Spoiler Warning:

If you are playing GOTM26: Asian Melee, and you plan on submitting it, then before you read the rest of this thread, then you should:


Have reached the end of the ancient age (ie be researching at least one of the middle-age techs).
Have visibility of the entire starting continent.
...which follows that you should have contact with all civs - or their remains - on the starting continent.

If you haven't fulfilled all these criteria, then you are only cheating yourself...

...and the other 100+ people who are playing... :mischief:

Please also follow the standard guidelines of not giving away details of the middle-ages nor any of the rest of the world (if you want to post a mini-map, please edit out any of the rest of the world map). Plus, state in your posts what version you are playing, and what class. :)


Points of interest for this spoiler: Where did you settle first (forming the capital?) What did you do with your treasure chests? What 'easter eggs' did you find / make happen? For 'open' players, which save did you use?

Should be interesting!:D

Ptw 1.14f Open

I started with the "dyes"-download and settled my capitol one sqare north-west of the northern starting position, so it could reach the wheat and also have access to the sea/lake. I saved the treasure chests for the granary (Terra Cotta 100% research)

The other settler i walked up to the other city and founded a nice little settler-factory south-west of my capitol (it reached both the cow and the wheat on the grassland). As usual i buildt a RCP in a distanse of 5 (and later on at a distanse of 8, tha i never got to finish).

My placement ment i got little space, but i managed to finish my initial ring of 6 cities and build 4 cities at a distanse of 8 before it got to crowded (managed to snatch 4 of the gems to east as well :)).

Because i was in the middle i quickly got i touch with the other civs and by wheelen and dealing i managed to stay in the techrace throughout this era.

I also started an early war against the Baekje with the Kazars on my side (i needed more space), this turned out to be succesful. After that i turned my swordsmen and horsemen at the Koreans and boldly asked the Mongols for assistanse (man does the AI stink with the UU). After quite a few turns the Koreans were left with 5 cities all on tundra, and I was almost on par with the tech leaders on the continent (Ghandi).

After this i just sat tight and waitet for the middle ages and my Riders. Pop rushing a few temples and building horsemen for later upgrades.

PTW 1.27 Open

I picked the start with dyes quite randomly as both starts looked equal and I could not even determine which one was in the south and which the central location.
All the goodies ended up in the central start location. I sent the warrior on the mountain and he revealed wheat and cow (tasty), so there is no question where my capital goes. Settler moved SW,W for the capital to get both wheat and cow in the immidiate city radius.
The 2. settler moved onto the spice as he cannot found first anyway.

Beijing was founded in 3900 BC as well as Shanghai in the south. I was thinking about marching settler No 2 towards Beijing but then remembered the raging barbs and thought better of it. There were 2 wasted turns for both settlers but I hope that the location of Beijing is superior enough to catch up quickly. (What are the funny looking buildings that appeared near Beijing??)
The first tech to be researched at full is Terra cotta.
I had a lot of barbs prancing around Beijing. The Khazars made an early appearance in 3800BC marching 7 warriors towards undefended Beijing. Thankfully they moved on to fight barbs. But this made me use a chest to produce a quick 2. warrior in Beijing.
All the barbs and AI running around the capital severely hampered early exploration as I did not want to take huge risks with an undefended city.

By 3400BC I knew the Baekje, Khazars and Goguryeo, all of which came calling rather than me finding them. This game has by far the slowest exploration ever and a very nailbiting start with loads of barbs and AI troops loitering around my capital.

My 2. chest is spent towards a barracks in Beijing (while waiting for pottery to be researched) and the 3. went to help the granary along.

In 3250BC terra cotta was researched, math was next at 10%.
Between 3150BC and 2800BC I met Korea, Takeda and Rajaputana.
In 2470BC at last the first settler rolled of the production line in Beijing, he was sent S towards the horse and founded Canton in 2350BC. Going west towards the wheat would have been a better 2. city but I really wanted to make sure to get the horses and the Khazars were close by in the south. Beijing could now function as 4 turn settler factory (sizes 4 - 6).
In Shangai meanwhile all production was being whipped or supported by forest chops. Population is much easier to come by here than shields due to corruption.
The gambit with math paid off and netted me calligraphy, iron culture,map making, taoist myst and maps.
The space to settle ran out quite quickly and I also lost 3 citizens in Beijing to disease which made it even harder to keep up in the land grab.
So I started to prepare for war in 1475 BC by producing warriors for a sword upgrade.
The target are the Khazars. They have only 2 cities. The iron came online in 1100BC.

The known world at 1100BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Shevek_minimap_1100BC.JPG

The fledgling Han empire at 1100BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Shevek_-_Han_1100BC.JPG

I declare war on Khazars in 1050BC and approach Chimkent with 9 swords, 1 archer, 1 spear. 2 swords, 1 horse make their way slowly towards Balkhash. The goal is to take Chimkent in an effort to connect Shanhai with the empire. Balkhash is well situated for us too and has gems.
I capture Chimkent (has Collosus) without loss in 1000BC. I now also know all overseas civs, they must have bought my contact. This triggers a nice trading round which gets me construction, confucianism and civil service.

Balkhash is far trickier to capture, we loose 4 swords and it takes until 800BC before Balkash falls.
The next objective is to take the Baekje cities between the 2 cores (Beijing - Shanghai).
We have an average military compared with the Baekje. The Goguryeo attack the Baekje in 650BC and I jump onto the band wagon and declare as well and capture Ch'onan next turn.
The Baekje retaliate by capturing Chimkent from me. I retake it (570BC) and take Chin-do (510BC). Yosu puts up a heroic defence and together with some awfull RNG that cost me 5 swords and it is still in the hands of the Baekje. There are also Baekje troops approaching y southern cities. I might have bitten too big a chunk out of the cake and in 490BC make a peace treaty for Mokp'o, shamaism, literature, 103gp, TM. Thus the medivial ages start.

The Han in 490BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Shevek_Minimap_490bc.jpg


My next objectives are:
Revolution to republic ASAP (republic still 19 turns away)
Decide where to put FP and start building
Capture at least Taejon from the Baekje to connect my empire.

PTW 1.27 Predator

I moved both settlers 2 turns before settling. I made my capital in the N next to the cow and the wheat. I built warrior warrior settler granary and then had a 4-turn settler factory. This actually worked a bit slower than 4 turns as I kept forgetting to switch the worked tiles around properly.

The N start was fairly productive but became very crowded quite quickly. An industrious Civ is very welcome. I built rings at 4 and 7, but didn't have room to finish. There was much more room in the south where I built 3 cities. These were all hopelessly corrupt but I had great hopes for a palace jump and had partly hand built a forbidden palace in the North ready for this (completed 875bc), when the treacherous Khazars sneak attacked my southern cities in 1200bc. The next turn they razed 2 of them and captured the third. Therefore the second settler was a complete waste in my hands. The khazars had been wandering around with a huge stack for several turns before so maybe I could have bought them off. I will be intrigued as to how other fared in this respect.

At 1000bc I had 13 cities, obviously all in the north, with almost no room left to expand. The Koreans and Baekje had been at war for ages, with many battles fought in my lands. Several Civs attacked the khazars after they attacked me, but this was too late to save my southern settlements.

The only benefit I accrued from the southern settler was that early contacts were fairly easy to make. I managed to nearly keep up with tech in the qsc timeframe with lots of trades, and that was the most encouraging aspect of my start. I fell a bit behind after that.

No early wars for me apart from the Khazar debacle. Another attack would have finished me off.

I am looking forward to seeing how the Mongols deal with their special units. They were pretty ineffectual for me in gotm25, so I think they will be a dead loss for the AI.

Open Civ1.29f

I decided it didn't make any sense to create a scenario where the selection of a SAV determined win or lose. So I just took the first one...dyes...the northern and more central location as it turns out.

In my now 6-week Civ3 career, I haven't seen a Treasure Chest and didn't know if they could be moved around like a unit...discovered they could though it didn't want to go up the mountain. Took them S,E,N for no discovery of note. Warrior to the mountain et voila...Cattle and Wheat.

In the south just took the worker to the mountain et voila again. So I'm going to take screen dumps and print the positions to plot strataegy. I Ctrl-G to get a grid and POOF! A boxy thing with which I'm unfamiliar appears. Trojan Horse? Goodies? A prehistoric A-Bomb? After puzzling for too long I thought of a fortress, which I had read about, but never seen one. Cranked up CivEdit (Alt-Tab), plunked a fortress on a map and that mystery was solved.

Now, where to site the capital. I get this glimmer...fortress...Great Wall? I'm not very familiar with China so I go look at the globe and there's the Great Wall right by Peking (!). That's good enough for me...the capital is gonna be by the Great Wall. And I'll bet the Mongols are gonna be to the west.


Then I remember all the best players look at the fog for any hints. Sure enough, that could be a cow NNW. The more I look, the more certain I am it's a cow. So back to the paper. I can get a 5-7 Warrior/Settler Factory with both cows and wheat. But a better prospect looks to be the 4-6 4-turn Settler Pump with a 4-turn Warrior/Worker Pump using the second cow and Flood Plains. Besides if it isn't a cow, I could waste time getting settled waiting a turn or so to find out. And the 4-turn W/W Pump sets right back up if the Flood Plain goes bad on you. So every 4 turns a settler, a warrior and a worker. My replays of botched openings have all done very well with that symmetry. Also found the cow in the south looking at the fog.

I spent actually hours on this opening position. Ended up settling Beijing (!) in forest SW of mountain and Shanghai SE of mountain. The Shanghai location was not optimum due to a thorough lack of understanding a few game concepts. I actually thought I was gonna set up a settler factory in the south...HAH!

The seemingly randomly appearing Great Wall was fun. Also spotted a volcano across the water, but it was gone later. As a minimum the Great Wall seemed a prehistoric freeway.

I decided to do a QSC-like log. Don't know if it qualifies QSC or not. I haven't been able to discern what the submission rules actually are. It did force me to slow down and think a little more about what I was doing.

Build sequence for Beijing-warrior, settler, granary(with chests), worker. Used a spreadsheet to work out a reasonable worker sequence to mesh with the builds. Got the 4-turn settler factory set up (Granary in 2750BC). Being built the granary-less 1st settler in 3100BC. This fellow founded Canton 3.0N and set up as a 4-turn Warrior/Worker factory.

South was a struggle. I hit on the idea of chopping forests to generate shields, then re-foresting with my Industrious workers and chopping them again. Pumped out workers to do this until I tried to re-forest...OOPS, need a MA tech for that. One of these days I'll figure out what they don't tell you in the manual so I can play effectively. Ended up with 3 cities in the south and a half dozen swords at 1000BC. Never had to guts to have at those stacks of Googs who kept sauntering by.

The capital area was set up with RCP 3/3.5 and 6/6.5. Noting the pressure from other civ fairly soon, I settled the outer ring first to block and then filled in. Had a fun time with a Korean settler herding him around trying to (successfully) keep him out of my build pattern.

Couldn't keep the Mongols out of the ring, though, and they settled next to my Iron Colony in the south (another learning experience), so they are the first target.

Generally, scouted, met folks, traded around initial techs, had a Writing trade and a MapReading trade, renegotiated peace some after I got the Power lead. Tried to slow down tech by not trading with backwards civs and not gifting them. Haven't figured out yet how to control the tech rate. Reseached Pottery at max, then 40- turn Math but switched to 40-turn Shamanism after Mysticism became available. Then Monarchy at max. Thrashed a little with this, but didn't waste too much.

At 1000BC I had:

Towns 18
Workers 29, 5 foreign
Warriors 19
Swords 19
Junk 1
Settler 1
Pop 46
Gold 1065
Missing Construction and Currency (and Monarchy, Republic)
Score 584
Monarchy in 13 turns

The world at 1000BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GOTM26_1000BC_HighDesert.jpg


Right at 1000BC I declared on the Mongols and destroyed one town and captured another at turns end.

After Monarchy and the interminable 6-turn Anarchy I kept waiting for the AI to come up with the last two techs, but the last didn't show until 570BC and I waited until 470BC to trade for it and enter MA. The timing on this wasn't that bad as I wasn't fully developed. The plan is to use the Riders to dominate the world since I've never been in IA much less modern age and the space race would be a joke for me. BTW, how do you get those nice 2 and 3 turn Anarchies I keep reading about?

I'll be interested to see what the elite do at the second site. I have a QSC timeline which documents plenty of confusion if someone would care to tell me how to hook it up.

Added pic...12/10/03

Civ3 v1.29 Predator

I pretty much started the game doing the same thigs Shevek did...

Originally posted by Shevek
I picked the start with dyes quite randomly as both starts looked equal and I could not even determine which one was in the south and which the central location.
All the goodies ended up in the central start location. I sent the warrior on the mountain and he revealed wheat and cow (tasty), so there is no question where my capital goes. Settler moved SW,W for the capital to get both wheat and cow in the immidiate city radius.
The 2. settler moved onto the spice as he cannot found first anyway.

Beijing was founded in 3900 BC as well as Shanghai in the south. I was thinking about marching settler No 2 towards Beijing but then remembered the raging barbs and thought better of it. There were 2 wasted turns for both settlers but I hope that the location of Beijing is superior enough to catch up quickly. (What are the funny looking buildings that appeared near Beijing??)
The first tech to be researched at full is Terra cotta.

After this I build some warriors in Beijing and then a granary, that I completed in 2850BC and it become a settler factory. Shanghai, the town in the south, produced some settlers using :whipped:
After Terra Cotta I researched at full speed Mysticism, Confucianism, Civil Service and The Republic, that I got in 1025BC (3 turns revolution).
I also finished the Forbidden Palace in 1100BC. I immediately abandoned Beijing and the palace jumped to Shanghai :D . I got contact with the other continent in 975BC and entered the Middle Ages i nthis turn.

Well, might as well put my spoiler in....

I started with the dyes save on PTW Open. I chose the dyes simply because the starting position looked to be more in the middle of the map, which I thought would give me more room. Initial moves were to move treasure & warrior to explore the surrounds (looking for a better capital location), and the warrior's move to the mountain showed the wheat and cow - a potential 4/5 settler factory location. So, it took a couple of turns extra, but I moved the settler.

I noticed easter-egg number 1: The "strange buildings" (fortresses), which separated the Han from the Mongols: the Great Wall!

I then contrived easter egg number 2: Founding a second city so far away was going to be a disbenefit (in my opinion). Because it was so far away, it would have high corruption early-on. So I took a risk and started "the Long March".

I got very lucky in early trades. I found the mongols and the orange guys (can't remember their names) on the same turn. I swapped one tech with the mongols (with some loose change), and three with the organge guys. More importantly, the mongols had three workers for sale!. The 3 techs I got from the orange were swapped for the workers (again with some loose change), and I then had four workers for my capital. :D This trade also gve me terra cotta, so I disbanded the treasure to rush teh granary.

I'm not great at settler factories, and for this one I felt I was 1 bonus grassland short of a four-turn factory. However, with four workers, the shortfall was made-up by chopping forests. I was hoping to uncover another bonus grassland, but it was not to be. However, after about 4 4-turn settlers, I then continued with 5-turn settlers.

The other cities would build a warrior for defence, then start barracks whilst I researched for horse-riding. I wasn't that worried about barbs, because there were a lot of mongols and orange guys that seemed to me to be barb-farming, and keeping them nicely offmy back....

I built a sizeable horseman army, and attacked the mongols, before they could hook up any horses themselves. This battle went very well, and I eliminated them from the main continent, although they still had another city 'somewhere' ;)

The next target was the pink Baekje. Again, they had little in the way of an army, so they were falling pretty quickly. An added bonus was that they have built the Great Library. As I'm not sure of the exact time frame that I started my conquest of them (I carried on playing right through), I'll save that bit for the next spoiler....

Conquest (first GOTM) Conquests-as-PTW 1.27

I can't help it.

I confess, I'm a reflexive builder/perfectionst.

Not ideal for a deity game as a militaristic civ, but there you go.

All started well; I made the city in the north my 'Northern Capital' (Bei Jing), and the southern city moved a little until it was 'on the sea' (Shang Hai). Beijing prospered as a settler factory, until the northwest corner of the continent east from the Mongol steppe, North of the Baekje forest, and south of the Korean Tundra was all Chinese.

Kept pace through tech-trading until 2/3 through ancient. Attacked Korea taking 2 cities including Seoul. Then things started going wrong. Horribly wrong.

My defeat (game not posted as it's still in progress, but it's all over bar the shouting) came when an alliance of Mongols and Gorgys welded together by the machinations of the arch-warmonger, a man known only as 'Gandhi', launched a massive attack across my overstretched southern border, simultaneous to massive elephants smashing through the two southern cities. The armies of the middle kingdom fought bravely but ultimately futilely.

(sigh) It was fun while it lasted, though.

Vanilla Civ-Conquest Class

Been playing civ for awhile now, but only started gotms this past month. I sucked at global competition mainly by saving-reloading.

Repentance at hand! :D

Capital--spice settler group phalanx moved onto mountain and moved chests around abit to get better view. settled on hill next to start.

2nd settler moved one tile to the W to reach wheat and dyes.

Contact first with Khazars then Mongols from phalanx view on top southern great wall mountain. Then baekje, groguryeo and takeda. Later India then Korea.

Expanded pretty quickly despite Indian encroachment, built quick granary in capital and temple in shanghai.

Attacked groguryeo first using upgraded swords and couple of horses. Then baekje and got GL. free chivalry and upgraded to riders.

This is where my demise started. I got impatient with my riders and attacked khazars simultaneously on two fronts, chimkent and balkash on hill next to gem mountain. lost 6 of 10 riders in initial assault, civs annoyed with me after 3 wars and bad rep.

Khazars succumb to Han might.

Effect though: Dragging and looong war got left behind in tech race in MA and started to get beat when India, Mongols, Korea, Takeda all have nationalism except me. upgraded to muskets but no use, borders very porous. :mad:

Yet to finish.

Question to Civ vets out there...do you finish a game that's bound to lose? :confused: Do I submit? :confused:

I'm ahead at firaxis score though by at least 40 points over India, but the galaxy is faaaar, faaaaaaaaar awaaaay......[civ3]

Originally posted by twyxted
Vanilla Civ-Conquest Class
Question to Civ vets out there...do you finish a game that's bound to lose? :confused: Do I submit? :confused:
DEFINITELY! :D

PTW Open Class

Well I took the southern start for my goodies but made the northern settler my capital. I wanted that treasure for my southern unproductive city. In the north I moved NE to get on the coast and the southern city I moved to the SE hill for defence and to get the forest chop for shields. Used the treasure to rush three quick warriers in the south produced another two in the north and I quickly made contact with all civs on the continent. Through trading I keep up in tech throughout the ancient age.

At start of middle ages I have 9 cities in the north fairly close together and 3 in the south with a bit of room for expansion. I am 20 turns from completing the forbidden parlace in a city next to Beijing ready for a palace jump.

It is 800BC so I'm a bit slower than others tech wise.

Not had any wars yet - I'm just too weak, I have rights of passage with everyone to dissuade them from attacking me.

My next stratagy will be to pump out as many warriers as possible, hook up iron and upragade (I have about 900 gold ready and my republic is bringing in 50 per turn) ready for a war with (probably) the Baekje.

I definatly don't think I did the right thing settling my seccond city stright away - it would have been better to risk the move north although early contacts helped me keep ahead with tech and trading.

PTW v1.27 Predator

highdesert wow! That’s an impressive start, which will give you a good result in the end.

I like this game a lot even if I managed to miss some very important features. I built my cities just at the starting position Beijing in the North and Shanghai in the South (if only I knew Chinese it would have been easier). I didn’t even realized that I missed about two locations for a settler factory until I read how much you guys have accomplished. No settler factory meant no granaries for me so I built barracks and lots of warriors. My build around Beijing was a RCP 4/4.5 with no space for a second ring. Shanghai built a warrior, a worker and two settlers helped by forestry operations. I ended up with 13 cities in 1000BC of which 3 in the South.

I met the civs on the starting continent fairly quickly and the ones from the other landmass(es) came to visit. I leveraged my techs pretty good, not trading for Masonry a long time. I had no research whatsoever until I got (Taoist) Mysticism. I then started a 40turn Shamanism, which failed after 39 turns. I probably could have traded it for Republic if I had a monopoly. Still traded everything else except Currency, which I bought.

I planned a warmongering approach, taking the Baejke first (in alliance with the Khazars). The first city I took provided me with an elite unit, which was lost two turns later when the city flipped to the Khazars !!!. This slowed me a bit but still managed to take the Baejke Capital (with Pyramids), and then another city with incense. At that point I have linked my southern empire with my northern one (circa 800BC). But one of the promising Southern cities flipped to the pinky Baejke and they killed 4 population by rushing defences. The next pink city was razed in retaliation and after taking the last city in the south the forces returned.

Meanwhile the Mongols and the Chinese declared war to the Khazars and took their capitol and the city that flipped from me. While I took the two pink cities in the jungle, the Mongols took the last Khazar city. But I also got my first leader at circa 600 BC, which was sent to build the FP in Shanghai. Now I turned towards the Koreans for a short war to sort out borders (I want to take two cities from them). Mongols are next but we still have a RoP now.

Originally posted by Bremp
Civ3 v1.29 Predator

After Terra Cotta I researched at full speed Mysticism, Confucianism, Civil Service and The Republic, that I got in 1025BC

Great start. Did you really research all that by yourself.

Did anyone else apart from me get their wesker colony wiped out.

Congratulations to HighDesert: a shockingly great effort for someone playing Civ3 for 6 weeks. Why didn't you play before?

This thread is getting me down. Everyone is far too good at the game.

Originally posted by HighDesert
South was a struggle. I hit on the idea of chopping forests to generate shields, then re-foresting with my Industrious workers and chopping them again.

That doesn't work. Reforested forests don't generate shields if cut down again.

[ptw] 1.27 Predator

I founded capital on more central location (dyes) NW from start point. I missed the cow, and didn't build granary. Without that cow there wasn't enough shields for settler factory. I cranked warriors from beginning, and started war vs Baekja with Korean on my side. On spices location I chopped trees and built settlers and workers. I was able to get my earliest FP in third city 1400BC by starting The Pyramids as a prebuild. After that I abandoned capital and it succesfull jumped to South. 1000BC I had 13 cities (9 founded and 4 captured from Baekja.)

I'm not only one to amazed by Bremp's lighting tech speed researching. I had similar path. First full speed Terra Cotta and Taois Mysticism. 2390BC trade with Koreans: Taoist mysticism, Masonry, Iron Culture, contact with Rajaputana and Cogury for Calligraphy. Then full speed Confucianism and Civil Service at 1500BC. Then The Republic minimum speed, I coudn't research it below 35 turns. In 1000BC I had another 20 turns left for The Republic. Thanks to suicide galley I contacted others 1225BC. Chinese entered to MA 1025BC, and had tech parity and beyond 1000 gold. Excluding Koreans who got free MA tech.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif PTW1.21f

Workers scouted to the mountains and found nice settler factory place in the north. Used 4/7 RCP build. I decided to go for military victory. This was my longest AA ever playtime wise. I checked every turn trading status and got 13 foreign workers to slow down their advancement.

Takeda sneak attacked me in about 1300BC. I made a mistake building a town 2 tiles apart them (there was sea between) so the attack was evident but I did not realize it until too late. I wasn't ready for fighting and was scared of other Deity opponents so I setup costly MAs against Takeda so that they would not dogpile on me.

1000BC stats:
16 towns, one destroyed by Takeda :(
16+13 workers
28 warriors
3 horsemen
1 junk
1088 gold
AA techs excepts governments, currency and construction

Got contact with outside opponents in around 1000BC. They were even more backward but they soon had Monarchy for which I traded for. Don't remember when I reached Middle Ages but it was before 600BC.

I got my first Great Leader in 975BC (in my first elite fight!) which was used to build Forbidden Palace in south.

[Civ3 v1.29, Open]

Like most others, I settled my capital in the north. The chests showed the cow, wheat and flood plains, so I took 2 turns to move towards them. The south settler moved up on the hill and waited for Beijing to be founded:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/2670-start-capital.jpg

I built a granary and set up the settler factory. In Canton I immediately started on a FP prebuild. Shanghai in the south grew population for the palace jump to succeed.

In 1475 bc I got my first map:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/1475-bc-first-map.jpg

The FP was completed in 1250 bc, and the palace jumped to Shanghai in 1075 bc. In hindsight this didn't turn out particularly well. I has serious problems with flipping in the north, and the south only had room for 4-5 cities without war.

Contact with the other continent happened in 850 bc, and I moved into the MA in 690 bc, 1 turn after the AI. I revolted into monarchy (5 turns).

My AA wars were mainly against the Mongols, whose main cities I captured. They still have one in the north and one in the south.

[ptw] Open

Well, my first QSC for a few games :)

Here's my (abbreviated) log, sorry there' no screenshots but I didn't take them as I went and don't want to be reloading old saves just at the moment.


Well I chose the Dyes start hoping it would be the Northern position. I moved the Warrior onto the mountain, saw the Wheat & Cattle, thought long and hard then decided to move the Settler W, SW to the forest between the Wheat and Cattle.

In the South I took advantage of the Northern Settler move to move this Settler 2E (after moving the worker onto the mountain).

Both my starting cities were founded in 3900BC and started producing a Warrior. In the meantime I had used the Northern Warrior & treasure Chests to scout out the local area. Research was set to Alphabet @20%.

My first contact was the Mongols in 3800BC. I bought Terra Cotta & a Slave for Masonry + 27gp. The very next turn a stack of seven Khazars showed up :eek: but luckily they were friendly :) I bought Alphabet, the Wheel & Burial Rituals from the Khazars for Martial Arts, Masonry, 79gp + 1gpt. I traded the Wheel back to the Mongols for a couple of Slaves. In 3700BC I sold Terra Cotta to the Khazars for 80gp as they were about to make contact with the Mongols. 3700BC also saw the start of a Granary in Bejing.

3650BC brought the Gogury to light in the South. They were far behinf in tech and only had 10gp so no trading took place.

In 3450BC I brokered Bronze Working from the Gogury to the Mongols.

3400BC and Bejing's first border expansion. The Baekje show up, level in tech and broke. I used all 3 Chests to finish the Granary in Bejing and immediately start on the first of many Settlers.

3150BC my first Settler is raring to go, only to find that the Takeda had planted a city that impinged on his target. What with this and the number and closeness of the other AI I decided to try something I've seen somewhere on CFC. I move my Settler 2E intending to settle there and do the same with the next 3 Settlers (2N, 2S and 2W) using these cities purely for military & worker production aiming to abandon them in the Middle Ages.

3000BC Canton founded. In the South a Worker is chopping forest to speed Shanghai's first Settler.

2670BC Buy Bajutsu from Takeda for Masonry & Burial Rituals. Sell on Bajutsu to Khazars for 131gp. Baekje & Takeda start Pyramids.

2590BC Buy Iron Culture from Mongols for Bajutsu + 279gp. We have Iron NE of Bejing :)

2550BC Baekje have Calligraphy :( Sell Alphabet to Takeda for 48gp. Sell Bajutsu to Goguryeo for 83gp. Buy Calligraphy from Baekje for 1138gp + 3gpt. Swap Contact with Takeda for Goguryeo's contact with Rajaputanis. Sell Bajutsu to Raja for 84gp. Buy contact with Korea from Mongols for 71gp. Sell Wheel to Korea for 60gp. Switch research to Literature. Bejing produces another Settler.

2510BC Shanghai produces Settler. Tsingtao founded (2S Bejing).

2350BC Xinjian founded (in the South).

2310BC Bejing burps another settler.

2230BC Chengdu founded (2W Bejing). Buy Mysticism from Mongols and sell Calligraphy to Khazars.

2110BC Bejing gives another Settler.

2070BC Nanking founded (2N Bejing)

1910BC Bejing Settler who will head East to the coast & Horses.

At this time I'm thinking about connecting the Iron & upgrading some vet Warriors and kicking some Mongol butt. I decide to wait until Horses & Iron are connected and I've produced 4 Horse before starting the war.

1830 Baekje & Mongols have Map Making. In a furious trading round I go from 150gp (+14gpt) to 272gp (+4gpt) picking up full (known) WM & Map Making for a total cost of 78gp.

1750BC Tientsin founded on the coast (near Horse) and immediately starts Junk.

1725BC Bejing produces Settler then switches to Worker production as we're out of space for more cities. The Mongols will definitely be our first target as they are in our way.

1650BC Discover I set the Workers on the Iron Mountain to mine not road #%@*! Confucianism is available but too expensive to buy.

1575BC Bejing pops Worker and starts Barracks in our final prep for war.

1525BC Declare war on the Mongols & immediately capture 2 Workers.

1500BC Ta-Tu autorazed. Kill a couple of Mongol Warriors for no losses. A horde of Gogury show up near Shanghai (in the South)

1475BC North: Almarikh is auto razed for the loss of a Sword. Kill 2 Mongol Archers losing another Sword. South: Gogury declare war and Spear (Xinjian) kills 2 attacking Warriors.

1450BC North: troops consolidate & heal, Bejing produces Settler for the cleared land). South: Xinjian rushes Spear, disband worker in Shanghai & rush Spear. Vet Spear (Xinjian) kills 2 attackers and promotes. He then promptly dies to another attacker. Reg Warrior (Xinjian) kills last attacker (for the moment).

1425BC North: Vet Sword kills Settler/Otomo and captures 2 Slaves. Vet Sword kills Spear and Hoyd is autorazed. Sell Peace to Mongols for Confucianism, Civil Service, WM, Darhan (W coast), Kazan + 11gp (broke). A nice short sharp war that gave me some space to settle, 2 techs and 2 towns for the loss of 2 Swords :)

1400BC Junk sets sail from Tientsin heading East. More Gogury appear in the South. Spear (Xinjian) kills 2 Archers and promotes. In the North I'm preparing for an assault on Chimkent in order to open up a route to the South.

1350BC Elite Spear (Xinjian) kills Archer but dies to next Archer. Reg Spear (Xinjian) kills 2 attackers & promotes. Full WM obtained.

1325BC Sell Peace Treaty to Gogury for WM + 28gp (just as I thought Xinjian would fall).

1300BC Declare war on Khazars and advance on Ghimkent.

1275BC Full contacts :)

1250BC Take Ghimkent for the loss of a Sword.

1225BC Get my first GL (K'uang-yin) and decide to save him for Forbidden Palace in Shanghai

1200BC Sell Peace to Khazars for WM (all they had). Now I can send K'uang-yin South to Shanghai.

1025BC Forbidden Palace built in Shanghai

975BC Buy Construction from Baekje for 517gp to enter the Middle Ages!

I really enjoyed this start, although it took a lot of playing time. I had two short sharp wars of my choosing, both fought with Swords & Horses and I managed to fend off the Gogury in the South to keep Shanghai & Xinjian. There's more but that'll have to wait for the next spoiler :)


Ted

Originally posted by TedJackson
[ptw] Open


1525BC Declare war on the Mongols & immediately capture 2 Workers.

1500BC Ta-Tu autorazed. Kill a couple of Mongol Warriors for no losses. A horde of Gogury show up near Shanghai (in the South)

1475BC North: Almarikh is auto razed for the loss of a Sword. Kill 2 Mongol Archers losing another Sword. South: Gogury declare war and Spear (Xinjian) kills 2 attacking Warriors.



Ted

I'm very impressed by these early wars. I was far too weak to attempt this, but would be keen to try it out in future. How strong was your army at the time? The AI had huge stacks of troops in my game. There were about 15 bad guys in the Khazar horde that took my southern cities, although that was a bit later on (1200bc). If you do find the time a screenshot or save would be interesting.

The Mongols were long on quantity but short on quality :)

I had about 10-12 Swords total and 4 Horses - I hadn't even managed to upgrade all my Warriors :)

I attacked only their cities that were close to my land and were thus only weakly defended.

Probably the most important factors were the speed at which I attacked (I declared in 1525BC, achieved my goal - 3 cities razed for expansion space - and got a good peace deal in 1425BC) and the targets. I was getting Peace before the Mongols could even think about mounting a counter-attack :)

I'll try to set up for the GotM on another machine and transfer the saves for some screenies tomorrow.


Ted

Originally posted by TedJackson
[ptw] Open

...

2550BC Baekje have Calligraphy :( Sell Alphabet to Takeda for 48gp. Sell Bajutsu to Goguryeo for 83gp. Buy Calligraphy from Baekje for 1138gp + 3gpt.

...



Well, I hope the 1138gp payment is a mis-print!! (I didn't get MY first 1000gp until at least 2510 :) )

I qualified for this spoiler in 875 BC in my game. I'll log an entry later after I get my screenshots lined up.

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

I settled in the north after moving my settler twice, and decided to send the other settler and worker to the north.
After I saw, that there are many civs near by, I left Beijing as settler factory and build in the other cities barracks and warriors.
As soon as I could buy mapmaking, I sent a galley to explore. <snip> Save that for the next spoiler! ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Ronald_Edited1.jpg

At 1200 BC I was ready for upgrading 28 warriors to swordsmen and moved towards the two Kharzar cities and Baekje.

Here you can see my three stacks of swordsmen close to the cities and a fourth as second wave:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Ronald_gotm26_2.jpg

1100 BC I declared war to the Kharzars and in 1050 to Baekje (first I sold them Shamanism for all the gold they had, then I allied with Korea and Mongolia against them to be safe in my backyard)
Both Kharzars cities fell immediately, but with some losses.

The war against the baekje was decided quickly, instead of having to raze all the small cities I gave peace in 875 BC. To please my alies, I donated them some luxuries. In 825 currency became available and I am entering the next aera.[ptw]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/ptw.gif 1.27f
Open

My plan was initially to use a worker/warrior to scout the starting locations, but unless they saw food bonuses, I was going to settle in my initial sites. It didn’t look like setting up a settler factory would pay off without bonuses, so I planned on just building settlers as fast as I could. I chose Open, thinking I could use the treasure chests to offset the corruption penalties on my second city in the south, (and partly because I came up short against Diety-level Rome in Medal 6-4!). I also took my bonuses in the south with the spices, figuring with corruption I would need the chests to build settlers. Boy was I surprised during my first turn! I moved the warrior in the south onto the mountain first, and revealed flood plains and wheat! I was surprised but concerned, because I was afraid I might have put my chests, etc. at the wrong location, since this would obviously be my capital? But then I moved my worker in the north to the mountain, and saw an instant replay, but with a cattle too! This was going to be fun!

3900 Decision time, I still settle in the North first, making Beijing my capital directly E of the cattle. The other locations have the chests, etc, and are better prepared to be corrupt. I see more of the fortifications, looks like Cracker has prebuilt the Great Wall of China for us!! (Uh-oh, I hope that doesn’t mean that there are hordes of barbarians on the other side of the wall. Was this really a good spot for my capital?). In the south, Shanghai is founded SE of wheat, starts on a settler. I figure the one thing I can do is crank out lots of food down here, and that can translate into settlers. I will grow food faster than shields, but 1 per turn plus a chest is still a settler every 20 turns, which is as fast as a non-bonus start could get, so it can’t hurt! I start research on Terra Cotta at max, 16 turns, thinking I will build a granary in the north.

I quickly meet the Khazar, Goguryeo, and Baejke (3700), and after some trading pick up Burial, Wheel, and Alphabet. I decided early on that I was going to try for a Palace Jump to the south, and with all the bonus food around, I never did build a Granary in Beijing, just cranking out settlers every 8 turns, but also able to build settlers in my other cities. I ended up saving a few turns on Terra Cotta from the Mongols (3600), and start a 40-turn run on Math. I have plenty of luxuries in the south, but only one in the north, which is tough. I get Bronze from Korea in 3200. Never fought many barbs in this timeframe, as the AI with all their bonus units usually swarmed them first. I met Takeda in 2850, it appears they are on an island, and they discover Bajutsu in 2670, which I am able to trade for, then trade around for Iron Culture and a lot of money. I build 5 cities at an RCP of 4/4.5 from Beijing, then realize it won’t matter once I do my palace jump. Meanwhile I am still building settlers in the south, using chests and a couple forest chops to hurry it along. Buy Calligraphy from the Baejke in 2310, and parlay it into Mysticism and another worker. I actually bought 5-6 workers during this time frame, usually for techs. I am beaten to Math, the Baejke get it in 1990. However, looking around, no one else has any money, so I see no point in buying it yet. I wait 3 turns, and when I see a couple of civs with money, buy it and sell it around, getting 150g. I start now on Currency, but at 90% science, hoping to get it soon enough to trade it. In 1750, Canton starts on the FP in the north.
I also lose a citizen as Chengdu is pillaged by a barb, after two warriors failed to stop it. Mapmaking is available in 1700, I buy it for 200+4gpt, but am able to sell it and my WM around for a net gain of 90g, and Confucianism. I also pick up two workers the next turn for Math from the “minor” civs. I build Macao E of Chengdu to get gems, with a temple.

Wonders start showing up, as the Ottomans finish the Oracle, Khazar gets the Colossus (on an inland lake), and then Takeda gets the Pyramids (great, they are on an island!). Buy Civil Service in 1375, and am able to sell it around to break even. I complete Currency in 1275, no one else has it, and Baejke have Construction! I trade them Currency + 275g, then trade the Raja Currency for 300g+1gpt. I assume that the AI will go for the governments, and I am sure that Poly will be available any turn now, so I decide to make a run after Literature instead (This turned out to be wrong, I should have gone for Poly). Anyway, at 90% I can get it in 10 turns. I also start to whip some temples
(I expect Republic soon, so I start whipping several culture buildings), and whip a Junk in Anyang, so I can try to explore/make contacts. Korea completes the Lighthouse, Takeda cascade to the Great Wall, my window for contacts is probably pretty slim, and my Junk moves slow with all the coast between me and Takeda as he fights his way to the sea! In 1050 Takeda has Literature! I would have finished it in a couple turns, so I can buy it cheap. I whip a couple of libraries to finish out the QSC.

End of QSC period: I have 15 cities, 47 pop (37 happy with lux maxed). Of those, 5 are in the south, and 10 in the north. All ancient techs except Shamanism (poly), Republic, and Monarchy. 2 Libraries, 3 temples, and 2 barracks. I have 24 warriors, 6 workers (+5 slaves) and 1 junk.
A lot happened in the next few turns. Forbidden palace finished in 925, and in 875 I jumped my Palace to Shanghai. I am also able to trade for Republic in 925. In 900 my suicide Junk made contact with (someone), and I trade around for contacts, but keep them separate. Takeda completed Shamanism in 900 also, putting me in the Middle Ages, and we were on our way, ready to upgrade all those warriors and overrun the Mongols (who still haven’t hooked up their iron!). Anyway, I feel like this is a very good start, but definitely a challenge with the second settler seperated by so much. It really made for some challenges, and this was on Open, I am interested to see how the Predator players handled it.

The Han Dynasty, 900BC
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/J2_G26_900BC.jpg

Quick qestion from a newbie; how do u get that useful grid on your map Justus II?

Ctrl G for Grid


Ted

As requested, here are some screenshots from my game. Click on a picture or link for a 800*600 version.

Early choices & preparation for first war
3100BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC3100-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC3100.jpg)
First Settler baulked by Takeda!

2350BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC2350-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC2350.jpg)
Xinjian founded in the South.

2230BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC2230-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC2230.jpg)
"Fortress" city placement completed in the North.

1950BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1950-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1950.jpg)
My 8th city, Hangchow, founded.

1750BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1750-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1750.jpg)
Tientsin founded on the coast capturing Horses. Immediately starts bulding a Junk.

More follows...


Ted

Here are the war turns.

Mongol War
1525BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1525-a-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1525-a.jpg) Military http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1525-b-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1525-b.jpg)
Off to a good start by capturing 2 Workers.

1500BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1500-a-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1500-a.jpg) Military http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1500-b-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1500-b.jpg)
Ta-Tu razed.

1475BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1475-a-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1475-a.jpg) Military http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1475-b-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1475-b.jpg) The South http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1475-c-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1475-c.jpg)
Almarikh razed. Gogury declare on me in the South.

1425BC http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1425-a-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1425-a.jpg) Military http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1425-b-sm.jpg (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-BC1425-b.jpg)
Sell Peace Treaty to Mongols for Confucianism, Civil Service, WM, Darhan, Kazan + 11gp :)


Ted

I thought for a while when I originally read this game and speculation was going on what to do with the 2nd settler. I decided to try and hike it back to the capital. I used the N start by the dyes, moved the warrior to mountain and saw a juicy looing site for a settler spot. Then since I was clueless on what to do with my treasure boxes until reading an FAQ post today I moved them around. I sent them N-S-E but brought them home rather quickly. I met Khazer 1st and then Baekje. Held off a little on trades hoping to meet someone else while traveling N with 2nd settler. When I got close to home I realized I better trade so I got Burial and Wheel from those two for my martial arts in 3700bc. In 3200 I got my 1st settler out of Beijing and went N to another floodplain rich area with a cow. That had to be good but the horses were beconing me to rope them in. In 3100, I finally settled Shanghai 3 S and 2.5 W of Beijing. In 2510 I met Ghandi, Takada and Korea so I finally dumped my masonry on them and got IW, Contact with the gogu, and 186g while giving 130g and Masonry to Takada for Writing. In 1475 a Shaman gambit at full speed I could muster worked nice to get Civil, MM, Bajuitsu, Math a worker, world maps all around and 97g. In 710 Monarchcy came in and it propeled me to MA getting almost all gold from other civs, tech and 3 luxs. Ottomans are up Mono on me but I feel good about where I'm at.
I still can't seem to be able to get settlers out fast enough. I 4 turned maybe 3-4 of them but then I see I need waqrriors or something else and I screw the cycle up. I couldn't get Shanghai going quick enough to provide the cover for settlers.
It was cramped and and I only had 8 cities in 1000BC but I saw Mongols were stupid and did not have iron hooked up. I had been selling WM and trding it every round or so and had good intel on most close Civs. I needed space and when Mongol cities popped borders I moved in with swords. Blew 2 of them attacking across a river I didn't see at first but I got the 2 cities I wanted from them. I was plotting a war against Korea to take the border city with the iron and when I got 1 turn of being set up for it they tried to threaten me. They declared and I got the city with 1 loss. 2 turns later I got monarchy and thats where I sit.
I think I may have blown it trying to get temples in quite a few of my cities early. That takes time and I still have one city going at it.

Future plans are to take out Korea unti lthey are in frozen tundra, return to take the Mongol iron still needing a hookup + a few more cities and then getting Khazers and possibly Baekje. This is Space race so I really would like to keep the good researchers around for a while. Ghandi is getting to big for his own good and I think Baekje against him will do nicely, if possible, while I build my infrastructure. trying to keep research high and will need more producing cities and an FP up in Korea after I'm done with them.
No leaders or prebuilds yet.

My future begins to unfold!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/slingedit1.jpg

PTW 1.27f Open

1st Diety game :hand trembles:

I start with all the bonuses at the Southern city and establish the capitol in the north (Beijing). I figure I'll use the treasure chests in the non-capitol group to allow for some expansion in the south before performing a palace jump. I settle both cities on the spot in 4000BC.

I research Alpha @ 20% and build warriors at both locations.

At 3750BC I see the strange tiles to the West (Great Wall?) of Beijing and and notice the Baejke near the southern city.

3700BC, meet Khazars, trade for Burial Ritual and Wheel

3600BC, Meet Mongols and Baekje, trade for Terra Cotta and Alphabet. Set research to Bajitsu (9.1.0)

3550BC, Meet Goguryo

3500BC, Trade for Bronze Culture from Baekje

3150BC, Meet Korea but they are behind in techs

2800BC, Beijing produces 1st settler, move him west near cow and wheat
2750BC, Canton built near Beijing

2550BC, I use 1 chest towards a settle build @ Shanghei (south)

2500BC I pop rush settler @ Shanghei

IBT Meet Takeda and Rajaputana
2190BC I trade for Caligraphy, Iron Culture, and Tao Mist. Trades as follows: Korea: Cal. for Wheel &100g, Takeda: IC for Cal & 2g; Baekje: Tao Mist for 89g; Korea: 110g for IC

1830BC Research complete on Bajitsu. Did not get it first as everyone else already had it. Also bought a worker for 120g from Khazars. Start minimum research on Shamanism

1750BC Buy another worker from Khazars for 120g

1650BC Buy a 3rd worker from Khazars for 120g

1525BC Buy techs: Civil Service, Map Making, and Confusism Baekje: Civil Service for WM & 238g; Khazars: Map Making for Civ Ser, WM, 1gpt, 58gold ; Korea: WM &22g for Civ Ser.; Mongols: Conf., WM & 34g for MM; Takeda: WM for WM & 12g

1475BC At this time I had 18 warriors, 4 local workers, and 3 foreign workers. Lots of map trading brings in about 78g

1400BC Baekj construct Pyramids

1375BC Gorguryean construct Oracle; Takeda build Great Lighthouse

1225BC Lost of map trading brings in about 41g. I found I could go round and round, trading my WM for WM + 1 g. Stupid and boring? Yes! but I was able to get some much needed gold

1175BC Trade for Math from Gorguryeo from WM and Civil Service

1000BC I had at least 8 horseman and 5 swordman by now and was planning on attacking the Mongols.

I stopped playing and went to sleep. Two days later, when I was able to restart, I decided to scrap the Mongols idea and go after Korea, who was weak but Culturally threatening by Northern core.

900BC Declare war on Korea. Capture 1 city with 8 horses.

875BC Capture another Korean city. Sign MA with Mongols against Korea for WM, 161g and 7gpt. I did not want 2 fronts since I thought I would not be able deal with it with my current economy.

800BC Trade for Literature. Baekje: Lit for WM, 3gpt, 32g. This would also secure my southern boarder from sneak attack. Besides, the Baekje and Khazars were concerned with Takeda at this time.

750BC Capture Seoul

710BC Capture P'yongyang, cutting off the Korean horses

570BC Successfully Palace jump to Shanghei! (1st ever deliberate palace jump). I had built the Forbidden Palace in Canton 3 turns before and needed to build a settler in Canton to ensure the jump would be down to the south.

430BC End war with Korea after MA with Mongols runs out. I have captured all thier usefull cities and leave the tundra to them for now. I get Currency, Republic, Monarchy, WM, 19g, and 5gpt, entering the Middle Ages. I then trade Monarchy to a bunch of civ's to be named later and Tokugawa for 384g and WM, hoping they revolt to Monarchy and keep the tech pace slow.

Below is how the Koreans view thier dire situation (before I sued for peace) (I love thier attitude!:D ) and where the Han are at in 430BC:


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/gotm26-enterIA-grahamiam.jpg


I plan on going around the continent to attack all the other civ's before I come back and finish off the Koreans. Looks like Mongols 1st, which will put me in a good position to go after Raja. Baekje are currently at war with Raja and will give good techs for help! Of course, after some more sleep, I may change my mind and think better of abusing my neighbors (doubtful)

Hopefully, I'll have time to post on the next thread.

Nice picture editing, grahamiam. :)


To others: Please make sure that you don't give away any info about any other land masses just yet. Thanks!

Hurricane, thanks. I'll add yet another item to my growing knowledge of the game. I keep looking, and while there is a great deal in the way of things they didn't tell you in the manual on this site, the info isn't apparently in any one place.

Originally posted by Offa

Congratulations to HighDesert: a shockingly great effort for someone playing Civ3 for 6 weeks. Why didn't you play before?

Thanks, I have now finished and am going back over the game. I am replaying the opening to include all the stuff I missed as well as a little more aggressive with my army. Is it appropriate to discuss a replay here?

As to why I haven't played before...I was a Civ2 player years ago. I received Civ3 as a Christmas present two years ago, but it just sat on the shelf until mid-October. I kind of stumbled onto CivFanatics and GOTM appeared very interesting and well done. Since then I've been learning from the masters, so to speak, playing old GOTMs and reading the spoilers, even downloading timelimes from QSC and play through those to understand the game. A number of the elite have spent a lot of time helping others to learn their techniques and I have been a grateful recipient of their efforts. Tried GOTM25, but had a bit of bad luck with an aggressive rival and abandoned it to replay and enjoy the game as I think it was intended with the Mongrol UUs.

[ptw] 1.14f
Conquest

Preamble

My first diety game that hasn't yet ended in disaster and also my first attempt at submitting a GotM.

The dawn of civilization:

After sending the treasure chests (another great idea gleaned from the GotM pregame discussion) and spearman from each settler camp out into the wilderness, I decided to establish the capital using the southern group, by the spices. This was due to the extra shielded grassland.

I also decided to just plonk down my second city where it stood, rather than move it down to near my capital. Moving is a great idea but I'm going to try and take as much of the land in between the two, distant cities.

Notice a little fortress east of Shanghai.

Beijing - The Capital
http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-start-1.jpg

Shanghai - The den of inequity
http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/GotM26-start-2.jpg

I did a detailed log of play but think it would be rather boring to post that and will therefore just post a summary of my ancient-era game:

I traded whenever I could in the game, as I knew I'd never be able to keep up with my own research. I tried to be the first to research along the bottom path, to monarchy but was easily outpaced each time.

I think the only sensible things I did in the game were to give in to any demands made of me and also, my early decision to setup a ROP with the Baekja and build a road network to their capital really helped me stay in the game regarding techs. I was selling him iron and luxuries for techs, which really helped me. My initial plan to take all the land in between my two cities was now out of the window, as the Baekja were proving to be a powerful player in my game. This was OK though, they were mostly gracious to me and helped me to stay in the ballpark, techwise.

I built up an army of 16 swords and 2 horseman. I waited a long time before using them to knock The Goguryeon's out of the game, as they were sending large amounts of units across my lands to attack Korea. Once they finally disappeared into the north, I declared war and took over their two cities very quickly.

I wanted to next attack The Cuban ;) Khazars but Korea beat me to it and swept them off the map.

It wasn't until 270 BC that I finally got my first medieval tech. I traded dyes, furs, WMap, 48g and 27gpt for engineering from The Baekja and then offered The Mongols engineering, WMap and 25g for Feudal War.

I'm still in despotisim and am probably not doing very well but I am having a great time and really hope I can pull off a victory.

Me at 1000 BC
http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/Shambo-1000bc.jpg

Score at 1000 BC
http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/Shambo-1000bc-score.jpg

Postamble

After playing and then reading other's posts:

I didn't even know about palace jumps, was vaguely aware of ring-city-placement and completely missed the chance for a four-turn settler factory, using the wheat and cow. I also missed the chance to cut timber in my corrupt, second core, in order to speed along building / settlers.

Not long after starting I wish I had moved my spare settler, as my second core was pretty useless.

One thing I couldn't be bothered with was per-turn trading. The game is crying out for notification of new techs discovered or at least a spreadsheet-like screen of who has what. Plus, an autolog.txt file would be a godsend. Each turn; what's happening, been built, etc. Pop it up, add some custom notes, so easy.

Finally, I'm not sure which was more frightening, playing a GotM at diety or posting my results here. Hope my entry was OK. I'm happy to post my detailed notes if that would be required or useful, maybe even interesting, although they do go on :rolleyes:

Also thanks for these games, Cracker, Ainwood, Thunder et all, very cool.

+ + + End of Ancient Era + + +

Originally posted by Shambolica
[
Finally, I'm not sure which was more frightening, playing a GotM at dEIty or posting my results here. Hope my entry was OK.
+ + + End of Ancient Era + + + [/B]

I think your entry is great, and would think it a great pity if people are intimidated by posting. I prefer a narrative style like yours, and your pictures are great. The site would be more fun if more of the conquest players described their games.

Very few people seem to have put their capital in the south.

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

Like others, I started by moving each worker to its nearby mountain to learn a bit before settling. And then I made what seems to have been the most popular choice so far - capital in the north after moving that settler two steps (SW,W), and a second town in the south with that settler moved to be on top of the spices.

Beijing (in the north) built warrior, warrior, granary, and then pumped settlers. As things turned out I was quickly hemmed in by rivals and I'm not sure in retrospect that the granary in Beijing was helpful. But I think that if it wasn't helpful it at least didn't hurt much either - once it was built a number of settlers and workers were pumped quickly.

Shanghai (in the south) built a warrior, a couple of settlers (one assisted by some forestry and one by a pop rush), and then built up population to become the new Palace location. The southern location also became hemmed in rather quickly.

I first contacted Khazars when they sent their scary pile of warriors past my capital in 3700BC. I subsequently met Korea (3400BC), Baekje (3400BC), Mongols (3350BC), Coguryeo (3300BC), Rajaputana (2470BC), and Takeda (2390BC - I think they traded for contact with me.)

In the early stages I found happiness to be even more of an issue in this game than usual. I sometimes had my luxury slider fairly high, up to 50% a couple of times. Not a problem though, I use that slider as necessary in the early game, maximizing growth comes first for me in that phase.

I traded aggressively with the other Civs. But not until I met Baekje (I knew three Civs at that point) - I didn't trade techs until then because I wanted to meet more Civs if possible and reduce tech prices. I gifted a lot of tech in early contacts, particularly making certain that all the close Civs got Masonry right away. I hoped that that one of them would build Pyramids for me. But no such luck - Oda built the Pyramids somewhere far away. I also included foreign workers in early trade deals whenever possible.

I was determined from the beginning to jump my Palace quickly, to get two productive regions up and running. The first settler I produced in the north founded Nanking on the coastal dyes east of Beijing, and it immediately began a prebuild for my Forbidden Palace. It completed Forbidden Palace in 1400, probably the earliest I've ever done that :) And I jumped the Palace immediately, moving it to Shanghai in 1375BC. Definitely the earliest I've done that! Starting with two settlers sure can be nice! :lol: The second region around Shanghai wasn't very strong. By the time the Palace moved there it had only developed a few cities and was hemmed in. But it was nonetheless a second productive region and very good to have, boosting my Republic research noticeably.

From the beginning I built at ring 4 from Nanking (my intended Forbidden Palace) and also from Shanghai (my intended Palace jump.) By building at ring 4 from both locations I ensured that I wouldn't benefit from, nor be penalized by, the Palace rank corruption bug.

Research: I started by researching Terra Cotta at the maximum rate I could afford. But I ended up trading for it rather that finishing it, getting it from the Mongols in 3350BC. After that trade I researched Mathematics at the 40 turn rate. During that time I continued trading and didn't fall much behind. In 1675 I learned Mathematics and started Shamanism. I held off on trading Mathematics - one of my rivals was bound to learn Map Making fairly soon. In 1650 that indeed happened, and I was able to trade to also get Civil Service and Confucianism! So I started research on Republic at the maximum rate I could afford at that time.

And then in 1225, with the help of some activity outside the scope of this thread, I entered the Middle Ages. At that date, my cutoff for this thread, I expected to learn Republic in seven turns, and my world looked like this (with Forbidden Palace on the coast south of Takeda in the northern area and Palace at Shanghai in the center of the southern area):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/sirpleb26-1a.jpg

At that date (1225BC) I had:
13 towns
3 swordsmen
4 horsemen
1 junk
7 native workers (had built more but joined some to towns)
7 foreign workers
5 barracks
1 temple
Forbidden Palace in Nanking
364 gold in treasury
embassies with all known rivals

Nice. :)

How much corruption (%age-wise) did Shanghai have pre-palace-jump? My concern was that a city that far away would have >50% and get worse with every new city in the main core.:(

So I ran the 'long march', and managed to settler before any barbs showed up.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif [ptw] 1.21f

After reviewing the two positions, my initial thought was to establish the capital near the Dyes space. The Spice location had additional forest visible, and I thought that would be useful to chop down and help the production at my 2nd site. Since I didn't expect much from this location, I moved the worker to the mountains, and saw Floodplains and Wheat! From what I could see here, it looked like a 6 turn Settler production. So I moved the other worker to its nearby mountain and saw Cattle, Wheat and Floodplains. This would definitely support a 4 turn Settler Factory, so this is where the Capital will be! So, Beijing and Shanghai founded in 3900 BC. I knew I wanted a Granary here, so I started research on TerraCotta at 100%.

I noticed the fortresses at the outskirts of Beijing culture. I wasn't sure what they were (never having built an Ancient Age fortress), but after I saw stacks of Khazars and Baekje moving along them, I figured that this was the 'Great Wall', which makes sense. (It also makes sense that there are lots of floodplains near the Han cities; floods have been a constant problem for real world China.) This 'Great Wall' has been a real benefit: free roads, faster scouting, faster settling, quicker contact as the other civs used the roads. A very nice advantage to go with the Deity level game setting.

The capital produced 3 warriors, which went scouting, a Granary (2900 BC), and then Settlers, 3 five turn and 9 four turn, along with 2 two turn Workers along the way. I allowed Beijing to grow so that it is sizes 5, 5, 6, 6 during the 4 turns making a Settler; I waste 4 shields per Settler, but gain up to 8 Commerce per settler this way. Beijing founded 8 cities on the 5.x ring around it; five of these cities will be targeted for full development in my eventual quest to launch a spaceship. In several of the last few GOTMs, I've used the 5.x ring for my first ring: it allows a large number of productive cities in the early game, and supports the full development of several of these cities for the later stages of the game. These first ring cities typically produced warrior, worker, barracks, then Veteran units. Shanghai produced 2 ten-turn Warriors for scouting, and then 2 Settlers, chopping wood for each settler. Here is the scout patterns of my scouting warriors in 1790 BC just before I learned Map-Making. None of them ran across any huts.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/cvst_g26_bc1790F3croplines.jpg

These are the highlights of my game so far:

3900 - Beijing and Shanghai founded, start research on TerraCotta at 100%
3750 - Meet Khazar stack moving along Great Wall; trade MartialArts for BurRites
3600 - Meet Mongols (by Scout); Trade Masonry for TerraCotta; Trade TerraCotta and Masonry to Khazars for Alphabet; start Research on Mathmatics at minimum
3400 - Meet Baekje stack on Great Wall; Trade Masonry for BronzeCulture and 6 Gold
3250 - Meet Goguryeo near Shanghai; we are up 3 Techs so no trade, but we gift him 1 gpt
3250 - Also meet Koreans, with Scout; trade them Masonry and BurRites for Wheel and 34 Gold
3000 - We top Wealthiest Nation list with 112 Gold, gaining 5 gpt
2850 - Scout meets Takeda (across strait); they are Behind in Techs, so no trade
2710 - Buy Khazar Worker for 120 Gold
2510 - Meet Rajaputana; we are equal in Technology, no trade; IronCulture and TaoistMysticism are available, but I'm waiting for Calligraphy to come out. Sell Alphabet to Goguryeo for 29 Gold
2350 - Koreans and Baekje now know Calligraphy; Buy Calligraphy from Baekje for 102 Gold and 6 gpt; Trade Calligraphy to Takeda for IronCulture and 12 Gold; Trade Calligraphy to Raja for TaoistMyst; Sell Calligraphy to Khazars and Mongols for 131 Gold and 54 Gold respectively; I know all Techs and have all gold except for about 25 Gold.
1830 - Learn Math, begin Shamanism at minimum; only other known Tech is Bajutsu; no trade
1750 - MapMaking is out!! Trade TM and a little gold to several civs for their TM's; Sell Math to Raja for WM and 233 Gold; Trade Math and WM to Takeda for MapMaking and WM; Trade Baekje Math for Confucianism, WM and 20 Gold; Trade Korea Math for WM and 77 Gold; I know all Techs, have entire Map and All Gold; Change Research to Literature at 80% (15 turns)
1550 - Takeda complete Pyramids (THAT doesn't help)
1450 - Trade WM to Rajaputana for Literature (Several know it, and I had a lot of research into it); Begin Construction using 1 Scientist
1350 - Trade MapMaking to Mongols for CivilService
1300 - Shamanism is out; Trade Khazars Literature, CivService, MapMaking, Math and 10 Gold for Shamanism (no 20 turn deals for them; their time is not long); Sell Korea Shamanism for WM and 117 Gold; Sell Mongols Shamanism for 68 Gold and WM; start Republic at 90% (20 turns); Road network now connects Shanghai, so total of 3 Luxuries are connected
1100 - Iron connected, 18 warriors upgraded to Swordsmen; can Khazar survive much longer?
1075 - Raja demand TM and 31 Gold; We pay it, our target is elsewhere; We declare on the Khazars, get Baekje to Ally for WM and 141 Gold; Get Goguryeo to Ally for CivService (they're far, far behind in Techs); start moving Swords
1050 - Chinan, near Shanghai, is undefended and a Khazar Otomo is adjacent; gift to Raja to make him even happier
1025 - Chimkent falls to us, with only 1 Swordsman lost; on towards Balkash
1000 - End of QSC
0875 - Big Turn; Balkash is taken, and the Khazars are no more; Republic is learned, and a suicide junk makes contact with the other continent. Am able to trade Techs for Maps and Contacts, which I get without having to trade Contact with any of the civs on my Continent. Surprisingly, the Tech leaders on the other continent have Construction and Currency, but are missing Shamanism and Literature; Trade Sham and Lit to --- for Currency; Trade Baekje Currency and Shamanism for Construction; Trade Goguryeo Literature for Bajutsu (I'm now Medieval); Gift Korea Currency (to make them Medieval); Gift several Techs to ---, who might be Scientific, but they're not; Trade Republic to Korea for Feudal Warlords; Trade (2nd Continent Tech Leader) Republic and Feudal Warlords for Engineering; Also sell Techs for lots of cash; end of Report

When I learned Republic, I did Qitai's suggestion for 2 chances at reduced anarchy. First I selected Show Me the Big Picture, went to F1 and started a Revolution - 8 Turns, yuck! When I exited, I was given the choice to start a Revolution, which I did. When I checked at F1, I was now down to 5 turns, so this took 3 turns off my anarchy period. :)

In prior games, I'm usually the one beaten by the AI to the prime city spot, and have to watch as their Settler founds a city just before me! In this term, I watched one Baekje Settler bounce from spot to spot as my 4-turn Settlers used my road system to just beat him to his next spot on 3 occasions!! That was gratifying! He did beat me to the 4th site, but I was still able to found adjacent to the Khazar Fur space and claim it from the Khazar's.

At 1000 BC my empire consists of 15 Han cities, and 1 Khazar city. I've built 1 Granary in Beijing, and 5 barracks in my first tier cities. At 875 BC I've added an additional Han city, and taken the 2nd Khazar city. Here's a screenshot of my empire at 1000 BC. My swordsman stack is just visible above the lower right information screen, as it heads to Balkash. My Chariots are in the NorthWest, in Canton and Nanking; they will be seeing action someday soon, but not as Chariots!


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/cvst_g26_bc1000MainResize.jpg

Here's my F3 screen from 1000 BC showing my army and WM; I also have 3 Khazar workers, 1 bought and 2 captured.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/cvst_g26_bc1000F3crop.jpg

Near term goals: take on the Baekje with Swords, and unify all the Han holdings. Will launch against the Mongols soon after, hoping to use Raja and Korea as allies. Cultivate certain civs to help my reseach, while I primarily race along the top Mediaval track. Probably use the Goguryeo to start my GA once I have Riders available. Next stop: the Industrial Age.

Originally posted by civ_steve
When I learned Republic, I did Qitai's suggestion for 2 chances at reduced anarchy. First I selected Show Me the Big Picture, went to F1 and started a Revolution - 8 Turns, yuck! When I exited, I was given the choice to start a Revolution, which I did. When I checked at F1, I was now down to 5 turns, so this took 3 turns off my anarchy period. :)

:hmm:

I think we need to have some discussions as to whether this exploit should be allowed.

Originally posted by ainwood
Nice. :)

How much corruption (%age-wise) did Shanghai have pre-palace-jump? My concern was that a city that far away would have >50% and get worse with every new city in the main core.:(
...


For me, Shanghai and the other 2nd site cities were totally corrupt, and never generated more than 1 Shield/ 1 Commerce for the city. By improving the floodplains I could support additional Taxmen, and get each city up to 3-4 gpt each. I saw the key advantage for the site was some additional cash in the early stage of the game, and a 2nd location to make warriors and generate contacts with. (This would have been VERY useful if the 2nd Settler were on another continent or island, which isn't the case.)

Likewise,

Shanghai (& Xinjian) were both fully corrupt until I built the FP in Shanghai. The main gain, as noted above, was the slightly earlier contacts with some civs and a slightly extended trading period before they all met :)


Ted

Originally posted by ainwood


:hmm:

I think we need to have some discussions as to whether this exploit should be allowed.

I'd hesitate to call this an exploit. Length of anarchy upon Government change is a random factor and this gives the player some capability to lessen the impact of a particularly bad random result. (You'd never do it if you received a good result.) It is easy to do, isn't reloading, it's available to everybody and helps lessen the random effect on what's likely to be a one-time event within the game. I'd consider the Free Palace Jump to be a more game altering and considerably more powerful 'exploit' and that is accepted.

The discussion is valuable. I suggest to keep this thread on-track, we discuss it in the strategy forum here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66909) :)

Originally posted by ainwood
How much corruption (%age-wise) did Shanghai have pre-palace-jump? My concern was that a city that far away would have >50% and get worse with every new city in the main core. :(
Yup, I figured that too. And it turned out to be even worse - as civ_steve and TedJackson have reported, the Shanghai region turned out to be completely corrupt from the very start.

It was interesting how much could be accomplished with a good food supply in a totally corrupt region. In 1400BC, the last turn before I jumped the Palace, my southern region looked like this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/sirpleb26-1b.jpg

Without any help from the north, the region had grown to 5 towns, three at size one, one was size two, and one was size six. It had also produced two warriors. Its single industrious worker had cleared a couple of forests and had made good progress irrigating tiles and joining towns. But hadn't mined anything yet.

In the next turn, when the Palace jumped to Shanghai, production and income in that region instanly blossomed and it became a nice addition to the empire. It was hemmed in and would be a long time before it could grow much more, but five additional productive towns are a nice boost to have up and running so early :)

Addendum to my previous post, I should have mentioned this:

This development of the southern region isn't free, it came at some cost incurred by the northern region. The northern region incurred a cost of 230 shields to build the Forbidden Palace as a top priority. (200 shields for the FP, plus 3 workers at 10 shields each built elsewhere and joined to the FP town to increase its build speed.) That production could have been used to expand faster and/or to build other things. And it sacrificed the possible use of the southern settler + worker who might have walked up there and joined the northern region.

I think the early Palace jump resulting in two productive regions at 1375BC was well worth the cost, I'm quite happy with it :) But just wanted to clarify that it wasn't free, there is a trade-off against development in the northern region.

Question for SirPlieb: My initial decisions were similar to yours, but instead of building the FP in the north, I produced settlers in that second city and used my first GL (acquired in 1200 BC during a war with Korea) to build the FP in Shanghai. I realize you can't always count on getting a GL, but do you feel that was a better option for expansion in the north than what you chose?

For Ainwood: Until the FP in Shanghai, my southern core of 3 cities was completly corrupt was only able to produce a temple, 2 warriors and 2 settlers in the pre-FP era. (thanks in part to the 3 chests).

Interesting point denyd: Why did you choose the city with the chests as being your non-capital?

I used my chests to rush a granary and get my settler factory moving. However, thinking on your option, it might have worked quite-well to speed a settler or two in the corrupt city. :hmm: I was more focused on the long march though....

Ainwood,

My thoughts were that the southern city would be able to grow (river & grassland visible), but might have trouble generating shields to complete the settlers, so by using 2 of the chests for a temple, I'd be able expand culture wise (to get the cow available) and the third chest & a couple of chops to get the settlers I was able to grab some land. Now that the FP is there, I'll probably be able to plant 2-3 other cities and all should be quite productive.

Also of note, once I found the double cow to the north, I switched to that city for settlers and used Beijing for military production.

:beer:

Originally posted by denyd
I realize you can't always count on getting a GL, but do you feel that was a better option for expansion in the north than what you chose?
A leader is certainly the best way to get the two regions going - the effort invested in building FP in the north can be saved and the original Palace town doesn't need to be abandoned. But there were a number of factors which motivated me to go for a Palace jump instead:

1. The risk you mention, that you can't always count on getting a GL. I feel safe to count on getting one eventually, but eventually can be quite a long time when attacking with a small force. And a small force is all I can see having in the early game. With a jump approach I'd be sure of getting the second productive region going quickly without risk.

2. The risk of attacking deity level opponents. I'm not comfortable attacking deity AIs until I know enough about them to be sure I'll succeed. Especially so on a customized map where their strengths are even harder to predict. This is another area of risk which I preferred to avoid since a safe alternative existed.

3. Since I'm going for a spaceship win, I'll want to have some research partners for a fair bit of the game. I don't want to weaken any opponent early in the game - I want to assess them all before deciding which ones to hurt and which ones to nurture :)

So, although going for a leader can have a better result, I'm happy with the approach I took.

I'm impressed with your development of the 2nd site, SirPleb! I had gotten 3 cities in this area, but chose to gift 1 to Mahatma rather than lose it in combat, so there are only 2 cities in this area right now.

I've checked the F3 screen, and once I'd done my big Swordsman upgrade I rated as Strong against everyone except 1 which I was average against. That, along with the ability to use Techs to form alliances made me feel fairly confident to start taking on my nearby neighbors. And my army is actually a bit too big for becoming Republic right now, so a good series of Wars should help the cost of supporting the army.

I'd originally thought about doing a Palace Jump, but the original Palace location is so powerful, and central to my Northern holdings that any movement to an adjoining FP would bias me against one of my neighbors (I've got to take HIM out, or my FP isn't central) and bring in less desireable lands (Tundra to the North, Sea/Lakes to the East/West and Jungle to the SouthEast.) I'm depending on my militaristic attribute to generate a GL for the FP, or just build it on a Border city and take the time.

I've pretty much chosen the civs that I will use to aid my research, and how they're going to aid me, so I feel fine about taking out convenient civs to further my empire.

Originally posted by ainwood
Interesting point denyd: Why did you choose the city with the chests as being your non-capital?

I used my chests to rush a granary and get my settler factory moving. However, thinking on your option, it might have worked quite-well to speed a settler or two in the corrupt city. :hmm: I was more focused on the long march though....

I also put the chests in the south, for the purpose of hurrying settlers. Based on the game announcement, with no food bonuses, I assumed that based on 20 turns for a town to grow to pop 3, it would generate 20 shields (with full corruption), so one chest would finish off a settler every 20 turns. Counting on a forest chop, I could get 4 done by 1000BC. As it turned out, with all the food bonuses, I was able to get 5 cities as well as pop-rushing a couple temples in the south by then, and 4 workers, two of which merged in for the palace jump.

My strategy was similar in that respect to SirPleb's (a good sign!), in that I wanted to do the palace jump south (of course, mine was about 300 years later than his!). I had a couple of other builds before starting my FP in the north. I am still not sure if the chests would have given me a higher payoff in the north, but I was happy with the result. By the time of my jump, I had the 5 cities in the south, and most of the tiles improved, ready for the productivity to kick in. My biggest mistake from this respect was, knowing I wanted to do the jump, I settled my northern cities in an RCP centered on my initial capital, not the FP city! :crazyeye:
While it may have helped early, it left my cities less then optimally situated after the jump!

Is it better to conquer the scientific civ's or cuddle them along with the spacerace goal? I severely weakened the Koreans early on thinking this would be one less civ that can use the tech slingshot against me but now I read how others trying to "speed up" the tech race.
For a mistake filled player like me, the Diety tech speed is very intimidating. However, I'm thinking that maybe I should have waited till the middle ages to hurt them and instead focused on the Mongols / Khazars.

Also, what are the traits for the Baekje? I eliminated them very early in GOTM24 and didn't notice which tech's they started with. Also, do they have a UU?

Thanks,
grahamiam

I believe the Baekje, based on Gotm24 spoiler information, came out as Commercial and Religious; that would correspond with my experience in Gotm26, as well. I've never seen their UU.

You'd expect the Scientific civs to be the better researchers, so it would seem to be beneficial to cuddle them along and take advantage of that research capability; this would be the best method to speed research along as fast as possible, and get a quick SpaceShip launch. If I do attack the Koreans (or any other Scientific civ) early, I plan to keep at least one city alive so I can take advantage of the free Tech they get at the beginning of each era.

My concerns are that there will be two scientific AI and when the jump to MA or IA happens they'll get different techs and swap them. Imagine this you're even with the AI on one turn and the next your down Steam Power, Nationalism & Medicine :cry:

Of course if you control most of the world at that point, trading luxs & $$ (or even through extortion) you can get a quick slingshot into a new age.

:beer:

Originally posted by civ_steve
I'd originally thought about doing a Palace Jump, but ...
It sounds like you've covered all the issues, it will just be a matter of timing now, depends on how quickly you get your leader - good luck!
Originally posted by denyd
My concerns are that there will be two scientific AI and when the jump to MA or IA happens they'll get different techs and swap them. ... you can get a quick slingshot into a new age.
My philosophy on this is firmly in the second part, getting a quick slingshot. It seems to me that the best thing which can happen is that the scientific Civs get different techs and swap them to reduce their trade value. My favorite way to pick up the techs they get is via an optional tech from the prior era. That often works with Republic - if you have an exclusive on Republic and the AIs devalue the early Middle Ages by swapping them you can often get into the Middle Ages quickly. Similar opportunities are harder in later ages. Sometimes I find it best to get just one new era tech, then research one a level past that one, then trade the new one for the remaining first level ones known to the AIs. As long as you aren't behind in tech at the time the scientific Civs enter a new era there seems to always be a way to get their techs :)

Open – civ3

Deity Game … I need to be extra careful. I will check for all civs at all turns to check for deals and workers in order not to miss some. So it is going to be tedious, long but maybe a win ?
As many, I picked the Dyes start and move my capital twice, produce 3 Warriors and Granary (with the 3 treasuries) and then continuous settlers. I manage my first decent settler factory thus I have a decent core at RCP 5 and some towns at RCP 8 by the 1000 BC. Other cities were producing Warriors and occasional Worker. Only infrastructure were barracks. The South core is mainly working rushing some settlers, cats and barracks / walls. I should have rushed a temple but did not. In retrospect not very clever.

Tech Path
I start the research at 100% on Terra Cota to deal it and then made a successful gambit at 10% on Maths and failed the second gambit at 10% on Currency. But I am still among the tech leaders and first on the ranking. Very unusual for me even for Emperor Game, so I am quite please :D
Baekje are the techs leader building the GL in 17 turns (must be a rep-build or a GL). They will be a good target but I will need to protect the south for this.
I have build also a decent treasury of more than 1000 GP that I used to upgrade all my warriors.

Deals … and more deals
3750 BC: I met Khazars (Polite) with a frightening SOD of 7 Warriors. Thank to AI, they just wander pass my undefended capital. I had my only warrior up North.
3700 BC: I met Mongols and Korea. It is time for some deals. Mongols have monopoly on Terra Cotta / Korea on Bronze and Khazars on Wheel plus Ceremonial Burial & Alphabet. Korea : Alphabet & Bronze & 33 GP vs Masonry & Warrior Code / Mongols : Ceremonial & Terra Cotta vs Masonry / Khazars : Wheel vs Masonry & TerraCotta. Insane, I net Alphabet / Bronze / Ceremonial / TerraCotta / Wheel plus some GP. I am up 2/3 techs vs AI. I wish they had more GP to deal with.
I continue to meet civs : Gorg by 3550 – giving Ceremonial for all their GP, Baekje by 3350, Takeda by 3000 (Thanks to the city they found). I grab 10 GP & 50 GP in two deals with Ceremonial & TerraCotta.
2630 BC: Another round of deals. Everybody is still Polite to me and I am weak to all armies… Baekje : Calligraphy vs TerraCotta & Contact with Koreans & Takeda & 155 GP / Takeda : Bajustu vs Masonry & Alphabet & Contacts with Koreans & Khazars / Baekje : 119 GP vs Bajustu / Gorg : 74 GP vs Masonry / Khazars : 75 GP vs Bajustu / Mongols : Raja & 38 GP vs Bajustu. Again I am netting some GP and two more techs. Two settlers are ready (one from my settler factory and one rushing in the South). Also I have embassies to all known countries and near monopoly on Calligraphy and it is going to help me in future deals …
2470 BC : Taoist Mysticism in on offer by Baekje & Gorg… so Gorg : 39 GP & Taoist Mysticism vs Calligraphy.
2310 BC : Did not check deals last time and Iron is on offer. Exchange to Raja and not to Takeda to keep GL on same continent … if needed. Raja : Iron & 17 GP vs Calligraphy
1910 BC : I do not want Mongols to be able to trade Confu since there are some GP around so I broke AI by Mongols : Confucianism & 38 GP vs Math / Raja : 84 GP vs Confucianism. I have still near monopoly on Maths.
1830 BC: I wanted to prevent some cheap deals between the AI so I bring Baekje to the war & 50 GP for Confucianism. This was a very bad deal as the next turn Khazars and Baekje exchange IW and Confucianism and 2 turns later Baekje has MM and it would cost me 442 GP & WM & Maths to get it. If I had kept Confu & IW certainly I could had this techs for a bargain. I will wait for other techs to come to offer.
1575 BC : Civil Service is now there but I can not get it for Math. Raja has Math & Worker & 124 GP. I will buy from Baekje and sell it back to Raja. Baekje : MM vs WM & Math & 10 GPT & 275 GP / Takeda : WM vs Maths & 10 GP / Raja : WM & Civil Service & Wo & 127 GP vs MM & WM / Mongols : WM vs TM / Gorg : WM & 13 GP vs TM / Khazars : TM vs TM / Baekje : WM & 43 GP vs WM. So I have 2 more techs and 823 GP & 17 GPT
1525 BC: Gorg joins the fight vs Koreans giving WM & 37 GP vs Civil Service.
1250 BC : Baekje has contact with the other continent (darn :mad: ), it was my only hope to get back in the techs path the cheap way. I should have built a town to build a junk earlier but it was not fitting in my RCP 5 (no comment, please). I will try to rush junk for this with the knowledge of the WM. In order to get the price down, I will grab all information around first. So the deals are : Takeda : WM & 35 GP vs WM / Khazars : WM & 20 GP vs WM / Raja : WM & 5 GP vs WM / Baekje : WM vs WM & 60 GP. I will then sail a suicide junk to other continent thus not paying Baekje for this.
1050 BC : Everybody has construction . Thanks to XXX & Baekje. For the moment I share contacts on the other continent with Baekje. I can grab construction from XXX on the other continent : Construction & 2 contacts on other continent vs Confu & Civil Service & WM & 9 GP. I get all maps and all contacts from the second continent. I even grab the last contact on the second continent and I have the monopoly to it. So I can make the deal Baekje : Lit vs Monopoly contact & 18 GP & WM. I have monopoly on Litt with Baekje.
850 BC : Failed the gambit on currency. Bad news. I buy Shaminism from Other Continent for WM & 10 GPT & 133 GP. Entering in Middle Ages.

Wars …
2150 BC : I am weak but Korea is average so it is time to divert some energy from the AI to war. Khazars forces marauding in my territory. I have only 10 Reg warriors. I extort 2 GP from Korea and declare War. I bring Khazars for Taoist and 3 GP.
1830 BC : Bring Baekje to war.
1525 BC : Baekje declare peace. Not good… Korean are now strong vs me. I ally Gorg to help the fight…
1150 BC: I have 1370 GP in my treasury and I decide to upgrade 17 warriors (even some reg) so that I go to the offensive. I have 4 Horse & 12 Warriors & 17 Swords & 719 GP still
975 BC : I declare war on Mongols so that I do not have to face their UU. I ask Khazars to join my fights vs Korea & Mongols for WM & Literature. The good thing is that Khazars have just declare peace to Korea & are in the Mongols territory = bad rep. Takeda just landed on Korean, they join the fight for WM.
I will declare war to the second continent. I take the strongest contestant and ally all the others to wage war for me for some techs to slow the research

Strategy
I am leading in techs but not the leader and still in despotism with no FP so I need to grab both GL (Leader & Library). I will concentrate on finishing Koreans (with some swords and few horses) and Mongols. But I need to go after the Baekje and ally everybody against them because I would like to protect the south front

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GOTM26_1000bcs.jpg

[ptw] 1.14f predator

A great last scenario from Cracker!!!!!!:thumbsup:

Initial thoughts:

Start:
move the workers up the mountain.

Where to settle:
both settlers move 2 before settling. Worked out several scenarios, but capital will build: warrior/warrior/settler/granary/4turn settler factory. Alternative was warrior/granary/settler/warrior/4turn settler factory, which will crank out 1 settler more till 1000BC, but risk is I will not meet civs early enough to trade pottery. Also my preferred scenario cranks out the 1st settler 8 turns earlier….

Where to put Capital:
center of map: quicker contact to other civs, however could be constraint in growth. Southern 2nd core will pop-rush as much as possible. Maybe palace jump, if I can get a FP early enough.

Technology:
Set to zero. Once I can trade Calligraphy, I will full fletched go for Republic.

Game observations:


Land development:
Beijing area (10 cities) is cramped between surrounding Civs. 3 settlers added to other cities, as no space available for settling anymore. Connected 2 luxuries (Dyes & Gems) and 2 resources (Horses & Iron).
Shanghai area (4 cities) is corrupted as hell, but with 3 luxuries (Fur & Spices & Incense) hooked up I manage citizen moods pretty well considering all the lashing… Hooked up Horses as well, and try to hook up Iron soon.

Tech development:
No problems. Easy to keep up. Didn’t research a thing till I traded for Calligraphy. After that full boost for Republic which I got in 1025BC. In 1075 BC I traded construction and moved in MA. I’m the only one that has contact with the rest of world.

Other civs:
Scoring Leader is Korea. The Han are on place 4.

City Improvements:
Beijing area has one barrack and several temples on the outskirt cities to withstand culture flips. The Shanghai area has 3 barracks and 1 temple.

Military Units:
Most of my warriors have been upgraded to Swordsman. My Horseman army is growing every 2 turns. All cities have at least a spearman for defence.

Wonders:
Now wonders built myself. Korea has the Lighthouse in an adjacent city. The Baekje have the Pyramids. Colossus and Oracle are built as well. I will have built my forbidden palace around 750BC depending on the length of my revolution to republic. I will than palace jump to Shanghai.

Wars:
Have been involved in none, although my military advisor still considers my army weakest vs. all other civs. Several wars have been fought, involving Khazars, Baekje, Goguryeo, Rajaputana & Korea. Currently Baekje is under heavy attack, with the war being fought in my Shanghai area.

Next steps & Learnings:


Depending how the Baekje are doing in the war I probably want to grab the Pyramids. My horse & swordsmen should do for that. Than probably going after the Monguls. Once I have my knights I will go for Korea.
I will palace jump to Shanghai as soon as my FP is ready.

I wonder if I should have started in the south. With 3 luxuries close by, the flood plains, and room to expand, a good start would have been possible there as well, although contacts would have lasted longer, so I don’t know if I could have traded techs so easily….
Also I think I could have build my FP earlier, as SirPleb did, but only had my 4th city in the Beijing Area starting to build it, calculating I could build it before 1000BC, but made a wrong calc on corruption. :(
Now building is delayed because of my revolution…

[civ3mac] (predator)

Early Ancient:
Having founded Beijing in the north close to the cluster of fortifications, I converted the capital into a settler factory and founded cities in a dense, but rather random pattern wherever there was sufficient room. Since I had decided early on to attempt a passive cultural victory (without directly attacking enemy cities), many of the cities started on expensive non-religious temples. The southern settler founded Shanghai close to the start position, but after a few improvements the southern worker was sent toward the less corrupt north. Frequent diplomatic checks kept the Han empire up to date on technology at minimal cost, and on good terms with the much larger armies of the neighboring civs. Due to the reluctance of certain civs to build settlers and a bruising war between the Mongols and Rajaputana (intense enough to produce a 1910 BC leader), the Han soon expanded into the largest empire on the starting landmass.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GM26_earlyleader.jpg
Mid Ancient:
Just after a critical event which greatly increased the value of my world map, I used the valuable map to align my landmass against the culture leading Baekje. I only had a handful of regular warriors at the time due to pouring production into early temples, but the Baekje were sandwiched between enemy civs and unable to exploit my vulnerability. Baekje troops forced me to disband undefended Shanghai in the south, and the Baekjish diplomats brought the Takeda against me. Harmless coastal raids from the Takeda eventually led to the generation of a great leader around 800 BC which was promptly slated to become a southern FP.

Late Ancient
The Baekje lost cities to their neighbors, and soon the Koreans replaced them as the leading continental civ. With the bulk of their troops tramping through my territory, the Koreans will be the next civ to experience some judicious pruning. However, since I have been spending so much production on temples and do not intend to attack Korean cities, the military consists of only a handful of trained horsemen. At the end of the ancient age, the early cultural investment was already paying dividends.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GM26_flip.jpg
Minor Powers:
The Goguryeo and Khazars appear to be restricted from producing natural settlers, and therefore will be limited to 2 or 3 core cities for the rest of the game (assuming an alternate settler unit is not enabled by a future tech). It will be interesting to see how the AI handles a 2CC.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif Mac 1.29

Beijing was founded in the north between the wheat and cattle, while Shangai was founded a couple of tiles east of the spices. While this cost me a worker in the short run to build a colony, it would allow me to found a city to the west later in the game. Since I am going for a space race win, the extra city seemed worth the wait, rather than having the capital almost on the coast.

Given the large number of civs in the game, I correctly banked on picking up terracotta in a trade, and set initial research at zero. After trading for the alphabet in 3700 BC, I researched math (40 turns). I reached it first in 1910 BC, but only gained iron and gold for it. Despite few wars, the tech pace was slower in my game. Currency was next for me, and I reached it in 1275 BC, but only gained mapmaking, confucianism, and civil service. I then researched republic, which took me into the Middle Ages. Since the majority of civs were in my hemisphere, and I was flogging the tech rate, I gambled that the other hemisphere would be behind in tech, and let someone else find them. In 800 BC the Khazars traded me communications, and I traded one of the eastern civs for construction.

This was later than many of the games described so far, but I had my reasons. The tech pace made coming close to SirPleb impossible. When the Baekje built the Great Library in their capital near the end of the QSC period, I decided to capture that wonder and let it carry my research for a while. In the meantime, I would focus on expanding my empire into two large cores as quickly as possible.

Shanghai pumped out three other cities during the ancient age, one of which flipped. Beijing served as a settler factory, Xinjian to its west built the FP in what would ultimately be a central location, and the rest of the cities – spaced 3 and 4 tiles apart – focused on workers and vet warriors, chariots and horsemen. By 1000 BC, the Han Dynasty comprised of 17 cities with 35 citizens, 11 workers and one foreign laborer. The 5-barrack military comprised of 11 swords, 9 warriors, 2 horse, and one chariot. I had 474g, and was 8 turns from finishing the FP.

With the close quarters, it didn’t take long for me to start suffering from culture flips. I lost two cities in 1100 BC, just as I declared war on Korea to take Pusan, which I wanted for my core. Korea was on the defensive in a war with the Khazars, and proved to be no problem – I made peace with them in 900 BC. I declared war on the Takeda in 1075 BC, retook the recently flipped Macao, then turned my horse and swords into elites as they dropped off units on my shores. This continued until 800 BC, when the Takeda gave me shamanism for peace, and I entered the Middle Ages, one turn after completing the FP.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/txurceedit.jpg

My last moves were establishing embassies with the rest of my hemisphere, and using RoP’s to quickly move my swords for a strike against the Baekje capital, and the Great Library.

1.29 Open

I founded Beijing in the popular spot in the north. Shanghai on the hill south of the spices for defensive purposes. Looking back I probably should have got the wheat in the radius right away.

Science
3900 - start granary at max (20 turns)
3750 - trade for the wheel and burial rituals from khazars, terra cotta from mongols; start taoist mystics at max
3400 - get alphabet from baejke
3150 - get bronze culture from gurgeyeo; my continent at tech parity
2710 - learn taoist mystics; start shamanism on min; nothing to trade for yet
2470 - get calligraphy, iron culture from neighbors
1650 - get mapmaking from baejke
1325 - learn shamanism first; nothing to trade for; start lit at max (20 turns)
1300 - get confucianism from neighbors
1200 - raja gets to lit first, so I trade 200g+WM for it and start currency at max (19 turns)
1025 - raja/mongols/baejke get construction but they are at war and I'm 7 turns from currency
875 - learn currency; get construction from neighbors to enter the middle ages; started republic at max (19 turns)

Building highlights
Granary built in Beijing by 3300 with the help of chests
1st settler in 2900 from beijing isn't 4-turn since some mines aren't finished
4-turn factory starts in 2710
2750 - Canton founded to the northeast rcp 4.5
2470 - Nanking founded to the west rcp 4.5
2310 - Tsingtao founded near the north cows rcp 4.5
2150 - Xinjin founded to the southwest rcp 4.5
1990 - Chengdu founded to the southeast rcp 4.5
1725 - baejke beat me to the furs site to the southwest, so I found hangchow sharing 3 tiles with them and start a temple with plans to poprush it asap
1575 - found tientsin in the eastern jungle near the gems; 5 cities at rcp 4/4.5 and 2 at 8/8.5
1425 - last settler rolls off the line as I'm pretty well hemmed in
1200 - library building binge as I get lit

Most cities built a warrior first for MP duties and then barracks in high production cities and temples in all. I managed to trade for 6 slaves during the ancient age to go with 7 of my own workers.
Once the settlers were stopped I started on vet horseman for rider upgrades only pausing for a my crash library program.

Random observations
I had a bigger culture focus than most others it seems. I wanted happy, high production cities to move science along towards a spaceship. The baejke city that I shared tiles with flipped to me in 875. I had 3 luxuries of my own connected by the end of the ancient age and i was sending workers to connect the spices through the baejke lands.

I noticed in 1325 that I was score leader on my landmass.

Lots of wars as everyone was hemmed in good. I had a scare as Korea moved towards tsingtao. I moved my mobile force (2 horseman at the time) into tsingtao and signed rop for 1gpt after they refused a gift of 1gpt. Thankfully they were bypassing me to get to baejke.

Baejke got the pyramids which puts a big target on them. Goguryeo got the collossus, mongols the great library, and korea the great wall. I made no effort as I planned to take wonders by force once I got riders.

I liked the great wall I found to the west of Beijing. It seemed to speed contact with everyone as they used it to send large stacks past my cities.

Once I get riders, the plan is to expand into a 2nd core and keep most of my rivals around to help me research my way into a spaceship victory.

QSC Summary
Score: 536
cities: 10
pop: 47
gold: 516
military: 6 worker, 9 warrior, 6 horseman, 2 eqworker, 6 slaves
6 turns to currency and waiting to trade for construction with all other required techs in hand

I tried a not so typical GOTM game this time. I started off by hitting the space bar until 10AD, moving the units only once to avoid being killed by Barbarians.

Looking around in 10AD, it looks like we already knew 8 AIs at his time. All AIs except Goguryeo are in MA. Most AI are already building Sun Tze Art of War and Sistine Chapel. Baekje is the most advance I think since he is building Copernicus's Obervatory.

Luckily for me, there are still 2 tiles outside the AI's cultural border beside the wheat plain in the north. I found Beijing beside it and started my struggle to catch up. The south settler makes the long track north since it would have tons of corruption and will be prone to flips.

To cut a long story short, this game has been about getting as much $$ as possible with just two cramped in cities. Selling maps for 1gc each time my worker finish working a tile, going negative cash with 100% science when I still have nothing to maintain, selling 18gc for 1gpt to get my 10% compound interest, shoting for currency to build marketplace and then republic (First time I actually have Republic before bronze working), signing MA with Khazar against Goguryeo just to get cheaper Map Making Tech, and then peace with Goguryeo for Free Civil Service Tech.

Right now, the year is 1090AD when I just got my first break by securing two Incenses at the southern tip. Sold them for Construction and Shamanism to get into MA. It may be a matter of time before it flip since it is so far away. Also, War is breaking out now since the AIs are in Industrial Age with MPPs. I am still waiting for them to kill each other to clear some empty lands. They are building Universal sufferage now and no Infantry in sight yet.

Nice game, Qitai. It willl be fun to see if you manage to win it (diplo doesn't count :p). A screenshot of your map would be nice, :)

Originally posted by Qitai
I tried a not so typical GOTM game this time. I started off by hitting the space bar until 10AD, moving the units only once to avoid being killed by Barbarians.
Very interesting! :lol: Keep us posted. :)

The year is now 1285. Baekje have started to wack Korean, no raze however :( But with the shrink cultural border, I send in my settlers who have been waiting for hundreds of years, pushing the culture border as much as possible. And it just occur to me that rushing temple in all new cities is more important than buying tech at the moment since it wouldn't be long before I will lose the chance. So, I am on a spending spree now on Temples instead of Tech. Thus, I am still far far behind in Tech. I have 7 cities now with them being 2 tiles away from each other. Baejke is still attacking Korean and my settlers are backing them up :) . A dye is also in range which will give me another powerup. Will post some screen shots later.

Originally posted by Qitai
I tried a not so typical GOTM game this time. I started off by hitting the space bar until 10AD, moving the units only once to avoid being killed by Barbarians.



I hope you are submitting a qsc for this game.
We all expect you to win of course.:cool:

Two simple screen shots

How the world looks like at 10AD.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Qitai_GOTM26_10AD.jpg

How the world looks like at 1100AD just after I enter MA. Baekje/Korean War has just begun.