This is the first spoiler discussion thread for Gotm20-Spain.

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For Gotm20-Spain:

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 contact with all 6 rival civilizations on that continent or their remains PLUS
you must have discovered the last required technology for the ancient age but should not discuss any aspect of the middle ages.

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[list=1]
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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.

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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?

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cracker

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http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif After a month or so's lurking thought I'd give this GOTM a go. Playing it on conquest as I can just about play emporer but have never managed to get a deity game out of the BC era.

The first continent is proving very interesting so far. The Zulus are our leader by a long way with a massive empire, culture, science, millitary and so on. The other civilisations are slightly smaller than my mighty Spainards (TM), somewhat courtesy of the truly amazing start position. The exception being the French who are my tiny underdeveloped neighbour and are due a good stomping in the next couple of centuries. I've managed to settle a lot of the sub continent that I started on and only have slim borders with other nations (Celts, English and French) which makes for a nice safe position.

It's about 500BC-ish (can't check, havn't got the game on this PC) and I've hit the middle ages with the mother of all polyethism (sic?) slingshots - netted me 6 missing techs, several workers, maps and some loose change. The entire continent is pretty much populated, fishing villages and all. Currently switching production towards culture and the millitary, with the Great Lighthouse nearing completion in my second city, as part of my grand exploration plans.

Not sure where I'm going to head with this game yet, waiting to see what's under all that black on the rest of the map first. Although that might not be as easy as it sounds - seen a squid or two scuttling round just off the shore, never faced them before and they bring to mind stories of the Kraken... scary!

Anyway, having a lot of fun! Cracker, thanks for setting this up, has really enhanced my enjoyment of my favorite game!

Curious to see how other people are finding it...

:upyours:

Saw those tiles as well. All within my territory, but not sure what they do... need to check a map of Spain and work it out.

I did wonder about Shaka - I don't have my game with me, so can't check, but... has he started/finished any wonders in your version? I'm wondering if he had a similar tweak to the Romans in GOTM-19? Simply so much larger and more powerful than the other civs. Still, he's polite and friendly. In fact, the whole of the continent is so far (apart from the rude Ottomans...), looking to provoke World War zero sometime soon and see if I can slow the rather blistering tech pace down a bit.

Some nice trading there, Itcoljt, havn't seen Writing used for that gambit before, but havn't started as a commercial civ recently either. Seems a smart way to go.

My exploration was a bit botched as well. Had several warriors sprinting about, but, from the coast, assumed that the continent was Spain shaped and missed the connection through the jungle to the south (Doh!) - met the celts and english long before the French! Just suprised/lucky the french didn't take too much of an advantage from it. Wondering if they lost a settler or were modded to be weaker. How are they in your game?


Eddited as I forgot a detail or two.

On wonders:

1750 BC: The Ottomans have built the Pyramids. This is not good, but nothing to do about it now. Murcia founded: warrior@10:growth@10. Madrid=4: granary@5. Adjust slider.

1775 BC: The Zulu build the Oracle. Horseman@Seville: worker@3.

900 BC: The Great Library has been built in Zimbabwe.

Of course I didn't build any wonders. :)

Edit: Joan is doing well in my game. I think she was a little slow off the blocks due to the jungle.

That's cool. Just couldn't recall if they'd been building any in my game. Really ought to keep a timeline, but too lazy :(

Looks like I may actually scrape an ancient wonder this time: As I played conquest I had the extra settler and the treasure chests to build a temple in its town. Turned out starting things off rather faster than I'm used to... ended up with a 'spare' high production city quite early on. Figured I'd try for the lighthouse and see if I could steal a march with the exploring. I love that wonder, aside from the exploration possibilities the ability to trade resources over sea squares has had a massive impact on some of my games. It's very low on the AI build priority as well. Figure I have a reasonableish chance at it. It's a 300ft tall gamble!

Jungle would make sense, she didn't have the ideal position I guess! Doesn't do herself any favours either - when I established an embassy - Paris was size 1, grow in 1, settler due in 1 - not an ideal state for a capital!! Even when the settler pops out there's nowhere for it to go...

My best start ever! Finished QSC with 15 cities. Built on start positions and built W to E along a line S of the capital to enclose my Southern neighbor. Used some warriors to block of the peninsala to the NE, so only a few settlers got through.

I think the Hispanola, etc. are regions. I was searching the net and stuff trying to figure it out.

Checked out those names -

Andalucia is just north of Morroco and in the very south of Spain.
LaMancha is north and east of that, around Madrid.
Catalonia (Catalunya) is on the North East coast...

Map is here
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/mapshells/europe/spain/spain.htm

Not sure what that all means - wonder if there will be some similar tags on bits of the map we can't see yet?

I kind of wonder whether it's a kind of hint to advise you where and when to place your towns..... Take the list of Spanish towns from the intelligence agency and place those on the map in their geographically correct locations and see what you get.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

I lost my timeline when my computer locked up somewhere around 500bc, and since I can't think of way to recreate it short of watching the end video, I'll miss the QSC.

Zulu was the early leader followed by Otto. I went for writing-lit gambit and both times was able to only sell it to 1/2 of my landmass. The only tech I could not get in trade or as past of peace treaties was Republic, which I bought and then switched to somewhere around 200 bc.

Did anyone else see barbs? Someone above said they saw a Pict, but I didn't see anyone. I fought a few early battles, mostly to beat off the Celts and England who were trespassing, but both of them will take gpt, so they can't be too mad. 1 great leader was created, forming an army allowing me to get the Heroic Epic,. Every ancient wonder was built, I missed the GL by about 11 turns, building the FP instead. Now i have to take enough land to properly space out my palace and FP.

I wonder if the regions that Cracker placed on the map are just to make us wonder or if they will be related to future resources? I'll do some checking about that.

Sorry for the long post.. I was able to settle in place and churn out settlers every 4-5 turns. I still can't mm enough to get it a stright 4 turns. Drives me nuts :mad:

My trading business is going ok for this game. Since my civ is a comercial civ, I'm focusing on stockpiling my gold first and haven't found any war yet. So far, all AIs are either polite or cautious with me. Basically, they're all pretty much in love with me so far. I think I would have no problem following the diplomatic path. This is the first installment of my game; the rest of them is beyond the scope of this thread.

//note: Just editting out the free tech.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif This is my first diety game.

I built Madrid right where I started. I moved my second settler NE for five tiles with a treasure chest and built Barcelona (there were horses within two tiles). I moved my workers (one of which was named Pancho Sanzo from "Man of La Mancha") SW to the plains to build a road and irrigate it. From there I built a road betwen Madrid and Barcelona. I also noticed the names of areas of Spain.

I used two of the treasure chests to build a defense unit in Madrid and Barcelona. I used the last one to jump start a granary in Madrid. I got disease in Madrid once, and that really hurt my settler building campaign.

For the rest of the ancient age I expanded thoughout my area. I found a choke point near the English and fortified a warrior there. That kept the English out of "my" area until they built galleys. They only manged to built one city in "my" area.

I kept the border with the French at the jungle, with a couple of exceptions. They built a city on the coast SW of Madrid. I couldn't allow that so I went to war and destroyed it. I built a city near it so that wouldn't happen again. The war was brief. I kept out of anymore wars throught the ancient era. They later built two cities on tundra on the northern bit of "my" area.

I used the strategy of no researching or buying bronze working so I could build defense units. I built two of them in each of my cities before I got bronze working. I gambled that I had iron somewhere close, and I was right.

I was WAY behind in tech the entire era. I bought what I could and was able to trade luxuries for the continental map first and then techs. Having extra incense, horses, iron and furs to trade for techs was great, but at the end of the era I was still FAR behind in tech. I did have a decent amount of land and population though.

Originally posted by serttech2003
I lost my timeline when my computer locked up somewhere around 500bc, and since I can't think of way to recreate it short of watching the end video, I'll miss the QSC.

Zulu was the early leader followed by Otto.

Did anyone else see barbs? Someone above said they saw a Pict, but I didn't see anyone.

You couldn't have loaded an autosave to re-start after your lock-up?

The Zulus and Ottomans were also strong early in my game.

I didn't see any barbs or their camps either. I also found no goody huts.

I must admit that I had a little panic when it froze and wasn't thinking quite right. (Feeling quite sheepish actually.) It was the notes in NOTEPAD that I was concerned about. I did find a save that I want to look at, bit I'm just not sure I can recreate the same moves again.

ItCone

I saw a hut, south of the starting location on the south coastline of the jungle region. It produced pictish barbarians... guess I was lucky getting both!

A nosy squid came and checked out my coastline as well.

Guess that the land barbarians are switched off but the sea beasties are still roaming...

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif - PREDATOR
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

Well, I decided to play the predator class.

I planted a city at the start site, and started my worker building a road between the incense and the wheat.

I explorered NE, then S, then E with my first three warriors. Contact w/ English, then Frence, then Celts. Found one hut, got maps. Got pottery via trading, finished a granary in Madrid, reread Bamspeedy's settlers article and started pumping out settlers. Unfortunately I didn't get to this point until 1800 bc'ish and several times forgot to micromanage to get the proper outcome. Stupid computer can't figure out that 1s, 2g, 2f is better than 1s 1g and 1f (computer continually put a citizen on an unworked plains tile rather than a mined grassland, which left me one short of food).

Interesting logistical items:

Great Library was built by Celts
Pyramids were built by Overseas Civ :mad:

All in all my QSC ended up with 12 cities and two settlers outbound. I am not submitting as I couldn't get the timeline program to work, but I wanted to post for comparison.

I traded for mapmaking and built 3 galley's. A suicide galley reached the other continent in 400'ish bc. Contacts with all other civs were made by 350bc and I had one of those monster trading turns.

I got up to the 15 city range and began pumping horseman. I had barracks built in most cities and got up to 40 veteran horsemen. I decided the time was right to attack the Celts. They had the great library and there were knights running around. I wanted Chivalry to upgrade my 40 horsemen. Signed an ROP with English. I managed to take Entremont, home of the great library and at the end of that turn, my ability to post in this spoiler ends.

Predator class impact

No wheel at beginning means I didn't know where horses were. No biggie as when I got horses, I found I had already settled one tile away. Didn't miss the extra gold.

Raging barbarians. Lost several workers to barbarians (mostly slaves) but never lost a settler. Lost 500ish gold and a few pop points as well. Had a MASSIVE uprising near my jungle town (the one getting the dyes north of France). I had two fortified spearman in that town and about 50 horsemen killed themselves trying to get in but never could. Obviously, I had two elite spearman when all was said and done.

Strategically, the only impact predator had on me was that I would not send out a settler w/o an escort.

1000bc graph

Originally posted by TriviAl
ItCone

I saw a hut, south of the starting location on the south coastline of the jungle region. It produced pictish barbarians... guess I was lucky getting both!

A nosy squid came and checked out my coastline as well.

Guess that the land barbarians are switched off but the sea beasties are still roaming...

I just wonder if open and conquest classes are different with the barbs and goody huts. I never saw the goody hut you're talking about. The French could have gotten to it first, but i doubt it...

I was a little confused when someone mentioned Otto, I thought for a second that the Germans were in the game and Shaka might of eaten them.

Question of the day: Is the 1000BC turn number 80 or 81?

I'll try and remember what I can. I'm at work right now.

At 1000BC, I had 12 cities and was holding my own. Then things went a bit bad after that. Basically the whole world went to war with me. I refused to give Zulu tribute and they must have paid everyone else off to fight me. India was the only one who didn't join up (they liked me :) ). I thought I was safe since both Zulu and the Turks were far away. Nope, they just strolled through Franch and I had to rush everyone and anyone I had down to my border. At one point I didn't think I would make it. Celt and English coming from the north, everyone else from the south. But I gave in and paid off Turks and Zulu and held back the French. They paid later :) I took a Celt town and 2 French towns in the conflict.

I too never found a single goody hut or barb. Hmm, not complaining though.

I found it incredibly hard to keep up in the tech race. No one wants to trade with me and I'm so far behind. Any advice?

Dislak

Pay tribute to the nasty guys would be my advice. If your Zulus were like the ones in my game then they are about twice the size/power of me. Easy and cheap to cave on a demand for a few coins or a map?

Certainly a lot easier than an early 'dogpile' war?

Although it sounds like it didn't put you out of the game it must have delayed production/expansion?

My prefered method with techs is to do a 40 turn research on a tech the AI doesn't research as a priority (Polyethism/Printing Press are my favorites) and trade it around for other tech. It is a gamble, but can really pay off. Failing that you could take a risk and partially bankrupt yourself buying a tech only 1/2 others have and trading it for the stuff you are missing...

Another option would be what someone termed 'pointy stick' research - go to war and thrash the hell out of another civ (preferably bribing the others into helping you). As a peace deal insist on a lot of tech...

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif Hey everyone

This is my first post and also my first GOTM:)

Playing conquest class

First moved a chest to the hill, then sent one of my settlers 2 squares northeast to get both cows while my second settler moved west to fund a coastal city while the settlers started at work

First built a temple in both cities while leaving a treasure chest behind in Madrid and sending the other 2 out exploring

found a barbarian piece of artillery and watched it behing destroied by the english. Made first contact.

My first warrior made contact with the French, while the Luggage made contact with the kelts and I managed to trade the wheel for some techs and little cash

Whent all out settler building and by the end of the ancient era I had the largest territory (15 cities) according to herodotus and most civs where impressed with my culture. Built San Sebastian near the Istmus blocking the passage of both english and kelts, and used two chests to rush a temple there
Created a line of fortified cities along the edge of the forrest preventing French expansion but somehow they had their galleys on steroids and managed to found grenoble just north of Madrid... a slip up that they while soon regret.

I control 4 lux that are making wonders at keeping the populace happy and working, 2 horses and 3 iron. Looking good so far.

The drawback is that military is practicly non existant, I failed to build the GL in Madrid by 11 turns and that cost me plenty of production, failed the writing gambit and only manage to sell it to the Zulus in exchange of a map and losse change... no one whanted to buy my map :(, tried to go for Lit but failed also this time everione had it before I did by about 2 turns. Had to buy my way into medieval age. So in the spirit of good old castilla I'm a giant with feet of clay.
I heard legends of cities across the ocean with fabulous cities and wonders behond belief but due to the overpopulation of our shore by giant monsters the sailors have been reticent to sail into the ocean.

France is the current tech leader followed close by the Ottomans, the Zulus military might is legendary and their impys are snifing around my south border... I can tell that if they sense blood they will stricke. The Indians are the only other civ encrouching on my territory... a lost fishing filage in the middle of the tundra there's probably oil there or maybe some exotic ore that my alchemists havent managed to identify so far.

Now I'm concentrating on building up my military, and culture... since after a few thousand years ...

Terrible news the people of Setubal have sold out to the French... go figure they admire the "so called culture" of the French, lost one iron mine and incense field. My generals are calling to make preparations they will learn that it is wiser not to help cessessionist rebels... the hard way.

I might go back and just give Zulu and the Turks some gold as a gift. After I conduct my next plan of war, I hope to have some extra cities to gift to them. Then maybe they will trade with me. The Turks don't hate me as bad as them because I traded them Iron and Horses for about 40 gpt. They were fighting a losing war with Zulu and I didn't want to have Zulu for my southern border. Turks are much nicer :)

Mistaken post... :o

TriviAl

Sorry, when I said go back I didn't really finish my sentence :) I meant when I go back to my computer from work then i might give them some gold. Opps.

Yea, I've taken the military strategy with the French and demanded some techs from them for peace. Hopefully with my newest war I can gain more.

Dislak.

That's cool. Realised that was probably what you meant after I hit 'Post'! Sorry about that. Also read that post again and didn't come out the way I was thinking it should. Been working too much and brain is toast. :(

Again a slight mispost was here. :o

Well, on the open class, I moved my worker south to check on this "potential" incense and wheat, people have speculated about and lo' and behold - there they are :eek: !!!! So I found my city where it stands.

By 1000BC I have built 12 cities with 2 settlers marching around, looking for a good spot. It was very nice not finding any barbs roaming around.

My cities were placed near the luxes I could find(furs/dyes/ivory) and then started filling in the area between France and Celts/English.

Placing a warrior early on the chokepoint helped for awhile holding back the Celts and English, while the jungle seemed to slow the French.

Well, I guess we can tell that we live on a donut island and there has got to be something good to the west in that big black void. I'm getting ready to sail across and get some contacts and sell them off to catchup in techs. Hopefully.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif - PREDATOR
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

I played Predator and so far it has been an enjoyable game. I got the full map much later than most. The huge Zulu refused to trade maps and the others would only give up Territory Maps.

I moved the settler to the NE hill and was pleasantly surprised to see 2 cows and FP wheat [dance] Started research on pottery at 100%. I fully believed that missing writing was a forgone conclusion given the settler move. Tech throughout the Ancient Times was a struggle - whatever gold I did have was extorted by demands I caved to or taken by ransacking barbs. My 1 40 turn gambit came on Lit and I missed by 1 turn :(. The best tech deals I had came to pull me out of the Ancient times about 10 turns after the rest. I was able to trade extra horses and Iron to the Celts for Currency, and Construction propelling me to the Middle Ages right around the same time as my first War. A war for territory with the French. I captured 2 cities with Swords and Horses and took peace early not wanting to over extend myself. I will go again in 20 turns :hammer:. That is if Brennus minds his manners.


I can get a bit more detailed later today but wanted to comment on the difference in the Predator game.

Barbs: Early on I lost my exploring warrior to a pictish warrior. Had to use Warriors for settler protection and a few times had to stop worker actions to move workers out of harms way wasting turns. Later I had the same city saked by 40+ horses at the age change 2 barb camps in the vacinity each produced over ~21 horses and everyone went at my now undefended city. Lets just say I finished the QSC with zero gold.

Hut benefits: After reading Moonsinger's report: Behold the power of the wheel. I basically lost a huge trading opportunity by chosing to play predator. The wheel gave the open class player a major tech to trade - espcially that none of the Civs on the Continent get the Wheel for Free. It will be interesting to see how much of a difference not having the wheel will effect the QSC. The gold I think is a less of Factor.

Zulus At first contact early in the QSC period I was shocked to see 3 times the number of cities than the rest - They are the civ on steriods this round.

Lux: They are key - I was able to get 4 lux early on (incense, dyes, ivory and furs). My weak economy needs it.

The Whip: Gotta love cheap temples. I whipped virtually all my cities for temples early. Try to grab as many tiles early and this being conquest I want to be able to have some culture to avoid the flips back.

Turn order Calculations: This is the first time that I recall being able to manipulate the cycle in my favor. As posted in other threads the order things happen are very important and I never really realized the impact. My capital has a great balance of food and shields and is setup for a settler factory early on with a granary. I was able to get on a 4/6/4 cycle running max food then MM at size 5 to go growth in 1 settler in 2. Now I thought for sure I was going to have to wait 2 turns for a settler. By MM to leave a forest open I grew the open forest was worked and I built a settler that same turn. I did this from then out missing once and rioting :smoke:. The power of this move is esstintially getting a settler every 4 turns. Matching growth and production.

I will grab some screen shots and try post a few more details about my QSC later.

Hotrod

Trivial and Dislak and potentially other newcomers,

Just a little process reminder that our purpose in the spoiler threads is primarily to discuss what we HAVE DONE and to help each other review what has gone on in our games with an eye to how that may be improved or enhanced in future games.

We want to quard a little bit against the temptation to dicuss too much of what we think we might do in the future time phases of this game. We want those decisions to be made individually by the players and then reported as stories. We want to avoid having these spoiler threads be sources of suggestions, discussion, and speculation of what we think we might do next.

The key here is to use the game to compare what we have done without necessarily gaining information to change or adjust our strategy except from within our own games.

Open Class [civ3mac] 1.29

Our worker moved on the hill and was happy; settler followed. Thanks to this food rich starting position (4 turn settler factory) we could nearly keep up with the AIs. We have 12 cities (plus 3 settlers), 3 luxuries connected, the 4th claimed. We have iron and horses.

We did not succeed with our minimum research; missed literature by 7 turns.

Spain entered the Middle Ages in 1025 BC, only trailing the Ottoman's free tech.

The histograph shows no super power, but the Ottomans are a very strong culture leader.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/tao_gotm20_1000bc_histo.jpg

We met not a single barb; no goody hut either.

Hotrod
The wheel made a huge difference to me. Held off trading it till I'd met Celts, English, French and Ottos. Managed to get several techs, including Mysticsm, which made a Polyethism slingshot possible... Due to imbalances between the AI civs, that bought me within 1 tech of the middle ages.

Sounds like your barbarians were a whole lot more feisty as well.

Cracker
Taken on board. Missed the point slightly. Sorry about that.

Moonsinger, the other civs researched a bit differently in my game, but you did a terrific job extracting gold from them. Although I settled Madrid south of your settlement, and built my granary there instead of Barcelona, I founded Ciudad de la Luna on the very same spot as you!

Everyone seems to be doing very well it's certainly a reassuring and promising starting location.

4000 BC

Wheat was clear and incense pretty clear to the south. Since the worker will work wheat for max food, he moves S. Moving the settler SW would keep him out of the FP, but away from the wheat and negates a coastal city to the W of our capital. Moving S would put him near the wheat, but on a FP and still crowds the W tiles. Moving SE would leave some room to the W, but had no advantages over moving E. The E tile incorporated the wheat with the grassland potential, as well as leaving room for productive cities to the W and N. The only downside was the increased chance of disease. I figured I’d deal with it: the settler moved E.

EXPANSION AND TECH OVERVIEW

There are two commercial civs and five religious, including two likely on our continent. This led me to research writing (10%), not to mention that it’s worth more than mysticism. If a quick trade for masonry came along, I’d switch to math. I gambled that pottery will soon become available, as Madrid had the potential to be a perfect settler factory.

There was nothing more to ask for regarding our starting position. It was promising enough for me to build a granary in Madrid after the first settler. Thanks to the granary (a settler every four turns) and the absence of barbs and encroaching civilizations, I just about filled up the territory between the jungle and the strait.

My build pattern was two tight rings around Madrid, then filling in north of the jungle, and straight west and north to the luxuries and iron. England and the Keltoi each pushed one city past the strait; France built two on the edge of the jungle, and one far enough NW to split the incense with me. Their only source of horses is just south of that. This only confirms that France will be my primary victim.

The downside to the relatively isolated start was meeting my neighbors – first France, then the English, later the Kelts – too late do more than trade the wheel + 67g for masonry and pottery. By then I was committed to researching writing. I met the Ottomans in 2230, and shrugged off disease striking Madrid in 2150. Three major trading rounds were the key to my ancient progress:

2110 BC

I finish researching writing, which England and France already have. I have only that tech, plus alphabet, CB, masonry, pottery and the wheel. All of the second-level techs have been discovered, and I don’t have contact with India or the Zulus. Seven different trades that cost me writing + 2gpt, give me the two missing contacts, one worker, HBR, WC, masonry, BW, IW, math, mysticism and philosophy + 9g. I am now tied for the lead in tech. I decide to research polytheism (10%) rather than currency, expecting tech leaders France and England to head in that direction.

1400 BC

I bet wrong – polytheism was researched in 1675, and I quit researching. I’m falling behind in tech, but bide my time for the best opportunity, which comes in 1400. The net result is that I paid 268g for CoL, polytheism, mm and my first wm. Only France has construction, and only England has currency, so I hold off on those. I decide to research republic, rather than pay through the nose for it later. I estimate that I won’t be ready for it until I research it, anyway.

1150 BC

With construction and currency more available, it is time for a third major trade, or really risk falling behind. I gained construction, currency and literature, as well as a map of the entire continent, for 237g + 11gpt, thus entering the Middle Ages. In the process, I gave away construction to the Zulus. At this point, Spain is even in tech except for the Ottomans, who have a medieval tech; all ancient techs except monarchy and republic (unavailable) have been acquired. Republic will be researched in 30 turns.

Spain is average in culture, but possibly first in the power graph, despite being last in the rankings. It is fifth in size, third in pop and mfg, second in literacy, gnp and income, and first in approval and productivity. Spain is poised to fill in the remaining continental space, then wage war against France to take her only source of horses.

My power curve IIRC looks very much like Nightfall. I think the Zulus are an added bonus for the Predator player :eek:. Like we really need any more trouble :lol: !

My Ottomans are very weak. Actually the only real concern I have is the Zulu.

Also, I am glad that disease hasn't hit at all.

Hotrod

Yeah, the Zulus are monsters. I'm saving them for last :)

EDIT: Last on my continent

Txurce,

How much gold do you have at 1000 BC? In any case, I'm sure your QSC will rank a lot higher than mine. As usual, I miss the QSC timeline by just 1 or 2 turns. I also made another major mistake in my game...because I fogot to block off that little passage in the NE to prevent the Celts and the English from claiming my land.

Btw: my game was played in PTW v1.21. Sorry I forgot to include that icon in my last post. I will try to remember it next time. I wish that we will have this smiley icon [ptw] in the near future.

I had one of my best starts I can remember. I turned Madrid and later Barcelona into settler factories, and did my best to expand like a bat out of hell. At 1000 BC I had 12 cities, which I was happy with.

I entered the middle ages at around 200 BC or so, profiting greatly from items of lets say....foreign interest. I was still behind in techs, but within striking distance of my enemies.

The Zulu were pumped up, severly. In my estimations, I think they may have had as many as five settlers to start. :eek:

Cracker-

Sorry for not sticking to the rules of this post. I'll try and do better next time. :goodjob:

I can't seem to get my pictures small enough in size to post on the board? Any help?

Sigh: I lost my whole writing because of the stupid browser crash. I wrote it with details, I did use the copy and paste but, I don`t know, it just can`t. I`m so dissapointed...:( :(

I settled on the hill after moving my worker. Madrid is a good city with 2 cattles, wheat and near to incense. I built my second city at about 3010 BC. I set for writing gambit.

I managed to get writing and got all the first and second level techs from it. Then I went for poly as Zulus has already had maths. Getting poly is another good thing as I got all the third level techs. Lastly Monarchy gave me all the remaining ancient techs and I entered middle ages at about 310BC.

1000BC: I had about 12 cities.
310BC : 19 cities (no forbidden yet, 38 turns to go)

I involved in early fake war with the ottoman as they tried to trespass my territory. I bought alliance with everyone. The result, they were left with one city. So sad once a thriving civ ...

I`he never met any land barb or hut... Even with this, Zulus became the superpower with large territory and army. They gobbled up the ottomans easily.... after that is another story but waht I can say is expansionist civs are strong in my game.... :cry:

All wonders were built in my continet except The Colossus ( Iroqouis)....
Pyramids - Ottoman ( captured by zulus)
GL - Ottomans ( captured)
Hanging Gardens - Zulus
GW - Zulus again!! :mad:
G Lighthouse - French

BTW, french has done quite well with 13 cities. :eek:

At last - 19 cities, all ancient techs , Whole continent map, french are at war with England.... I was in Monarchy for 2 turns when I got Republics and revolted...

This was an entertaining game.

I played the open class and started researching writing right away. I found the celts and english first and used the warrior block to stop the influx of settlers. I settled near 4 lux's and 3 irons, and 2 horse. Some good trading ammo indeed. I used the wheel and alphabet to land masonry, myst., warrior code, pottery from the close rivals and made writing first. Used this to take the take lead and acquire iron working, math, hbr. Went to poly next hoping for another tech win but missed by several turns. I was able to trade myself into the middle ages as the tech leader which was an unexpected deity outcome for me. The ottomans completed the pyramids and within 5 turns the Zulu had taken their capital and the pyramids and left the ottomans doomed to a memory. The zulus are extremely powerful, but coincidently behind in techs to the french,celts and Spaniards. This scope ends with myself controlling the entire green area while the french and english managed to ship some settlers into the tundra on our northern border. No worries as those spots seem less than ideal for city placement. I have extended my cultural borders into the jungle in the south and up to the land bridge in the west. I am pleased.

The Zulus are also the most powerful civs in my game but I think they will be destroyed soon. Since I'm playing Robin Hood in this game by draining techs and gold from the rich then giving them to the poor, every lesser civs surrounding the Zulus are almost equally strong.:lol:

Open class, Civ 1.29f

Edit (oops: rankings were at 1750 BC when I made contact)
466 Ottomans
348 Keltoi
321 Zulu
319 France
286 England
280 India
195 Spain :(

Rankings at 1000 BC
782 Ottomans
623 Keltoi
546 France
519 Zululand
501 India
468 England
417 Spain

I wanted to save gold so built a granary rather late, avoiding heavy use of the luxury slider and upkeep on the granary. I prepared for barbs but was thankful there were none, though a squid attacked my first galley.

16 cities at 1000 BC as I prepare for war against France

When can I get a city named after me? Bamspeedy got one and so did Ribnnah as well as one that had a reference to Moonsinger i think. You can call mine....Cidade de Perderdor. (sorry for the Portuguese, Loser City).

Think I'll go check the names of the other Civs.

some of you are getting some good trades out of writing.
i did the 40-turn research and everyone else already had it
except the English. i ended up only getting 30g out of it.

I made the mistake towards the end of the QSC of not paying tribute to the Zulus. I figured they were way too far away to transport any real problems via attack. I was pretty much right, but they got several other civs at different times to join in. At first is was the Indians, no big deal as they were far away too. The English were second then the Celts right at the end of the Ancient Era. I have been able to hold them off and build up a bit, but no leaders so far and my growth has been affected. A quick question for those that payed tribute, when was it you paid and did they come back for more quickly or did they declare war anyway?

Originally posted by drewshark
A quick question for those that payed tribute, when was it you paid and did they come back for more quickly or did they declare war anyway?

I paid tribute several times and mostly it was maps + Gold<100. I think on deity unless you are powerful enough to handle a war and/or have enough money to bribe someone to your side, always give in. Always.

CONQUEST - Civ1.29b2 (mac)

Well, so I've never played a game above Monarch (!), but I thought I'd give the GOTM a try since Cracker has made it so easy and accessible to all users! Yay Cracker!

Anyway, I'm obviously playing on Conquest and I've been really pleased with the bonuses it has provided. I'm not good with pasting images, but I'll try to let you all know where I am currently in my game.

The Year -- 900 BC

I just entered the middle ages by gaining construction (more on that later). I have just sling-shotted slightly ahead in tech except for the Ottomans who are the clear leaders in my game (MAJOR culture, MAJOR rudeness) and who already have Monotheism (I'm unfamiliar with them, are they scientific? They must be).

I have 13 cities and two settlers en route. My score places me in 2nd (!!!) place (not for long, I'm sure) with 578 points, behind the Ottomans with 689 points.

Now for some more specifics about my game so far and what I've done....

The Start

So, I have never really tried planning out a "Settler factory" before but after reading about how to do it I think I got it working pretty well. Using Conquest, I built madrid at the starting spot and my 2nd city (with free settler) on the first forest S/SE. Closer than I'm used to, but that was recommended for diety. I used two treasures to rush a defense :goodjob: and a warrior by turn three :lol: . My third treasure was used to rush a defense in my second city. I met the English, traded wheel for pottery (I wanted the grannery ASAP), started Madrid on grannery and started my 2nd city on a temple. I used one of my workers to begin improving terrain (irrigate cattle, wheat, mine hill) for the settler factory, and the other to road the incense (yay for luxuries!).

So, in not too long I was pumping out settlers between every 4-6 turns, which seemed like a miracle. My 2nd city was doing so well after its temple that I built a few more warriors and then started on more defense!! It was suggested in the Conquest strategy forum that building LOTS of defense early and then upgrading them only after bronze working later would make a good strategy. So, I tried this. By 900 BC (and some upgrading) I have 11 defense and 9 spearmen for my 13 cities. Feels good.... :crazyeye:

The Politics

I really like France. Joan always has money and is generous with the technology she researchs. I hate England. Right after map making was discovered she demanded my world map (!) and some gold, so I rejected her puny offer. She sent over 8 warriors which were decimated by the walls of my defense. Ha!! I never sent a single warrior her way, but she gave me peace easily after losing a bunch of power.

As for now, the Ottomans have been declaring war on people. Currently they're quibbling with the Zulus. Previously it was the Indians. I don't know what the outcome of all this will be.

The Expansion

With 13 cities by 900 BC I'm feeling pretty happy, although I still have a lot of room left on my corner of the world. I blocked the gap early so no one has exanded into my land yet. France is behaving herself.

The Tech Race

I have spent most of the game behind by 3-5 techs. I gave away the Wheel early in order to get pottery. I was making some good cash early on (17 gpt) on minimal research, so I could by most early techs for around 100-140 gp. I resisted bronze working until early on. I reached writing 2 turns behind everyone else. I was able to sell some of the techs I bought to other civs in exchange for more tech. I tried building the Great Library but fell short by 11 turns. :cry:

{that all changed with one set of lucky and good decisions}

A few things I want to comment on and pose to the group:

Barbarians: So I found the elusive jungle goody hut, popped three picts but my warrior survived. These are the only barbs I've seen ALL game excluding squiddies. Yay!!! Squiddies scare me though, I have yet to do battle with one (galleas's??).

Angering through trade? : So when I arbitraged Monarchy to all my continental friends in 900 BC I asked what they would give (typically 100-200 gp plus world map), so I left out the World Map (already had it), and took all their gold --whatever my advisor said they would agree to. But then, AFTER the trade, they didn't like me as much!!!!! Does anyone have any clue why this happened??? India dropped to Annoyed, Zulu to cautious. Only France didn't drop. <snip>

Conquest vs. Open: I have to say, Conquest has been really enjoyable. Defense gave me confidence and strength to deny the English barbarians what they desired. The treasure plus settler and our faithful sidekick Sancho Pazza helped me get a quick start. I know I will be utterly defeated in the end, but it'll be a challenge just to see how far I can go!

Now the final question: what do I (we?) do now that the middle ages have been entered???

good playing (and sorry this is lengthy....)

I GOT GREAT LIBRARY! I GOT GREAT LIBRARY!!!:D

I followed the plan someone posted for the 40 turn Writing/Lit gambit with a side order of pre-build, and it paid off!!! I settled Madrid at the start and started pumping out the citybabies. I put barcelona in the middle of all those BGs and hills to the north and worked the heck out of the mines. When I got writing I traded it for parity(my second instance after the intial meet and greet) and then rode out Lit with a lot of sweating. I got it first and held out trading it until India learned it on their own. {let us avoid discussion of things beyond our starting continent for this thread} I traded the heck outta {of civs and got} a lot of GPT deals from {my rivals} for tech and World maps and I was sitting pretty with no research and 2 lux, taking in 150+ GPT! I used the money to start jacking my military. I've advanced further but won't speak of that yet. It's not as sunny as my start. I wish I kept a timeline. I had about 12-15 cities and zulu was the man, but india was tops in science. England wiped out the celts and me and zulu ran the ottomans down to one city. as the middle ages started I was preparing for france. . .:goodjob:

Tarquin99 and RocknOats,

Sounds like you guys are enjoying yourselves a great deal and getting a great deal out of the game. We can sense your excitement and sense of accomplishments.

(let's all avoid discussion of the New World issues in this spoiler and save them for the excitements of Spoiler #2 early next week)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Open.jpg
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.14f Euro.

opening play : I settled on the spot, and after discovering the wheat and cattle, build a similar scenario to practise some sequences. I eventually came up with this : worker south - irrigate - east - irrigate wheat - road - go west - go southwest - hook up incense - go back into Madrid - go north - cut forest while building granary - road - go northwest - irrigate cattle - road. About creating a look-alike scenario: I thought carefully before doing this; making sure it wasn't cheating. But I didn't work on the actual game-file, so I never saw the tiles beyond the city-sphere until I returned, and it's just easier to play it than doing the maths on paper. I would even dare to promote this approach.

city management : I built a 4-turn settler factory in Madrid, and kept it up all the way to 1000BC. I either built warriors, workers or popped temples (since I have this delusion of going for a cultural win). In 1000BC I have 16 cities with 32 citizens. there's still some room to put a couple of cities more.

research & trade : I started going full-out on pottery. Got that in 20 turns. Then researched writing in 40 turns, but I was far from the first to get it. I waited until then to do any serious trading, trying to keep research slow. Here are my notes from the QSC on that trade :
Everyone has the 3 level-one techs I'm still missing. English and Celts are the only ones without map making. I'll buy that tech first. Not from the Zulu, since they are the most powerful, and I'd like to get a war started against them. France will probably offer a good price. Looks like I'm the weakest civ, so no peace-renegotiations. Treasury : 333g.Buy map making from France for world map and 212g.Get bronze, masonry, warrior code, mysticism and territory map from Brennus for map making, world map and 15g.Get horseback riding, world map and 23g (all) from England for world map and map making. I now have a pretty complete map of the continent - nice !Establish embassy with India - they will be my favorite civ.Further trading would put me in debt, so decide to stop here, despite not getting iron working and mathematics (and possibly currency and construction) : first want to settle the remaining land and hook up a couple of resources - don't need the tech yet anyways.Oh wait, first get some gold back by selling my world map :Sell world map to Ottomans for 49g. Darn - forgot to check first who would offer most money.Sell world map and 5g for zulu's world mapSell world map to India for their world map and 11 gold (all)Sell world map to Ottomans for their world map and 1g.Sell world map to Celts for their world map and 16g (all)Sell world map to France for 50g. Treasury : 221g.Set research to Philosophy, 0% (no research).

5 turns later the Ottomans got Code of Laws and the Zulu got philosophy. I buy philosophy but CoL is still too expensive. I can only buy it much later when India and France also discover it on their own. In general I don't manage to close the tech-gap until 1000BC, when I enter the Middle-Ages, but that's for the next spoiler. :)

AI : Zulu got a power-start, obviously. England and Celts are weak. Everyone's at peace still. I think the named tiles are just decorative. They seem to be more or less correctly placed, except for Andalusia (although : someone hinted that it might be indicating settler-directions - seems plausible. I never made the link myself though).


Status :
16 towns harboring 32 citizens, 1 settler on the move
9 workers
17 warriors, 1 spearman, 1 galley
1 granary, 7 temples
All ancient techs except Republic, trailing 1 to Ottomans.

I don't have my timeline cleaned up yet, but my game is a lot like Moonsinger's (edited previous comments out after reading her timeline more closely). I got Polytheism monopoly via min research in 975BC, and promptly traded for the six techs I was behind, plus all of everyone's cash. Unfortunately they don't have any gpt to give me, but I'll end this turn with over 1700 in the bank, I think. I did let the French beat me to the ivory, an unfortunate mistake/oversight.

The QSC rankings this month are going to be pretty screwed up, imho, because anyone who did min research successfully will have much higher QSC score in 975BC than in 1000BC (assuming they moved to the hill on turn 1, which is clearly best given the map). Cracker, what do you think of accepting 975BC submissions instead of 1000BC (with some adjustment factor) for people who have much higher scores one turn later?

Ambiorix, how/when did you get Monarchy? Having a better government puts you significantly ahead of me at 975BC, I think.

1.29b Open Class

With such a generous start position, blessed with a food bonanza and sheltered to the North and South by restrictive terrain features, many people should be getting their first deity win. In fact, the start was so promising, that I made a pivotal decision which would normally be suicidal at this level.

4000 BC- I open the save and clearly see a floodplain wheat sticking out of the fog. Moving the worker to the NE hill reveals two cattle and some bonus grassland. After making some calculations I find that the land should be able to support two settler factories with some heavy terrain improvement. To get these improvements up and running quickly, Madrid is founded immediately, and the very first build is a worker. Research is set to writing at minimum science, hoping to trade for Pottery.

2150 BC- My writing gambit does not fully pay off as France and England get it first. However, it made the following trades possible (what they give is on the left, and what I give is on the right).

France: Contact with Keltoi <---> 94g
Keltoi: Contact with Zulu <---> Writing
Zulu: Mysticism + Contact with Ottoman <---> Writing + 8g
Ottoman: Ironworking + Contact with India <---> Writing +60g
Keltoi: Masonry + Warriorcode + 9g <--->Ironworking + 3gpt.

1650 BC- Polytheism minimum gambit fails. Trading ensues.

France: Polytheism <---> 9gpt + 90g
Keltoi: Horseback Riding + Slave + 5g <---> Polytheism
Ottoman: Mathmatics + 5g <---> Polytheism.

1500 BC- Map making becomes affordable, and the ensuing trading gains most of the price back. I end up shipping France an additional 7 gold per turn while purchasing the tech (This may have had unintended consequences).

1300 BC- The top portion of the following screenshot shows my dual settler pumps in action, with Barcelona and Madrid each sending out a settler every 4 turns with constant micromanagement. Also notice that France has two undefended settlers wandering around in search of a bodyguard. The only explanation I can think of is that my gold per turn deals with France somehow caused them to go bankrupt, disbanding the settler escorts (ie they traded away the gpt, then one of the deals expired causing bankrupcy). In any case, the French settlers waited to get new escorts, which delayed them enough that they never got a chance to found a city.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM20_1300BCtact.jpg
1150 BC- The Ottomans demand 31g + TM, and after consideration I foolishly refuse, sparking a war which would have continent-wide consequences.

1125 BC- War happiness lets me lower the luxury tax, and I buy France and England against the Ottoman Empire for a total cost of 68g + 12gpt + Philosophy (this includes the price of embassies).

1100 BC- India Allies against me.
1075 BC- Buy Embassy with Zulu for 54g but am unable to bring them against India. Notice that they are at war with the Ottoman already. Buy Embassy with Keltoi for 30g, and they are already at war with India, and they pay 25g for an alliance.

1050 BC- India pays the Zulu to declare war on me.

1025 BC- Construction buys the Keltoi against Zululand.

1000 BC- I have 13 cities, 3 settlers in the pipe, and the world is at war. The alliances were quite costly, but it will slow down the tech pace and economic development on the home continent without effecting my own buildup too much.

Diplomatic front as of 1000 BC
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GM20diplowar_tact.jpg

850 BC- Peace with India for 4gpt
810 BC- Entry into the Middle Ages.

Zwingli: Do you think having two settler pumps was worth the delay in getting them set up? I also built two early granaries, but I set up Madrid to pump settlers (every 4 turns), and Barcelona to pump workers (every 3 turns). I suspect (from your final position) that this was much faster to get going, and probably as effective. Eventually, you can get more cities than me, but that won't happen until around 20 cities, I think, and cities past 20 aren't worth much anyway. Also, because I could do my pumping without fully utilizing the bonus wheat and cattle resources every single turn, my other cities benefited by occasionally getting to use those (on "off" turns). And I bet I have a lot more workers, which is pretty useful.

CONQUEST - Civ1.29b2 (mac) -- long post

This is my second GOTM that I will be submitting (played 17 & 18 after they closed). I usually play Emperor level on huge maps so I am pretty experienced, but rarely play Diety so I decided to go Conquest. Plus, I wanted to see some new units and make sure I could stay in the game long enough to at least post during the first spoiler discussion!

I got off to my best start ever I think. Used the treasure chests to scout the NE hill and S areas to look for the best city sites. Wow, what a great neighborhood to grow up in!!! Saw all those wonderful bonus tiles and decided that I would put Madrid right where I was and moved the other starting settler E - NE over the hill and founded Barcellona just a few tiles away with more overlap than I ever give to my opening cities.

At that point I got punch drunk with all those extra units and started exploring with the chests and first warrior. I had most of the greenbelt region of my side of the continet explored before meeting my first neighbor the English. 1 turn later I met French, Keltoi and Ottomans and traded my wheel and contacts for the few techs available except Bronze. I had decided to use the conquest level Defence units to guard my cities and thus ignored bronze until quite late. Went for writing on a 40 turn gambit and I think I was 2nd to get it as only the English didn't need it when I traded. I then tried for Lit and gambled on the Great Library. I had already decided to do that early on after using 2 chests to build a temple early on in Barcellona and a grainery in Madrid. Used the capitol as a settler factory and pre-built a palace for switch to GL when it was time.

The total absence of Barbs allowed me to gamble early on with unescorted settlers a bunch of times. This allowed me to really expand quickly. Pop rushed a defense or temple in most cities to start. One mistake early on was not closing off the NE choke point early enough, The English and Keltoi got 2 cities on "my" eastern shore.

I was in second place the whole way into Middle ages behind a very strong Ottoman tribe. They dominated the ancient world culturally and militarily until I got the Great Library in 900BC. I had Literture 1st by quite a few turns but I was afraid to give it up until I built the wonder. It was very fortunate that I did build it because I was dead last in Tech by then until the power of the written word sent me back to the top.

The Middle Ages started for me just after starting the first war on the continent against the French. They kept sending wave after wave of settlers into my territory untill I got POed...and got the library and was able to upgrade my 20 odd units to swordsmen. In 650BC My first suicide galley made it all the way across to a far Eastern shore only to die a horrible death at sea prior to spotting any inhabitants. He did send word of areas that showed signs of intelligient land use... A New World maybe???!!!

I was amazed that there were no wars of any kind that I saw until I started one against the French. No Barbs and no goodie huts as well. I held on to Lit way too long but getting the GL caught me up and allowed me to upgrade like crazy when I switched govts.. It was the Library that brought me over. i paid tribute early to Otto and Kelts but wasn't worried too much.

My 1000BC Stats:
12 Cities, 2 Settlers at new sites, 3 workers, 13 warriors, 2 charriots, 11 Defense.
Ottomans: 835
Spanish:646
Keltoi:558

All and all a great start and time will tell if I can ride this beginning to victory...

@DaviddesJ

Setting up 2 settler factories did take some time, and I may indeed have ended up with fewer workers (11 native + 1 slave @ 1000BC). Barcelona actually built a few units and workers before starting the granery, by which time I had confirmed that there might be enough free land to justify such a project. The opportunity to effectively double so much "corruption free" (close to the capital) food ended up being too tempting for me to resist, and I delegated worker construction to southern Floodplain cities.

I forgot to move the resourse files from the folders that were included with the download and started playing without any resourses - except the ones that were where the names were. When I tried to build on them, I didn't get the resourse so I went back and read the instructions again ( if all else fails - read the directions!) and moved the resourses files and the new resourses that I could access came up and the old ones that I couldn't access showed up as those names - I think la mancha was gems, and I can't recall what the others were - I hope it helps
:)

As my map attests, the Zulus are the runt of the continental litter in my game.

Moonsinger, I have 117g + 20gpt at 1000BC. Unlike your financial situation, it's not enough to stay even through the Middle Ages - I'll have to conduct a few wars to catch up more quickly. I intended to war, anyway, but the point I'm making is that you are playing well enough to have the option of remaining peaceful. I also didn't seal off the NE strait, but was lucky to fill up almost all of the territory ahead of the English and Kelts. They weren't fighting, so I don't know what they were doing.

Drewshark, I paid tribute to the Kelts and then France, and neither came back.

Tarquin, you are playing so well that advice seems uncalled for, but... you don't need THAT much defense! The AI has so much more production than you that you basically can't afford such a luxury. Since you're already behind in tech, in the Middle Ages you should focus on both building markets in republic to raise the cash to buy your way back into a broker position in the tech race... and probably beat up somebody so they'll give you some techs for free. Your overall goal should probably be to position yourself for a late charge at the ToE.

Rocknoats, congratulations on the GL. I didn't try for it this game, but you're right, the cattle made a great spot for building it. Now how did you get so much gpt from the AI in the ancient era? I can never get a gpt deal in this era - they usually research to the wall in this period.

Zwingli, I thought of building two factories as well, but didn't bother because expansion was going so well. I wonder why you didn't end up with more cities? Your continental war pits Europe against the rest, which is pretty fun. Good work getting yourself out of your jam with the Ottomans.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

This is my position as of the end of QSC period.
2 settlers
9 natural workers
10 imported workers
15 regular warriors

12 cities
3 barracks
3 temples
1 granary

I shot myself in the foot big time for the QSC, as by moving my capital I won't get credit for Polytheism, Currency, Literature and Construction. A double 40-turn gambit hits turn 81 with the QSC being 80 turns. :mad:


4000 BC to 975 BC is the period of quite expansion during the ancient age. Not much of significance occurs during this era outside of the amazement that I have keep up with tech without a problem.

750 BC marks an unexpectedly early Republic, when tech backwards India gets it. I have to give up my 4 tech lead on him, but it is well worth it to get the lower corruption and extra revenue. This will greatly speed up getting the fp on-line. I do sell Republic for a couple of the Civs that decent amount of cash. A courthouse is rushing shortly after in Pamplona so that work on the fp can begin.
Note: I didn't have middle age tech yet.

My awesome start comes down to the 2 40-turn gambits and a 3rd great trading round:
2110 BC - It isn't a monopoly, but I still make out nicely with writing. I give France Writing, Contact England and $25 and get Contact Ottomans, Contact India and Mysticism. A 40-turn gambit begins on polytheism. I sell India writing, contact England and $13 and get Bronze Working and Warrior Code. I sell the Ottoman writing and get Masonry and $25. I sell England writing and get Iron Working and $15. We give the Ottoman contact England and $105 and get Horseback riding ($40 discount).
I wind up getting the 2 remaining contacts, Mysticism, bronze working, warrior code, masonry, iron working and horseback riding for a net cost of ~$80.

1650 BC - Time for what I hope will be a nice multiple trade. I buy Code of Laws from India for Horseback Riding, $72 and $4/turn. I sell Code of Laws to the Celts for Math and $6. I know it favors the Ottomans, but I sell him Code of Laws for Philosophy. I sell Math to India for $85. At this point Horseback riding doesn't have much value, so I sell it to France for $36. In the end I got 3 techs for $25.

975 BC - The 40-turn gambit for Polytheism completes and I get Construction (via monopoly price), Currency, Literature and ~$220.


For those curious how I handle the food situations.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LAK-319.jpg

I let Madrid become a 5-turn settler factory with 2 irrigated cows.
I avoid any possible rounds of killer disease by letter Barcelona work the flood plains wheat to build workers every few turns. Barcelona has done wonders for getting a decent size worker force going.



:confused: Are we sure this is a deity game? I usually have problems in the ancient age, but I kept tech parity without any problems. I managed to buy a huge number of imported workers, and I am not last in score. My city count is better then several civs. The FP may be hand build in the BC time frame. I know deity can pull a surprise at any time, but so far this one feels like a blow out!

What I can't believe is that I haven't had a single demand so far. Was the play nicely switch set on for the AI?

Did anyone have any flood plain disease? I didn't have any (through 975BC). I suspect cracker turned it off, in order to eliminate the random variable (or just to help us out). I also didn't have any demands by the AI, but other players have certainly reported them, but perhaps that depends significantly on playing style.

As for, "Are we sure this is a deity game?" certainly cracker made it one of the easiest deity games ever, by giving us lots of space and crowding the AIs together, by turning off barbarians, by giving us great bonus resources at start. I'm perhaps a bit disappointed that it's so easy, but I can understand how it makes sense for GOTM. I'll be more likely to play Predator next time, though (but even that looks like a pretty easy win).

Overrun by french in 10ad. Final score 258. Last month didn't even get to AD, so I feel lucky this month. The RNG gave me a little luck as one spearman was able to hold madrid off from the slew of french horsemen that came through in 1000bc, but it went downhill from there.
I've never won anything higher than monarch. I've got a feeling that this isn't gonna change anytime soon. Hopefully next month won't be emperor or diety :/
I didnt have contact with anyone other than french & english, and never got map making so I didn't get any maps. I settled on the hill but kept getting my growth stunted by disease. As a result I wasn't able to put out a settler until somewhere in the late 2000's bc (2200 or something around there).

So i definitely need to get some practice at higher levels...if i can fix my files...instead of changing the names i moved them to a different folder but the folder disappeared and windows search returns nothing...maybe i'll play again just for practice

Originally posted by drewshark
I made the mistake towards the end of the QSC of not paying tribute to the Zulus. I figured they were way too far away to transport any real problems via attack. I was pretty much right, but they got several other civs at different times to join in. At first is was the Indians, no big deal as they were far away too. The English were second then the Celts right at the end of the Ancient Era. I have been able to hold them off and build up a bit, but no leaders so far and my growth has been affected. A quick question for those that payed tribute, when was it you paid and did they come back for more quickly or did they declare war anyway?

Oh, I paid tribute, but this excerpt from my timeline (edited since its a little out of the spoiler limit)shows how I paid them back:

130 BC: [edited tech] discovered! Not a lot to do with it, so I trade it to Joan for [edited tech], 39 gold and a War Alliance versus Shaka. Then I trade [edited tech] to the Celts for a War Alliance versus Shaka. Then I gave Monarchy to England for 9 gold and a War Alliance versus Shaka. Eat that you bugger! Now my pals are all broke and quarreling. Just like Moonsinger taught me. [edited tech]@40.

........
I did this time and time again to Shaka and he only managed to get a lone impi to my territory. But to his credit, he held off 6-1 odds, taking all of Gandhi's lands and chunks of others. He will get his comeupance in due time however.

Open Class 1.14f
What kind of slack-jawed yo-yo would consider only having 4 military units to defend his thirteen city empire at diety level ? (circa. 1000 BC)
Me! That's who. ( And possibly Neville Chamberlain, but I don't think he plays civ).
Will this empire of pot smoking, laid back spanish hippies be able to cope with Zulu negativity and bring about a summer of love in Gotm 20 ?
Find out ! In the next instalment of " Spanish Hippies - Where has the Love Gone at Diety? "


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GoTM_20insert.jpg

Open http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f.

Hi, semi-new to GOTM...

My first move was worker S into the floodplains, then Settler NE up the hill. I didn't plan to research at all, really, during the Ancient Era, so a delay of 1 or 2 turns to find the premium start was ok for my plan. Settled Madrid (3950 BC) on the hill, after seeing 2 cattle within corona distance. Moved my worker to irrigate the wheat.

I expected a much cramper start, I settled my next two cities ICS style: Barcelona (3000) next to the irrigated wheat, moved my labors in Madrid to the Cattles and forest exclusively to avoid desease, and founded Seville (2550) on the coast hill working forest exclusively. I had 2 Settler factories and warrior factory going nicely but started to get worried about the lack of contact at this point. I didn't build granaries 'til quite late in this Era as settlers are coming as fast as I can explore and secure anyway.

The extra free space turned out to be really nice for the open class - I only ever saw squid barbs - and the region was loaded with bonuses. However, Predators must have been pulling there hair out with Raging Barbs, :cry: , must have been scary.

I like to warmonger, but Diety is tough for me, so I played the trader throughout the first era. I used the extra warriors Seville made for barb protection (not needed) for scouting. I beelined my Settlers for the luxes and strats, planning on my low corruption civ to help with cities not too close, and my religious trait to keep me from assimilation. I actually thought I could maybe get some flips my way. What a lark, anyway, more on that next week :eek: .

Like elsewhere the Zulus were monsters in my game; I roaded to France and counted on them to provide the rest of the route to the Zulu and got an early lux for lux trade with Shaka. I likewise traded my way to Polite with everyone on my continent, within a few turns of meeting them. I had barely any military to speak of all Era and was pumping People, Culture and some MPs, but not much else.

I stayed comletely out of the Ottoman Purge in my game. Oh did I mention? They went from almost as big as the Zulu to nil in about 15 turns. Seems like the Zulu went nuts and signed Alliances with everyone except me (I said no) to destroy the Turks. The Zulu must have Leadered as they built the Pyramids in 1910 BC.

After the Ottomans were out, EVERYONE attacked England, at the request of the Zulu again (I said no again), although the Britons proved much tougher. Thing is, with those Tundra starts and Diety AI bonuses, the English must have been producing huge numbers of spear and archer; probably pop-rushing their size 2 cities a lot too.

The Colossus was built by an non-continental Civ in 1125 BC. England Leadered too in the Ancient, I gather, as they built the Lighthouse in 850 BC; even for a Diety AI they couldn't have bricked it with all their warfare, I don't think. Having everyone at war slowed the tech race waaaaay down, which suited me fine on my own quest for expansion.

1000 BC Stats: 13 Cities, 5 Temples, 24 wars, 5 native workers, 1 Settler, All tech 'cept Construction, Currency+Govs, all continental contacts and full continental map; 2 lux roaded, 2 more plus both Ancient strats under Control. My gross GPT was +26 at this point, with a last place score of 371, however I am looking pretty respectable on the Power Chart and am only 1 tech behind.

I pop rushed liberally at the end of the Ancient era, I had 16 cities, 10 temples, 5 granaries, 1 barracks, full mps and plenty of lux/strats and was halfway thru Republic (my first research) at the turn of the Era in 550 BC. Since the only Scientific Civ (met so far) was eating dirt I was EVEN with everyone else (well most had Monarchy, but I didn't want that anyway); rather slow start I thought for the Diety AI, but I was happy :) . I had moved up to 5th place with 574 points.

I have RoPs with France, England and India and an embassy with the Celts too. France and India were actually Gracious for a few turns in the ancient Era. I have had zero requests for tribute nor been in any real danger, yet. The Turks died Politely to me too as I got to trade them Iron and Horse as their empire crumbled.

Not a bad start, my best on diety in months heh, but was so expecting a pasting I've played each turn painstakingly careful so far :lol: . I QSCed 'til things got too hectic around 2000 BC, but I am going to try and get through it next GOTM (hopefully not Diety again, hehe). I learned a lot from what I did this time, it's a really worthwhile exorcise.

BTW, can someone tell me where to find the screenshots after I hit Print Screen? They don't seem to be anywhere in my Civ folders. I thought this always went to the program folder it was shot in? My MMORGs all do, but I don't use the button much....

Conquest game - This is my first game of the month, and so far I am finding it to be an enjoyable process. I like many others decided to brave the deity game based upon using the conquest class advantages.
4000 B.C. - Used the treasure chests to explore the terrain based upon the advice of Sirpleib. Soon after, I founded one city on the hill to the NE and the other city on the incense to the SW.
I noticed that the treasure chests were counting against my unit total, so I used two chests to hurry a granary in Madrid and the third to hurry a settler in Barcelona.
After reading the advice of Moonsinger and others, I decided to not worry about researching tech early and instead buy and trade tech with the other civs. This worked surprisingly well throughout most of the ancient ages.
I like others did not see a barbarian the entire time :)
In my game like many others, the Zulu are strong and in fact wiped out the Ottomans. When the Ottomans were getting weak, I decided to form a military alliance with the Zulu and as a result was able to purchase Mapmaking relatively cheap, which I was then able to use to trade maps for tech and get myself into the middle ages :) Of course, I did not actually do a thing to help against the Ottomans, but Shaka didn't seem to mind.
Thanks Cracker and staff for the Conquest class idea that has convinced me to try this deity level GOTM.

OPEN CLASS: PTW 1.21

I find it amazing that so many players are getting 10 - 15 cities at 1000BC on Deity level. The level of play in the GOTM is really amazing. At 210 BC I have 20 cities

I had 10 cities at the magic date. However, I did block the choke points at the NE corner of the continent and therefore managed to develop the entire area of the continent north of the French, except for one town that the English founded by Galley.

I also had almost the entire continent in view by 1000 BC, except for some minor pieces that I could imagine. However, I was well behind the Zulus and Ottomans in the tech race. Was on par with most of the rest.

Went into the Middle Ages at 210 BC after the French and Ottomans declared war on me. Made favorable peace with both, but then the Zulus captured all of the remaining French cities but one. I had intended to give all of my gpt to the French just before they were completely eliminated by the Zulus. I was just about to do it when the Zulus made peace with them and let them keep their last city. I was lucky I delayed or I would have been paying the French about 45 gpt!!

Have lost 4 Galleys and have the New World in sight, but can't reach it.

I only ran into one Pictish Warrior the entire game.

Thanks, Cracker, for such a favorable start.

Originally posted by baronzilch
Open http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f.

BTW, can someone tell me where to find the screenshots after I hit Print Screen? They don't seem to be anywhere in my Civ folders. I thought this always went to the program folder it was shot in? My MMORGs all do, but I don't use the button much....

The screen print is on your clipboard. Open Word or Photoshop or whatever program you want to save the image in and press Ctrl+V. That will paste the image.

runifoc

Here is my map at 1000 BC and at 210 BC:

Originally posted by runifoc
The screen print is on your clipboard. Open Word or Photoshop or whatever program you want to save the image in and press Ctrl+V. That will paste the image.

runifoc

I guess the MMORGs have Print Screen remapped for their use, as I say in most, I hit the button and a .bmp shows up in the root game folder; anyway, I saved the game where I wanted shots so I'll edit some in later, thanks very much for the info.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Open.jpg
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

After reading the pregame thread and deciding for myself that incense and wheat were probably there, I decided NOT to go onto the hill and waste a worker turn. Since wheat was likely the starting point I sent the worker east where he would uncover much of the area but still be able to road next turn. Seeing what was uncovered (including the speculated wheat) I decided to settle in place. This of course pointed out the cow and made me think maybe the hill would have been better. Time will tell.

4000BC Madrid founded in place, start writing at min.

3800BC First of 2 warriors starts exploring.

3100BC Madrid produces first settler.

3000BC Meet France. Trade Wheel for Masonry and 5g.

2950BC Found Barcelona next to cows. This will become a 4 turn settler factory.

2850BC Meet Celts just accross land bridge. They have Bronze, Potter, Warrior and Mysticism and need Masonry and Wheel. I am 1 turn from contact with Orange civ, so I wait on trade.

2800BC Meet England. They have all that Celts had and need Masonry. Celts don't need ANYTHING now. Should have traded last turn. Trade Masonry and 42g for Pottery, Bronze.

2550BC First lux, incense hooked up. French start Oracle.

2390BC Celts start Oracle.

2350BC Madrid produces 2nd settler.

2310BC Spot a french border just below dyes, so decide to grab dyes with this settler. Also, just noticed we have contact with Zulu, meaning someone beat us to Writing (by 4 turns). Sure enough, it's the Zulus. Zulu and Celts have Math also. Everyone but England has Iron. Time for some trading:

Buy Math from Celts for 140g + 5gpt.
Buy Iron Working from France for Math, 2g + 2gpt. Trade IW for WC, g0g from England.
Trade Math for Mysticism and 26g from England (was hoping they'd have Horseback Riding).

Only techs we don't have are Writing and Horseback. Going to finish Writing since I can't afford to buy it, and it's only 4 turns away.

2270BC Found Seville by just north of Dyes.

2230BC Celts settle Verulamium on our side of the land bridge. Buy Celtic for 84g, 2gpt.

2190BC Barcelona finishes granary, starts settler. Celts got writing just before I finished it.

2150BC Writing done, start Construction at min. Trade Writing for Ottomans, Indians, and 28g from France. Trade England for 40g from Ottomans. I had been using an entertainer in Barcelona due to lack of gold, now I can go negative and bump lux up to spped settler.

1990BC Barcelona produces settler, starts another and will continue producing settlers.

1870BC Found Toledo on horses to the SE.

1790BC Ottoman spear/warrior stack spotted up around Verulamium, heading south. They later turn out to be heading south and take out a NE french city on the coast.

1750BC Accidentally let Seville go into disorder (my only disorder for the whole QSC period).

1725BC Found Santiago.

1675BC #@$#%#!@$ Notice Zulu have Construction. :p Switch to Currency at min. Switch Madrid and Seville to settlers. Decide to try for Literature instead of Curency, and to rush for it at max speed. I'm in deficit but with gpt deals ending soon I should make it.

1600BC Found Murcia. Glad I switched, as France has Currency, and appears to have traded to Zulu for Construction.

1575BC Zulu have Philosophy.

1525BC India has Map Making, and no one else does. Trade my world to them for territory and 61g. Then realize I should have stopped to analyze the situation first. I really need to buy Map Making so I can do map trades and catch up. But of course I have nothing to trade. India needs Currency, so lets start there. Set Sci and Lux to 0%.

Buy Currency from France for 17gpt + 96g.
Trade Currency for Horseback + 4g from Ottomans.
Sell HB to England for 77g.
Shuffle some citizens (MM gold) so I can buy Map Making from India for (ready for this?) HB, Currency, maps, 8gpt and 79g.

Nearly wiped me out. Now to get some of this money back.

Trade MM, world for World, 7gpt, 140g from France.
Trade Currency, MM, for Construction, World, 9g from Celts.
Trade Worlds with Ottomans.
Trade Territory for England's World.
Trade MM, World for Philosophy, world, 18g from Zulu.
Trade Philosophy for World and 79g from India.
Trade Philosophy to France for 77g.

Now everyone is bankrupt except France, who while at 0g has a net income from me of 10gpt, and India has 8gpt from me. So for a cost of 18gpt I have acquired Currency, Map Making, Construction, Philosophy, Horseback Riding, about 290 gold and the entire world map of my starting continent. With Science cranked back to 100%, I can run a 19gpt deficit and still get Literature in 11 turns, hopefully before anyone else so I can use it to trade for Code of Laws.

NOTE: I'd like to thank Moonsinger for the thread that inspired the above game of catchup.

1500BC Found Valencia on hill by SW iron.

1475BC Found Ciudad de la Luna on the coast near ivory. Trade England world map for a worker.

1425BC Trade Construction for Code of Laws and world from India.

1400BC Found Zaragoza in Andalusia. Trade Philosophy + 5g for Worker (Slave3) from England.

1350BC Found Pamplona by furs. Buy French worker (Slave4) for World + 59g.

1325BC Trade Code of Laws for Worker (Slave5), 5g and world from England.

1275BC Finish Literature, sci to 0, will buy Poly. Nobody has anything to trade for Lit except Zulu, and they only have 245 gold. Hold it for now.

1250BC Found Aldea de Ribannah. Trade Code of Laws for Worker (Slave6), 7g and world from Ottomans. Start Republic at 10%. (I know, wasted last turn.)

1225BC Found Casa del Bamrapido on coast next to destroyed French city. (They are or were at war with Ottomans). Zulu have more money than they'll give for Literature, so I think it's time to sell. I'll just have to pay a lot for polytheism I guess. Trade Literature for 212g and 4gpt from Zulu.

1200BC India has Literature now, they and Zulu start Great Library. Sell Lit to France for world and 79g. Would rather see France get GL if possible. Time to get working on a military methinks.

1175BC Build embassies in France, Celts and Zulu. Zulu are 18 turns from GL, France didn't start it. From the looks of the cities building it, Zulu is a shoe-in.

1150BC Found Vitoria on east coast near Verulamium. First galley built, start exploring along west coast. Trade Lit for world and 4g from Ottomans, still annoyed :p (Everyone else is polite believe it or not).

1125BC One day out and already our new captain spies something big coming towards him.

http://users.rcn.com/rfarver/civ3/GOTM20quid0.jpg

1100BC Blah, forgot to move off the forest in Barcelona. added an extra turn to the current settler.

1050BC Found Sandtander. Zulu have Republic, and it is EXPENSIVE. 18gpt + 384 is insulting. Turn science to 0, I'll try to buy Republic and trade it for Poly? Celts have 2 settlers in my area. Captain is hightailing it north to avoid squid.

http://users.rcn.com/rfarver/civ3/GOTM20quid1.jpg

1025BC First barracks built in seville, iron hooked up, time to make some military.

1000BC Found Asturias near Verulamium (I've gottem surrounded!). Lots of temples in progress to fill in area and maybe flip some Celtic cities. (They are headed into my trap.) Galley is now stuck between 2 squids, so makes a run for the ocean. Since he's going to die anyway, may as well try for contact accross the water. Hmm, looks like I should have been going for Polytheism on my own. I really need to learn to play at this level better. Sci 100 Poly.

http://users.rcn.com/rfarver/civ3/GOTM20quid2.jpg

The squids called for backup! Unfortunately, the captain and crew were never heard from again.

http://users.rcn.com/rfarver/civ3/GOTM20quid3.jpg

Ok, so at the end of the QSC period I'm not doing too bad. I've got:

15 cities
2 granaries
2 temples
1 barracks
1 settler
6 workers
6 slaves
1 galley (not for long from the looks of things :D)
15 warriors
31 citizens

And here's my score and minimap (centered the continent to see it easier).

http://users.rcn.com/rfarver/civ3/GOTM20qsc.jpg

I definately have room for improvement. Techs seem to be my biggest problem area, like knowing which to go after and which to buy. I see now that republic would have been good to get on my own at 40 turns just because its so darn expensive. I did end up buying Polytheism from India in 925BC (don't remember what I paid) and entered the middle ages.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif

I haven't seen anyone comment on how right the pixel readers were! I was lol when I saw the incense and wheat.

I chose to move the chests S, NE & W before moving the settlers with both workers building a road in the start position. I set up Madrid S and Barcelona NE. I used my first chest to build a warrior in Madrid and the other two chests to accelerate a temple in Barcelona.

In every city after those two, I built ID followed by temple. I researched potty in 16t, then switched to minimum for myst & poly.

I linked to incense in 3700BC, furs in 2190BC, dyes in 2030BC, and ivory in 1050BC. I was ranked 1st in happiness for the entire QSC. Spain was impressed by Otto while everyone else was impressed by, or in awe of, Spain.

1650BC seems to be the 1st big year for trades. I traded WM+6gpt+161g to France for MM; WM to Kelts for TM+6g; 3gpt+36g to France for Zulu; WM+4gpt to Zulu for Otto+math; WM+1gpt to Zulu for TM+Ind+12g; WM+6g to Otto for TM; & 10g to France for TM. World ranking: Otto 548, Spn 364, Zulu 341, Kelt 337, Ind 310, Eng 298, Fr 233.

1150BC I traded poly to France for curr+74g; curr to Eng for TM+phil+lit+7g; poly to Otto for TM+HBR+12g; curr to Kelts for TM+CoL+2g; WM to France for WM. World ranking: Otto 805, Spn 533, Kelt 511, Zulu 487, Ind 452, Eng 421, Fr 367.

1000BC I traded poly to Kelts for WM+BW+14g; poly to Eng for WM+IW+18g+wrkr; WM+10gpt+267g to France for constr. World ranking Otto 892, Spn 601, Kelt 560, Zulu 526, Ind 494, Eng 462, Fr 412.

At end of QSC I have 15 cities, 8 temples, 6 wrkrs, 1 eqwrkr, 2 warriors, 2 chariots, & 11 ID; just 21 units while permitted 60. I had 54g and was just starting feudalism. I stayed out of the jungle and never saw a barb.

runifoc
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg v1.29f

I'm sorry Txurce, but I think that I can't really go into how I got the money 'cause it will stray from the constraints of this thread. I will just say this is probably the luckiest game I've had yet. BTW I'm playing PTW on Open level and I'm LOVIN' it Jerry!!!:D

Another great job Cracker!:goodjob:

[B]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif

I forgot to mention that I blocked the Keltic bridge in 2390BC. Then I made a bad assumption about the shape of the landmass. I did not block the English bridge until 1475BC. Fortunately, they did not send any settlers across it.

Both France & England delivered settlers via galley into what I considered my territory. Rouen is 14 squares closer to Madrid than Paris; so, at size 4 they petitioned to join the Spanish monarchy. I granted their request.

Liverpool is 2 squares closer to London than Madrid plus they built a harbor. As a result, they are stubbornly ignoring the caroling of our cathedral bells.

runifoc
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg v1.29f

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gifhttp://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg1.21

As you can see I decided to go Predator :)

I had a great start but things got tougher as the game progressed.

I moved the worker NE as planned, saw the cattle and cheered! Moved the settler to the hills. Founded Madrid there and started researching Pottery. I built warrior, warrior, warrior, granary, settler. The first settler was produced in 2710BC. Madrid produced another every four turns after that.

The first settler went south to build a worker factory using the wheat.

The barbarians were the worst I've encountered in a long time. More like "homicidal maniacs" than "raging" :) I'd already had 13 barbarians visit my lands by 2030! I'm happy with how I dealt with them but they sure did hurt. I lost much time dancing with them (settlers and workers running away.) By 1000BC my total losses to barbs were my second worker, two warriors, ransacked for gold five times, once for a citizen, and once for an almost finished spearman.

Still, at 1000BC I had:
14 towns
2 settlers
9 native workers, 2 foreign workers
4 warriors, 2 spearmen
3 temples, 1 barracks, 1 granary

I have a Forbidden Palace build well started but it won't be useful for a Palace jump the way things are going. More likely I'll eventually move the Palace with a leader. The FP build isn't a bad thing though, it is in a more central location than the Palace.

By 1000BC I'd lost seven suicide galleys. My shipwrights seem a bit incompetent. Five galleys sank on their first turn at sea, the other two sank on their second. And that's all I'll say about my attempts to contact remote Civs in this thread ;)

Just before I entered the Middle Ages there was a massive barbarian uprising at one camp in my NW region. Before the swarm arrived I used most of my cash to buy embassies, then gave the rest to England in the hope of getting it back later. The barbs struck two of my fringe towns but did minimal damage, destroying just a bit of recently started construction.

I sent two warriors exploring early on. They met France, Ottomans, Zulu, India, Celts, and England in that order.

I researched Pottery first to make sure I'd get it - I really wanted Madrid as a settler factory asap, didn't want to count on meeting someone and trading. After learning Pottery it was too late to start on Writing so I waited for a while, learning nothing. By 2110BC three rivals knew Writing so I bought it and then traded around to to get nearly caught up in tech. I decided to gamble on 40 turn Polytheism from that date though it was a bit late to start. In 1600BC four rivals knew Map Making - I bought it from one and did some trading to get mostly caught up again. I was beaten to Polytheism by 8 turns but by the time I learned it in 975BC there were still some Civs who didn't know it. I managed to trade for all other required Ancient techs and entered the Middle Ages.

The strange signs on the grass have me puzzled. I have no idea what they mean.

At the end of the Middle Ages there has been no war in my world as far as I know. But it certainly won't be long before something starts :)

The Zulu are remarkably strong in my game. Here's how the power graph looked when I'd met all the local Civs in 2190:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/sirplebg20-1a.jpg

The other Civs haven't changed their positions significantly since that date. I'm moving up though!

Originally posted by drewshark
A quick question for those that payed tribute, when was it you paid and did they come back for more quickly or did they declare war anyway?
I've only had two demands for tribute so far in this game, once from England, once from France. I paid both.

I do not know if there is an absolute rule about tribute. But my experience has been that after I pay tribute I'm safe from that Civ for a fair while. (20 turns seems likely, I haven't recorded it to check.) Eventually they'll come back for more. But I don't remember ever having a Civ demand tribute and then declare war soon after or even demand tribute again soon after.

[Edit: I imagine that alliances would be an exception to this. I don't know if I've ever seen a Civ bought into an alliance against me shortly after extorting something. I wouldn't see that as unusual since I've seen that they can almost always be bought if the price is right...]

(PTW 1.21, Open Class)

After much thought, the glorious Isabelle del Cacahuete led her tribe of Mixto d'Español de Nueces up the hill and away from the plains in order to settle. "It'll be safer there" she thought, "... and the view from my palace window will be better".

"Madre de Dios !!" she cried as she crested the hill. "Cows ! On Grass ! On a Lake ! Grass with flecks of Silver ! We settle HERE amigos. Settler factory, here we come !". And as her Spaniards laboured to establish a settlement her last thoughts that evening were "Cows and a lake, eh ? I bet that blasted Brennus will be close at hand, casting covetous eyes over my fine cattle and wanting to hurl my best dinnerware into the pond again like he did to everyone in Game 18."

Well, being on diety and knowing that this would probably be a challenge, Izzy fully expected that there would be hungry neighbours close at hand. "So lets go find them", she decreed. And so a warrior was sent forth to explore. "Which way ?" he called from the city gate as he trudged off. "To the Orient - go and seek out the mysteries of the East" came the reply.

Izzy suspected that the crafty god Crackerus, having a taste for injecting some level of accuracy, would put Spain on the west coast. So east was a logical choice. Off he went, while Spain's feeble scientists struggled to learn how to write.

Soon the reports came in ... "Mountains with gold ... rivers .. hills ... and look - some god with a bizarre sense of humour has written "Anadalucia" in huge pink letters over one expanse of grassland. Why ? Nobody knows. We just hope it doesn't poison the cattle."

Finally, after many years exploring, our warrior reached a coastline. "Where is everybody ?" Izzy demanded. A warriors exploring north had found nothing. One who just started off heading west and south along the coast found nobody. Incense, fish, squids, dyes, jungle, rivers, yes. Lost of those. But no civilizations, no huts, no barbarians, nobody !!! Is this some kind of cruel trick ? Are we really alone ?

But then news from the south and far east. Pink borders, orange borders, and then a green clad archer. "Oh no ! Brennus is next door!" Izzy exclaimed. "But at least I've got Joan and Lizzie for company." A friendly trading session with Lizzie, Joanie and Brennie saw Spain armed with knowledge of Bronze Working and Pottery.

"Great !" Izzy shouted. "Get that Granary built - with no barbarians its Populate or Perish amigos !" And so the rush was on - churn out the Settlers and Workers as quickly as possible.

Those feeble Spanish scientists finally mastered Writing second (or third ?), but in time to sell it to Brennus and Lizzie, and gain contact with the rest of the civilizations on our continent.

"¡Golpéeme inconsciente con un calcetín repleto del flan frío!" Izzy shrieked when suddenly Shaka showed up trying to sell contact with the Ottomen to the Spaniards. We decided to accept, just to keep on good terms with what was obviously a strong and ugly Zulu civilization.

The next few centuries went uneventfully. A horsemen and two warriors, strategically placed, along with a relatively cheap RoP with Brennus, was all that was needed to keep those irritating green and orange settlers from stealing pieces our back yard. Spain feverishly settled on or near of all the luxuries and resources we could find, and connected them all up.

We are lucky that the AI cannot detect silly games like this being played by us humans, otherwise Brennus and Lizzie would have just brushed Spain aside and charged in to claim all that lovely land.

Once we saw a few galleys row past, hotly pursued by fierce looking squids, it was time to invest in Map Making. This we did, having to part with a cart load of gold and our precious world map.

However, this investment was worth it because in 1000 BC it didn't just rain, nor pour, but we nearly drowned in the flood !

At the start of 1000 BC we were ONE LOUSY turn away from Literature (ten turns after those nasty Indians invented it .. grumble grumble ...). We had little gold, and we owed Lizzie gpt for Map Making. We were seven or more technologies behind the Zulus and Ottomans.

Then, our suicide galley SURVIVED ! We contacted civilization XXXXXX !. What to do ? If we did nothing then Shaka would be sure to extort contact from us just as he had tried a few extortions in the past (which, being of sound mind, we submitted to).

Izzy then conducted a feverish session of very inept and amateur trading that Moonsinger would probably laugh at. It left us at the end of 1000 BC with :
* seven new techs (or so)
* entry into the Middle Ages (except for the optional Republic and Monarchy, which NOBODY had researched)
* almost techological leadership,
* contact with everyone,
* maps of the whole known world,
* embassies with everyone,
* a few hundred gold coins
* everyone polite or gracious towards us (after gifting some contacts to save them being extorted from us).

This stunt may even make for a QSC entry (my first) that is one grade above "Pathetic".

Sadly, Spain is starting the Middle Ages with no libraries, marketplaces, aquaducts, or courthouses, because we obtained all these necessary techs in one turn. Our joke of a military is made up of about five warriors, five horsemen and a couple of spears. We have one or two barracks and no harbours. But at least almost every town has a temple.

I suspect that the Spanish Empire of Isabelle del Cacahuete is going to soon be slow roasted, once Shaka or Joan or somebody else realises just how shaky our foundations are.

Ah well, reaching Middle Ages on Diety ... not a bad achievement for this humble Peanut.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
Ambiorix, how/when did you get Monarchy? Having a better government puts you significantly ahead of me at 975BC, I think.
I got Monarchy in 1000BC. A suicide galley reached new lands. :)
Revolution is just about to begin. Republic is still about 30 turns away, but I hope one of the other civ's finds it sooner.
I got a tremendous boost from that last QSC turn - without it, my game would be far inferior. More about it in the next spoiler.
Regarding your other questions : I had disease once in Sevilla, further south-east, never in Madrid - and they worked the floodplains continually.
Shaka demanded some pocket money once, also in 1000BC before the Big Trading. Funny actually : you give in to their demands and the same turn you take it back, plus all the rest they have, plus their tech, plus their maps. Life at deity can be great ! :D

PS. Once more many thanks to Cracker, SirPleb, Moonsinger and so many others - if I compare my gameplay now with what I was doing beginning of this year, it's like - well, like - uhm... can't find a good metaphor actually. :rolleyes:

Civ3 V1.29 Open

Here is mine.

DEVELOPMENT
Settle on the hill to get all 3 resources. This eventually become a 4 turn warrior+settler combo town (yeap, both every 4 turn) and towards the end of the QSC, switch to a 5turn worker+settler combo town. Got all four Luxury connected by 1150BC. Finish my forbidden Palace on 1025BC, but it looks like I will not use the palace jump anytime soon since I am still not getting hopeless corruption on my outer towns. Still, it is a nice backup in case I have a drought on GL.


TECH

I didn't had as much luck on Tech trading getting only pottery from wheel and my 40 turn writing only trade me Masonary and Mysticism. Luckily the round on Map making trading brings me on par with the tech leaders (which is almost everyone) at the expense of only 7gpt. From then on, I can research as quick as the AI, having build a solid base. In fact, I finish research monarchy by 1100BC (25turns), got into MA and traded for a MA tech.

AI
My game seems very different. Zulu is just another civ. In fact, my game has all the civ being very much balance in power/score.

French and English are weak in Culture and I am very very surprise that I have already surpass them in culture. Did Cracker do anything to them?

AI did not trade when one have construction and the other have currency for 8 turns. This is never seen before in my deity games. Did Cracker turn down the AI to AI trade rate?

Sogut is a super town, netting 3 wonders already in my game.

No demands on me in this game. Guess I grow fast enough given the great starting spot.


OTHERS
I like workers to work my lands so I got 29 native workers + 3 foreign workers by 1000BC. Any awards for that? What is surprising here is that in 1.29, the worker cost was at 28gc instead of the 120gc that I have been seeing in previous GOTM. I wonder if this is intentional.

No FP Disease. Strange. But I got a Jungle Disease.



TIMELINE
4000BC - Worker NE found 2 cattles. Settler move NE.
3950BC - Capital found. Worker north to cattle, research Writing.
3900BC - Worker irrigate
3750BC - Warrior build, move S
3700BC - warrior S, worker finish irrigation, move NE
3650BC - warrior S, worker irrigate second cattle
3550BC - 2nd Warrior build, explore E
3450BC - Worker finish irrigation, move 3 S to irrigate wheat FP
3400BC - 3rd Warrior build, explore E.
3300BC - Meet French, tried to trade Wheel for Masonary but French would not agree, so trade for pottery instead. Build Granary.
3100BC - Worker Finish irriagation, move to BG to mine.
3000BC - 3rd Warrior return to Capital and fortified just in case.
2950BC - Granary builded
2800BC - Capital Size 6. Town will grow before Settler is ready. Build worker instead.
2750BC - Meet English. Nothing to trade.
2710BC - Meet Keitol and India on same turn. Trade Wheel for WC + 4gc. Worker finish mine, move SE to irrigate FP. Warrior block land.
2670BC - Settler completed. Move SE to settle west of 2nd FP wheat to get 2 FP wheat and dye in radius.
2630BC - 4th Warrior from Capital, Fortified as MP.
2510BC - 2nd Settler. Move to settle on Incense to use the FP.
2470BC - 5th Warrior
2350BC - 3rd Settler. Goes 2 NE and settle. WIll build FP for my palace Jump later.
2310BC - 6th Warrior
2270BC - Meet zulu. No trade.
2230BC - 3rd Worker.
2190BC - 4th Settler. Goes to settle on horse position to the NE.
2110BC - Discover writing. Was only able to trade writing + 28gc for Mysticism + Masonary from English. Research Polytheism.
2030BC - 5th Settler. Settle at the end of the FP (SE of mountain) to the south.
1870BC - 6th Settler. Goes to the river to the north.
1725BC - 7th/8th Settler. Goes for Wheat near Fur and South to cover edge of Jungle.
MAP Making Trading Round. Net all 2nd level Tech + Polytheism, WM and 14gc at a cost of 7gpt. Research change to Monarchy full blast.
1650BC - 1st Temple builded. Ottoman finish Pyramid.
1625BC - 9th Settler
1600BC - 10th Settler goes for Ivory.
1550BC - Dye connected (2nd Luxury after Incense)
1500BC - 11th Settler
1375BC - 12th Settler
1350BC - Zulu discover CoL. Trade with Zulu for WM + Maths + Polytheism + 161gc and then resell it for Philo + 68gc.
1250BC - 13th Settler. 1st Galley build. sucide fails for next 6 galley.
1150BC - Fur Link up (4th Luxury)
1100Bc - Monarchy discovered. Switch government on same turn.
Buy Construction at 24gpt and 89gc.
Trade Currency and give it to most AIs. All goes MA.
Trade monarchy + 26gpt + 4gc for a MA tech. Give everyone these tech to speed up research.
1025BC - Forbidden Palace builed.

Result at 1000BC
Total Pop 52 (excluding settler and workers)
Town 15
Worker 29
Warrior 11
Horseman 3
Galley 1
Tech All AA tech except Lit and Replubic and have 1 MA Tech.
Embassy 2
Luxuries 4
Granary 1
Temple 4
FP builded
129gc
159 land area.

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

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/civ3.jpg v1.29f

I settle where I stand, and begin a no-granary settler flood. This is a bit risky… a farmer strat on diety, however, you gotta take chances right?

Research: writing at minimum science.
Worker heads towards wheat floodplains, roading and irrigating the square directly E first. After irrigating and roading the wheat floodplains, she then mines the BG to the E of the hill.

Important dates:
Madrid: settler completed in 3150
Barcelona: founded 3000 3 spaces NE of Madrid
Madrid: worker completed in 2950. This worker heads N and E to improve the cattle squares.
2 warriors copleted, one in each city, in 2750
Madrid: Completes settler in 2550
Found Seville near dyes and wheat Flood plain in 2430
Finally hook up the incense in 2390
Barcelona: completes settler in 2310
Madrid: completes settler in 2230
Complete writing in 2150, begin Code of Laws – I really should have been concentrating a little more on exploring. Maybe 2 exploring warriors would have allowed me to make some trades here.
Barcelona completes warrior in 2110
Found Toledo near La Mancha, claiming the horses.
Madrid completes warrior in 2070
Found Santiago claiming the wheat grassland to the S in 1990
Meet the French in 1870. They have all the techs that I can see, but I am only 2 cities behind.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/dredd_qsc20_1870bc1.jpg

Status: 5 cities, 2 settlers in 2 turns, 3 workers, 3 warriors.

Madrid completes another settler in 1830, and I begin building temples.
Meet the English in 1830
Barcelona completes settler in 1790

From here, I build some temples and continue to aggressivally expand.
Meet the Keltoi in 1550.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/dredd_qsc20_1550bc1.jpg

Mapmaking has been discovered, so it is time to see what I can get for my maps and my 500gp

French: I trade my WM and 383gp for contacts with the Ottomans, Zulu and Indians. Hopefully I will be able to sell them a luxury and get my cash back.
Indians: I trade my WM and 77gp for Pottery and Bronze Working.
Zulus: I trade my WM and 39gp for Warrior Code.
Ottomans I trade my WM and 6gpt :( for Iron working.
Keltoi: I trade my WM for their territory map.
Enland: I trade my WM for 2 gold and their TM.

All up, I am way behind with no chance of ever catching up. But thats diety.

So much for a builders game...

I switch research from Code of laws to Mapmaking at its maximum without me losing too much cash. It will take 19 turns. That was only 17 gold lost, but a whole pile of turns of research...

Suicide galleys to the W seems my only hope now.

1350 London completes Pyramids, Etremont completes Great Library
Found Ciudad de la Luna, the last named town, between the ivory and the iron on the East Coast in 1475.
Begin building granaries in 1300 in Madrid and Barcelona.
Joan establishes an embassy in our capital in 1025.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/dredd_qsc20_1000bc1.jpg

Status: 12 cities, 7 workers, 5 warriors and a chariot

Well I am still far behind in tech, but hopefully I can mediate WMs and Contacts between our continent and the others with a successful suicide galley.

I have decided that I am going for a cultural victory.... May be a very silly thing to do, but I want to give it a shot. I have claimed lots of land with a loose build that is capable of becoming quite dense (built my towns in lines NE-SW, always either 4 or 6 squares from the last city, unless there were exceptional circumstances). I have built on every second line, denoted by the blue arrows in the picture.

Obviously I will have to slow down the research pace and start some wars.

Shortly after this a galley reaches a far shore.

None of my cities after Ciudad de la Luna have an assigned name, so I have been picking names.

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

3950BC Madrid founded. One tile south of the starting position to get wheat and incense. Build worker
3750BC Incense hooked.
3650BC Madrid. Disease strikes: Population: 1. Luckily I only had pop:2. Disease never stroke again but at that time it felt like a tough game.
3450BC Madrid Worker baptized Adelina. Culture expands: Cow spotted. Build Warrior. I had all my QSC units named.
3100BC Madrid Warrior baptized: Aaron. Build Warrior
2900BC Madrid Population: 4. Warrior baptized: Agustin. Build Settler. At this point I took a decision that I would regret 40 turns onward, and did not build a granary (thought that the land available would be too limited).
2510BC Madrid Settler built. Population:5. Build warrior
2430BC Barcelona Founded near the 2Cows. Build worker
2310BC Adelina (Wk) Killed by Horseman barb
2270BC Barcelona Pillaged. Barbs walk with half our treasury of 99g!
2270BC Aaron (Wr) Revenge. Phoenician encampment razed. Every kid burned. I was pretty p*ssed at that time.
2150BC Seville Founded close to the incense. Build worker
2210BC Writing discovered. Research Literature @40 turns. I had meet no one by that date!
1790BC Contact Met with France, who sold contact with me to Zulu, India and Celts Contat available with Ottomans and Rome. (I did not have to pay for all those contacts) Strategy review: Probably the other civs are on the other continent and will be backward. I will make a port and try some suicide runs as soon as Mapmaking is available.
1750BC Incense hooked
1725BC Ottomans built Pyramids. Zulu built Oracle
1675BC Toledo founded. Build warrior
1650 BC Zulu built embassy in our capital. We notice Mapmaking is available.
Contact with England from India for 58g
Contact with Ottomans from India for 110g
Pottery from India for 38g
Mapmaking from France for WM+131g+9gpt
29g from Zulu for WM
Masonry, Mysticism, TM, 52g from Celts for Mapmaking
Bronze Works+TM from England for Masonry+TM+5g
IronWorking+Maths + 21g from Ottomans for Mapmaking, Contact with England and WM
175g from India for Mapmaking and WM
Bottom line: We got 8 techs ( I got the Wheel somewhere here but can’t remember when) and the World Map by paying 65g and 9gpt. France reaped most benefits with a net gain of 131g and 9gpt.
1475BC Santiago Founded. Build galley
1375BC Beatriz (Wk) Slaughtered by a barb horseman
1350BC Barcelona Granary in progress was destroyed by barb. We lost some 43 shields!
1325BC Trade. Construction from Celts for 23gpt and 168g
Literature+Jean (wk)+205g from France for Construction
Philosophy+WM from India for Literature
Currency from Zulu for Construction, Literature, Philosophy, 35g
HBR from England for Philosophy
Bottom line: I got 5 techs for 2g and 23gpt and helped the Celts out big time.
1250BC Murcia Founded. Build galley
1225BC We've heard of massive barbarian uprisings near Murcia. ETA: 2 turns. On a side note I could have waited for two more turns with the tech trade for two additional techs.
1200BC Apolinar (Wr). Thirteen barbarians spotted
1150BC Barbs are defeated by the celtic/french units. Caridad (Galley) Treacherous waters sunk our first ship. The global situation is not described in my timeline, only the sentence: Thinks need to be done: NOW. England had built one city in what was commonly defined as “our lands”, Celts had two, and the French crossed the Southern river, in addition to the town they had near the iron south-east of our capital. I was feeling threatened by both the French and the Celts and my armies were nuisance. This is what I did:
War Declare war to the Turks for their persistence denial of the true faith
Military Alliance France agrees to join our crusade (for a mere 12gpt and 18g)
War Declare war to the Indians for their twisted religious beliefs
Embassy Emissary sent to represent our interests to the Celtic king
Military Alliance The Celts will represent our interests in the Indian war for a hefty 9gpt and 198g
Embassy Emissary sent to represent our interests to the English Queen
Military Alliance England agrees to our cause for Currency and Literature. They declare to both India and Ottomans
The price was more than I could afford, I ended up with –15gpt, but my treasury was about 300.
1125BC Valencia Founded. Build Warrior
1100BC Military Alliance The Ottomans bring the Celts in their war against France. Ciudad de la Luna Founded. Build worker
1025BC War Zulu declares war to the Ottoman Empire
Only 8 cities at the end of the QSC, but things improved afterwards.
While the entire world was in war, I was building cities until circa 500BC. I settled near the Ivory, and then got one fur, while the Celts got another, and the last one is in no-man’s land. I continued to send one galley after the other with two cities building them continuously. Eventually I did bought Code of Laws and Polytheism when I saw fit, but all the others were already in the Middle Ages for some time.

The game was particular (as in kind of fun) but I also have some complaints, which on second thoughts, I’ll PM to cracker. The Predator difficulty did not prove that hard; I lost to barbs 2 workers, about 120g, about 65 shields (that were most important) and some 6 warriors. The Wheel meant absolutely nothing to me as I got it in my first trading session from a bankrupted civ. The conquest will be fun as far as I can see.
The named tiles are meant to show provinces of Spain, they’re only intended as geographic features.

The Zulus were not particularly powerful in my world. They were the largest, but not much larger than the Indians and Ottomans. The Turks seemed to be on steroids though. They seem to head for the 20K victory with Sogut having built The Pyramids, The Great Library, The Hanging Gardens and one particularly powerful cultural wonder from early middle ages which I cannot mention :) They also had the Lighthouse and The Colossus, with the Oracle to the Zulus and the wall to the Celts.

Edit: As promised
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/gotm20bc1000.jpg

Open class PTW 1.14f

My first post and my first GOTM on deity.

I settled on the starting position.
Researched Writing at 40 turns, but could not trade it. Then Literature.
By 1000BC I only had 8 cities + 1 settler. My mistake was not to have a second city produce settlers. Madrid is my only city producing settlers. All other cities produce improvements and units.
I had a war against the Celts around 500BC and took two cities to the east with some horsemen. Feared to be attacked by gallic swordsmen, but they never appeared... They didn't even have horsemen.
The Zulus are by far the strongest civ.
Went into the Middle Ages at 150 BC after I could finally trade polytheism.

I've never seen any barabarians.
I'm just glad to have survied this period and not being helplessly behind in tech.
Thanks to Cracker for providing such nice start position.

I'm finding the power distribution of the AI civs interesting. In my game and quite a few others it seems that the zulus are a massive power, in my case the ottomans are nothing particularly special. Others seem to have rampant Ottomans... often seeming to be coupled with weak Zulus. In a couple of bad cases both are very powerful.

I was wondering if this was something to do with the version and/or level people are playing at? Or possibly something to do with the start position/resources of the zulus/ottomans?

Mine = conquest ptw 1.14f.

Originally posted by Zinad
I had a war against the Celts around 500BC and took two cities to the east with some horsemen. Feared to be attacked by gallic swordsmen, but they never appeared... They didn't even have horsemen.

Zinad> Might affect some people's strat after this. But giving you a big hint anyway. Check what resources Celts have in his vinicity and how difficult it is for him to hookup.

Originally posted by Qitai


Zinad> Might affect some people's strat after this. But giving you a big hint anyway. Check what resources Celts have in his vinicity and how difficult it is for him to hookup.

Better said: Check everybody's resources and see how can they hookup or trade. The game has a very nice twist there. :)

I decided before this game started that I would use it to test/demonstrate a new idea that I call RCP (Ring City Placement).

The key idea is this: corruption depends, in large part, on the number of cities that are closer to your capital (or FP) than the given city. So what happens if you have two cities that are at the same distance from your capital as each other? The answer is that they both get the benefit of lower corruption: neither one increases the corruption in the other.

RCP is the logical progression of this idea. If you build several cities that are all at the same distance from your capital as each other, then they all get relatively low corruption. (The cities all at the same distance form a ring, hence the name.) The idea of RCP is to build cities in one or more (probably two) complete rings around your capital (or FP), almost regardless of terrain.

(In order to use this, it's important to understand how the game computes "distance", for this purpose. See this thread: Do you think you understand corruption? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19922).)

Obviously, the disadvantage of this approach is that you don't get to locate individual cities favorably with respect to resources and terrain. If you have a mountain or lake in one of the selected spots, you're out of luck. If it's not on a river, you can't shift the city slightly to be on the river instead. On the other hand, you do get to choose the distances of the rings, after seeing the map. And there is a fairly wide range of viable choices. So, for example, it makes sense to avoid choosing a distance that would locate cities on bonus food resources, which would be wasted if you built cities on them.

Here's how it's working in practice (at 975BC):

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

You can see that I have two rings around my capital, one at distance 3.5 and another at distance 8.0. Most, but not all, of the spots are occupied: I plan to build the rest over time. I think the rings are working out relatively well, so far.

Already, with only a partial ring, I think I'm getting a significant advantage. Even under despotism, with no courthouses or WLTKD, I have 5 cities (the inner ring) with only 12% corruption, and 7 cities (the outer ring) with about 45% corruption. With "normal" placement, each additional city would have about 4% higher corruption than the next closest city, plus the distance cost. Thus my "average" corruption is about 30%, whereas with "normal" placement it would be about 40%. So I'm getting a 10-15% boost to total production, and this will only grow as the game goes on and I build out the rings.

Here's my abbreviated timeline (open, PTW 1.21f):

4000BC: Moved worker onto hill, then settler on hill.

3950BC: Research Writing at minimum (40 turns).

3000BC: Madrid builds 1st settler.

2950BC: Barcelona founded NE of cattle.

2750BC: Finally make contact with foreign civ (France), and can trade Wheel, Ceremonial Burial, 1 gpt for Pottery and Bronze Working. (It took me so long to find someone, I was getting worried that cracker put us alone on a large continent!) I will build a granary the slow way in Madrid (settler pump), and pop rush a 2nd granary in Barcelona (worker pump).

2470BC: Contact with wandering Celt unit. Nothing to trade (looks like they have met France already).

2430BC: Madrid builds 2nd settler. One every 4 turns from now on. I never built any settlers, except in Madrid. Contact with England: I trade Wheel and 1g for Masonry.

2270BC: Zulus and India have Writing (boo), buy contact with me. I buy Mysticism from India for 92g, sell to Celts for contact with Ottomans plus 28g, but unfortunately the Ottomans have no trading opportunities. I keep going on Writing, rather than switch.

2150BC: Barcelona builds worker. One every 3 turns from now on.

2110BC: Research Writing. Trade Writing and 1gpt to England, for Iron Working and 3g. Research Polytheism at minimum (40 turns). (I seriously considered shutting down research altogether at this point, since I didn't think I'd be first to Polytheism. But I was wrong!)

1950BC: Several civs have Mathematics. I buy it from France for 83g plus 6gpt. Trade it to Celts for Warrior Code and 33g. Trade it to India for Horseback Riding and 3g. Now I have tech parity with the leaders. The tech race is going slower than I expected; maybe Polytheism will pay off.

1725BC: Ottomans build Pyramids. Zulus build Oracle.

1700BC: France has Map Making, but I can't afford it.

1675BC: A worker shows up in the English capital, so I trade them Mathematics for worker plus 15g.

1650BC: Ottomans have Code of Laws, but I hold off on trading. Create a scientist in Santiago; research to 0%.

1500BC: Zulus have Construction, but I can't afford it.

1450BC: France and India have Philosophy, but I continue my strategy of holding off on trades (don't accelerate other civs research, so maybe I will be first to Polytheism).

1400BC: France and India have Literature.

1200BC: Iron hooked up (nearby to south).

1150BC: English worker builds colony on furs. (Later this is looking like a mistake, too hard to protect from foreign settlers looking to build cities there. I should have just sent a settler to build a city there. I was too focused on completing my ring.)

1125BC: Squid attacks French galley offshore, and loses!

1100BC: Ottomans build Colossus, Zulus build Great Wall.

1075BC: Celts have Currency. Still holding off on trades (and biting my nails).

975BC: French settler beats me to the ivory. But I research Polytheism, and have a monopoly! I trade for 6 techs, plus all of everyone's gold. I have 1686 gold (but no gpt income from foreign civs). I have all ancient techs except Republic and Monarchy, which no one knows (but I'm hopeful that one of the civs will discover Republic soon, since they have had Code of Laws and Philosophy for many turns). India will get a free tech next turn, and Ottomans whenever they can get Currency.

My 975BC stats:

13 cities
43 citizens
1 colony
2 settlers
20 workers
15 warriors
1 spearman
3 swordsmen
3 granaries
2 barracks
7 temples
1686 gold
contact with 6 continental civs
3 embassies
continental map

No galleys (I just got Map Making this turn!).

open class CIVIII 1.29f
In my game, seems Ottoman was the best. Each turn, I always F4 and check if they get any new techs. :)
Here is the timeline up to 1000BC.

4000BC: Worker NE, Settler NE
3950BC: Madrid FOUND. Worker N. research Writing 8-2-0
3500BC: Meet French, exchang wheel for pottery
3400BC: third warrior build. fortify in city
3300BC: Madrid reach size 3. 7-2-1
3250BC: meet English
3150BC: size 4 6-1-3
2950BC: Barcelona found
2590BC: Meet Keltoi, exchange Bronze by wheel+10 gold,Seville FOUND worker begin to build road on dye
2550BC: Meet India
2510BC: Meet Ottoman
2390BC: Toledo found
2350BC: rush build spearman in Sevilles
2310BC: Buy Writing from India for 170G. Get Iron working from Ottpoman. Get Masnory, warrior code, Mystism from ENglish. Start Literature 8-1-1
2230BC: meet Zululand
2190BC: Dye connected
2030BC: Santiago found
1910BC: Mucia found
1675BC: Valencia found
1650BC: Buy code of law from England for 250+WM Mountain game founded. tense dipo exchanges. Get code of law, mapmaking, philosophy, horse riding, polythesism.switch discovery from literacy to republic9-1-0
1500BC: Furs found
1450BC Ciudad de la luna found
1425BC Buy Math, exchange for literacy.
1325 Golden beach founded
1125BC iron hill found, iron elephant found
1000BC Collosus Build in Barcelona. Golden Age. Buy Monarchy from India for 430G+21gpt. Revolution!
After revolution: 14 cities, 100K population. Monarchy, has Collosus. Two tech from Middle age. Almost complete continent map. ( I have reached industry age, but the timeline is up to here, for QSC's sake.)

Sekong: How did you get Golden Age? Don't you need a commercial wonder, as well as a religious one?

here is my mini-map at 1000BC:

As you can see, Zulu is quite large. This is because they had declared war on the poor Indians and began to take their southern towns. I felt sorry for them since I was their only friends but I couldn't risk having the Zulu attack me. :(

Angering through trade? : So when I arbitraged Monarchy to all my continental friends in 900 BC I asked what they would give (typically 100-200 gp plus world map), so I left out the World Map (already had it), and took all their gold --whatever my advisor said they would agree to. But then, AFTER the trade, they didn't like me as much!!!!! Does anyone have any clue why this happened??? India dropped to Annoyed, Zulu to cautious. Only France didn't drop. <snip>

All the AI were immediately switching to Monarchy, so they were in anarchy. Since they are in anarchy (and I'm betting you weren't), they are in a different government than you, so there is a slight drop in attitudes.

AI Attitude (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44999)

Open PTW1.14
I was feeling pretty good about my game until reading this thread. Some of you are far too good, especially those who dealt with raging barbs.

Like most people I found the start position incredibly benign, and even I managed 13 (I think) cities at 1000bc. I missed out on the great trading session that many people had with early contacts as I didn't find anyone but the French early on. Given the Map, I could understand why the French met the Zulus before I did.However, stern words were had with my scouting warriors for failing to spot the Celts before the French met them. I thought that certain rogue elements in the intelligence services were to blame. They retaliated that central cutbacks had meant that only 2 warriors had been charged with explorary duties and that more staff were required.

Like many people I researched at min science for writing then polytheism. Both of these techs were pretty old hat to some of the others by the time I got them, but I flogged them for what I could get.

I attacked the french shortly after 1000bc and took 2 cities immediately. I then made peace for one tech and prepared to attack Paris (pyramids). Unfortunately the french were defending against my hoards of swordsmen with some newfangled long pikes and I lost heavily and didn't capture Paris. I was then retiring back to lick my wounds when a great stack of angry Zulus arrived, meaning no good. I bought monarchy from them at 48gpt and then politely asked them not to trepass on my lands. The wretches promptly attacked the next go anyway. They took one city defended by 6 swordsmen but so far they haven't captured anything else. A few turns ago I had 27 swordsmen but now I am down to 12 and I am just holding on.

The Zulus are very big in my game, as in other peoples. I have persuaded, at some cost, both the French and the Indians to go to war against the Zulu as well so hopefully this will help.

I haven't managed to build any boats so haven't managed to contact other civs. The americans have built the lighthouse in my game.

The poor Ottomans got wiped by an unholy zulu/ frence /indian alliance at an early stage.
I was paying them gpt for a tech at the time. Does their death damage my rep?

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif
Well my second GOTM and first deity game and I'm doing rather well! I am 4/8 civs in score and 2nd in culture.
I built Madrid on the hills and sent a chest + settler along the west coast northwards. Settled Barcelona by the grassland floodplain.
I have 10 cities with another 2 about to be built and 26 units in total including 9 immobile defenders and 5 archers (with a few swordsmen on the way) Advisor says I have an average military. Treasury=38gold with 9gpt.
My total culture is 660 with Madrid on 6cpt and Barcelona and Seville on 4cpt. I have 6 temples, 2 granaries and 2 barracks.
I have 2 iron hooked up, 1 horses, 2 incense and 1 furs with dyes, ivory and more iron inside my borders.
Techs learnt= BW, IW, Masonry, Alphabet, Writing, C of L, Pottery, Literature, The Wheel, Warrior Code, HBR, CB and Mysticism with Map Making in 30turns at 10% sci.
I’m second to last in tech and France are 4 behind me but have nothing worth trading.. I did gift them HBR to keep relations sweet since they are on my borders! All civs are polite with me and will accept gpt from me.
One trick I have used to keep them sweet whenever I feel threatened is to give them 1gpt for their territory map… usually buys peace for 20turns at least!
The Zulu are by far the most powerful civ and have the biggest culture. The Ottomans have just demanded tribute which I gladly paid… anything to avoid war on deity before my troops are ready. I haven’t seen any barbs except for squid so most settlers went out unescorted.
I tried both the writing and lit gambits.. got quite a lot from lit trading cos I did my research and remembered to trade it to the Zulu first since they were the richest. Thanks Moonsinger!
I haven’t made a detailed timeline otherwise I would be tempted to submit for QSC!
Screenshots attached below:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/975bc_territory.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/975bc_score.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/975bc_culture.jpg
:D

For posting

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif First GOTM, first posting, I'm doing ok, but too many mistakes are costing me

4000BC
Move to hill, see cattle, flood plain wheat, decide to build first city next to flood plain, second settler next to cows, to give a settler factory and big producer that can pre-build palace. Looks like a nice start position.

2900BC
Met English, they offer 60 gold and pottery for wheel but i have pottery in two. No trade now

For some reason I didn't note the actual trades, but I think I traded wheel early to English and they gave it to everyone else, clearly should have waited until I met a few more and then trade in one go.

2310BC
Met Keltoi and France. I completely miss the choke points and Keltoi gets a city in my territory (I regret this later)

1990BC
Deseise in Madrid, only working one flood plain square, not too much harm as its growing so quick.
Way behind on tech but everyone wants too much for it.

I met everyone between these dates, didn't mark it down, got their maps etc.

1250BC
Just settling, not paying for any techs.
My only plan is to get Great Library, I'm slowly building pyramid, get literature in 12, nobody else seems to have it. Will I get there first ???????????????

950BC
Get Literature, sell to all but English who have it. Still made a lot of money and got a load of tech. Now try for GL.

875BC
GL in 5, everyone is building it, I had a big pre-build it must be mine

750BC
GL is mine, all the iron is just out of range, but should have one soon. France look weak and my first target

12 Cities.

Keltoi 682, Otto 666, India 619, Spain 613, England 523, France 521, Zulu 397

Reached the Middle Age so I stop right? All the fun happens after this

[quote]
The Zulus were not particularly powerful in my world. They were the largest, but not much larger than the Indians and Ottomans. The Turks seemed to be on steroids though. They seem to head for the 20K victory with Sogut having built The Pyramids, The Great Library, The Hanging Gardens and one particularly powerful cultural wonder from early middle ages which I cannot mention They also had the Lighthouse and The Colossus, with the Oracle to the Zulus and the wall to the Celts.
[quote]

Predator here as well (PTW 1.21).

Zulu eliminated the Ottomans in the ancient age (see my post w/ power graph on page 1). Zulu's have about half the cities on my continent, I have about 1/4 and the rest of the civs make up the difference. It's going to be an interesting battle, as I have to win by conquest to make predator worth it.

Congratulations to Peanut and Ambiorix for their unsuccessful suicide attempts. I still tell myself that I am better off not gambling shields in this manner. But I am starting to doubt it.

Qitai, it looks like you had the best start of all so far. Have you ever built a combo factory like that before?

Daviddesj, I focused on a version of what you're doing in settling Madrid to the east, thereby having room for some decent cities to the west.

I had considered building the Colossus with the hope of triggering a GA, then decided, who needs a GA this early? I'm not in trouble! The Colossus is apparently one of those GWs with hidden triggers. In this case, it makes sense that its extra gold would apply to both commercial and religious (happiness).

Yeap. But it is rare. Getting floodplain wheat + 2 cattles is very rare. You need quite abit of excess shield + food to do that. You also need tiles that allows you to vary your foodshield. In fact, looking back, it needs 2 more FP and at least 3 forest to work it out. Additionally, the town has to be beside a river or lake.

Here is what I have done. I hope I remember it correctly.
Tiles alway in used
*irrigated plain cattle 3 food 2 shield
*irrigated grassland cattle 4 food 1 shield
*mine BG 2 food 2 shield
*city 2 food 1 shield
Total 11 food 6 shield

And you need these tiles to play with every turn.
irrigated FP 3 food 0 shield
irrigated plain/mined grassland 2 food 1 shield (Call this IP)
forest 1 food 2 shield
irrigated wheat FP 5 food 0 shield

Turn 1
Size 5 10 food 0 shield
use two forest to get 13 food (+3) 10 shield and build warrior

Turn 2
Size 5 13 food 0 shield
Use 2 FP to get 17 food(+7) and 6 shield (+2 on growth)

Turn 3
Size 6 10 food 8 shield
Use 2 forest 1 FP to get 16 food (+4) and 10 shield

Turn 4
Size 6 14 food 18 shield
Use 2 forest 1 wheat FP to get 18 food (+6) and 10 shield (+2 on growth)

Hope this helps.

An additional note. To calculate what is possible. Simply add the total (food + shield) excess each turn.

For the above, a quick calculation for size 5 city gets 11 food + 6 shield + 2*3 foodshield = 23. Minus 10 food gets you 13. Adding growth probably gives you 13, 15, 14, 16 = 58. Which is 8 more than what is required of a settler (which needs 20 food + 30 shield). Throw in the Wheat FP for a turn and you get your 60 =)

Originally posted by Qitai
[B]
And you need these tiles to play with every turn.
irrigated FP 4 food 0 shield
irrigated plain/mined grassland 2 food 1 shield (Call this IP)
forest 1 food 2 shield
/B]

As I'm sure you know, you only get 3 food from the irrigated FP in despotism.

I think you have to use the wheat, at least on some turns.

The two cattle tiles combined with the town center is sufficient to give the +5 food needed without ever using the flood plain. This relates to setting up the 4 turn settler factory on the hill tile.

Originally posted by ltcoljt
The two cattle tiles combined with the town center is sufficient to give the +5 food needed without ever using the flood plain. This relates to setting up the 4 turn settler factory on the hill tile.

Well, of course it's easy to get 30 shields and 20 food in 4 turns, with only two of the three bonus tiles. But Qitai is talking about getting 40 shields in 4 turns as well as 20 food, which requires more bonuses. I don't believe you can do that without ever using the wheat.

pop/food/shields production
5/10/0 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 1/2 1/2 -> warrior
5/13/0 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 3/0 3/0 [+2s]
6/10/8 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 3/0 2/1 1/2
6/15/17 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 3/0 2/1 1/2 [+3s]
7/10/29

It seems to me that you're one shield short, if you never use the wheat.

But using the wheat just 1 turn in 4 would be enough.

Updated the numbers. Hope no more errors this time. Thanks Daviddesj for highlighting this. You are the guru on this =D

Originally posted by Qitai
Updated the numbers. Hope no more errors this time. Thanks Daviddesj for highlighting this. You are the guru on this =D

Well, I agree with Txurce: your position is very impressive, compared to mine. Although I question whether building the FP so early is a good use of shields, I certainly didn't build as much as you in the same timeframe. (I do have a lot more money, but that may just be luck of the trade.) I can do the math, but I must have fallen short in the strategy somewhere. (Actually, I knew early on that I wouldn't be a QSC score leader, partly because I couldn't find the neighboring civs quickly enough. But I still think you demonstrated some superiorities over my own play.)

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
pop/food/shields production
5/10/0 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 1/2 1/2 -> warrior
5/13/0 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 3/0 3/0 [+2s]
6/10/8 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 3/0 2/1 1/2
6/15/17 [2/1] 4/1 3/2 2/2 3/0 2/1 1/2 [+3s]
7/10/29

My head hurts.:cry:

I question about the FP myself too, hee hee. But the advantage of a palace jump is simply too great to ignore and I don't want to wait 20 turns when I need it! So, I go for it. It turns out, corruption wasn't much this time (My gauge of a Palace Jump need is when I get hopelessly corrupted towns). Until now, I have not made the Jump. And my cities has grown to a point where I don't think I can do a successful Jump anymoe.

PS. Your gold is worth alot! I have only 129gc. Going to lose alot of points on that one.
PPS. My FP is 2 steps away from the capital, so not much point there. I hope I can at least get the 200 points for the shield used. This one is more strategic as explain above rather than for QSC.

Originally posted by Qitai
I question about the FP myself too, hee hee. But the advantage of a palace jump is simply too great to ignore and I don't want to wait 20 turns when I need it!

Well, it's hard for me to believe that you're going to do a palace jump before 500BC, so you have time to build the FP later. (But maybe not a lot of time.) It will be interesting to see how it works out for you. The palace jump is incompatible with my RCP approach (it would completely screw up my rings), so I'm basically hoping for a leader.

PS. Your gold is worth alot! I have only 129gc. Going to lose alot of points on that one.

Well, that's my 975BC position. My QSC score will be truly pathetic, because in 1000BC I have less gold, and 7 fewer techs, than in 975BC. I guess I don't care, but it makes the QSC ranking seem a bit silly in my case.

PPS. My FP is 2 steps away from the capital, so not much point there.

That's what I originally thought, but I'm not so sure. The advantage of being able to count to the nearer of the FP or the capital is still somewhat significant, especially for number-of-cities corruption. Plus you get a straight 10% discount on number-of-cities corruption just for having a FP at all. The early FP build may well make good sense: I'm not sure I gave this a fair consideration.
I'm still amazed at how early you got it, while still building lots of other stuff.

Deleted old Screenshot

Qutai, the new version is clearer, but if you can post with the grid turned on (control-G) that would make it much easier to see the exact city locations.

DaviddesJ loved your RCP strategy. It makes a nice alternative to all the palace jumping madness that's being going on here recently.
In my view the palace jump when I have employed it in private games has helped to cover up a host of developemental sins on my part which have remained unaddressed until I weaned myself off using it.
Needless to say your RCP strategy is going to feature in my games in the future. Kudos.

It also surprised me! I did not mean to have a golden age that early. :( I did not have Monarchy or Republic yet. I was just build it to set up a Super-Science city. And it did make it later, by the way.

If you need a explanation, my first thought is that Spain we are playing has three start tech, then could it be a civ with a hidden
expansionist attribute? After reading Txurce's post about hidden trigger of Colosus, I feel his explanation makes better sense.


Originally posted by DaviddesJ
Sekong: How did you get Golden Age? Don't you need a commercial wonder, as well as a religious one?

I too have had GAs in games from the Colossus in Ancient Times and only that Wonder... I was like wtf?

The Colossus has 3 traits: Commercial, Expansionist AND Religious... many people overloook the Religous aspect...do you get credit for BOTH the commercial and religious traits of the Colossus towards GAs?

I always assumed you still had to build 2 different wonders... I guess not :confused: .

add: Yes, Qitai your game is amazing so far!!! Congrats.

I spent waaay too much time building early defense compared to most... and skipped granaries 'til late; I really thought there would be a lack of space in this map and barbs of some kind even in Open Class.

Oops :D .

lol yes, wtf, it's close to my reaction. Btw, are you close to Monarchy or Republic at the time you get GA? It kind of screwed me, i have to buy Monarchy earlier than I planned.

Originally posted by baronzilch
I too have had GAs in games from the Colossus in Ancient Times and only that Wonder... I was like wtf?

The Colossus has 3 traits: Commercial, Expansionist AND Religious... many people overloook the Religous aspect...do you get credit for BOTH the commercial and religious traits of the Colossus?

I always assumed you still had to build 2 different wonders... I guess not :confused: .

Robin hood, nice putted, but your real intension is for everyone to have money buy techs from you, isn't it? :)
Thanks for your dipo pre-game discussion, I do learnt some tips like re-negotiate peace,etc. Just I rarely can earn /keep my money during these negotiates. I guess the robin hood-way is the key. get to try it next time.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
The Zulus are also the most powerful civs in my game but I think they will be destroyed soon. Since I'm playing Robin Hood in this game by draining techs and gold from the rich then giving them to the poor, every lesser civs surrounding the Zulus are almost equally strong.:lol:

It didn't happen in Gotm20 (I didn't build any AA wonders), but I used to play Iroquois (Rel/Exp) a lot in private games and it happened to them every once in a while.

According to the documentation, the Colossus is Religious and Expansionistic but not Commercial. But maybe this is just a mistake in the documentation. I know if I had known that it counts as Commercial I might have thought harder about trying to build it. I'd be pretty happy to get a moderately early GA. I don't particularly want to wait for Navigation (not to mention I might not want to research Navigation at all).

P.S. If I have both Religious and Commercial wonders (e.g., if I capture the Colossus), then building any wonder will trigger my Golden Age, even if the wonder I build is neither Religious nor Commercial. Right?

As requested. City Build order is
Capital-3950
Dye-2510
Incense-2390
FP-2310
Horse-2110
Horse2-1830
Corefish-1750
N1-1650
S1-1625
Corecoast-1575
Ivory-1475
E1-1450
NE1-1300
Fur-1150
SE1-1025

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif
Woo Hoo!!!!!!! I got the Great Library!!! I made a bee-line for literature and sat on the tech until I had 12 turns left to complete the great library. Then I sold Lit off for communications with all the other AIs so that when the Library was finished I got a dozen techs for free. :) I have read that with other players, the Zulus are dominating. In my game the Ottomans are the dominating force by a long shot.

Edit: Ha ha!! I just read through other peoples posts and discovered mine sounds almost exactly like RocknOats on page 2 :lol:

I don't understand why people went writing and lit with 40 turns science. I pumped science up to 70, lux to 30, to get these techs.
Also I never saw a single barb during the whole game. (Which was good for my treasure chest explorers)
On the down side, my military is very weak and I have almost zero gold :( England demanded Literature from me as soon as I got it and told them where to go. Luckily they only took a size one city which I took back with a warrior.

Originally posted by Sailorstick
I don't understand why people went writing and lit with 40 turns science. I pumped science up to 70, lux to 30, to get these techs.


It's because you started with about 2.5 times as much stuff as we did. I support the idea of having a easier Conquest game to give more people a chance to participate, but you can't really compare the strategies or choices that the Conquest and Open players have to make, when the scales are so loaded in your favor. Of course you can research faster, build wonders, etc., when you start with two settlers, plus other bonuses.

I thought the intention of the conquest class was to provide a slightly easier go so that they could enjoy themselves while learning to implement the fundamental strategies used by more experienced players. It seems that the law of unintended consequences may have kicked in.

If having a bonus settler leads conquest players to implement different strategic plays, then the presence of the settler may defeat the conquest class concept.

Certainly, the combination of a very laid back opening position and conquest bonus would seem to give anything but the typical diety game challenge. Even playing in open class I can clearly see that I could have played far more aggressively.

But I have strayed off topic, sorry.

It is still a good bridge though. The beginners may not learn everything. But it will help them to gain confidence as well as make some refinement to their strategy to put them a step nearer to being able to handle a true higher difficulty play.

There's just something about a really great library that make a Civfanatic go woohoo. . .

Pick up the art of Trading like many does and you will not think Great Library is that great. Moonsinger's trading thread is a very good learning ground. Try it!

My first thought on moving my worker to the NE hill: so that's what Cracker was laughing about in the pre-game thread. :p Definitely an easier start position than most.

I'm too tired to post my QSC summary, will do that tomorrow, but I'll just say that, if the AI leave me unmolested until rails, they don't stand a chance. :)

Renata (of course that could be a big if .. paper cut-outs everywhere ... )

I don't think that the difference in bonuses between Conquest and Open in GOTM20 is as big as... oh, the talent gap between me and the Top Ten. Neither game had any barbs. The pre-BW defenders keep from making gunshy mistakes, but it wouldn't help any experienced player get off to a better start. The galleass isn't going to be much of a factor. So we're talking about an extra settler, worker, 30 shields, and 25 extra gold. These make a difference, but not as much as experience and talent. The top players would soon have a settler factory going, followed by canny tech trading, and would wipe out that early lead. If a Conquest player builds a GW in the QSC, that player has my admiration.

The extra AI settler is what makes Diety, Diety. Edit yourself a 1 settler Diety AI game and you'll win almost as often as on Emp. The other bonuses are roughly just a notch up the scale with every other level. That double your city start off the bat is the real killer.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif
[ptw]v1.14f


{I'm sorry for not being here but I too have to sleep sometime - the intents of this spoiler thread IS NOT TO Discuss events that occur off the starting continent.

The difference between saying that you sent an earluy galley out exploring versus going overboard and discussing all the thingst hat that galley did and caused in your game clearly goes beyond the intent of this discussion thread. You had 700 thingst hat you could choose to talk about on the starting continent to fill this space.

Let us have no more discussion of Galleys outside of coastal waters in this thread at all. - cracker

Open Civ 1.29
Hi! I will try to complete my first GOTM (I didn't complete GOTM18).

At first I send Worker to the hill.
Settled Madrid to the East from the start point.

At 1000BC I had:

Ottomans: 792
Keltoi: 589
France: 553
Zululand: 538
England: 505
India: 501
Spain: 443

1 City + 12 Towns + 3 Settlers
8 Temples
1 Granary
The Great Library
All Ancient tech w/o Polytheism, Monarchy and Republic

Met 6 civs on the same continent + all maps + all embassies.
406g + 24gpt (7.0.3)

First GOTM -
PTW-open. Quite an eye opener for me.

Cracker - Thanks for all the work put into this. It is really fun to get a comparison (except for the part where I realize I am nowhere near top 100 on this board:D )

Will not waste your time with my moves as they were mundane and weak at best.

Just wanted to get off the sidelines and join the conversation.

R6

I have just been trying out Davidesjs RCP model. The screen shot below is from a standard sized map on regent level.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/RCP.jpg
Notice that there are nine towns. The capital and 8 towns that constitute the 3.5 distance sphere. The really sweet thing about this is the corruption figure. Nine towns and only losing one gold to corruption! Yeah Baby!

Sniff sniff:( Your right Qitai, I couldn't trade my way out of a paper bag. . . It's like I'm at the lunch table with Shaka and Gandhi, and I can't even get them to trade me their doggie-doo sandwiches for my Hostess cupcakes! For some reason, even if I am well liked(I've had polite and even gracious reactions at times), I can't make trades similar to the ones I read about here. I offered someone 300g + 20 gpt for a tech and was insulting! I'm gonna have to read up on the "How to Make Friends and Win Over Great Rulers of History" thread.

Well, back to the Palace!:goodjob:

---Open Class---
Well, here's how things went for the so-so Spanish empire. I was pleasantly surprised with the local bonus resources and land in general. I founded on the starting spot and was able to create a settler factory in both Madrid and Barcelona by sharing the cattle resource to the NE and with the wheat in Madrid, I never even build a granary. It took a while to get going, mostly because of the disease which struck down 3 of my citizens very early on, a major dissapointment. However, after getting over the hump and keeping close with tech via 2 exploring warriors and gpt to everyone, the settlers started popping out. I had around a dozen cities at the end of the qsc and was expanding nicely.
The major mistake I made, as I alluded to earlier was not paying the tribute to the Zulu, who are monstrous in my game over doubling the next Civ in power, score and land area. They declared war on me which didn't really bother me because of their distance. I fought them off as they made the long trek, but they got everyone else mad at me which was the mistake. I should have made military alliances with France and the Celts sooner. As it was, I waged war most of the later B.C. era with England and the Celts. I stopped just short of Entremont, another mistake, before making peace with the Celts. Entremont has the Pyramids and I really should have taken it but was stretching thin.
Some general observations and questions.
1)I agree that not having the wheel was a big disadvantage. It is interesting to see the tech trading progressions of other players in the Conquest class. I was only able to research one tech on my own which I parlayed into several other via trade.
2)I am learning that while I have improved greatly at warfare and expansion, my diplomatic and scientific skills need work. I was not able to make the alliances I needed and the trades to get ahead at this point in the game like the others and, once again, the whole world is mad at me, despite the fact that all wars were declared against me.
3)I really would have like to try Moonsinger's tech trading save, but for some reason my 1.29 civ isn't running properly. I cannot run it on PTW so until I can rectify it, I won't be able to learn some of her Hawkeye tricks!

Avast! ptw 1.41 open. I settled the starting position, was happy with it. At 1000 bc, I possess 12 towns, 5 workers, 12 warriors, 5 spearmen, 6 chariots, and 1 galley. 3 more settlers in 3 turns. 531g and +41gpt. Republic in 20. I've never actually played a PTW game all the way through on Deity, but my feeling is that Warriors have a bright future with their extra upgrade possibilities. After my experiences in the last GOTM, I'm making sure to have plenty of military. Not a lot of temples except to the south against France, 1st granary in 5... 60 shields, that's 6 warriors, an entire battalion once they're upgraded. France has the Pyramids, so I'm putting my granary energy into taking them out. They'd do the same to me. For example, the Ottomans were eliminated altogether around 1500 bc by the Zulu. It seems like Osman was a major player in others' games. Interesting. Zulu is the superpower of my game.
Nice highlight at 1500 bc- I was the 1st to reach Philosophy, traded it to the other sophists for around 300g, 6 techs and a world map. You can view all the details in my QSC timeline.
Hats off to Qtai's early FP. I thought I was doing well with a handbuilt FP scheduled for around 500 AD, but I see it can be done so much sooner. But I bet I had more warriors...
Looking at my poor records, I'm not sure when I crossed this spoiler's limits. Let's just say I was at tech parity when I hit the middle ages- No One had any MA techs. I seem to be doing very well for Deity, however, the Zulus are truly monstrous, we'll see how it turns out by the next thread.

I reading this post, I see only one Culture Flip, but specific to PTW. Once again, I suspect a problem.

I want to know if anyone playing PTW 1.14 Open has seen a Culture Flip.

I have not, and I have AI Civs sprinkled throughout Spain.

If this has been inadventently turned off, its effect on play is enourmous. I did not attack AI cities adjacent to my capital, preferring to build culture and wait for them to join me peacefully.

Thanks,

Greg

PS. GREAT LIBRARY is the greatest!!! Research on 0% from Literature to Education allows cash to upgrade all warriors and spearman to Mideaval Infantry and Pikemen! Plus cash to rush buildings.

Open Civ v1.29f. My first GOTM.

I'd never tried Diety before this GOTM was announced. Played a few practice games and read the discussion thread religiously. Basically my strategy for this game is to survive and maybe learn something. Moonsinger's posts have convinced me to use the 40-turn research and use my hoarded money to trade for techs. This seemed to work in my practice games and trading sessions are fun.

It seems the most popular starting move in the pre-game discussion was moving the worker to the hill. I was convinced, so I began this game by sending my underlings to the high ground to scout. An excited messenger delivered this message, "Come on up guys. The view is incredible!"

Jackpot!!! 2 Cattle, a floodplain wheat and a bonus river grassland. Sweet fancy Moses. :)

Summary of events:

3950bc: Madrid founded
3300bc: Contact France
3200bc: Contact England
Trade for Warrior Code, Pottery, Masonry and Bronze Working
2750bc: Barcelona founded
2630bc: Contact Indians
2510bc: Contact Kelts
2350bc: Contact Ottomans
2230bc: Contact Zulu
2110bc: Research Writing, Trade for Mathematics, Mysticism, Horseback Riding, Iron Working
2030bc: Seville founded
1790bc: Toledo founded
1600bc: Santiago founded
1500bc: Trade for Code of Laws, Philosophy, Map Making
1400bc: Murcia founded
1325bc: Valencia founded
1125bc: Ciudad de la Luna founded

QSC results:
8 cities, 2 granaries, 4 temples, 1 barracks
8 Warriors
1 Spearman
4 Horsemen
3 Galley, 2 lost
1 Settler
7 Workers

World Rankings at 1000bc:
France 567
Ottomans 554
India 535
Keltoi 478
England 459
Spain 329 <-- I'm not in last!!! (technically)
Zululand 325

I set up Madrid, and later Toledo for Settlers and Workers
Barcelona has been my military center and is building an army to make France tremble as we speak! Or so we hope.
I have yet to be first to any tech but I've still been able to keep up by spending my hard earned money.

My next turn after 1000bc I discovered Currency and trade around to get Polytheism, Construction, Literature and the World Map. Spain enters the Middle Ages and is now researching nothing, building cash to buy the Republic as soon as possible.

My game seems to fall in the Ottoman camp vs a Zulu game. I wonder if the variance between the civs in different games falls to who settles the good city spots between them. In my game the Zulus have only 3 good city spots while the Ottomans snagged 2 spots close to Zimbabwe. There have been no wars anywhere in my game - so far.

The GOTM certainly has elevated my interest in this game. Lots of fun! :)

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
According to the documentation, the Colossus is Religious and Expansionistic but not Commercial.

Humm, well if you mean the manual it kinda bites... The Civilopedia says all 3 traits, as does the Editor if you open it up. At least in PTW 1.21 anyway.

Originally posted by Greg Loader
...
I want to know if anyone playing PTW 1.14 Open has seen a Culture Flip.
...
At the beginning of the Middle Ages I had an English city flip to me :), while a city of mine flipped to the French :mad:, so I guess everything is ok on that. Cracker did mention after Gotm17 that he fixed a bug regarding culture flips in map setup.
I'm playing PTW 1.14f Euro, btw.

Originally Posted by Sabre
My game seems to fall in the Ottoman camp vs a Zulu game. I wonder if the variance between the civs in different games falls to who settles the good city spots between them. In my game the Zulus have only 3 good city spots while the Ottomans snagged 2 spots close to Zimbabwe. There have been no wars anywhere in my game - so far.

It seems like in most of the PTW games Zululand was the monster civ, while in 1.29 games (including mine) the Ottomans were the dominant civ. I think that the expansionist trait has been improved in PTW so that such civs can get a city from a hut (rather than a settler) as a possible outcome. I don't know if the rules for getting a city from a hut are different than a settler, but perhaps the Zulu ended up with an extra city in the PTW versions. Also, the Zulu are the highest aggression civ, and probably declared war on the neigboring Ottomans in most of the games which would tend to cause one of the two civs to become enlarged at the expense of the other.

My first deity game, and I've survived surprisingly intact thus far. The French are unfortunately the most powerful civ on my continent, but I've just had the happy news that my mil is "average" compared to theirs. Might be time for a belated swordsman advance against their pikemen.

At QSC-end, I had 10 cities, + 2 settlers. Very few contacts, even fewer techs.
The French put Marseilles rather close to Madrid, nabbing the iron [I couldn't see] to the SW. Given there were dyes and horses in its field too it was full steam ahead on a culture gambit to steal the city (culture gambit stepped up when I could see the iron). Gambit paid off in 850BC.

I never closed the chokepoint, but I have managed to get the settlers out faster than the opposition, so encroachment is minimal (1 French on mountainous north-west peninsula, 1 Kelt + 1 English just on the chokepoint.)

50AD, only recently entered the middle ages. Republic. 19 cities (18 built + Marseilles). No wonders, but wondering about taking some off the French. But swordies vs pikes might be tricky. Not to mention expensive -- I've only upgraded 3 of the 20odd warriors I have.

I'd be very lucky to get a win in this games for reasons I can't discuss in this thread though.

whb

Originally posted by Ambiorix

At the beginning of the Middle Ages I had an English city flip to me :), while a city of mine flipped to the French :mad:, so I guess everything is ok on that. Cracker did mention after Gotm17 that he fixed a bug regarding culture flips in map setup.
I'm playing PTW 1.14f Euro, btw.

Ambiorix,

Are you playing the open version? If so, then I agree, everything is O.K.. If not, my question still stands.

Cracker did learn from GOTM17 that he must check each game to ascertain whether or not a CIV BUG had turned off CF, but this bug has not been fixed. Now that Cracker has three times as many games to check, it seems possible that one might have slipped by.

Greg
PTW 1.14 Open

(Open class, PTW 1.21)

A farmers' gambit on deity! :eek: Well, sorta. :)

As I stated above, I moved my worker to the hill and was very happy to see the cows, but decided to settle on the spot, as there were no additional bonus grasslands to be had by moving. I went for a 40-turn gambit on writing.

The highlights:

4000 BC. Madrid founded, start 40 turns on writing.
3150 BC. Meet French warrior (finally!) in jungle, trade wheel, CB and some cash for archers and spearmen. (You see, at this point, I was still expecting to see barbarians turn up any second!)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GOTM20hijoan.jpg
France didn't have pottery at this point, but I *probably* wouldn't have wanted to build a granary quite yet, anyway, since I still had no idea just how much room to expand I was going to have.
3000 BC: Barcelona founded southeast of Madrid on the river next to the other flood-plain wheat.
2230 BC: Seville founded east of the lake north of Madrid, in range to use the plains cow alternately with Madrid.
2150 BC: English contacted and writing learned.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GOTM20hiliz.jpg
Writing was just one turn turn shy of being a monopoly tech for me, apparently --- it looked like either the Zulus or India had learned it, then traded it to the other and to France for contact with me. The remaining three civs did not have writing, however, and I was able to get all contacts, five techs and a worker for just 39g outlay.
1950 BC. Toledo founded on the more southern of the two incense near Madrid. This town would pick up iron once its borders expanded, although there would be some overlap with a French jungle town. Madrid started on a granary at this point, as it was becoming amply clear that there was a *ton* of space to fill up.
1870 BC. Santiago founded.
1650 BC. Madrid's granary finishes, and a very nice trading opportunity opens up, with France holding a monopoly on map-making and three other civs having philosophy and math. I wind up with an outlay of 165 gold (all to France) for the three techs and complete continental map.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GOTM20aftermaps.jpg
Since I still had at least map-making up over four civs, I took the opportunity to try to cut the Zulu down to size (they were about twice as big as anyone else at this point). I made embassies and bribed three civs into joining my 'war' against Zululand with tech. (The Ottomans were already fighting them, and I had nothing with which to bribe France.) I *think* this wound up being a good thing. The Zulus lost some of their early lead, although they only seemed to have lost one city, and I also suspect that having the Celts and English busy building units kept their settlers out of 'my' territory for longer. Might have slowed tech also, although that's hard to be sure of. I did have to pay Polytheism to the Zulu for peace once the alliances ran out.
1600 BC. Seville starts granary, for a late second settler-pump.
1375 BC. Murcia founded in desert east of Madrid. Valencia founded far north in the middle of the furs (hated sending a fairly early settler that far away, but was not about to lose that city site!)
1325 BC. Seville finishes its granary.
1275 BC. Ciudad de la Luna founded near iron/ivory on inland-sea coast. (I'd almost not sent this settler at all, again because it was so far away; I finally decided to because I wanted the second iron as potential trade goods/insurance in case the first was taken away from me by French culture. I hadn't even seen the ivory until the settler was almost there - that had been one of the few tiles my exploring warriors hadn't uncovered!) Also this turn, traded for polytheism and code of laws. Forgot to set 40-turn reseach on republic unti the following turn, though.
1225 BC: Pamplona and Zaragoza founded.
1200 BC: Aldea del Ribannah founded.
1100 BC: Casa del Bamrapido founded.
1025 BC: Vitoria founded.

I had enough cash to buy currency and construction at the end of the QSC, but held off since there was no good brokering opportunity available yet. Nor did I move my luxury slider. :p

QSC Summary:

13 cities (23 population)
3 settlers (2 ready to found in 975 and 950 BC)
10 workers
3 slave workers
12 warriors
2 archers
(one squid-eaten galley)
2 granaries
1 temple

Rather a farmers' gambit, really -- most of my settlers went out unescorted once I determined there were no barbs. I had 287 gold and was making 27 gpt. I expect to be more-or-less middle-of-the-pack with this, but I'm fairly pleased. I made a lot of stupid smallish errors (like trading philosophy to the English for their world map instead of horseback-riding when I was about to send philosophy to the French for some of their actual cash), but nothing critical. And I had a blast playing, which is always good. :)

Post-QSC stuff:

975 BC: Dogpile on England begins without any help from me. Santander founded.

950 BC: Asturias founded.

825 BC: England finally gets construction, and I'm able to trade myself into the middle ages.

750 BC: Jaen and Logrono founded up on the north coast.

670 BC: Valladolid founded north of Ciudad de la Luna after playing tag with a pair of French settler pairs for half a dozen turns to keep them away.

~600 BC: Silliest move I've made so far in the game gets me a middle ages tech and therefore out of this thread. The Ottomans were at war with England, along with just about everyone else, and were moving four horses through my territory on the way there. Along about this time I took a look at my territory compared to nearly everyone else's and realized woohoo I had more! So I signed several ROPs for a total of about 100gp, including one with the Ottomans. The next turn, those four Ottoman horses abruptly shifted direction, heading straight for warrior-defended Madrid. I panicked, and bought a tech off them for a fair amount of gpt on the theory of 'at least I'll get a free tech before I die', only to realize immediately after doing so that of course they had changed direction to *use the roads*. :lol: That should've been a sign that it was way past time for me to go to bed!, but of course I played on several more turns. At least I got lit out of the deal on a trade. :)

I'm doing well. Only the Zulu are now ahead of me on a score-per-turn scale, and them not by much, and I have more cities than anyone, temporarily at least (the Zulu have started to seriously dent India's defense). I expect to win this game, provided I don't get disastrously attacked in the fairly near future. :)

Renata

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f

Playing the open class. I have had several cities flip back after capture. I think it's okay.

At one point the Celts moved a leader into a city on my border and I investigated a few turns later. Sure enough they had used him to build their forbidden palace there.

I quickly responded by building some temples and a library (the only library I built) nearby to counter their culture until I was ready to attack. Sure enough their borders expanded on mine. Later when my library culture kicked in, I got the ingame message telling me that my culture had expanded, and the borders expanded, but lo and behold they immediately bounced back.

So I think everything is working fine. I had some AI towns and cities that would have flipped to me normally, but given the fact that I didn't build libraries and the souped up culture production of the AI overall I can understand how it all worked out.

[ptw]1.21f-open

Well, my first action was to send the settler up the hill. :)
I built 3 warriors - 2 explorers, one MP then prebuilt a barracks for granary. Even with the warriors I almost tripped up and got a barracks by mistake - had to use "the big picture" to reassign Madrid to a granary after getting Pottery.

My tech trading has been mediocre - I got 3 first tier techs and mysticism by leveraging the backwards Indians in 1675BC, and four second tier techs after the AIs discovered Map Making in about 1500BC. I then messed up, going for Polytheism at min rather than Literature. I ended up buying it, and Code of Laws, in 1000BC anyway. I slid into the middle ages in 690 BC.

The Zulu were the 600lb gorilla in my game - built the Pyramids in about 2000BC! The French are really weak - I bought workers from them at a critical stage, I think, and they may have suffered barbs too. I have seen NO barbs other than one squid, which killed my one and only galley.

The English sent about 10 warriors to 'visit' us in the 1100s - but they lost their nerve. (They regained it later, though!)

Only Madrid built settlers, except one sole settler. 15 cities at 1000BC. I was paranoid about barbs, since I would be unable to predict an uprising. Hence the spread out 'zone defence' warriors.
at the QSCpoint:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/madscot1000BCmap.jpg
and on entering the Middle Ages:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/madscot690BCmap.jpg

edited since it was not clear that I was allowed in this thread

Speaking of culture flip, I have been waiting for more than 40 turns for this Celtic town to flip, but it never did.:cry:

@Greg Loader : I'm in the Open class, yep.

Originally posted by Ambiorix
@Greg Loader : I'm in the Open class, yep.

Ambiorix,

Well, so be it. Thanks for responding.

Human nature to blame things other than oneself when things aren't going right.

Greg

Open PTW 1.14

[ptw] v1.21 Open

Ha, I made it to the first spoiler. I'm doing well enough sofar, though not as well as some of you here. Let me start by posting the world map at 1000BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ASpOdd_GOTM20_map_1000BC.JPG

In 1000BC Spain had:
11 cities, 25 pop
1 settler, 5 workers and 3 slaves
16 reg warriors, 2 vet spears and 1 vet horseman
1 galley under construction
Map of our continent
Lack only 6 sciences of the ancient era, near tech par, poly in 26 turns
On our territory: 3 sources of iron, 1 horses, 4 different luxes
Income 287 gold and 3gpt (still paying France 15gpt for 9 turns)

In my game the Zulu's are huge too, inbalancing the civ development. This ofcourse gives us good trading possibilities. I'm trying to keep the balance between the civs as long as possible. If the other leave us alone long enough France will be a good target, they are weakened by the Zulu's but did manage to build the Pyramids... :groucho:

For me as a novice Deity player it's amazing how the tech situation oscillates. The one turn you're three or more techs behind the leader, the next at complete tech parity... I still can't actually *make* money out of those deals, but being able to keep up in itself is hopeful.

And finally the current civ stats to show you guys just how strong the Zulu are:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/ASpOdd_GOTM20_histo.JPG

Space <-- amazed about what a difference a good starting position can make at any level

My city layout as of 1000BC.
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.21f
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/LAK-320.jpg

Well this is my second game of the month... pretty much the first time I have ever seriously attempted a diety level game so I am playing conquest class.

This was definitely my best quick start ever... I am sorry now that I didnt keep a timeline. I moved my three treasure chests to the ne, S, and w to see what I could see. Decided to found madrid on the hill to the ne. Produced a warrior in madrid then I rushed a barracks in madrid with two of the treasure chests. This was my only real regret so far since it became clear to me that once madrid reached size 4 what a great settler factory it was. This is the first game I have ever purposely built a settler factory so I was very excited about that. Madrid then was able to pump out settlers every 4 or 5 turns.

I founded my second city barcelona on the coast to the west of the starting location and used the treasure chest to rush a temple there. Then started building warriors after about three warriors built a barracks and just kept building warriors. Used one of the workers to build mines on the insence and on the hills to the nw of barcelona so that I could get decent production out of it. the early temple made me the early culture leader for about 1000 years... by 3000 or 2500 bc some other civs overtook me

By 1000bc I had 9 cities and my continent was pretty thouroughly explored. not too much trouble with barbs... found one empty hut.

Another mistake I have made is not pugging the gap to the east to stop the kelts and english from settling near me. It is especially bad now since the english have such high culture and one of my border towns has flipped to them. (that has to be the most infuriating/frustrating aspect of civ III)

Had good luck with my suicide galleys (and wisely built some galleys but didnt send them out until the AI civs brought down the squid population a bit) Traded contact with the civs on the other continent for all remaining ancient civs plus a few middle ages civs.
Entered the middle ages about 0 AD. The ottomans are pretty even with the zulus in my game. The ottomans have definitely built the most wonders. So I decided they had to be taken out first since they seemed much more aggressive than the zulus. They demanded something from me... I said no... they declared war. I bought assistance from the french and the indians. I have captured three of the ottomans cities now but my armies are running out of steam due to losses and having to keep so many units in the towns to quell resisters. Fortunately I have a buffer between the ottomans and my empire in the french and they will hopefully keep the ottomans off of my back while I regroup.

my major worry now is.. how to finish the war with the ottomans while planing some kind of action against the french, english, and kelts. (those three neighbors seem the easiest to eliminate quickly yet I hate to go to war with them since they are polite to me... but at the same time if I dont go to war with at least England all of my border cities wil eventually flip to her) Also trying not still lose the tech/space race to the zulus or someone else. The end game should be interesting.

Great game so far... Hats off to the GOTM staff. I am still perplexed by the names of the spanish regions on the map. Lamancha, catalonia, andulusia... Does that have any real significance?

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

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.14f

Well I had good luck and bad luck in the ancient age. The bad luck is that for some reason tech progress has been unusually slow. In 1000BC I was sitting on a stockpile of 2000+g earning 50gpt, but with nothing to shop for :rolleyes:. I didn't think I'd ever complain about the slow tech pace in a diety game! Eventually entered middle ages in 775BC when Currency, Monarchy and Republic became available. Slow tech may have been influenced by me not researching anything after Pottery, but then I can't imagine many players are researching their own techs.

Before this game I had never set up a 4 turn settler factory. In this game I ended up with 2: Madrid on the hill using the wheat and Barcelona 2 squares NE using the cows, with the odd bit of civilian swapping, both cities building their settler on hitting size 6.

The dual settler factories allowed me to expand to 19 towns by 1000BC, with fairly close city placement. I secured the 4 luxuries that were within reach, but didn't block the northern chockpoints until just after a Celtic settler snuck through.

Zulu are the leading nation in my game {on the starting continent} although at 775BC we have pretty much caught up. They more than doubled in relative power around the 5th turn, which suggests they may have started with 4-5 settlers. They attacked the Ottomans fairly early, reducing them to about 5 towns.

The only threat I have received so far was from the Zulu in 900BC demanding contact with the new world. I bravely (foolishly) stood up to them and remarkably they backed down! :lol: I don't think I've seen a diety civ back down before!

I also didn't see any disease in my game. I'm wondering if this was due to a lot of civilian shuffling, an adjusted game setting or just good fortune.

I think the fantastic starting position and diety tech pace will see some very high QSC scores this month, even with many of the top players taking the Predator challenge.

Thanks to Cracker and the GOTM team for another great game :goodjob:

Snaga, I adusted your post slightly to make sure that we stay within the guidlines of this spoiler thread wich is clearly inetnede to be limited to the ancient age and your starting continent only. - cracker

-Conquest Class-

hmm, seems like Zulu is a big force in most people's game. My zulu were killed like 20 turns into the game...
the Ottoman rules all of the south and even ran through France to attack me.

- Conquest Class -

The Ottoman have been the first to be destroyed in my games... by the Zulu!!

Originally posted by Snaga
Well I had good luck and bad luck in the ancient age.

Thanks to Cracker and the GOTM team for another great game :goodjob:

If you appreciate what cracker is doing, then can't you PLEASE follow his requests and not post new world spoilers in this thread!!!

When you say whether or not your suicide galleys reached a destination, and how many you sent, and give copious hints about what you found, you take away from the game for everyone else reading it, who may not have sent out galleys yet. Those spoilers really affect other games.

You are far from the only one. I don't understand why everyone feels compelled to disregard his requests on this topic. If this keeps up, I feel like I'm going to have to stop reading the spoiler threads in future GOTMs, which takes away from the experience for everyone.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif -

Joan of Arc hath given of herself so that Spain may live.

After a quick start I was momentarily panicked when the Ottomans (leaders in my game) declared war on me, followed by the Indians, Celts, and English. I was able to persuade France to join me against the Ottomans, leaving me relatively free to steal a few northern cities from the Celts and English, consolidating all the land west of the checkpoint. Against the Ottomans I laughed as I realized that although backed by a large empire and deity level production, the AI is still just as incapable of coordinating an attack. I took several previously French cities in the jungle.

Eventually peace was renewed. The bottom half of the French empire was in Ottoman hands, the eastern border in mine. The French finished the Great Library in one of their three remaining cities ? and I had that big army down there to guard against the Ottomans that would have just gone to waste...

A few turns later the last French citizens joined the Spanish banner, the Great Library brought me tech parity, and I had a Great Leader out of the deal.

It is now fairly late in my game, since I was slow to explore the continent to its fullest extent. I jumped into a war with the Ottomans again when the Indians went to war with them and dragged the English and Celts in also. I lined up the Zulus on my side and for one glorious turn the entire civilized world was united against the Ottomans in an attempt to break their spirit before they reach Sipahi- then the Indians made peace and now the war is stalemated for me and I shall probably ask for peace in short order.

This is my first GOTM, my first time playing at Deity (tempted by the conquest class option), and my first time using mod-pack.

Can anyone tell me if the AI put the fearsome Sipahi to good use? Does the AI change it's tech priorities to reach these killers? Do they realize how powerful and effective they are when they do get them?

Originally posted by puffyn
...
Can anyone tell me if the AI put the fearsome Sipahi to good use? Does the AI change it's tech priorities to reach these killers? Do they realize how powerful and effective they are when they do get them?
We will all, no doubt, find out in the NEXT spoiler thread. ;)

Originally posted by DaviddesJ


If you appreciate what cracker is doing, then can't you PLEASE follow his requests and not post new world spoilers in this thread!!!


Yes on reflection my post contained a little too much detail :(. My apologies Daviddesj. I posted after reading similar references in earlier posts but I accept this is no excuse. It looks like Cracker has removed the offending material.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/mac.jpg

I've never played a full Deity game, and never entered GOTM, but I was bouyed up by the silent shadow game I played on GOTM 19, and I figured I had picked up so much good advice around here that it was worth a try this month. However, I was timid enough to go for Conquest class.

After several different practice Deity starts I knew the pattern. The barbs would kill my exploring warriors, the AI would suffocate my careful attempts to build settlers and develop the terrain, and I would find I had zero bargaining power at some point in the tech race and throw in the towel. Or the AI'd just decide I was in their way and dispose of my cute little civilization.

So I opened the Conquest start file and moved a couple of treasure chests and that's where the culture shock began. Cattle! Wheat! Incense! The fog-gurus were right, and this might not be an early massacre! I decided to move before settling, and research Writing and Literature at minimum, aiming for the Great Library shortly after 1000 BC. And so far the game has been kind to me.

My timeline is here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/GOTM_20_timeline.txt). Like many who founded Madrid on the hill I qualified for this thread at 975 BC instead of 1000 BC. But hey, this is my first QSC, so I'm just amazed to be able to submit a Deity timeline that doesn't end with "Ferdinand of Spain, R.I.P".

At 1000 BC I had 177 gold, 13 cities and two settlers in transit.
Population was 42. Iron, Horses and Incense were hooked up. Dyes, Furs and ivory are secured and will be on line in a few turns.
Forces were 11 Swordsmen, 4 Warriors, 7 Spanish Workers, 6 guest workers and two Defenders.
There were 7 temples, 5 barracks, 2 granaries and 1 harbour.
My score of 517 was joint second of the known civs.

F11 demographics puts Spain at #1 in all except:

- area (#3 and climbing fast)
- disease (#8 - those flood plains, but no deaths yet)
- life expectancy (#3 - too much of the whip?)
- military service (#11 and last - military build-up comes next)

Highlights are:

The Start
Moved chests and workers to get a good view all round.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/4000-BC.gif

I checked out F10 to see who might be our neighbours. Europe/Middle East/Africa are likely to be grouped, with the Americas and Far East somewhere else, so I figured England and Zulu might be close and trade around Pottery fast enough that I don't need to research it myself. So started Writing at 40-turn rate.

My priorities were:
1. Explore for contacts and good territory.
2. Grab some good territory early - my Deity training sessions had me conditioned.
3. Defend the territory and treasury - we had 85 gold as starters and were going to get more with all this river country.

I reviewed Cracker's criteria for moving the settler:

1. Is the start on a bonus tile? No.
2. Is the start hostile or isolated? No. wherever we move we are going to be working flood plains, so we'll just have to live/die with the disease.
3. Is it one tile from the coast? Yes.
4. Is there a military advantage to a move? Yes, the hill gives a defense bonus as well as much better resources for a 4-turn settler farm.

So I moved the first settler to the hill. The second went 2 tiles west to found Barcelona as a coastal city. [That was not the cleverest thing to do, as we don't need sea access for quite a while yet so this city has half a city perimeter. Ho hum! :smoke:]

I used two chests to build warriors in Madrid to get out and explore asap. The third went to Barcelona to accelarate a barracks as its first build. I needed more explorers and military, and I didn't want to build a lot of regulars!

Madrid built a Defender after the two warriors, and Barcelona built one a thousand years later. That was all I built before I felt a pressing need to find iron, and traded for Bronze and then Iron Working. I'm not sure the Defenders did anything useful given the lack of barbs and the distant AI starts, but maybe they helped to fend off tribute demands, as I have received none so far.

Trading

Moonsinger's trading exercises gave me much more confidence to keep the tech race under control. Before I would have panicked and shifted the science slider and messed up, but now I was able to stay cool and spot the good times to go for a trade.

Key trading moments ...

2630 BC I met Keltoi in the south and England in the north east, in the same turn. I was worried about finding iron and wanted to find out how far behind in the tech race I was, and I had cash, so I bought Bronze and Warrior Code from France for 163 gold. That concluded my brief production run of two Defenders. But it reassured me that they didn't have HBR or IW yet. I bought Iron Working later from France in a one-off gpt deal.

2110 BC I completed Writing and started Literature. Most contacts already had it by this time, but I swapped it for Masonry with Keltoi. I bought HBR from India for gpt and swapped it for Mysticism and cash with England.

1625 BC saw the big Map Making round. India had researched it earlier, but was asking telephone numbers for it. Now several civs had it. I bought it from my bargain basement tech dealer, France for a gpt deal to maintain cash liquidity.
After a complex sequence of furious alternating map swaps and tech deals I finished that turn with a full map of the continent and all the known techs and 114 extra gold, roughly balanced by 8gpt to France. I was ahead of three civs and at par with the other three.

1200 BC saw a new twist for me. Keltoi and France signed an Alliance against Zululand and I thought this might present an opportunity.

Zululand was the most powerful military civ on the continent at the time, but is as far away from me as is possible. I had no outstanding 20-turn deals with them to mess up my rep, and I discovered that France would bribe me to ally with her - she had previously built an embassy in Madrid - so I took Currency for my trouble. I then bought an embassy in Entremont, and Brennus gave me a 30 gold net profit to join the same alliance. I figured I could sit out the 20 turns. I had a warrior stranded down south that I could ask to make the supreme sacrifice and futile gesture of attacking a Zulu city, just so I could say I tried.

Six turns later, in 1000 BC, I belatedly remembered that I had seen wounded Ottoman soldiers near Zululand while exploring. I checked F4 and confirmed Ottoman were also at war with Shaka. They also had kindly invested in a Madrid embassy previously, so I pledged a few coins and my undying allegience to their cause (well, for 20 turns) for Construction.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1000-BC-alliances.gif

I just hope this phony war doesn't back-fire on me! Shaka's now prepared to pay for peace, but I don't want it at least until I've made a token attack to preserve my rep.

In 975 BC I discovered Literature. That got me Polytheism and cash and I qualified for this thread.

At various times I also spotted workers for sale, and I added 6 to my multinational workforce for around 27 gold each.

City Planning
Five inner cities are placed in a three tile diameter ring around Madrid, and then they are driven by resources and bonuses and the need to drive towards the competing AIs - France to the south, England and Keltoi to the north east.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/925-BC.gif

I only found the north east land bridges relatively late, and England and Keltoi have managed to build three cities on *my* space. At present I am applying a cultural squeeze to these with whipped temples in several frontier towns. That was aother trick I've learned here. The cheap temples allow a new city to build for 11 turns, expanding to pop 2, then the second citizen gets sacrificed for 19 shields and we have an 11-turn temple. I think I've done it half a dozen times now to get cultural expansion, and it certainly shows in my culture histograph. Beautiful!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1000-BC-culture-histograph.gif

I particularly enjoyed the way my iron town south of Madrid got the name Toledo, as this is the world-famous center of excellence for beautiful traditional Spanish metalwork. But I had to dig out my European road atlas to find new city names after Ciudad de la Luna started repeating. The first couple I invented at 2 am were not really appropriate!

The Other Civs

France seemed to be trying for an OCC at one point, and I began to wonder if everyone else had gone fishing because I couldn't find them. When I did meet them they were all huddled in the inhospitable half of the continent. They are going to get very jealous and want a piece of my prime real estate, I think.

Ottomans look like they started with one or two extra settlers in my game. Zulu were strong for a while, but not as powerful as Suleyman, and the alliance seems to be cutting them down nicely. Ottoman are also fading.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/1000-BC-power-histograph.gif

The Barbarians

I couldn't resist popping the hut on the inland sea shore. It was in jungle and the warrior was my first vet, so I figured he might survive. Two barb warriors appeared and he lost to the second one :( And that's it on land! Not so much sedentary as comatose.

However, I have seen lots of squid at sea, and lost two galleys to them. exploring is going to be a challenge, and no one else seems to have taken to the sea yet to help kill them off.

Conquest Class Bonuses

The extra units reduced the AI's edge at the start. I don't know whether my two Defenders made any difference to AI attitude. They saw no action in the first 80 turns an will probably just sit there like sleepy pikemen for whatever is left of the game. If I'd known then what I know now about the level of difficulty of this set-up, I'd have played with the bigger boys in the Open class. can't go back now, though ...

Sorry for this long post, but this has been real fun, and I enjoyed writing it up. TImeline and file will be in the mail Real Soon Now (TM).

Thanks Cracker. A great way to spend a ton of time :goodjob:

[edited to fix an incorrect link]

4000/ Found Madrid on starting spot and build 3 warriors a worker then a granary.
3300/ Meet Cautious Liz. No trades.
3000/ Meet Polite Joan. No trades
2950/ Meet Polite Brennus. Trade BW + Pot + 50g for wheel. Trade Joans Masonry for wheel + pottery + 2gpt + 73g (ouch). Trade English WC for whhel + 10g. Pop hut near chokepoint for Mysticism. English and celtish warriors on adjacent squares so risk was reasonable.
2710/ Meet annoyed Ottomans. No trades. Trade Mysticism to Joan for 142g. Trade Mysticism to England for 155g.
2630/ Found Barcelona.
2510/ Trade Celtish Iron Working for Masonry + 3gpt + 21g. Meet polite Gandhi.
2310/ Meet polite Zulu. Trade Ottoman worker + 1g for Iron Working.
2150/ Discover writing. Trade to celts for HBriding +33g. Research Lit.
2070/ Found Seville.
1950/ Give Indians contact with English for 10g.
1870/ Found Toledo
1675/ Found Satiago
1625/ Trade French MM for WM + 498g + 6gpt. Tade MM to India for Philosophy +30g. Trade Celts maths +WM for my MM + WM. Trade Zulu Philosophy + 339g for MM +WM. Trade my Poly + Phil + Math to Joan for 495g. Trade WM to Ottomans for WM + 1g. Trade WM to Celts for 46g. Trade WM to Gandhi for his WM +65g. Trade WM to England for WM +10g. Trade WM to Zulu for 20g. I now have 766g + 7gpt.
1550/ Found Murcia. Found Valencia.
1400/ Found Ciudad de la Luna.
1350/ Found Zaragoza.
1325/ Found Pamplona.
1300/ Found Aldea de Ribbanah.
1200/ Ottomans demand tribute of Territory map + 65g. I pay.
1150/ Found Casa del Bamrapido, though I doubt he will ever see it himself.
1125/ Found Vitoria.
1100/ Suicide galley is lost.
1025/ Found Santender.
1000/ Found Asturias. Discover Literature. Trade Code of Laws + 8g from England for Polytheism. Trade Joans currency for Lit + WM + 155g. Trade Zulu construction for Lit. + WM + 378g. Ottomans discover free tech. Research a different middle age tech on 40 turn gambit. Buy territory map from Zulu for 55g. Establish Embassies with France, India and the Celts.

Will post a couple of shots in a mo'

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/mbs1.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/mbs3.jpg

Getting mysticism from a hut allowed me to put a fig leaf over my trading incompetence. However at the end of the QSC period I have:
15 cities, 2 temples, 2 granaries, 2 barracks, no military. I have tech parity or lead all other known civs except the ottomans who have their free middle age tech, and only lack monarchy and republic from anceint ages.

I think the map maker has made every conceivable affort to make this game winnable. The start location, the tile values of our territory, the surrounding civs being naturally polite, starting with 6 civs on our continent should mean we are technologically advanced by the time we cross the pond, and finally the distribution of resources. It will be difficult to find an excuse to lose this game, but I'm working on it ;)

Have anyone noticed the abnormal city name?;) After I ran out of city name, the Ciudad de la Luna keeps continuing to pop up over and over again. What is going on here?

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Speaking of culture flip, I have been waiting for more than 40 turns for this Celtic town to flip, but it never did.:cry:

In the same situation the French town flip to me after 10-15 turns of cultural pressure.:) But Celtic town didn't flip after 50.:mad: Both of this towns have zero culture.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Have anyone noticed the abnormal city name?;) After I ran out of city name, the Ciudad de la Luna keeps continuing to pop up over and over again. What is going on here?

I have the same bug.:mad: I play Civ 1.29 Open Class.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Have anyone noticed the abnormal city name?;) After I ran out of city name, the Ciudad de la Luna keeps continuing to pop up over and over again. What is going on here?

Ciudad de la Luna is such a good city name though! :D

I haven't this problem no doubt because I haven't built enough towns. Was Ciudad de la Luna the last on your list?

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Have anyone noticed the abnormal city name?;) After I ran out of city name, the Ciudad de la Luna keeps continuing to pop up over and over again. What is going on here?

Same problem also, my nation became a combination of Spain and South Carolina :)

Obviously the Ottomans didn't like that as they soon put me to rest.

Originally posted by southpawsc


Same problem also, my nation became a combination of Spain and South Carolina :)

Obviously the Ottomans didn't like that as they soon put me to rest.

:cry:

You might pick a state that won a war next time.

The city-name bottleneck led me to use my list of Basque cities from Civ2.

AlanH, that's a great start, and a great presentation. Could you pm or email me to let me know how you get multiple graphics into one post, on a Mac? thanks in advance.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Have anyone noticed the abnormal city name?;) After I ran out of city name, the Ciudad de la Luna keeps continuing to pop up over and over again. What is going on here?

Just translated Ciudad de la Luna via the web... it means "City of the Moon" you should be honoured that it's "your" city that keeps turning up! I suppose this is one of the easter eggs Cracker was talking about...

I have one thing to confess, {my posted summary of my game in an earlier post is a} replay result. :( I understand that it disqualify me from GOTM. Sorry that did not mentioned it the 1st time.

Then how about QSC? I remember QSC call for the best we can do. Can I still take part in the QSC using this replay result? Or may I submit my 1st play's result?

This is my first successful and enjoyable deity game on civ3. The map is really well designed. The hill is an ideal position for settler factory; a lot of fresh waters. Close to ocean, and an ideal position for coastal SSCto share the 2 cattles with capital later. Open land for trying strategy like ring cities. The Spain as religions and commercial, which lower the corruption and easy for build up culture. I just can 't resisit to try out what's the best I can do with this setting. The play based on this sav lead to my 1st deity CIVIII victory ever. It well represent the QSC's spirit of prodict the future result from 1000BC achievements.

Although I'm not qualified for the GOTM, I still like to compare the best I can do with other peoples. Kudos to honest players. For the players as me, who can't resisit reload once or twice, or taking it as a learning process, let's post our result in the last spoiler thread and compare it ourself.

Sekong, I want to welcome you to the GOTM games and encourage you to keep reading and keep trying to do better. Having fun is a big part of the game, but absolutely avoiding reloading is critical to your eventual success in both the enjoyment amd performance areas of the game.

I would suggest that you not submit a game for the QSC or the full GOTM at this point because there are things you need to do to have these submissions be valid and beneficial to you. Avoiding reloading and developing the ability to keep a timeline and compare your decision processes to otehrs may take you another month of reading to get to a really productive level.

We also want to actively discourage you and all other players from posting general reports of games where you have reloaded and replayed events. This has almost no value to you or to the game process and we would rather you wait and strengthen your willpower to become a real participant in the next round.

Just posting summaries of these types of games in teh spoiler thread will attract lightning bolts from the clouds circling mount Olympus. We have enough information in the Qsc results threads and spoiler threads to keep you more than busy until we can get you succesfully through a few group therapy sessions at "Reloader's Anonymous."

I also want to actively discourage you from fully qouting the entire messages of previours posters just to comment on one little line of the post. In particular, requoting your entire previous message and timeline posts should not be something that you should ever do.

You will do better next time if you make the appropriate choices. - cracker

I had same problem as well, now I don't feel that annoyed. Moon city, nice name.

Originally posted by mabellino


Just translated Ciudad de la Luna via the web... it means "City of the Moon" you should be honoured that it's "your" city that keeps turning up! I suppose this is one of the easter eggs Cracker was talking about...

Originally posted by Lux_willow
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif Hey everyone - This is my first post and also my first GOTM:)


Welcome to the forum! I don't know if anyone else replied, as this is a busy thread.

I was suprised to see you mention a barb artillery - is that a catapult?!

Sounds like you're having a decent game all things considered.

I took the advice to avoid wonder-building, and I always build some temples near borders so I didn't have any flips.

I never saw a hut or barbs. I used the chests to rush defenders in the first 2 cities and sent my warriors out exploring. I quickly became clear that it was a land-grab, so Madrid and Barcelona started pumping out settlers. At first I thought that I should leave my E coast free to avoid N-S conflicts, but once the continent took shape I went ahead and grabbed what was good.

Shaka is a force in my game. There has been only 1 war so far - dogpile on the Celts. This was fortunate as they were the main annoyance in my expansion. Brennus thought he could plop down a town on the furs.

I managed to stay almost current in techs using any trade advantage and the cash piling up w/only 10 sci. Keeping reserves low to avoid tributes was tricky. Had to pay tribute 3-4 times.

Originally posted by alamo
I was suprised to see you mention a barb artillery - is that a catapult?!
Actually Alamo, I am sort of surprised that no one else picked up on this comment as well.

The "barb artillery" mentioned in the game is a passive control technique that serves the Civ3 equivalent of a trail of breadcrumbs for the purposes of regulating the opening move sequences of the games.

We need to emphasize that these do nothing to change the outcome of the games, but merely help us to assure that some of the earlier impacts of the internal RNG are more focused and controlled between the different versions (CIv3v1.29, PTW1.14 and PTW 1.21) of the game.

During the testing and debug mode analysis of the games, we can select one of the random possibilities that occur in the opening move sequences of AI civilizations and barbarians and then use the "Bread crumbs" to assure that this move sequence appears in 99% of all the games. Most players will never detect the "bread crumbs" during normal play.

There are a number of other features embedded in the games that support certain security and testing functions that can help us determine if the submitted games are valid for inclusion in the finla scoring and comparison results. Again, we should emphasize that most players (95 to 99 out of 100 players in any game) will never encounter or see these special features in the game. You can just use the knowledge that these features exist and are used to improve the quality and consistency of the different versions of the game.

PTW 1.21 OPEN

Yes, you can get ancient wonders on deity, if you get a start like this (and you limit yourself to 1 city ;) ).

I not only got 1, but 2 ancient wonders!

Sorry I couldn't make this screenshot smaller. Everytime I try to reduce the size in my paint program, the picture looks awful.

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

Temple in 3000 BC
Pyramids in 1575 BC
Great Library in 1025 BC
Library in 900 BC
Colleseum in 750 BC

At 1000 BC I got mathematics, philosophy, code of laws and horseback riding from Great Library.
And at 975 BC I get currency and polytheism.
690 BC I get Monarchy and Republic, and then revolted to republic.
530 BC I get my first middle age techs, putting me beyond the scope of this thread.

1150 BC Ottomans were dead by the Zulu.

I did a 40-turn gambit for writing, but other civs had it when I still had 6 turns left. Just went and finished researching it myself.
Then started 40 turn gambit on Literature, but other civs had it when I still had like 20 turns or so left on it when I get notification England started building Great Library, so I just bought it from them. Price for Literature, was pretty cheap as most, if not all the other AI already had it.

I could have built the Oracle at 1725 instead of the Pyramids, but wanted the Pyramids just to deny the AI from getting it.

At 1650BC I was at size 12, and producing 17 uncorrupted shields/turn (actually 18, but lost 1 to corruption). After getting more plains mined I got up to 23 shields/turn.

Cooooool, with such an amazingly strong start position I was wondering if anyone would try an OCC of some type. I'm looking forward to reading the QSC for this.

Renata <--- reloaded once :eek: but thinks she's entitled considering it was due to accidentally *gifting* Joanie her initial techs! :p

It was an amazingly strong start, but not having horses or iron to trade (and me losing my incense later to French culture) gave me no resources to trade. Trading resources is critical for keeping up in tech pace in an OCC. I could have sold my only incense (or any other resource) for lots of cash/techs, then just buy another luxury for dirt cheap prices.
But I lost my incense to French culture when that French city got some culture in it. :(

Wow. occ on deity! Good luck Bamspeedy!

My Game (PTW-Open class):
Worker to hill NE followed by settler moving. Madrid set to settler pump after building 1 settler.

0 barbs encountered, 0 pop lost to disease, 0 tribute demands by AI, 0 suicide galleys lost, 0 huts found.

Like many I tried for a40 turn tech gambit on writing and poly....and again like many, did not get a monopoly on either. Got 2 techs, some slaves and some gold on writing (did not have monopoly). Got diddly squat out of Poly as all civs had it.

13 cities, 7 workers, 6 slaves, 14 warrior, 1 vet horse, 2 settlers in field, 2 temples, 1 barracks and 1 granary @ 1000 BC. Surprisingly, not dead last in score.

Zulu=powerhouse civ on my continent. Nearly all the AI are at war with each other...and keep going to war on and off. Yet they leave me alone. Ottomans are sure to be destroyed soon.

Middle ages reached just barely after the QSC timeframe in 875BC when an event happens that is beyond this thread. Lets just say I am extremely please with my astounding luck in this game overall.

I am now starting to regret not playing in the predator class, as things have been going smoothly and with relative ease. I don't think I'll have too much of a problem winning at this point. I think I will probably go for domination/conquest just so I can say I won my first deity game in such a manner. =)

ps. after reading renata's post above..I am a bit paranoid. I too had a couple of reloads due to accidental moves. I like the squid, but sometimes it is hard to tell exactly which square they are in..and I sure as heck was miffed when I would send my poor galleys right into one when I thought I was getting around it... I hope this is ok and remains in the spirit of the GOTM.

@Bamspeedy: When you switch to JPG first and then reduce size it'll be better, its just the BMP format that can't handle the reduction right. BTW go go go :).

Bamspeedy,

I tried an OCC in one of the initial test games for the setup and did not think that an OCC victory was feasible on this map. The luxury and early strategic resources are just too spread out to be reachable by any one city location that is in a controllable position next to a river.

The only position where I calculated that this type of victory might be possible was to move several positions to the southeast to center between the wheat, dyes, and incense while still be near to the horses and iron. I don't really know if that would even be feasible?

It would be interesting to see what Charis thought of the options?

What sort of decision process led you to think that an OCC would be even remotely feasible on this map and under the map conditions described in the Scope of the Game?

Oh, I forgot to mention, I did have disease strike at 2670, and 2630 B.C.

I made up for some of this by being able to acquire some slaves, which I joined into the city. Got 2 slaves from the Celts, and 2 slaves from the Ottomans. You can also get +7 food (growth in 3 turns, with no granary when you are at size 6 and below).

Later on (after Pyramids, or granary), when at size 11, you could build a worker every single turn forever (+20 food, without railroads needed - you produce 9 shields, but as the city grows, you pick up 2 shields, netting you enough shields to complete the worker).
Which I think now I should have done and have a worker for sale every single turn to the AI, instead of building wealth. Although they only offered 20 gold for each worker, that is still +20 gold/turn (if the AI has any money).

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
PTW 1.21 OPEN

Yes, you can get ancient wonders on deity, if you get a start like this (and you limit yourself to 1 city ;) ).

I not only got 1, but 2 ancient wonders!

I can't wait to see how you do it. Since I have never dared to try an OCC at Deity level before, it will be a good learning experience to follow your game. Good luck! I don't think you are going to need any luck, but I wish you luck just in case.:)

Originally posted by rabies

ps. after reading renata's post above..I am a bit paranoid. I too had a couple of reloads due to accidental moves. I like the squid, but sometimes it is hard to tell exactly which square they are in..and I sure as heck was miffed when I would send my poor galleys right into one when I thought I was getting around it... I hope this is ok and remains in the spirit of the GOTM.

I'm quite sure it is, after reading several discussions about reload frequency over the last six months or so on this forum. You're not meant to be penalized for true accidents, only for bone-headed things you *meant* to do, if that makes any sense. :) My :eek: was tongue-in-cheek. Hope that helps.

@ Bamspeedy: yeah, the lack of strategic resources might be deadly. :(

Renata

What sort of decision process led you to think that an OCC would be even remotely feasible on this map and under the map conditions described in the Scope of the Game?

Nothing in the Scope of the Game. I didn't decide on an OCC attempt until I moved the worker.

It's just when I saw the production possibilities upon moving onto the hill. And considering I wouldn't drain the city population from building settlers, and start on wonders right away, I would get some of them. And hopefully, I could complete Pyramids or Oracle right away (and an AI civ completing the other wonder) would end the wonder cascade, enabling me to also pick up the Great Library.

It was my first OCC attempt, so didn't realize how critical the resources are. Great Library expired sooner than I thought, giving me less time to build up cash. Tech pace was a little faster than I had figured (from the strong Zulu start, and probably my own fault due to selling techs for not much gold, and introducing the Wheel to the rest of my continent). I only missed the Hanging Gardens by 4 turns, and had the tech pace been slowed down just a little bit more, I could have gotten that wonder, plus another wonder, because the wonder cascades would have ended. Elimination of the Ottomans so early in the game, causes me to pay more for techs.

Most of the maps you make give lots of land, so I felt the AI would spend longer in the expansion phase, giving me more of an edge in production early on since I was starting right away. (Later on, I saw most AI were starting wonders when at size 1-3, while I was at size 12).

I was hoping for 20k culture. If I was hoping for diplo, then I would definitely need luxuries/resources, to stay in the tech pace during the industrial age. With 20k, I was hoping to snag a bunch of early wonders and not need to worry about diplo/space. This would have been possible if I could have stayed in the tech pace through the middle ages, but they blew right past me after the great library expired.

I would not be to paranoid about the individual odd reload that fixes a crash or some sort of goofy opps. May greatest example of an opps was many Gotm games ago in a game when I had just completed the transcontinental railroad directly across a world where was aggressively at war with someone like Persia way at the other end of the world. I had on stack of like 150 workers who had daisy chained/snaked cross the continent and piled all into the one city at the end. A click on the stack just intending to side them all back along the railroad and join into terminating Jerkses but I some how made a mistake that sent my entire workforce diving of the end of the Persia Rail spur and directly into Immortals hell when I had not a defensive unit anywhere to my name.

In general, there are about five or six in game statistics that can be used to monitor game performance and "turns per session"/reload count is only one of those features. The average player is nowhere near having an average turns per session number that is low enough to warrant extra attention. We do find that the average turns per session for some new players in the gOTM may be slightly lower than for experienced players but this number usually goes up in the first two or three montha as each player almost instantly begins to get control of some key game play concepts like trading, targeted research gambits, and selective prebuilds.

Each month we have one or two game submissions that are instantly redflagged and excluded for doing goofy stuff like relaoding 200 or 300 times in a single game, but these examples are rare and it would be hard for any normal human to think that playing Civ3 for an average of 4 to 5 minutes at a time between reloads would be a reasonable measure of what they really think they ought to be doing in the game under any set of circumstances.

We have a very good process of identifying patterns of play that could be close to the edge and then doing the right things to contact and help those players who need just a little guidance or encouragement to avoid the TPS DMZ. ;)

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Most of the maps you make give lots of land, so I felt the AI would spend longer in the expansion phase ...
This is a good assessment based on the ramp up game pattern that we have been in, but I would not become too complacent in the process of attempting to outguess the guessmeister. ;) Just when you think you have figured out the mental pattern the mind could change.


Originally posted by Bamspeedy
... Tech pace was a little faster than I had figured (from the strong Zulu start, and probably my own fault due to selling techs for not much gold, and introducing the Wheel to the rest of my continent).

I was hoping for 20k culture... This would have been possible if I could have stayed in the tech pace through the middle ages, but they blew right past me after the great library expired.
From a purely theoretical standpoint do you think the tech pace in this game was faster or slower than many other Deity level games?

AND what do you think would might have been some things that could have been done to slow down the tech pace both internally to your actual game as well is potentially in the game setup review process so that we can be more sensitive to these issues in the future?

AND what do you think would might have been some things that could have been done to slow down the tech pace both internally to your actual game as well is potentially in the game setup review process so that we can be more sensitive to these issues in the future?

Don't give us the Wheel.

By trading the Wheel, I just helped the AI speed up their tech rate, as they had contact with each other before I would. Because who I give the wheel to, can turn around and trade it away.

You don't need to be sensitive to this issue. An OCC is an extreme variation, and is not meant to be a normal civ game. You shouldn't cater to the extreme variations.

The very strong start of the Zulu sped up tech speed greatly, and since they were so powerful, got greedy and started picking fights, triggering their golden age, propelling them even further. Then they traded these techs to other civs for alliances.

How to slow tech speed down-
If playing a civ that started with masonry, I would have started the Pyramids right away and not had to go make contacts, waiting for them to find me, thus slowing them down. Set science to 0% and just buy writing and then literature from them when they find me.
I shouldn't have traded contacts, or sold techs for small amounts of money, or workers.

I am playing open class

As planned, my worker explored the hill, saw the two nice cows and the wheat, so my setler followed.

Madrid will become a 4 turn settler factory in the future.

Besides the normal development of settler and workers and setting up two cities with barracks for chariots (HR will be my last ancient time tech I am going to acquire) trading is the most interesting part in deity games.

1st round: What can we do with our starting techs (especially the wheel):

3200 BC contact with France, trade wheel + CB + 53g for pottery and masonry
3000 BC contact with Osmann, trade wheel for BW + 4g
2850 BC contact with England, trade masonry for WC + 111g, trade wheel for 109g
2800 BC contact with Celts, no trade
2510 BC contact with India and Zulu, no trades
2350 BC trade with india the wheel and masonry for IW + 12g, trade IW with France for 50g

This was much more than I had expected to get out of the first round.

2nd round: Writing
I immediately started writing at minimum research, but the zulus were beating me by 4 turns for writing, so the writing trading session was not much:

2110 BC trade writing with India for Mysticism + 13g
1950 BC trade with osman 2 workers for writing + communications with the English


3rd round: Map making
France was the first civ to discover mapmaking, i immediately bought it from them:
1650 BC trade mapmaking with France for 475g + 10gpt, trade WM for TM + 40g, trade WM with Osman for TM +38g; trade with celts WM for RM +45, MM for philosophy + WM + 16g; trade with France WM + Philosphy for WM + 85g; with England WM for WM + worker; with Ottomans WM + MM + Philosophy for Mathematics + WM; with Zulu MM + Mathe + WM + 131g for polytheism; with India WM for WM +25g; with France poly + mathe + WM for WM + 363g + 5gpt;
Result: Nice trading round, I am in the tech lead with France and Zulu and about the same money as before


1600 BC trade WM + 210g with France for 2 worker

Other major event:
1550 BC Santiago builds galley1
1475 BC Galley made contact (now who is saying that luck is not a factor)

At that time I had 8 towns. Reached the middle ages after 1000 BC, but since several actions include info about other civs I will include that in my second spoiler part

Observations:

I had no single demand from any civ. It never happened to me before at any deity game.
I had no desease with Flood Plains. Normally I always get some.

So I think that cracker changed somethings in the gameplay.

Ronald

[ptw] Open

Bit late posting this month, and I lost a nice screenshot too (closed Paint accidentially I guess). Here is a trimmed timeline with just some early trading and all my city settling.

I did minimum research because there was no way for me to get more. I started on Writing and India got it about 7 turns before me, and then France got Polytheism about 8 turns before me. In both cases I was able to get some value from it, and with Writing I ended up buying it so my second minimum tech would have a chance to succeed.

I built two granaries and attempted the 4 turn settler factory, which for the longest time wouldn't work out right, I had to eventually delay production a turn which then let me built them constantly at 4 turns. My second city also ended up being a 4-5 turn settler factory. In both cases it took a lot of micromanagment since improvements were a bit lacking.

I only saw two huts in the game and only reached one of them, got extremely lucky there, or not I would rather have got a tech.

No disease but didn't expect much since I only ever used 1 FP in each of my granary cities. I had the governor selection set to shield production which saved me a lot of growth turn FP use, of course this also is what allows the 4 turn settler factory to work.

Didn't get much from the Wheel, but clearly an early trade for Bronze and Pottery can have a large effect.


4000 BC founded Madrid, building warrior
3300 BC met Joan from her exploring warrior
3100 BC traded Joan Wheel for Pottery and 3g
2850 BC founded Barcelona, building warrior
2630 BC warrior finds friendly settler in hut
2550 BC founded Seville, building temple
traded Eliza Wheel for Bronze Working and 7g (all she had)
2510 BC Madrid finished granary, building settler
2470 BC met Osman
traded Osman Alphabet for Warrior Code and 20g
2430 BC met Gandhi, has Writing
7.1.2 Writing (7)
2310 BC traded Gandhi contact with England and 130g for Writing
traded Brennus contact with France and Writing for Masonry and Mysticism
traded Joan contact with England and Writing for contact with Zulus and Iron Working
traded Shaka contact with England for 20g
7.1.2 Polytheism (40)
2270 BC built embassy in Entremont for 32g
built embassy in London for 30g
2150 BC founded Toledo, building worker
2070 BC founded Santiago, building
2030 BC built embassy in Paris for 39g
1870 BC built embassy in Delhi for 46g
1750 BC founded Murcia, building temple
1725 BC * Sogut completed Pyramids
1600 BC founded Valencia, building temple
founded Ciudad de la Luna , building temple
1525 BC built embassy in Zimbabwe for 59g
1475 BC Murcia finished temple, building Forbidden Palace
1375 BC founded Zaragoza, building temple
1350 BC founded Pamplona, building temple
traded Joan world map, 110g and 6gpt for Map Making and territory map
traded Gandhi world map for territory map and 30g
traded Brennus world map for territory map and 35g
traded Osman territory map and 17g for territory map
traded Shaka world map and 10g for territory map
traded Eliza world map for world map, RoP and 1g
Santiago switched to galley
1325 BC founded Aldea de Ribannah, building temple
1275 BC founded Casa del Bamrápido , building temple
1225 BC founded Vitoria, building temple
1150 BC founded Santander, building temple
* noticed Ottoman galley sailed past unmolested by nearby giant squid
galley destroyed by giant squid
galley destroyed giant squid now veteran
1100 BC 7.1.2 Republic (40)
Zaragoza finished temple, building chariot
traded Brennus Polytheism, world map, 3gpt and 20g for Mathematics and Philsophy
traded Gandhi Polytheism, world map, 3gpt and 20g for Code of Laws and Horseback Riding
1050 BC founded Asturias, building temple


I'm planned to attempt a 100k culture victory, which may turn into a slow domination game since the AI is still way ahead of me in culture.

I reached MA before the 1000BC point. I met some backwards civs but held back trading contacts until the Lighthouse is built. It was recently built but I may hold them a little longer. There isn't much available that I can get short of the one free MA tech Osman got.

I managed to stay out of any conflicts and only had one civ demanded anything from me, that civ being England and she demanded Iron Working. I hadn't been keeping tabs on her, but I wanted a RoP eventually so I could block the northmost land bridge so I gave in to the demand. She was way behind in tech and broke so I didn't mind so much. Now I am trying to stay out of a world war that has engulfed all my local civs, but my two near border civs are on opposites sides of this war which puts me in a bad position.


Edit: Darn can't edit in a new image?

[ptw] 1.14 (Euro) Open

I'm writing this at 690BC just as I've entered the Middle Ages.

It seems (to me) a strange game, on the one hand I'm still madly pumping out settlers, on the other I'm much further ahead in tech than I expected.

I haven't bothered posting a timeline as nothing out of the ordinary has occured. I settled on the start position and went for maximum expansion, cutting off the French by settling along the river North of the jungle and pushing out NE toward Engand & the Celts.

The Celts did manage to get one town settled in my patch but I'm trying a little cultural coercion to persuade them to join my empire :)

Both my minimum research gambits failed and I was resigning myself to a pasting by the Zulus. At 1000BC I had 12 towns (with another 3 settlers ready to found) even though I hadn't built a granary. I was behind 2/3 techs against India and Zululand. My military was, and still is a joke.

Taking stock I decided that the only chance I had of avoiding assimilation by the Zulu, who were romping all over the Ottomans, was to try a suicide galley gambit.

I grew more worried as the Ottomans were delivered the coup de grace by Shaka in 900BC.

{let us avoid discusion of all issues that extend beyond both the limist of the starting cointinent as well as the maximum timline limit that is specified in the definitio of this thread - cracker}

See you all in the next spoiler (I hope) :lol:


Ted

Open class vers.1.29f european

After downloading the saved game on June, 1st I loaded it doing nothing, just watching the start position. I didn't do anything before June, 3rd (I've also written this in my QSC timeline), because all the discussions about the first move made me very cautious.
I settled right away at the starting position and I was happy with this. It seems like everyone is happy where he/she settled. both positions - at the start or on the hill - had advantages and disadvantages. Get the luxury after 10 turns or have 2 cows.

I have to say that I enjoyed the starting sequence. The 'reloading prohibition' forces one to make one's decision BEFORE you do something and not to choose the try-out solution. This gives one a special rejoycement when one encounters the expected or at least a sufficient outcome of the decision process.
That's probably what cracker means by 'enjoying the game'. Cheating, that means 'active effort' (crackers post) to manipulate game results, is the most complementary experience to the one described above. To avoid cheating one must leave the sequence 'decision first - action second' in the appropriate order.

Back to my game experience so far. I first met Joan. Traded Bronze Working + Masonry for The Wheel + Ceremonial Burial + gold. Then met the Ottomans, trading Alphabet + Wheel = Pottery + Warrior Code + 10g.
I needed 9 turns to Writing by then and could sell it to the Ottomans for Contact with English. Sold Writing to Lizzie for Contact with Zulus, bought Contact to Kelts, bought Contact with Indians.
I followed Moonsingers trading lesson and it worked out pretty well in
Ancient Ages.

I settled near Madrid, along the west coast of the continent and then I successfully settled the lands between the French and the English. I missed the land bridge in the north so I have some English and Celtic cities to the north.

After finishing the QSC I took a break of a day or to, then made a single turn of a complicated trade to gain Monarchy and Construction (that means: advance to the Middle Ages) from the French and the Ottomans, comparing prices, thinking of consequences and so on.
Finally, I bought Monarchy from the French for Iron + 7 gpt + 7g, bought Construction from the Ottomans for Incense + 16gpt + 3g. Could have bought Constr. from the French for less but I didn't want them to get all money and resources.
Allways the French were demanding significantly less than all other civs, so I bought the most of my techs from them.

I my game, the Ottomans were the strongest civ from the start. I haven't met any barbs (except squids, of course).

Some ideas about deity level. It seems quite 'easy' in this gotm20, at least not that hard as one would have expected. The non-appearance of barbs is very important to this. The civs are quite nice and they are willing to trade and they do not attack one for just being there.
In general I have the impression (as a very unexperienced deity player) it's the most important thing to stay on the map and not to annoy the other civs to far in the Ancient Ages (except you are playing the Persians). The AIs can build improvements faster, but once a temple or library is build they cannot build a second one. This leads to a parity over time. Tech parity can be achieved by trading. Trading makes them dependent of you, so they will not destroy you.

I still have no idea how to win this game but I am not last but number 8 on the scoring list.

[ptw] v1.14 Euro http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif Conquest.

I've just completed the QSC portion (first submission of QSC), and have just scraped the criteria for this spoiler. A quick summary (My full timeline (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus_Timeline.txt) is available and quite detailed) :

3950BC settled Madrid
3850BC settled Barcelona
3150BC made contact with England and France
3100BC settled Seville
2950BC settled Toledo
2470BC settled Santiago
2430BC made contact with Zululand and India.
2350BC made contact with the Celts, Ottomans
2310BC settled Murcia
2230BC settled Valencia
2030BC settled Ciudad de la Luna
1870BC settled Zaragoza
1700BC settled Pamplona
1525BC settled Aldea de Ribannah
1450BC settled Casa del Bamrapido & Vitoria
1400BC settled Santander
1375BC settled Asturias & Jaen
1300BC settled Logrono
1225BC settled Valladolid
1175BC settled Palma
1150BC settled Cordoba
1025BC settled Teruel
1000BC settled Almeria

At 3000BC Tacitus ranked me 1st in the "Wealthiest Nations of the World".

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus_3000BC_History.jpg

I had been doing max research on Pottery (complete 3250BC) and Writing (2310BC) before stopping research and relying on trading. I think I traded fairly well, though maybe traded early a couple of times. I finished the QSC period with all of the Ancient techs other than The Republic and Monarchy. This is equal to the other Civs, except the Ottomans who got their free Medieval tech as they're scientific.

Here's a mini-map at 1000BC :

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus_1000BC_minimap.jpg

2 Galleys made brave (or foolish?) efforts to make further contacts before the end of the QSC, but both sank at the end of their 1st move! I didn't build that much in the way of military (6 Warriors, 4 Spearman & 5 Defense), but my power is pretty high compared to the other civs :

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

I wasn't sure I would even make it this far, but the tasty start position and Conquest goodies have enabled a pretty quick start. Early contact with France/England by widespread exploring with the Treasure chests probably helped quite a bit. It will be interesting to see how much Cracker has to change his 85% multiplier for Conquest :).

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg 1.21f http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif Conquest

Hi everyone! I have played the last few GOTMs, but never submitted or posted anything. But this time I will. I chose to play at Conquest level since I usually get beaten at Deity level. Next time I'm sure I'll play the Open level, hopefully I won't even have a choice. ;)

I just submitted my QSC, so here is a short presentation of the events so far.

3950 BC - Founded Madrid on hill NE, founded Barcelona one step to the West. Started researching Writing@min sci, figured I would find someone with Pottery soon.

3250 BC - Spotted French warrior. Traded Ceremonial Burial and The Wheel against Masonry and 35 gold.

2750 BC - Bought Pottery from the French for 106 gc.

2630 BC - Granary built in Madrid to make a 4 turn settler factory. Yay!

2310 BC - Still haven't seen anyone except the French, but now I suddenly can speak to the Celts who have Writing and contact with English/Ottoman/Zulu/Indians. The French now have all of that as well, my 40 turn gamble was 5 turns to late. I had explored everything except the part where we are connected to the rest... Doh!

2150 BC - Me and everyone else have 5 cities, but now I can speak to the Zulu who have 10! That's just soo wrong. :eek:

2110 BC - Writing finished, start researching Philosophy@90% (12 turns). This would give me 240gc otherwise, but I figure I could get more from Phil. The Indians now have aquired contact with me.

2070 BC - It is only now I can see the Celtic and English border to the northeast. I trade the Wheel to England and get Warrior Code and 1 gc.

1910 BC - Ottomans now have aquired contact with me as well.

1725 BC - Research Philosophy, and I’m first at it… Yay! I check around and see that France (and France alone) now has Map Making! Hmmm… Very interesting. I trade Philosophy, World Map and 321 gc for Map Making and their Territory Map. I then figure that it would be best to trade with someone who has a large world map, so I go to the Zulu and trade World Map and Philosophy for their World Map and 5 gc. I then go to the civ with the most gold which is England, and trade Philosophy and World Map for their World Map, Bronze Working, Mysticism and all their gold (84 gc). I then go to India and trade Philosophy and World Map for their World Map, Iron Working, Mathmatics and 46 gc. Next up is Celts, who get Philosophy and Territory Map for their World Map, Horseback Riding and 6 gc. Ottomans then get Philosophy for their World Map and 1 gc. I then go back to France and trade my World Map for theirs and 41gc. Then back to Zulu again, where I give them Map Making for all their gold (163 gc). I now have all technologies and gold (except for France 281 gc), so I gift away my World Map to everyone. Now everyone is Polite to me, except Zulu who are Gracious. I started with 388 gc and now I have 413, and I now see our entire continent. There might have been a better way to do this trade, but I’m quite happy with the results. I decide to do another gamble and go for Literature@90% (13 turns).

1425 BC - Literature researched, so I shut down research for now. I figure they'll research faster than me anyways so I might as well get lots of gold instead. I notice England is the only civ without Map Making, so I trade it to them for World Map, 7 gold and a worker. I’m surprised at how little I can get for Literature, the Indians will only give me Code of Laws and 58 gold for it. I think about gambling on that they will trade amongst themselves soon and not research Literature but I decide against it. Better to take what I can get. I trade Literature for World Map, 2 gold and Code of Laws from France and then sell it to the Indians for 107 gold and their World Map.

1225 BC - England and Zulu have Construction, Zulu has Polytheism and France has Currency. Trade Literature, Code of Laws and 191 gold for Construction from England. Go to Zulu and trade Literature and 584 gold for Polytheism. Next I went to the French and traded Polytheism, Construction, 6 gold per turn and 1 gold for Currency. Then I went back to Zulu and sold Currency for 319 gold, followed by a sale of Polytheism to England for 194 gold. Then I went to the Celts and traded Code of Laws for a worker and 34 gold, and then traded Code of Laws for 27 gold from the Ottomans. I then decide to give Polytheism to everyone who doesn’t have it, so everyone can research both government techs. I thought about bringing everyone up to the latest tech, but decided against it because I’m not sure I can control it. I might do it at a later point. I am now in the middle ages.

<snip>

1000 BC - Still no one has researched anything in the middle ages, nor any of the government techs. Ah well, it won't be too long I guess.

Ranking:

Zulu: 1062
Ottomans: 628
Spain: 563
Celts: 532
France: 516
England: 503
India: 482

Stats:

14 cities
12 temples
4 granaries
3 barracks

2 settlers
12 workers
14 warriors
1 spearman
13 defense

Misc:

Not a single hut seen.
Not a single barbarian seen.
Not a single war fought yet.
Not a single demand from any AI yet.
Not a single death from floodplains.

Now I'm off to play some more! Until next time...

Originally posted by Ronald

I had no single demand from any civ. It never happened to me before at any deity game.
I had no desease with Flood Plains. Normally I always get some.


A few people have posted above that they got flood plain disease, so it hasn't been disabled. My own experience is that flood plain disease is pretty rare. I got it in GOTM17, but just after that I started a solo game where my first five cities were on flood plains and never got disease at all. I didn't get it here, either.

I got one demand in the QSC period, just after the phony war against the Zulus ended; it was for TM+40-ish gold, so I paid. I've had two more demands since then. I think the main factor affecting the relative paucity of demands is the powerful growth potential of Spain's starting location versus most of the other AIs. The AIs in the eastern half of the continent are all cramped in together, and France is in the jungle. The two things taken together means Spain's power relative to the other AI is much larger much earlier than in 95% of deity games, and that reduces the tributes.

Renata

I too had to pay tribute to India 61 gold in 1125BC and some tribute to the Zulu shortly after the QSC period. In any case, I managed to get most of my money back immediately by selling them my WM or something.

[ptw] - Conquest

Made it to the spoiler #1 requirements.

A couple of items of interest for those not reading every item in the timeline:

1. For some reason I didn't get a Barcelona, my second city was Seville
2. The Immobile defenders were ok as military police (MP), but not much else. Chests were a help in building a warrior and helping on a temple & granary.
3. At 1100BC 15 towns happily growing
4. Except for 1 English town on the Northern tundra (probably oil there), I've got the NE corner of the continent to myself.
5. My 800-lb gorilla is the Zulu - everybody else pretty even in size
6. All local civs equal in tech except Ottoman with their bonus MA tech and the French, who are down 3 techs
7. No wars anywhere yet.
8. Only 1 demand soo far - the Zulu get 20g + WM
9. No disease from flood plane cities. (yet!!)
10. I noticed in several other posts people buying 'imported workers for TM + 30g, my costs were generally 100g + WM
11. So far no galleys lost, but haven't been able to get away from the shore yet - too many barb galleys
12. Manage to get lucky on Polytheism (first to it) - 2 big trading years 2350 & 1100 net lots of techs & $$$
13. Strengths: Even on tech, have 4 luxs, with extra fur&incense, have both AA resources with extra (1 horse & 2 iron) have 15 towns & 1 settler on the move, 400g and making 10gpt
14. Weaknesses: Small military, no swords or horsemen, only a couple of spearmen, Zulu are very big and Ottoman are strong with tech lead & couple of wonders.
15. MA goals: Build up attacking military. French only AI building GL, when they get it, that is target #1. Celts have no iron & Pyramids - target #2. English also pretty weak - target #3. Get Ottoman & Zulu to fight each other. Build a couple more galleys and find new world Hope to get to a MA tech (engineering / printing press) and trade it for tech parity again.

All in all - the best I've ever done on deity - will probably survive the entire game and with luck (Ottoman & Zulu beat the crap out of each other) and good planning, I might even win.

For those with time, here's the detail report (I'm a couple of turns short of finishing the QSC, but don't expect many changes)

4000 BC Chest1 NE spots 2 cows!! (Moonsinger will be pleased) – Chest2 S spots incense – Worker1&2 begin road – Chest3 W – to coastline – Settler1 NE to hill – Settler2 S
3950 BC Chest1 NE – Chest2 S spots 2nd incense – Chest3 NW spots long coastline – Settler1 founds Madrid – starts ID – Settler2 S – Slider 1-9-0 – research Pottery
3900 BC Chest1 NE spots mountain w/ gold – Chest2 S spots fish – Chest 3 N – Worker 1&2 finish road move to 1st cow – Settler2 SW
3850 BC Chest1 E – Chest2 S – Chest3 N – Worker1&2 begin irrigate – Settler2 S spots dye
3800 BC Chest1 N – Chest2 S spots horses – Chest3 N more coastline – Settler2 founds Seville (starts ID) – Chest1
3750 BC Chest1 N spots horses – Chest2 back to Seville – Chest3 N spots gold hill – Madrid completes ID – starts warrior
3700 BC Chest1 return to Madrid – Chest2 reaches Seville – Chest3 NE – Worker1&2 complete irrigation – start road
3650 BC Chest1 W-SW – Chest2 sleep – Chest3 N – Worker1&2 complete road – move SW-SW-S
3600 BC Chest1 reaches Madrid sleep – Chest3 NE spots wheat – Worker1&2 begin road to Seville (via incense)
3550 BC Madrid builds Warrior1 – starts another ID – Warrior1 E – Chest3 sent to Madrid
3500 BC Warrior1 E – Chest3 moves – Worker1&2 completes a segment & move
3450 BC Warrior1 E moving in desert – Worker1&2 continue
3400 BC Madrid completes ID – starts barracks (granary per-build) – Warrior1 E
3350 BC Warrior1 E reaches plains – Worker1&2 complete segment & move – Chest3 reaches Madrid
3300 BC Warrior1 E – Seville completes ID – starts warrior – chest2 disbands
3250 BC Seville completes Warrior2 – starts temple – Warrior2 sent to Madrid – Warrior1 E reaches coastline
3200 BC Warrior1 SE spots Ivory – Worker1 & 2 complete segment and move – Chest3 sent to Seville
3150 BC SciAd Pottery – research Writing – slider to 9-1-0 – Madrid switch to granary – chest1 disbands – Warrior1 N
3100 BC Warrior2 reaches Madrid – Chest3 reaches Seville – Warrior1 N
3050 BC Worker1&2 complete road to Seville – move to dye – Warrior2 rests – Warrior1 N – Chest3 disbands – slider to 8-1-1
3000 BC Worker1&2 building road – Warrior1 N – Warrior2 MP
2950 BC Warrior1 N
2900 BC Madrid completes granary – starts settler – Seville completes temple – starts warrior – Warrior1 NE – spots fish
2850 BC Warrior1 NE
2800 BC Warrior1 E spots goodie hut & orange border
2750 BC Warrior1 E – Worker1&2 complete road to dye – sent to wheat
2710 BC Seville completes Warrior3 – starts settler – Worker1&2 reach wheat – Warrior1 E (avoids goodie hut per SirPleib) – Warrior3 E-E-E spots horses
2670 BC Green warrior appears – Warrior1 SE – contact green (Celts) – Trade Wheel & 13g to Celts for Masonary – Warrior3 E – Contact Orange (England) – wants too much for Warrior Code (90g) – Madrid completes settler3 – start another – Settler3 NE-E
2630 BC Settler3 NE – Warrior3 E – Warrior1 - E
2590 BC Warrior1 SW spots game – Worker1&2 done with irrigate begin road – Settler3 E spots a cow – Warrior3 N more grassland
2550 BC Settler3 E (next to cow) – Warrior1 W plug path – Warrior3 E more desert – Warrior2 sent to Seville (scout south)
2510 BC Toledo founded – start ID – Worker1&2 complete road – sent to Madrid cow – Warrior1/2 keep moving – Warrior3 S
2470 BC Madrid completes settler – start another – Warrior1/2 keep moving – Warrior3 S – Worker1&2 keep moving – Settler4 sent to NE horse to build city
2430 BC Warrior2 S – other units continue on path
2390 BC Warrior2 S spots pink border – Warrior1 fortifies as plug – Warrior3 NW
2350 BC "Trade Pottery, Wheel +10g to France for Warrior Code + 2 workers – Trade French contact +15g to England to Horseback Riding – Trade French contact + 25g to Zulu for Ottoman contact – Trade Horseback Riding to Ottomans for 75g – Trade Ottoman contact + 160g to England for Writing – Trade French contact to Celts for 25g – Trade Warrior Code to Ottoman for Bronze Working + 15g – Trade Horseback riding to India for 60g – Trade 100g +5gpt to Zulu for Iron Working – Trade Iron Working to England for 130g – Trade Writing, Iron Working, Ceremonial Burial + 100g to Ottomans for Mathematics – Trade Mathematics to Zulu for 149g – Trade Mathematics + 60g to Celts for 2 Celt workers – Trade French contact to India for 8g – Send 4 new workers to join Worker1&2 – Research Mysticism - slider at 9-1-0"
2310 BC Move all workers NE – Trade Mathematics to England for Mysticism + 5g – Trade Horseback Riding to France to 13g – Warrior2 SE & Warrior3 S spot lots of jungle – Research Polytheism – slider at 9-1-0
2270 BC Seville completes settler – sent to SW horses - starts warrior – Madrid completes settler – sent N fish – starts another – Santiago founded – starts warrior – Workers build road to Santiago & new fish city
2230 BC FW2 & Worker1 build road to horses & Santiago – CW1&2 + FW1 + Sancho Panza build road to fish city – Warrior3 heads to SW horse city site – Warrior2 W - jungle
2190 BC Buy Worker OW1 from Ottomans for 115g – sent to irrigate Madrid cow – other workers keep building roads – other settlers keep moving
2150 BC Murcia founded – starts warrior – Warrior3 MP in Murcia – Warrior2 reaches W coast – workers still roading
2110 BC Valencia founded – starts Colossus – road to Santiago is complete (horses) – workers begin road to Toledo – Toledo completes spearman – starts settler
2070 BC Seville completes Warrior4 – sent to Valencia – starts another warrior – Madrid completes settler – sent to W ivory/iron – starts another – Warrior2 sent to W ivory/iron
2030 BC Road to Valencia complete – mine BG – Warriors & settler keep moving
1990 BC Santiago completes Warrior5 – builds another – Warrior5 N – spots wheat – Madrid cow irrigated – workers sent to help road to Toledo – other Warriors & settler move
1950 BC Warrior5 N – spots fur (lots of luxuries within reach) – other units keep on trucking
1910 BC Workers complete first mine at Valencia – move to start another – Warrior5 N – Warrior4 MP in Valencia – others keep on trucking
1870 BC Madrid builds settler – starts another – sent to W whale city – Seville builds Warrior6 – starts a settler - sent to W Whale city site – Warrior5 spots fur & iron – Zulu move ahead in tech getting map making
1830 BC Warrior5 spots fur (total 3) & tundra – workers keep building roads / mining – settler 7 warriors moving
1790 BC Santiago completes Warrior7 – set to MP – starts settler – Warrior5 reaches tundra – others keep doing what they was doing – Celts & Ottoman now have map making
1750 BC Murcia builds Warrior8 – set to MP – starts settler – 2nd Valencia mine done start road – Settler builds Ciudad de Luna – starts temple – Warrior2 reaches Ciudad de Luna – Warrior 5 reaches N coast – road to Toledo complete – workers move to Toledo cow to road to Ciudad de Luna +(iron & ivory) – I ask Ottomans for map making, they want 9gpt + 120g + WM (all I have), I’ll wait."
1725 BC Warrior5 meets English warrior (eke another way to get to my territory) – Warrior2 MP – others keep moving – The 3 Map Making AI’s make large offers when asked about map making – I decline – Zulus now have Philosophy
1700 BC Warrior5 W spots game – workers move to begin work in 3rd Valencia mine (England has started Colossus) – others still moving / roading / mining
1675 BC Warrior5 W – stays on coast – others moving & roading / mining – spot French spearman & settler heading my way
1650 BC Toledo builds settler – starts warrior – settler sent to find & plug 2nd gap
1625 BC All units keep moving – same basic offers for MM from AI’s
1600 BC Settler founds Zaragoza – starts warrior – Warrior6 MP – others keep moving, etc Warrior5 on N coast spots wheat & game"
1575 BC Trade 100g + WM to England for Philosophy – Trade Philosophy + WM + 20g to Ottomans for Code of Laws – Trade Philosophy + WM + 75g + 2gpt to Celts for Map Making – Trade WM to Zulu for TM + 20g – Trade Code of Laws to India for WM
1550 BC Trade Code of Laws to France for WM – spot 2 French archers nearby – Warrior5 spots 2nd gap – others keep moving / roading / mining
1525 BC Seville completes settler – sent to fur hill – starts warrior – others keep moving – Swap territory maps with all but Zulu – French starting to look aggressive
1500 BC Settler founds Pamplona – start warrior - Warrior10 MP – road to Ciudad de Luna (iron) last segment starts – others moving / roading / mining – Warrior8 sent to Zaragoza – Change Valencia to harbor (too many building wonders)
1475 BC Warrior1 wakes and moves to new city spot – workers begin road to gap cities – others mine & road
1450 BC Madrid completes settler – sent to N iron – starts another – settlers founds Aldea de Ribannah – starts spearman – Warrior1 MP – Ottomans have construction
1425 BC Buy worker (Z1) from Zulu for 100g + 1gpt + WM – Workers keep roading & mining – settlers keep moving – Zaragoza builds Warrior14 – sent to plains for MP – starts temple
1400 BC Toledo builds warrior 12 – sent to Valencia – starts temple – Santiago completes settler sent to W – starts temple – workers road & mine – settlers move
1375 BC Trade Philosophy to France for 5g + WM – Trade TM with Ottoman – workers road & mine – warriors & settlers move
1350 BC Madrid builds settler – sent to plains – starts another – Ottoman & Celts have currency & Construction – Zulu construction – workers build roads – settlers & warriors move
1325 BC Settler builds Vitoria (fur hill) – starts warrior – settler builds Santander – starts warrior – Workers keep roading – settlers & warriors move
1300 BC Trade TM to all for 6g + 3 TM
1275 BC Warrior12 – sent to Santander MP – Warrior11 sent to Vitoria MP – Santander & Vitoria change from warrior to temple build – Madrid settler reassigned northern game
1250 BC Santiago, Pampalona & Toledo change from spearman to temple – Murcia builds settler – sent to plains – starts another – settler founds Alturias – starts temple – Warrior13 MP – Zulu demand WM + 20g – we give
1225 BC Buy worker (Z2) from Zulu for 110g + 1gpt + WM – Valencia builds Galley1 – sent north – starts temple – Madrid builds settler – sent N – starts another
1200 BC Buy worker (E1) from England for WM + 60g + 3gpt – sent to incense – workers build roads – Galley keeps going N – Settlers / Warriors move – Buy worker (C3) from Celts for WM + 2g + 6gpt
1175 BC Settler builds Jaen – starts warrior – Galley heading N – more roads from workers – warriors near destination – settlers move – trade WM around get 3 TM + 6g
1150 BC Seville builds spearman – sent to Murcia – starts barracks - Settler builds Logorno – starts temple – Warrior14 MP – Buy worker (Z3) from Zulu for WM + 4gpt + 32g – sent to incense
1125 BC Galley heads N – spots barb galley – workers keep roading – Trade TM around get 2TM + 5g -
1100 BC SciAd – Polytheism – research Engineering – galley took 3 hits heading home to recover – Trade Polytheism to India for Literature + Construction + WM – Trade Polytheism to Ottoman for 249g + TM – Trade Polytheism to Zulu for 180g + TM – Trade Polytheism + WM + 150g to Celts for Currency – Trade Polytheism to England for 160g + WM – Trade Literature to France or 8g + WM

Originally posted by denyd
10. I noticed in several other posts people buying 'imported workers for TM + 30g, my costs were generally 100g + WM

The value of your TM or WM depends on how many spaces on it are not already known by the civ you're trading to. If you have already traded your map to them, or if you've traded your map to someone who has then traded WM with them, then the value may be zero or nearly zero.

You can easily test this by offering just your WM or TM, and see how many gold you can get for it. If you click "What will you offer for world map?" and the reply is "I don't think such a deal is possible", that means that the map has zero value to them, because they already have the information.

PTW 1.21f Conquest Class

Hello,

This was my first GOTM & first Diety Level Game. This picture kind of sums up my game. It was down hill from here.

http://www.bccomputingco.com/mw/GL5.jpg

Here is the screenshot I thought I lost, couldn't add it to the other post so here it is.

I got to that goody hut also, but it was deserted when I popped it.

There was absolutely no barb, no hut, and no squid in my game so far. I was kind of worrying about the barbs for awhile becuase I'm playing with PTW 1.21; it doesn't matter who pop the hut, if there are any barbs, they would be evading the AI near by units and would likely be heading directly toward my defenseless towns.

4000: worker to hill. Settler to hill
3950: found madrid. worker to cattle
start writing in 40
3750: Madrid - warrior S
3550: Madrid - warrior E
Madrid grows, set citizen to forest
worker NE to cattle
3450: Madrid warrior - N
3300: Meet France. trade wheel for masonry + 5gold
3050: Madrid settler, N - E
3000: Found Barcelona
Madrid grows to size 3
2900: Madrid - warrior
2850: Meet ottomans. trade wheel for bw+7 gold
2750: Barcelona - worker
2710: Meet england. trade masonry for pottery + wc + 58 gold
2630: Madrid - settler
Meet celts - trade masonry for 25 gold
2550: Madrid - warrior - NE
2510: found Seville
pop hut by england - barbs
2470: Madrid - worker
India and Zulu have bought my contact
2390: Madrid - warrior
2230: Barcelona - growth in 2, granary needs 18 production - whip
2190: Madrid Settler, Barcelona - Granary
2110: finish writing - trade to Ottomans +44 gold for math
trade math to india for IW +25 gold
trade math to france for mysticsm +63 gold
Found Toledo 3 tiles NW of Madrid
research set to 0. I'm hoping to buy code of laws +philosophy ASAP to

start on republic
2070: trade IW + math to celts for 2 x worker - sent towards Toledo
2030: trade france IW for hbr
1990: I'm 3'rd in tech according to someone.. that won't last long though
1910: Barcelona worker
1870: Seville - settler
Madrid - growth in 2, granary in 4, need 18 shields - whip
1790: found Santiago by Grass wheat
1750: Barcelona - settler, Madrid - worker
1700: found Murcia
buy 2x worker france for 210 gold
send french workers to start connecting incense
1675: buy ottoman worker for 115 gold
1650: Barcelona - settler
1625: Madrid - settler
1600: dyes hooked up
1575: hurry temple in madrid
1550: found Valencia by incense
settlers - barcelona,seville
1475: found Zaragoz on furs (turn before I almost founded, but decided to move

1 more tile first, this wasted a cool city name ciudad de la luna)
1450: settler madrid
settler Barcelona
buy code of laws from india for 179 gold +1gpt +wm
trade col+wm+5 gold to France for MM
trade col+mm to celts for wm+philosophy + 1gold
trade wm to zulu for 34 gold
trade wm + 38 gold +2gpt to ottomans for worker
start republic in 40
1425: found pamplona to the north
1400: found aldea de ribana by the dyes in the jungle
1350: Barcelona -settler
1325: seville settler, madrid settler
found casa del bamrapido
1300: Toledo - galley, toledo has enough production for 6 turn galleys now.
1250: Barcelona - settler
found Vitoria on ivory
<snip>
1225: Madrid - settler
{You may not include any information abou tevents in you game that occur beyond the limits of your starting continent and still stay within the spirite if this early discussion thread. - cracker}

- deleted other mentions to offshore events & what happened after that occured. These will be better in a later thread.
I apologize, I wasn't thinking when I posted.

[ptw]1.21f
Moonsinger
I was similarly both unable to find any barbs and extremely worried about them. To the extent that I spread warriors all over the place trying to eliminate the fog of war. It took a while to cover the extreme NW tip of the land - and I kept expecting a horde to appear up there and descend on my happy citizens.
I did, eventually, see a squid, but never any barbs.

It seems there's no hope of getting people to refrain from posting new world spoilers here. :-(

I feel in the future that I shouldn't read the spoiler threads until after I am much further along in the game, because all of the spoilers I've read here have definitely contained a lot of information that I didn't have at the same point in the game, and it's hard to keep it from affecting my decision processes later on. :-(

Originally posted by TedJackson
[ptw] 1.14 (Euro) Open


Taking stock I decided that the only chance I had of avoiding assimilation by the Zulu, who were romping all over the Ottomans, was to try a suicide galley gambit.

I grew more worried as the Ottomans were delivered the coup de grace by Shaka in 900BC.

Ted

This is exactly the same as what happened in my game. <snip> The Zulu were creaming the Ottomans which put me off attacking the French as they were a useful buffer. <snip> Shaka then demanded stuff from me. I had no military and thought my game was essentially over. However, I refused the demands. Shaka declared. My heartrate increased momentarily, and I took a couple of deep breaths. I then negotiated military alliances first with the Ottomans against the Zulu and got 200 gold out of it. Then with the French against the Zulu which cost me 100g. And finally with the Indians against the Zulu which cost me 90g. Shaka now had some difficulty in getting units in my face. Still within the limits of this thread, Shaka signs peace with the Ottomans who are now smaller but still viable. But Spain, India and France are all at war with the Zulu. The English and the Celts are at war with the Indians, and all hell has broken loose.

Consequently, at the end of this spoiler I have yet to see a Zulu impi, and they have shot their bolt with their GA.

England are hopelessly backward and lack 4 ancient era techs. The celts have no horses and their iron will not be connected any time soon.

The Indians look like they may be the biggest threat to me at the moment, but I have the small matter of taking out the Zulu with all their wonders first. The zulu have built every wonder except oracle and Great lighthouse.

I intend to keep the whole world at war with Shaka for a long as possible to prevent him trading techs. If I can get him a couple of techs backward I might start to turn the corner.

On a personal note, checking the Trade and diplomacy screen every single turn is really beginning to get up my nose.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let us avoid any further discussio nof suicide galleys that do not instantly go to Davey Jones' Locker and let us also avoid any discussion of contacts, trades, and other cool stuff that might invovle anyone who does not have two feet firmly planted on the terra firma of your starting continent.

One small way to avoid spoiling the game for yourself - although not removing the obligation to follow the rules - is not to read large amounts of the thread!

I'm often forced into that position due to slow play, and can find a dozen or so pages before I open the first spoiler.

It's not unlike the way the old GOTM spoilers used to work - those relied somewhat on an honour system of posting in, but not reading, the spoilers. Obviously you lose some of the value of the spoilers if you do that.

A compromosie is to read only the more experienced players' spoilers - Moonsinger, Bamspeedy, etc. I find that their spoilers are often more readable anyway.

the following is purely a personal observation; I recognise everyone has a different style of posting

One suggestion if I may; I notice quite a few people post what is almost a QSC in the first spoiler thread - detailed descriptions of what you did. What is far more interesting to read - and will be of more value to the poster too I suspect - is a much shorter post on a more strategic level, with an emphasis on what you think you did right on wrong.

For example, I would chastise my game for:
* poor initial research choice. I didn't realise it would be so easy to buy pottery; I was paranoid about getting the granary built, so self-researched pottery. That deprived me of any chance I might have had with subsequent 40-turn gambits I think.
* poor subsequent research choices. Picking a manadatory tech instead of literature for my second 40 turn tech was a dumb, dumb, move
* poor prioritisation for connecting resources. I obsessed with claiming the furs and ivory. And almost forgot about the incence, which the French almost claimed first! This also caused me to adopt a poor city placing plan - neither inside-out nor outside-in. That probably let too many AI cities into the N of the continent
* failure to keep building military units. As usual I focussed too much on the late ancient improvements (markets, courts, etc.) and neglected my military. Which led the AI to become more aggresive towards me.

What I also belatedly realised is that all these faults are endemic to my play. It's only the Deity environment which has really thrown them into stark relief - at lower levels I could mask my inadequacies. So to me the relatively 'gifted' start, which enabled me to have those factors exposed, was very useful. Not because it gives me a chance to win (I suspect it doesn't) but because it keeps me in the game long enough to learn some useful lessons.

Originally posted by MadScot
One suggestion if I may; .... What is far more interesting to read - and will be of more value to the poster too I suspect - is a much shorter post on a more strategic level, with an emphasis on what you think you did right on wrong.

As a newbie - I only received Civ3 as a present last Christmas - I have found some of the detailed spoiler1 posts for previous GOTMs very useful. I was excited to find that the new Mac beta version allowed full participation in GOTM, and so I shadowed the start of GOTM18 and a lot of GOTM19. And I was able to learn valuable lessons from the spoiler threads when I reached the qualification points. As this is my first "live" GOTM I was very enthusiastic to "give something back".

However, I take your point. I can see that a lengthy post covering rather basic details must be very frustrating for more experienced players, and I will try and take something for my verbal and graphical diarrhoea in future.

Originally posted by cracker

Let us avoid any further discussio nof suicide galleys that do not instantly go to Davey Jones' Locker and let us also avoid any discussion of contacts, trades, and other cool stuff that might invovle anyone who does not have two feet firmly planted on the terra firma of your starting continent.

I apologise. I got carried away with the similarity between my game and Teds, and how 1 single decision changes the game so much. Your edit reads better than my original anyway.

Originally posted by AlanH

As a newbie - I only received Civ3 as a present last Christmas - I have found some of the detailed spoiler1 posts for previous GOTMs very useful. I was excited to find that the new Mac beta version allowed full participation in GOTM, and so I shadowed the start of GOTM18 and a lot of GOTM19. And I was able to learn valuable lessons from the spoiler threads when I reached the qualification points. As this is my first "live" GOTM I was very enthusiastic to "give something back".

However, I take your point. I can see that a lengthy post covering rather basic details must be very frustrating for more experienced players, and I will try and take something for my verbal and graphical diarrhoea in future.

Those details are very important. But to make best use of such detailed info you almost need to play along, so you can see the mechanics of the game at work. You really shouldn't do that while still in 'spoiler' mode, because:
1. You run a risk of mixing up all the save games unless you are very careful. Submitting the wrong 1000BC save will cause confusion at the least!
2. You really shouldn't be doing what-if scenarios with the start position until you finish your own game; otherwise you run the risk of finding things out you might not know. (I agree, most of it should be available to you, since you are qualified to read the spoiler)
3. I, for one, would run the risk of confusion.
"What do you mean, leave or declare war? We have a RoP!!! oops, wrong game!"

You'll get far more value for the replay buck from the qsc files. I would compare my game to another deemed to be similar, then try to work out "why did they do this". If you're fortunate one of the elite will have played a similar strategy (although better ;)) and you can almost get a coaching from the files. Some of the top players write VERY informative qsc files.

I'm not saying don't do it. It's none of my business. I just find having the qsc for the details and the spoilers for the 'vision' is best for me.

And, by the way Mr "newbie" - there were people playing their first game last time who finished way above me, and have been every time! So I fully expect you to be above me for this one, with all the practice you've had. :) Number of games participated is no measure of worth in these threads, or skill as a player.

Originally posted by MadScot


Those details are very important. But to make best use of such detailed info you almost need to play along, so you can see the mechanics of the game at work. You really shouldn't do that while still in 'spoiler' mode, because:
1. You run a risk of mixing up all the save games unless you are very careful. Submitting the wrong 1000BC save will cause confusion at the least!
2. You really shouldn't be doing what-if scenarios with the start position until you finish your own game; otherwise you run the risk of finding things out you might not know. (I agree, most of it should be available to you, since you are qualified to read the spoiler)
3. I, for one, would run the risk of confusion.
"What do you mean, leave or declare war? We have a RoP!!! oops, wrong game!"


I'm sorry if I expressed myself badly. I haven't yet, and I don't intend to, replayed another player's QSC timeline. I think the RNG makes doing that a fairly unrewarding thing to try. And in fact my main post in this thread only included my QSC timeline as a file link.

I think I did cover some of the aspects you are interested in, but I also went into more detail about what I found and thought and decided to do about it than I think you care to see here. Partly because I have found that sort of stuff to be of value in my early learning process, and partly because I was just having fun.

It's been the reports and strategic assessments of other GOTM games and, oh, a hundred other pieces of the jigsaw around these forums, that have helped me to get to a level of confidence and self delusion where I now dare to believe I might even survive as far as spoiler2 in GOTM 20.

But I can see how these details would only be of value to people in their first phase of GOTM induction. So, as I said, I feel your pain, and my spoiler2 report will be much briefer.

As for my projected performance, one step at a time. My current objective is just to get to Mag and Gravity alive.

Originally posted by AlanH

I'm sorry if I expressed myself badly. I haven't yet, and I don't intend to, replayed another player's QSC timeline. I think the RNG makes doing that a fairly unrewarding thing to try. And in fact my main post in this thread only included my QSC timeline as a file link.


I can see your point. It can be hard to recreate your own timeline sometimes, as SirPleb found out last month after GOTM19. However, speaking of SirPleb, I would recommend having a go at repeating his Carthage GOTM 17 QSC. Because of the map type there are very few RNG problems recreating it. He goes into a lot of detail about WHY he is doing things, so the thought behind the decisions can be seen and applied to later games.

For posterity, I never faced a hostile demand from anyone during the scope of this thread. However, I never held onto anything of value- If I got a tech other civs lacked, I traded it that very turn. And I traded maps every chance I got. I did stockpile gold, but I guess they respected Isabella enough to let her keep her earnings.

Originally posted by Dianthus


I can see your point. It can be hard to recreate your own timeline sometimes, as SirPleb found out last month after GOTM19. However, speaking of SirPleb, I would recommend having a go at repeating his Carthage GOTM 17 QSC. Because of the map type there are very few RNG problems recreating it. He goes into a lot of detail about WHY he is doing things, so the thought behind the decisions can be seen and applied to later games. SirPleb's games are major pieces in the jigsaw. The annotations in his timelines are sufficient (for me) to provide the sense of what he was doing. On your prompt, though, I'll see if I can replay his GOTM17 QSC and try to get some more from it.

All I can say is, next time the Deity Zulu wants your TM and 37 Gold, give him the TM and 37 gold! :(

I didn't, so around 1200 BC the Zulus, and eventually the rest of the continent, were at war with the Spanish. Fortunately we had a decent number of warriors and cash to upgrade them. :D Still, I finally got Construction (last Ancient Era Tech for me) in 250 BC, and am still at war with the Celts. If I'd paid him off, I'd been able to pick the wars I wanted to fight (and not 6 on 1 vs me, either), gotten the other Ancient Era techs faster and preserved more of my units.

I formed a good line of cities in the South, connected them with roads, rushed Temples, and later Walls, and conducted a whole series of defensive stands against stacks of Zulus, Ottomans and French. The Jungle was my savior. The French, who had already been attacked earlier by Osman, were the weakest, and broke first, giving me 3 Techs (HorsebackRiding, Polytheism and CodeofLaws) in exchange for Peace and Currency. The Zulus pushed my defenses to the limit, but after their offensive units had dashed themselves on my walls, all they had left were a whole lot of Impis running around the countryside. I didn't have enough units left to block them out, so I sued for peace and paid about 200 gold for it!! (TM and 37 gold is a bargain in comparison!!) The Ottomans had lost round 1 already, but a bigger Round 2 came up, and was defeated. I got Peace and a few gold pieces for that. India eventually showed up, with only 2 Horseman :lol: ; again, I got peace, WM and a few Gold pieces.

In the North I used primarily Chariots (later Horsemen) with a few Swordsmen backing them up. Stacks of English would come up, and be beaten back, followed by a stack of Celts, same story different color. I finally turned the tide around 400 BC, and started taking the battle to them. The English had brought the French back into it; I defeated a French archer stack in the South, and leveled an encroaching English town in the North, and got Construction from Joan, Republic from Elizabeth, for peace and a few gpt from me.

General notes:

France is very weak in my game, due to the early Ottoman attack (one of my scouting warriors got to watch some of that action.) The Zulu are ENORMOUS (like in many other games). India is pretty weak, and I'd say the Ottomans, Celts and English are a distant 2,3,4 from the Zulu.

I did move the Settler to the Hill, and liked the view I saw. Madrid got diseased 1 (losing 2 pop points over 2 turns), and was turned into a 4-turn Settler Factory. (Size 3 to size 5). Barcelona is a 2-turn worker factory; early on I got Toledo up to 10 shields/turn, and was building veteran warriors every turn!

Having the Wheel really helped the early trading. After making contacts, I had all the 1st level Techs. (I should have blocked off the landbridge, though!!) I researched Writing at minimum, and 6 turns before I got it, the Zulu were making contact. My further trading opportunities were few; the Zulu were the Tech leaders, and the other civs were dirt poor. If I bought a Tech at high price from Shaka, the others had no money to compensate me for the cost. Instead, I saved for my warrior upgrades. I did get an chance to buy Philosophy and trade for Mysticism (and later, Map-Making with the Indians who were very far behind), but I generally couldn't sell Techs for any decent gold.

I'm a bit behind where I wanted to be, but if I can keep the others at peace with me (lots of gpt deals), I hope to build up, catch up in techs, and aim to pass them in the late MA early IA. We shall see.

Open class, v.1.29f.

I started late this month, and it will take some time to get through those 10+ pages of posts, but this is my timeline anyway. Overall, I had no luck with research, so I ended up paying lots of gold to keep up. Luckily, the great start poistion allowed for that.

3950 bc Settle on hills. Worker moves towards the plain cattle to irrigate.
3450 bc Meet French. They have Pottery, Masonry & Bronze Working. Trade the Wheel&45 g&1gpt for Pottery & BW.
3000 bc Finish Granary. Warrior dies to hut barbs.
2750 bc Settler.
2710 bc Barcelona. Madrid now a 4 turn settler pump.
2430 bc Seville. Meet England, they have Masonry & Warrior Code. French now have Writing, Iron Working, Mysticism & contact with Keltoi, Ottomans, Zulu & Indians. Buy contact w. Indians, but they also have everything.
2310 bc Toledo.
2110 bc Santiago.
2070 bc Writing. Start at Literature @ 40. Buy contact w Zulu, but nothing to trade. :(
1990 bc Murcia. French establishes embassy.
1950 bc Buy contact w. Keltoi. Nothing to trade.
1830 bc Incense hooked up. Buy Philosophy from Zulus for 8 gpt&16 g. Trade Ph for contact w. Ottomans & Mysticism. Trade Ph. for Masonry & 3 g w. Keltoi, Ph. for Warrior Code from Ottomans. Now only lack Iron Working, Maths & Horseback.
1750 bc Valencia.
1725 bc Ciudad de la Luna.
1625 bc Ciudad de la Luna am See, Andalusia founded. Seems Ciudad de la Luna wants to come up all the time. :confused: Buy Code of Laws for 10 gpt, trade it for Mathematics & Iron Working. Iron spotted near Santiago.
1600 bc Japanese complete Oracle.
1500 bc ROP w. France for 35 g. Embassy w. English. They will complete Pyramids in less than 17.
1425 bc Pamplona. Buy Literature from India for WM, 4 gpt & 19 g. Buy WM from Zulus for all I have. Trade Lit for Horseback w. English.
1400 bc Temple complete in Barcelona.
1375 bc English completes Colossus.
1300 bc Dyes connected.
1275 bc Buy Map Making, trade MM for Polytheism w. India. ROP w. English for 10 g. Now only lack Construction.
1250 bc Ciudad de la Luna am See completes Barracks.
1200 bc England completes Pyramids, Kelts the Great Library, Paris the Great Wall.
1150 bc Establish embassy w. Ottomans. They have a Colosseum & barracks in Sogut. He pays 30 g for a ROP.
1125 bc Barracks in Ciudad de la Luna.
1075 bc Galley sunk by Squid on 1st turn at sea.
1025 bc Embassy & ROP (25g) w. Zulu.

1000 bc Situation: lack Rep, Monarchy, Currency & Cons. 104 g (+18 gpt). Republic in 23. Have WM and embassies w. all. 4 settlers, 13 workers, 16 warriors. 1 temple, 2 barracks, 1 granary. 16 cities. 2 luxuries hooked up, horses.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/bc1000map.jpg

950 bc Pop rush galley & catapult (to try to damage the 2 squids romaing my coast) in anticipation of switch to Monarchy.
825 bc Suicide galley lost on 1st turn at sea. Furs hooked up.
775 bc Lyons completes Great Lighthouse.
750 bc Buy Monarchy from India for 23 gpt & 380 gold. Buy Republic from France for 50 gold. Trade around for Construction&currency. Enter Middle Ages.

Open class PTW v.1.21f

OK, I read most of the pregame speculation and decided to try to get Madrid up and running quick so I moved west 1 square while irrigating the start square. This might have worked better if I played a lot slower. I didn't watch my 10% research closely enough and every time I made a settler I forgot to reset research to 20% so lost a couple of turns in getting writing. I did lose population once to disease but also didn't watch disorder close enough and had a couple of cities go into civil disorder early on so my start wasn't as clean as the more experienced players.

I never saw any barbarians or goody huts but did see my first squid. There were two of them following a French ship up my coast. They sank it on its return trip after it deposited a French city up near the furs. I had a city close to the furs too and thought I would get at least 1 of them but in trying stop the French from traversing my territory to add cities up north they declared war on me. Lucky for me I had 3 warriors surrounding the French city at the time and a couple more shadowing the settler in transit. All the French had for protection was 1 warrior at each location so I was able to dispatch both of them, destroy the city and get 2 French workers in return. The French asked for peace just before I thought they were going to take me apart. I think I had to pay them a small tribute.

Since my first move with my sttler was west, my first direction with the first warrior was east. I got all the way to the coast where that little spit of land by the English and Celts is before I saw anybody. I saw the Celts first then the English. It never occured to me to stop there and block their entry into my part of the continent, I just pressed on looking for those elusive goody huts. I did find the Indians and the Ottomans though and then had a terrible time trying to get back because the French wanted too much for ROP.

I think I found the French last becuse they were slow comming through the jungle. My part of the continent is pretty messy with 3 Celt cities to the east along with 1 English city right at the narrow part of the land connection. There were also 2 French cities to the north but I destroyed 1 in the short war. There is also a Celt city along the west coast. Before I finished filling in it was a mad dash by everybody else on the continent to get every available space. That might have caused the big war about that time around 670 BC. The Celts were at war with the Ottomans, India, and England. The English were also at war with India and Zululand. Finally, the Zulus also were at war with the Ottomans and India. the only people not at war were the French and the Spanish. The big guns at the start were the Zulus and the Ottomans but I never really saw the Zulus in action except their lone settler in my territory. I did see a lot of the Celts and Ottomans as they fought right alongside of my territory.

By 950 BC, I forgot to save at 1000 BC, I had 9 cities but 1 doesn't really count because Barcelona is halfway between Madrid and Seville and by the end of the game I will have removed it. I build a throwaway city that just produces settlers, workers and military units until later in the game when it gets in the way and the other cities are near full production.

Before I got to the middle ages I built about 4 more cities but strangely enough 2 were converted to the Celtic culture on the east coast. I hope to someday get them back but the Celts are now the second strongest country on the continent and if all the units on my borders are any indication I don't stand a chance against them. I don't know how many times I have paid tribute to the Celts, Zulus and 1 other culture. I'm hoping they self destruct against each other. It isn't exactly working that way but I can always hope.

Techwise I'm now way behind but trying to catch up. I hope to be around for the second spoiler. As long as I keep paying tribute I should be.

I did some post-mortem analysis after reading Daviddesj post that we can make use of size 7 city and it occur to me that a 3-turn settler factory is actual possible. Ronald has shown interest in knowing how this can be done so I am posting it here.

Here is what needs to be done for a 3-turn settler factory for GOTM20 having the capital on the hill.

Please let me know if anyone detects any error.

You need the following.
Tiles alway in used
*irrigated plain cattle 3 food 2 shield
*irrigated grassland cattle 4 food 1 shield
*city 2 food 1 shield
Total 9 food 4 shield

And you need these tiles to play with every turn.
mine BG 2 food 2 shield
irrigated FP 3 food 0 shield (*2)
forest 1 food 2 shield
irrigated wheat FP 5 food 0 shield
mined plain 1 food 2 shield

Turn 1
Size 5 10 food 0 shield
Use wheat FP and 2FP to get 20 food (+10) and 4 shield (+2 on growth)

Turn 2
Size 6 10 food 6 shield
Use wheat FP, 2 FP and mined BG to get 22 food (+10) and 6 shield (+3 on growth)

Turn 3
Size 7 10 food 15 shield
Use 3 forest, 1 mined plain and 1 mined BG to get 15 food (+1) and 15 shield (1 from city at size 7)

Might have perform even better if I had realize this earlier. But then, I didn't even know about the extra shield on size 7 before I read Daviddesj's post.

Qitai, the problem with this setup is that the 15th shield at size 7 was lost to corruption in my game: WLTKD would have also been necessary. Alternatively, one could have had 6 workers always ready to re-mine the grasland-cattle. I decided to go for a 4-turn settler factory and had the fp-wheat and the irrigated cattle shared with other cities which did also build a couple of settlers.

Hmm... you are right. The curruption kicks in on the 13th shield. I forgot about the curruption stuff here. Was just doing the above on paper. Looks like a 3 turn settler factory is not possible then. I guess my 4 turn warrior + settler combo is works out best =). Glad that I didn't actual try this in the real game.

The Zulu and Indians are so huge! Oh my...it'll be a toughie! I'm researching Republic right now and almost have it (I am in the Middle Ages though)--that one is always way too expensive to trade for!

Anyway, the Ottomans were destroyed quite early on in my game, which is a very bad thing, as they were usually my main tech-trading partner. Those dang Zulus! The French and English are at war right now as well. I sense the English are very weak, being kind of spread out thin, and will probably be the next civ to go, followed by me most likely, but hey I'm having a great time!

I'm also not caught up in tech--I'm about 4 behind--but that should not worsen too much in the future. It's refreshing that I'm not the only one who focuses too much on improvements--especially on Deity, where you need happiness and more science output...and besides, I haven't even won on Monarch before.... ;) It's quite a challenge, but a very good one!

Sam

@ civ_steve: :eek: You survived a 6 on 1 dogpile on deity? Wow. That must have been some spectacular playing, jungle/chokes or no jungle/chokes. Well done, and good luck in the rest of the game.

Renata

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I got to that goody hut also, but it was deserted when I popped it.

Same, it was located SE near the internal Sea and was a deserted village. I took the chance to open it as I was so late in techs.

Also I did not encounter a single barbarian :). Strange
Although, I add to avoid many squids who seems to be very intelligent and kept chasing my poor triremes

I failed the Writing Gambit and was always late in techs. It was very difficult to keep with the tech lead from the start and I really think it will be difficult to survive ...

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Have anyone noticed the abnormal city name?;) After I ran out of city name, the Ciudad de la Luna keeps continuing to pop up over and over again. What is going on here?

I search on the Internet to obtain more names :
Alcala de Henares
Alcuneza
Alicante
Almuñecar
Arcos de la Frontera
Baqueira-Beret
Barcelone
Bilbao
Burlada
Ca'n Pastilla
Cabezón de la Sal
Cadavedo
Campo Internacional
Cangas de Onís
Carrascal de la Cuesta
Cádiz
Cerdanyola del Valles
Chiclana de la Frontera
Ciudad Real
Cordova
Corgo
Corunna
Costa Calma
Cudillero
Denia
El Arenal
Estepona
Fonolleres
Fuenterrabia
Gerena
Gijon
Girona
Grenade
Guadalajara
Guillena
Huelva
La Pereda
Llanes
Lleida
Lloret de Mar
Logroño
Los Cristianos
Lugo
Macharaviaya
Madrid
Magalluf
Mairena de Aljarafe
Malaga
Marbella
Maspalomas
Merida
Mijas
Motril - Salobreña
Mundaka
Nerja
Orense
Oviedo
Pajara
Palma de Mallorca
Pamplona
Peramola
Platja d'Aro
Pontevedra
Priego de Cordoba
Puebla de Sanaria
Puerto de la Cruz
Puerto del Carmen
Puertollano
Quintanilla del Rebollar
Reus
San Bartolome de Tirajana
San Julian de Sales
San Sebastian
Sanlucar la Mayor
Sant Marçal
Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Santander
Santiago de Compostela
Santillana del Mar
Sanxenxo
Seville
Sitges
Soria
Tenerife
Tias
Torre de la Reina
Torrevieja
Valdeverdeja
Valence
Valladolid
Valverde de los Arroyos
Vigo
Xativa
Saragosse

I made up my own in mock Spanish, e.g.[list=1] Corrodato (near iron)
Capo del Norte
Piscis del Norte
Piscis e Chipso
Ivorado (near ivory)
Dyado (near Dyes)
Thievo del Fursa (steal furs)
Jungulato (in the jungle)
Incensa Nostro (near incense)
Memento Zulu (former Zulu territory)
[/list=1] Well, the last two were founded during the Roman occupation of Spain ... :D

open class 1.14f
A short account of how my empire was doing at 1000bc

4000 BC Madrid founded
3050 BC Barcelona founded
2550 BC Seville founded
2190 BC Toledo founded
2070 BC Santiago founded
1950 BC Murcia founded
1425 BC Valencia founded
1375 BC Cuidad de Luna founded
1325 BC Zaragoza founded
1250 BC Pamplona founded
1150 BC Aldea de Ribhanna founded
1150 BC Casa Del bam rapido founded
1025 BC Vitorio founded

City Improvements

2 granaries, 3 temples, 1 barracks.

Luxuries and Resources Hooked Up

Dyes, furs, incense, horses and iron.

Military and Workers

3 regular warriors, 1 veteran spearman, 12 workers.

Strategic Decisions

As you can see I founded 13 cities. There is a noticible lag period from 1950BC to 1425 BC where no cities were founded (18 turns ). This is because I chose to delay building granaries in my settler pump cities( Madrid and Barcelona) until this time.

My workers are all native. I chose not to trade for AI workers as I wanted to give the AIs every oppotuinity to develop their lands and become more useful trading partners. Hopefully speeding up the tech rate as it was my intention from the outset to go for diplo or space.

My military is stripped down in order for gold to go on research rather than syphoned off onto unit upkeep costs.

My empire entered the Middle Ages at 1050 BC. Lacking monarchy and republic which I acquired not long after.

Originally posted by CdB

Also I did not encounter a single barbarian :). Strange


There was another hut south towards france that I popped and got 1 barb. The reason I popped it was because I hadn't cut off france's expansion yet and they had a settler right next to the hut. I hoped to pop some barbs which would then attack the settler stack. Only 1 barb came and he disappeared further south and I never saw him again.

Originally posted by CdB


I search on the Internet to obtain more names :
Alcala de Henares
Alcuneza
Alicante
Almuñecar
Arcos de la Frontera
.
.
.
.
.
Valladolid
Valverde de los Arroyos
Vigo
Xativa
Saragosse
Yes, that's great, but what did you do when that list ran out? :p

[:runs for cover:]

Originally posted by AlanH
Yes, that's great, but what did you do when that list ran out? :p

After I ran out of city name, I used the 8 bits binary system for the rest of names. For example:

00000001
00000010
00000011
00000100
00000101
00000110
00000111
...
11111111

Originally posted by Moonsinger


After I ran out of city name, I used the 8 bits binary system for the rest of names. For example:

00000001
00000010
00000011
00000100
00000101
00000110
00000111
...
11111111 I think the game allows you to have more than 255 cities, though.

This picture is the flip side of the problem civ_steve posted a couple of pages back. In his game he refused the Zulus demand for tribute and ended up at war with all 6 other civs on the continent.

In my game the Zulus intruded on my territory and so I gave them a Right of Passage which they accepted. The next turn they broke the ROP and attacked me. I quickly made the diplomatic rounds and allied with every other civ on the continent against them. Now I just have to hope the other civs keep the Zulus busy so they don't come knocking on my door.

The blanks are for info beyond this spoiler.

The annoying thing about making too many alliances is that you can't change your mind and agree to peace without taking a hit for breaking the alliances. You might have some good reasons for wanting peace (war weariness, or to trade with them, or just because they are willing to pay you to have peace).

It's still often a good idea though!

I Like Zagnut's picture :D (much better than the F4 screen in my game, around 1000 BC). I might even duplicate it in my game later :D :D

Renata: Thanks for the kind statements and sentiments! The other civs were quite polite in their aggressiveness (You attack first ... No you, I insist), and spaced their attacks enough for me to recoup between battles. Also, a co-ordinated Zulu attack would have probably succeeded, but their main swordsmen stacks come in on 3 different turns. I'll try to post some pictures of the highlights, but time is always short, and the real lesson is ... pay the tribute, and dictate the warfare on your terms!!

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
The annoying thing about making too many alliances is that you can't change your mind and agree to peace without taking a hit for breaking the alliances.

The annoying thing about NOT making alliances is that stack of 30 units about to attack your seriously undefended territory.

I was skimping on military to speed tech in my game and when I saw the Zulu approaching with a massive amount of units I allied EVERYONE on my continent against them, hoping they would go fight someone else. (And they did, turned right around and attacked France.)

EDIT: I completely forgot to mention that I play PTW1.14f in the Open class....

OK, I’ve just qualified for this spoiler and here are the highlights of (part of) my QSC:

4000 BC: Worker moves onto hill. Spots 2 cattle and a wheat (thank you cracker :D) settler also moves NE

3950 BC: Madrid founded, starts warrior. Writing selected at 20 % (40 turns). Worker moves N.

3400 BC: Madrid builds a third warrior and starts a settler (either to build a second city, but preferably as a prebuild for granary if we meet an AI in the next couple of turns and if we can trade for pottery). Science slider to 20%

3200 BC: Warrior in the S spots a French worker and we go talk to Joan. We trade the Wheel, Ceremonial Burial and 59 gold for pottery and masonry. Production in Madrid switched to granary.

2900 BC: Our exploring warrior in the NE spots an orange border (English?) and a GH next to it. I thought cracker had pre-popped the GH's on our part of the map?!?!?!

2800 BC: In the intraturn a celts veteran archer moved next to our exploring warrior in the NE. Brennus has bronze working and warrior code and 25 gold, but not masonry and the wheel, so we we trade him masonry, the wheel, 26 gold and 1 gpt for bronze working and warrior code. Because we're so far from our territory I decide to pop the GH. Too bad. No help from the RNG and we get barbarians.

2750 BC: With some help from the Celts and the orange tribe (English) our warrior survives the barbarian onslaught. We have tech-parity with the English and they have 19 gold, just like us, That must be a coincidence…

2670 BC: Madrid builds settler, which moves to projected city-site in the SE.

2630 BC: We meet the Ottomans. They have Mysticism.

2550 BC: Barcelona founded, where production of worker commences.

2510 BC: Madrid builds settler, which moves towards incense.

2350 BC: Madrid builds settler. This settler moves toward projected city-site near dyes. Previous settler builds Seville on incense, where barracks production begins.

2190 BC: Madrid build settler, which moves toward a projected city-site to the E. Then I wanted to go do a diplomacy check of the four civilizations we knew, but apparently we've just also met the Indians and the Zulu.

2150 BC: Toledo founded S of dyes.

2110 BC: We discover writing and start researching mathematics at 10% (40 turns). Next up is a massive trading round: We trade writing to the English for iron working and 14 gold. To the Ottomans go writing, iron working, contact with the English, 74 gold and 6 gpt for mathematics.. We get 160 gold for mathematics from the Zulu and 26 gold from the Indians for contact with the English. France gives us horseback riding and mysticism for mathematics and 25 gold. The Ottomans then pay 74 gold for horseback riding. We get 2 workers from the Celts for mathematics and 69 gold. We get 39 gold for horseback riding from the Indians and 5 from the English for the same tech. With this round we've made maybe 120 gold and reached tech-parity with the leaders (with a small lead on India and England). We have to pay the Ottomans 6 gpt and have no more contacts to sell. Research is switched to currency in 40 turns (at 10% science).

2030 BC: Madrid builds settler, which moves towards "Andalusia" Previous settler founds Santiago

1950 BC: Murcia founded.

1870 BC: Madrid builds settler, which moves to projected city-site roughly N of Madrid.

1830 BC: Toledo riots, lux upped by 10%.

1790 BC: Horses and Incense connected. Order in Toledo restore. Toledo builds worker. Zimbabwe (Zulu) has completed the Pyramids. Sliders to 6.1.3.

1750 BC: Barcelona builds another worker. Sogut (Ottomans) has completed the Oracle. Valencia founded

1725 BC: Madrid produces settler

1625 BC: Sliders adjusted to 4.1.5. to prevent riots in Toledo the next turn. Madrid builds settler

1600 BC: Ciudad de la Luna founded

1575 BC : Seville builds barracks and starts cranking out veteran warriors.

1525 BC: Madrid builds settler. Zaragoza founded. Toledo (the city near the dyes) and the source of dyes are connected to the capital. Sliders to 8.1.1.

1475 BC: Barcelona builds settler.

1425 BC: Madrid builds settler. Pamplona founded, the city begins construction of the FP.

1400 BC: Murcia builds barracks and also starts producing veteran warriors. Aldea de Ribannah founded.

1375 BC: Casa del Bamrapido founded (I keep seeing more players' names.)

1325 BC: Toledo builds temple. Madrid builds settler.

1250 BC: Santiago builds barracks. The celts come to see us and they have currency! Damn, that's the 2nd 40 turn research gambit that fails. We decide to check all nations and only the English don't have currency. Trading round: To the Zulu: World map, 518 gold and 9 gpt for polytheism. To France: Polytheism for Code of Laws and 47 gold. To the Ottomans: Code of Laws and Polytheism for construction and their territory map. To India: Polytheism, our territory map and 1 gold for currency. To the Celts: Polytheism and 25 gold for philosophy and a worker. To England: Currency, Polytheism and Philosophy for Map Making, their world map and 11 gold.. Back to the Zulu: Code of laws for their world map and 80 gold. We also sell our territory map to France for their world map and 13 gold and the Celts for their world map and 25 gold. We have a tech lead on England, tech-parity with the Zulu, the Celts, France and India. The Ottomans, the only scientific civ on our continent, who have 4 cities, also have 1 MA tech, but they don't want to trade that to us...

Well that’s it. Spain enters the MA in 1250 BC. More in the next spoiler….

Well for a deity game, I'd say this is going pretty well so far. The wonderful starting position allowed for fast expansion and I could claim a good stake of land. Messed up the techo trades and missed the bus there though.

Mass upgrade of warriors to swords took out the French (except for a tundra city they had rowed for a few hundered years to plant )and allowed me to pull back to within a couple of tech of the leader. I still havent built a single temple or library yet - no culture to speak of but I'm churning out horsemen like there's no tomorrow. {I qualified to participate in this thread when a package of gained technologies boosted me into the middle ages as far as Feudalism and Chivalry all in one stroke.} I feel another upgrade looming. ;)

Took out the Ottomans who were down to a single city by then courtesy of the Celts and Zulu. I'm trying to seal the southern passage. The Zulu have run amok in the east. India has just gone. I'm lining up England next.

A stroke of luck has however given me new option - but that as they say belongs in the next thread which I may reach sometime next week given that I've slowed tech down as much as possible.

Originally posted by DaviddesJ
The annoying thing about making too many alliances is that you can't change your mind and agree to peace without taking a hit for breaking the alliances. You might have some good reasons for wanting peace (war weariness, or to trade with them, or just because they are willing to pay you to have peace).

Isn't an alliance a 20 turn deal? I would think your rep wouldn't suffer as long as you wait for the 20 turns to expire before making peace?

Maybe someone who actually know the answer to this could comment (please:))

Originally posted by Dianthus

Isn't an alliance a 20 turn deal?

You also need to renegotiate the alliance, because it will hold (with all add ons like gpc) since that moment.
In the renegotiation you can just clear table and it vanishes.
To be sure go to <F4> click on your head (no, not that above your shoulders. The one on the screen :D ) with the first tab active and see if there is any dashed line which goes to your umcomming body.

Originally posted by ButSam
I'm also not caught up in tech--I'm about 4 behind--but that should not worsen too much in the future. It's refreshing that I'm not the only one who focuses too much on improvements--especially on Deity, where you need happiness and more science output.

ButSam, when you say "science output" are you talking about researching? During this spoiler period I've only researched 2 techs. I've traded (mostly for a profit!) for the rest. At the point I entered this spoiler I was only 1 tech behind the leaders! Take a look at Moonsinger's trading and bargaining (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54088) thread.

If you want to see a less experienced trader at work then just search for trade in my timeline (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/Dianthus_Timeline.txt) (also referenced from my main spoiler 1 post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1037452#post1037452))

Yes Dianthus you are right. The alliance lasts for 20 turns and then you can cancel it, but for DaviddesJ that may seem to much. You might want to make peace as soon as your opponent agrees, which would take about 10 turns give or take a few.

I have not kept a detailed log of the events, here the development of the spanish empire:

fonded Madrid on the hill, built 2 warriors, worker, started prebuild on granary. From there on Madrid was producing settlers for a very long time and shared its food bonuses with Toledo and Barcelona which supported the expansion at the start. I ran a pure farmer's gambit at the beginning as I wanted to fill in as much space as possible. Every new city was whipped for a temple ASAP to build up some culture. My research headed with 10% to writing (I didn't get it first, but was still able to trade around a bit, especially the English who were extremely backwards compared to the other AIs and did not have many contacs proved to be an excellent trading partner). Then I researched polytheism in 40 turns and also got some opportunities at trading. I did not want to trade as much as possible, and accumulated cash instead to slow down the tech pace a bit.

Here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/gotm20(950ad).jpg) you can see what my empire looked like at 950bc.
I had 16 cities, 2 granaries, 2 active settlers which claimed the northern spots soon and only few workers. The tech situation is quite good: although I have been behind in techs a bit, I could have easily bought them as soon as I wanted. At this pont it was quite clear that if I remained 30 more turns in peace, the game could no longer be lost: my direct neighbours were weak, and the others too far away to become dangerous:)

I feel quite comfortable defensively. However, Zululand is a MONSTER and growing. Its one thing to not lose early, its another to win. I've been in this position in diety games several times and when one other deity civ grows at the expense of two or three others it can be very difficult/impossible to pull them back. I doubt if I can take them offensively in the near future so its gonna have to war by other means but right now I have no research capability and little economic power. if I get an alliance against them I fear that the Zulus will just roll over a couple more civs before I can. At this stage therefore I prefer to cut down the weak civs before the Zulu does and at least deny them that land.
Its gonna be just me and them on the continent soon......

Zululand is so huge in my game too, but they are also my best friend. Together, we conquered France, Ottoman, and soon to be Celts, India, and England. They are #1 and I'm #2 and we the the most advance civ in the world. Nothing can't stop us now.;) Btw, all my technologies were coming from them. Their leader is such a sweet heart because everytime he discovers something new, he would usually share it with me first, then it will be up to me to sell his new tech to the rest of the world.:) Having a best friend whose nation is the most powerful in the world does come in very handy. However, I fear our friendships won't last forever because we are both too selfish and we both want the whole continent for ourselves.:( Why can't we all get along?:cry:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif1.21

After moving the worker onto the hill and seeing the cows and wheat, I moved the settler 2 squares NE to get the grassland cattle in the 9-tile radius. This gave me my first growth at 3600 B.C. and my second at 3350 B.C.

My second city was built around shielded grassland instead of wheat so I could pump out warriors faster. Madrid built 4 warriors before going into settler factory mode, and Barcelona built 9 more before building a temple and the FP. The early investment in regular warriors paid off in contacts and barb defense. The barb horsemen mostly avoided my land until the uprising, and the only thing the barbs destroyed by 1000BC was 4 warriors.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm20_bc2750.jpg

Here is my complete trading log:
3900BC: Start research on Pottery at 100% science
3000BC: Contact England
2950BC: Contact France

2800BC: Discover Pottery
2800BC: Trade Pottery to France for 25g

2710BC: Contact Celts
2670BC: Contact Zululand
2670BC: Trade 6gpt to France for Masonry + 1g
2670BC: Trade Masonry to Celts for 136g
2670BC: Trade Masonry to England for 84g

2470BC: Contact Ottomans
2470BC: Trade 239g to Ottomans for Mysticism
2470BC: Trade Mysticism + 11g to France for The Wheel
2470BC: Trade Mysticism to Zululand for 78g
2470BC: Trade Mysticism to England for Bronze Working + 50g
2470BC: Trade Mysticism to Celts for Warrior Code
2470BC: Start research on Polytheism at 10% science
2350BC: Trade The Wheel to England for 25g

2230BC: Contact India (they bought my contact)
2230BC: Trade 1gpt + 144g to Ottomans for Iron Working
2230BC: Trade Iron Working + Contact/France to England for Writing
2230BC: Trade Writing + Contact/England to Ottomans for 144g
2230BC: Trade Contact/England to Zululand for 20g
2230BC: Trade Iron Working to Celts for 25g

1750BC: France builds an embassy
1575BC: Trade WM to England for WM + 9g
1575BC: Trade WM to Celts for WM
1575BC: Trade WM to India for WM + 2g
1575BC: Trade WM to Zululand for WM + 32g
1575BC: Trade WM to France for WM + 24g
1375BC: Trade WM + 147g to England for 2 Workers

1200BC: Discover Polytheism
1200BC: Trade 168g + WM to Ottomans for Mathematics

Now I have some great trading opportunities. Only France and Zululand have Currency, and England is missing Construction.

1200BC: Trade Polytheism + WM to France for Currency + 195g
1200BC: Trade Polytheism + Currency to Celts for Construction + WM + 116g
1200BC: Trade Construction to England for Philosophy + Code of Laws + WM + 1g
1200BC: Trade Polytheism + Currency to Ottomans for Horseback Riding + WM + 202g
1200BC: Trade Polytheism + Currency to England for Map Making
1200BC: Trade Currency to India for WM + 12g
1200BC: Trade TM to Zululand for WM
1200BC: Trade WM to France for WM + 3g
1200BC: Establish embassy with Zululand
1200BC: Gift Code of Laws + Polytheism to India
1200BC: Declare war on India
1200BC: Trade Alliance/England to France for Alliance/India + 214g
1200BC: Trade Alliance/Ottomans + Polytheism to Zululand for Alliance/India

Everyone is bankrupt except France with 26 gold, and the Ottomans with their middle age tech. Hopefully the world war slows research down, giving me time to complete my swordman rush before pikemen arrive.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm20_bc1200.jpg

1025BC: France signs peace with England, cancelling my alliances
1000BC: Trade peace to England for Canterbury + WM + 4g

QSC Results:
13 cities, 2 settlers
14 workers
21 warriors
3 barracks, 4 temples
1389 gold

Zululand started off strong, and got 2 leaders in their war with the Ottomans. But they failed to take Sogut (Pyramids) and are now stuck in a useless war of attrition with the Indians and Ottomans.

I am planning a 20-swordman rush on France (Oracle, Great Wall) around 800BC, after the remaining barbarians are cleared from my borders. The Celts are sending lots of archers to help me with the barbs. :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/davemcw_gotm20_bc1000.jpg

:eek: Excellent start Dave. You have about 1300 more gold than I had at the turn of the ages :lol:.

I concur. Forbidden Palace due in 2 turns in Barcelona? :goodjob:

Summer is arrived and I have less time to spend on my PC playing Civ (but I have more time on the beach:cool: )
Eventually I qualified for this thread, here are some highlights of my game.

4000 BC: WorkerNE. I see 2 cows and 1 wheat. Settler NE
3950 BC: Found Settlerville (guess why I called it so?)
3500 BC: Met France. Got Pottery and Bronze for Wheel and gold
3300 BC: Met English. Got Masonry for Wheel and gold
3000 BC: My warrior discover the tight passage between our land and other civs. I start realising there are few or no barbarians and goody huts
2950 BC: Granary in Settlerville
2750 BC: Met Keltoi. Got Warrior Code and gold for Masonry and Wheel
2630 BC: My warrior engage a kind of dance with a Keltoi settler to stop him going through the passage. The warrior succeed, the city is built before the passage. I decide to build a city to stop the passage.
2590 BC: Found Workertown S of the capital close to the Dyes
2510 BC: Found Warriorburg
2270 BC. Found Città di Galley (again the task of this city should be clear)
2110 BC: Discovered Writing. Useless.
2070 BC: Met Zulu.
1990 BC: Found Central (I plan to build FP here).
1870 BC: Met India. Trade with France and India. I spent 173g+7gpt to get Map Making, Iron Working, Horseback and Mysticism
1750 BC: Dyes connected. Just in time to fix some happyness problems
1650 BC: Found K-Border (i.e. the city at the border with Keltoi)
1625 BC: A new big trading round. At the end I spent 6gpt to get Contact with Ottomans, Philosophy, Mathematics and the World Map
1525 BC: First Galley (will soon sink in the ocean)
1500 BC: Found E-Border, F-Border and Wheatcity
1325 BC: Second Galley (same destiny as the first). Time to trade again. I spent 8gpt and more than 100g to get Code Of Laws and Polytheism
1175 BC: Third Galley (this was the lucky one ... out of the scope of this thread)
1000 BC: Some more trading 6gpt and 500g for Currency and Construction

Summary
15 cities and 3 settlers on their way
All mandatory Ancient Times technologies
38 citizens
19 Warriors + 1 Swordman
10 Workers
12 gold
Contacts with more than 6 civs

I made a lot of micromanagement (at least for my standards)

Edit: starting from this gotm I try to track the number of session and playing time.
In this QSC I had 4 sessions (20tps) and played 6h 40'

I'm noticing that people have an actual pic of the Ottoman leader on their F4 screens, where I only had a national seal emblem. Does this mean I forgot to add a file somewhere. I thought I had added all the files that came from GoTM19.

edit: oh yea, PTW, duh

Originally posted by southpawsc
I'm noticing that people have an actual pic of the Ottoman leader on their F4 screens, where I only had a national seal emblem. Does this mean I forgot to add a file somewhere. I thought I had added all the files that came from GoTM19. I think it depends whether you are running PTW, which has the Ottomans as a built-in civilization, or vanilla civ, where it has been added in the files you installed and therefore has a different leaderhead image provided by Cracker and the team. I get the shield as well.

DaveMcW: Great Trading Example! :goodjob: Three key points regarding your Tech advancement seem to be - 1.) Research Pottery at Max initially (gains an additional trade capability, and granaries); 2.) Take advantage of good intermediate trade opportunities (the Masonry, Mysticism and WM trades); and 3) (very important!!) start Poly at 10% somewhere around turn 30, rather than around turn 41 which I (and anyone else doing minimal research from turn 1) did. Did you actually research anything after learning Pottery? Or did you do 0%, and save up some gold for later, knowing that you'd start Poly as soon as you learned Mysticism?

DaveMcW awesome game you have going! You're vast experience speeding up tech has also helped in trading tech I think. Civ_steve, thanks for the great assesment of DaveMcW's "advantages".

DaveMcW, I noticed yet again that you build the FP asap, in anticipation of a palace jump. I can see how this is faster than building the FP later, once you've found a proper site for it. If speed in building two productive hubs is your goal, then how long do you wait before jumping the palace? I realize that every game is different to some degree, but is there a minimum number of tiles separating the two cities that you require... and what seems to be the rough average of tiles separating these two cities?

The goal is a single ring of cities around the Palace and FP that don't overlap. So my minimum requirement is Palace-City-City-FP, or 3*city spacing. That would be 9 tiles in this game.

The exact placement of the FP and Palace is determined by terrain. I want lots of shielded grassland for fast construction of the FP, so I built it northeast of Madrid. Unfortunately the terrain 9 tiles away from Barcelona is crappy in every direction, so I need go a bit farther into the fertile French lands for my palace jump.

I just finished a large session and I'm able to post here now. I moved my worker to the hill followed by my settler. I love cattle and I made Madrdid into a settler factory. I was lucky with my warriors. First warrior went east to the sea and north where I contacted the English and the Celts. I popped a hut near the English border but I got barbs and my warrior was killed immediately. My second warrior went south and was able to gp through French territory and this warrior was able to contact all other civs on the continent.

Clearly the zulus are the strongest civ on the continent. They have been the tech leader from the start and have about twice the points I have.

At about 2000BC I realized there were no barbarians. After this date I send my settlers without any protection to establish new cities. At 1000BC I owned 17 cities and this is probably the best start I ever had in a deity game or a GOTM.

I focused on expansion until a zulu impi entered my territory. I was too late in building some military and I lost one of my cities when the Shaka sneak attacked (of course I traded currency for gpt before the sneak attack). I made a military allience with all the other civs on the continent against the Zulus and I managed to capture my city back. The zulus also took two French cities and I captured those cities as well with swordsmen and horsies.

{We can discuss issues beyond the limits of the first continent in the next spoiler thread - cracker}

I'm pretty sure I can beat this game if I manage to apply a decent strategy against the pesky zulus.

These Zulus don't seem to bother me too much. They seem to be busy with English, Celts and Turks. Switching between peace and war with them, but steadily crippling them.

Actually I'm friends with all on the continent. I give them right of passage and that makes most of them polite. Sometimes I even buy rop for some goodwill.

Admitted, I count on their goodwill. I don't built any military. Protect my cities with warrior only (makes a content face as well). So far no sneak attacks, gives me the opportunity to expand.

On the whole I'm surprised I'm surviving this deity game so long. The expansion goes pretty well.

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Zululand is so huge in my game too, but they are also my best friend. Together, we conquered France, Ottoman, and soon to be Celts, India, and England.
I think you're going way beyond the scope of Spoiler #1.

David, let this be my job with the help of our three other moderators who have been assigned this task. If you feel something is inappropriate then you may use the report post function. Just make sure it is significant enough to warrant having someone drop what they are doing to come running and have to read the 5 or 6 surronding messages to make sure the context is cleared. This approach of parroting something from messages that may or may not challenge the boundaries just shifts the tone of the thread away from the cordial exchange I want it to have plus it creates work seraching for the source and any spawn.offshoots. Someday we may give you part of this job officially if you feel up to it, but not today. - cracker