This is the first spoiler thread for Game Of The Month 27: The Game of the Year.

Because of the changes to such things as communication trading and map trading, it is likely that your knowledge of the map and of other civilizations (and be inference even the technology rate), will probably be progressing at a somewhat slower rate than in previous games.

SO PLEASE PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE QUALIFICATIONS TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS SPOILER, AND TO WHAT CAN BE POSTED IN THIS SPOILER!

Qualifications for participation:
You must have reached the end of the ancient age in terms of research. You must have visibility of the entire starting continent. You must have contact with the other civs (or their remains) that start on your home continent.

WHAT CAN AND CANNOT BE POSTED IN THE SPOILERS:
Not an exhaustive list - please use your common sense!
You CAN post screenshots of the map area, provided that these screenshots DO NOT show anything off you home continent that may spoil it for other players: eg Suicide galley paths (successful or otherwise), offshore islands (except those visible from the home contient.
Please DO NOT post minimaps!, or screenshots that show the minimap.
Please only discuss the civs that started on your home continent.


Some of these qualifiers may seem a bit restrictive, but I think that their's quite a bit to discuss. I will also monitor this thread, and start the next spoiler based on the content.

Given the starting location screenshot, points of real interest for discussion are how you went about choosing a location to settle your first city, and what steps you took in the early expansion phase. What was your sttitude towards your neighbours? Cooperative, or did you trample them into the dirt? Where did you settle your other cities? What resources are critical to your game, and how did you utilise them?

We look forward to reading the starting details of your campaign! :)

Hi Guys!

This was my second attempt to start a game of the month, but I didn't get too far as the Han. I usually play epic games which, until recently, were on Regent level or below, though I've recently moved up to Monarch. So, I decided to give the Open class a try here! I'm playing Civ 3 1.29f on PC.

I've learned quite a bit in the past few months about starting off, though I don't think I'm up to predator-class standards by any means. New adaptions (for me) that I applied to this game include: 40-turn research (all through the ancient age this time), building almost exclusively warriors early, so I can upgrade them all to swordsmen, not worrying about getting behind in tech, and extracting tech through war. I went very millitaristic, building very few city improvements during the ancient age - a few temples to extend my city borders, and a few granaries to help with settler production.

In game 26, I went to war too soon. In this war, I prepared and sent concentrated forces after my enemies. When in doubt, I delayed and added more force. I also have slowly learned the lesson that I do not have to fight to the death, though I still do more often than not.

One other thing I began here that I'd never done before was keep a game log, which I can post if it would be useful.

But, to summarize some of the key developments:

My early scouting revealed a couple of very sweet looking spots to the southeast near England. I moved in and founded my first few cities in the corner - I didn't get the cow spot, but I did get the wheat & goats for my settler factory (New York) and a spot on the corner for gems. Spain expanded rapidly and crowded me pretty hard, so I knew I'd have to fight pretty early.

By 1000 BC (975BC Actually) I had 7 cities, 5 warriors, 2 granaries, 1 baracks, 2 scouts, 4 workers and a settler.

I was late getting iron because I was too afraid to attack a volcano on a mountain with just a horseman - they looked too scary. Then, Spain came along and killed it first try with a warrior. Oh. I managed to get iron hooked up just about the time Spain attacked. After some furious upgrades, I waged a major war and seized Barcelona, giving me a monopoly on Iron on the continent. I actually pillaged the iron within the first few turns of the war, as well - which was good because shortly after the war, I lost Barcelona in a culture flip! I made peace soon after, shifted my forces, and attacked England.

I seized the Great Lighthouse from England which greatly helped my early exploration. I got a great leader, built an army, and it lost its first battle - Arrrgh. Hastings had silk, which I definately wanted, but an ally seized it before my forces arrived. I did get a second great leader in the closing phases of the war.

I reduced England to one city and they bought peace with Monarchy. I didn't shift over for a while, though. I reoriented my forces and went back to war with Spain. I quickly seized several Spanish cities and turned lustful eyes toward the multiple Great Wonders of Madrid, not to mention the Great Library of Seville. During the war, in the year 260 A.D., I learned Construction and advance to the Middle Ages. Spain already has developed Feudalism, not a good sign!

[ptw] (open class)

I had a disasterous GOTM 26 and I decided that this GTOM was going to be a ggod one for me. I am going to try and get into the top 50 this month (fingers crossed)

I have not got any screenshots set up but i will edit the post with them tonight and add them in inthe appropriate places.

I sent my first scout south east and saw the flood plains. However I decided (manily due to raging barbarians) that I would settle one square to the south east which would make it very difficult for attackers to kill me due to the river between us. In hindsight I don't think that it was the best idea as it made it difficult to expand to the west (lossing one turn each time I crossed the river) and the start was slow due to the poor food resources.

I immediately researched Ceremonial burial (after Sir Plebs good post in the pre game discussion thread) and my building queue was as follows scout, scout, warrior, granary, settler (I think)

My second city (New York) was founded North of the mountain in the flood plain region. By this stage I had done a fair bit of explring and met the English and the Spanish.

To my dismay I found _no_ Goody huts which ruined the whole plan of researching "CB" :cry:

Map making was my priority and I set about researching it as fast as possible. My general plan was to build heaps and heaps of Horsemen and warriors (upgrade them to swordsmen) and attack the spanish. (My border with the English was to long for me to defend well so I decided that an attack on the spanish on a smaller front would be ideal and hopefully I would be able to bring the English in on the action.

One thing I did notice was that the AI knows where the resources are before they are visible as the spanish sent a settler all the way across the island and settled right next to the Iron (before it had even appeared on the screen - I am pretty sure that they didn't have Iron working.

Once I realised that I had no iron I rallied my troops on the south east border (4 horsemen) and sent another bunch to defend my western border with the spanish. I took the town occupying the iron and upgraded all of my warriors to swords (about 5 or 6) I signed a military alliance with the english and they declared war on the spanish the next turn (yay) I was hoping that they would be able to hold off the spanish while I regrouped my troops for another offensive.

As soon as I researched Republic I revolted and to my surprise I got a 2 turn anarchy (can someone please explain that ? :confused: ) I traded republic for the remaining techs I was missing and went into the middle ages in a pretty good position.

At this stage the plan was to build as many horsemen as possible, upgrade them to knights and take over the main continent.

Yet these plans were thrown by the wayside as my only soruce of iron was depleted. :wallbash:

This was not going to be an easy game.........

The Ancient Era was probably one of the best that I have ever had in terms of strategy. I really used the diplomacy features and ensured that I kept all of my promises to leep my reputation good. I was unable to build any of the Ancient era wonders yet I was the largest civilization and the most powerfull. (only just in each category)

more to come.....(if anyone has gottem here well done :thanx: )

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif (mac 1.29)
Stopwatch Civ
With most of my free time this month concentrated in the first week, I decided to finish the GOTY in as little time as possible. I set a goal of finishing the game in 8 hours over the course of 2 days. Starting off, I shut off the animations, hired the governor, and fired up the stopwatch.

0hr 0min
Moved the scout south, then moved Washington east to the coast. The first settler moved southward to some food resources to start a settler factory.

1hr 15min
1000 BC mark is reached with cities mostly scattered around distance 5.

2hr 10min
Spain launches a sneak attack while most of my cities are tied up on building projects (Washington was working toward Hanging Gardens). With the animations disabled, I am truly taken off guard. They capture Chicago on the first turn of war and walk into an undefended city in the south (my interior cities were very lightly defended). Large stacks of swordsmen overcome my regular warrior defenders in San Francisco after a few turns, and only an alliance with England and some whipped spearmen prevent Spain from rolling up my civ like a scroll.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GM27_defense.jpg
2hr 56min
After 20 turns of alliance, I pay Spain 19gpt for peace. On the bright side I have retained all first ring cities and completed the Hanging Gardens in Washington.

3hr 13min
End of Ancient Age. (~150 BC)

I was late getting iron because I was too afraid to attack a volcano on a mountain with just a horseman - they looked too scary


Torisen

I am pretty sure that the volcanoes are 0/1/0 (A/D/M) units. I could be mistaken as I have had trouble killing them before with archers yet as we know the AI seems to "cheat" on occasions.

My start consisted of moving the scout S, since we were in the N, and irrigating the start spot per Sir Pleb. On the next turn before settling on the river I moved the scout S again and saw the flood plains! Decisions, decisions. I decided that since all I saw N was plains I would take the extra 2 turns to move and get the flood plains in city. I settled NY on incense and then started producing settlers. My scout continued S and met the English and saw some nice grassland and more + a 2 tile choke I could hold the english off on. I blocked with warriors and got some land down there but not the gems. A target was set up. When I got the volcanos killed off by an archer after 2 warrior failures I was pleased when iron came in and it was in my back yard. This city went to work on shields and I got the GrLib there in 90BC and other wonders including Leo's later. I only had 5 cities at 1000BC. I can't remember why it was so slow with the flood plains and all but I think because I was gearing up for war with Spanish and England. It was looking like contacts would be a while and the Library was a bust pretty much with this group of slow researchers so I set my sights on England for Gems and to cut them back to near nothing. I took out Hastings and York in 530-540AD for Gems and then went to war with the Spanish in 630AD. The GL put my into Republic and out of ancient and lots of warring ensued after that.

Originally posted by Tech Step


Torisen

I am pretty sure that the volcanoes are 0/1/0 (A/D/M) units. I could be mistaken as I have had trouble killing them before with archers yet as we know the AI seems to "cheat" on occasions.

Torisen - Right-click on the volcano for the actual A/D/M it <might> vary with conquest / open / predator.... :mischief:

And regardless of what people may say, the Random Number Generator has been tested exhaustively, and the AI doesn't cheat!:p

Originally posted by ainwood
Torisen - Right-click on the volcano for the actual A/D/M it <might> vary with conquest / open / predator.... :mischief:

And regardless of what people may say, the Random Number Generator has been tested exhaustively, and the AI doesn't cheat!:pOn predator, the volcanoes had defense 3. I needed 4 horsemen loosing one and 2 retreating to "free" the iron.

Does the attack bonus vs. barbarians apply?

I have returned from my three (or is it four) game hiatus :)

The game started out kind of slow really. After some quick looking around with my scout and worker the starting location seemed ok, in hindsight I think I should have moved one square down [2]. I had made contact with my fellow islanders less then half way into my QSC. Spain sure had a stick up somewhere, real attitude problem.

I failed to capture one of the two iron deposites on the island, BIG problem. To make things worse the second to last turn of the QSC I told spain to stick it where the sun don't shine and they would have their 23 gold pieces when they took it from my cold dead hands, apparently they decided to take me up on the offer.

So I was at War with Spain, had to abandon all other constructions in favor of mighty mighty spearmen and horsemen, whoohooo! I managed to hold them off, which I thought was incredible. Considering they had iron and swordmen. I persuaded the English to join me and they did. Island War! But the british cowards settled for peace not long after the Spainsh had raised two of their puny settlements. I had but conquered one spain town when they we all decided to have a few turns of peace and regroup. War will rage on and off until about 1000 AD on the Island.

I built myself a big stack of horsemen, and went to war with the English. They really were not worthy of Iron.

All this waring had really put a damper on my Science, so I had gone straight for litterature and prebuilt a bit on what would become my great library. Without it I don't know if I could have bounced back from the Spanish menace.

At the end of the ancient age I know Spain, England, and... :p ;)
London had built the Pyramids which was good for me since at the end of the ancient era they topped my victim list :)

I had six or was it seven cities at the end of the QSC, mostly built next to the extensive river network that crosses the island.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/swordsman_smaller001.gifPREDATOR [civ3mac] Panther 1.29

Most people know that you can do 'that', but for those that don't and don't want to know, please don't post it. Thanks. :) -ainwood)

The scout goes SE-SE: nothing important; settler moves E to coast. Scout Se-SE sees lamb, settler goes S. Scout goes SE-S sees flood plain and settler goes S to get lambs immediately and flood plain after 1st expansion.

Washington is founded in 3850bc w 0 research on ceremonial burial and starts to build 2nd scout later going west.

We meet the English in 3550 and Spanish in 3350. In 2230 we contact another civ across the water. But since we cannot trade contacts or maps, this is of limited value for now.

Since the 2 scouts showed the limited size of our continent, not more of them were built. Since Madrid and York were slaving on the Pyramids early, I decided to not compete but build units instead hoping the Pyramid looser would cascade to Great Lighthouse. Madrid built Pyramids, York switched to GLight and we hope for it to succeed in the Middle Ages.

We research mathematics, currency, literature full speed each and trade for the other techs. We did not find any goody huts to pop.

1300bc Spain wants math which we deny of course and they declare war. We ally w England (giving mathematics and getting horseback riding). We try hard to get promotions and hope for a Great leader, but in vain though we win a lot of fights. Have the odds been changed by cracker??? Fighting continues into Middle Ages as we continue to hope for a Leader but no cities change owner since we have not yet connected the iron and upgraded our warriors to swords.

By 1000bc, America had 7 cities pop 18, 3 workers, 2 slaves, 8 warriors, 1 archer, 1 scout, 3 spears, 2 horsemen.

In 875bc the 1st of many galleys starts north to explore the sea its findings to be discussed in the next spoiler.

Entering Middle Ages in 710bc still in despotism.

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

4000-610BC

Initial

I had similar moves for scout (S,SE S,SE SW,W) and settler(E,S,S) as Tao and I founded Washington in same spot. Build order scout-scout-granary.

1. Scout goes 3x NW,W and contact Spain 3600BC. Spain has Alphabet for Masonry and pottery. 40 turn gambit for Mathematics begins. First easter egg, squids.
2. Scout goes SE. Meet England 3450BC. They have Ceremonial Burial for Masonry. EDIT: They had mysticism already. There may be one hut ( I didn't find any).
3. Scout goes NE. Meet 3th civ 2390BC. Second easter egg, barbarian scouts. Haven't seen them before.

1830BC Mathematics and then full speed Philosophy 1830-1500BC, Code of Laws 1500-1200BC and The Republic 1200-670BC. 610BC England knows currency I trade and enter in the MA.

Spain started at least with 2 settlers. I ran out of space ~2000BC. Food poor start and limited space resulted 8 cities in 1000BC distance 4/4,5.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GOTM27_Kuningas_RCP.jpg

QSC stats:
8 cities
29 citizens
settler
7+1 workers
3 scouts
10 horses
4 barracks
1 granary
1 temple
AA techs, missing Currency, Republic, Monarchy, Literature.
score 213
173 gold
Republic in 15 turns

Wars
First war was phony when I refused in 3th civs demands. Second war vs England 975-850BC. I aimed to gain control of iron. I razed two cities with horses. I may have advanced further, but England completed Great Wall 850BC. It was suicide to attack in wall towns. I quickly conclude peace and MA vs Spain 850BC. That war continued to MA, it was slower and casulties were heavier. But I gained necessary space for expand.

*** please keep posting your game and class ***
thank you :)

after losing gotm 26 i wanted this one to be a sure shot (read this somewhere in this thread before ... ) so i started on conquest again.

exploration with scout and chests showed completely homogenious terrain, so i moved the settler one step away from the coast to get all improvable city tiles and started to produce another scout. i met english and spanish and it seemed like space is scarce. i switched from granary to barracks in washington, builded a bunch of warriors and archers and founded one one additional city at the flood plains in the south.
i went on war with the english, conquered city (iron site) was auto-razed and resettled by me. i got their 2nd city in the peace deal.
now spain was building their empire towards me. producing warriors and mass upgrade to swordsmen were my preparations to the spanish war. i was able to get an alliance with the english (by tech, but i cannot tell you how this happened ;) ) , so spain had to split their forces and i could conquer their border cities.

now the crazy part of the (hi)story:
leader! but no wonder to build :confused: - so i made an army of swordsmen.
another leader! bought literature and built great library! :D
and around 150ad - my third leader! used for ... (fill in ma-wonder) :crazyeye:

this is a good example of how a game can rise or fall by chance. it's probably the counterside of what other players experienced in other games. and with leader 2 and 3 i didn't even realize i was moving an elite unit until i was supposed to rename them!

some in-game observations:
corruption is not a problem for now. this might be so because:
- it's a large map;
- the optimal number of cities has increased in c3c and i think cracker has done it in this c3c mod, too.

tech pace is pretty slow - i can tell you because i have the gl, so i know what's going on! :king:

thank you for reading this

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/swordsman_smaller001.gifPREDATOR PTW1.27

I agree that people should post game version and class. As I understand it, we no longer have to use symbols like the one I copied from Kuningas.

As of yet, no one has commented on what a great game this is. If a random game was like this the quality of each game would go up a great deal. Maybe the lack of praise is because the best easter eggs and other details will unfold in the next spoiler. This feels truly like a masterly set-up for a game.

The only new "eggs" I noticed in the ancient age were laid by the Spanish who expanded at a rate I have never seen before, certainly not on monarch.

I started the game by moving the settler an unbelievable 4 steps into the range of 4 flood plains. Apart from losing some early production, commerce, food and worker tasks, I gave the Spaniards extra room for expansion. You can see on the screenshot how close Spain came. They actually founded a town at distance 1 from the original starting location. I'm not sure if the extra room I gave the Spanish or the late founding of Wasington was to blame, but my expansion area was very small, only 4 towns at RCP4. Having to build temples to culture push, or even avoid flips, slowed down my inevitable military campaigns.

In my defence I might add that I had no idea that the southern tip of the continent was so close. I sent the scout west after he had revealed the flood plains. The loss of commerce seemed like the smallest problem, since I also planned to research Ceremonial Burial at 0%. But I didn't find any goody huts either. However, I'm pretty sure the English popped Mysticism somewhere on the western coastline, near a barb camp I had trouble avoiding. They had Mysticism long before Spain and shortly after reseaching something else.

Maybe I gained a small advantage over the English as a result of moving south. I overran them easily with horsemen (no leader)before the end of the age, after prebuilding lots of chariots thanks to being near horses. I gained the Great Lighthouse from them. I wiped the English out in one fell swoop because they had no techs to offer anymore.

Miscellaneous:

* The corruption in former England is low, thankfully. I think it can contribute about 1/3 of the total commerce/production even without courthouses. Nottingham is so close to Washington it's almost a power house. Had this been a deity game I would struggle with corruption at this point.

* Spain definitely started with at least two settlers. Cheap AI production seems less of an obstacle. I made some notes:
English settler: 27 shields (90%)
Spanish temple: 27 sh (45% but they have the religious trait)

* The attack strength of the squid used to be 1 but now it is 2. This is great for the game and also makes them look bigger. I made good use of the 100% bonus vs barbarians, but left the volcanos to the AI, not sure what the stats (1.2) mean.

* Using a lone scientist instead of researching at 10% saved me as much as 14 gpt (at the end of the age).

Sorry I can't give more details. I just get too carried away to make systematic notes.

Conquest class-GOTY

My first GOTM..well actually my second try at my first GOTM. Didn't use the treasures on first try and was so slow getting started that the English rushed me and sacked all my cities but one so I decided to start over. Hopefully I can get next month's game in submittable form.

Second try--Used settler on starting square; used both treasures to jump start Granary. Expanded exactly as I did the first time--mostly due West.

Grabbed the wool near 'Lonely Mountain', reached the west coast and grabbed the incense there. Am now moving South to get the incense there. The English came but I was stronger this time and they didn't attack.

No war as yet. No wonders built as yet.

At first I didn't realize the volcanoes are to be popped like huts. Then I saw the Spainards try but they failed many times--with warriors, spearmen and archers, too. I finally popped one but didn't get anything.

Kept research levels at one level below negative rate. Haven't made any trades yet.

975 B.C. stats:
Washington founded 4000BC
NY-founded 2550BC
Boston-2030
Philly(wool)-1675
Atlanta-1500BC
Chicago-1300
Seattle-1275
SF-1125BC
Miami(incense)-1100BC
Houston-975BC

total population-20
9 towns
6 warriors
4 spearmen
3 archers
2 workers
1 settler

Contacts with Spain & England only.

Have only been playing since November, sneaking time here and there so SWMBO doesn't get annoyed. Anyway, helluva game, hope to get better very quickly.

Civ 1.29f - Predator

Initial Impressions - Eek! Well with such a rubbish start site I reckoned that if I found a nice site with my scout I could easily justify spending a few turns trekking with my settler to find some bonus tiles. Even with rapid irrigation, a plains only site would take ages to make a granary. The second important thing was to note that there were only 9 opponents. On a map of this size, this either meant that I would have loads of room to expand – or that there was a lot of water.

I sent my scout 2 squares due west and moved my settler down a square. Neither move revealed any better tiles, however another river was revealed by the scout. I then moved my scout round the bottom of the mountain – this revealed a wool bonus. With +2fd, +1 shld, this was definitely worth heading for. So I did. While moving my settler, my scout revealed a whole lotta other bonuses. I decided on a site for my first city that enabled me to work 2 sheep squares at the beginning and then a wool after the first cultural expansion. This would give me a nice settler factory. In my excitement at finding this, I failed to spot an even better spot, one which would have had 3 wools and 2 sheep in its radius. I only realised this a few turns later, by which time the Spanish had snagged the wools. D’oh!

Anyhow – I soon contacted the Spanish, and the English, both of which were dangerously close to my borders. For this reason, I built a tight RCP at distance 3, and then pretty much settled at random for the rest of my initial expansion, since I didn’t have the room for a wider ring. Thanks to the nice start point, I pumped out settlers at quite a rate. At 1000 BC I had : 15 towns (pop30), 7 native workers, 12 warriors, 1 archer, 2 barracks, 4 granaries and 1 temple. And no, I can’t remember why I built the temple. I could see that the Vikings were up north, but I didn’t know whether they were on an island or not, and my scouts kept getting whacked by barbarians. (I’m assuming that the presence of the Vikings is allowed for this spoiler since you can’t really have explored the continent without having come across them….)

Technically not.... but it is a difficult one. New rule: May mention actions of the VIKINGS IF THESE ACTIONS HAPPEN ON YOUR CONTINENT! No discussion or screenshots of where they came from please. :)

. I was expecting to find one, two at most more civs via landroutes, so I wasn’t that concerned. I hadn’t seen any sudden tech jumps by the English or Spanish. At 1000 BC I had just started researching Republic at 10% science. 90% science only gave me 24 turns, which I was a bit surprised about…

I sent my first galley out shortly afterwards.

The next period was… somewhat slow. I pretty much stopped building settlers, since there wasn’t really anywhere for them to go, and started building up an army, which I planned to use to attack the english. Sadly, I didn’t have any iron, so it was going to be horsemen all the way. I’ve actually finished the game now, and looking back, I played this part of the game (and the early part of the next age) pretty badly. Everything seemed to slow down. Anyhow. In about 540 BC I declared war on the English. They didn’t put up much of a fight. I haven’t played on monarch for a while, and I think I was over cautious in my war-mongering for most of the game. I got in a brief and pointless war with the Vikings due to an alliance with the Spanish during this period also.

The English war dragged on a bit, and I finally left them with one city left, after having captured the great library (in 170BC) and their iron source. The capture of the great library pushed me into the next age. I was a republic by this stage.

edit: I've never considered using one scientist rather than 10% science. I am officially a doofus.

Unlike a couple of the previous posters, I only moved 1 space before settling. My scout went west meeting Spain in 5 turns. My second scout met the English in 3450 BC. Noting the poor food start after developing a pair of tiles I rejoined my worker to Washington and got my first settler out in 3000BC. Just as I was beginning to repeat this process a couple (4) Spanish warriors showed up outside the undefended Washington, so I switched my worker build to a warrior. Sure enough next turn they all moved into my territory declaring war in 2750 BC. While I managed to survive the war losing only 1 warrior, the switch from expansion to defense allowed both England and Spain to garner much of the territory. After buying peace from Spain I managed to get 7 towns built at 1000BC. Using $$ I was able to keep up on tech researching only Literature myself (and I had to give that to England as tribute).

So far the AI has all the Wonders, Spain-Colossus, Vikings-Great Lib and an Asian nation has the other 3.

I found it disappointing not to find any huts. Maybe the English got to them first, but one of the few advantages of expansionists is the goodies from huts. Quite a handicap not to get them.

Things turned around thanks to English having no iron and the build warriors - hook-up the iron - upgrade warriors to swords - pillage the iron routine, my force of about 30 swords captured or razed all but one English city. I've just bought construction & currency from Spain for 600g have entered the Middle Ages at about 100 BC. Soon I will have Isabella & Elizabeth's heads on pikes outside my capital (unless I turn them into concubines).

My Asian visitor has placed 2 cities on my ancestral homeland so those will be eradicated before I begin to send my forces off island.

General notes:

Still in despotism - Arabs didn't make it out of BC - Many vet battles won and only 2 elites so far - Spotted a couple of squids, no barbarians seen all game (also no huts) :(

All original cities have a temple & barracks, soon all will have library. If I can get enough cities I might go for a 100K win. Of course there's another island out there with a couple of scientific (Babs & Greeks), I have know idea how far along they might be.

It seems like Spain got a kicked up start, but I'll soon be erasing their color from the chart.

Originally posted by Zwingli
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif (mac 1.29)
Stopwatch Civ
With most of my free time this month concentrated in the first week, I decided to finish the GOTY in as little time as possible. I set a goal of finishing the game in 8 hours over the course of 2 days.


Open ptw1.27.
I had exactly the same idea. It was a complete disaster.

Originally I decided not to play this GOTM and learn Medieval Total War instead but I found that incomprehensible so I was lured back.

I settled in the start position which was pretty barren but playing open it wasn't too hard to keep up with the AI.

I kept up in trades and expanded quite well but missed the iron reserves. I attacked the English with horsemen to capture their iron and ran into an immortal spearman on a hill in their town defending the iron reserve. I wasted a big chunk of my army against him and then gave up. Normally I would like to think I would have been a bit more organised and taken it more easily.

In retrospect I think a warrior gambit or early archer rush would have been a good ploy in a rapid play game. A very clear simple plan is obviously key.

I was playing about as fast as you but found it very unsettling to play at such speed. I am sure you will do well as always.

Open PTW 1.27

My scout found the lamb when I was about to settle by the coast and another couple of turns later Washington was founded by the lamb. I built a couple of settlers before a granary. One settler moved to the wool and the other to the wheat. By 1000bc I had 15 cities and only built a couple more settlers as I ran out of room to expand more. Barracks and warriors after that, when I thought I was out of iron I saw an english warrior try to whack that vulcano and I right-clicked to see the stats...and found my iron :)
A moment of Duh!

I researched Maths in 40 turns, then Currency at the same rate. I was hoping someone could research CoL or Philosophy for me, but no luck and I had to do that myself at max. I left ancient era 570bc and was reseaching Republic at max - 16 turns.

I built a couple of galleys, who promptly was devoured by squids almost before they left the docks...some good shields wasted there.

Being expansionist and not finding a single goodyhut sucks and having the scouts wandering over a small island like this really made that trait useless. Not really, without the scout Washington would've been a coastal city and my progress so much slower.

For once the techpace is quite slow and I am enjoying myself and feel no need to rush off anywhere. :) Except, my neighbours shouldn't really trust me...more on that in the next spoiler.

Originally posted by tao
Have the odds been changed by cracker???
I was thinking the same thing. I have been seeing limited elite promotions and zero leaders! I think I even had a reg not promote after 2 victories. Terrible RNG in my 1st war but then it seemed normal in 2nd war.

Originally posted by Auk
I've never considered using one scientist rather than 10% science. I am officially a doofus.
With a start like yours, you're definitely not a doofus. Too bad your game went a bit stagnant later in the ancient age. I had the same feeling in my game.

I'm playing PTW 1.27 Open, in my first GOTM, and I'm having fun. I'm not winning, but I'm having fun. :) I can see why cracker said this would be a challenge, even on Monarch.

I chose to build Washington right on the starting square. My scout headed S and SW. Oof, Washington grew slowly. It took forever to make my first settler. It didn't help that I messed up my micromanagement of an interim build and wasted a few shields. By the time I cranked out that first painful settler, I'd probably mapped half the island! I built New York on the coast SE of Washington, near the happiness resource and flood plains and stuff. As of 2270 BC I still had only two cities; one of my slowest starts ever. :( The only good news was that I saved up a lot of gold.

But finally I got a couple of granaries up, and my cities started cranking settlers. I founded Boston north of Washington, Philadelphia on the tip of the island east of New York, Chicago West of Washington -- and another city right next to the iron supply near the Brits. I was pretty surprised that I beat the other civs to that iron. It took about 3 horsemen to beat the volcano, which seemed to have a defense of 2.

Through most of the Ancient Age, I kept research at 10% and just bought tech and tried to trade to the other civs. I beat the other two civs to Literature, but I didn't have a shield-producing city that could build the Great Library in anything less than 55 turns, so I decided to sell Lit to the AI and focus on infrastructure and military instead.

I was about to attack two outlying English cities when one of them -- Oxford -- flipped and joined my empire. Even with Oxford, I still have only seven or eight cities. I'm still debating whether to attack England or hope to flip that other outlying city. I'd really rather make nice with England, hope to absorb another city or two culturally, and attack Spain -- but nasty Isabella has iron too, and she's got a bigger war machine than I do. Hmmph.

Another Point.

At some stage in the very early medievil era I captured the Great Wall. From the rule changes I expected to get walls in all of my cities (on the same continent) yet to my dismay nothing happened.

Probably worth mentioning since I was pretty keen to get hold of it so I could finish off the Spanish and English and feel confortable with starving my new cities and only leaving a few defenders in each (protected by walls.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/ptw.gif 1.27f
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/common/swordsman_small.gif Predator

With this being Monarch, I felt confident going back to Predator. I started with my scout moving S, SE along the river, and moved the settler SW across the river, while my worker started to irrigate the starting tile. After my second scout turn, however, I saw the lamb and flood plains, and decided that that much food was worth moving towards! Counting my initial SW move, it took me 4 moves to get into position, but I founded Washington in 3750 SW of the lamb. Because of all the other flood plains, and limited shields, I decided to build one more scout and then a settler, skipping the granary this time (probably a mistake, but I was able to make up for it later ;) ) Research was set to 0, on CB.

Meanwhile my scout moved SW past the volcanoes, seeing some Barb “Wanderers” but I never did anything with them, the English killed them all. I met England in 3600, saw they also had gems. I was able to get Alphabet for Masonry, 8g+3gpt. With less urgency to get to writing, I started a 40-turn on Math. Meanwhile, second scout went west, avoiding several barb camps, but no huts L . In 3100BC I met Spain, and was able to get CB and Bronze Working for Masonry and Pottery. My first settler completed in 3000BC, same time as it would have if I had built on the start site. English suddenly had Mysticism, but I wasn’t going to pay for it yet. I built Chicago (I was saving the New York name for a port city!) on a hill 4SW from Washington (on the inner lake, but sharing FPs). After a 3rd scout, Washington was again working on a settler, and Chicago built war-settler also. My next two towns were Boston (2190) on the coast N of Washington, and Philadelphia (2030) S of Chicago, grabbing the wheat and Iron, and blocking the English at the choke. My first good break came in 2110. I had seen a strange border that I couldn’t get to (hope that is vague enough, Ainwood ;) ) so I parked my scout there until a Viking worker moved into that spot and saw me! With this contact, I was able to trade Masonry and 228g for Writing, then trade Writing to the English for Iron Working, the Wheel, and 110g, and to Spain for Mysticism and Warrior code, and finally sell the Vikings the Wheel for 230g back! I now saw the Iron under the volcano where I was moving the Philadelphia settler, but the English actually killed the volcano for me. My next settler built Atlanta 3W of Washington. My Math gambit paid off in 1830BC, and I started 40 turns on Currency, trading Math to Spain for Horseback, and Math + Horseback to the Vikings for Polytheism. In 1500 England had Mapmaking, which I was able to get for Math and Poly.

1700BC was a turning point, as Isabella was apparently upset that I had not shared Polytheism with her, and declared war after I refused. I probably should have given in, as I had a handful of warriors and no barracks. Expansion screeched to a halt, as I pop-rushed a barracks in Washington, switched my other cities to warriors or spears, and rushed more workers to connect the iron. I was on the defensive, but held my own until the Iron was connected, then started upgrading to swords in 1500BC, rushing a wall in Atlanta, and then started to push them back. I eventually took two towns (which were autorazed), and settled San Francisco to get the wool, but the Vikings settled where their coastal city had been, so they were on our continent. I also built Seattle and New York as ports on my east coast in 1250-1225BC. My second break came in 1150BC, when Washington stepped forth from an Elite sword killing an archer outside Toledo. My offensive was grinding down, so I took the opportunity to make peace for Code of Laws, and used Washington to rush the Pyramids in Atlanta. By the end of the QSC, I had 9 cities, with 2 barracks and a Temple (in Philadelphia, to hold off the English culture). I was still 8 turns from Currency, and lacked Philosophy and Construction, as well as the optionals. (No Diety tech rate here!) I did have 962 gold from the minimum research, and selling techs. My army was up to 7 swords, 3 spear, 2 warriors and a couple cats, and a galley with a scout was sailing over the horizon (never to return :( ).


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/J2_G27_1000.jpg

I now focused on building up for my next war, vs. the English. I completed Currency in 800BC, and was able to trade it to the Vikings for Philosophy, Construction, and 150g, and I was Medieval! I started on Republic (28 turns), and had 10 swords ready to enter England.

Originally posted by bluebox
now the crazy part of the (hi)story:
leader! but no wonder to build :confused: - so i made an army of swordsmen.
another leader! bought literature and built great library! :D
and around 150ad - my third leader! used for ... (fill in ma-wonder) :crazyeye:


[civ3] v1.29f Open
Well, lucky you because I was thinking that this leader stuff was another easter eggs. Despite major wars (taking out Spain & England) using all my elite troops that emerged, I have still NO leader so I had to hand-built all (FP and the wonders). I certainly did not help and I was hoping for the occasional leader for the FP so I delayed the proper building of it ...

Originally posted by tao
On predator, the volcanoes had defense 3. I needed 4 horsemen loosing one and 2 retreating to "free" the iron.

[civ3] v1.29f Open
Well on Open it is 3 ... but it was on the moutain so maybe it gets it factor from the moutain.
I personnally did not want to lose my painfully built horsemen. So I built one cat & rushed a second one to redline the volcanoe before atttacking.
To be honest, after seeing a Reg English warrior tacking out a second volcanoe without a hit. I first tried also with a reg warrior that died without inflicing a single scratch to the volcanoe. the true god of RNG...

Originally posted by tao
We try hard to get promotions and hope for a Great leader, but in vain though we win a lot of fights. Have the odds been changed by cracker??? AFAIK, they are hard-coded, so I don't think even cracker could have changed those!

Open PTW 1.27

This is my first Monarch level game I'm entirely playing on my own, only played it so far in a few Succession Games. Must say I think the game is great, cool easter eggs, and you definitely need some strategy.

Moved the settler to the coast and built there. Built 2 extra scouts, although 1 would've been more then enough. Spain expanded very fast, I was about equal to the English.
Almost beat the English to Iron even, but they outraced me by 2 tiles. Slowed me down, since about that same time Spain got Iron as well (although I didn't expect to beat them to it). All volcanoes have been killed by the AI, no real barbarian problems, except for a Scout dying.

The first war was started by refusing to pay tribute to a 3rd civ, who allied the others against me. Nearly got beaten up, but defended well and got peace with everyone except Spain for a tech. (able to keep up tech-wise too, have been researching at 10%, a bit later with 1 scientist)

Spent first part of the war beating off their Swordsmen, then captured a city between me and their Iron city. Main goal then was to capture their Iron, but they defended it superbly. Haven't been able to capture it yet. Declared peace now to regroup and build a lot more Horsemen, then I'm going for the Iron. Probably should've attacked the English instead of Spanish at first, might've worked out better, but they've just been pissing me off (plus they were the first to attack at the start of the war).

The second next war I'll probably be able to capture their biggest cities, as I will have Iron and they won't (hopefully of course).

Been having a hard time, but it sure is fun. I'm at 210 AD now.
Currently have 2 luxuries and 1 source of horses. About equal to the English. Can't post a screenshot, cause that would reveal another guest on our continent.


Also, the many fights with Spain have produced a Great Leader, which I used to rush The Great Library in the Spain captured city. An army might have been more useful, but the culture is nice, it's easier to keep up in tech, and will keep em from flipping. Also have tons of money to upgrade units once I can, or to rush things once I switch to Republic, which should be before the next war.

PTW 1.27f Open

I founded Washington 1 sq SW of the starting position. Decided to build two more scouts and then go for a granary, using the lux slider to keep the people happy as I had no MP.

I intially set research for alphabet at min rate but soon came into contact with the English and Spanish so decided to switch off research and trade for this tech. Managed to get all their techs without trading Masonry. I thought that there may be others to trade with that Eng or Sp may have already met and I wanted full value for this tech.

Unsurprisingly given the starting position, initial growth was very slow (I didn't build my second city until 2110BC!!!) and I was soon appreciating why this game was going to be a challange. Having read some of the other posts, maybe I should have ventured a little further before building my capital.

Once it became apparent that we were on a small island I looked to trade Masonry but waited until they both had something worth trading for and so I managed to keep up with tech with no research. I then had a stroke of luck and one of my scouts met a junk in the coastal waters to the north of Spain, but I can't mention the civ in this thread! This opened up new trading opportunities and gave me knowledge of iron. With the way that Spain was expanding, I knew that the only way I was going to have any real success was to conquer territory so iron was vital. Using ctrl-shift-m to see the whole map clearly, I saw the iron mountain in the south and sent the first settler to claim it. This did not help growth at all but I wanted the iron and was not going to risk losing it to the English.

As if they were not expanding fast enough anyway, the Spanish built the Colossus in 1425BC which gave them an early GA (unless their traits were modded of course). For me the rest of the time up to 1000BC was peaceful and slow. I only had 7 towns, plus a settler on its way to build an eighth but the plan was to build up the military, connect the iron, upgrade the
warriors and take England. The Spanish had a bit of an attitude problem but I guess I was trading for techs with them just enough to keep them pacified.

I was not aware of the Vikings until 775BC when my advisors informed me that the civ I had met but cannot name signed a peace treaty with them. I then realised where the Vikings were and make contact with them.

In 370BC, I had sufficient military to take England and so declared war. I was only one tech behind the others without researching anything myself and I had a stack of cash so I decide to start research as fast as I could in order to get to Feudalism before Spain. This would hopefully give me the edge when I got round to taking them on. I should have kept research going before this. I could have been the first to get maths even using the minimum rate.

As they didn't have iron, England didn't put up much of a fight but waging war with swords is a slow business. I took four towns by force (including London) and another two towns and CoL in the peace treaty which was signed in 170BC. This left them two towns which I could take in the next war!

In 70BC I was the first to discover currency, traded it for Monarchy with the civ I cannot mention and was lucky with a four turn anarchy. In 170AD I discovered contruction and entered the MA with the other civs on the island at least two techs behind me. Now to sort out the Spanish...

Were we allowed to mention *the civ* you met in 775 BC?
Also, I think I met the same other civ as you did, they even have a little holiday settlement on our continent (for now... ).

Originally posted by Tech Step
Another Point.

At some stage in the very early medievil era I captured the Great Wall. From the rule changes I expected to get walls in all of my cities (on the same continent) yet to my dismay nothing happened.



remember, if your cities are all bigger than size 6 there will be no walls! even a hand-built wall will then disappear, as you will know.

please tell us if this is a valuable explanation!

have fun :)

Weeh, I took Spain's Iron away. Took a lot of time and effort though, but I'll make up for that when I wipe them out by attacking their Spearmen with Knight's :hammer:
Spain has only Horses now and England has Iron, but I'm the only one who has both right now :-) (let's hope they don't get empty anytime soon)

Gonna enjoy the rest of this game, even though I forgot to save at certain times like I just read I should've done :sad:

Civ3 1.29f Open

First of all, has anyone addressed the issue of explaining to your wife that you're attacking a volcano with an archer?

Start. I had read SirPleb's pregame thoughts about five minutes before downloading the game and figured, hey, good enough for him, good enough for me. Irr in place, Scout S-E, Settler-SW. Nothing and no hints in the edge of the fog. Second move, Scout-s-s, lambs and flood plain...that's the place. First took the worker west one turn just to make sure I didn't miss anything, then over to the lambs. Subsequently the scout found the rest of the flood plains and volcanos. I set up an 8 turn settler factory in Washington and a (eventually) 5 turn warrior/worker pump in New York. Built one additional Scout, then a warrior , then started a settler.

New York. First settler was finished in 2750BC, founded New York 3.5 WSW. This would be a 5 turn W/W pump wasting 2 shields per cycle. Alas, a barb warrior appeareared with the barracks about 2/3 done. I attacked him with no thought...100% Barb attack bonus on Monardch, right? My warrior lost...New York sacked, barracks gone. Later a barb warrior attacked my warrior guarding New York...and I lost AGAIN. Long story short, lost a barracks and two pops and, as well, flood plain disease hit for another pop. I hadn't had a single barb get to a town up to this point in playing Civ3; was expecting they would take gold and "disappear". Another learning experience. The W/W pump didn't set up until 1250BC as a result...UGH.

Research. Ignoring a few turns here and there trying to decide what to do, I basically did a 40-turn Polytheism after trading for Burial and Mysticism, Math at max and 40-turn Monarchy. was able to trade or buy everything else. Tried to maximize the Masonry monopoly early on. We were the only Industrious in the game.

Stats at 1000BC:

Towns 7
Pop 18
Settler 1
Scout 1
Workers 9
Warriors 10
Archers 2
Barracks 1
Gold 1244
Tech - Missing 4 AA techs + gov'ts, Monarchy in 27 (40 turn)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/HighDesert_gotm27_1000BC.jpg

Ludicrous Flip. In 730BC, Chicago flipped to England who had minimal culture having built their first temple 4-5 turns back. Chicago was my Iron town and situated on a hill. As well, it took my temple, which was 2/3 done and due to be whipped in 1 turn. The AI of course awards itself a nice spear in it's questionably acquired new town on a hill. And, of course, it whips some more spears with my citizens. Well, that Iron is rather key to taking over the rest of the island. So I expended a bundle of low powered military to get it back. I had 12 units at 1000BC...5 units in 570BC after getting it back. Could I have played a bit smarter...of course. I was, however, feeling CHEATED and a little angry. This FLIP STUFF is, I believe, a poorly disguised excuse on the part of Firaxis to cheat. And all of us spend way too much time learning and playing this game to be disrespected by the program cheating. I left the game for four days before picking it up again.

Easter Egg? In 570BC I noted that a civ who was not located on my island and who did not have MapMaking, nonetheless settled on my island. Is Walking on Water an Easter Egg?! Or maybe a new Wonder?!

Other than retaking my iron town, I layed low and played nice with the AI and spent the AA trying to catch up. After waiting 40 turns for Monarchy, I actually got a 4-turn Anarchy, my first less than six. Are things looking up? An interturn alliance involving certain civs led to a trade for the last AA tech in 170BC and I entered the Middle Ages less than thrilled with the game, but eager to see what cracker has in store for us...

Good start, High Desert, despite the tough flip!

Originally posted by HighDesert

Ludicrous Flip. In 730BC, Chicago flipped to England who had minimal culture having built their first temple 4-5 turns back.

Easter Egg? In 570BC I noted that a civ who was not located on my island and who did not have MapMaking, nonetheless settled on my island. Is Walking on Water an Easter Egg?! Or maybe a new Wonder?![/B]

Part of the flip equation is that Chicago is closer to London than it is to Washington.

The civ that settled on your island may have had the seafaring trait, which we were told could be included among the non-Firaxis civs.

remember, if your cities are all bigger than size 6 there will be no walls! even a hand-built wall will then disappear, as you will know.

please tell us if this is a valuable explanation!


I am pretty sure that the walls were not granted to cities under size 6 :(

The wall does not dissapear it just looses its abilities (ie the defense bonus is gone)

I do not think that this is a viable explination becasue of the following scenario.

What happens if originally the city was above size 6 but then you pop rushed something (or a disease killed people) then you would be able to use the defense bonus granted by the walls.

Although this could lead to an exploit: Continually getting walls (each time your population goes below 6 and selling the walls for money - although only 2GP)

Hello guys, I'm back after a few months not playing the GotM.
I played the PTW1.27 conquest, since it is monarch difficulty.

I immediately decided to move my settler to build my capital inland, I like to play with Bamspeedy's OCP. So I wandered a bit and founded Washington by the river close to the lake.

That proved a daring move, since I soon found out that english and spanish were very close, and I couldn't build many cities before I was stuck between them.

The second bad news, is I first expanded towards the spanish, trying to stop their expansion, and had no city close to the iron source south. So I had to build a city in order to have iron, plus a temple, because the iron was remote in the mountains, and wait for the city to grow...

At this stage I was worried for my long term survival, I decided I had to take the military path. So all I built was military units. It took a war to deprive the spanish of their iron source. I didn't have the strength to do more, and the spanish were occupying the best part of the continent. So I started building up for another war, this time to take over the english cities, as a long term move to build up against the spanish. That's about where I was when reaching middle age, slightly behind on tech, and with very little culture.

HighDesert,
The barb sacked your town? I only thought they ransacked. Does it have anything to do with "size 1"? Good expansion phaze, in spite of everything.

"Part of the flip equation is that Chicago is closer to London than it is to Washington."
--- Close, but not closer. I get distance 8 from London and distance 7.5 from Washington.


Tech Step,
In my experience, you can never sell something that is placed in a town thanks to a wonder. Only if you have built the improvement prior to acquiring the wonder can you sell it (once) and still have the improvement. I rarely own Great Wall in my games, so I wouldn't know for sure. But if that exploit were possible it would be a huge bug. There is of course no such bug when it comes to Sun Tzu or The Internet, that I know for sure.

Originally posted by HighDesert

Ludicrous Flip. In 730BC, Chicago flipped to England who had minimal culture having built their first temple 4-5 turns back. Chicago was my Iron town and situated on a hill. [/B]

That is tough. I suspect that that iron town has affected a lot of players. The English settled there first in my game and I failed to capture it with about 8 horses causing the end of my game in frustration.

PTW 1.27 Open

Hi guys,

I have been lurking on your fabulous site for months, making the odd post and playing part way through many GOTMs. This being the GOTY, I am going to try and finish it for a change. Here is my spoiler.

As per SirPleb’s suggestion, I started by moving the settler one square southwest and exploring around it with the scout. When I found nothing of interest I plopped down Washington on the spot and built a scout, a warrior and a settler, in that order. Zero research as suggested. Apparently a lot of people went south. Since I chose to use my scout to explore around the starting position looking for a better location within a couple of tiles, I never got to consider this option. Perhaps it's better that I didn't, since I got a bit more room this way. Lucked out I guess.

I decided to build a ring of cities at distance 5, as tightly packed as possible. There are locations at that distance adjacent to all the bonuses: the wool, the sheep and the lambs. Nine cities can be put in this ring and I duly filled it up. I’d show you this ring but I don’t know how to upload images.

The scouts quickly determined that we were on a small continent together with the English and Spanish. I met the Spanish in 3750 BC and traded for Alphabet. At this point I started a Math gambit. It came to fruition and I leveraged it into the rest of the second-level techs. I had planned to follow it up with a Polytheism gambit but the Vikings already had that! How, when they didn’t even have Masonry?? In any case, this convinced me to choose Currency instead.

While the scouts didn’t come with any goody huts or contacts with distant civilisations, they were useful for another reason. There are three locations where Scandinavia is visible from our continent. One is from my city of Boston. From 1990BC on, my scouts stood on the other two, thus preventing contact and giving me tech-brokering possibilities. For almost 1500 years I was the only civ on this island who had contact with Ragnar. Heh. Eventually the Spanish went a-sailing and found them that way.

QSC Status

11 Towns. 23 Citizens, of whom 18 are happy and none are unhappy;
1146 gold; five granaries; two barracks
2 settlers, 2 workers, 4 slaves, 2 scouts, 5 warriors and 1 chariot
All first and second level techs, no third level but just six turns away from Currency and plenty of trade possibilities.

One settler was on his way to gain the last spot in my ring and the other to seize the southern iron. Isabel had the northern one almost from the beginning of the game.

I also had a city at distance three, just north of the capital. My final city, San Francisco, was out in the middle of the continent at a nice location for my FP. My plan was to build it, perhaps by hand, and to Palace jump to another continent. I was agreeably surprised by how low the corruption is in this game. At the end of this spoiler period, SF was almost finished its courthouse. Even without that, it was running 60% useful shields! In despotism! So far, the plan seems to have been a good one.

In 850, my Currency gambit came in and I started a flat out drive for the Republic. The next turn Scandinavia finished the Pyramids and… declared war on the Civ That May Not Be Named! Where the heck were they? A couple of turns later, I discovered that Ragnar has a city with a rather Oriental name. Hmmm…

In 690, after researching Philosophy and Code of Laws, the Science guy told me we are advanced. Of course, the CTMNBN had already built the Hanging Gardens so he might not have been completely right…. I then began to think that perhaps my Palace should jump to Azuchi??? Wherever that was, it had the Oracle too.

In 550 BC I finally met the CTMNBN. As I already knew, they had Monarchy but I was up three other techs. Whew! I was worried that they would be halfway through the Middle Ages or something. No. Tech was slow. The Spanish also gotten contact with them earlier. These C3C contact rules are strange to get used to. At this point the Ancient Era came to an end. The next turn, Ragnar learned Construction and Isabel did two turns later. I traded to the Norseman and duly entered the Middle Ages, eight turns from the Republic.

On the next to last turn of this thread, I declared war on Liz and moved in 15 vet swords and a half dozen horse on two fronts.

My general plan is to have two quick wars in succession, one to snatch the Luxuries from the English and the other to take the Iron from the Spanish. Oh. And to cut back on some of the terrible cultural pressure from Isabel.

But that is a story for another day.

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

Before starting, I'd like to thank cracker for a terrific game. The elimination of early contact- and map trading keeps the game interesting for much longer. I also liked the relatively sparse resources.

I had a sense of which victory condition to pursue before starting, but decided to hold off deciding until later in the game. I moved my settler west, for two reasons: first, it wan’t what SirPleb did, and second, because it provided the most surrounding room for RCP cities. I then settled in a 4ish pattern around it. Remembering the old days before the GOTM, when an average start meant that early AI expansion would inhibit my own, I didn’t bother building a granary for a settler factory, and instead built settlers and workers wherever it seemed convenient. As planned, I also only built one scout, since I didn’t expect to encounter too many civs or goody huts. My towns built barracks while letting their population grow, and then units afterward, in between workers and settlers. I had decided against building galleys until there was an obvious need, because I expected that suicide galleys wouldn't get very far this game.

Having anticipated the lack of goody huts, and wanting to beeline for republic, I researched the alphabet from the start, then traded for it after encountering the Spanish and English early. I researched math at the minimum, and traded it in 1750 for iron working, mysticism, writing, and gold from two of the three civs I had then met. Philosophy was researched at max, after which I sat on it and researched Code of Laws at max as well. In 1175 I traded philosophy for mapmaking, acquired Code of Laws in 1000, and traded it for horseback riding. This left me down polytheism, and I set off in pursuit of Republic in 33 turns.

At the close of the QSC, I had 9 cities, 15 citizens, 4 workers, 1 settler, and 2 scouts. 5 barracks had produced 5 warriors and 5 chariots. The treasury was at 597g.

Expansion continued to be my only focus, even after I ran out of elbow room with 10 cities. England and Spain had snagged the iron early on, and it wasn’t until 710, when Madrid built the Lighthouse, that I decided to invade Spain first. I started to build up mounted units, and declared war in 430, as I switched governments to republic after two turns of anarchy. With 19 horse and 5 swords, I took Barcelona and its iron on the first turn, and acquired a leader five turns later when a horseman stood off four warriors across a river. I had been considering taking only the capital and then making peace, but the Leader allowed me to build the FP wherever I wanted. I switched my FP build to the Library, and determined to conquer all of Spain, then build the FP far to the NW. In 290 I researched currency, then traded Republic for literature, construction and polytheism, and entered the Middle Ages with four contacts.

[ptw] 1.14f predator

Again a great scenario from Cracker!!!!!!:thumbsup:

Initial moves:

Start:
Moved the scout down the river to find the sheep and flood plains. Moved settler 3 tiles to settle west from sheep. With my first 2 settlers I created 2 towns around the flood plains that worked in partnership to crank out a settler roughly every 5 turns.

Scouting:
my scout went along the river east, then south, finding England & the barb scouts, then west till coast, then north, finding Spain, then east again. Discovered on the way a borderline on an opposite coast, where I waited for someone to pop up, which finally happened. No huts found.

Technology:
Always at full speed, till republic. In the revolution period I captured the Great Library, since than science is at zero.

Game observations:


Land development:
by QSC date I managed to have 11 cities cramped between England & Spain. This was the same amount of cities as the Scandinavians, who were leading the score, and also settled 1 city on our continent. All other civs I knew had less cities. Connected 2 luxuries (Incense & Wool) and 2 resources (Horses & Iron). One galley run into a seafaring nation….

Tech development:
Seems to go at a very slow pace. At the moment I researched Republic, the other 4 civs only had mathematics, which I got from the GL. In 390BC I received currency to get into the MA.

Other civs:
Scoring Leader at start of MA is Scandinavia. The other 3 Civs are leaping less than 50 behind. I’m last; 140 behind.

QSC results:
11 cities, 22 citizens
4 workers, 4 scouts, 5 warriors, 4 swordsman, 1 galley
2 temples
techs missing: math/constr/cur/mon/rep
597 gold
4 contacts
iron/horse/wool/incense connected

Wars:
All civs are very aggressive. Have a sea war going on with Scandinavia since 850BC, they only want to settle peace for too much money. No go! The seafaring nation decided on war. All units brought on land were killed by my swordsmen. We just settled peace, where even though the losses were only on their side I still had to pay 20gold. I declared war with England to go for their gems. The moment that I’m in front of their city they finish the GL, which I capture, same turn Greece finishes lighthouse. Lucky! Greece looks also like it’s gonna go after me any time.

Wonders:
All wonders were built by England, Spain & Scandinavia. The Pyramids unlickily by the Scandinavians, so I need to build granaries myself….

Next steps & Learnings:


Next steps will be to finish of the English, and go after the Spanish to expand my civ. Gathering money now for my upgrade of horses. Than next step will be Scandinavia.
I guess Tech Pace is slower because of all the wars going on.

Normally after discovering my surroundings I spend time to calculate in detail city developments. This time I didn’t, and I guess I missed 1 or 2 settlers because of that. Question is if there would have been place for them to settle…. Because Spain was growing so quickly at start, I focused on building cities, with my military development almost at zero. Maybe for that reason, the other civs think I’m an easy prey…. NOT!

Posted by Killerloop

gems. The moment that I’m in front of their city they finish the GL, which I capture, same turn Greece finishes lighthouse. Lucky! Greece looks also like it’s gonna go after me any time.

Did you mean Spain? In the next paragraph you said all wonders were built by England, Spain, and Scandanavia. ;)

Sorry, indeed it's Spain I meant. Although Greece is also nice for holidays in the mediteranean area..... ;)

[civ3] Open

START

I started by mocing the settler SW, and built 2 scouts before changing to settlers. I then founded New Yourk to the east, which built a granary and started a settler factory.

Very quickly I saw a barb wanderer, which the English soon took care of. I guess either they or the english popped all huts. :(

I traded Masonry both to England and Spain in the hope that one of us would build the Pyramids. However, Vikings built them in 670 bc. :mad:

CONTACTS

I had parked a scout near the strait up north, and in 2350 bc a Viking scout passed by:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/2350-bc-vikings.jpg

Not very much later (in 2110 bc) a Junk of a seafaring nation passed by. Strangely enough, it seems the English and Spanish both have contact with this civ and the Vikings as well. No tech brokering possibilities. :(

By establishing embassies, I got to know where in the world that far-away civ had its capital.

WONDERS

As I said, Vikings got the Pyramids. The Spanish, however, were quick wonder-builders, and got both the Great Lighthouse as well as the Colossus. Someone else built the Oracle.

TECH

With the very slow tech pace, I was dead afraid of the other civs taking the lead. This led me to send out a stream of suicide Galleys. I decided to not attack the other civs, since every one was needed to keep research moving. I did no reserach of my own (except for moderatly successful 40-turn gambits), which put me behind in tech at times. I kept up by joining in alliances (for payment in tech) either with or against the Vikings, who seemed to be at war with someone most of the time.

WARFARE

After clearing the volcano off the iron, I upgraded some 10 warriors and went against England, who was very backward. I made peace when they had 1 city left (and got Currency). Spain joined the fray, and destroyed the English in 150 bc. This was also the time I entered the MA.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/170-bc-MA.jpg

[civ3] v1.29f Open
I decide to follow Sir Pleb advice and after moving my scout (S-S) and spotting nothing. I irrigate on the spot and move my settler SW.
The next turn, I spotted the Floodplains that would be a decent spot to build up population but it never occurred to me that I could move all the way south. In retrospect, I was better where I was. I decided on a RCP 5 because when you get a decent core cities can develop far better although the start can be difficult with cities so far apart.
I settled and produced another Scout, a warrior for MP and a settler to go after the floodplains.
Despite some scouting, I could not find a single hut so part of Sir Pleb (and mine now) plan’s was void. But I continue on 0% research.

Other Civs
I met England first in 3700 and Spain in 3550. Spanish were settling territory like a settler was at a worker cost (easter egg) and England was not settling much its territory.
In 2590, I spot some purple borders on the other island and I leave a scout there standing there to view someone… but it is only in 1225 that I spot a new purple town and I move my scout in Spain territory to finally meet the Vikings by 1150. I gave them Masonry (!) for 115 GP.

Research & Trades
Started on Ceremonial Burial @ 0% hoping for scouting goody huts…. None :(
In 3550, I have just met Spain, and I can trade : Ceremonial vs Pottery & 10 GP / England : Mysticism vs Masonry & 8 GP / Spain again: Alphabet vs Masonry.
I went then on a 40-turns gambit on writing. In 3100, I dealt Spain : Bronze working vs Mysticism.
Gambit paid off, but there was no much on offer so I hold on, checking every turn. 6 turns later I can make a trade Spain : IW & 71 GP vs Writing / England : Wheel & Warrior Code vs Writing & 2 GP. This reveals that I have only two sources of Iron. One already taken by Spain and the volcano one.
1790 I went after Map Making @ 100% because I wanted to surely get the Great LightHouse. My third city (in 1550) after building the initial warrior went after the pyramids as a pre-built for the lighthouse.
I owned MM I do not want to sell MM because I want to avoid to a maximum and wonder cascade or multiple builds.
925 BC : Spain now has MM thanks to Vikings. I sell IW to English for 109 GP because they do not have any iron anyhow…
825 BC : Gambit successful at Mathematics. I have it but no one to exchange tech for it so I hold on to it. Searching Currency at 100% in 19 turns … I will

Development
I played cats and mouse with Spain & England many times in order to block development. It first started in 1725 (with 2 towns) while I am blocking a Spanish settler-Warrior with 2 Warriors & 1 Scout as Spain was trying to settle on the coast by the sheep (what would be Boston, my third and light-house city). I played 8 turns before having my settler finally arriving. Thankfully, I had planned this spot in advance, moving warriors there :D.

By 1000 BC, I have 6 Towns, 8 Warriors, 2 Workers, 2 Scouts, 2 Chariots. Infrastructure, I have 2 barracks, 2 granary & 1 Temple & 673 GP.
I finally the Settler factory ready in the floodplains but no much room to expand.
I have even one seafaring civ that settled on my continent. I will need to remove this city because it is not on my RCP 5 ring. I am moving a chariot to spot what is there. It is a very poor start :eek:.
But England is also very poorly developed while Spain has 9 known towns.
I have embassies with everyone. So I can see where is the seafaring civ.
…
I will enter MA in 50 BC by leaning construction by myself. I will post the rest in the 2nd Spoiler as much activity involves one seafaring civ.

I haven't posted on this board before, I hope i'm in the right place.

I have been playing GOTM27, America, I am at about 400AD, in Monarcy, at war with England, have won their cities in the south of the continent, York, Hastings, have just taken London, with about 7 swordsmen garisoned in the city to quell resisters. My culture is way in excess of Englands (approx 3x on the Histograph), I'm an occupying force, still at war, HOW CAN LONDON POSSIBLY CULTURE SWAP BACK TO THE ENGLISH!!!!! How annoyed am I!!!

Timbuka,

Welcome to the Game Of The Month. :)

Right place, wrong thread. I've merged your post to put it in the right place, but please take a few minutes to read the 'Important - Please read' thread, as suggested below. We don't like players to open their own threads that have spoiler information, because it can ruin the enjoyment for other players.

This should belong in the spoiler thread. But to answer your question, I suggest you check out the culture flip calculations. There you will see that what happened was no surprise.

Welcome to the GOTM forum, Timbuka. Yes, this is the proper board to discuss GOTM related topics ...

BUT ...

Any discussion regarding the current Game must be posted in the appropriate Spoiler thread. (See Important - Please Read (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=73719) for this and other GOTM rules.) These are opened only by the GOTM Staff, and there are 2 such threads open right now. Your post should be in one of those Threads.

BTW, Culture Flips can be quite frustrating. I try not to leave a lot of troops in any recently captured cities for this reason; only to heal or maybe one or two to put down the resistance.

Timbuka.

I always find that if you have a city that has previously had plenty of resisters (and you now have control over it) that starving the population down to 1 or 2 then building it up again is the only way to stop it from flipping.

My game was running on half throttle due to my long abscense from GOTM. After scouting WW with my scout and S with my worker I moved the settler SW and founded washington there. I then proceeded to build two settler factories NE and SW of the floodplains, and raised my fourth city next to the wool in the east. Capitol and 4 city was eventually turned over to warrior factories. I lost 2 warriors and a horseman on the slopes of the volcano, and a few rounds of pillaging the road to my iron ensured theese numbers and a newly declared war on Elisabeth in 1000BC:

16 swords. 1 Horseman. 6 Native workers, 3 slaves. 510G in treasury. 9 cities. 19 citizens. I have discovered all but a few tiles of my home continent. I have 2 Barracks and have 4 turns left researching maps on 10% science and 90% tax. My cities have 102 shields in projects under production. Infrastructure is medium, with eight citizens working on unimproved tiles - though they are mostly forests and gain max anyway. 2 Luxuries secured.

Most of my swords are close to London and their eastermost city.

Part two of my remaining AA and battles here will be edited in later. It's an effort to not go beyond the scope of the spoilers in this thread, but I will try to make a better effort than some of the posters have so far ;)

Open, [ptw] 1.27f

I made no notes for this, and it will be brief.

Settler wandered down the river intent on finding flood planes, settled near them and began expanding as quick as can be. When the time was right, launched a sword attack on Spain. They had built Collossus for me which was really nice, then as I attacked their capital they finished the Great Library, which was even nicer, I love the Spanish now. Just to confirm our affair on the way to their new capital they also build the Great Lighthouse. Having no time I haven't read the other reports, but this strikes me as my luckiest set of wonder building from a neighbour ever.

I was trade broker with the Vikings for while as a scout sat in the space near their land and the others did not discover them for ages.

I soon wiped out the entire continent.

Sorry this is a useless report as I don't have dates. Only the end date when I finished.

Smackster

Rename that thread to GOTM-Important-Please read.

And smackster, that wasn't true! It was all a dream and all will be clear after you start up the game again. Ah well, if you are the lucky winner of the draw this month, then please tell us about your strategies at least after those opening sequence?

If something like that happened to me, I would brag on and tell EVERYONE what suckers they are...and bask in the glory. For hours!

"deleted insult":o

And your reply is? :crazyeye: Please, nix the spam. Thanks.


My apologies to smackster for a stupid remark that didn't come out as it should.

OPEN PTW

It is very interesting to play this game without trading maps or contacts during the Ancient Age. The strategies change completely.

I built Washington one square south of the start position. I then built 3 Scouts in order to discover as much of the home continent as possible. I met Spain in 3750 and the English in 3500. By 3300 BC I had concluded that I was on a small continent with only Spain and England. I decided not to go to war with either of them because I wanted them to discover some techs for which I could then trade. It wouldn’t do me much good to destroy both of them and then have to research every tech myself.

At 2750 BC one of my Scouts sees a lavender border on the adjoining continent and camps there to see if any inhabitants wander by. However, it is not until 1225 BC that I make contact with the Vikings.

After trading for as many techs as possible I began researching Mathematics on the theory that the other civs would probably be researching the Writing/Map Making path and I could trade for those techs.

Only had trouble with one barbarian settlement around the “Great Lake”. Destroyed it without any losses.

As 1000 BC approached I was destroying the Volcanos and discovered the wonderful Iron deposit to the south of the Great Lake. That was welcome news.

At 1000 BC I have 8 cities and am in last place.

Trade the Vikings for Map Making and start sending out suicide Galleys. I wasted a lot of these and never found a thing. The sea squares that were sprinkled around the ocean were intriguing and lead me to believe that they were near other continents. However, since I was losing Galleys too frequently I gave up on that strategy and decided to wait to explore the rest of the world until I got Navigation and could safely traverse the oceans.

In 730 BC one of my Galleys made contact with another civ. However, never discovered his homeland during the Ancient Age.

In 430 BC I finally decided to declare war on England. Captured most of their cities and ended the war just after entering the Middle Ages. Made peace and took their final city of Nottingham, leaving them only with London. Unfortunately, I got no Great Leaders during the war.

I entered the Middle Ages at 250 BC.

PTW, Predator

Well, yesterday evening I was a little sad and I decided to cheer up by playing civ. Since I had no save from my PBEM friends, I thought of GOTM and how will my ranking plummet if I don’t play anymore. So I thought of starting an OCC GOTM27 to be finished as soon as possible so that I minimize time investment.

I now see that Zwingli had a similar idea, just that I don’t have a time limit set in stone. The Ancient age has passed in less than two hours. Unfortunately I seem to lose touch with the game as I positioned Washington NOT on the river. Consequently, it got stuck to size 6 until I got Construction.

There were not that many civs on my continent and the expansionist trait did not pay off. I also lost all three scouts to barbs but after revealing 98% of the continent. England got Mysticism very early (a goodie hut I suspect) and I started a Polytheism gambit, which I lost. Then bought some techs and started a Construction gambit (guess why) which worked in part. Some civs had it, some did not. I could only build the Colossus and also forgot to build and early Temple so probably Culture 20K will not be possible.

I don’t really care about resources, I sure don’t have any in my 20 tiles. No luxuries either.

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

Initial Development

As planned I moved the scout south, then south again (decided not to follow the river.) Then moved the settler SW and then had the worker irrigate the start tile. On the second turn I began by moving the scout west and west again. I didn't see any reason to move the settler further so I founded Washington on the tile SW of the start position.

Washington's build sequence was scout, warrior, then settler. By the time the settler was ready I'd explored a fair bit of the area around Washington. I sent the settler to the wool west of Washington to found New York. With the help of some forestry New York quickly built a granary and could then grow every four turns, providing a slow eight turn settler factory.

Research

I started with research on Ceremonial Burial at zero, hoping for huts. I didn't find any of course. When I met Spain in 3750BC I traded for Alphabet and began forty turn research of Writing. I traded for Writing in 2390BC 11 turns before learning it, then researched full speed toward Republic. Learned Philosophy, traded for Code of Laws before my research of it was finished, and finally learned Republic in 730BC.

Along the way I traded techs aggressively for whatever I could get. I wanted my neighbors to advance quickly so that they'd be likely to build wonders before more distant Civs.

After learning Republic I slowed my research efforts. I didn't plan to go for a Space or Diplomatic victory so it became more important to invest in war efforts. Eventually I learned Construction, before my neighbors, in 270BC. I entered the Middle Ages at that date.

Expansion

Like a number of other players I used fairly wide city spacing. I didn't follow strict RCP placement - my inner ring had some towns at distance 4 and some at 5. I also had a few towns starting a second ring at distance 7.

I was hemmed in fairly quickly of course :) I built just 11 towns before finding myself blocked by Spain to the west and England to the south. When I founded the 11th town in 1150BC my territory looked like this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/sirpleb27-1a.jpg

One of my 11 towns, Atlanta, was poorly positioned. I expected I'd abandon it later on. I settled there before Houston, just to claim that region before a Spanish settler walking along the coast at the same time could take it.

Like many others I didn't manage to claim iron. I did have a funny moment in this regard. Around 1870BC I had two warriors cleverly blocking England from sending a settler north to the volcano iron. I figured they'd gain me enough time for my next settler to claim the iron. But in 1750BC my vigilant warriors were embarassed to discover someone approaching them from behind :lol:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/sirpleb27-1b.jpg

Darn English settler had somehow already walked around the inland sea. There'd be no iron for me without a fight.

QSC Status (1000BC)

11 towns
4 barracks
1 granary
1 temple
5 warriors
2 scouts
4 native workers, 1 foreign worker
2 galleys
contact with 3 rivals and an embassy with each
horses and two luxuries but no iron

War

This continent wasn't big enough for three of us! War was inevitable. I wanted England's iron, silks, and gems, so she was my first target.

In 650BC I had 10 horsemen. Not a very strong force but my military advisor said it was average compared with England, so I knew England was weak and I began my attack. I immediately took her iron town, leaving her unable to build any strong units. I devoted almost all of my income to short rushing horsemen during my war on England. In 370BC I took England's last town, eliminating her from the game. At that point I was up to 28 horsemen :)

After quickly regrouping I started an assault on Spain in 290BC, just before entering the Middle Ages and thus the cutoff for this spoiler in 270BC.

Miscellaneous

My initial development looks very similar to Abegwait's :beer:

Barbarians were a bit tricky for me in the early game. My first settler had to delay his journey by one turn to avoid one. After some early dancing they quickly became a non-issue as the entire home continent was settled and/or patrolled.

I didn't attack any volcano. I figured either the AIs would take care of them or I'd do it later on with stronger units (stronger than warriors.) The AIs ended up taking care of them.

I watched for chances to buy workers but only saw two. I bought the first but couldn't afford the second. :(

Corruption sure is low. The huge world size helps, as does Monarch level. Still it seems low even considering that, I'm not sure. I didn't set up for a Palace jump, and don't see a great advantage in building a Forbidden Palace on the home continent. I think the majority of cities on the continent can become useful without it.

I haven't built any wonders so far. I kept the local tech pace moving at the start and hoped that my neighbors would build most of the ancient wonders as a result. Overall this has worked well but there's been one exception - someone not on the home continent finished The Pyramids in 1100BC. Oh well. So far my only wonder is The Great Library, taken from England.

I got four turns of anarchy when I flipped to Republic. I've stayed in Republic since 670BC, using the luxury slider to maintain happiness.

Other Civs have made demands of me twice so far. I gave in both times, preferring to choose the time and place for war myself.

I have been capturing towns instead of razing. Early in the game I built one temple, in a town where a culture clash with Spain was a possibility. That early temple added enough culture to keep me nearly at par with my neighbors so far.

I've been investing in galley expeditions since 1450BC. And that's all I'll say on that subject in this post :)

PTW 1.27 Open

I settled washington one tile south out the starting position and buildt scout, scout, warrior, settler, granary. My first city was a mistake, i build it 4 tiles south of washington, where the food was just as scarce. So in 1000 bc i only had 8 cities and two settlers (but managed to get the iron before england, they were backwards and even slower to expand than me). Spain and the Vikings had 3-4 cities more than me most of the time.

Science

I switched from max to minimum science, depending on the tech pace (wich was pretty slow). Managed to keep up well enough. The other civs (some of them) built the wonders a lot quicker than usual on monarch. I usually manage to handbuild at least two or three in the AA, but this time i only got one (the great wall, swithced from GL to make sure i didnt waste a few hundred shields and because GW would help me trigger a golden age).

Wars

In the AA i only had one war. It lasted around 40 turns, and was against Spain. I decided to have a go at them before they got to the middle age, due to their size and strength. It wasnt a very succesful one, but i managed to get their iron and their two wool. Snatching the iron just after they entered the MA. In all i took three cities. Made peace for feudalism.

I had a lot of suicide galleys in this game. One got lucky. But i suppose i'm not allowed to share more about that here.

After my old post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1522325#post1522325) I soon saw that this GOTM would be hard to finish with my intense workload at my new worplace. I have a few days before the month ends however, so I put in an effort the last night to continue.

I quckly dispatched of the few english towns, capturing 3 and destroying the rest since they where at size one. I then decided to fill out the rest of the island and push hard for a quick medevial entry and my future med.inf/knight push into the northwest.

I entered a short war with the not so very secret civilization of Scandinavia. He killed a warrior, I got a happier population and an elite horseman.

With some hard techracing and various tech trades I finished the Ancient Age in 190BC. My citycount is at 21, and I'm finishing up my economic/scientific infrastructiure in my core cities. I managed to squize a town deep in spanish territory, where I will aim for a future FP. This is my growing empire at 190BC:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/GOTM27SINGU190BC.jpg.gif

My worker count is quite low, but once I get granaries/temples in the fringe cities I will bolster it at once. Not too much happened so far in this game, and I'm still a bit rusty to optimize citizen control and overall gameplay.

I just finished GOTM 27, my first GOTM ever.
Difficulty : Open .

I lost around 700 AD.
I'll submit my game asap.

Here is a summary :

First, I quickly build a nice set of about 12 cities,
made contact with all four neighbouring civs,
and discovered most of the continent.

then, I started a war against England in order to take
the Iron source.

After building an appropriate force,
I started a war against England, that was obviously weaker.
Spain came along, and Elisabeth was toasted in a few turns.

But, as soon as England was terminated,
Spain declared war. (the turn after)

Wth my forces streched thin :o/,
I was unable to resist for long.
(I gained a few turns of respite,
but I think it only damaged my score)

I don't think my rep was damaged, so I wonder.

I obviously should have attacked Spain rather than England.
I thought attacking an Ironless England was a better start to reinforce before confronting Spain.

Was I plainly wrong ?
How do you strong players choose in such a case ?
What does influence your strategy ?

thanks in advance.

Originally posted by Old_Lion
... I started a war against England, that was obviously weaker. Spain came along, and Elisabeth was toasted in a few turns. But, as soon as England was terminated, Spain declared war. (the turn after) ...

Did you have Right of Passage with Spain? This could make you an easy target for their assault. Did you have many undefended cities on the border and inside your territory? Undefended cities is a big temptation for AI. Did you have alliance with Spain against England? After England was eliminated their attitude might have dropped enough for them to declare war.

Spain was very strong in this game. If England fell rapidly, Spain could have many offensive units and superior military. It could have been better to weaken Spain by a small war in alliance with England (for distraction) to get their iron in Barcelona first with offensive units mostly trying to take out Spanish offensive units. Then, crush England allied with Spain to make Spain stretch the forces and after this, go for real war with Spain. It worked in my case. Without iron they could not counterattack efficiently against swordsmen/medeival infantry/knights.

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

I've been qualified for this thread for over a week, but I've had so little game-time this month that I'm not sure at all that I'll be able to finish :(

So, a quick note. I followed SirPleb's advice, and moved my Settler on the first turn. My scout's 2nd turn going along the river revealed Lambs and Floodplains, so my Settler and Worker hurried over and founded Washington in 3800 BC. I built a 2nd scout, then a Warrior (to guard my growing treasury from Barbarians!), then a Granary, and got a 5 turn Settler factory going. (This is nice, but it does give up any tempo to claiming territory from the other civs.)

The incense space was 3 tiles SE from the capital, so I chose to use a 3.x ring for my inner cities; much more compact than I typically do. I was surprised at the lack of corruption or waste, but I realized later that was more due to the map size and number of civs than the ring placement.

Met the Spanish first around 3300 BC, and traded Pottery and 6 Gold for Ceremonial Burial. Switched my minimal Alphabet research to minimal Mysticism (now that I knew a commercial civ was nearby.) Met the English around 3100 BC (they already knew Mysticism!), and traded Masonry for Alphabet (2 civ discount), and for BronzeWorking from the Spanish. Since Mysticism was known, I started a minimal research on Mathematics. This did eventually work, and I traded for Iron-Working from the English (unique Tech to them), and Math and IronWork to Spanish for Writing, WarCode and Wheel (2 civs each). I got all of their money at this time, too. I could see the iron spaces, and Spain had one locked up already, and the English got to the 2nd. This put a big Target on the English.

Started Research on Map-making at high research rate. Spanish got there first, of course, but each turn of research reduced the cost to buy it more than the commerce I spent on the research, so I kept researching. Then the English had it, and this wasn't true anymore, so I bought Map-Making from Spain (didn't want to enrich my first enemy) for about 200 gold. Switched Temple pre-builds to Galleys at 3 of my coastal cities. Funny thing, just before my first galley was complete, 4 Squids and a Barb Galley camp just outside the city! Once complete, I'd fight outside than retreat to heal (should have built some catapults!) Eventually I saw an opening and made a break for it. Made contact with our Scandinavian neighbors (who are visible from our continent; I parked my scout at the same location as Hurricane, but nobody came by before the Spanish kicked me out.)

Vikings had Poly!, but no Masonry. I'd nearly finished CodeofLaws, saw that Spain had CoL already, so bought it from Spain, traded CoL, Map-Making and Masonry to Vikings for Poly and all their gold, then sold Poly to Spain for all of Isabella's gold! Started a fast research on Philosophy, then onto Republic.

This is roughly 1000 BC. I have 11 cities, around 30 citizens, 20 Warriors or so, 8 workers or so (sorry if I'm not too specific, but I don't have my stats with me), 2 luxuries connected (I got one of the Wool spaces for a city), about 1100 Gold, and am 1 turn away from Philosophy. I'd just declared war on England, and have an 11 high stack of warriors adjacent to Coventry, Elizabeth's Iron town.

I proceed to destroy Coventry, get my own city founded there and connect the Iron. With Swordsmen, I defend the Iron space, and send an expedition around the Great Lake, to destroy all things English. In the meantime, I do learn Republic, and very nicely, the Spanish get Currency and the English Construction. A suicide Galley makes contact with somebody else, who has Monarchy, which I trade for, than trade Monarchy for Currency from the Spanish (and all their gold). After destroying London, I grant peace to the English, and we exchange Poly for Construction. This puts me into the Middle Ages, in 410 BC.

Some other notes: with the change in army costs and support under Republic, I delayed my revolution until later; I waited until my additional army costs roughly equaled the number of citizens in my empire. That occurs in the next thread. Consequently a small empire with a small army can change to Republic faster. A lot of players have reported early aggression by the Spanish. I may have stalled that early on by gifting them 1 gpt fairly early; we also did a lot of trading, which usually makes the AI more friendly. The Spanish must have started with 3 Settlers, based on the cities I came across. The other civ I met by suicide galley had a vessel called 'Mr Rouke's "ship" ', which implies to me a free vessel to start the game (seafaring, maybe?) And I haven't played maps this large often at all; I got the Forbidden Palace Available message at 16 cities; this definitely puts a damper on the Palace Jump strategy/exploit, due to how long it is before you can build the FP.

Anyway, quite fun as always. I hope to be able to post later.

Originally posted by Old_Lion
...

then, I started a war against England in order to take
the Iron source.

After building an appropriate force,
I started a war against England, that was obviously weaker.
Spain came along, and Elisabeth was toasted in a few turns.

But, as soon as England was terminated,
Spain declared war. (the turn after)

...

I obviously should have attacked Spain rather than England.
I thought attacking an Ironless England was a better start to reinforce before confronting Spain.

...


Well ... this is exactly what I did :) up to a point. You didn't mention if Spain was allied with you; I didn't start an alliance. If an enemy is destroyed while you're in an alliance, I believe this counts as breaking an agreement. This could have soured Spain against you. (Also, I didn't completely destroy England; just weakened her substantially, and made sure I had the Iron source.)

Also, prior trading generally makes points for you with the other civ. I gifted 1 gpt early on to the Spanish; then, when I made a big Math/Writing trade, I made as part of the agreement a 2 gpt payment on my part to Isabella. Making gpt deals, and fulfilling them, tends to take you off the Target list initially (after all, declaring war would cost Isabella the 2 gpt payment) and make the other civ more friendly to you in general. In my game, Spain was polite with me when I declared war against England, and eventually changed to Cautious, but that was some time later.

Old Lion & Civ Steve

I too went to war early with England. However, I took the point-stick research approach. I always set a goal for my war. War number one with England, grab iron. Hurt her enough to get two techs. Then I did the same thing with Spain. Capture three cities, inflict pain to get two techs.

I then went to war to wipe out England and they folded like a house of cards.

Spain had the Colossus and lighthouse in Madrid, and my second war with them was intended to capture up to Madrid. However, when they build the Library in Zaragosa, and they stopped counter attacking, I just kept going and killed Spain.

I try to keep some defensive units along the non-combat fronts, and keep a decent amount of units in border cities to supress flips and deter aggression.

Originally posted by Old_Lion
I thought attacking an Ironless England was a better start to reinforce before confronting Spain.

Was I plainly wrong ?
How do you strong players choose in such a case ?
What does influence your strategy ?


My stragegy has always been: attack the strongest first before he can get even stronger. I did that in my first submitted game in gotm20 (vs. Zulus). I'm not sure if that was the best strategy. but atleast that stopped my strongest enemy (the AI cannot survive against a concentrated attack even on Deity). In this game, I chose to attack Spain first, as they got the strongest start of my neighbours, and their critical Iron resource was near. I decided my goals first before attacking. My goal was to take their most important resource and it was Iron in this case. After that I thought, that they would be easy. In my case, I had so strong attack force that I was able to corner them and request cities in a peace deal. After that I went for England, who were weak and would be weak because they had no resources.

I would agree with Drazek in most cases, unless you are the one lacking the key resource, then you may have to settle for attacking an easier source to get Iron or whatever yourself. In this game, my strategy actually took a slightly different path, for two reasons. First, I had already fought an early war vs. Spain, which they provoked. I didn't conquer them, but did raze a couple cities and halted their expansion, so I knew I could take them later. Second, England had 2 luxuries and was putting cultural pressure on my iron source, so I thought it was the best way to secure my logistics before going after Spain again. But in general, if you have enough power to make the choice, I would postpone the weaker civ and deal with the stronger first. They will still be weak later. The exception would be if they are weak now, but will become strong later, because of a powerful UU or likely access to new resources.

I followed SirPleb's start strategy and founded Washington and later New York in exactly the same spots as he did.

After reading of other's success, I had palace jump on my mind, so I spent a long time (like 4 hours) thinking about how to place my first cities. After meeting England and Spain, I was convinced that I was on European continent and would have to sail for the New World, so I figured I would palace jump there somehow. I decided to build New York to the s and w of Washington because it was on a river, it had the bonus tile, and it seemed more central for a FP.

2900 Settled New York, building granary (to be settler pump).
2800 see purple outline on island to north
2710 happy wool connected -- can save even more shields
1750 3rd city Boston was on river with bonus sheep/wool to s and west, in land grab race against Spain.

1500 4th city Philadelphia on narrow spot of land to s and e, to hold back English. (Nice surprise later to find iron there).
1475 5th city Atlanta on flood plains
1325 6th city Chicago on river with lots of hills (to s)
1300 -- finally saw a 'purple person'

825 7th city Seattle.
ALERT: Blue aliens form a city in MY backyard! This cannot be tolerated!
750 destroy the Blue aliens outpost -- they of course are furious.
610 8th city Miami built where the aliens thought to sneak up on me.

Middle Ages reached, research Republic in 24 turns.

I was pretty happy with my start (until I read this spoiler, how can some get so many cities so fast!). I had grabbed some land, Spain and England were polite to me and we traded back and forth (and also traded with Purple and Blue). I spent a lot of time looking for trade deals, so I think I did pretty well there.

But I was a long way from building any boats and going to the New World....