This is the first spoiler discussion thread for Gotm19-Ottomans.

Please read these instructions to make certain you DO NOT run afoul of the new spoiler rules.

Spoiler threads are divided to allow players to participate in spoiler discussions AFTER they have played their game far enough to pass a certain point in time and have already gained specific knowledge of the game.

For this game, every player must pass three tests in order to be able to view or participate this spoiler discussion thread.

For Gotm19-Ottomans:

Absolutely must have full visibility of the landmass that you start out on in this game, including a view of most of the surrounding coastal edge with trivial exceptions AND
You must have map visibility and contact with a Red colored civilization PLUS
you must have discovered the last required technology for the ancient age but should not discuss any aspect of the middle ages even including the free bonus technology that you should get at the transition.

Here is a list of some specific dos and don'ts for this discussion thread:
[list=1]
You may discuss any game features/easter eggs that you discovered prior to the two cutoffs.
You may post screenshots of cool stuff, but try to be courteous and crop and/or downsize the images to less than 800 pixels wide.
You SHOULD NOT discuss aspects of the game that are beyond the starting landmasses because many players may not get to those issues until later in the game. That game is going to give you some strong hints via the in game pop ups and it is possible to potentially gain contacts beyond this limit. Tell us when you made contact but try restrai
If you think you found a "bug", PM first or email me at gotm@civfanatics.net to see if we can identify it better by some general methods rather than cluttering up the discussion of the play of the game.
[/list=1]

This thread is intended to focus on things that you did in the game that are both on the starting landmasses and in the ancient age.

SUGGESTED MAPS, SCREEN SHOTS and DISCUSSION TOPICS:

You Pick!!! What issues do you think are important to discuss within the scope of this spoiler?? What question(s) do you have that you would like to have other players share their specific experiences about?

Again we hope you are all enjoying this month's game.

cracker

4000 bc Move worker S, spot Game! Move warrior N, spot cows! Wow, this is a hard choice. After long consideration, I move the settler E. My reasoning is that I save 1 move compared to moving S of the cow, but more important, I can relatively quickly cut down the forest and immediately after that irrigate the Game, while I have to move 3 tiles, then irrigate the plains, and only after that begin working on the cow.

3950 bc Settle N of the game, move worker to Game. Warrior moves W.
3900 bc Worker starts chopping down forest. Warrior spots Wheat! I guess we will se a lot of different starting positions. Start researching Iron Working on min science.
3800 bc See coast to the west, and also to the east. Seems our contacts are due south.
3700 bc Forest chopped down, goes to build spearman. Worker irrigates, then roads.
3000 bc Settler.
2850 bc Found Iznik NE of Wheat.
2800 bc Meet Keltoi. They have Ceremonial and Warrior Code to offer, I nohting. I don't buy anything.
2590 bc Settler. Barb in sight, luckily they are normal 1/1/1 conscripts. I was afraid Cracker had some surprises in mind.
2470 bc Uskadar founded S of cows.
2430 bc Meet neoCarthage. They have Alphabet, the Wheel, Warrior Code and Ceremonial (like the Keltoi).
2150 bc build Izmit on hill NE of Dyes.
2070 bc Discover Iron Working. There is Iron next to Sogut! Build Aydin S of 2nd cattle. Trade IW for Alphabet&Cere&9 g w. Carthage, IW&Alphabet&20 g for The Wheel&Warrior Code w. Keltoi. Start on Writing @40 turns.
1950 bc Hut warrior killed by barb horseman S of Keltoi lands. 5 cities, 311 gold. Keltoi surprisingly weak, have only 3 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc1950.jpg

1830 bc Carthage knows Writing but has no new contacts. I guess we are only 3 on this island. Switch to pottery @4 turns (90%).
1790 bc Spearman killed when attacking barb camp. Warrior killed when attacking barb horseman. :mad:
1700 bc My warriors are more lucky and disperse one camp, destroys one horseman. Spot FOG to the east. Discover Pottery, same time as Carthage. Buy Writing for 290 g. Establish embassies. Entremont is size 3 and builds Pyramids @56 turns. Carthage is size 1, builds Spartan Hoplite @4 turns. Have only 14 g left.
1575 bc Hook up Silks.
1450 bc Buy Mysticism from Keltoi for ROP and 15 g.
1325 bc AI learns Horseback Riding.
1275 bc Buy Map Making&maps from AI. Trade maps:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc1275-map.jpg

1175 bc First Galley, starts scouting E.
1125 bc Buy Philosophy for 200 g from Carthage, trade Philosophy for Horseback riding w. Keltoi.
1100 bc Uskudar builds Temple, starts on Forbidden Palace @50 turns.
1075 bc Erdine completes Barracks.
975 bc Power according to Pliny: I am 3rd! :)
925 bc 14 cities, 423 g.
900 bc Pay 34 g tribute to Carthage.
875 bc Land on island E of Keltoi. See Roman border.
850 bc Contact Rome. Get Code of Laws, map&181 g for own map & contacts & philosophy.

Later I try to buy a worker and get Rome's last 4 gold, but it turns out it is impossible! :confused: I wonder what the reason behind this is:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc730-rome-doesnt-accept-de.jpg

670 bc Entremont finishes Pyramids! Meet new civs, trade map&contacts for map&contact, get Mathematics, get 550 g from Carthage for map&contacts. ROPs net me an additional 103 g. I have now 1675 gold.
650 bc Carthage comples Great Library.
630 bc Galley lost in treacherous waters.
610 bc Buy Construction from an AI civ for 160 g&contacts.
570 bc Discover Polytheism, buy it is discovered the same turn by 3 AIs. Sell to an AI civ for 76g.
530 bc Upgrade 19 warriors to Swordsmen.
510 bc Declare war on Keltoi. Keltoi's iron is not hooked up.
490 bc Lugdunum destroyed. Galley killed when attacking FOG.
450 bc Richborough captured.
430 bc Entremont and the Pyramids captured. :D
350 bc Keltoi destroyed.
310 bc Forbidden Palace completed in Uskudar.
270 bc Discover Monarchy, go into Anarchy. Trade for Currency&258g w. an AI civ. Enter new era, learn Monotheism. Gift Polytheism to Rome, then buy Republic for Currency, Construction, Monarchy, contacts & 540 g. Sell Monarchy&ROP to Carthage for 97 g (seems they were about to discover Monarchy). A ROP nets me 13g.

The map in 270 bc:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc270-enter-middle-ages2.jpg

I am the tech leader, 664 gold. There are no trades at all by this date. Only war has been between me & Keltoi. My army consists of 5 settlers, 9 workers&5 slave workers, 9 warriors, 14 swordsmen, 1 horseman & 3 galleys.

I have 4 luxuries hooked up (dyes, spices, silks & gems), as well as Horses & Iron. My city improvements are Pyramids, Forbidden Palace, 1 temple & 2 barracks.

My plan now is to switch to Republic, build up money for a mass Horseman->Knight upgrade (I will need about 20x80g=1600 gold). After I've built the around 20 horsemen, I will put an effort into getting libraries. I am researching Theology @ 40 turns, so when I get Knights will depend on the AI, but I hope it will be within 20-40 turns. I will then crush neoCarthage and jump my capital to Carthage.

Welcome Belgarathus,

Glad to have you here.

It seems that you passed a number of first tests and are well on your way to seeing the ADs after all.

Good luck in the rest of your game!

The following is my Timeline for the scope of this thread. The rest will have to wait for the "End Game" thread. Overall, the openning sequence for this game is a lot like in the GOTM#16. I have learned from my previous mistake and pay attention to the "deer" this time. Thank you to all "deer" friends from the GOTM#16.:)

@ belgarathus: you should probably edit your post; Cracker specifically mentioned not talking about other civs than Celts, Carthage & Rome.

@ Tone: you are probably right about the fact that they flatly will refuse any gold/gold deal, because IIRC they were willing to sell the worker for 30g. Maybe they were running a deficit or something.

About the granary: I took a chance and hoped to buy Pottery from an AI civ, but it turned out none of them knew it. So I ended up building a Spearman instead if a granary. The 4 food from the irrigated deer gave me settlers at a moderate pace, but together with the wheat and cattle I got them cranked out pretty fast. And the fact that the Keltoi were so poorly expanding helped a lot, too. :)

@Moonsinger: Please tell me that that "14 towns" in your summary is a mistake :) As far as I can see from your report you only built 7 settlers, and didn't capture any cities, so surely you mean 8 towns, no?

4000BC: On first consideration, I thought moving east onto the mountains with the warrior would be best, but I reconsidered. If I did that, and found nothing, then I would be 'forced' to move onto the north mountain with the worker. If that still failed, then the settler would likely move south, and the worker would take a long time to get ready to work. So instead, I moved the warrior north, planning to move the worker east if necessary. The warrior sighted cattle to the north. It'll take two moves to get onto fresh water with the cattle in range. Yeah that's worth it. Moved settler and worker north, following the warrior.

3950BC: Sent warrior east, sighting lots of bonus grassland. Settler north-west, worker north.

3900BC: Sogut founded, set to build a warrior. Worker starts irrigating. Warrior moves south. Hmm...founding on the starting location would have been pretty good too. I take a gamble that there'll be lots of civs nearby, including at least one expansionist one which has Pottery. Research -> The Wheel at max. I want to see where the horses are, and if the Japanese aren't in the game, I may be able to get some good trading value for it.

3850BC: Warrior goes south.

3800BC: Worker finishes irrigating. Sogut works the irrigated plains. Worker starts building road. Warrior continues south.

3750BC: Warrior keeps going south.

3700BC: Sogut: Warrior -> Warrior. Warrior goes west onto hills, and will continue north. Worker finishes road and moves onto cattle.

3650BC: Celtish warrior sighted in the south. Trade Bronze Working + Masonry for CB + 10 gold. Not great value, but hey...what can you do?

3600BC: Keep exploring...

3550BC: Worker irrigating -> road

3500BC: Celtic borders sighted in the south.

3450BC: Sogut warrior -> settler. I'm thinking that not going for pottery could have been a mistake, as I still haven't contacted anyone else.

3400BC: Sogut's borders expand. New warrior heads south. North warrior heads back south to act as MP after not finding much.

3350BC: Sogut grows to size 2. Lux -> 20%

...

3150BC: After improving bonus grassland tile, worker goes to improve a plain by the river

3050BC: Sogut builds a settler: pottery couldn't be secured in time to switch. Back to size 1. Set to build a warrior. Settler sent south with a warrior escort, toward a location the capital could have been on.

3000BC: Settler continues south.

2950BC: Settler crosses the river to intended founding location.

2900BC: Iznik founded south-east of Sogut. Worker starts on building a road to Iznik. The Celts have discovered The Wheel. *Sigh*. Iznik's one purpose in life will be to build the Pyramids, and it starts on them immediately. They are currently scheduled to take 200 turns, I plan to get them somewhat sooner than that :)

2850BC: Finally brown borders are sighted in the south by exploring warrior.

2800BC: Carthage contacted. Buy The Wheel off Celts for 11 gold. Buy Warrior Code + 10 gold off Carthage for The Wheel.

Hmm...there are no horses in sight! Research -> Pottery, due in 8 turns. Sogut -> Temple as prebuild for a granary.

...

2510BC: Pottery comes in, Pottery -> Iron Working @Max. Sogut switched to granary.

2350BC: Sogut granary -> archer. In my view, 'offense is the best defense' early on, at least against barbarians.

...

2270BC: Sight a barb camp in the south, but decide not to attack because it looks like it'll be an annoyance to the Celts.

2230BC: Sogut archer -> settler. Carthage has iron working, but I can't trade it from them. That camp that would be 'annoying' to the Celts just got destroyed by them. That was a pretty silly move :)

2190BC: Brennus threatens for 21 gold. Give it to him. A pictish warrior shows up from the south.

2070BC: Sogut settler -> worker. The settler will head to the south-west of Iznik, and one of its purposes will be to get more of Iznik's radius under our cultural control, so that Iznik has more workable tiles for the Pyramids.

1990BC: Barb camp dispersed near settling site. Pictish warrior approaches Sogut.

1950BC: Attack pictish warrior approaching Sogut and narrowly win. If I lost, at least one tile would probably have been pillaged.

1910BC: Sogut warrior -> barracks. Uskudar founded and set to build warrior.

1830BC: Get Iron Working. Trade to Celts + some gold for Mysticism. Then trade Mysticism + Pottery + Gold to Carthage for Alphabet, then sell Alphabet to Celts for 50 gold. Research -> Math. There's a source of iron right next to Iznik. Excellent, that can help with the Pyramids.

1700BC: Sogut barracks -> worker.

1675BC: Sogut worker -> settler.

1650BC: Worker merged into Iznik to speed Pyramids. I decided not to chop the game/forest near Iznik, rather letting it be a 2/2 tile while the Pyramids are built. Iznik will rely on worker merges for much of its growth.

1575BC: Sogut settler -> archer. Settler goes west to found.

1500BC: Sogut archer -> settler. Another worker merged into Iznik. Izmit founded on coast to the west. Uskudar worker -> barracks. Worker goes to build a mine on nearby bonus grass.

1450BC: Iznik grows to size 7. Set to work on iron mountain to hurry Pyramids. Due in 16 turns.

1425BC: Hannibal threatens for 14 gold. He has troops wandering around, so I cave to his demands.

1400BC: Sogut settler -> spearman. Settler goes east.

1350BC: I get mathematics and trade it to Carthage for Writing + Horseback Riding. Research -> Philosophy @ Max.

Sogut: Spear -> worker.

Aydin founded to the east.

1300BC: Izmit warrior -> worker.

1250BC: Worker starts road toward the silks.

1225BC: Sogut worker -> settler.

1125BC: Uskudar barracks -> warrior. Aydin warrior -> temple, as prebuild for harbor. Sogut settler -> spear. Settler goes north-west to found by cattle.

1100BC: Philosophy comes in. Trade to Carthage with world map for Map Making. Trade to the Celts for their World map + 29 gold. We can see there are red borders across sea to the south-east. Set Aydin to build a galley. Antalya founded north-west of Sogut.

1075BC: Silks hooked up. Izmit set to build a harbor.

1050BC: The Pyramids are completed. Iznik -> worker. Soguts granary sold for 7 gold. Uskudar warrior -> warrior.

1025BC: Iznik worker -> barracks.

1000BC: Caesar bought contact with us, apparently. He has Code of Laws, which I trade for Philosophy and some gold.

Summary:

* 6 towns
* 6 workers
* 9 warriors (only one of whom is a veteran, this is defense/mp stuff only at this stage)
* 2 archers
* 2 spearmen
* The Pyramids (and thus 6 granaries)
* Happy Citizens: 38.0; Content/Specialists: 9.8; Territory: 188.3 Score: 236.
* (IMO the two best metrics of one's economic strength): GNP: 38 million (2nd), Mfg Goods: 26 megatons (2nd).
* Techs: All first level, iron working, mathematics, writing, mysticism, philosophy, code of laws, map making, and horseback riding. Researching Republic which is due in 28 turns.

...

I didn't keep detailed notes after this, but I did keep building settlers in Sogut and settled all the land to my north. I used Iznik and Uskudar to build a warrior/sword military with which I would attack the Celts. What happened next will have to wait til the next spoiler thread.

-Sirp.

I didn't keep a timeline past 1000BC. I recommend not trying to read the text file... (just remember I told you so!)

----------

I started out moving the Settler to the unshielded grassland. Figured the Plains were more valuable. Then 2 Warriors and a Granary.

I stuck to max research. Pottery, then the Wheel (visions of Sipahi), Mathmatics (all the commercial civs showing on F10), Literature (I always make this mistake), then on to the Republic.

The AI's on the continent in my game were nothing like I'd expect from an Emperor difficulty AI. The Celts were at 3 size 1 cities by the time I had built 5, having built a granary first even. Carthage wasn't much better, but they started picking up towards the middle of the Ancient Era. Not sure why they were so pitiful, but they seemed more like Regent or maybe even Warlord AI's.

I sent 3 Vet Swords to take the Celts capitol around the 1000BC QSC deadline. Then I fought a holding war trying to get a Leader, but no luck. The Celts didn't seem to be able to produce many units for me to kill.

I sent out a Galley to make contact with Rome before the QSC deadline hit too. I had noticed the overabundant marine life along the shores, but QSC score makes for weird risks. I had tried to time a second Galley, but forgot to pop rush on the proper turn, and so ended up switching it to a Sword. My lone galley took 2 hits along the way, but did survive just long enough to make contact. Then it was promptly sunk by a coallition of 4 barbs. :(

These are my notes for the QSC, hope they're not too cheesy:

4000 BC The hut warrior moves on the mountain to the East, and reveals a silk to the NE and a game to the South. Since with 7 opponents (2 more than normal for a small map) I don't anticipate having time for a granary, I decide to found 1 tile SE of the start. This will allow me to irrigate the game forest through the city without having to irrigate another square first, and brings an extra bonus grass into range.

3950 BC Sogut founded, starts warrior. Worker starts mining the bg tile (the game tile is being worked by the city). Warrior explores via the other two mountains for maximum visibility. Reserach at max ordered on pottery.

3800 BC Spices spotted to the north

3750 BC Warrior built in Sogut, another one ordered.

3650 BC Worker starts clearing the game forest. Dyes to the south - this start is looking almost too good to be true.

3550 BC Sogut builds warrior, starts barracks as granary prebuild.

3450 BC Meet the Celts to the South.

3400 BC The trusting Celts move 2 workers next to my warrior. So stupid of them.

3350 BC Declare war and grab the two workers

3300 BC One Celtic warrior dies to mine, another one kills him.

3000 BC I make peace with the Celts; Brennus gives me CB+10 gold for pottery. The war slowed down my exploration, but in return, I got two slaves which should help.

2950 BC Spot squid, and several Fogs. Slow down growth in Sogut by a turn to get the granary before city growth.

2900 BC (?) Granary built.

2800 BC Cassite warrior spotted.

2670 BC Aargh ! The barb moves into the city range, messes up the lux configuration so the city now riots, and kills the two warriors I send at him ! Luxes have to go to 40% as I send the spear to kill it.

2550 BC Sogut builds settler, starts spear.

2500 BC The Wheel researched - the Celts already have it. No horses nearby. Alphabet is next in case we're stuck on an island with the Celts.

2470 BC Iznik founded on the river to the SW, next to the dyes. 3 native luxes will help a lot in the rise of the Ottomans. It starts a warrior.

2230 BC We meet Carthage. (I think I traded for alphabet here, forgot to write that down)

2030 BC Uskudar founded 5 tiles due SE of Sogut

1750 BC Izmit founded due east of Sogut.

1725 BC Barb horse spotted. This is not good.

1675 BC My barb luck continues to stink as the vet spear in Izmit (vet from beating off an earlier attack) loses to another barb horsie. The city is now defenseless and 8 gold is captured. Horses discovered after all to the N.

1600 BC Celts demand tribute, I pay.

1475 BC Maths comes in at max research, I trade it to Hannibal for IW + writing and to Brennus for WC + 45 gold. Currency is next on the research list.

1325 BC Antalya founded. Carthago has Mapmaking

1250 BC Bursa founded

1025 BC Edirne founded, claiming the horses.

Summary: I have 8 towns, with 9 workers, 8 warriors and 9 spears. I have all the first level techs plus IW, Maths and writing. I do not have contact with the Romans yet at this point (got that later). It's definitely not a fast tech game as my contact with the Carthaginians was long-delayed because of the Celtic war, and because I sent a warrior north.
However, the two early slaves did cripple the Cetls, and by exploring north, I did discover that I had the space to make building a granary worthwhile.

One final thing: I was very pleased at discovering the Celtic town of Mohács, as I in fact predicted it in the idle speculation thread :)
Sorry for the chest-pounding :blush:

1000BC:

16 cities
29 Pop

2 Granaries
2 Barracks
2 Libraries

1 Settler
7 Workers
1 Captured Worker
7 Warriors (1 vet 5 reg 1 conscript)
6 Swords (5 vet 1 reg)

Here's a little graphic timeline.

Still compiling some photos and timeline but I thought this one was slightly humorous. This doesn't really fit in anywhere, it was just one of many such occurances. (Note the slightly wounded squid. Such brave sailors.)

Hi fellows !


This is my timeline too. For now, its the most warmongering of all that i read, so enjoy! A bloody tale of swordclashin in Ottomanic lands, by r0ck, the worthless (as dubbed in the annals of civilization)


4000 settler southwest to grassland. warrior north to mountain. cattle and silk spoted. worker south to bg, road then mine

3950 sogut founded, warrior in 5 turns. worker road on bg, warrior of the hut NE to mountain close do silk. Iron Workin in 40 turns (8.2.0)

3900 warrior of the hut south on mountain

3750 worker to road then irrigate wheat
3700 warrior ready. sent to explore west and south. another warrior in 5 turns.
3650 fish and fog spoted. will setup second cith here
3600 spoted silk, met brennus. traded masonry for ceremonial burial and all his gold(10). I must strike him fast before he gets iron


3500 wheat improvements complete. now, lets to mine bg and then road game.

3450 warrior complete. started building settler. will be ready in 8 turns, city will turn pop 3 in 7 turns

3300 spoted gems in the jungle.
3350 Started mining bg. spoted entremont´s border. need that settler badly!
3100 - settler ready

3150 contacted brennus. He must have got bronze working from someone else. He doesnt need it from me anymore. There must be another scientific civ in the continent, and it must be close. Sent warrior of the hut towards the fish to scort the settler.

3000 Met Hannibal. here is our scientifc neighbor. It will be a tough early start. 2 UU´s in the same time, same continent. Spoted spice in jungle, close to gems. We are forgotten in the most powerfull of the world. Thats good enough. When the nukes show up, they will remember us!

2900 Celts found Mohacs near the dyes, south of the fisherie spot.

2850 Iznik founded by the shore. my southern border is close to completion (needs one more city to lock then from access to my part of the continent)

2750 - Started roading river plains on the side of iznik.

2710 - Selected place for 3rd city. close to the gems, southwest from sogut. Sent warrior 3 to the forest square between the 2 hills, mountain and lake.

2630 Irrigation of iznik´s plain completed. sent worker to road towards cow. Gonna set up 3rd city up there, in what appears to be a shore

2510 sogut´s barracks complete. started settler, will finish in 8. City will grow to 3 in 6

2430 Iznik´s warrior complete. set spear(10) City grows to 3 in 10.

2350 - set slider 7.2.1 to avoid unhappiness in sogut. City is size 3, will plop settler in 2

2270 Settler ready. Start warrior. will plop in 4. Iznik´s spear plops in 6

2110 warrior plopped from sogut. still building warrior. growth in 3, warrior every 4. Contact cartaghinians and celts. They are both 3 techs ahead of me (alpha, warrior and iron)

2070 - Uskudar founded. building warrior (10) roading to cattle complete. mine and then came back. Warrior spoted "legs" under the fog to the left. must be cattle too. Bought warrior code from the cartaghinians for 54 gold. Brennus wanted 58! Iron working unveiled close iron! We will move all our warriors towards sogut as soon as we have the iron linked (set for misticism in 38 turns).

2030 - Iznik´s Spearman completed. Started worker(5) Moving Warriors towards sogut for upgrade. Set slider to 7.2.1. Exploring warrior spots spices and a assyrian camp close to sogut. lets try their mettle.

1990 - Another warrior plops from sogut. Set for 2 more warriors and then a settler (grows to size 3 in 10 and builds a warrior every 2 turns.

1950 - Cartaghinians start piramids. We are hopeless in the largest of the world. Our warrior defeats the assyrians. We have 264 gold now. Trade alphabet for 77 gold. Set slider to (6.3.1) for misticism in 19 turns.

1910 - Another warrior ready, set to settler in 5, city growth in 4. Celts plop Camulodunum close to uskudar. It was wise to expand south first. Still 10 turns to link iron, at least.

1830 - Iznik´s Worker complete. Irrigate and road plains by the river. Set to build spearman

1700 - Uskudar´s warrior complete, set to worker in 5. City is size 2

1650 - Settler built from sogut. Set to spearman(7), send settler to build a city close to the cows, by what looks like coast. Iron brought to sogut We upgrade 6 Warriors to Swordsmen. Settler reports that its not a coast, but a lake. No problem. Gonna settle there anyway.

1625 Izmit founded. Iznik´s worker completes 3 tiles of irrigation and roads.

1600 We move our army of 5 swordsmen towards camulodunum. We dont have any good intentions. Swordsman Warrior of the hut sent to protect izmit
1575 Uskudar´s worker complete. We start spearman. Will finish in 10 turns. we intent to attack brennus in 5 turns. Iznik´s spearman is complete. Set for settler. This city is now defended by 2 spearmen. It has to be enough for now.

1550 Swordsmen of the Hut defeat barbarian horsemen. There must be a camp close, but we cannot affort to go on hunting for now.

1500 Sogut builds spearman. Set for another one. We will invade brennus, I mean, brennus territory, in 3 turns

1450 We declare war before entering brennus territory, and invade Camulodunum from its north eastern hills. We have 3 VEt Sm and 3 REg Sm. They have spearman for defence.

1425 We destroyed Camulodunum, having lost only one vet Swordsman, but other has upgraded from vet to elite. We will move to mohacs now. Misticism discovered. Set to politheism (40)

1400 Iznik produces another spearman, set to The colossus(40). Celtic warrior closes to izmit. Swordsman of the hut is there, and izmit´s spearman is due in the next turn. Swordsman of the hut defeats celtic warrior and is promoted to regular. Pict warrior closes in from the northwest and izmit is undefended! we will have to move The Hut to protect the izmit. Set slider to (5.2.3) to keep izmit from rioting

1375 Izmit produces spearman (set for settler, 10, city grows to 3 in 5), picts get close. Hannibal stablishes an embassy in our capital (set slider again for 7.2.1). Swordsmen Attack archer outside mohacs. Elite swordsman climbs hill to rest (is now 2/5)

1350 Swordsman of the hut ordered to rest in izmit. Elite swordsman ordered to rest in hills with a veteran (3/4) sw as backup. 3 sw descend unto dyes by the jungle. Regular Swordsman defeats one of the spearmen taking only small casualities (2/3)

1325 Uskudar´s spearman ready. Sent warrior back to sogut for upgrade. Picts get close to our worker near izmit. The Hut sent to oversee worker´s progress and protect from the picts. Sent a gift of our world map to Hannibal (i still dont know map making, how can i send him my map ?). We descend upon Mohacs like an unearthly plage, and destroy it. Despite the loss of one of our mighty swordsman, we manage to capture 2 workers. We force peace upon Brennus for All his gold (4), Pottery, the wheel, and writing. Now we are going somewhere ! Hannibal is above us for one tech (map making) and one city. We will go back to sogut to reinforce our armies, but brennus hasn´t seen all of us yet. Reset for literature (20) (2.7.1, +3gpt).

1300 Sogut´s swordsman complete, set for the oracle/60 (prebuild for great library)

1275 Swordsman of the hut defeats hurrian camp and is promoted to veteran

1250 - Celtic Slave used to link dyes, South of Iznik reset slider to (1.9.0) Literature in 11, upgraded Uskudar Warrior to swordsman, sent one of soguts speamen to oversee and protect the workers near izmit, sent swordsman of the hut to reinforce troops close to celtic border.

1175 Move one of Iznik´s Spearman to protect dyes from a nearby warrior. will attack celts again in 2 turns

1150 used another slave to link silks

1125 Set izmit to temple, using worker to clear forest near silks to give 10 shields. Uskudar spearman2 complete. sent to protect nearby worker

1100 Regular Swordsman ambushes regular warrior on hills close to dyes and gets promoted. 5 Swordsmen (1 elite, 3 vets and 1 reg) close to entremont. Aydin founded near cows and mountain. Spoted horses to the west. Sold world map to hannibal for 6 gold (he is annoyed to me)

1075 Worker starts roading cows near aydin. Barbarian horseman spoted in mountains. Entremont Razed to the ground, no units lost. 2 slaves and 6 gold captured.

1050 moving towards lugdunum. Celts move warrior and settler to nearby mountain! They are tributing slaves to our glory! AMAZING ! Celtic archers hazed harappan camp (they now have some gold to provide us)

1025 - Warrior Defeted, workers captured. Send to link to "via resourcia" There is iron, horses and incense nearby. will build a city here. Swordsman of the hut defeats archer. Spearmen of Aydin climb hill and kick barbarian horseman´s rears. Worker finishes road and starts mining cows near aydin. Hannibal is ahead of us by 3 techs (mathematics, horseback riding and map making) and 2 cities. Literature is due in 3 turns. set slider to 1.8.1 to prevent izmit (pop 5) from rioting (only one spear there)

1000 - Forest chopped near izmit, 10 shields added. Temple in 12 turns will became a library when literacy is discovered. Worker starts mining silk colony. Force peace upon the celts again for map making, horseback riding, 3 gold and their world map. Traded world map + 33 gold for hannibal´s world map. Spotted a red border near sabratha (rome´s!). Now we have access to horses and a good spot to defend our territory. Soon we shall have knights and rule our continent.

This finishes our start. We are still the last of the world, but we are only 3 points behind the celts. Let´s see how this game ends !

Well I really bit the big one on this start. I think I had like 5 cities at 1000bc.


I would like to nominate myself for the "Polish Roulette Winner" award. It's like Russian Roulette except you play with an automatic instead of a revolver.

The problem is that I got greedy and played like it was on a lower level. I saw a settler that was guarded by only a warrior and saw a chance to collect two hard working slaves and slow the AI down at the same time.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc3150_plans.jpg

The plan wasn't too bad, except for one little thing. When my warrior attacked the warrior/settler I lost!

A short time later I got my first luxury with my second city.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc2800.jpg

But then the unthinkable happened. :o

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc2470lostcapital.jpg

I was really hating life when I lost my capital of RufRydyrville. I sued for peace and went on with the daunting task of catching up. As you'll see in the future, I did OK. But losing my capital really hurt!

630BC was a bumper year for tech trading. Carthage- got Math and Map Making for Lit and 85g. Rome- got Code of Laws for Lit, World Map, and 55g. Celts- Ceremonial Burial and ter map for lit.

In 10BC completed the Great Lighthouse by hand. It was kind of an accident as I was trying for other techs I think.

330AD was another bumper year for tech trading. Selling communications I got the remaining techs needed to leave the Ancient Times. Here's how it looked just prior to that and the last screenshot I can post in this spoiler thread:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/rufrydyr310ad.jpg
------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have Excel or one of the free readers that allows you to read Excel files, here is my QSC. Thank-you to mad-bax for taking my QSC template idea (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=919873#post919873) and making it look so pretty with suggestion2. :goodjob:

Originally posted by Wotan
I had a great sequence of events leading up to an early and inexpensive conquest of the Keltoi in 2110BC.

It all started when two of my Warriors moving south both came within striking distance of the Keltois first Warrior/Settler combo moving north to found his second city. I chanced an attack on them and took two slaves for no loss.

I'm jealous. I should have attacked with 2 warriors instead of 1 on that settler/warrior. [phaser] :rocket2: That's the way to do it! :goodjob:

Attacking one warrior with another warrior is very very chancey. You have less than 50% chance of winning if you have the same number of hitpoints.

Even two regular warriors against one militaristic warrior on flatland only have 72% chance of winning. You need vets vs a regular to have a good chance of winning - around 86%.

-Sirp.

@shura - You are way outside the scope of this thread. I am sure that Cracker will snip soon enough. This was meant to cover the ancient time frame.

=====================================

4000 BC to 250 BC - This is a quite time of expansion that gets us cities for horses, silks, dyes and spices. We gained contact with Carthage and the Celts early. Rome contacted us at 530 BC. The gods shine upon us as Carthage declares war on the Celts in 330 BC.

230 BC to when 170 AD - We sign an alliance with Carthage to beat up the Celts and we get Code of Laws for doing what I was already planning to do. I laugh as Carthage allies with Rome vs. the Celts. We all know how useless the AI is a seaborne attacks. During this time we get the news that Egypt built the Great Library pretty much crushing any hope of a 20K city win - we got just one ancient age wonder of the Pyramids. We get nailed with 7 turns of Anarchy to head to Republic. We sign peace the Celts having just one city and we get worker, Polytheism, Construction and wm for our trouble. We signed peace just in time as Carthage destroys the Celts the next turn. We get our first leader who has plans for the middle ages.

========================

I only got 6 new cities founded during this time frame, so I expect my QSC score to suck. I had horrid luck with guessing the best tech to research with the AI following my path to often. My tech score will be lousy.

Well, this is my first GOTM, hip-hip-hooray! I didn't keep a timeline like so many others, but I'll give a quick recap of the action . . . hmm, we'd better make that a lack of action. I missed the wheat when I founded my capitol at the starting location. Anyway, I explored with a few warriors to scout new places to settle. I ended up founding my next cities in position to grab all but one dye-location, which the Celts grabbed and on top of the gems. After establishing my temporary southern border, I filled in the northern part of the land mass with cities. In my only ancient era war, Carthage took my "gem city," but my swordsmen were quick to recapture it.

I'm normally a regent player, but I've enjoyed playing this game on the higher difficulty.

@Lee you may want to snip your post too. No disscussion of Middle age free techs.

Anyway, I am at work and don't have all the details but up to the QSC period I had 9 cities and about the same number of workers. And spent some gold on a couple of "indentured" servants from the Celts. It is really amazing how taking there workers has really put them into the hole. I am very pleased to see the vast number of lux available and resources. I took note up to 1000BC and have a couple saves along the way I will review and post some shots later today.

Hotrod

Of note moved the worker to the south BG and saw the game forest. Wanted to make sure that tile stayed in the city radius so I didn't wast my warrior moving North so I sent him west to see if moving the Settler SW was a good idea. Saw the wheat and knew a move was in order.

Originally posted by Sirp
]@Moonsinger: Please tell me that that "14 towns" in your summary is a mistake :) As far as I can see from your report you only built 7 settlers, and didn't capture any cities, so surely you mean 8 towns, no?

No, it's definitely not a mistake. I got 14 towns. I stop recording unit production after 1600 BC; sorry, too many things were going on and I forgot.:( It was late and I was tired; I got to 1000BC ASAP so that I could go to bed.

Anyway, I'm sure many others could have easily gotten at least 14 towns by 1000 BC without capturing any towns. My prediction is that by 1000BC, there will be a lot of players who not only have more than 14 towns but also got at least 1 Middle Age tech as well and they also have meet all the civs and have traded for the complete worldmap. Basically, this is my worst game ever. However, I will see if I can make a come back during the golden age around 500 AD. It's not really over until it's over. I may be beaten but I won't give up.:)

1000 BC:

- 10 cities
- 18 warriors
- 4 workers + 1 slave
- 1 settler

Going for a my first conquest victory, all previous GOTMS (one one submitted) I have played I ended up with space race victories.

Entered middle ages sometime before 10 AD, not sure exactly when.

Originally posted by utahjazz7
Well, this is my first GOTM, hip-hip-hooray! ...

I'm normally a regent player, but I've enjoyed playing this game on the higher difficulty.
Yeehaw, we are honored to have you play with us Utah!!!

Just a reminder to all players and a big thanks to you again for all your great unit annimations that are featured in the GOTM games. The Pictish Warrior that is in both versions plus the Euro Sword, Frankish Axeman, and Militia (Seperatist) in the Civ3v1.29 version are all great units that really help to exapand the flavor of the game while keeping the rules failry close to standard.

Hope you have at least 1/2 as much fun in the game as you make it possible for the 200 other players.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/2003images/gotm18_PW4.jpg

Thanks and Good Luck!!!!

Notes: The barbs were the toughest in any GOTM that I can remember. There was a surprising amount of open land. All the pregame speculation about being hemmed in was totally off base. A granary helped me. I expect players that built granaries did better overall.

I did not pay as much attention to optimizing the start as I could have and am disappointed with the ten city total at 1000 B. C. Fourteen seems doable for normal folks and some top players may have 18 or even 20 cities. Thankfully, the Keltoi are incredibly weak for an Emperor level AI, and NeoCarthage is below average. It took me a long time to find the "red" civ.

I immediately went to chop the forest, but would have been better off mining the shield grass first.

Here is my abbreviated timeline and an image from 1000 B. C.
10 towns, 1 spearman, 7 workers, 20 warriors.
----
4000 BC spot cow, and game, move settler SE to plains.
3950 Sugot (capital) founded on plains. Worker to chop then irrigate game forest. Pyramids used for Granary prebuild. Research Pottery 100%. Warrior explores in a circle pattern
2950 Granary complete, warrior next
2510 NeoCarthage trades their Warrior Code and 10 gold for my pottery. Keltoi Wheel tech for my Pottery, Masonry and 10 gold. I go for Iron Working then beeline to Literature. Turns out to be bad, as AI also goes for writing.

2470 Iznik (2nd city) founded near cow lake.
2310 Uskudar (3rd city) founded near dye forest.
2150 Izmit (4th city) founded near wheat.
1675 Aydin (5th city) founded near river cow.
1625 Antalya (6th city) founded on coast three tiles east of capital.
1400 Bursa (7th city) founded near gem lake.
1350 Edirne (8th city) founded on iron hill near Keltoi. This will become the lone upgrade city when the war begins.
1175 Istanbul (9th city) founded to the NE of capital near silks.
? I seem to have lost the 10th city somewhere in the shuffle.
1000 end

I was happily surprised w/ how easily I was able to expand at the emperor level; very happy w/ my initial set up. Although I've kept polite relationships during this period, both Keltoi and neoCarthage have been relunctant to trade. Obviously, the Keltoi would provide my tech advancements via the battlefield. Work to maintain polite relationship w/ neoCarthage. Also, the landmass provides for an easily defendable front against any southern aggression.

well this was my very first gotm and first game above warlord and I'm at 1250AD (ish) and not dead yet! Major achievement for me... still it goes without saying that I'm at least 5 techs behind everyone and had a very late entry into the middle ages.. oh well hoping for a miracle!
I've read all the game logs and now understand where I've gone wrong.. I'm just not agressive enough... Carthage wiped out the Celts ages ago and I've so far managed to avoid a war with the Romans (most powerful, most advanced, richest etc) by severe ass licking.. wonder how long that's going to last?
I've got 11 cities all with libraries and a few with temples but since I haven't managed to build a single wonder I'm almost last in the culture race (at least Carthage is impressed with my culture!)
One other thing that scared me was this Fog stuff all over the coastline... it put me off settling any coastal cities cos I wasn't sure if it could attack me or not... and those squids are soooo hard to spot till they kill your poor little galley on a suicide mission before it's even left the coast :cry:
Oh well here's hoping I get to post in the next thread..

I don't want to start some hate/flame war BUT

I really like to know what was the reasons (except the obvious but not very fairplay one) for some people to move the settler SW and settle THERE next turn while their worker/warrior were exploring another area (ie. they 'discovered' the wheat to go with the game by pure 'luke' AFTER settling).

The only reason not to settle ASAP (in 4000BC) were (IMHO) if moving the warrior/worker on one of the mountain or the bonus grass and :
- you notice luxuary in your 21 titles (north)
- you wanted the game in your 9 titles (south or SE)

Even discovering the game, I still settle on the starting title and 'notice' the wheat just out of my 21 titles and thought what a pity I did not settle just 1 title SW, I guess some weaker minded player might not have resisted starting again knowing that.

I hope I am wrong ...

Jabah

In my case my first move was the worker to the Bonus grass as it was the first tile I wanted worked. By seeing the game tile after the move of the worker I knew I wanted that tile in my city radius. That limited the SW move as the only move I was going to make and deciding that I was either going to stay put or move SW it only made sense to see what was to the West with the warrior and not look over the mountains. Had I not had an extra warrior I would not have moved the settler at all but by having my warrior take peak to the west I was able to see the wheat.

The key for me was moving the worker first before moving the warrior. IF I moved the warrior first I would've been inclinded to check the terriotory from the Mountains and would have never seen the wheat even if I moved the worker south.

It wasn't luck at all I had a reason for every move I made.

Originally posted by Jabah

The only reason not to settle ASAP (in 4000BC) were (IMHO) if moving the warrior/worker on one of the mountain or the bonus grass and :
- you notice luxuary in your 21 titles (north)
- you wanted the game in your 9 titles (south or SE)


I am not exactly in the category you mention, but I did move the settler SE to the plains next to the game tile. Before deciding, I move the warrior N to mountain to see the cow, and worker to shield grass to mine and road to see the game. I move the settler towards the game. In retrospect, I think I could have done a bit better by settling at the start and getting the game tile upon culture expansion. The cow is a better bonus than game but takes three full turns to reach. Plains Wheat is not as good because it only gives three food when irrigated under Despotism (irrigated wheat has same stats as unimproved cow).

Aeson already posted his timeline (a download attached to the 10th post on this thread, first page), so maybe you can study it. Aeson, SirPleb, Bamspeedy and a few other top players usually have a close to optimal start for any given terrain. Some timelines are reproduceable, others involve finding enemy civs at an opportune time (to capture workers, cities or settlers). Me, I still have more polishing to do, though I am closer to the top than the bottom.
+ Bill

Let's sort of add this topic into this spoiler thread as a running Q&A discussion topic:

Based on your experience with what you are seeing with your neighbors, what do you think is the priority order that AI leaders are given for determining what city sites to settle: good growth and food sites, luxury resources, strategic resources, strategic position, territory expansion, or something else or a combination??

What combination of map and timeline factors seem to result in a strategic shutdown of AI competitiveness in the early part of the game??

Originally posted by hotrod0823
In my case my first move was the worker to the Bonus grass as it was the first tile I wanted worked. By seeing the game tile after the move of the worker I knew I wanted that tile in my city radius. That limited the SW move as the only move I was going to make and deciding that I was either going to stay put or move SW it only made sense to see what was to the West with the warrior and not look over the mountains. Had I not had an extra warrior I would not have moved the settler at all but by having my warrior take peak to the west I was able to see the wheat.

The key for me was moving the worker first before moving the warrior. IF I moved the warrior first I would've been inclinded to check the terriotory from the Mountains and would have never seen the wheat even if I moved the worker south.

It wasn't luck at all I had a reason for every move I made.

I also moved (S) the worker first to the BG, noticed the game and decided i wanted that in my 21t radius, but instead of sending the warrior W (revealing the wheat - after that it is normal to move the settler, but some did move after sending the warrior somewhere else) I send the warrior on the E hill (since it will reveal lots of the east) to consider moving on OTHER side of the river, and since there was nothing of interest I settle there.

Your 'explaination' makes perfect senses (not like moving and delaying settling by 1 turn because you can gain 1 turn of worker action buy irrigating a plain instead of mining a grass - the number of river is borderline as the starting position has enough river until Sanitation).

Again, I was just wondering, not accusing anyone (even if I am still convinced that the tentation might have been to strong to a few).

Jabah

Without having my notes on my settlement it is tough question but from what I remember from my game it appears that resources and lux are key factors. I had a celt pair walk all the way through my territory to the North Tundra to found a city and even after a quick war with them was over they sent another pair north. I believe that there must be something in that ice.

The other thing I noticed was the AI founding cities in the jungle towns without any workers on clearing the land. The celts were really hemmed in by jungle and could never get any growth what so ever.

Taking 2 slaves through purchases killed their growth even more. I didn't hurt either that they are fixated on wonders too. Entremont was building a pyramid but was completely under developed. Yes he did get the pyramid built, (lucky for me!) but he was wasting turns.

Not having too much contact with carthage I haven't looked too hard that their progression. Rome on the other hand had way too many units and left the entire top 1/3 of there island undeveloped. I was able to get 3 jungle cities built easily. He completely ignored the jungle, even the lux site.

I may have more to imput after I look over my notes.

Hotrod

[edit] I understand your concerns and agree that if you moved north or east with the warrior then moving southWest would be a gut shot or at the very least just a move to get less Mountains in the city radius. I think most that moved the warrior north or East to the mountains moved the settler S, or SE.

Anyways, AI seems to be geared towards resource build locations.

I agree. Even to the extent of putting cities in terrible locations because of future resources ;)!

I have read other reports, that mimic my results - for an emperor level game, I found the Celts to be very weak from the start. Brennus was clearly interested in grabbing as many luxuries and resources as he could, neglecting better city spots. Furthermore, his military was rather weak. What happened to all the free units he started with? My guess is that he sent them after the barbs...and the barbs in this game have been particularly strong...my guess is he was expending his forces as fast as he could make them...I did see some of his warriors attacking/gettign killed by barbs.

I would really like to hear to hear other thoughts on why the Celts were so weak. I was quite surprised - I expected very tough neighbors on my first emperor game.

Going to try and get this game in for my first GOTM.
Was certainly happy with the way things are going. could be better.... could be worse. Lots of resources was a bit of a surprise, and very useful. i imagine it will allow for speedier victories. thanks for hooking this up cracker and team!

Originally posted by Jabah
I don't want to start some hate/flame war BUT

I really like to know what was the reasons (except the obvious but not very fairplay one) for some people to move the settler SW and settle THERE next turn while their worker/warrior were exploring another area (ie. they 'discovered' the wheat to go with the game by pure 'luke' AFTER settling).

The only reason not to settle ASAP (in 4000BC) were (IMHO) if moving the warrior/worker on one of the mountain or the bonus grass and :
- you notice luxuary in your 21 titles (north)
- you wanted the game in your 9 titles (south or SE)

Even discovering the game, I still settle on the starting title and 'notice' the wheat just out of my 21 titles and thought what a pity I did not settle just 1 title SW, I guess some weaker minded player might not have resisted starting again knowing that.

I hope I am wrong ...

Jabah

Hi Jabah,
I can only speak for myself, but like HotRod, I moved my settler SW as well..and it was not luck..nor cheating (I refuse to cheat - even when things go very poorly). Like HotRod, my opening move consisted of moving my worker south first to the Bonus Grass...then I sat and debated what to do with my free warrior. North? East? West? North and East were very tempting due to the mountains...but in the end, I moved him West. Why? I followed advice posted in the pre-game discussion by one DaveMcW...that the best chance of a bonus food would be down the river...and he was spot on. Once I saw that moving SW would give me both deer and wheat, moving the settler was decided upon.

In this game I was trying DaveMCV's famous tactic with palace jump. This was a pretty easy emperor game start. The start position was incredible with 4 luxuries, cattles, wheat and rivers.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm18_map1.jpg

Turn # /Turns Left Year Comments
0 / 540 4000 BC- Warrior E finds silk to the north, game to the south and possibly sea to the east. Worker S finds nothing extra. Sogut founded and find wheat to the west, lol. Research Pottery at full speed.
1 / 539 3950 BC- Worker start building road. Warrior S.
2 / 538 3900 BC- Warrior keeps moving south.
3 / 537 3850 BC- Worker start mining.
4 / 536 3800 BC-
5 / 535 3750 BC- Warrior2 ready and goes N. Finds cattle to the north.
6 / 534 3700 BC- Warrior2 walks on the third mountain and it looks like sea to the east.Worker moves NE to plains.
7 / 533 3650 BC-
8 / 532 3600 BC- Green border in sight to the S. Tax change from 100 to 70%.
9 / 531 3550 BC- Meet with Keltoi archer. Exchange Masonry + Bronze Working for Warrior Code + Ceremonial Burial. Maybe I should take those two eqWorkers there. Tempting.
10 / 530 3500 BC-
11 / 529 3450 BC- Discover Pottery. Research Alphabet 100% (25 turns because I use dear, otherwise it would have been 18 turns). After much thinking, I decide to build a granary in the capital and let the worker chop down the forest to get the food bonus from the deer.
12 / 528 3400 BC-
13 / 527 3350 BC-
14 / 526 3300 BC-
15 / 525 3250 BC-
16 / 524 3200 BC-
17 / 523 3150 BC- Gain 10 shields for forest. Start irrigating. I check the Keltoi each turn if they have a worker for sale. They still don't have Pottery.
18 / 522 3100 BC- Meet neoCarthage warrior in the south. I trade Warrior Code, Pottery, Ceremonial Burial and 3g for Alphabet. I trade Pottery to Keltoi for 10 gold so they can't buy alphabet somehow. Now that I have wasted 9 turns researching Alphabet, I will research Mathematics at 10% speed.
19 / 521 3050 BC- Sogut size 3. Deer irrigated.
20 / 520 3000 BC-
21 / 519 2950 BC- Granary complete in Sogar. It is time to produce settlers.
22 / 518 2900 BC-
23 / 517 2850 BC-
24 / 516 2800 BC-
25 / 515 2750 BC-
26 / 514 2710 BC-
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_2710bc.jpg
27 / 513 2670 BC- First settler! Move south.
28 / 512 2630 BC-
29 / 511 2590 BC- Iznik founded.
30 / 510 2550 BC- Keltoi discover Iron Working. neoCarthage discover The Wheel. I buy Iron Working for 86g, 5gpt and Alphabet. If I don't buy, they will exchange knowledge and it will be more expensive to buy their techs later. neoCarthage doesn't want Iron Working, and doesn't give me The Wheel!! I am not good at diplomacy...
31 / 509 2510 BC-
32 / 508 2470 BC- Second settler complete.
33 / 507 2430 BC-
34 / 506 2390 BC- Uskudar founded.
35 / 505 2350 BC-
36 / 504 2310 BC- Scythian encampent destroyed. I get 25 gold. Iznak completes a worker.
37 / 503 2270 BC- Third settler complete. Iznak worker chop down forest. Red border spotted on another island.
38 / 502 2230 BC-
39 / 501 2190 BC- Izmat founded.
40 / 500 2150 BC-
41 / 499 2110 BC-
42 / 498 2070 BC- Corruption in Iznik. The barracks will take longer to complete than I have planned.
43 / 497 2030 BC-
44 / 496 1990 BC- Fourth settler complete.Silk connected.
45 / 495 1950 BC-
46 / 494 1910 BC-
47 / 493 1870 BC- First coastal city, Aydin founded. Both neoCarthage and Keltoi discover Writing (it took them 17 turns).
48 / 492 1830 BC- Keltoi demand 27 gold. Of course I refuse. Can't blaim them for trying they say.
49 / 491 1790 BC- Sarbadar encampent destroyed. I get 25 gold.
50 / 490 1750 BC- Fifth settler complete.
51 / 489 1725 BC- Barracks completed in Uskudar. My warrior factory has opened.
52 / 488 1700 BC-
53 / 487 1675 BC- Antalya founded next to a pictish warrior, so I buy Writing for 131 gold and establish embassy with neoCarthage for 47 gold so that the warrior won't pillage too much of my gold. (91 gold left and 17gpt)
54 / 486 1650 BC- 15 gold pillaged from Antalya. Right of Passage with neoCarthage for 3 gold.
55 / 485 1625 BC-
56 / 484 1600 BC- Sixth settler complete (every settler comes from Sogut). Harappan encampent destroyed. I get 25 gold.
57 / 483 1575 BC-
58 / 482 1550 BC- Discover Mathematics. neoCarthage give me 235 gold for it, and Keltoi give me The Wheel and 28 gold for it. Research Currency at 100%. (lose 3 gpt). Current treasure: 455 gold.
59 / 481 1525 BC-
60 / 480 1500 BC- Cultural border expansion put dye into my territory which is already connected. Bursa founded. Bactrian encampent destroyed which gives me 25 gold.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_1500bc.jpg
61 / 479 1475 BC-
62 / 478 1450 BC- Seventh settler complete.
63 / 477 1425 BC-
64 / 476 1400 BC-
65 / 475 1375 BC- Bantu encampent destroyed which gives me 25 gold.
66 / 474 1350 BC- Spice connected (3rd luxury).Edirne founded.
67 / 473 1325 BC- Both Keltoi and neoCarthage discovers Map Making! I buy it for World map + 159 gold with Keltoi.
68 / 472 1300 BC-
69 / 471 1275 BC-
70 / 470 1250 BC-
71 / 469 1225 BC- Eight settler complete.
72 / 468 1200 BC- Iron connected. Upgrade 8 veteran warriors to swordsmen.Discoover Currency. Research Code of Laws.Keltoi and neoCarthage both discover Mysticism, sigh. I sell Currency to both of them for all their money and techs.
73 / 467 1175 BC-
74 / 466 1150 BC-
75 / 465 1125 BC-
76 / 464 1100 BC-
77 / 463 1075 BC-
78 / 462 1050 BC- Istanbul founded. neoCarthage discovers Horseback Riding (worthless tech for now).
79 / 461 1025 BC- Declare war on Keltoi and attack Moha`cs with three swordsmen.Two of them die, one survive and they are left with an elite spearman with 2 health left.
80 / 460 1000 BC- Discover Code of Laws. Research Philosophy. Entremont captured with only one swordsman loss! First unit promoted to elite status! Nubian encampent destroyed which gives me 25 gold. First galley created. Unfortunately a squid will kill it the very next turn :(.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_1000bc.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_1000bc_military.jpg

I ended the war shortly after for contact with the Romans 900 bc. With heavy losses, I couldn't keep on fighting. Instead I prepared for my first palace jump ever. Forbidden palace was complete 850 bc and I made the palace jump 710 bc. See my new capital.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/el_kalkylus_gotm19_710bc_capital.jpg

650 bc - The Pyramids built in Carthage (neoCarthage.)
590 bc - My first harbor complete. Trade luxuries with Romans.
550 bc - Discover The Republic and go into anarchy.
450 bc - Government Republic.
290 bc - Meet Indians and trade for world map and technologies. End of Ancient Age.

It took some time to find the other civilizations. Here are some dates that I wrote down:

One turn after 1000 bc, my first galley is killed by a squid.
825 bc my second galley is lost in the fog.
370 bc my third galley sink in the sea, {but just for the sake of mystery lets save that topic for the next discussion - ;) }

Originally posted by Wotan
When I moved up towards Entremont I moved a single Warrior from the west and four units from the north (1 Archer and 3 Warriors). The Western Warrior lured two Archers from Entremont to chase him west into the mountains. So basically, had this not happened the city would have been defended rather strongly by two Archers, one Spearman and a Warrior.

Great tactic!:goodjob: I hope nobody is going to think of it as an exploit (because I'm using it all the time).;)

Originally posted by Jabah

I really like to know what was the reasons


There are a number of reasons, one to get the mountain out of the radius. To get more river squares in, a move sw or w improves the capital by +2 river squares. A move sw removes 1 mountain and west removes 2! Lots of good reasons to move without seeing the wheat. All of this can be seen without moving at all by the way.

If you do the sensible thing and move your worker south on the shieldland, you will find another shieldland beside it, moving sw now will get that river shieldland in the radius. Later you'll find out that you actually traded a shieldland for that one since one was lost south of the mountain, but the one gained is a river shieldland, quite a bit better than the other.

I predict that most people that move would move sw or south, west may appear to be a great move but its not.

@Shillen,
I attacked Entremont with 5 veteran swordsmen. If you look at my timeline, I didn't have much luck attacking Mohac with 3 swordsmen a turn before.

My fourth city started building forbidden palace around 1900 bc. It was really close to the capital, had very little corruption and could share already worked tiles with 2 other cities. So that is probably why I could build it faster. I didn't join any workers there.

I have to agree that Aeson was really bold when he attacked Entremont with only 3 swordsmen.

Edit: fixed the dates. It was 1900 bc not 1700 bc.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/mac.jpg v1.29beta

I tend to space my cities further apart, but for this game, I had every intention to do a dense city build like so many successful gotm contestants. However, my old vice of going for the four luxury resources prevailed.

As usual (at least, when bonus food is available like cattle or in this case game) I built 3 warriors to explore the world, then granary before settler.

Contact with Brennus was in 3250bc, with Hannabaline in 2800bc. We spotted a red border across the sea in 1790bc and left a warrior looking for ships to come. The Roman galley came in 1075bc but regrettably made contact with neoC and Keltoi before us; thus no deals.

Our starting considerations were as follows:
warrior climbs N mountain and sees cattle and silks; worker S on bonus tile sees game; reasoning: cattle is too far away; silk not immediately needed; irrigated game gives 3 food; move settler SE towards center of map, city propagates water to irrigate game. Research pottery 100%.

Interestingly, it was no big problem to stay even in techs. After pottery, I researched iron working at max and got it also first. Next followed minimum on mysticism but got beaten by 7 turns; minimum on literature was successful and the resulting deal for polytheism from Rome put us in the Middle Ages in 290bc.

I did not go for any Wonders and was happy to hear that the Keltoi built The Pyramids for us in 450bc. :D

War was declared by the Keltoi (neoC joined in but we made peace for a modest payment in 310bc) in 490bc starting their decline and our thriving with the captured Pyramids at the beginning of the Middle Ages, but that is beyond the scope of the thread.

The following map is 290bc as the Ottomans are in anarchy.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_1_map.gif

The power graph is quite interesting. Normally, I need much longer to catch up on emperor, but this was an advantageous starting position and maybe the small map effect. I followed DaveMcW's advise to not build early temples, thus our weakness. What really surprised me was the Roman culture, since usually Rome is culture-weak.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm19_1_power.jpg

Just wanted to thank you for the great posts, guys! I had a really fun time reading all the posts. :)

Originally posted by r0ck
3000 Met Hannibal. here is our scientifc neighbor. It will be a tough early start. 2 UU´s in the same time, same continent. Spoted spice in jungle, close to gems. We are forgotten in the most powerfull of the world. Thats good enough. When the nukes show up, they will remember us!


:lol:

Originally posted by RufRydyr
I was really hating life when I lost my capital of RufRydyrville. I sued for peace and went on with the daunting task of catching up. As you'll see in the future, I did OK. But losing my capital really hurt!

The irony, the irony. Not only to lose your capital but to lose your named capital! :(

Originally posted by CruddyLeper
3000BC A miner disaster - the square irrigated and roaded by the worker is outside of Iznik's boundary. Set the worker to mining the cow as a punishment.


Those pesky workers! I guess you took the game concept to the extremes; the slaves are the only ones getting something done. :lol:

BTW, my stats at 1000 bc: 13 cities (22 pop), 1 temple, 1 barracks, 1 settler, 6 workers, 12 warriors, 1 galley. 2 luxuries hooked up. Not great, but not disastrous. :)

Tao: your histograph also hints at an extra Roman settler, and my histograph shows the same. I am pretty confident that they got one extra settler to start with. Not that it will help them... :ninja:

Originally posted by Hurricane
Tao: your histograph also hints at an extra Roman settler, and my histograph shows the same. I am pretty confident that they got one extra settler to start with.You are correct. They founded their second city by 3800bc as the summary replay shows. You may deduct that I survived the game. :)

I seem to be the only one who conquered the Celts by 1000 BC. Actually I did it in 1250 BC. I didn't really even try, they were just really weak. I should have continued building military units and taken the Carthaginians too. Big mistake on my part. Here is my 1000 BC minimap and the accompanying zoomed-out map:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/pilf1000BCmini.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/pilfzoomout.JPG

The barbarians are spawning everywhere. They regularly spawn camps in the first fog of war tile away from a city. Is this normal or are the barbarians on steroids for this game?

That's about it. I'm not doing as well as I should, but I'm not too worried about it.

Shillen,
you are probably right again. Bonus grassland is very powerful in the beginning since the cities are so small then. And my placement on my forbidden palace and palace is quite bad actually. Lesson learned. This game has been very educational so far, and I will study it more as soon as I finish it.

You should be glad that you didn't attack Entremont as early as I did, because that gave you The Pyramids which is a real boost to growth and economy.

I started this Game with several restrictions:

A)To prove the Ottomans research power I’ll not run any Min-Science-gambit. On contrary I’ll try to research as fast as possible and leave the AI in the dust.

B) Consequently I’ll aim for a Space-Race-Victory;

C) I’ll not declare war on any AI.


4000BC: Move the Warrior north and the Worker south; then I decide to move the Settler 1SE and found Sogut in 3950BC;
Research started at m100% on Pottery;

3550BC I met the Celts and trade them Masonry + BW + 13 gold for Warrior Code and CB;

3400BC Pottery learned Start IronWorking;

2750BC Contact with Hannibal;

2350BC IW learned Myst started;
2270BC Pottery + 18 gold to Celts for Wheel;
1910BC Myst learned Poly started;
1870BC Myst to Celts for Alpha + 30gold; Myst to Carthage for 55gold;
1425/1400BC: Poly learned : Poly to Celts for Writing + 110gold; Buy the Embassies; Research on Lit started;
1175/1150BC: Lit learned; Lit + 10gold to Hannibal for MapMaking and WM; Lit to Celts for Horseback + 8gold + WM;
Math started;

At 1000BC I'm one turn away from Math and have 9 Cities;

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1000BC_comb.jpg

After Math I research Curreny;
925BC: Meet Rome: Math + Poly for CoL;
730/710BC Currency learned; Sold to Rome for Philo + 130gold + WM;
Sold to Carthage for 80gold + WM
Start Construction;

510BC Constuction learned Middle age entered;
End of Part 1 ;)


Rowain

Chiz, indeed there is no need for so many spearmen. That's almost two per city! I keep one spearman at most in most of my cities. Perhaps if a city was particularly threatened it might have two or three.

Far better to have a small defense in each city, and then a 'dynamic' defense of swords or horses that can move to any area under threat.

-Sirp.

Wow. I didn't attack Entremont until 610 BC but I brought 10 veteran swordsmen and I lost 8 of them in the attack. They had 5 or 6 spearmen in there.

The Celts were rather backwards in my game. I was suprised that they had a second Spear in their city at that point. I was figuring on them only having 1, as they were building the Oracle in their capitol for ages past. At least they couldn't pop rush any more Spears! All their other cities were showing Warriors at the time, but all were size 1 with no culture and so not worthwhile targets. Combined with the 1000BC QSC deadline, I decided I needed to do something with my upgraded units otherwise the gold spent was a loss in QSC score.

So I only sent 3 vets, and kept a reg back to kill their wandering Warrior moving through my territory. They had 2 Spears in Entremont, both regulars. The odds weren't great against 2 Spears, but they were in my favor, and I got good rolls. Though I'd much rather have had the luck when attacking the Warrior (vet) defending the Settler with my Warrior the Hut, or when a few turns later my Vet Sword lost to the same Warrior trying to capture the Settler. (Finally got it on the third try though! :) )

http://civfanatics.net/uploads4/hotrod191.JPG

I have:
9 cities
319 gold
1 granary
3 baracks
2 temples

And 4 techs from the Middle ages.

I really like to know what was the reasons (except the obvious but not very fairplay one) for some people to move the settler SW and settle THERE next turn while their worker/warrior were exploring another area (ie. they 'discovered' the wheat to go with the game by pure 'luke' AFTER settling).

The default move with the Worker was onto the shielded grassland. That shows the Hill tiles to the SW and the Game.

It wasn't just the plains/unshielded grassland, here is a listing of the reasons I moved SW:

1. Plains are more valuable than unshielded grasslands. They allow for 2.1 tiles with 1 fewer worker turns, and also give the flexibility to mine and get more production if food is abundant.

2. The Game puts food production at +4. That would allow the use of 2 Mountains or 4 1 food production tiles (Forest, mined Hills, mined Plains). More production available by moving to get the second Hill.

3. Known tiles I was giving up in my city radius to move SW: (none of which showed being on a river)
- Bonus Grassland.
- Plains.
- Grassland Forest.
- Plains. (of some sort in the FoW)
- Mountain.

to gain:

- Hill on river.
- Grassland Forest on river.
- Grassland (of some sort in the FoW) on river.
- Unshielded Grassland.
- Unknown.

4. The nature of the river. The NE fork obviously wasn't very long, and there wasn't much commerce to the NE in general from what I could see. The NW and SW forks were at least as long and potentially much longer. The Capitol being towards the most commerce potential was a factor.

5. What looked like Coast showing along the E, combined with the Game. I definitely wanted to keep the Game in the city radius, but also wanted to move away from the coast at least a tile, to give enough room for at least some cities (I was planning on size 12 from the start) to the E. It was a gamble that the coast W was farther away, a 'known' against an 'unknown'.

The site SW had more production and more commerce potential, all at less Worker expense. Which is why I chose it.

I'd like to call it luck, but it seems the better players always get these really 'lucky' breaks. So maybe it's not luck, but I don't see how you could know that these appearing gambles will pay off.

Good luck happens, bad luck happens. I mainly just play the best odds and hope things work out. In this case I was sending 3 Vet Swords against what I figured was 1 Reg Spear and probably a Warrior.

If I had been reloading, the one thing that would have helped my game out was a Leader to rush the FP and/or at least one AI that was strong. The Celts being so pitiful helped my early expansion, but everythign I gained there was corrupt because the Celts had nothing for me to milk leaders from.

Everything else was rather inconsequential. Moonsinger's expansion shows that the Wheat wasn't a whole lot of help, I had 15 native cities and she had 14 (and more units) at 1000BC. Entremont was well beyond the help of a Courthouse, and didn't add anything to my empire other than the QSC points.

I didn't have 'good' luck throughout the game IMO. I certainly didn't play anywhere near as good a game as I could if I were to play again knowing what I know now. The move SW payed off, so did the attack on Entremont (at least considering this time frame, overall I wish I hadn't have done it), many others didn't.

When the proper spoiler is ready I'll address this more in depth.

Great leader is so rare in this game. I got my first great leader at 400 AD just before I wiped out both the Celts and the Carthagians off my home continent. I immediately had him rush my Forbidden Palace near Carthage around 410 AD.

Here is my timeline between 1000 BC - 460 AD. Sorry, I forgot to attach it from the previous post. Note: I have deleted a few important events to make it appropriate for this thread; I will post the complete one will be post in the last spoiler thread. During my first war against the Celts, I pretty much wipe them all out without loosing a single units. The Celts was extremely backward in my game. They got only 1 little naked green man and the rest were spearmans.

I didn't get a Leader until quite a bit (understated) outside the scope of this thread.

I'm wondering if Cracker didn't seed some Barbs next to the Celts or something... considering how backwards they were. Their land wasn't that bad...

I did notice a Barb Horse down there before 3000BC (it attacked my warrior on a hill and died), and Barbs normally don't start showing up until ~2500BC.

Anyone else see abnormally early Barbs down there?

I saw a barb hut down there in 2270BC, and it had a stream of barbarians coming out of it..might have been around for a while, but I'm not sure.

The Celts didn't develop *that* slowly in my game, slower than average for Emperor, certainly, but not completely pathetic.

-Sirp.

Originally posted by Zwingli

4000 BC..... Move warrior north to the mountain revealing a wheat resource just under the fog.....

I think you should get the 'eagle-eye' award if you were using the game's default graphics.

I settled at the start location (so everybody knows what I did, and I'm not 'replaying').

But I took another look at the 4000 B.C. save to see if the wheat was possible to see by moving the warrior north.
The first image is using the default graphics, with an arrow pointing to a single pixle or two that was the wheat. The second is using a graphic modpack that is effectively cheating and which should not be used in any games. Sorry. cracker
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/wheat_gotm19.jpg

The move southwest surely isn't as questionable as the move in last month's game. Zwingli could see the wheat, and several other players have given very good reasons why they moved, and DaveMcW stated that would be his move in the pre-game thread, before anyone ever saw the save.

Moving just because someone wanted less mountains in the city, is a poor excuse. If it was a big mountain range, I could understand it, but not for just 1 or 2 lone mountains. You wouldn't be using every single tile until extremely late in the game anyways. I only worry about anyone that finds the 'perfect' place to settle in every game (when you can't see the bonus food from the start, or by normal logical moves). A game here and there, fine, I don't worry about that, because that is most likely luck.

This is my first GOTM. I usually play on emporer, and i thought i might give this one a try. didnt think about keeping a timeline of events, but here is a brief summary.

I settled on the starting spot, and was delighted to see the game tile. turned capitol to a settler factory and grabbed all the land up to the southern gems. aorund 550 BC, i took out the celts (well, all but a coupla cities) and got the pyramids. the weirdest thing was i was attacking a celtic city near the end of the war and my forces were spread out. I succesfully killed an archer defending a city, and to my suprise, a brave worker decided to "defend" the city. it cost me a coupla turns, but i thought it very strange, because there where no ther defenders. ill try ro scroung up a screen shot

Oh, there were a lot of barbs in my game too, especially to the East of my starting location. I bet the Celts had a tough time with the barbs since it was so near their starting location. Also there were a lot of barb NW of my starting location (near the tundra area), but they didn't bother me because both the Carthaginians and the Celts were too busy sending their warriors there. If I remember correctly, Cracker had mentioned previously in GOTM16 that the AIs make high priority in hunting for barbs; therefore, it would delay their settler production quite a bit.

Originally posted by Luithien
If only I knew that to clear and irrigate the forest with the game would produce 4 food.. sheesh!
Wise is the player who patiently pours through the results of past QSC games to pick up the pearls of wisdom that are hard earned and demonstrated though the efforts of your peers. ;) ;)

Originally posted by hotrod0823
Re: Here is a quick picture of 1000 BC

I have:
9 cities
319 gold
1 granary
3 baracks
2 temples

And 4 techs from the Middle ages.

4 middle age techs by 1000 bc? :eek:

Originally posted by Aloc
My vet archer gets attacked by a barbarian and wins, turns elite and gives me a Great Leader!!! I'm not sure of the exact time, but it was around 2000BC and I rushed the leader home to build the the Great Pyramid in 1830BC. After reading a few of the timelines I realize that getting the GL on the first chance is pretty rare.

You can't get leaders from fighting barbarrians. Maybe you attacked a wandering Celtic warrior?

Gee it strikes me that *lots* of people seemed to be able to capture the Pyramids from the Celts. While I can appreciate that gifting them masonry could have helped them get it, it still seems like they managed to build them awfully often, especially considering what a weak civilization they were. I wonder why that was?

Makes me think that investing so much effort into building them myself might have put me at a disadvantage. Of course I did expand pretty rapidly after getting them.

On settling on plains vs grassland, I seem to remember that DaveMcW posted something a while ago saying that he had investigated the shields produced on the city tile, and had found that when you get above size 6, it's advantageous for the tile the city is founded on to produce shields. So, that's a factor to consider when deciding between settling on plains and grassland.

-Sirp.

It's my first Emperor game, and my first GOTM in about 6 months...

At 1000BC, 7 cities, no wars, most of the north of the continent. Trade has been great -- I seem to have been able to avoid researching techs the AI was researching, so my tech trades have been valuable

By circa 300BC, still no wars, but some more cities, met Rome, became a republic.

I'm wondering if a quick war to conquer the Keltoi and maybe some northern neoCarthaginian cities might bring me close to the ideal number of cities. Then if I can maintain just enough military to discourage the AI from declaring war, maybe I can try to zoom for quick launch. (All assuming I can manage my quick war!)

But then again, Rome is getting quite big and might outpace me for research. Perhaps I need to take them down a peg or two.

(The following minimap is from 1000BC)

@Hurricane: 4 middle age techs by 1000 bc?

NO away from the Middle ages not into the middle ages.

Sorry for the mix up :blush:

Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification. :)

I popped a couple of (edit: not huts) barb camps and got several times 25 gold, no techs, maps, etc.. (edit: as is clear after cracker poined it out to me; camps only give 25g). By the upcoming Middle Ages, I had cleaned all of them near my cities out and posted some warriors on hills and mountains, so that there was no fog of war. Thus I had no massive uprising and was able to "defend" my non-southern-border cities with only 1 unit. (At that time, we were at war with the Keltoi.)

PS: The Keltoi imho were also handicapped by difficult terrain. It took a lot of industrial workers to cut all that forrest and jungle once we assimilated their former puny fiefdom.

Here is a slightly trimmed timeline upto 1000BC. I included a minimap shot at 775 BC although at that point I wasn't yet meeting this thread's requirements, however I passed by the other requirements before reaching the final tech in the AA so further minimaps will be posted in the next thread.

A bit long, but I removed my end of 1000BC notes which were quite a bit more lengthy. ;) At the end is the more general events after the QSC period.

(The lines beginning with * are just my comments and thoughts, everything else is just ingame actions.)

4000 BC
- worker south to road and mine to mountain
- warrior north to mountain, spots silk and cow
- settler southwest
3950 BC
- founded Istanbul building warrior
- warrior east to mountain
- * I'm going to do a minimum research until I get some contacts and see who is near (no sense wasting my money). Just checked the space race and I see Carthage and Celts are back (as expected, just as the Ottomans will be around next month).
- * I'm researching Iron so that I don't have any problems trying to get it from other civs, and even with my horse based UU I'll do some early warrior upgrading. This could change depending on who is nearby. Both Rome and Cathage will be tough enemies in the early game, thankfully I don't also see the greeks again.
- 8.2.0 Iron Working (40)
3850 BC
- warrior to explore southeast and south
- * I can see coast or large lakes both northeast, southeast and west. Am I on an island?
3800 BC
- * Southeast is a coastline.
3700 BC
- * Ran into a problem, I can't irrigate the game after its cleared. It's still 3 food once cleared, so 14 turns for two growths. And about 6 turns to irrigate. To save a movement I'll delay the clearing and irrigate the plains first.
- warrior to explore north around cow, expected second city location
3650 BC
- * warrior spots dyes
3600 BC
- met Brennus, has two workers available for trade, only has starting techs
- traded Brennus Masonry, Bronze Working and 30g for two slaves
- * This is good maybe he'll build the Pyramids for me, although the lose of the workers will hurt him more than he realizes.
- * I'm back on schedule for the first settler though since the slaves can now clear the forest and the irrigation will be complete. I figure I'm about a turn off original estimates, but with the added slaves I can maybe develop the rest of the plan quicker.
3550 BC
- * warrior spots a mean looking squid and some heavy fog
3500 BC
- Istanbul finished warrior, building settler
- warrior to explore west and southwest
- * north warrior spots another cow and more silks
3450 BC
- Istanbul (2)
- 7.2.1 Iron Working (30)
- * Tempted at this point to join my original worker, pre-cleared I have 5 production and settler ready in 6 turns. Forest finished in 3 turns will put it a few shields from complete, joining the worker will easily let me finish it when the forest is cleared. I have a wheat and game so growth will not be a problem. I also have 3 shieldlands available and if this was a more fair difficulty I would have no problems getting the Pyramids built. Looks like if I join the worker next turn I will exactly finish the settler when the forest is cleared. I don't really know the timing of that, hopefully it will pop that turn. Guess I'll find out.
3400 BC
- worker joins Istanbul (3)
- 5.2.3 Iron Working (29)
3250 BC
- Isntabul (1) finished settler, building settler
- * Forest shields went after my last turn finishing the settler, but wasn't complete until this turn so I wasted the 6 shields I produced that turn. Pretty early settler though.
- settler heads north to settle cow
3100 BC
- founded Edrine building warrior
- * I could build a settler right away (with the cow and shieldland unimproved) but I would end up wasting a few turns. This way I should get a warrior and only have the settler delayed a couple turns and with less waste.
3000 BC
- * warrior spots west coastline and some spices, and another mean looking squid
- 6.2.2 Iron Working (21)
- * I saved about 3 turns by joining that worker which equates to about 9 food and 6 shields for the city once settled. Its just barely worth it with that in mind, but there are other considerations for getting that second city quickly, namely the relative power versus the AI. I'm in a weak position relative to the bonus production the AI has on this level so if I don't keep up they'll bully me into a hole I could never get out of.
- * I want to also get an archer built so I can harrass the Celts, getting one of their early settlers will be a big win. It looks like I won't get the first but I'll build one anyway and if Brennus decides to settle in my direction he'll lose a settler, maybe his second if I'm lucky. He has plains to his south and jungle to his west. I'd guess he'll send at least one settler north to get some of those dyes, there is a nice location just 2 moves out of his border (northeast) with a dye and 3 river shieldlands in the initial radius plus freshwater. I can't imagine him not doing this, but I also haven't uncovered much south so there may be something there better.
2900 BC
- Istanbul [mms]
- * Slow down growth by 2 turns to speed up production by 2, growth and settler finish in 4 turns.
2850 BC
- Edrine finished warrior, building settler
- warrior to explore local area and defend in case of barbarians
- * southern most warrior spots more incense, forgot to mention earlier a few turns back
- * Brennus founded Mohacs where I figured he would, need an archer in about 8 turns or so to head down there.
2800 BC
- met Hannibal, Brennus may have already met and traded since I can't
- * I just passed Brennus in score, and I am even with Hannibal at 99 points. I'll try to get some early techs in a few turns in peace renegotiations. Best time would be in about 5 turns when I place my third city (settler in 2 turns).
- Istanbul [normal]
- * I'm wasting either way, no sense delaying the growth
2750 BC
- * Lucky strike there, I often forget to calculate the production I get on the turn of growth, I got the settler one turn early from that growth. That's one reason to keep a variety of tiles around for a while so you can get exactly what you need. I expect a forest was worked which would give me that 2 shields I needed.
- Istanbul (1) finished settler building barracks
- * I don't have Warrior Code yet, so I'll prebuild expecting to get it in a few turns. Not a major prebuild since the irrigated game has no shield production anyway.
- settler moves south
- * Bit of a bad choice here, I should try to get the other cow or share the wheat or game, but I want to secure a good capital region but still leave room for Brennus to sacrifice a settler to me. Plus I want to settle quickly so I can appear more powerful and this is the closest and best spot.
- Edrine (2)
- 5.2.3 Iron Working (16)
- * I need some roads near Edrine, I have to move citizen to undeveloped river plain to get gold for entertainment. This is where that joined worker is hurting me.
2670 BC
- Istanbul switched to worker
2630 BC
- founded Uskudar building warrior
- 6.2.2 Iron Working (13)
2510 BC
- Istanbul finished worker, building settler
2430 BC
- Uskudar finished warrior, building settler
- 5.2.3 Iron Working (8)
- renegotiate peace with Hannibal got Warrior Code for 30g
- * This should let me build the archer and get one of Brennus settler, if I'm not fast enough then I'll renegotiate with him and get another cheap tech.
2310 BC
- Edrine (1) finished settler, building settler
- settler west to settle cow
- * warrior spots red (assuming Roman) border
2230 BC
- Uskudar (2)
2190 BC
- founded Aydin building warrior
- * warrior spots Celtic settler heading northwest from Entremont so I won't be able to attack it
- Istanbul switched to settler
2110 BC
- traded Hannibal Iron Working for Alphabet and 40g
- renegotiate peace with Brennus got The Wheel, Ceremonial Burial and 40g for Iron Working and Alphabet
- * Trying the above trade normally the difference was Ceremonial Burial and 20g.
- worker connected dyes, moving northeast to road and mine shieldland
- * Hannibal just settled his third city and my warrior is beside another settler stack, he has been busy and is about to match me at four cities. While Brennus is about to get his third, so maybe he has another coming. I did notice Mohacs went from size 2 to 1 when I stepped in his territory which is either a settler or he rushed a defensive unit.
- 8.1.1 Mathematics (40)
- * I managed to get Iron before any of them so the minimum science worked, I doubt I'll be able to get Math first but we'll see. At any rate I wish one of these guys would start the Pyramids, its not fatal but sure would be nice if they built it. Maybe one of them will get it in a cascade since I'm sure someone is working on the Oracle already.
2070 BC
- Istanbul (1) finished settler, building settler
- settler heads west, will share wheat
- 7.2.1 Mathematics (39)
2030 BC
- * Brennus just finished Horseback Riding
- traded Hannibal Ceremonial Burial for 25g
1950 BC
- Istanbul (2)
- founded Bursa building warrior
- * Celtic settler heads out of Mohacs, he was waiting for a warrior escort. I would have been able to reach it in time with an archer but now I don't want to break the peace treaty. I'm now trying to hedge him in with two warrior I had stationed nearby, maybe help him settle in a spot that fits better with my organization.
1830 BC
- Aydin finished warrior, building settler [normal]
- Uskudar (1) finished settler, building warrior
- * Hannibal just learned Writing and must have traded it to Brennus since they both have Writing and Horseback Riding now, I have neither.
1790 BC
- * Hannibal started building the Pyramids
- Edrine (1) finished settler, building settler
- settler moves west to settle spices
- * There is a pict loitering near Edrine, he won't attack my warrior though.
1750 BC
- Bursa finished warrior, building settler
- Istanbul (3)
1725 BC
- founded Konya building warrior then worker
- founded Adana building warrior then worker
- * I have a nice star pattern around my capital with 4 cities 2 tiles away on the diagonals. I got the west and east since I'll want some moderately good galley production cities.
1700 BC
- Istanbul (1) finished settler, building barracks
- settler heads southeast to tighten up border with Brennus
1675 BC
- Uskudar finished warrior, building settler
1650 BC
- Aydin (3)
- * Aydin is hurting, I have 3 citizens and 1 gold production. Not enough to buy a happy face with the corruption. I need to get it connected. With some better planning I should have been able to get more out of this city with the cow, a couple shieldlands and a forest.
- renegotiate peace with Hannibal got Horseback Riding for 35g
- * I figure peace was worth about 70-80g, Hannibal only had 39g so I took this deal instead.
1625 BC
- founded Sinop building warrior then worker
- Istanbul (2)
1600 BC
- Konya finished warrior, building worker
- Adana finished warrior, building worker
- Edrine (3)
- * Hannibal and Brennus both have Mysticism, not sure what direction the trade went.
1575 BC
- warrior 2/2 dies attacking pict (brave hut warrior)
1525 BC
- Edrine (1) finished settler, building settler
- settler moves southeast to settle silks
- * Hannibal just finished Pottery
1500 BC
- Sinop finished warrior, building worker
- worker connected spices
- Istanbul (3)
1475 BC
- Adana (1) finished worker, building barracks
- founded Kafa building warrior then worker
- Konya (1) finished worker, building barracks
- renegotiate peace with Brennus got Pottery and Writing for 55g
- * I estimate peace was worth about 100g to Brennus
- Edrine (2)
- warrior leaves Edrine to intercept pict coming from west towards Aydin
1450 BC
- Bursa (1) finished settler, building settler
- settler heads south to complete pretty city circle
- interrupted slaves to move them north out of danger from pict
1425 BC
- ouch, pict ransacked Adana and took 52g
- Aydin (4) pop rushed for measely 6 shields, this city is too corrupt
- Istanbul finished barracks, building settler
1400 BC
- Aydin (1) finished settler, building settler
- settler moves east to settle on coast with fish
1375 BC
- founded Ankara building warrior then worker
- Sinop (1) finished worker, building barracks
- Istanbul (4)
1350 BC
- Kafa finished warrior, building worker
- Edrine (3)
1300 BC
- Uskudar (1) finished settler, building barracks
- settler heads southeast to settle gems
- founded Urfa building worker
- Edrine (1) finished settler, building settler
- settler heads north
1275 BC
- worker connect Ankara, northeast to road and mine shieldland
- Istanbul (2) finished settler, building warrior
- settler heads north to settle horses
- Bursa (2)
1250 BC
- Ankara finished warrior, building worker
1225 BC
- Istanbul (3) finished warrior, building warrior
- founded Riza near gems, building worker
- Kafa (1) finished worker, building barracks
- founded Zonguldak, building worker

[snipped to obey message limit]


At the end I had 14 cities, about 16 warriors most of them regular and 2 settlers standing on their chosen home.
I still had an active peace treaty with Brennus so I prepared to wait that out and have my forces ready when it expired in about 2 turns.
If you missed it in the above (easy to do) I did minimum science with Iron, Mathematics and Polytheism and managed to benefit from each. (Iron wasn't minimum, but pretty close.)
I also got contact with Caesar right after the QSC period. Actually Hannibal got it first, but he didn't benefit as much. I had a peacy treaty expiring. At the end of that turn ~800BC I had ~1500g and all three of them were completely broke.

I had to trim my post quite a bit.

I think the Celts did have some barb problems early since around 3600BC I was able to trade for two slaves. I doubt he was at war yet so it had to be barbs. Now I guess it could be sheer chance that he happened to be moving the workers thru his city, but I doubt it. They were there the first turn I got contact, and it seems highly unlikely. My money is on barbs.


Also I cut out my early movement discussion cause it was a bit lengthy (15000 character limit :( ). The main reason I moved southwest was to make good room for my second city which would be getting the much more powerful grassland/cow. And as I said previously the wheat isn't very important especially on a plain. I think my third city I settled to the west and used the wheat continously so my capital never used it. Especially true since it was a bit out of the way for early development (and if you read my timeline you'll see other reasons why the wheat didn't get much attention.)
This is a textbook case where one tile is better at one job than another so the "other" tile is ignored and not used. The game gives 4f, the wheat 3f. And with the few shieldlands I spent 99.9% of my time on one shieldland and the game. In this case 2f2s2g beats 3f1s2g when you have a 4f0s tile available.

So for those concerned, I wouldn't be. I'll be surprised if anyone moves west or southwest and takes advantage of both tiles in any way that their game is much better. Both tiles are limited in production. Late game of course the wheat and game would allow higher production when using the hills or mountains. I think the keys to growth in this start is getting and irrigating the game (and this can't be missed really) and getting that second city with the cow.

The only major impact any choices I made had was choosing to settle south third instead of the wheat. Had I settled the wheat third and not joined my worker my game would have turned out quite a bit differently. Although I'd be highly impressed with anyone building 18-20 cities. I think 16 is very doable (also since I was only 1 turn away from 16.)

Just wanted to say how glad I am to see so many new GOTM players and new posters! If you're new, but still lurking jump in. I'm curious to know what you did/saw.

Originally posted by Jabah
I don't want to start some hate/flame war BUT

I really like to know what was the reasons (except the obvious but not very fairplay one) for some people to move the settler SW and settle THERE next turn while their worker/warrior were exploring another area (ie. they 'discovered' the wheat to go with the game by pure 'luke' AFTER settling).

Jabah

This is what I wrote in the pregame discussion (before 1st of May):

"You get to see the most new tiles when you are moving a unit to the mountain in the East. Therefore, I would move my warrior there. (it still depends a bit where we are located on the world map if I do it)
If this does not reaveal anything promising, I then will move my worker to the west (at worst first best tile improvement delayed by two turns)
If there is still no better site in view, I'm still thinking whether I should build my capitol right away or take a gamble and move my settler to the SW. (grassland with mines is equal to plains with irrigation under despotism)
If there is nothing, I lost a move, if it reveals something it might be a good move."

After moving the warrior East, I saw the deer, I still moved my worker East, saw the wheat and then of course moved my settler SW, so I lost two moves with my worker, but since we are industrial, I thought it does not matter that much.

Ronald

reading this i find myself wishing i was more aggresive early on. i found also that the Celts were easy to conquer.... finished them off about 500ad. did get their great library and oracle though... which was nice.

The quick and low-down

4000bc-warrior to mt (silk), worker s. finds game, settler s/w
rational: the war. only one to move to mts., since I would not settle near them anyway. Even if resource found beyond mts. in N., would cost too many turns to move there. Decided to move wor. s., since its a good spot to develop. Move set. s/w to follow river, probably gonna settle there anyway.
3950-found Sogut, build war., research iron working at 20% for 40 turns and cash. Wor. mine, war. finds cattle.
3800-wor. completes mine, road next
3750-first build(war.) to explore
3550-contact keltoi, trade Masonary+Bronze working+11 gold for Warrior code+ceremonial burial
3450-first growth, bulding temple for early culture
3200-trade gold 75 for Keltoi pottery, switch temple to granery
3100-spot fog...COOL!! For me atleast, since I missed previous GOTMs! Congrates cracker! Work of genius that fog, especially how it doesn't move.
2600-found 2nd city connecting silks
2350-encounter picts
1500-Set to launch pre-emptive strike against Keltoi with recently ungraded swordsman
1450-meet Carthage, trade Iron Working for Alphabet and Wheel
1325-Take Entremont, Keltoi have one jungle city in the west left
850-Meet Rome
610-full contact
****(BEYOND SCOPE OF THREAD)*****

Year turn Text description of turn events
4000 BC 1 warrior E, worker W, settler SW
3950 BC 2 found sogut, science 100% for pottery
3700 BC 7 produce warrior, contact with celts, trade Masonry+BW for CB+WC+10
3500 BC 11 produce warrior
3450 BC 12 reasearched pottery, start researching IW at minimum
3000 BC 21 produce granary
2950 BC 22 contact with Carthago, trade CB+Pottery+75g for Alphabet
2670 BC 28 build settler
2550 BC 31 found city of iznik
2390 BC 35 build settler
2230 BC 39 found city of Uskudar
2190 BC 40 buy the wheel for 88 from celts
2030 BC 44 build temple in sogut
1870 BC 48 build settler in sogut (the worker factory is ready, every 4 turns a settler)
1750 BC 51 Found city of Izmit
1650 BC 55 Found city of Aydin (now I have cities coast to coast to stop celts and carthagians to settle in my northern territory)
1625 BC 56 barrack in iznit are finished (Iznik will now start to produce lots of warriors)
1600 BC 57 Saw first pictish warrior
1575 BC 58 barracks in Uzkudar are ready (the 2nd warrior factory)
1550 BC 59 Found citiy of Antalya
1450 BC 63 Found city of Bursa; Carthago and Celts start a war. (not against me :-))
1250 BC 71 Found city of Edirne
1225 BC 72 Found City of Istanbul
1125 BC 76 Found city of Konya; Researched mathematics; traded mathematics+50g for writing; traded mathematics +WM+160g for mysticism+mapmaking
1050 BC 79 Found city of adana
1025 BC 80 Made contact with Rome; traded communications+WM+mathematics for philosophy and Code of laws; traded COL with celts for HBR+50g; traded HBR+COL with Carthago for 111g;traded Philosophy with celts for 70

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Ronald_gotm19_1000BC.jpg

925 BC 84 There are more civ's (end of part one)

Originally posted by Romulus
[3100-spot fog...COOL!! For me atleast, since I missed previous GOTMs! Congrates cracker! Work of genius that fog, especially how it doesn't move.

Unlike in the previous game, that 1 hitpoint FOG were very tough to kill. I lost two galleys to those silly FOG already. Of course, it could be that FOG in PTW (1.21f) is tougher to kill; I don't know...those FOG just seem a lot tougher these days.

Originally posted by Moonsinger


Unlike in the previous game, that 1 hitpoint FOG were very tough to kill. I lost two galleys to those silly FOG already. Of course, it could be that FOG in PTW (1.21f) is tougher to kill; I don't know...those FOG just seem a lot tougher these days.


Come on! Experienced civ'er like you? should know better than to engage ANY unit with a galley (save perhaps a mortally wounded one or perhaps a barbarian with your elite). Galley is HORRIBLE at navel combat, and to be honest, so are MOST navel units. Thats why I avoid naval combat like the plague even in the modern era.:goodjob:

I could add a nice spoiler here, but I won't...

footnote: anyone ever study the mathematics of naval combat? Seems to be its somehow "unfair" and the advantage seems to be on the side of the defender most of the time? No terrain effects...still...weird.

Thoughts? Civ Masters?

Originally posted by Aloc
I thought that the unit was a barbarian, but I could easily have been confused or just forgot (it was a few days ago). I did not know that barbarians could not give GL's and I waste a lot of effort trying to.

Yes, Hurrican was absolutely correct about that. We can't get great leader from fighting barbs. However, those barbs are perfect for trainning our troop to elite before we send them against the weak AIs in hope for generating a great leader. This method has worked so well for me in the GOTM18 where I got at a lot of them. Sometimes, two of them showed up in the same turn. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for this game. Since there was very little of land to expand, all the barb camps were quickly gone forever.

Romulus: This is a bit off topic and without straying into spoiler 2 land ;) all I can say is use BSOF (Big o'l Stacks of Frigates). Use the bombard attack to redline the ship and attack with another frigate. This works with Ironclads and destroyers as well. Naval combat with Galleys well that just isn't fun.

Originally posted by Romulus
Come on! Experienced civ'er like you? should know better than to engage ANY unit with a galley (save perhaps a mortally wounded one or perhaps a barbarian with your elite). Galley is HORRIBLE at navel combat, and to be honest, so are MOST navel units. Thats why I avoid naval combat like the plague even in the modern era.:goodjob:

I need to clear a couple FOGs so that I can have a clear route to other things.:) My thinking at the time was that may be Cracker was trying to hide something there. He doesn't just put the FOG every where he likes. So there must be a reason...therefore, I was willing to take some risk. And yes, there was a good reason alright. Of course, I can't talk about that in this thread. Come to think about it, may be it wasn't the FOG that sunk my galley; it could have been a squid hiden inside the FOG or something. Since I got my combat animation turn off, I had no idea what did hit me. Yes, I learned my lesson and I immediately turned the combat animation back on after that.

true....I know thanx.

But you are right...thats for another thread! :D

I also noticed the fog was very hard to kill. And the squids were killed quite easily despite their attack numbers. I saw Roman galleys kill squids quite easily while my galleys fled.

Originally posted by crhmem318
I never even saw a squid. Maybe that's because I only built one galley...
I saw quite a number of vicious looking squids, but most of them in the western seas sinking quite a number of roman et al galleys.

At least in the time period of this thread ...