling was the goal. Worker started to build roads and mines in BG’s first and met Shaka. The warrior met Alex and Wong early and Henry later. We traded around to get most of the available techs. But made sure that second tier techs will be slow to come by not trading immediately. We believe Shaka and Henry were in bed together because they shared every thing and were hard to keep up with.

After learning Writing we had a change of plans and thought “Republic Sling Shot”. Started on CoL until next turn we see both Shaka and Henry know how to write. :mad: We played it safe and changed research to Philosophy and got the sling and got Lit for free. Did not trade either, at least not immediately.

The Culture:
Palace
Temple
Oracle
Mausoleum of M
Library
Pyramids
Hanging Garden
Great Library (not complete yet and no competition is expected)

The Oops and Almost Oops:
It was a close call on Pyramids.:eek: We learned Monarchy 2 turns before Pyramids and had to choose to revolt or not. Previous turn we established embassies with Shaka and Lincoln to find 6 and 13 turns left for each, respectively. We revolt and get 2 turn anarchy. :D If not we would have sold or gifted Monarchy to Shaka. The completion of Pyramids initiated our GA. Completed Hanging Garden in 9 (8?) turns. We were not a republic as originally planned and only have 5 cities and about to build another thanks to Korea-Portugal war.

We will not be able to stop Shaka or Lincoln from completing ToA. But we will help Zulu speed up things. :mischief:

The Immortals Are Coming! The Immortals Are Coming!
Halfway into GA, we connected the iron and are building Immortals. In the meantime we built about 16 veteran warriors waiting for a promotion.

Coming Up Next:
America has ivory but it is not connected to the capital and one of our warriors is waiting to do what ever needed to prevent Washington from getting Ivory when ToA get completed by Zulu (we hope) :evil: .

The immediate plan is to own our half of the Pangaea

I will update this from home with dates.

Taking notes COTM 25 PErsia


4000 BC
This is a tough choice on where to plant the capital. The cow gives bonus food and a shield.
The wine gives bonus food once irrigated. It also give a luxury.
We don't know if either of them has access to water. The cow is nice
but the luxury is the trump here. I move Worker and Settler south.

3950BC
I see that it is easy to irrigate the wine as it borders a river.
I see flood plain further south which means a chance for plus five food.
I move Worker and Settler S onto the wine.

3900BC
Worker irrgates wine. Settler SE.

3850BC
Settler settles Persepolis. Builds Barracks for now. Research to 100% on Pottery.
Contact with Zulu south. I choose not to trade techs to keep tech progression squelched.

3650BC
Worker finishes wine, to FP south of cap - irrigate then road.

3450BC
Cap size 2.

3350BC
Cap culture pop. My capital's city border is one tile the Zulu Cap city border. Their cap
is five tiles from my cap. Guess who gets to be first target. Archers will clean up those Impis.
They are too close to worry about getting an Immortal force together. They need to be dispatched quickly.
I finished Pottery. Build switched to Granary. Start on Ceremonial Burial because it's cheap.
Worker E to irrigate then road FP.


3100BC
Conatact with Portugal; no trades.

3050BC
Finish CB, start on WC. Worker NE to chop forest.

2750BC
Cap size 5. Worker finishes chop and road. Moves N to chop.

2670BC
WC done, start on Wheel.

2630BC
Finish Granary.

2510BC
Finish Worker. Worker NE,NE to road grassland.

2350BC
Finish Settler. Settler NE,NE,E.

2310BC
Found Pasargardae.

2190BC
Finish Wheel. Start IW.

2150BC
Finish Settler. Settler N,N,N. Worker starts chop for granary in second city.
Other Worker moves to improve land around third city. Cap starts on third Worker.

2110BC
Found Arbela, third city.

2070BC
Third Worker moves NE,NE and mines, then mines around cap.

1870BC
settler produced in cap, Settler moves N,N,N to try to secure the cow. Fro F11 I can
tell it's Greece with a city border close to Arbela and next to the cow. I want to get the
Cow before Greece gets it.

1790BC
Fourth Worker produced. Goes north to improve Cow City.

1750BC
IW finished, start on Alphabet.

1725BC
Found Antioch.

1675BC
Granary in Pasargardae. settler in Cap. Settler north.

1575BC
Alphabet finished. Start on Writing.

1550BC
Warrior completed in Antioch.

1525BC
Gordium founded.

1475BC
Barracks finished in Pasargardae.

1425BC
Arbela completes Granary.

1400BC
Veteran Archer in Pasargardae.

1375BC
Disease strikes Cap. Worker in Arbela. (Mines around Arbela.) Barracks in cap. Bactra founded.

1350BC
Vet Archer in Pasargardae. Disease strikes Cap,

1300BC
Gordium produces Worker. (Mines around Gordium) Finish Writing, start on Currency.

1250BC
Antioch produces Barracks. Cap and Pasargardae produce Settlers. Both Settlers head north.

1175BC
Pasargardae and cap produce Vet Archers.

1150BC
Antioch produces Vet Archer. Gordium produces Warrior.

1125BC
Pasargardae produces Vet Archer.

1100BC
Byzantines complete The Great Lighthouse. Arbelum finishes Barracks. Sidon founded.

1075BC
Cap produces Vet Archer. Sidon founded. Zulu Dawn! DOW on Zulu. Bactra produces Worker.

1050BC
Arbela and Antioch produce Vet Archers. Tyre founded. Capture barb hut for 25 gold.


1000BC
Gordium produces Worker. Antioch, Cap and Pasargardae produce Vet ARchers.
Nine Vet Archers attack and capture Zimbabwe. One slave captured. Two Archer losses.


QSC Statistics

PRoduction Statistics
Food: 56
Shields/Mfg: 36
Total gold: 55

Diplomacy:
Contacts: 4
Embassies: 0

Territory & Cities:
Territory: 10700 squares
Towns: 7
Cities:
2Metropolis: 0
Total Production: 102
Buildings: 3 Granaries and 4 Barracks and a Palace

Population Statistics:
Happy: 20
Content: 7
Unhappy: 6
Entertainers: 0
Taxmen: 0
Scientists: 0
Total Specialists: 0
Total Citizens: 33

Unit Statistics:
Experience Counts: 1 elite archer, 10 Veteran Archers,2 Regular Warriors
Unit Counts: 8 Workers, 1 Slave
Total: 21

Technologies Researched: CB, WC, Wheel, Pottery, Alph, Mason, Math, BW, IW (no trading)

Total: 9 techs

there you have it. I am off to a good start by taking the Zulu cap at 1000BC, just in time to count for the QSC cooincidentally. The Greeks were next, followed by a combined roll over of Korea and Portugal.

SR

My goal for this game is to use de slingshot (first time) en get a domination victorie (and a place by the first 10 og this cotm).

Settle NE en got the cow. Warrior-warrior-granary.

My warrior met de Greece close in the east. I was building a settler when the Zulu turn up by south by the wines. Moves the warrior to zulu settler and keep them of the wine, what works. Second city was between de river and the wine. I've got both.

Looking at this game i thought that in the north en west also are civs. But no time to search for them, because the Barb are coming from the North/west.

1950 BC
The four civs around are know, i got 3 towns and research Phlilosophy.

With slingshot I got lit. Later traded Phil to the others civs. The way to get more land was to noth-west because the protugese didn't got the land up there. Later I build 5 towns there. And in my core city a build Lib to get the high culture what I like my close neighbours. Meanwhile the Zulu got in war with the portugese, the zulu attacked and the protugese defends but no progress was maked.

970 BC
8 towns, 1 settler, 5 workers, 2 curragh, 3 warrior, 1 archer, 8 spearman research Republiek. Also just spotted iron.

Looking at the war between the zulu en the portugese i decided to get more archers to attack the portugese in the back. The to iron was taken by Korea and Greeks so no GA and Immortals that problem was nice for this GOTM.

Got in republiek in 4 turns.

With 10 archers the attack in the back of the Portugese went good and when the portugese where almost gone the zulu makes peace with them, so all the city where for me. I finished the portugese off and meanwhile three towns cultureflip to me ( 2 zulu and 1 greek).

The exploration of the Pangea didn't went well in the beginning, the curraghs where attacked bij de the Barb and finally they where detroyed. With the RoP (Zulu) I met the others civs and I discoverd that this was really a pangea.

10 AD
17 towns 4 capturred and 3 flipped to me.

Monoth. was the free tech. The objective for coming period, is to get longbows asap and get iron from the Greeks(immortals and GA). From there are horses from the zulu the goal (cavalry).

This game s getting well after the slow start.

Hey all,

My goal for this game was to go with an Immortal rush. I have only recently starting playing Monarch in my own games and on GOTM where I played Monarch, I always fell behind in tech but managed to catch up during the IA and win with Diplo victory. Last month, I got a domination victory, but not till MA, so I am going for a domination this time around, hopefully only faster.

After discovering no Iron nearby and the only iron nearby was deep in Greek territory, I decided that the Greeks were going to be my friends. I didn't want to face Hoplites with only Archers.

Gang-Archered the Zulus to the south and after peace settlement took all but one of their cities.

At the end of the AA, I was moving in on Portugal. I had already captured their fringe cities and was about to move onto the their core cities, the cities within the mountain ranges.

As for tech, I reminded ahead of the game or just slightly behind with creative tech trading. I am still going strong and hope to continue near the head of the pack or take the lead.

Goal for Middle Age

Finish with Portugal with Longbowmen

Attack Greeks and gain control of both Horse and Iron resources.

Depending on how that goes, I am going to go after the Koreans from there.

Early Tech Trades
Following the discussion in the pregame thread about where to settle, I go with Wacken's idea to move north, getting the moo in the first 8 tiles, and Piu's suggestion that the moo be mined to get the granary built faster. So my initial research is Pots, but of course, I meet our close neighbours almost immediately; Shaka in 3600bc and Henry in 3550bc. I trade for Alphabet, War Code, Pots and Burial, and set off for Writing, with my sights on the slingshot.

More Neighbours
My exploring axe pops a hut in 3300bc, and recruits another axe. The regular heads back to the capital to do military police duties, while the conscript keeps exploring. He meets Wang in 3000bc and Alex in 2630bc. Scientific civs! Starting with Bronze, they are likely to get Ironwork early. Wang comes up with the goods in 2850bc, and I see that there is no nearby iron. On the same turn I trade for Wheel and see that there are no nearby horses. That puts Alex's hoplites in a strong position.

The Combo Factory
My first settler is ready in 2710bc, to be followed by barracks, settler, spear, and then I am into the six turn factory developed by klarius and Piu. My 30 combo shields buy me an archer and an axe per cycle, and this factory should produce nine settlers by the end of the QSC. Of course, there isn't much land available to settle as the AI are all so close, but I think I can squeeze nine towns in. There is some space to the north, as Korea is the furthest AI, and Portugal is not expanding quickly into the plains and desert to my northwest.

Mismanagement
I keep the factory running, but uncharacteristically I make some slips in my micromanagement; several times I forget to drop my luxury rate after producing settlers, and one turn I actually have the capital rioting! This is not good for my run at the slingshot. Writing is learned in 2190bc, Laws in 1625bc, and then when I am one turn away from Philosophy, I find that Greece has it :mad:. Of course they waste their slingshot on Mapping, which the Zulu already has. I am so frustrated I make another error, and set my sights on Currency. I should have gone for Construction of course - Portugal gets Currency in 1350bc, and I give Henry Laws to finish my research for me. I still haven't learned my lesson, though; I go for Polytheism next, but the AI gets that in 1275bc. If I had gone for Construction after missing the slingshot, I could have been medieval by this point.

QSC Stats
9 towns with 23 pop and 97 tiles.
120 food in the bin, 321 shields in the box, 86g in the treasury.
2 granaries, 3 barracks.
1 settler, 5 workers, 3 slaves, 8 axes (5 vet), 4 archers (vet), 4 spears (vet), 1 curragh.
All ancient techs except for the governments and Construction (144 beakers gathered).
4 contacts, 1 embassy.

Wonder Plans
For a long time I have had a generic wonder build going in my third city. My theory is to hand-build Artemis, so I can be sure that it doesn't get built at the other side of the world; I want those free temples working as soon as possible. Well, in 850bc, Seoul completes Pyramids, and Lisbon responds by switching over to Artemis. I get an embassy with Portugal, and find that they will finish Artemis in 10 turns. That is plenty faster than I can manage, so I am in some danger of losing my prebuild; the only other wonder available is the Glib, which I explicitly don't want as it is an Artemis-killer. Luckily, when I finish my run on Construction in 730bc, I get Feudalism as my free medieval tech, so Antioch switches to Sun Tzu. Pyramids, Artemis and Sun Tzu are all within my grasp! :evil:

It not a joke, I have the proofs as save games!

A few turns into the Middle Age (470 bc), my people decided than we need to focus on health, so we started two big projects: Persepolis the Cure for Cancer :D and Arbela Longevity :D:D . Yes! Believe or not!

I didn't pay to much attention to our science advisor, that "We are technological advanced", but when I checked the Modern Times tech tree I realized than we are really really technological advanced, because we know, besides Genetics :eek: , Smart Weapon :eek: :eek: and Integrated Defense (America will not :nuke: us!).
Also we know Fascism!
My people want to give thanks to our Gods, but are they Firaxis or COTM staff? :goodjob:
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Tomorrow I will post the saves, the turn before (530 bc) and after (510 bc, IIRC) this gift. I recovered the autosaves, but I have to reload and save manually at home.

Now that's impressive. I bet even DaveMcW's never managed to leared ID that quickly ;)

so thats why the Persians are scientific...;) . but Facist scientists, thats oxymoronic. :science: :crazyeye:

pretty cool find, wonder if the GOTM staff will allow it? :D

I can't decide what's the most awesome part of this picture: the axe looking at the cure for cancer city, the fact you are researching Feudalism with integrated defense in the bag or the iron hooked up in this evil, :evil: evil map :p

...or the iron hooked up in this evil, :evil: evil map :p

Not that this is the most important - where do you see Iron hooked up in those screenies?!? :confused:

This is weird.

Not that this is the most important - where do you see Iron hooked up in those screenies?!? :confused:

This is weird.

I think he is refering to the Persian town on the Greek iron, visible in the minimap. The roads will run from there to Athens to Gordium, and thence to those immortals that FacuK has running around. I think the impressive bit is not grabbing the iron itself, but getting the hook!

I think the impressive bit is not grabbing the iron itself, but getting the hook!

Ah, you mean that early (470 BC)?
Maybe the Greek were so kind to hook it up for him (like they did for me) :thanx:

Folks,
I don't have time to finish a COTM:( , neither to post. But I found Bactra (at work now, don't know the year, but pretty fast) next to the iron:D , made a ROP (26 turns ago) and build roads to Athens (3 or 4 tiles in Greek territory) and in the iron.

About the techs, last night I tried to repeat the events from the autosave before the gift (530 bc), but I couldn't. Because I use to do stuf when playing, maybe was the screensaver, or maybe because I checked MapStat (CPRsuit) or CivAssistII.
So I attach (zipped manually) the autosaves before (530 bc) and after (510 bc). They are from the same COTM session, so no reload in the middle (if anybody bother about).

No problem for COTM staff to allow it, I am still in 470 bc, and if I play tonight instead of COTM26 I will not build that. So I will submit a retired game with low score.

But it would be funny to build the wonders and milk the game!:lol:
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