*Spoiler1* Gotm25-Mongols full map visibility of the entire land area of the world plus contact with all rival civs or their remains plus you must have completed the ancient age.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/2003images/horde_anim.gif

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

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

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

For the Gotm25:

1. Full map visibility of the land area of the entire world.
2. Contact with all rivals or their remains. Use your histograph status page to make sure you have a full list of 15 names dead or alive.
3. Plus you must have completed the ancient age.


Here is a list of some specific dos and don'ts for this discussion thread:

You may discuss any game features/easter eggs that you discovered prior to the cutoffs.

You may post screenshots of cool stuff, but try to be courteous and crop and/or downsize the images to less than 800 pixels wide.

If you think you found a "bug", PM first or email me at gotm@civfanatics.net to see if we can identify it better by some general methods rather than cluttering up the discussion of the play of the game. Please do not use this thread to degrade it into a bug hunt when those issues are addressed elsewhere.

DO NOT not discuss ANY unit upgrades to the Mongol Specific units or other units in the Middle Ages. We will open a spoiler thread in just a day or two that will lead up through the Feudal/Medieval ages and this thread will allow you discuss specific features of game play in that time period.

This thread is intended to focus on things that you did in the game that lead up to getting out of the ancient age. It may have taken you longer to gain contact will all the rival civs but confine your discussion to the events in the ancient age "or your ears will be cut off and your body will be strapped to a catapult and launched over the walls of the nearest fortress under siege."

SUGGESTED MAPS, SCREEN SHOTS and DISCUSSION TOPICS:

1) try to report and discuss how you progressively gained contact with other civilizations in your world. One thing that really helps in this is a minimap with colored arrows that shows your exploration path as well as any chains of contact trades that you may have made.

2) Again you may want to discuss specifics about the configuration of the geography in this game because this is a unique map situation that you will not encounter in games outside of the GOTM game under the "guiding game's master" style of play.

3) Discuss strategic choices and why you made them for this game, while staying with in the bounds of the spoiler rules.

4) You may want to discuss specifically what you feel the Civ Specific traits are of the Civs that you have encountered and how you feel these manifest in the game.

5) How did you determine the minor civs in the game and how did they impact your game play.

6) Also post cool screenshots of your new units in interesting situations on the map.

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

Also as a reminder, please place one of the following two graphic icons at the beginning of any spoiler posts that include information from your game or discussion of features that relate to:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif CONQUEST Class games
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I will not be sending in a save this month.

I really had high hopes for this game, but I was really disappointed.

I started out building my first city where I started. I used my conquest treasure chests to jump start a granary. I decided to use zero research.

I sent out my scout. I quickly met the other civs, but no goody huts. I never found any. I was really worried about the horde of warriors the other civs had, and they constantly wandered through my territory, but never attacked me.

I built my second city to the E, and I was lucky that there was where the horses and iron was. I built my second city SW of my start, near the Magog border.

I did well in tech trading, despite that it is VERY tedious to have to check EACH civ EACH turn to see what techs are available to buy, then trade. It is this part of an Emperor level game that I really didn't enjoy.

I decided the first victim would be the Magogs. I built a force of horsemen and attacked their second city. I had no trouble taking the city, but I lost many units to their counterattacks. I had started to fall behind in the tech race so I decided to make peace to get four techs from the Magogs. I decided to wait the twenty turns of the peace deal and attack again. At this same time I built another city along the river, S of my iron/horse town.

I made it to the MAs. After I got Fuedalism no one would trade techs to me anymore. I guess they wanted more money than I had, so I started a 40 turn research on monotheism.

After twenty turns of peace had elapsed I set forth to the Magog capital with about a dozen horsemen. The Magog only had one city, it would be a cakewalk. After killing a few spearmen I started attacking some strange king-looking units. I never knew their stats, because after each combat a worker would show up as the "strongest" defender in the city.

I kept attacking and attacking. I figured, how many could there be? I killed some, but kept losing horsemen. I kept attacking thinking there could only be ONE more of them left. I kept up the attacks until I only had two 1 hit point horsemen left, and I STILL didn't take the city. My entire army was gone... I would never had attacked if I would have known those wierd king units were there.

It was then that I decided to quit. My army was wiped out and it looked like it was going to be about 60 turns until chivalry. I wasn't going to give my cities away or wait for the vultures to arrive. So no Mongol hordes for me :(

I really wish for the GOTM that Conquest players could play at lower difficulty levels like the medal games :(

Originally posted by ltccone
...I really wish for the GOTM that Conquest players could play at lower difficulty levels like the medal games :(
Unfortunately there is balance in the world and to reach the top shelf you must sometimes be willing to climb a few rungs on the ladder.

Lowering the difficulty level lower in every game will really not provide you with the enjoyment you seek because all great Civ achievements come from playing wisely against rivals that might be charged up to give you some stimulation and competition.

It is the mix of game difficulties and situations that provides you with these choices.

We have been holding the exclusive medal play series games in the Conquests class low on the difficulty scale just to try and fill your niche for a low difficulty game in the mix.

Even though you did not succeed the first time around, give the game another try by moving up to the open class game and trying not to repeat the same mistakes you may have made in your conquest level attempt.

Also I just noticed the goofy comments about some goofy strange king-like units in your game. Don't you think this was worthy of sending me a PM so I could try and sort this out for you. The game setup on PTWv1.14 does not have any known goofy King-like units in it.

Originally posted by cracker

Unfortunately there is balance in the world and to reach the top shelf you must sometimes be willing to climb a few rungs on the ladder.

Lowering the difficulty level lower in every game will really not provide you with the enjoyment you seek because all great Civ achievements come from playing wisely against rivals that might be charged up to give you some stimulation and competition.

It is the mix of game difficulties and situations that provides you with these choices.

I don't necessarily consider higher difficulty levels as "better" than lower difficulty, just different.

Originally posted by ltccone

I kept attacking and attacking. I figured, how many could there be? I killed some, but kept losing horsemen. I kept attacking thinking there could only be ONE more of them left. I kept up the attacks until I only had two 1 hit point horsemen left, and I STILL didn't take the city. My entire army was gone...
I also run into those strange defenders and lost a lot of anda swordmens, but I did take the city. I think there were about 20 of these defenders (with 1hp?) and that civ did also draft citicens.

The strange thing was that the first "king" like defender did take ~5 o f my swordmen, but after that they were easy targets...

PTW 1.27 OPEN

civ1.29f

Odd.. well I didn't encounter anything like this in my Open class game....

I've actually finished now and had a great time - my first GOTM and definitely worthwhile - wish I'd found this site earlier! I'm now going to play GOTM 24 :-) Thanks guys!

Anyway..given the numbers, I was expecting to make contact with lots of civs early on, which I did, although I still fell behind in techs pretty early - I then got a huge stroke of luck when one of the minor civs built the Great Library, which I nabbed to propel me out of the ancient age in 690 BC. No goody huts anywhere (or none that I found) was a bit of a shock, but otherwise I left the ancient age pretty happy with my progress - clearly the minor civs were there to give players an easy start to the conquest of the world... this worked pretty nicely - left the ancient age first in population and steaming up the power rankings.

The main strategic choice I made was deciding when to start attacking - my first war, v the magog was kicked off in 1075 BC - looking back, I cold probably have started earlier - I feel that I should have taken out all of the minor civs by the end of the ancient age rather than the 1 1/2 I ended up doing. I managed to get the Colossus, Oracle and GL from the minor civs, which was a nice bonus...

edit: Am I allowed to still submit scores for earlier GOTMs? suppose there wouldn't be much point....

ptw, 1.21 open

I started out with sending the warrior N and discovered the nice flood plain with wheat :D. Figuring I could get atleast 2 nice settler factories with this startposition, I settled on the spot in 4000BC.

Did a 100% research towords burial rituals and after that did only 40-turn gambits. Succeeded quite well with that and managed to buy/trade the techs as soon as someone discovered them.

There were almost no wars in all of the ancient time, except that Goguryean wiped out the koreans quite early. This lead to quite a fast tech pace and I entered the middle age in 850BC.

I managed to set up two 5-turn settler factories and had 16 towns when entering middle ages. I figured that there was no reason to start a war as long as I could expand as I wished, but I guess there soon will be, as one of my neighbours build GL a few turns ago.

A strange thing about this game was the amount of slaves I bought. Normally I hardly ever buy any slaves, but when I entered the middle ages I hadn't build a single worker. Instead I had 13 purchased slaves running around working for free.

PTW 1.27f Open
Welcome to the GoTM Ithron - I did the same as regards to workers most of mine were slaves as well. This game has been remarkable for me from another point as I don't remember ever having signed as many early MAs. I think I had signed about 6 before I entered the MA in around 1200 BC. An expensive business when you have to build the embassy and then pay for the alliance. I'm not submitting a QSC- I generally don't- but do you get points for MAs or do you just get contact points? Getting some good early alliances really helps to soften up the opponents especially at the higher difficulty levels which I think should be reflected in the QSC scoring if it isn't already.
In the process of setting up my embassies I found massive amount of troops positioned in the minor civs capitals while spying - the ones I saw looked like regular Otomi with 3 HPs. I decided against attacking the minor civs as I calculated I would need in the order of 30 - 40 Ander warriors to be sure of taking even just one of them. Instead I used them to fight proxy wars.
I was pleased that I got sneak attacked early by the magog using a stack of around six warriors not only because I managed to survive it but as it got me in war mode early as this often happens in regular games but has never happened to me before in a GOTM where I tend to coast along and don't mix it enough early in the game. Did anyone else get attacked early? At the time I only had my capital guarded by two reg warriors - they attacked off a mountain, 4 in the first wave and 2 in the second. My warriors promoted to elite and vet in the first attack, my elite was killed in the second but my vet held firm - it was very hairy.
I've had three crashes in this game- the Ander warrior crash and two civilopedia crashes. I'm glad the ander warrior crash has been sorted as they have been getting alot of work in my game - the civilopedia can crash as much as it likes - if it was a library the Great Khan Samildanach would have had it burned.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif CONQUEST PtW 1.27f - Horse Archer version
My second GoTM; this time trying for domination (space last time as all neighbours too grumpy for UN).
As Sorsam-hit of the Magogs built the Pyramids they became my first target. The attack took so long they also built the Great Wall in there. It took ages because of the king units, mentioned above, but it did generate two leaders. They also dragged 5 other civs into the wars so i had my hands full being attacked from all sides.
I thought these units were a way of strengthening a minor civ - ie one that apparently could only have two towns, and I have not attacked the other two minors, fearing they too would have a similar defence. However my 10 elite swords are on their way to the Khazars.
I thought these special defenders were an easter egg - not a bug !!
I am really enjoying this game - thanks Cracker.

[ptw] 1.27f open

Well after one Predator win and then one Predator loss thought I'd try open to ensure a victory and try to enjoy the tactics of the units in this GOTM

Moved warrior to hill, see flooplain move settler two north to get in range and that got me a 4 turn settler factory with only one turn of MM. That was good enough for me didn't even look to see if I could get more out of it.

I then built two scouts and a warrior, don't remember seeing any huts.

After spreading out quickly, started to be trade broker and kept ahead in tech, bought many workers for techs.

2390BC met everyone when Writing was researched, bought it and did the usual major trade deals

Establish embassy with Kazars to find they have 19 troops in their capital????????????????

Here is a picture for those that wonder about the "King" unit. I licked my lips and thought mmm leader factory.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Kazaks-Chimkent_copy1.jpg

1600BC Was the Mapmaking turn, we didn't research it but when somebody did we got it and ended up with, 1067 gold, everyone bankrupt, full map. It is a shame but you have to look at the dip screen for every civ every turn (especially early in the game) or you would miss out on this kind of deal. I think it would benifit the game if you were told when a civ researched a new tech, but as you know you have to do it, you just get on with it.

1175BC Hook up iron hoping to get the barb huts as MA about to hit for somebody, but when it happens all the local ones are gone. I tried surrounding one but India got through and killed it.

Now our military is strong compared with all (after upgrading the warriors), so started to systematically renegotiate peace and keep everyone bankrupt.

1000BC, 13 cities, 1 settler, 1 local worker, 17 traded workers, 7 spear, 16 Anda Swords, 4 Archers, 3 horses. 586 gold, Monarchy in 10 and trading for that jumped me into the middle ages 10 turns later.

Magog got the Pyramids so that was my first target.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg v1.27f

Early exploration shows a nasty early start, as some of the nearby cities have 2 cities already. Since I thought Demigod had one settler to start some civs started on steroids. As I feared with 11 civs the map is very crowded. We will need those UU units to do well. We do get to buy 2 foreign workers before 3000BC to help our position. The tech pace is flying early on as we have the entire first row by 3400BC and Mysticism on the second row.

The 2950 BC to 2000 BC time frame saw 9 more foreign workers added to the worker pool. We had some scary AI troop movements, but they turned out to be false alarms. Seeing 5 units heading toward your capitol isn't fun when it has a single warrior. Contact with the whole world is achieved in 2230 BC thanks to the trading of writing.


The 1990 BC to 1000 BC time frame saw 3 more foreign workers. There were more available, but I want to conserve cash for mass upgrades. I am still selling stray contacts to civs all the way to 1870 BC. The disappointment was first to polytheism and not much I can get out of it in trading. Ta-Tu is formed during this time giving me horses and iron.

1625 BC to 2nd thread -
The first Arab war begins. I sign an alliance with Russia and Rajaputana against them. Now I have to hope they don't have many troops in my area. I extend it for another 20 turns when I can get Civil Service and $88 for my troubles.

1300 BC to 2nd thread -
The phony Gogury war begins. Korea came offering an alliance and gave me literature. I don't plan to do much here either, but the free tech is hard to pass up.

1050 BC to 2nd thread -
The first Han war begins. It is expensive, but I bribe the Ottomans to join the war. I also get the Khwarizmia to join the war for free. The majority of dead units were Han.

1025 BC - I enter the middle ages.

I can best sum up my situation by saying that is feels like a hard deity game. 14 civs is driving the tech pace crazy. I am unable to play the typical slow pace tech game and have large blocks of cash for upgrades, and other uses.

This game already looks like a challenge to finish on-time. I am only in the BC time frame, but the turns are already over 5 minutes apiece.

Tech Step, can you please edit this message to show your software version and the class of your game at the beginning of your posts - Thanks - cracker

Version = PTW;
Class = Open;

Well I moved to the hill to the N/W (I think) and settled on the hill. Built a granary and then sent a settler off to the N/E (Iron + Horses)

From then on in everything got a bit difficult. I decided early on that this game would be a game for fighting so I set about making my capital a settler factory (I was able to build a settler in 4 turns YAY!). I only wanted to have 5 cities and make them as strong as possible and use them to pump out horsemen and eventually the special units (not for this thread however)

I tried to gambit my way to monarchy but was beaten there by the ottomans. I got their second and traded it for currency and construction.

Going into the middle ages things are looking a bit sketchy, I am not even half way up the power ladder and everyone has heaps of units.

In my game the Germans and the ottomans are the most powerfull.

To be fair I am not a great fan of having as many opponents as there are in this game as it takes too long to trade anything etc. Perhaps there should be a feature in a new civ that allows you to check if a civ has anything that you want automatically so you don;t havre to muck around. ie: If you had an embasy your advisor could tell you if they have discovered anything new???

Cracker. I managed to get all of the bugs sorted with the new downloads. Thanks for sdorting it out so quickly.

good luck all.

It has taken me a few hours to sort out the "goofy kings" issue that exists in the PTW games.

First, let me make it absolutely clear that this effect does not apply to the Civ3v1.29 games.

If you look around you in the game, you will see that there are three civilizations near you that clearly are not growing as fast as the other civilizations. This should not be a major spoiler to you at this point in the game if you have legitimately qualified to participate in this spoiler thread. The three civs are your "minor" rivals even if they may not appear initially to you to be minor.

Players who are playing a constructive game will use the tools that you have built into the game to assess the civs you meet and in particular these nearby neighbors. You will notice that one of these minor neighbors has access to both iron and horses while the other two only have access to one of these early strategic resources. By design, these minor rivals should be building lots more military than normal but their positions and starting priorities should be more of a threat to civilizations other than you as the Mongols. For you as the Mongols they should be just big fat cannon fodder if you plan ahead in the game.

The bug that exists in the PTW versions of the game is caused by the PTW editor that automatically adds every possible king unit to the buildable inventory of every added civilization in the game. Even though none of the civs should be able to build kinsg, the editor adds this feature anyway. Further complicating this issue is that fact that the Civs should not technically be building king units because the kings are flagged with the AI strategy of "king" which in this game ends up doing nothing. The two AI rivals with kings should be building warriors and perhaps archers and then later on building swordsman and horsemen which would threaten you and the other major civs around you. Instead, they minor rivals just sit there and get fat with what amounts to a huge pile of warriors(dressed like Hannibal) waiting for you to come along and massacre them with your hordes. The Hannibals won't run. They won't attack. They just stand there and wait for you to whack them in the head.

Note that this same feature/bug was present in Gotm24-Korea but went unnoticed because so many players did not play in v1.27 and the civs could expand and build other things other than targets for you to whack.

The minor civs in PTW become less of a threat to you if you pay attention top the pregame discussion and key strategies of expansion and tech management. They do become harder to kill early if you do not do your homework.

So there is essentially balance here even though the two game versions end up being different. The Civ3v1.29 game has rivals that may be easier to kill but the PTW game will be slightly easier to produce great leaders and advance in technology.

One observation to share here early, is that the three games I have observed so far in the conquests class games all demonstrate fairly poor expansion. These games only had 4, 5, and 6 towns respectively when the expected number of towns by 1000BC on this map should be in the 11 to 15 range. This is designed to be a bloody game and the opening start position is actually randomly generated. There is a reason that the targeted Medal Play victory condition is aimed at Domination instead of just kill them all Conquest and we will see that players who expand rapidly using the techniques demonstrated repeatedly by top players like Bamspeedy, SirPleb, Qitai, and others will really have fun in this game.

You also could have placed an embassy with the Magog for just 33 gold and that would have given you full view of their entire capital. They had no luxuries and their only resource was horses which you already had and could never have dry up.

Originally posted by ltccone
... I would never had attacked if I would have known those wierd king units were there.(
Ltccone, now that I have had a chance to look at your game I can see several points that should be important for reference.

First, you were right at the cusp of being able to enter the Middle Ages after your first attack that took the Magog's 2nd city. You were only 6 turns away from the end of the QSC period and only had 5 cities including the one that your had captured. Just because barracks are cheap for the Mongols does not mean that every city needs to hand build one. With the Magog being ahead of you in techs up until you whooped up on them and used pointed stick research (as designed) it would be reasonable to assume that they would have a force of at least 3 or 4 spearmen backed up with perhaps warriors, archers, and catapults. When you attacked their capital again with a stack of 13 Gosposdars and 3 spearmen, I think the better strategy would have been to use the intervening 20 turn period to build settlers and expand while you repositioned your gospodars are built outward toward setting up conflict or cooperation with the other neighbors you were provided. Your few towns were severly spread out and overpopulated when your empire could have been two or three times larger and more powerful.

I would recommend that you replay the game from your 1250BC turn save when you had just made peace with the Magogs the first time after stealing their silks and looting their technology lead. Look around and see what you can do creative to trade yourself into the middle ages and begin the great hunt for mortal men.

I'm Civ3v1.29 conquest

Originally posted by samildanach
PTW 1.27f
I was pleased that I got sneak attacked early by the magog using a stack of around six warriors not only because I managed to survive it but as it got me in war mode early as this often happens in regular games but has never happened to me before in a GOTM where I tend to coast along and don't mix it enough early in the game. Did anyone else get attacked early? At the time I only had my capital guarded by two reg warriors - they attacked off a mountain, 4 in the first wave and 2 in the second. My warriors promoted to elite and vet in the first attack, my elite was killed in the second but my vet held firm - it was very hairy.

That describes pretty much exactly what happened to me. Except my warriors died. My city was on the square NE of the start square and the evil Magog were attacking from the W not the Mountain. Exact details found in my submitted qsc timeline. I think I've clinched the red ambulance this month :(. Was your capital on the hill to the North?

Civ3v1.29, Predator

This was the best GOTM I have played yet. I thought it would be tough to top the Vikings and Korea, but this one blew them away. Kudos to Cracker and the GOTM team. The new units are very well designed, and they ensure that strategy must be carefully laid out with them in mind. Simultaneously, they do not unbalance the game. In fact, I felt they made it even more balanced: many decisions in this game were absolutely critical. I think I will wait for the next spoiler to post, because that is when all the ancient age decisions bear fruit or bring ruin. I will say, however, that I would have been most pleased to see goofy king units in my game, because leaders were not to be had for love or money.

[ptw] 1.27f Open

Starting off I moved the warrior to discover the floodplain wheat. Once that was discovered, I moved NE and settled. I built 1 more scout, another worker, and then a granary. It took me quite a while to get a 4-turn settler factory going, but once I did, it worked it's wonders as usual. I didn't end up founding my second city until 1910 BC, but by the QSC cutoff I had 9 cities and 2 settler en route.

The tech pace of this game was frightening. I easily had the first tier in the 3000s BC. The early trading oppurtunities helped me take a lead, but I soon fell far, far behind. I, however, was presented a golden oppurtunity when the Magog completed the GL in their capitol. I amassed a modest force of around 10-15 Gospado and went after them. When I had established an embassy earlier, I noticed the King units, but did not know what they were. I soon found out that they are excellent for promoting your units to elite. It took around 2 or 3 turns of attacking, and my forces were reduced a great deal, but I fianlly did capture the GL, catapulting me into the Middle Ages in 50 BC.

PTW 1.27f Open

Heres a screenshot of my capital at 1000BC - they attacked from the hill with wines. I remember now thinking at the time I should have founded on that hill given the number of opponents and the level. When the magog attacked I was just in the process of completeing my first settler so I couldn't rush an extra defender or lose all those shields and decided to risk defending with just two units- I slipped the settler out between the first and second attacks.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SAM1000.jpg

Did the magog raise your capital when they took it ? - I was counting on being able to take it back if the magog captured it thats why I continued with the settler. I noticed that the minor civs razed cities rather than capture them later in the game so I didn't make a smart decision.

1.29f [civ3] http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/TreasureSurrender.gif

I moved my settler NE one tile after scouting with my warrior, treasures, and scout. Having learned from my experience in the Korean GOTM, I was able to successfully set up a four-turn settler factory [party] (my first!!) I popped my first settler in 2510 BC and had 11 cites at the end of the QSC period. I started keeping a QSC log, but I got so caught up in the game that the quality of my log suffered, and then I forgot to stop at 1000 BC. :( So no QSC for Bugsy this time.

My initial exploration had units heading N, S, E & W. I lost a scout south of Khazars and brought a warrior back when the Gogury sent a SOD of 4 warriors and 5 archers to my northwestern frontier. They marched on by, but I thought I was going to have the red ambulance wrapped up there for about three turns.

By 3500 BC, I had already met Magog, Khazars, and Gandhi. I had all contacts by 2070 BC.

I knew the map was going to be crowded having so many early contacts, so that made me change my priorities. Initially I was planning on a peaceful expansion until I ran out of land, but a strong military became priority number one. The capitol built scout, warrior, warrior, granary, then 11 settlers. The first build in every city was a warrior. And Ta-tu (city #2) built warrior, warrior, barracks, and then nothing but warriors. In hindsight, I should have popped a few workers in between, but I would peal a worker off my other cities as soon as they were pop 2.

Seeing that Magog, Khazars, and the Gogury already had two cities by the time I met them, I was afraid cracker had placed three 800-lb gorillas right next to me. The three “minor” civs must have had two settlers and were unable to build anymore (although Khazars captured Odessa from the Russians) By the 1500’s I remembered that cracker had put in the minor civs and breathed a small sigh of relief, although they loved marching medium sized SODs along my boarders.

Given Magog’s geographic position on the coast, I decided to go after them first. My reasoning was that instead of being surrounded, I would have a three front situation. I built up a force of 16 warriors, and upgraded them to swords. I declared honorably and marched into their territory and took their second city without a loss. Their capitol was a different story. I sent a force of 13 swords on towards the capitol. (Two redlined units are healing in the captured city and a third unit to guard them.) The Magog had at least five defenders, which defeated 10 of my swords, red-lined two others and left one healthy sword to defend against a counterattack. They now had two elite spear type units. I sent my red-lined units out to heal, and came back with a force of five healthy units to take out the two elites. When I marched into the capitol I had two red-lined elites left. That was a near run thing.

About the time I was attacking the first Magog city, I was informed that the Khazars had bult the great library…target number two. :mwaha: :D I figured that while these minor civs might have few cities, cracker had somehow given them a military advantage to survive as long as possible. I started building a force of 10 horses and five swords to take the GL. Since I was falling behind in techs after I upgraded my units (I didn’t have any money left to trade techs) I stopped research, and hoped for a military victory to catapult me into the Middle Ages.

The GL actually was easy to capture. Losing one horse, and retreating another. Chimkent fell, the GL was mine, and the next turn we became a Medival civ.

I am really looking forward to the next 100 turns or so and using the new units. It should be fun. I think I may play cracker's Trick or Treat Quick Game first to practice with these units.

Thanks to the GOTM crew for a great time so far. :goodjob:

PtW Conquest

Well I started by spending 1 chest on barraks and kept the other chest for a barraks in my second city.

Went exploring. Meeting the civs was really easy. Traded techs and kept everyone bankrumpt. I went for lit right away so that I could try to get the GL. Since I was militaristic I decided to get it with a leader.

The Magogs declare war on me, I think they are stupid because they only have 2 cities. I quickly get a leader in 1525 and build the GL in 1425. I get another leader in 1250 and build the pyrimids in 1200. I also get another leader just after using the last one in 1200. I build an army with him in hopes to get another leader and build the heroic epic thing.

I destroy Mogog in 950 and end the AA with Raja almost destroyed.

I kept one city that was rank one just pumping out warriors every turn and just ran him to another town to upgrade. Since I had the GL I had research set at 0.

I fully expect some of the better players to be fairly close to be fairly close to a domination victory at the end of the AA seeing how good I was doing.

I fully expect some of the better players to be fairly close to be fairly close to a domination victory at the end of the AA seeing how good I was doing.

Even Sir Pleb isn't that good.....hang on I'll rephrase that.....I hope Sir Pleb isn't that good.

Originally posted by samildanach


Even Sir Pleb isn't that good.....hang on I'll rephrase that.....I hope Sir Pleb isn't that good.

Don't tempt him...he's probably going easy on us as it is :lol:

Playing PTW 1.27f at Open (sorry Cracker)

After asking my father (Yesugai) to move north, I moved across the river to get the flood plains wheat in range. I built one wanderer and then the granary. Settlers every 4 turns after that.

The cities were built in a ring of 5 and 5.5. I ended up with 11 since I did not put one directly to the ne in the desert. Each city (except the flood plain one) started with a barracks and then either warriors, bowmen, or gospodars depending on which would waste the fewest shields.

Yesugai continued north and then headed west, fully exploring the incense penisula. After completing his tour, he was welcomed back to Karakorum with honors. The scout headed west to the coast, south, then west again assuming there had to be land out there. He was eventually killed by a barbarian north of the Han lands just after seeing another AI (no contact made). The wanderer headed east then north, then started coming back to the southeast quadrant. By that time though Calligraphy had been discovered and I was able to trade for all contacts so the wanderer came home and was disbanded.

Contacts were made in the following order:
3750 Rajapunta, Magog
3550 Goguryeo
3500 Russia
3350 Khazar, Koreans
3300 Khwarizmia
3100 Han
2950 Arabs

In 2350, the Koreans discover Calligraphy and we trade Taoist Mystery and 5 contacts for it. By trading around, I got the rest of the contacts, 507 gold, and a worker. I built embassies in the nearest neighbors to improve relations and lessen the likelihood of attack (I also gifted some contacts). I saw then the massive garrison of the Magog and, a few turns later, the Khazar.

I was checking the diplomatic screens every turn and did well on the trades. By 1000 BC, I had 25 slave workers!

The Magog discovered Map Making in 1575 and I traded my world map, Mathematics, ROP, and 310 gold for it. By the end of the turn, I had a full world map and a net gain of 107 gold. The Magog were the only ones with a treasury.

In 1200 BC, I learned that the Magog were building the Great Library and decided it was time to develop a Great Leader. The Goguryeo and Koreans had been warring for centuries so I went north. This would also give me one secure quadrant. We declared war on the Goguryeo in 1100 with 6 gospodars ready to rock and roll and more on the way. We finished off the Goguryeo in 975.

At 1000 BC, I had 14 cities, 14 warriors, 12 bowmen, 16 gospodar, 1 native worker, and 25 slave workers. The treasury was firm at 1363 gold with 53 more coming in each turn. I had all ancient age techs except Republic, Monarchy, and Currency.

In 900 BC, the Khazars declare war. Since my offensive forces are up north, I start with a counterattacking force relaying on the bowmen which have stayed home. I sign an alliance with the Rajapunta since they have some warriors in the area and it can't hurt to weaken them since they're near the top of the list.

I declare war on the Koreans in 875 and take their 3 largest cities by 750. I then make peace and send most of the gospodars south. The Khazars have the Pyramids which will be very nice.

In 710 BC, my wine deal with the Magog ends and I use it to help buy Currency to put us in the Middle Ages.

I'm still hoping to get a leader to land the Great Library. For the past ten turns or so, I've been starting to build temples in the core ring to get the extra tiles. Markets are coming up to add to the treasury which is over 2,000 gold. I'm looking forward to the special units in the near future.

Conquest Civ1.29f

This is my first GOTM, and my first post to CFF!

I moved the settler NE. I sent scouts and/or warriors off in all directions, resulting in many early contacts with the other civs. By trading tech amongst them I managed to secure an early tech lead, though this didn't last long. My gambit for the GL came within one turn of success before Germany completed it instead, and they were too far away to make a good AA war target, so I had to spend some cash and do some research of my own to keep up. To avoid wasting my palace pre-build, I ended up building the Forbidden palace too close to my capital. SO there will have to be a palace jump at some point.

The Egyptians declared war on me when I refused their demands, but it was largely a phoney war due to distance. I certainly wasn't going to bother sending troops over to them, let them come to the slaughter!

Meanwhile, I decided to make some progress starting with a "weaker" civ, choosing the Magogs, just like many above. However, I also found them tougher going than expected. Their two cities had the Oracle and the Colossus respectively, vs almost no culture on my side, and more defenders than I was expecting a two city civ to have. Also, just as I took one of their cities a trickle of Eqyptians finally arrived to slow my progress further. The slow progress resulted in culture flips so I had to retake the cities, but eventually the Magog succumbed to the might of the Mongol empire and were no more.

The Egyptians continued to trickle in, and be slaughtered until they were willing to offer peace on neutral terms which I took.

Finally trading excess resources and some cash got me into the MA late BC (about 200BC), and not far behind the tech leaders. Though the techs cost me a lot more than the other civs were prepared to reimburse me when I traded to the new techs around.

Looking forward to some serious civ smashing with the unique units.

[ptw] 1.27
Well, I am the kind of player that cracker hates. I have nothing useful to add to the discussion because I'm dead.

I don't often lose by conquest at any level but the AI jacked me up with all the surrounding opponents and a barbarain uprising.

SMOOTH

@ SewerStarFish - I would find it interesting to hear about your game. I think many people might learn something from it, that could help in future games. Even a loss can be worthwhile if something can be learned from it. Please share.

@ Sandman2003 - Welcome to CF! :wavey: You'll find this is a very cool place with a lot of interesting, friendly people.

ptw 1.21 predator

I decided to try predator

I seem to have had a bit of a mediocre start here. I moved the settler NE at the start and decided to set up a settler factory using the flood plain. I got hit by disease in 2950bc when my capital was only size 3 and was always struggling to catch up after that. I built the first ring of cities at 4 squares, but I think 3 would have been better.

I built 2 scouts straight away then a granary. Finding everyone was quite easy. I only popped one hut though and that had maps.

The tech pace was very quick. I didn't manage to get anything researched myself, and had to pay to buy stuff. I reached MA in 1000bc by buying construction for a load of money from the Magog (250 and 10gpt). I couldn't sell it on to anyone so this was probably a bit lame. samildanach's MA in 1200bc is impressive. I dread to think how quick Sir Pleb et al will be.

The Magogs built the pyramids and I wanted to attack, them so I got a big surprise when I made an embassy and found 23 defenders in their capital. I didn't recognize the defenders but I guess they are "kings" mostly. Lots of the AI are attacking the Magog now so they might be softening up and I might have a pop myself to try to rescue the game. My reputation won't be very good though.

I have submitted a qsc. This reminds me of a quote by Samuel Johnson about " the triumph of hope over experience".

My empire at 1000bc:





http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/1000bc.jpg

Originally posted by Sir Bugsy
[B]@ SewerStarFish - I would find it interesting to hear about your game. I think many people might learn something from it, that could help in future games. Even a loss can be worthwhile if something can be learned from it. Please share.

[ptw] 1.27 open

Not much to tell really. I settled the opening spot. The next was toward the south next to the iron and horses. The third to the north just south of the river. I was research trading quite well and was on par with the other civs but I was slow in building new settlements so I was a little smaller than the others to the east and south (Russia and Arabia).

Arabia demanded some gold and since they weren't an immediate neighbor and I hadn't been at war yet, I was feeling confident and told them to go away. They declared war.Within a turn Russia and Magog were allied against me. I should have tried to negotiate out of the war sooner but I was able to hold my territory well. When out of the darkness came the Arabian and Russians in enough numbers to drive me back to my cities. Several others joined their cause and my envoys were sent packing ( I suppose because the war was still not too old and no one had lost a city).

Now here's where there was bad luck. A barbarian uprising occured and it attacked my cities ( not entirely but I came out on the short end) and just the wrong moment. I was already weakened. My cities fell pretty quick.

My biggest problem was waiting too long to sue for peace. The loss of Ta-Tu was frustrating (barbarians) and I ended the turn without making a diplomatic effort.

GOTM is supposed to played with thoughtful precision for the best play result but I got frustrated and made poor choices because I worried more about not scoring well.Now I'll probably get the ambulance next to my name :cringe: and a big :spank:from Cracker. Now I have twentysome days to wait for the next one -- and that's what hurts most.

Version = PTW
Class = Open

I am no expert at this game but I think that it was a wise decision on my behalf not to declare war until I had an army of horsemen.

1: My horsemen always seemed to retreat if losing (Yay!)
2: I planned to upgrade them when i discovered chivalry

It seems that many of the people that declared war early ended up in a bit of trouble.

PTW v1.27f Open - New unit version (I love those units!)

Move the warrior to the hill and the scout SE, then W to get a good look at the terrain. Moved the settler NE and had the worker irrigate. From there, everything I seemed to do felt like it was slow motion. I had played 3 or 4 Mongol games during the last couple of weeks of October to get ready so I thought there would be plenty of floodplains (arid, temperate seems to make a lot) and I was hoping for lots of goody huts. I set research to 0% and my first 2 builds were scouts. They made lots of contacts which sped along the tech trading but they did not find any goody huts. The extra 150 gold came in handy for initial trading.

I founded my first city directly north at the floodplain area. However, for some reason, I decided on a distance of 3 where, as you all can probably tell, this map would have allowed a nice setup at 4 or 4.5. I wanted this first city to be a settler pump but it seemed to take forever to get the first granery built. I ended up creating 2 more settlers with Karakorum before the granery was finished. This was between warriors and other things. Maybe I'm making more of it than it deserves but I definitly need more work at getting settler pump since the best I could do was 6 turns with this city.

Conflict wise, I kept the peace as best as possible, giving into minor demands from the Arabs, Russians, Magog, and Khazars. Around 1000 B.C., I refused a demand from the Russians, who declared war (Catherine made her typical snotty remarks one too many times). They brought along the Germans. I was able to get Egypt and Arabia ganged up against the Germans. Minor units came my way in one's and two's which were easily picked off, giving me 3 or 4 elite horseman and 1 elite bowman, but no leaders.

The only tech I researched was Shamanism. All others were bought. I entered the MA at 825B.C., at peace with Russia but at war with the Germans. My "empire" is quite small but it will begin expanding soon. I'm falling behind in tech's but I have an average or strong army against most of my neighbors. Hopefully, one of them will get the GL. I will definitely pay them a visit. Magog have the Collossus and I could use some extra cash...

My map @ 800 B.C. (forgot to save at 825B.C.)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/gotm25-800bc-map.JPG

I plan on painting as much of it yellow for the next spoiler thread! :evil:

Just one last comment: I really think Firaxis should start taking notes on the work done by the GOTM crew. The work is really incredible and shows a lot of commitment. I just wish I could play random games with all these new Asian units as I think they add a lot more flavor to the game. I'm sincerely grateful for all the work and effort they put in so we could have some fun. It's like every 1st of the month is Christmas!

PTW@Predator

First time reporting on one these in a while. Middle Ages @ 1125BC. I have about 11 settlements and some 15 military units. Traded for about 10 foreign workers. Using the capital as a settler pump and just setup the second city for worker production. No combat in the whole game except for a battle with one barb. Researched writing only, the rest acquired by trade.

I am building barracks, archers, and mounted units. I don't know who to hit first. I did not experiment with the new units, but it will be monarchy and forever war when I get started.

(vanilla civ, Open)

Last month I didn't have time to finish, so now I tried to play quickly, and just have fun instead of running for a top score. I didn't bother to make a timeline, so these are just some quick notes.

I decided to go more or less for a total war from the start, so I built my cities tightlt together. I decided to wait for my UU's before going really on war footing, but to take the lesser civs out with swordsmen. After Gogureyo built the GL in Munsan, I decided to attack them first. With this war completed, I entered the Middle Ages around 700 bc.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/650bc-map.jpg

PTW1.27 Open

I suspected that I had been a little too conservative in my starting play and reading this thread has confirmed this to be true.

I had no wars in the AA (and gave into tribute demands several times to ensure this) as my plan was to build up a number of warriors, archers and horsemen to upgrade to those exciting new UU in the early middle age. There was plenty of land to expand into but early growth was limited by me not gaining sufficient workers/slaves to fully develop the land and possibly having too many warriors to help protect against a possible sneak attack by the hoardes of military units that my neighbours kept sending through my lands to attack barb camps. Very worrying!

Tech rate has been faster than I would have expected but I kept up through plenty of trades, although an error meant that I didn't reach the MA until just before the QSC period ended and I was around 800g poorer than I should have been. Still you live and learn.

The minor tribes built some very useful wonders for me to take. Mogug built the Pyramids and the Colossus, Oracle was built by the Khazar and Gogury had the GL. These small civs provide some very useful prizes but reports of me taking them is beyond the scope of this thread
;)

PTW1.21 Open Class

Started off moving warrior to hills and scout west. Decided to build first city one NE. With all the civ’s in the game I decided to start at 0% science until I could get one 2d level Advance and then go for the 40-turn deal on first 3d level advance available. Only built one additional scout before going for the 4-turn settler factory. Plan was to have 1st city be a settler factory, then create an inner ring of military factories that would only build barracks and military. Probably don’t need barracks for them all considering I plan on upgrading mostly to units that bombard, but “it’s only 20 shields” (and lots-o-money in upkeep). Decided on 6 cities of distance 4 (4SE,4NW,2S+1SW,2W+1SW,2E+1NE,2N+1NE).

2750: Built Granary; Finally met Magog after already encountering 5other civ’s. Will produce a settler generally every four turns.
2270: Trade for Calligraphy; (assume I) find all other civ’s by trading contacts
1700: Found Hovd, last of my inner circle city

Mostly trading for workers. (Ended up w/ 7 slaves by 1000BC). Using two of my inner cities for workers to speed growth and for future expansion. Expected to lose a city or settler as sometime they were unguarded early on, but no attacks came until I had Anda Swordsmen in most cities.

Now start a second ring of cities, which will build temples to expand my borders. Based upon closeness of other civ’s, decide on distance of 8, though I really wanted to go out further.

1600: Connect iron and start upgrading warriors
1500: Discover Shamanism: trade so only Lit,Mon,Rep,Con,Cur left; start Mon at 10% (40-turn); trade MM for WM’s to see the whole continent. Although it may have been obvious to some earlier, I see that Gog’s, Mag’s and Kha’s must be the minor tribes.
1300: The Arabs want money & maps; I say “Nuts”; they declare WAR; I convince Russia that is in their best interest to declare war on the Arabs – nice buffer zone
1275: Decided Gog’s need use their army somewhere, so I get them to join in the war
1050: Russians sign Alliance w/ Magog to round out the Axis of Good (for me)
1025: Magog’s give me Currency for an alliance vs Arabs I asked for!!
1000: No battles yet w/ Arabs.

Currently have 13 cities, 36 population, 1 settler, 10 workers + 7 slaves, 2 wanderers, 19 Anda Swordsmen, & 2 Mangudai Bowman. Obviously very defensive, but I’m getting ready to go for lots-o-Gospodor. Lots-o-civs keep entering my borders, but I don’t feel confident enough to them to “step-off”!

Eight civ’s are short Con&Cur; four Civ’s in MA, 3 of them w/ at least M,FW,&E!!!! I’m 20 turns from Monarchy. Hoping a behind-in-tech civ gets it first and I can trade – or I get it first and can trade up to Samari Code quickly and start the rampage.

Germany got GL, so no real reason for war yet (though I’m sure the better players have already finished off a few civ’s). Khazars got The Pyramids so they will be my first target. Would be neat to finish before I get out of MA, but not likely.

To raze or capture, that is the question! Culture is pitiful. Considering razing and trying to build cities 6 spaces apart as they will converge the free space at 10 culture each. Or just quickly overwhelm the enemy. Decisions, decisions!! See you at the end of the MA!!

Civ3v1.29f Open

Well... about three weeks ago my wife took a weekend trip, I was surfing and somehow stumbled on to CivFanatics. The quality and diversity of the site as well as the obvious pleasure derived by GOTM affectionados convinced me to use the "off time" and load Civ3 which had been sitting in the closet for two years (a Christmas present). After getting comfortable with the game layout, upgrading to current game status, reading everything I could find from folks like SirPleb, Snaga, Qitai, Alexman and many others including all of you, and playing and replaying GOTM23 and GOTM24 at Predator here's your three week old newby's try at GOTM25 "for real"...

Start

Warrior N to the hill...Bingo! The wheat. Let's take the Scout W down the river to see if anything interesting there. W....ooops that was the Worker. 2nd move into the game and I've already messed up. Now we'll do the scout W-W. NE for the settler looks OK and that's where we'll do the build next turn. Had a fun time with that Worker. Lost two moves right at the start. Then built a road after mining the Grass/Wine to discover the Despotism gotcha....no extra gold...ughh.

Managed to somehow get out of the blocks though and got a 4-turn Settler factory going, albeit after trying to mine the Flood Plain which changed my setup plan and forgetting to get the Size 5 tile prepared. There seem to be a few details to this game!

Initially set production for a Granary, then decided there are a lot of bad guys out there and switched to a Warrior, and finally settled on a Scout before the Warrior popped. Then covered the capitol with a Warrior before starting the Granary. So after much mind thrashing we went Scout, Warrior, Granary. After Granary popped another Worker to help set up the factory.

The 2 Scouts and free Warrior were sent clearing the immediate area to see what space we had to work with, then sent charging through the world looking for other civs, which clearly were plentiful. First Settler at 2350BC although I was still setting up the factory.

I've not been able to factor interaction with other civs into my game as I seem to get focused upon development and simply forget about them. Checked the other civs every 4-5 turns this time around and traded as has everyone to get techs, contact and maps. I completely missed that you could trade for Workers. I'll have to replay to see where I could improve there.

Had contact with all by 2030BC. Bought MapMaking in 1550BC and had all maps by 1500BC.

Refused Egypt's tribute demand in 1100BC. They declared war, did a MA with Toku and figured they could have at each other without getting to me.

At QSC I was 4 turns from Monarchy with

11 Towns, 5 Workers, 1 Settler, 1 Scout, 9 Warrior, 2 Horsemen, 3 Granary, 4 Barracks, 508g, Missing Currency, Construction and Republic. Ta-Tu was in Civil Disorder...how embarrassing right at the reporting date!

I settled RCP 3.5 and 6/6.5. I'll put how to add maps and screenshots on my to-do list.

Doubt if I can report QSC since I didn't keep as close a timeline as I think they need.

Entered MA in 875BC after acquiring the needed techs. Haven't experienced the barbarian rush referenced by others yet in my "travels". Perhaps I'm about to get a taste. I think I'll download the "Treat" game now and try it before continuing. I've never BOMBARDED anything before and figure a little experience might help in the MA.

While far from the top, I guess I feel this is at least credible and I'll be looking to improve next month. Perhaps one of these days I can report something that will help folks with their games as I have been helped with mine.

BTW, the first "civ" game I played was Hammurabi on a Trash-80. Anybody play a "civ" earlier than that?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/ptw.gif 1.27f
Open, Special Mongol Units

My goals for this game were pretty straight-forward, I wanted to expand rapidly to build a production base, planning on maybe one quick early war if I needed resources or if my neighbors were too close. I knew I wanted lots of older units to upgrade, if I could, so I would need lots of cash. To fund this, I set research at 0, 100% taxes. My plan was to trade for techs as needed, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the AI anyway. Also, in general I felt I would benefit from a slower tech pace, as it would allow me to build up for my unique units, and hopefully keep them useful longer. I also wanted to explore quickly, so I could trade techs. After debating myself, I chose the Open class this game, my last two had been Predator, and I had struggled to keep up, I wanted to enjoy these special units. Plus, in this case, the extra cash and an early exploring warrior would really fit into my strategy.

I began by moving my Yesugei (Warrior) N onto the hill, where I could see another wine. I then moved my Scout E, NE onto the mountain, and saw a wonderful site, a Flood Plain with Wheat! I knew this would let me get the 4-turn settler factory, so I moved my settler NE, moved the worker SE to the Bonus Grass, and saved. I actually went back and played the “Treat” game, so I could think about this start position some more with the new information. The next day, I was ready to start, I knew what improvements I needed to get the settler factory up and running, (Now would have been a good time for Industrious!). To save turns, I decided NOT to build roads in all the tiles I would work, even though it goes against my normal pattern. In this case, I felt that a)the Wine/River tiles wouldn’t benefit from the commerce of the road, b)the river also blocked the movement advantage for most of the road squares, and c)once the settler factory was up and running, I could go back and road the tiles anyway. Also, the extra gold in the bank, and the fact I was going to go with 0 research, made commerce less a priority. I planned on another city on the NE flood plains to build workers later. I founded Karakorum and started building a Wanderer, while my worker began mining the BG. My Yesugei moved NW onto the mountain, and saw another river (arid?), while my Scout went NE, N onto another mountain to see even more river and flood plains (this is more like the Fertile Crescent).

In 3750BC I got contact with Russia’s two stacks, totalling 7! warriors. I notice Catherine has the Wheel, but no Bronze Working. Does this mean she isn’t scientific? She doesn’t have Martial Arts, though. I buy Wheel for Martial Arts, 60g and 2gpt, so I could see where the nearest horses are. It turns out they are SE, close to home! The next turn I met the Khazar, while Ghandi of the Rajaputana met me. I trade Terra Cotta and the Wheel to Raja for Alphabet, and end up with Burial Ritual and 15g from the Khazars, and 78g from Russia. I started my first (and so far only) research project, doing a 40-turn gambit on Bajutsu (Horseback).

By now I had finished a Wanderer, and started on my granary. Further exploration made contact with Magog (3650), Goguryeo (3350), the Celts (3250), and Korea (3200). I found two huts, getting only a map, which pointed me to the Celts. From these I netted Masonry and another 60 gold, as well as two workers! I always like to get early workers, but didn’t think I would get as many as I did in this game. Often, they are the best the AI can offer for techs, so I held off selling some techs, when I could only get 15-30 gold, until a worker was available. With the extra workers, I quickly improved my tiles for the settler factory. In 2950 the Goguryeo got Tao Mysticism, which I traded Alphabet, Wheel, and Terra Cotta for, and was able to get 2 more workers from the Celts! My granary was done in 2900, and the first settler in 2670BC. From then on, it was one per 4 turns, except for two accidental Civil disturbances, when I reduced luxuries then moved my garrison unit out (doh!).
:wallbash:

I quickly began to settle my initial ring, using an RCP of 4/4.5. My first 3 cities built barracks then warriors, the fourth on the flood plains was a worker factory. I also continued exploring, meeting the Khwarizima (2630), Han (2510) and Arabia (2430), who was even with me in tech. In 2390BC, the Khazars got Calligraphy, and it was a wild trading round. I bought it for 100+4gpt, and was able to trade my older techs for contacts with the Ottomans, Tokugawa, Egypt, and Germany, none of whom had alphabet. The end result was contact with everyone, and a net gain of 250 gold (including 70 back from the Khazars). Two turns later I also got Iron Culture from the Ottomans for Calligraphy and a contact, I can see Iron also near the horses, my next settler heads there. It turned out I was beaten to Bajutsu by 5 turns, but I finished it anyway, one less thing to trade/pay for, and then turned research back off. During most of this time I was running luxuries at 20%, steadily building cash. In 2150 I had 748 gold, and my map looked like this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/J2_G25_2150_Explore.JPG

In 1790, several AIs had Confucianism, and looking around, there was some gold on the table, so I bought it from Korea for 100g+2gpt. After trading it around, I got a worker and 200 gold, and by 1750BC I passed 1,000 gold. (This is unheard of for me, anyway, in the AA!) I continued to crank out vet warriors and my settler every 4 turns. 1600BC was another big turn, as the Khazars completed the Pyramids (with a big bulls-eye painted on the side ), and several AI now have Mapmaking, Literature, and Civil Code. It is time for another round of deals, but now I have my map, which they seem to value at 150-200 gold. I start with Literature from the Arabs, for WM, 45+2gpt, then trade Lit and another 45+2gpt to Khazar for Mapmaking, Lit, Map and 30+1gpt to Tokugawa for Civil Code. Then I start selling my map and techs around the world, eventually getting everyone’s map and a net gain of 200 gold, and another worker. The Pyramids caused a cascade for the Great Library, I was hopeful another of my neighbors would get it. I also established a couple of embassies so I could use ROP to bring down the price for the next couple of techs, Math and Shamanism, as well as netting another worker.

In 1350 I finally connected the Iron, and upgraded 26 warriors over the next 2 turns, depleting most of my cash. I marched most of this army toward the Khazars. In 1275 the Arabs declare war on me, and march into an undefended Dalandzagar, so I divert a few swordsmen to take care of them, and switch a couple cities to spear. I should have been paying more attention! In 1225 my army is at the border, so I declare war on the Khazars, as well as retaking Dalandzagar. I use a couple of non-barracks cities to build settlers, and begin expanding beyond my original ring. 1175 begins the battle for Chimkent, with 19 swords I expect a cakewalk on my way through him to Balkhash, his other city. Was I in for a shock! I lost one sword killing his four spearmen, but then I see a worker defending? I attack, and see the mysterious “king-like” unit, and kill him, but now the worker is back. I repeat this process, going through at least 10 kings, losing 2 more swords and wounding more, and the city still doesn’t fall. I had seen Cracker’s post about the “spurious kings”, and assumed that must be what I was facing. It took 6 more turns, and I loast 3-4 more swords, killing 8 more kings and 4 more spear (as he was pop-rushing one per turn), but in 1025 Chimkent fell, and I got the Pyramids, as well as several elites for my trouble. My QSC ended with 16 cities, 1 settler, 8 workers plus 14 foreign, 4 spear, 4 wanderers, 4 Gospodars, and 26 Anda Swordsmen. I had also built my gold back up to a respectable 814, by buying Currency from the Goguryeo for an ROP, 90+8gpt, and selling it around the world, netting 600, and getting peace with Arabia. I had all AA techs except Construction and the two governments. As someone else mentioned, this seemed to play out in slow-motion, but in a good way. The tech pace was slower than I would have thought for demigod, but I wasn’t adding anything to the research process. All the extra workers helped me really jump-start my development, so I had more cities earlier than usual. I was now third in score, behind the Arabs and Celts, although I was far behind in Culture, my power was beginning to really take off:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/J2_G25_1000_Power.jpg

To be continued at this Following Post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1351729#post1351729)

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif1.29 Mac

EXPANSION

The scout moved to the mountain, which led to the popular settler NE start. I built one scout, followed by a worker, a granary, and then a warrior, before starting on a settler. I had a 4-turn settler factory once I figured out that 6-6-7-7 shields weren’t enough if the forest was already in use.

I built cities in unusually tight rings of 3+ and 5+, first around my capital, and then around Ta-Tu, which would be the FP site. I saw no need for big cities in this game; the plan was to have a large, efficient core running as soon as possible, and ready to jump the palace when the opportunity presented itself in the Middle Ages. I didn’t worry about securing the iron, allowing the Magog to road and colonize it – I’ll settle there when I’m ready to upgrade.

I had expected to invade one of the minor civs in the Ancient Age, but the Magog built the Colossus and the Oracle, while the other two are still working on their first wonder. (The Germans built the Pyramids.) As a result, I held off, and continued to expand peacefully.

RESEARCH AND EXPLORATION

With 14 other civs in the game and the expectation that there would be lots on my land mass, I set research at zero at the start. My two scouts moved in horseshoe shapes, E-N-W and (W)-S-W-N. After meeting the Russians, Khazars, Arabs and Magog, I was fortunate enough to be the first to encounter the Rajaputanis, who had a warrior almost at the eastern shore in 3350 BC. This allowed me to pick up the rare Alphabet, and control research for centuries.

Full contact at 2270 BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/25-2270bc.jpg

After a while I suspected that this was a pangaea map, which meant research should be fast – possibly too fast. I didn’t want to reach samurai code and invention until I had enough units to upgrade. As a result, I didn’t keep the AI even in tech, not even selling outdated tech unless I could get at least 25% value. In 2800 BC I traded the Arabs the alphabet and the wheel for mysticism, and decided to research shamanism at 10%, since no one else was close. The pace was such that I researched it third!

I established all contacts first, in 2270 BC, and found myself in the odd position of leading in tech, and having 620g, with only one city. Mapmaking became available in 1650 BC, and I saw the shape of our world. (Key point: the Han and their Riders are at the chokehold separating west from east.)

World map: 1650 BC
http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/25-1650bc.jpg

In 1400 BC I researched shamanism, but decided to wait for the AI to research monarchy for me. With me making every effort to slow down research, construction and currency were available in 1100 BC. I decided to wait until I could buy monarchy, then trade that for those two techs. This occurred in 975 BC, when I paid a net of 383g for monarchy, construction and currency (still refusing to sell cheap).

I entered the Middle Ages along with the Ottomans and Germany. The Otts picked up monotheism as their bonus tech, but the Germans got engineering. This is unheard of in 1.29. Is there something I should know about here, cracker?

STATS

Most interesting is that, despite checking with each civ every single turn in the slow 1.29 format, I only managed to buy one worker the entire Ancient Age. All of the other civs were at peace, and building wonders in their capitals, rather than workers.

By the end of the era I had a numerically representative army, but for most of the period I was woefully exposed. As a result, I paid tribute three times: 159g and one old tech. I had no intention of slowing my plans fighting one of my neighbors.

At 1000 BC, I had 12 cities with 27 citizens; 11 workers; 2 scouts; 1 spear; 14 warriors; 6 bowmen; 4 barracks; 1 granary; all techs but currency and construction; the FP well under way, and 1786g. I also had luxury trade with the Magog and Rajaputani.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/25-1000bc.jpg

PLANS

I’ll be a monarchy in 800 BC, at which point the Leo’s prebuild begins. By then I’m hoping that the Magog will have finished the GL, after which I’ll invade them with swordsmen. If not, I intend to buy engineering from the Germans for gpt, declare war, and ally with the Kelts for the two final ancient techs. After that, I’ll trade for feudalism and monotheism, then research invention, followed by samurai code, if it’s not already available.

(Continued from Previous Post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1351719#post1351719) , edited because Txurce posts faster than I do!)

The rest of the Ancient Age seemed to drag out forever, I thought Construction would become available soon after Currency, but all the AI apparently went for Monarchy or Republic first. The turn after QSC turned ugly fast, as first the Magog declared war (and we had an ROP!), throwing one warrior across a river at one of my fortified swords, and then I got the news that the Arabs completed the Great Library. They already were the leader, plus they were far from me, I wouldn’t be getting that easily. Two turns later, the Arabs demanded tribute, I said no, and we were at war again. This time I got the Rajaputani to ally with me against them for 35 gold and an ROP. I never did see any arab units. 900BC I began the assault on Balkhash, the Khazar’s new capital. It took 5 turns, and 2-3 swordsmen, but I also got 4-5 more elites. Meanwhile, Monarchy became available, but the going rate was over 800 gold, so I waited a few turns, hoping to make it part of a 2 for 1 deal with Construction. I also began trying to wrap up production on a few more units before anarchy, including whipping 4 temples to completion so I could start getting some culture.

I slowly moved on the Magog, using mostly new production and Gospodars, with a few elites, as most of my original Anda stacks were still in Khazar lands. I began attacking Voskor in 750, figuring since it wasn’t a capital, maybe it wouldn’t have the kings, but I was wrong. In 730BC it paid off as Ogodei arose to lead the Mongol people. He was sent east, as I was planning an FP in the old Khazar lands. But before he got there, a lot of things happened. First, I bought Monarchy in 750BC, haggling the Egyptians down to ROP, 310+20gpt. I didn’t want to pay too much in a lump sum, because I thought Construction was right around the corner, and I knew if I was in anarchy, the AI would never take gpt, so I would have to have cash. I was able to sell it to the Ottomans and get back 160, then started my revolt, putting me at negative 27gpt, but with 600+ in the treasury. In 710 Republic was available, but with constant warfare I had already decided to go with Monarchy. In 690 my trusted allies, the Raja, declared war on me! I now made peace with the Arabs, and got the Goguryeo to join me against the Raja for 40g. 670BC triggered the Barbarian Uprising. (Strange, because a hut full of barbs appeared adjacent to my scout, I thought they would only appear in the fog.) I had a settler and sword nearby, who started heading back toward home, but there were plenty of AI warriors/spear in the area, so it didn’t affect me much. 5 civs had Construction, Egypt wanted 300g, but I was able to deal with Korea and get it for ROP, Wines, and 45 gold. Then came the real surprise. After the last couple games with no other scientific civs, there must have been multiple, as the Khariz, Korea, Tokugawa, and Termans all had ALL THREE starting middle age techs. Russia had just Monotheism, so I saw an opening to get at least a two for one deal. I bought Feudal Warlords from Korea again, for 680 gold, traded that plus 170 to Russia for Monotheism, and then traded Monotheism to the Arabs for Republic (he was going to get it from the GL next turn anyway). I built my new city, Shangri-La, but Ogodei decided that the Forbidden Palace could wait, Sun Tzu’s Art of War would be more beneficial right now. Several civs were working on Hanging Gardens, and I didn’t want to be caught in a cascade before I got another GL. The next turn, 650BC, my new Monarchy was established, and I was ready to do some serious damage to the treacherous Rajas and Magogs. I still have 24 swords, about half elite, and some spears and Gospodars. My gold is down to a mere 73, but gaining 43 per turn. Now I am hoping that one of the non-scientific AI will get Engineering before the other techs, so I can trade for it too.

Overall, I feel I am in a good position, although the “king” units really threw me for a loop for a while. I was so frustrated at the end of the QSC, I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish the game at that rate. However, now that I have read this thread, I can see that they are limited to certain civs, so it seems managable. And considering that I got Sun Tzu because of them, I geuss it’s worth it (and the Pyramids in spite of them!). Also, I got my first full RCP, with 8 cities of distance 4 or 4.5, so I was happy with that! Here is my Khanate at 650BC (Plus Balkhash off map to the east):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/J2_G25_650BC.jpg

Justus, 24 swords that early is excellent, and you found a perfect opportunity to put them to use, which in turn resulted in a Leader. That's the blueprint for a high score. Great, exciting start.

Ands as with most other early posters, I'm jealous about all of the foreign workers you picked up. Were these civs at war? Otherwise, how do you explain so many workers hanging in the various capitals? (I think somebody else picked up 25!)

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gifhttp://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/ptw.jpg1.27, Horse Archers

Initial Development

I settled Karakorum NE of the start position. Initial build sequence was wanderer, wanderer, settler, granary, and then it ran as a four turn settler pump, using irrigated floodplain wheat.

The first settler founded Kazan two steps west of Karakorum. Kazan used the three wine grasslands, each irrigated, to grow every four turns without a granary and to contribute a few settlers between its military builds.

I built four more towns very close to Karakorum (at ring 3 along with Kazan) and then began settling another set of towns at ring 7. All of these towns focused on military production.

Research

I began with research at zero.

After popping Taoist Mysticism from a goody hut in 3550BC :) I researched Shamanism at the forty turn rate, learning it in 1790BC.

After learning Shamanism I researched Monarchy at the maximum rate I could afford, learning it in 1225BC.

I traded for all other Ancient Times tech, taking advantage of exclusive contacts at first, leveraging contact sales a bit later and maps after that, and eventually just trading tech. I traded for the last one I needed, Currency, in 1075BC and entered the Middle Ages at that date.

Contacts

My original scout went east then circled north and west. My first wanderer went west then south and west again; second wanderer went southest. By 2270 I'd met all but three rivals:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/sirpleb25-1a.jpg

At that date I was able to trade for Writing and then to trade for contact with Ottomans, Tokugawa, and Egypt. (I traded each for contact with the next.)

War

In 2270BC when I learned Writing I established embassies with many of my rivals. It was scary to see this in the Khazar capital:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/sirpleb25-1b.jpg

There was a similar sight in the Magog capital, but not in anyone else's. I didn't know what to make of the unusual units, didn't know their stats.

By the time I got maps in 1700BC and added that information to what I'd already observed, I concluded that the Magog, Khazars, and Coguryeo were the "minor" Civs and that they were limited to two cities. (At least for the moment.) It looked like Arabia, Germany, and Egypt were likely to become strong Civs. Also Korea if I didn't nip her growth early.

Four Civs would be limiting my early growth: Rajaputana, Coguryeo, Magog, and Khazars. Two of them, Magog and Rajaputana, were even limiting my settlements at ring 7. That (getting more productive towns going) was a high motivation for early warfare. It would also be nice to claim another luxury, which each of those Civs had. Attacking Magog seemed risky - she had a large force of unknown units, something I'd be better leaving until I had a strong military. OTOH Rajaputana looked like a reasonable target for a force of Swordsmen.

So after upgrading 16 Warriors to Swordsmen, I attacked Rajaputana in 1175BC. I quickly razed three towns and resettled the land with towns which would be at ring 7. I then gave her peace for another town in 1075BC.

Aside from that brief war Ancient Times were peaceful.

Miscellaneous

I started a revolution as soon as I learned Monarchy in 1225BC, got a five turn anarchy, and became a Monarchy in 1125BC. I expect to stay there for the rest of the game.

I saw a lot of opportunities to trade for my rivals' workers and pursued them aggressively. I mostly traded tech, contacts, and maps for workers but I also traded gold when necessary. By the end of Ancient Times I had 26 foreign workers. I don't think I've ever had so many before.

I had good fortune with goody huts. I popped three of them, getting Taoist Mysticism, a village, and 25g. The village wasn't great, it was too far from home to be productive or defensible. But it did build a worker, 2 veteran warriors, and a veteran archer.

Barbarians were mostly a non-issue. There were almost always some rival units wandering around my lands and they handled any barbarian camps which showed up.

QSC Status

Status at 1000BC:
17 towns
1 settler
2 native workers, 26 foreign workers
1 Chariot
4 Gospodar
1 Mangudai Bowman
12 Anda Swordsmen
9 barracks, 1 granary
420 gold

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SirPleb
Initial build sequence was wanderer, wanderer, settler, granary, and then it ran as a four turn settler pump, using irrigated floodplain wheat.

As ever a superior start.
I notice you often seem to build a settler before the granary. Is this something I should be doing as a rule, or is it only in some circumstances?

Originally posted by Offa
I notice you often seem to build a settler before the granary. Is this something I should be doing as a rule, or is it only in some circumstances?
I figure that the early game is somewhere around 95% about food :)

So for me the settler first vs. granary first question comes down to "which way can I gain more food?"

To answer this question I start by treating a granary as something which doubles a city's food surplus. That isn't correct in all regards but it is a reasonable view for this question. If a city already gains 5 food/turn, a granary in effect will make it gain an additional 5 food/turn.

My general rule of thumb is to build a settler first if there's a location to settle which can gain nearly as much food per turn as a granary would gain. (Phew! Read on, hopefully the previous sentence will become more legible after reading the rest :) )

In this particular game's start, the initial city can gain 5 food/turn by using the floodplain wheat once it is irrigated. So a granary would gain another 5 food/turn. Is there a place where another city can gain that much? Yup, there is - a city which uses all three grassland wines, once they are irrigated, will also gain 5 food/turn.

I can more quickly produce the settler to go and get that additional 5 food/turn in a new city than I can produce a granary in the first city. So producing a settler first is the way to go. (It gets a bit more complicated in this case because that second city won't be up to 5 food/turn for a while. But I calculated the growth rate vs. the worker turns required and concluded it still made sense to do it first. In more typical situations with just cattle and wheat this isn't much of a factor.)

After producing that first settler the balance changes. There's no place to send a second settler for a town which will gain more than 2 food/turn. So a granary next, to gain 5 food/turn, seems best.

Notice that in the simple case where a city has no food bonus tiles, the above logic suggests that a granary never makes sense. Some time ago I realized this. And starting from that realization was actually what brought me to the more general rule above. The logic as I saw it for a simple 2 food/turn city was:
I can build a settler for 30 shields and he can go settle somewhere and produce another 2 food/turn surplus. Or I can build a granary for 60 shields and produce an additional 2 food/turn surplus here. Which makes more sense? Pretty easy decision, even before considering that two separate towns will usually end up with more production, more income, and more flexibility. So the only time I should produce a granary in a 2 food/turn city is when there are no locations left to settle another town which will itself gain 2 food/turn. And by the time that is true I probably don't want a granary anyway. Bottom line: never build a granary in a 2 food/turn town.

Since then I've generalized my rule to "Don't build a granary until it gains more food/turn than a settler can."

And even then there are exceptions, particularly:
1) If the town is very low on shields, a granary still might not be wise. It might be better to get a settler out to a location where there are some shields.
2) If a settler can come close, e.g. can gain 4 food/turn vs. a granary gaining 5 food/turn then settler first might still be best, because the settler can be produced much quicker.

I hope that made sense, I haven't tried to explain this before :)

Civ1.29f Open
Originally posted by SirPleb
...it is a reasonable view for this question. If a city already gains 5 food/turn, a granary in effect will make it gain an additional 5 food/turn.

Well, the +100% are only true for 1,2,5 and 10 food surplus, considering a size 5-6 settler factory.
Because at least in Civ1.29f your stored food will always drop to zero when the town grows. So, if you get +7 food (wheat floodplains + 2 wines), a granary will essentially only give you a bonus of 3. (nonetheless a granary normally gives you the option to get far more shields at the same growth rate)

This observation and the awful lack of shields around the starting spot led me to the keen assumption that a very early 6-turn Warrior+Settler factory without a granary might be better than your usual 4-turn stuff: 7f+5s for the first two turns (->warrior), then 6f+7s+2s (->size 6), and finally 3*(7f+7s). I settled NE, so the setup for the last three turns were Wheat, 2*i-Wines, m-Wine on hill and on plain, and the mined BG.
My decision was also based on the assumption that on a standard sized map, 13 rivals would out-settle me like hell, only allowing me to found a handful of cities. I was proved terribly wrong. Who could have known that our three neighbors wouldn't expand at all?!

At the end of the AA (about 1025 BC) there were still huge unclaimed territories south of Mongolia. We'd founded no more than 7 new towns, but at least our military looked nice - about 20 Anda, 5 Gospodar and 5 Mangudai. This enabled us to quickly eliminate Khazar, capturing the Pyramids. One turn earlier the Magog silk city containing the Colossus had fallen. No great leader though up to now.

Peace with Magog was established in exchange for Construction and Monarchy. All other AA techs except for Republic had been traded peacefully already.

@SirPleb: Apart from your outstanding settling performance (17 at 1000 BC!) I truly admire your luck ;) - although my first build was a Wanderer and even Yesugei initially explored, we never discovered a single goody hut. Also I'd like to know how the **** you managed to discover Monarchy earlier than 13 Demigods while still being able to raise a decent Anda force.

SirPleb: very nice breakdown on the initial granary vs. settler issue. I never looked at it like that, and will now have to redefine my priorities in many games!

Another question goes out to all you QSC gurus: Do you pop-rush your granaries or the occasional settler before? I figured it would take aeons to get a non-rushed granary in Karakorum.

Originally posted by Karmina
Also I'd like to know how the **** you managed to discover Monarchy earlier than 13 Demigods while still being able to raise a decent Anda force.

He popped mysticism from the goody hut which gave him a jump start on reaching Monarchy. He also had alot of cities on a standard sized map which makes for fast research.

Originally posted by bradleyfeanor
SirPleb: very nice breakdown on the initial granary vs. settler issue. I never looked at it like that, and will now have to redefine my priorities in many games!

I agree - even though I lost early I never really looked at it that way ( always assumming the long run doubling was better ). Thanks SirPleb -- GOTM pays off again.

Thanks SirPleb, for stating it so eloquently. I did try and run a comparison of settler first vs. granary, but when I looked at how many worker turns it would take, decided it was easier to focus on one town. Now, if I'd have only known that our neighbors were overflowing with migrant workers for sale, I might have done things differently! ;)

Originally posted by karmina
Another question goes out to all you QSC gurus: Do you pop-rush your granaries or the occasional settler before? I figured it would take aeons to get a non-rushed granary in Karakorum.

Rarely, as losing a population (20 food, compounded) is hard to overcome. It depends on the situation, of course, if it is a lot of flood plains but no shields, sometimes it might be worth it. Also, if I have a fast-growing but corrupt city on my outskirts, I will pop an occasional settler. I usually limit my pop-rushing to some early culture, usually right before an anarchy period. :whipped:
(My theory: The only thing that grows in anarchy is food, and time. Therefore, by rushing before anarchy, you can use those 5-7 turns to replace the pop, let the culture building get 100-200 years older, and 1/3 of the unhappiness is used up when they can't produce anyway!)

SirPleb and JustusII: thanks for sharing your wisdom on settlers and pop-rushing. Perhaps I could seek some advice about size of military. I noticed that at 1000BC, SirPleb had 17 towns and 18 military units. Does that mean that it is worth the risk of leaving some towns unprotected and concentrating your military against the target civ when at war? I do wonder if I have the early ratio of settler/military builds all wrong in the early game and would appreciate some advice/guideline that I could follow.

I am probably not a good example, as I generally leave towns undefended more often than I should. (See the Arabs walking into a town from me in this game) During despotism, I probably average one defender per two towns, actually placing them in core cities to help with MP, and some along the borders to react to barbs. As long as my road network keeps up, I should be able to get at least one defender to any town within a turn, usually two units. Rivers can block that (as on this map!). Unless I am planning an early offensive, most of my military are warriors out exploring, looking for barbs and huts, etc. Even when it is time for war, I try to send most of my military out in 1-2 good stacks, and leave minimal defenses. If I stay under monarchy (as in this game, but normally rare for me), I do work toward getting at least 1 per town, 2 for cities, as MPs.

Thanks Sirpleb for your prompt and excellent reply to my query. :goodjob:

I spent some time thinking about the best starting moves here, but my whole attention was on establishing a settler factory as quickly as possible and I never even considered producing a settler before the granary. I will in the future. I actually started with scout, scout, worker, and granary. I built the worker, as it seemed very hard to finish all the necessary improvements in time for the factory to work, and building another scout/warrior seemed unnecessary. Building an early settler also helps in the same way by avoiding finishing the granary before all terrain improvements are in place.

In addition, building an early settler might have alleviated the misfortune that befell me, of getting flood plain disease in 2950bc. It is possible to have already squeezed a settler out by then. That put all of my careful planning in the bin. I eventually set up the 4-turn factory in 2390bc, at least 4-5 turns late. This doesn’t sound that much but I think it is a significant setback.

I made lots of other mistakes later on of course, which are probably the real reason I didn't start very well. For instance even at the time I was pretty sure a RCP of 3 squares would be best, given the large number of Civs on a standard map, but I so wanted the iron to the south that I put my 1st settler in a fairly weak spot between it and the horses, committing me to spacing at 4. I didn’t get deluged with foreign workers like some people, but I took almost all of those available (7 by 1000bc) which militated a bit more against my decision to build an early worker.

In the start, one decision that needs to be made is whether to emphasize food or shields, or take a middle course. For example early on is it better to work the hill-wine or the irrigated grass-wine? Is it better to work the irrigated grass-wine or the mined bonus grass? Does it make a significant difference? I decided to entirely emphasize food production without wasting food on growth, as the 2 bonus shields you get on growth (working the forest) will obviously be won quicker if you grow quicker. In essence really I would like to know what is the relative value of a shield compared with food.

Thanks JustusII for your excellent ideas about pop rushing. I have pretty much never rushed anything since the despot pop-rush was nobbled by a patch ages ago, but keep thinking I might be missing out, as it used to be very powerful.

:confused:

Thanks for your reply, Justus II. I accept your point about losing a town to the Arabs but I am coming round to the idea that I have been playing far to cautiously whereas you take the odd risk and reap the benefits more often than not. As someone once said, "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!":)

[civ3mac] Open.

I'm determined to finish a GOTM having failed to finish 22 and 23 and not even started 24 :(.

I qualified for this thread when I traded for Construction in 1050 BC, and I already have one Medieval tech at the QSC 1000 BC cutoff. I've decided to submit my QSC (just in case it ever gets scored ;) ), then post this, then read all the amazing feats of SirPleb et al, to avoid being totally discouraged.

Here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/AlanH_QSC25_Timeline.txt) is my QSC timeline to 1000 BC, which contains minimal spoiler info for the first two turns of the Middle Ages.

I just want to say all Cracker's maps are superb, this is no exception, and this is a fun game so far, even before I reach the magical new units.

As we've just finished a rather successful GOTM23 replay as a succession game, the similarities in this game are interesting. Domination objective, raging barbs. Expansionist, probably pangeia since the first spoiler requires full map visibility, and the start position is rather central. And our knight-like UUs arrive at the start of the Medieval Age. The differences are also significant. Demi-god, not Monarch, and cheap barracks instead of cheap temples, so aggression is going to be pure force, no messing with flips. It will probably be necessary to capture territory using settlers more than temples, at least initially. I'm hoping I am carrying forward some great lessons I learnt from my team mates during SG23.

I settled one tile NW of the start to build a settler factory using the wheat and wines, and built two wanderers, a warrior, another wanderer and a granary before moving into 4-turn settler production mode.

My settlers designed a tight ring of six cities 3 to 3.5 tiles away from Karakorum, and then started a ring at 7-7.5 distance. So far this has not caused any compromises in city placement, and I have needed no temples to expand borders yet. I have 11 cities so far, with a total population of 34, and only one of these will require an Aqueduct.

The starter scout and three wanderers did a good job of meeting the neighbors and mapping the world, and we were able to trade profitably to make big holes in the AI treasuries at each of the two key tech points - Calligraphy and Mapmaking.

Tech trading went very well. In spite of the fact that I didn't research a single tech to completion, I am ahead of most civs. With 20:20 hindsight I should have switched research off and accumulated gold. The sequence was:

4000 BC. Turn 0: We have Terracotta and Martial Arts.

4000 BC. Turn 0: Start research on Wheel at maximum.
3750 BC. Turn 5: Trade for Wheel and Burial.

3750 BC. Turn 5: Start research on Bajutsu at minimum.
3500 BC. Turn 10: Trade for Alphabet, Bronze Culture and Masonry.
2710 BC. Turn 26: Pop Taoist Mysticism from a hut, trade for Bajutsu.

2710 BC. Turn 26: Start research on Shamanism at minimum.
2550 BC. Turn 31: Trade for Iron Culture.
2150 BC. Turn 41: Trade for Calligraphy.
1650 BC. Turn 55: Trade for Mathematics.
1575 BC. Turn 58: Trade for Confucianism.
1550 BC. Turn 59: Trade for Mapmaking, Shamanism, Civil Service.

1550 BC. Turn 59: Start research on Monarchy at maximum.
1150 BC. Turn 75: Trade for Literature.
1125 BC. Turn 76: Trade for Currency.
1075 BC. Turn 78: Trade for Construction to reach the Middle Ages.
1025 BC. Turn 79: Trade for Monarchy and a MA tech.

As soon as I had the world map in 1550 BC I started a couple of wars to keep the more remote civs busy and slow them down a bit. I allied with Keltoi against Germany and with Egypt and Ottomans against Tokugawa. Later the Arabs declared war over their petty demand for 37 gold, and I allied with Russia, Rajaputana and the Keltoi against them. Then I joined in a war against Gogury, allied with Korea. This is the first one where we have actually come face to face with the enemy (once, with no losses). So far I've lost one wanderer and one warrior to barb activity, but the worst of that is yet to come as the end-of-era uprising is close at hand.

I am about to hook up my iron, and if the raging barbs don't steal all my gold I shall have 25 warriors ready to upgrade to swords as my gold mines work overtime. I have four barracks now, with 5 more under construction. I am now focusing on Bowmen and Gospodars to get together a balanced mix of UUs when the time comes.

Back to the fray. See you again in Spoiler #2.

Here's a screenshot of my cute little civilization.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/AlanH_GOTM25_1000BC.gif

Originally posted by Tone
... it is worth the risk of leaving some towns unprotected and concentrating your military against the target civ when at war?

IMO, defensive units are mostly wasted shields. I prefer to defend my towns with fast offensive units, moving where the enemy is going to attack. I also avoid RoPs as AI tends to sneak attack undefended cities (especially capital, but even a lone warrior from the beginning seems to work as a deterrent). At start I build some reg warriors for MP duties, but I usually try to switch to Republic ASAP. With Swordsmen/MI/Tank stacks I sometimes use equal speed defensive units, but when attacking, I try to move as fast as possible. If you really have to defend your cities, then you are not doing well and probably losing anyway. :)

Defensive units have some uses, such as in choke points or in IA/Modern Age, when invading another island for example. Then I may build lots of Infantry/MechInf and drop them on a mountain with workers to build a fortress and just wait until AI has wasted its offensive units.

Originally posted by Drazek


At start I build some reg warriors for MP duties, but I usually try to switch to Republic ASAP.



Thanks for your reply, Drazek. Did you stay in Republic for this game? I was aiming to be at war for most of the MA so thought that Monarchy would be better in the long term.


If you really have to defend your cities, then you are not doing well and probably losing anyway. :)

[/B]

I'm not losing but the question is could I be doing better. The answer is definitely yes!:D

I'll need to look into your methods of keeping a smaller but more mobile set of defenders and not relying on MP for happiness. I guess I'm just paranoid about attcking in the East and then finding that I'm the victim of a sneak attack in the West!

Originally posted by karmina
Well, the +100% are only true for 1,2,5 and 10 food surplus, considering a size 5-6 settler factory.
Because at least in Civ1.29f your stored food will always drop to zero when the town grows. So, if you get +7 food (wheat floodplains + 2 wines), a granary will essentially only give you a bonus of 3. (nonetheless a granary normally gives you the option to get far more shields at the same growth rate)
This is true of course, food gains of other than 1,2,5 don't work out exactly to doubling the town's food. But I feel that for the purpose of deciding on granary vs. settler they work out close enough.

For example, a surplus of 4 food/turn can be used in a town with a granary to grow every 3 turns, leaving a 2 food surplus per growth cycle. By sharing the food bonus tile(s) with another town this can be micro-managed. For example, if this +4 surplus is due to an irrigated grassland wheat, then one turn out of every three I would want the town to use a mined bonus grassland instead of the wheat, to gain 2 extra shields in that turn. Another town would use the irrigated wheat for that turn. Used this way the granary makes +4 food/turn effectively become +22 every 3 turns. That's a bit less than doubling which would be +24 every 3 turns, but close enough for comparing settler first vs. granary first.

Similarly a surplus of 3 food/turn can be micromanaged to come out fairly well. In one game (GOTM18) I shared a single one food bonus tile between two towns which each had a granary, resulting in fully doubling the single bonus food. Each town used it twice per four turns, resulting in both towns growing every four turns.

My feeling is that food surpluses over 5 food/turn in a town usually suggest that the town should have a granary and use just +5, and the rest of the surplus should be used to increase growth in another town. In this game there was +9 food/turn possible for the first town, a good setup for two fast growth towns.

Originally posted by karmina
This observation and the awful lack of shields around the starting spot led me to the keen assumption that a very early 6-turn Warrior+Settler factory without a granary might be better than ...
I agree that a very low shield location can completely change the decision. If it takes a very long time to build a granary then it is probably better to build settlers instead and send them somewhere where there are shields.

But I didn't think this start position was shield-poor at all. A capital NE of the start position had the wine hills (1 shield with no work), two mined BGs (two shields each after mining), a few grasslands (1 shield each after mining), and even one plains for another shield after irrigating. It also had a forest for two bonus shields per growth. And every citizen after the first one could work a tile which produced shields, assuming that the first citizen worked the irrigated wheat. Seemed like a productive location to me :)

Originally posted by karmina
My decision was also based on the assumption that on a standard sized map, 13 rivals would out-settle me like hell, only allowing me to found a handful of cities. I was proved terribly wrong. Who could have known that our three neighbors wouldn't expand at all?!
To me, early exploration suggested room for at least 10 to 20 towns depending on how fast the neighbors expanded. In a situation like that I figure it is worth going for the maximum. If growth is blocked early, it is still a big enough area that extra workers will be handy and the settler factory can switch to produce them. (Who ever has enough workers aside from OCC games? :) ) Or the settler factory could keep pumping settlers to stockpile for later use. I'm going for domination and that means I'll want lots of settlers later. My settler factory probably won't do anything for the entire game except pump settlers :)

Originally posted by karmina
Another question goes out to all you QSC gurus: Do you pop-rush your granaries or the occasional settler before? I figured it would take aeons to get a non-rushed granary in Karakorum.
I agree with Justus II. It is hard to overcome the population loss. The kinds of rushes he suggests are the ones I also use most. I occasionally rush something urgent but avoid it when I can.

Originally posted by Tone
Does that mean that it is worth the risk of leaving some towns unprotected and concentrating your military against the target civ when at war?
I agree with the points Justus II and Drazek have made about this. I do things pretty much the same way. I think I use even a bit less military than Justus II does, particularly less MPs.

I think there are three possible reasons to defend towns in the early game:

1) Barbarians. I tend to not worry much about them, I just consider them an unavoidable nuisance. Because I don't worry about them a lot I get hurt by them sometimes, occasionally losing a citizen, some gold, a worker, or a settler. Overall I figure I'm ahead of things with the amount I gain by not protecting these assets vs. what I lose. If they seem bad early in the game I'll build more military to hunt and destroy camps. If I don't see many barbs I don't build up for them.
In this particular game, I saw so many rival units wandering around that I figured I was almost completely safe from barbs - if any appeared an AI would pounce on them quickly.
One more thing about barbarians: their camps will not appear within one tile of your cultural borders and they will not appear in any tile which is visible to one of your military units. (Workers and scouts don't count as military units.) In most games I find that I can be proactive early in the game - by positioning a few warriors at strategic points (hills and mountains preferred) just outside my holdings, I can eliminate much of the barbarian threat. To me this zone of visibility approach is a better use of those warriors - less warriors are needed than to defend my towns and they are accomplishing more.

2) While at war with another Civ. For this defense I prefer an offense. If I am aggressively pressing the war into enemy territory, most of the enemy's forces will be used to try to stop me. A minimal defense at home is usually all that's required to deal with the occasional enemy unit which arrives there.

3) To deter new wars. To me this is the tricky defense issue, the one which is really hard to find a balance on. I'm usually pushing the limits I think. In Medal game 5-6 I pushed too far and lost my capital early in the game.
I don't know exactly what motivates the AIs in this area. The following are my guesses and thoughts. They aren't anything more than that. But acting on these generally works for me. Warning - pushing this stuff hard can occasionally lead to undesired results :) Not often if you're careful though.

3a) Early in the game, while there is still good and accessible land to settle, the AIs are unlikely to attack. During this phase of the game the only thing which is worrisome is the next point. They're unlikely to attack for any other reason.

3b) When an AI has a unit positioned so that it can take an undefended town immediately (same turn) that strongly tempts the AI to attack, opportunistically.
Any military presence at all appears to eliminate this temptation. A single conscript warrior in the town changes the picture. It is just the "free" hit without any fight at all which seems to add a special temptation for the AI.
So, after the first 10 to 40 turns of a game (depending on how things look) I like to get at least one or two units hanging around close to the home area. They might explore just outside the borders but they stay close. Whenever a rival moves units toward my area, I move these home units so that they can occupy any towns which may become "threatened" before the rival can get there. I don't actually worry about defending the towns. A deity opponent in the early game can decimate me if it decides to attack. All I try to do is deter them by not offering easy bait. If there's no town they can just move into without a fight, they're less likely to declare war out of the blue.

3c) Undefended workers and settlers do not seem to add to temptation for the AI.

3d) Later in the game if possible I protect only border towns. If I can avoid rivals moving through my territory (by blocking or due to the nature of the position, e.g. being on a peninsula) then I leave no military units at all in any cities other than my borders.

3e) A military alliance is a good deterent. If an AI is allied with me against another Civ it is very unlikely that they will go to war with me. They don't even seem to be tempted when they have units passing directly past unprotected cities but I still prefer to avoid tempting them that way if I can.

3f) A ROP offers no significant protection. An AI which has a ROP with me will casually violate it if it sees a reason.

3g) Before declaring war on their own initiative (vs. being bought into an alliance against me by another Civ) an AI is likely to try extorting something. I try to always have a bit of money on hand which they can extort to ensure they have this opportunity.

3h) Later in the game I find the AIs' reasons for attacking hard to understand at times. Sometimes it seems to just happen randomly. Even then, I generally don't maintain much of a defense force. A mobile and strong offensive force can often be repositioned quickly enough to deal with the new threat. Another way to deal with a new threat is to ally one of the enemy's neighbors against them.

3i) If an AI moves a SOD (stack of doom, i.e. stack with lots of units) toward my territory, that AI has pretty much decided to attack someone. If there's no one on the other side of my territory in the direction the SOD is travelling, that someone is me for sure. And it might be me anyway.
Once the AI has decided on an attack of this type there is very little which can change its mind. It is time to prepare a defense. The only thing I've found which can change its mind in this situation is getting it to ally with me against someone else.

If you keep all of the above in mind at once :lol: then it is possible to play the opening game with a very small military.

Originally posted by Offa
In the start, one decision that needs to be made is whether to emphasize food or shields, or take a middle course. For example early on is it better to work the hill-wine or the irrigated grass-wine? Is it better to work the irrigated grass-wine or the mined bonus grass? Does it make a significant difference? I decided to entirely emphasize food production without wasting food on growth, as the 2 bonus shields you get on growth (working the forest) will obviously be won quicker if you grow quicker. In essence really I would like to know what is the relative value of a shield compared with food.
This sure is a tough question. I think the only answer is "it depends" :lol:

But having said that, I almost always go the same way as you did this time, i.e. I emphasize food first. I only make exceptions when I have a particular reason to emphasize quick shields. If I don't know which to emphasize then I always choose the food by default. My thinking is that by emphasizing food first I'll end up getting more shields (and gold), partly due to bonuses at growth, partly due to getting more citizens and then assigning them to high production tiles while continuing to grow rapidly, and partly due to the ever present option to convert the extra citizens into workers or settlers when it seems appropriate.

Wow, SirPleb, what a bundle of fascinating strategic info. You are the man! It will be interesting to see if the AI becomes a little more difficult to deceive in conquests.

Originally posted by SirPleb
To me, early exploration suggested room for at least 10 to 20 towns depending on how fast the neighbors expanded.
Civ1.29f Open
Well I'm probably just lacking the necessary QSC experience to see that. After all this is my first game where I bothered about things like settler factories at all :king: ).

On a related note, I just stumbled over the RCP thread in the strategies forum - boy I wish I'd read that before starting on gotm25. Already in the late AA corruption is driving me nuts, and it won't get any better since I'm planning to stay at monarchy for the rest of the game. However, here are some general questions about RCP:
1. Is it correct for all software versions that any city at distance N (=1,2,3...) from the palace will not increase corruption in any city at distance (N + 0.5) or less?
2. Is it confirmed for all software versions that for cities "C" near the FP only those cities "Cn" contribute to corruption where ( d(C,FP) > d(Cn,Palace) )?
3. How is corruption dealt with in cities at similar distance from palace and FP? Minimum? Interpolation? Is there some cut-off distance? And what happens to an RCP if I place the FP in one of the ring cities?! It's a shame that there is no statement by the Civ3 programmers regarding the actual formulae involved in calculating corruption...or is there already?

If (2) is correct, a palace jump away to the edge of the world would be a serious bug exploit that should be explicitly forbidden by cracker.

On a not so related note, I normally agree with SirPleb et al. on the small military business. (In fact in Civ2 I hardly used to build any forces up to Mobile Warfare - until I broke with my habit to reload at least thrice each turn :rolleyes: )
But in this game the MP issue proves more and more critical, since up to now I didn't get the slightest chance to make my people happy with buildings or wonders. Commerce is also quite limited due to mo