GOTM 39: Spoiler 1 - The Ancient Era, All Contacts

ControlFreak said:

Couldn't get to the extra food up north with R3 spacing and thought R5 would be too far on a crowded Panagea. I was therefore stuck with R4 which, per Sir Pleb's accurate assessment, was not optimal. All but one of my inner core cities need an aquaduct. That was very poor planning and will slow me down as I try to build more expensive units.

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I see someone else used the same (bad) reasons as I did when deciding the distance of the first ring. Building aqueducts isn't exactly my favourite thing to do, but I guess with those cities being the most productive ones, it must be done.

Predator

Making a temporary comback to GOTM, I decided to go for a swift conquest. I like the new style predator handicaps like the AI pikemen. They persuaded me to be patient and not throw away a bunch of precious horsemen.

I settled in place and built a 6 turn settler factory like most others. I settled for RCP4. Granted, there were several disadvantages about RCP4, most notably the lack of rivers, but I didn't plan to need size 7 cities.

This was the QSC situation:


You'll notice the decline of the English since York is the capital. I earned two techs from the Zulu when I signed an alliance against England around this time. But York had an elite pikeman, so I planted some horsemen on a hill in OCC England and waited for the Zulus to wound the pikeman. This was successful when the pikeman was brought down to three hit points in 650 BC and I eliminated the English. I had no other wars in the ancient era.

Around 400-350 BC I bought currency and entered the Middle Ages. I got Engineering. One other civ got Feudalism. Unfortunately no one got Monotheism so I started researching that myself. By this time I had some fresh libraries, around 35 horsemen, 1700 gold and was building a road towards Greece. It seemed imperative to expand westward first to close the distance to China. They looked like the nation most likely to delay a conquest victory.

I did not revolt until well after the scope of the thread. Republic and Monarchy were the last techs I got from the ancient age and it seemed wrong to revolt when I was ready to research monotheism. Also, my waiting game meant I had too few towns (15) at the start of the Middle Ages to support my army in republic or even in monarchy.

So far it's nice to be back.

Megalou said:

I like the new style predator handicaps like the AI pikemen.

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I do not play GOTM39, but I enjoy reading and after seeing Randy's extraordinary performance I have a question whether two pikes for predator AI can be described as the following:

Predator Class Game Details for Gotm said:

The intent of these changes is to raise the difficulty without altering strategic play progress from that which you would see for comparison in the conquest class and open class games.

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Based on what I read strategic play progress is somewhat different for predator and open.

solenoozerec said:

Based on what I read strategic play progress is somewhat different for predator and open.

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This is an example of modifying tactics, not strategy.

Megalou said:

So far it's nice to be back.

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A famous civver wrote the next prophetic words:

@Megalou : So long, though I'll be laying bets you can't stay away that long.

Good to hear of you again.

@Megalou, nice to see a top player back. Civ 4 is still far off, you know, so stick around. And I expect all scandinavians to make a run for the titles in the upcoming COTM9.

@Randy, I can just imagine your legs shaking as you bravely start your first wars with warriors. Great work!

Thank you guys. @Redbad: I see you're really working on those paragraphs. Three of them in such a short post is not bad. Good luck with your game.

Randy's game is simply fascinating and very bold. Will anyone stand a chance scorewise? I could not have parallelled that even if I had tried. My choice of tactics (I guess that's the right word), was mainly due to the fact that I often squander a portion of my ancient era units before they have been sufficiently upgraded (2 pikemen or no 2 pikemen). Particularly with conquest as a goal and not domination, I feel the need for a devastating force which takes longer to produce.

@MiniMe: Good luck with COTM9. I'm sorry to say I don't play COTM. I've given away the disc to limit my civving. And that's been definite for many months...

ainwood said:

This is an example of modifying tactics, not strategy.

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Merriam-Webster Dictionary said:

1 a (1) : the science and art of employing the political, economic, psychological, and military forces of a nation or group of nations to afford the maximum support to adopted policies in peace or war (2) : the science and art of military command exercised to meet the enemy in combat under advantageous conditions b : a variety of or instance of the use of strategy
2 a : a careful plan or method : a clever stratagem b : the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal...

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WordIQ said:

Military strategy is a collective name for planning the conduct of warfare. Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy was seen as the "art of the general". Military strategy deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy. The father of modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war." Military strategy was one of a triumvirate of "arts" or "sciences" that govern the conduct of warfare; the others being tactics, the execution of plans and manoeuvering of forces in battle, and logistics, the maintenance of an army.

Military tactics is the collective name for methods of engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Through time, military tactics have changed much under the influence of philosophy and technology.
Up until the 19th century, much of military tactics was confined to battlefield tactics, concerned with maneuvering units in battle in open terrain. In current military thought, tactics is the operational application of forces to a situation. This is different from military strategy, which is more concerned with long-term results.
Specialized tactics exist for many situations, from situations as small as securing a room to large-scale operations such as establishing air superiority in aircraft carrier battles. Today, military tactics are employed on all levels of command, from individual and group up to entire armed forces. Indeed, the units used in warfare have always been a reflection of current military tactics, and their size and composition have varied accordingly.
Common military tactics include frontal assaults, attempts to flank the enemy, keeping troops in reserve and the use of ambushes. Often deception in the form of camouflage, or misdirection using decoys, are used to confuse the enemy.

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My understanding of these terms in application to this game is that deciding on whether to attack first with an elite or a veteran unit is a tactical decision.
Taking out four civilization before 1000BC (it still does not fit into my mind ) is definitely a strategic decision.
The same goal can be achieved in different ways and these are tactical differences. But taking four civilizations out before 1000BC is not achievable in predator because of those two pikes. Therefore, this difference makes strategic progress of the game different for open and predator.

True, however this is an exceptional circumstance. If I had simply given each AI an extra warrior, then this alone may have prevented the result (4 civs destroyed by 1000 BC), as the margins are tight and luck was a heavy factor.

I would instead consider it as follows:
The attempt to destroy as many civs as possible as early as possible is a purely strategic decision - the can be pursued in Conquest, Open or Predator. True - the likelihood of achieving it is lower in Predator, but there is nothing to prevent you trying.

The main difference would be that in predator, you would be well-advised to at least use an early archer rush than attempt an warrior rush.

ainwood said:

True, however this is an exceptional circumstance. If I had simply given each AI an extra warrior, then this alone may have prevented the result (4 civs destroyed by 1000 BC), as the margins are tight and luck was a heavy factor.

I would instead consider it as follows:
The attempt to destroy as many civs as possible as early as possible is a purely strategic decision - the can be pursued in Conquest, Open or Predator. True - the likelihood of achieving it is lower in Predator, but there is nothing to prevent you trying.

The main difference would be that in predator, you would be well-advised to at least use an early archer rush than attempt an warrior rush.

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I am not complaining (not even playing), just wondering. The line between strategy and tactics is not sharp anyway. It just seems to me that these two pikes made a predator and open classes more different in GOTM39 (I did not form an opinion on whether it is good or bad) than in any game I played before (since cotm2).
Yes, indeed even an extra warrior would prevent Randy’s result. But why pikes and not spears?
I would not go against pikes even with archers, I would wait until knights or at least swords which means no earlier wars.

I think pikes are assailable with horses or archers in sufficient numbers. I have never seen hoplites as untouchable without swords, and they have the same defence as pikes. In this instance I didn't start any hostilities in the ancient era. But the AI had two pikes each and couldn't build any more until the middle ages. More often than not one or other of them were wandering about in the open, escorting settlers or alone. So they were a limited asset to the AI.

I must say my warmongering instinct was sorely tempted to try to cut them down to size once I had some horses. I'd never have tried with warriors though.

GOTM 39 Turnlog – Germany 100k Culture

This time I plan to aim for a 100k culture victory. The most important goal will therefore to build as many libraries as soon as possible, along with other culture buildings. This will be achieved in the following ways:

Research – Pottery, CB, IW are all immediate priorities, then Lit. By the time I get pottery I should have contact (if this is a true Pangea) and know whether I can make a beeline directly for Lit.

Expansion – Only +2 food bonus. This will slow early expansion. Because I’m going for 100k, I want a tight (ICS maybe?) city placement to cram in as many libraries and temples as possible during the ancient age. Since I’ll be building culture improvements, expanding borders should be easy.

War – The map will be very cramped. This means I will want an early war to capture more territory. A couple cities should become unit pumps for an ancient age war. . Eliminating two neighbors quickly will allow more space for libraries.

Infrastructure – Duh. Libraries and temples are the first build priority for any city that can realistically build them, except maybe the unit pumps. I shouldn’t be afraid to poprush my culture buildings, especially in captured cities.

4000BC – Explore with worker.



Since I uncover two BGs with the worker, I settle in place rather than wasting a turn to uncover a bunch of random tiles. This city spot is still shield-poor and not exceptionally food-rich, and I expect to make a lot of workers here. My initial plan will be to mine/road a BG in preparation for the border expansion, then go and cut the forest once I have a chance of using it to help build a granary.

3950 BC – 1 culture – worker builds road
3800 BC – 4 Culture, Worker moves NE, Berlin warrior > warrior
3600 BC – 8 Culture, Berlin warrior > warrior
3550 BC – 9 Culture, Meet English, Buy pottery for 23g, research IW at min. research
3350 – 13 Culture Berlin war > war
3250 – 15 Culture, Berlin war > Granary, meet Zulu
2900 – 22 Culture, meet Arabs
2850 – 23 Culture, meet Ottomans, buy CB for 36 gold
2710 – 32 Culture, Berlin Granary > Settler
2590 – 38 Culture, Meet Celts and Romans, finished irrigating game
2550 – 39 Culture, Trade alphabet + 5g for wheel with Celts. Berlin has horses
2470 – 44 Culture, Get Mysticism from a goody hut, sell it to Celts for 43g. The celts are a good friend.
2430 – 46 Culture, Berlin Settler > Settler. I want to build a temple but I need a third city first.

I’ll build two rings here at positions 3 and 6. The two food-bonus spaces will take up the settler slack so the capital can build a temple and library. Settling the jungle to the south can wait as I’d rather not sink all my workers into hacking vines just yet.



2150 – 60 Culture, Meet Greece and sell them the wheel for 45 gold.
1990 – 68 Culture, Found Corn River on the corn + cows space as a second settler factory.
1910 – 72 Culture, Second city begins Granary. I conduct a series of trades in which I buy writing and contact with the Americans from the Zulu and then sell writing to the Americans. I paid 200g plus masonry and the wheel but I really want to get to literature.
1870 – 74 culture, Set lux to 10% because Berlin is growing.
1790 – 80 Culture, Berlin Temple > worker. My first culture building! Also finish IW research Lit at 100%. There is iron on a hill to the SW.
1725 – 88 Culture, Berlin worker > worker
1675 – 96 Culture, Berlin worker > barracks. The English are weak and have wines. Now that I have IW I plan to take them out eventually.
1600 – 108 Culture, Berlin Barracks > warrior (note: At this point I’m not recording every last build anymore. My notes get less frequent as my empire grows.)
1400 – 140 Culture, poprush temple in Corn River
1375 – 146 Culture, Celts send some menacing archers into my territory. I decline to expel them in an effort to keep the peace as my army is still small. Instead I send a couple units into nearby cities and cross my fingers. They decline to attack. It appears they’re going after Greece or Rome.
1100 – 230 Culture, Zulus declare war just as I was massing swordsmen on the border with England. Lucky for England. I was planning to go to war to get wines and land. The Zulu have both of those too.
1025 – 257 Culture, Destroy Ulundi with Swordsmen.
825 – 341 Culture, Still pumping settlers from my two food-rich cities. I’ve obtained Polytheism and CoL through trades and start researching Republic at minimum. I don’t plan to be at war constantly so I won’t go for Monarchy.
800 – 354 Culture, destroy Ishandlwana.
750 – 380 Culture, Found a city on top of a burned Zulu city. I now have wines.
670 – 432 Culture, Zimbabwe builds Oracle. Great, the city I’m about to take builds the most useless wonder ever. Better that than swordsmen I guess.
550 – 537 Culture, Capture Zimbabwe
510 – 581 Culture, Greece contacts the other continent and I buy contact with China. I also trade CoL for construction.
390 – 740 culture, thanks to bungling on my part, the Zulu retake Zimbabwe. And since I’m trading my extra Iron to the Ottomans, I can’t build more swordsmen until the deal expires.
330 – 836 Culture, Destroy Mpondo
310 – 868 Culture, Buy Currency from Greece, propelling me into the Middle ages.

Ok, this is a lousy start. I’ve clearly hit the early middle age slump. The big mistake was building culture buildings so early. That really hindered my ability to get settlers and units out as soon as possible. If I’d waited until my early expansion was over, I would have sacrificed a bit of early culture for a much more culture later on. Plus I messed up big time by letting the Zulu liberate Zimbabwe. We’ll see how the Middle ages turn out…

(QSC map)

AlanH said:

I think pikes are assailable with horses or archers in sufficient numbers.

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I used a lot of horses in this game in the early wars. Because of the survivability factor, I think that they are even better than swords when attacking either spearman or pikes. And the AI only got two pikes each after all. So I don't believe that it really made much difference.

I'd never have tried with warriors though.

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That is the key difference. A warrior rush would never have a chance and I wouldn't think that that archers would either. I have never liked used this strategy at all, although I was impressed with Drazek and Sabre when they cut the X-man down to size in GOTM28.

I've used archers before against defence 3 opponents in situations where iron and horses were unavailable. It's messy, but since archers are relatively cheap and entirely expendable you can use them in a suicide mission to grab the resources you need. I consider them expendable as they become pretty well redundant once you can build fast units.

I'm a dummy. Ff you can do it with horses, then of course you can do it with archers too. You just need twice as many of them for the job. According to the combat calculator, the likelihood of success is when using an archer or horseman is 31.4%. By comparison, a sword is 50.9 and a warrior is only 9.7. All numbers assume a veteran unit attacking a regular fortified on grassland.

I was a game sponsor of an SG where we could only build archers, longbows, guerillas & panzers (as the Germans of course) and found that both bow units can be quite deadly when used in stacks with a couple of defenders to handle counterattacks.

PTW 1.27, Open
Thinking about 20K

I sent my worker north, then settled in place and started researching ceremonial burial. I'm thinking 20K, so I want some culture to build when I get city #2, and I've gotten burned before. I'm building a settler before a granary, so I'm confident I can get pottery before I need it anyway.

I build 4 warriors before a settler, since Berlin is growing slowly, and send them out in all directions. Some time later I get worried because I have 2 or 3 towns with no military in sight, but nobody takes advantage of my wanderers. I meet the Arabs first, and they won't trade with me. 2 turns later I meet the English and 2 turns after that I meet the Zulu. That same turn I finish learning CB and trade for alphabet and pottery. I start writing at minimum. On turn 18 I meet the Ottomans and Americans, and trade for masonry and mysticism.

A few turns before I learn writing, the English learn it. I trade masonry and mysticism for writing and some gold, then get iron working and the wheel for writing. The nearby iron and horses are very welcome. I start on poly at min and use the money I save to buy some workers, one Roman and one English. When someone learns map making, I trade maps and techs again, getting philosophy, math, horseback riding, and a nice map of the continent for basically nothing. When I learn poly I sell it and head for monarchy at max. I then trade it to get into the middle ages in 390 BC. During the interturn before this, someone meets the other civs and sells them contacts, so I meet all the requirements of this thread in one fell swoop.

In 2950 BC I finally get a settler out and he goes 3 steps NW to found Leipzig. I hurry the temple by chopping the game forest. I remember to switch Berlin to the Pyramids so the chop doesn't go there. After the temple in 2110 BC I build the Oracle (975 BC) and a library (875 BC). At the end of the ancient age, I'm almost done with the Hanging Gardens, but I'm switching governments. I think I'll get it, but it isn't a sure thing yet. I decided to revolt upon learning monarchy so as to be able to rerevolt if the anarchy was long (last month I forgot and was stuck with a 7 turn anarchy). It didn't work out well, as I got a 6 turn anarchy both times, and I'd have rather waited until after the HG were built, to make sure I got it. Oh, well.

Because of the game and the floodplain wheat, Leipzig has grown very quickly. It is working forests and the hill, so the shields are okay, but I need to get the jungle chopped pretty soon and the mountain mined. I haven't joined any workers because growth has been pretty quick there and painfully slow elsewhere. This may come back to haunt me.

My growth is slow. In 1000 BC I have 4 towns and 1 settler. I decided to put Leipzig alone at distance 3 and put a ring farther out, but I don't have much of a ring structure. This is about my usual situation, so I probably shouldn't gripe too much. I've got iron, horses, and spices connected, and my settler is marching down to the furs. I'm going to have to build culture to protect my fur city, but cheap libraries help. I get a few more cities by the end of the AA, but not many.

I haven't had any wars, though I've given in to some demands. I'm thinking I'll build up some knights and pick on some weak neighbors fairly soon. There hasn't been much warfare anywhere - none that I've noticed, in fact, but I expect that will change. I haven't done a good survey of who will be easy to pick on; that is my next step.

Hello again all, been a long time since I've played a GOTM, but I decided to jump right in and give a go at predator.


Very tight map! I get nervous when I'm this close to Zulus (Iro/Aztecs/Any with a fast early unit), luckily he wasn't very agressive this game. I really had no particular goals in mind but fast domination, picking my targets as I go. I planned to take out England, Zulu, Rome with swords and knights. Although after taking a look at old Caesars capital, I upgraded him to #1 on that list, I did not want to let him sit on that awesome piece of land, and I did not want him to get 10 legions defending that river encircled hill. Although, not wanting and getting are two different things, I got em, but it was costly. Woulda been better to outpace em with tech, but I wanted that bit of land for myself, but more on this in the next thread.


Here is my QSC highlight list:
4000 BC
worker north to cut forest
founded Berlin, building warrior, warrior, settler
3200 BC
Berlin completed settler, building warrior
3000 BC (20)
founded Leipzig, building worker
2850 BC
Berlin completed warrior, building settler
2470 BC
Berlin completed settler, building granary
2390 BC
founded Hamburg, building barracks
2070 BC
Berlin completed granary, building settler
1870 BC
rushed 18 shields in Berlin
1830 BC
Berlin completed settler, building settler
1750 BC (50)
founded Konigsberg, building worker
founded Frankfurt, building barracks
1575 BC
founded Munich, building worker
1425 BC
founded Heidelburg, prebuilding for library
1225 BC
founded Nuremberg, prebuilding for library
1200 BC
founded Cologne, prebuilding for library
1050 BC
founded Hannover, building library


And stats:
10 towns
22 population
2 settlers
11 workers
8 warriors
7 spearman
1 horseman
7 slaves
510g

Missing Techs:
Poly, Con, Currency in 9



My start was warrior x2, settler x2, granary, then I had a 6 turn settler factory in Berlin. I also ran an 8 turn factory at the floodplain wheat, but I was also building workers there. Start wasn't that bad, but the jungles are a big pain in the ass, I hate dropping a city when the best space available is 1food jungle.

The granary I'm not sure about, I considered mining the game, and then irrigating over it after the granary was built, but I didn't and it didn't seem to take too long. I did get mines on the 2 shieldlands, and I rushed once to get that initial settler after the granary build. This was to speed it up but also to start the 6 turn factory off correctly.








Comment on Randy's game:
Since thats Open game it sounds like a high school guy bullying the grade school kids. You shoulda resisted the urge to play this way and played predator instead where you would have had a harder time against a few pikement. At any rate games like that are almost unbelievable. Once in a while my exploring warriors get an oppurtunity to attack a warrior defending, but this is a shot in the dark. Doing it multiple times is highly suspect, depending on it for your strategy is outragous.
Course the civs were weak to this sort of attack, none of the nearby civs have bronze, but they were expansionist so that window between warriors to spearmen is pretty small. And while you may only need 3 warrior to destroy a single warrior defender (~30% for the Zulu Hill capital), you would need 10 to take out a spearman (~10%). This is all with regular troops, vets and elites only marginally modify this, however rank is a disadvantage for the attacker as you'll be healing the enemy on all those lost battles.




At any rate to answer a question about contacts for destroyed civs, in the past this hasn't been given. When a civ is gone by 1000BC you do not get contact points.

Smirk said:

Comment on Randy's game:
Since thats Open game it sounds like a high school guy bullying the grade school kids. You shoulda resisted the urge to play this way and played predator instead where you would have had a harder time against a few pikement.

Once in a while my exploring warriors get an oppurtunity to attack a warrior defending, but this is a shot in the dark. Doing it multiple times is highly suspect, depending on it for your strategy is outragous.

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Any time I get a warrior next to the only AI city I'm going to try to take it, If you lose a peace deal can be made before the AI gets close to you. In 3000 BC I took the Zulu city but lost my warrior at the Arabian city. So one AI down and one peace. I'll do that most every game if I can find the AI fast enough.

If there are spearmen at the city you just do a cat and mouse dance until you have extra troops. It is a good way to at least slow down the AI and at best stop them.