GOTM 62 First Spoiler

GOTM 62 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 62, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD.
• Please do not name civilizations that requires caravels to contact.

Settled in place, and immediately saw what looked like the 'gap' in the mountains. My warrior raced for it but Toku popped his borders before he got there. Oh well, we have a reasonable amount of land, with a reasonable smattering of resources.

Put the second city NE NW, to grab the copper/corn/fish/wines, then 3rd for the silver/gems/crabs/clams.

Tech path: Agr - Wheel - Pottery - BW - Myst - Poly - PH - Writing - Fishing - CoL - CS (Oracled in 725BC)

Toku founded confucianism in 950BC
It spread to Hatty in 825BC, bad news. Unbelievably it spread to Moscow in 525BC. Toku actually asked me for open borders, which is rare sight indeed. Toku was still annoyed at Hatty at +2, but I got to pleased at +4 IIRC.

At 1ad, borders have just been opened, and an Axe is going through to have a look. Just finished MC, then I need to get a few more fillers, such as sailing & calendar.

Like Neil, I settled in place. Next cities were #2 on the marble (2040BC), #3 NW of the near gems (1000BC), #4 NW of the far corn (550BC), and at 1AD I was getting ready to settle 2W of the dye. I didn't get open borders with Toku until well after 1 AD. I started playing this game over the New Year's weekend--probably should have waited to read about the ideas for gifting cities, d'oh! I founded Hinduism and Toku even adopted it in 2160 BC, but shared religion (along with gifting every resource I could spare) didn't do the trick before he founded and converted to Christianity. I just got Alphabet and traded it to him for Math, but I'm way behind everybody on techs. Just hoping Christianity spreads to me.

I got the Parthenon in 325 BC (city#2) and the Great Lighthouse is now coming along nicely there. Moscow was building the Oracle and I could have gotten it but tried to stretch things to get Civil Service and lost it by 4 turns in 400 BC. General plan is to give this crazy idea of using cossacks a chance instead of my tried and true cannon/grens|Mguns, but I shan't be breaking any records for speed this game.

Techs:

I settled 1E of the start -- it's probably about the same as in place I think. Here's my tech order:

Wow, nice start, shyuhe! Would you say that beelining Alphabet was critical to your success? I'm guessing that allowed you to do a couple tech trades with Toku, before he pulled ahead (leaving you with nothing to offer), allowing you to research other techs off his path for trade. Did you have to de-emphasize early REXing in order to focus on teching? I beelined Polyth, hoping Hinduism would spread to Toku; it did, but too late. Waiting for something to spread to me, or better yet gifting a city, or even better, somehow managing to get some techs to give/trade to Toku as you did, seems the way to go. Once I'm finished with this game I'd like to go back and try out a different approach or two.

Alphabet is a good tech to go for in vanilla as it's not a high AI priority. Although Toku always prioritizes it for some reason. He finished alphabet one or two turns after I did. I did gift Toku CS of all things, and only got +2 fair trade! That was a little infuriating. I did not share religions with Toku as he got spread from Izzy (Buddhism) instead. I just went the standard peace + resource trade + fair trade to push him to pleased, then picked up OB with him.

In hindsight, I think capital wonderspam would work the best on this map as the starting area isn't exactly awash in commerce. In terms of techs though, I'm more or less neck and neck with Toku by beaker count although we went different research routes. And I can't pick up his techs since he won't trade monopoly techs unless he's friendly!

shyuhe said:

150 iw/sailing/archery (trade)

Click to expand...

Yeah, it is nice that Toku will trade techs at Pleased... as long as all of the other ladies know the techs, too.

Learning Alphabet yourself would allow you to see what the "girls" do and do not have, but "knowing" which techs the "girls" do or do not know won't make Toku want to trade them any faster!


I decided to NOT Wonderspam in this game (which is rare for me) although the game seems well set up for doing a nice Wonderspam.


I had an early setback when a Barb Warrior who was patrolling around my borders for what seemed like forever (5 or 6 turns) decided to enter my borders and attack my Warrior-defended Worker #1, eating both of them. All of a sudden, I had zero Workers! I simply told myself "no worries, just build 2 more Workers immediately to make up for the loss," and that's what I did.

Settled on the odd desert tile nearby. Grabbed a couple basic techs and went for Oracle. Was afraid I'd miss it if I tried the CS sling, so I went with Confuscism, hoping to convert Toku, but he founded Christianity. He's converted and stayed that way. I'm hoping it will spread to me, or I can eventually get him to convert to Confuscism with me--seems pretty critical for a non-war monger strat.

At 1AD, I am a turn away from Civil Service. I have four cities of my own, and I'm about to take one from the barbs with my axes. I founded another marginal city which I gave to Toku for the critical early diplo advantage. We're all buddies now.

Playing a chill game, not totally sure what I'll go with. Maybe I'll take my beloved Tokugawa with me to the stars!

I've been unable to play XOTM's for the last 3 months, but decided this one is too fun to pass up.

I settled on the desert tile. My tech path was strikingly similar to shyuhe's, with the notable exception of skipping Alpha (got it 0AD) and going for an earlier CS.



I got very lucky with diplomacy.
Isa founded Buddhism (t13) which promptly spread to Toku who converted for a while (t24), but he founded Hindu shortly thereafter (t26), and later converted to his own religion (t40).
On the turn I was about to complete CoL for the Oracle CS, Confu was founded elsewhere (t77) and I stayed religionless. Then a couple turns later, Hindu spread to me, and I converted, so in 550BC Toku was pleased and we opened borders.

This was sort of a double-edged sword, as he sent a settling party to my lands. However, I was able to whip a bunch of settlers and capture a barb city, leaving no available room for him to settle. I had 7 cities as of 250BC, albeit the rush caused me to change my original dot-map plans. (see screenie)



After the REX, my (not-so-original) plans are a peaceful development until I get MT from Lib, then bonk some princesses's heads on my way to my preferred VC: space.

Weird map!

I wanted to go culture, but maybe fighting, errr I dunno

Settled on the 1 food desert spot. I'm a sucker for settling on awful tiles, thus making them useful. 2nd city was NW upstream from the river.

I scraped to alphabet, and gave it to Toku. This wasn't enough unfortunately. However he converted to confu & spread it to me! Open borders, woop! He swiftly came and settled my lands, doh. Never mind, I'm creative and before long the city converted to me. Same thing happened with a bar city. I then manged to lose concentration I leave an empty city for the barb archer that came from that city to capture, I mean seriously how bad was that play? Fortunately it was a newish city with nothing in it.

I've got 5 cities (& the barb one to take back) in my territory. Might settle one more. My economy is pretty good all in all. I teched through to music and traded drama & then music for a load of backfill techs. Compared to conquisidator above, I am down currency, cs and col, but up drama and music I think. Maybe I'm missing a religious tech or two.

Was planing on an cat/phants attack - then realised I didn't have any elephants in my land. OK - maybe macemen/catapults then, need to research CoL, CS, machinery and maths or whatever the catapult tech is. Let's see what the next 50 turns bring. I also have two religions, early theatres & some other culture stuff built should I decide to go for a cultural victory. I just can't decide at the moment At least I don't have the techs needed for my planned assault yet so I can build more cultural stuff whilst I'm waiting. This could all get screwed up of course if the princess who also has confu can get open borders with Toku & attack me, I have stuff all troops around at the moment.

Amazed some people got CS from oracle. I thought that was practically impossible in the top 3 difficulties. Ah well, live and learn.

WelshGandalf said:

Amazed some people got CS from oracle. I thought that was practically impossible in the top 3 difficulties. Ah well, live and learn.

Click to expand...

Normally you would be correct. However, with everyone except Toku 'at war' with everyone else, this was always going to stunt them. Having said that, it was still a gamble.

Hi, guys! Thank you very much for the encouragement in the other thread. I'm now at 1000 AD after a 4 hour session (this game is ruining my life ). I'm pretty badly behind other civs (as I expected), but at least my empire is functioning. Do you think 4 cities is too few? They are placed so that the entire "triangle" is within my cultural borders.

On a brighter note, Toku is pleased with me. All it took was some bribes and, later on, trading. He is also annoyed towards 2 other princesses and cautious towards one, which should mean that I have a one-way attack route to my rivals' home territories. I haven't taken action yet; I'm planning on teching to cossacks before breaking all the hell loose. Is that a good idea in your opinion?

Two random notes:
- At a passing moment of stupidity, I adopted Confucianism as my state religion even though Toku already had Buddhism. Of course, I had to switch back to "no state religion" ASAP. In summary: two turns wasted, but one lesson learned.
- Holy crap those barbs found cities fast. I had to squeeze my second settlement between two of theirs. Fortunately, I got access to copper and easily razed them with my axemen.

Jouzou said:

Hi, guys! Thank you very much for the encouragement in the other thread. I'm now at 1000 AD after a 4 hour session (this game is ruining my life ).

Click to expand...

Hehe, you are now officially a CivFanatic. Remember, "just...one...more...turn".

I'm pretty badly behind other civs (as I expected), but at least my empire is functioning. Do you think 4 cities is too few? They are placed so that the entire "triangle" is within my cultural borders.

Click to expand...

It always depends on the situation, but 4 cities at 1000ad is definitely too few. Have a look at some other games using the game replay tool and see how fast the medalists settled cities.

On a brighter note, Toku is pleased with me. All it took was some bribes and, later on, trading. He is also annoyed towards 2 other princesses and cautious towards one, which should mean that I have a one-way attack route to my rivals' home territories. I haven't taken action yet; I'm planning on teching to cossacks before breaking all the hell loose. Is that a good idea in your opinion?

Click to expand...

Yep, that is a fairly accurate appraisal. Attacking depends on the situation of the AI of course. If the AI have Infantry when you get to Cossacks, you will find it hard going.

Hey GTOMers, I'm looking for any advice on how to play faster. Here are some of my details from this game so far:

I'm At 1AD I'm at 5 Cities and 33 Pop. Wonders: got the Oracle, should be done Parthenon in 75 AD.

Barbs were a bit of a pain for me sending a stack (of two warriors!) at Moscow around 1700BC.
I'm in last place in score, but I think my tech pace is not too bad, and I got kinda lucky with Toku founding Christianity and it spreading to me. I haven't opened borders yet, but I want to finish settling cities in my territory first.

My tech order was
Ag
Wheel
Pot
Writing
Myst
Fishing
BW
Meditation
Archery
Ironworking
Priest
Masonry
Monarchy
Code of Laws
Civil Service from Oracle - turn 97 - 475 BC
Sailing
PolyTheism
Alpha
Literature

dates:

I'm pretty sure my expansion is slow due to building too many buildings. maybe I don't need the Libraries? Here's my builds:


and here's my screenie from 1AD:

Hi Arnold_T,

You are right, you have built too many buildings in Moscow. Your capital should generally only be building warriors/workers/settlers for the first 2000 years at least.

Looking at your post, your tech order seems a bit odd. 475BC is a late date to get Oracle.

Ag
Wheel
Pot
Writing (this is very early)
Myst
Fishing
BW
Meditation
Archery
Ironworking (If you are going for Oracle, you should not be researching these techs now)
Priest
Masonry
Monarchy (Again, this could have cost you Oracle)
Code of Laws
Civil Service from Oracle - turn 97 - 475 BC

The early libraries are OK, but not in your Capital, as long as you are using it to generate a GS. You want to have an academy in your Cap at about the same time you get Beauro. This map had some decent food, did you use the whip at all?

edit: and the courthouses are not necessary yet.

thanks for the advice neilmeister!
Yes, I was using the whip (having learned from BOTM37 how useful it is). I could probably have used it more though.
So, in the Capital, not a Granary either? no buildings at all?
And if you want an Academy in the Capital for Beauro, don't you have to have a Library there already? or is it possible to put an Academy there without a Library?

@ Arnold_T

Building infrastructure in your capital is fine. Typically, your capital will be your early worker and settler pump. However, your capital doesn't grow when making them. So, you should be building units, infrastructure and wonders in your capital so that it can grow. I think an early library is fine (which is NOT required for an academy, BTW) as is an early granary. The trick is to find a time to build them when it makes the most sense and doesn't interfere with your expansion (workers/settlers), your military (either for an early rush or protection from the barbs) or your early wonders.

I agree with neilmeister regarding Civil Service. If you're going for the CS sling, you should pretty much beeline it after you're researched the primary worker techs (e.g. AH if you have pigs, cows or sheep, agriculture if you have a farming resource, mining for mines, hunting if you have deer, ivory, etc.) and possibly Masonry if you have access to marble. BW is good too for chopping/whipping and finding copper. In general, the sooner you get into Bureaucracy, the better. Then you can trade for any techs you skipped or you can research them a lot quicker once you're getting the 50% Bureau bonus on your commerce.

I rarely research Archery (or HBR). Neither are required, especially if you have access to copper and/or iron. At some higher levels, archery could be necessary to contain the barbs, but I think warriors do just fine in this game. IIRC, I built a total of 4 or 5 warriors to fog bust our entire area and I only saw one barb warrior the entire game. These warriors can later be military police in your new cities as your culture expands to keep the barbs from spawning. If you're not familiar with how spawn busting works, let me know and I'll direct you to a link showing the results of some extensive testing I did during SGOTM-11.

EDIT: When we're talking about "early" infrastructure in your capital, it should not be one of the first few builds. Also, if you beeline the CS sling after worker techs, you likely don't have too much time for infrastructure before you start the Oracle anyway.

Your initial build order looks good.

Worker -> 2 x Warriors -> Settler -> Worker.

After that, you might have needed another fogbuster, or MP, and I can see you built an Archer. Seeing that we were safe behind Toku, researching Archery, and building one, were not required. A Warrior is less hammers, and is just as good at MP or fogbusting. (If you had barb spearmen wandering around, thats different).

After that, it depends. A granary is always a good idea, if you have spare hammers. A settler if there is another really good spot available. Otherwise, you want to be starting the Oracle asap. Once you have Oracled CS, you now have +50% hammers to build Library/Settler spam.

@Academy, you don't need a library first (other than to generate the GS).


edit: x-post

BTW, Meditation (or Polytheism) is required for Priesthood and must be researched early. I do agree with neilmeister that Archery, IW and Monarchy should wait until after CoL and the CS slingshot.

thanks for the input Mitchum! I will try to beeline CS wthout Writing and Library. I was foillowing the CS/PCS Slingshot strategy posted by VirtualM Apr 19 2006, which says research Pottery (not sure why you need Pottery) and Writing to Library which will allow you to run Scientists in your Capital in order to get to CoL before the Oracle is finished. I guess what you guys are saying is that you risk missing the Oracle this way, and this will only work on lower levels, or games where most of the AI is Always at War with each other