WOTM 02 First Spoiler: Progress to 500AD

The Plan

I decided to try and ward off the barbs by getting archers reasonably early, but also by founding at least two early religions. The idea was that the rapidly expanding borders from the religions would give me more of a buffer zone from barbs while I built axemen etc. I rejected the idea of building the great wall because I thought it would take too long to build (though I was prepared to reconsider if there was stone nearby. There wasn't.). I also wanted to conquer the surrounding area rapidly to get a reasonably large empire, then once I was about twice the size of most other civs, focus on science, start cottage-spamming, and head for the space race (and of course, having guaranteed two religions with shrines would ultimately help my science too).

Anyway…

Cities

• Seoul, in place
• P'yongyang, 2390BC, west of the marble, with the copper and cows NW of the capital, for the copper.
• Wonsan, 385BC, to nab the gems and pigs East of P'yongyang.
• 235BC Pusan, on the wine between Seoul and P'yongyang. IIRC I put it actually on a wine, so I could get the wheat to the west as well. This city won't be much good until I get monarchy, but I want it now for strategic reasons. Having this big gap between my capital and other cities is making defence harder.
• [175AD razed barb city Parthian, which was west of P'yongyang. I didn't keep it because I thought the square 1 south of it would get much stronger growth, having deer but losing desert-incense]
• 245AD Nanp'o near what was Parthian.
• 380AD Cheju. This was daring. West of Nanp'o and placed to grab the iron from under Toku's nose. Of course this now meant my distance costs were spiralling out of control. Cheju builds walls first - I don't often do that! I'm currently at peace with Toku, but that won't last.

Early History

Founded in place and got hinduism OK, while sending warrirors exploring and rapidly discovered Japan and China. I hoped to worker steal but IIRC Toku kept his worker continually escorted and I don't recall getting a chance with China. Eventually I decided it was worth declaring war anyway and keeping my lone warriors (one in each war) on forests, stopping Toku and Qin from doing any improvements.

Meanwhile I kept the wars up, stopping Toku from hooking up his horses, for ages, until the combined pressure of barb attacks and Japanese/Chinese archers around my territory forced me to offer peace. At one stage I had the scare of about four barbs and wandering over my fur in Seoul, with two Japanese archers wandering in at the same time. Luckily the two groups started killing each other!

Obviously, realized very quickly the lack of resources. I rejected settling on the wine/river, the only site near the capital for a second city, because I regard wine as useless until monarchy, and because I was reluctant to start cottaging on squares that I knew I'd want to remove the cottages from soon-ish (and cottages + raging barbs is not a good mix anyway). Instead I looked further afield and decided to nab the copper. So I settled Pyongyang in 2390BC for the marble/copper/cows there. This of course immediately killed my economy through distance costs, but I wanted that copper for my early wars, and didn't want the risk of someone else grabbing it, or even a barb city popping up there, first. What I was particularly pleased about though was that I (deliberately and successfully) timed P'yongyang to coincide with my discovering monotheism, so P'yongyang got the +5 culture from judaism to help ward off barbs too! However, the distance from my capital caused problems in another way: It meant I couldn't easily shift my units there - most of them were still fighting barbs near Seoul. That meant hooking up the copper took ages. My worker was continually half-building something, then moving to dodge barbs (or Qin's archers who were now also turning up. Hmmm. Isn't the purpose of this war to stop him hooking up resources?).

Ooops...

Around this point I had a big disaster. A barb wandered onto the cow that was Seoul's main source of food. I killed the barb immediately, but because I had manually selected the tiles to be worked, the game didn't automatically work the cow again. And I didn't notice. Until some time later, I wondered why my capital was so small. I think it had starved from 5 pop to 3, and at that point in the game those 2 pops were about 30% of my total population, so that *really* hurt). I reckon that one mistake will set my game back around 10-20 turns, maybe longer as the effect of warring slightly more developed AIs accumulates.

I also stupidly, and separately thought, I have marble, let's build the temple of Artemis in P'yongyang. What was I thinking of? Has the AI developed a secret weapon that switches off brain cells in the human player? Of course it never got built, I kept having to divert P'yongyang to military, and lost a lot of hammers trying.

At 500AD

Anyway, at 500AD, I have construction and am rapidly building an army of hwachas and axemen, with the plan being to erase Toku first, then Qin. I think I'm some way behind where I should've been thanks to a few serious mistakes, and my economy is in the dumps thanks to my focus on military and on building cities far from the capital to get strategic resources. But I'm alive and well placed to take over the neighbouring civs.

Status Report, WOTM2, 500AD

For GOTM 10, it seemed like an unusually large group of people chose to go for cultural. This time, it seems like diplo is getting a lot of attention. Well, anyway that's what I'm going for too. Here's a quick rundown.

Strategy

Trying to control the spread of religions, I decided to let Buddhism leak to one culture and attempt to found as many other religions as possible, hopefully all of them. My Buddhist foil would be set up as the voting opponent come election time, at which point I will ensure all other cultures are my religion.

I will prepare for an early war but nothing epic, only a limited early landgrab from an opponent who other people don't like. I planned to focus on cottages in my base land and entirely farm the land in my captured cities for voting population and maximized score.

First priority: diplomacy. Second priority: tech speed.

City Build Order:

Settled in place; city two: pigs and gems to the northeast; city three: copper and cows west of that; city four: pigs and spices in between. I took the rest of my cities from Tokugawa (along with one from the barbarians).

Initital Tech Path

Polytheism > Hunting > Animal Husbandry> Archery > Masonry > Monotheism > Bronze Working > Priesthood (for Oracle) > Writing > Code of Laws > Civil Service (from the Oracle) > Alphabet.

The Lowdown So Far

I made a priority to occupy two improved wooded furs squares as early as possible for the commerce, along with the sheep. My capital remained at size three a long time while I popped out settlers and workers, always keeping citizens on the three squares I mentioned. I think my build order was something like: four warriors while growing to size three > worker > settler > settler > archer > worker > settler. Only then did I begin to worry about growing above size three to occupy some cottages.

I first built a couple archers in my second city, then built the oracle when I hooked up to marble. Then I built the parthenon. Then a library. I built the Great Library in my capital sometime in there as well.

The third city, my copper city, produced nothing but barracks and units. This city produced all of the units I used to take over Toku (it didn't take much). I stopped at his capital around the time of the spoiler cut-off, because he had a little stack there, and I wanted to focus on teching. I already had about ten cities, and I needed to focus on infrastructure and commerce to get my tech above 40%. I traded for Monarchy to get the commerce from the spices. The prophet from the Oracle allowed me to build the holy building, which helped a lot. The combination of the gems and the two furs formed the backbone of my early economy. I was careful not to let barbs ever pillage these squares. If they had, my economy would have collapsed.

Ups and Downs

Barbs got lucky and took my fourth city the turn after I founded it, so I had to send out another settler. I also got beat to the Temple of Artemis, but having completed the other wonders and pulling off the Civil Service slingshot, I was happy enough. Early bureacracy absolutely rocked with those wooded fur squares.

I think my biggest failing at this point in the game is not having prepared to farm a great engineer for the U.N. later. I really should have tried harder. Although I focused on the marble wonders and knew I wouldn't complete the Pyramids or the Wall, I probably should have gotten metal casting earlier to start to farm an engineer. Now I have polluted my GP gene pools, and I'm at the mercy of the odds for my enginneer.

On the other hand, I am in a commanding position, creaming the AI in every category, especially tech. I completed education around the time the spoiler cut off.

I was shocked at how easily Toku rolled over for me. He seems to have focused intensely on producing settlers early on. Thanks Toku! Only having to build three settlers for ten cities is a pretty good deal. I'm pleased with the size of my empire for 500AD and minimal military investment.

By the way, I LOVE this map! I won't say any more because it's the first spoiler, but the recent maps, especially this one, have been terrific.

Good luck everybody. See you in the final spoiler.

I went for Meditation first (decided to get Budhism) and then I went Hunting -> Archery for quick defence. Boy, did I need that defence.

At 5AD I had killed 66 Barbs - 44 warriors, 17 Archers and 5 axemen. I lost about 6 archers. The following screen shot shows how I did it and managed to expand after a while.



All the archers are lined up fortified; the archers on the hills have hill defence bonuses, on the plains there are 2 archers (1 with bonus against archers, the other had their bonus against melee).
The archers up the top were on top of the sheep until I realised that no barb could come from the NE (Which is where Pyong yang is).
It was a long time until I got my second city up as I simply pushed out Archers; the more barbs I saw the more archers I created which meant no expansion was taking place.

After getting Archery I went for BW (not for Slavery but for forest chopping), then Agriculture -> wheel -> Animal husbandry for the bonuses around the city.
Then it was straight for engineering for Hwachu's which would help me alot.

At 500AD I had built 15 hwachu's and taken over SIX barbarian cities (only 1 I thought was in a bad position); now I look at Japan as I beleive the Chinese are blocked off from me by the Himalayas

James

godotnut said:

For GOTM 10, it seemed like an unusually large group of people chose to go for cultural. This time, it seems like diplo is getting a lot of attention. Well, anyway that's what I'm going for too. Here's a quick rundown.

Click to expand...

I think people were still suffering from the "so much land" paranoia caused by WOTM-1 and GOTM 11. That's why a lot of people are pushing for diplomacy by the frontdoor or domination via the backdoor. Haven't played past 800AD and traded maps yet, but I hope there isn't as much land this time so I can actually decide to win by domination.

This is my first write up so apologies if it rambles, and I’m not sure there’ll be much to gleam from it. So first a big thanks to all the people involved in running and setting this up and big thanks for everyone who posts as it does help. I wrote all my notes on paper as I did this, but looking at them now I can see there no priorities so hopefully re-writing this’ll make sense.

Initial plan was to try and build the Great Wall and not waste a single hammer on any units aside from workers and settlers. In a test game I’d managed to build the GW on the turn the 1st barbarian warrior stepped into my cultural boundary. That was my goal with this. Safe from attack I could then build wonders. Beyond that nothing – I’d be happy with my one man army, and with all those wonders to gawp at he’d be happy. Seriously I didn’t plan how to win after that.

So here’s how the true history of the Black Country went:

4000BC
Move the warrior of North to have a few thousand years battling wild animals
Settle in place and Wolverhampton is founded, it starts work on a worker whilst picking the gold from the beaver ridden hills to research hunting

--At this point I notice the game speed is very slow; every thing takes for ever and ever

3880BC
Just because they could I abandon hunting and have a go at masonry

3610 BC
Back to hunting, the beaver’s days are nigh (~5660 years)

3550BC
I’m getting nervous and call the warrior home, he’s attacked by a wolf but only takes 0.2 damage

3460BC
Complete the worker and start work on a warrior – (this is for something to build, masonry will finish before he’s done and I can switch, and if the 1st one dies I can switch and get him out quick). Move the worker to the beavers and start a hunting camp, switch to finish off masonry.

3400BC
Warrior kills his 2nd wolf – promotes to a woodsman
Finish researching masonry and swap to Agriculture – I think I stick with working the beaver hill to get research, but may be fiddle and swap onto the corn occasionally after the borders expand.
Start building the Great Wall – only 75 turns to completion!

3220BC
Just in the woods outside Wolverhampton my warrior is double teamed by some lions and a wolf, he’s on a wooded hill and takes 0.3 damage.

3100BC
Finish Agriculture and start on Bronze Working – this is so in the worst case scenario I can whip a warrior. I swap to growth and get the fields of corn up and running
Meanwhile my lone warrior is tactically killing a bear. He gets a promo to Woodsman 2 and takes 1.6 damage!

2950BC
Buddhism FIDL

2860BC
Grow to size 2 - I can’t decide if getting the quick research was better than the quick growth, but that’s what I did. I think I’d grow to size 2 ASAP if I got to do it again.
Finish my corn fields – probably start to work the warrior over the hills – starting mines or camps working for him to land on the sheep when Animal husbandry comes in.

2830BC
Tok’s warrior turns up. This is probably what screws up my later game, there’s no way there won’t be a war and I’ve no interest in war in this game!

2650BC
grow to size3

2560BC
Adopt slavery to get the anarchy over with ASAP and start Animal Husbandry

2470BC
I am the least cultured person in the entire world and 5 points behind Tok

2350BC
Wolverhampton grows to size 4 – so far it’s got a few improvements: 1corn, 1 4hammer mine and 3 beavers

2260BC
Go for Poly as I want to go for a Civil Service slingshot with the Oracle, with the beaver gold I can research the Codes of Law the hard way. This will be my first ever CS sling-shot attempt and looks like my last now alpha is necessary. With utmost immediacy my worker starts fencing in the sheep

2110BC
Shocking news my warrior woodsman 2 sitting fortified on a woodland hill for ages looses to a barb warrior. I’m shocked, even my PC is shocked, the Great Wall construction team quickly knock up a warrior or 2

1870BC
I found Hinduism. Not a shocking as the warrior loss earlier but a shock. At this point since I’ve no Great Wall, and waves of barbs I may have pushed out 2 or 3 warriors to sit in the woody hills. No pop rushes that I remember.

1600BC
I meet Qin, how his warrior got to me is amazing, I think it only had one combat 1!

1540BC
At long last the great wall is finished. This was great fun as I new it was going to happen so let as many barbs get as close as they could, then you get to see them all thrown out and head off in Qin’s direction. I think I’ve got 2 warriors at this point so I think I start a fog busting line to my next city site. My notes say I don’t start on a settler yet??

1480BC
Adopt Buddhism so that I can grow to size 6 –still only 2 warriors

1360BC
Adopt organised religion, guess because I got the research, I must then bee line for codes of law.

1210BC
Produce my 1st settler and manage with 2 warriors and a defenceless capital to send him off towards the pigs marble and gems

1000BC
Dudley is founded and with utmost immediacy starts on the Oracle. I’m lost for what to do here. I should have tried for pyramids but they’re gone by the time I think about it. So I think I manage Stonehenge and other useless stuff in the capital. I also throw out another settler. I’m researching COL like a madman, zero growth and max gold, the hilled beavers help

580BC
Found Confucianism – so no Oracle yet, thinking back – I probably didn’t have a clue what I was doing and may have gone for alpha and drama. Whereas I should have gone Iron working and the Metal casting, set me back ages as I had no plans

460BC
Despite the lack of Monarchy I settle Tipton for the Wines. Whilst this is going on, I’m maximising Wolverhampton’s growth whenever possible.

445BC
Adopt bureaucracy as soon as the oracle is built in Dudley. Now I’m at a complete loss as to what to do. I’m in the lead as I’ve not wasted time on an army, 2 warriors is all I got and everyone else is fighting barbs. I’ve not got a plan and everything takes too long. So I come up with this, found a city to get iron and kill Tok!!

125AD
Found Christianity. I also decided I chase all the religions – why not?

200AD
I’ve got 7gold and 2gpt
I’m paying 11gpt maintenance
3 Warriors in 3 of 4 cities for happiness
3 workers, chopping jungle, building a camp and building a winery
Wolverhampton is size 10 – 0food, 33hammers, 56research
Dudley is size 7 -3food, 12hammers, 11research
Tipton is size 3 -3food, 3hammers, 6research
Sedgley is size 1 – 2food, 2hammers, 2 research
Here’s the Black Country in all its glory.... {this dosn't work yet I'll try and fix it}

500ADish
After an eternity I’ve got me an army – 3 maces and 2 cats – Tok here we come. Here we go – city defender 3 archers on fortified hills. I am so annoyed I suicide attack and loose everything. I don’t care the running cost of the army is mine no more.

Still I’m winning score wise! And the Persians Love me, brother’s in faith!

First GOTM, first post, first write-up. Be gentle. I'm normally a Prince-ish level player that tends to play way too fast

Adventurer start. Founded in place, used all initial units to scout. With raging barbs I had no plans to mess around and was going to go for a strong archer military, after nabbing a few basic early worker techs. Beelined straight for agriculture/AH, then archery, then iron working, then alphabet, then feudalism. Eschewed early wonders (first one attempted was great library, which I got), and founded no early religions.

Barbs were a problem, as it seemed like they were for most, with wave after wave crashing in on my cities. Had I to do it over again I would certainly spread out a bit more and guard my resources more proactively, as pillaged improvements were a thorn in my side for quite some time. I founded P'yongyang over to the W of the wine, in range of the pigs there (this may have been a mistake in retrospect, though I think the city turned out just fine).

I missed the copper in the NW to a barb city that popped, and went metal-less for longer than I'd hoped, until finally revealing iron on the ice peninsula to the SW and settling in range of it (with deer x2, this turned out to be a pretty decent city, the first one I've ever been able to say that about that contained ALL TUNDRA).

Toku appeared to have overextended himself and I was on his bad side already, having tried to steal a warrior (unfortunately I managed to screw it up, and lost my warrior and the worker back, with a nice -3 diplo to boot). I decided to make an end to him and declared around 200AD. My economy was in shambles; I had overreacted to the barb invasion and built nothing but military for a very long time, without really putting any of it to good use. My tech slider was down to 10% at one point. I kind of boned the early game, but recovered nicely with the war against Toku, which went swimmingly. The plan was to not be shy about suiciding my units into his cities en masse, since I had a fairly ridiculous stack (12 or so units), despite not having many great attacking units (it took me a while to link my iron up, and I only had a few swordsmen for the attack). I razed two cities that were size, and then managed to crack a city of his that was in the NW of our shared little continent-area. With 40% cult defense, on a hill, defended by archerx2, spear, and axe, I suicided all four archers in first, then came in with the axes and laid claim to the city (on a fairly nice spot, too).

I made nice after that, and in the spirit of Korea did a few Tae Kwon Do poomse (forms) to celebrate.

By 500AD my research rate is back up to 60% and I have six fairly nice cities, getting ready to roll. Unfortunately Qin has been on a big time land grab and has been popping out wonders like they're candy. In score, he's running away with the game. But I have a steady base and more Japanese cities that I can likely take in the near term future to bolster it even more.

That's a pretty funny posting name there, Civicide. Welcome to GOTM!

As you might have read in the pre-game discussion thread, I boldly decided to play this game with only building and controlling a single city - a sort of self-imposed one-city challenge. An interesting challenge or plain madness? We will see...


Preparations

How can you win with only one city ever built or captured? Well, in principle all victories are possible except domination and cultural. Diplomatic is the best bet, but it relies on building the UN to be a candidate since population will be way behind the AI. Conquest - perhaps, with the right tech lead + production/economy. Space - is there enough time to finish all the parts with only one city building them ? Time, naah.

I decided on a strategy to combine my chances for conquest and diplomatic. It relies on a couple of things:

• Great Wall - no pillaging of my meager resources
• Pyramids - representation, hereditary rule and police state for happiness/research management
• Using great people as super specialists - need a lot of these
• No religion, promoting religious wars but staying out of them

Wonder strategy

I divided the great wonders into three categories

Essential, must build

• Great Wall
• Pyramids
• UN

(for obvious reasons)

Useful, try to build

• Great Lighthouse - 2 trade routes
• Oracle
• Parthenon - GP bonus
• Temple of Artemis- trade income, 1 free priest
• Great Library - 2 free scientist
• Space Elevator - if going for a space victory

The rest are almost useless for a one-city empire, but I would still consider building a couple of them anyway for the Great people points.


Since I was limited to two national wonders I could already from the beginning decide which two. Here are my notes on this. Obviously, I decided for the two epics.

• Heroic Epic - essential, 100% mil prod
• National Epic - essential, 100% GP

• Mt. Rushmore - useful, -25% ww
• Scotland Yard - sligthly useful
• West Point - useful, +4 xp

• Hermitage - useless +100% culture
• Forbidden Palace - can't build
• Globe Theatre - can't build
• Iron Works - can't build
• Oxford University - can't build
• Red Cross - can't build
• Wall Street - can't build

Research strategy
Masonry early, worker techs, then beeline for literature, then civil service. After this the essential wonders and civics are unlocked so the focus shifts to military.



Starting location

It is a truly great spot, with 8 resources visible. Trading for additional happiness/health resources is possible! Great!

One problem is that the silver and wine won't be workable until 7500 culture which may take some time. Also, there is a clear danger that there will be no copper, iron or horses available. I was actually considering settling one square nw...

... until I realize that this leaves me without a navy for the entire game!!!

So, settle in place it is. This is how the game progressed:


Research

Agriculture (3670 BC, turn 11)
Hunting (3430, t19)
Masonry (3070, t31)
Animal Husbandry (2740, t42)
The Wheel (2530, t49)
Archery (2380, t54) - great wall not finished yet, worried about barbarians
BW (2080, t64) - first barbarian warrior is defeated (1st screenshot). Next two defeated in t67 and t71
Fishing (1960, t68)
Writing (1720, t76)
Pottery (1570, t81)
Sailing (1360, t88)
Mathematics (970, t102)
Alphabet (715, t119)
Meditation (625, t125) - trade
Priesthood (595, t127) - trade
IW (535, t131)
Polytheism (460, t136)
Literature (295, t147)
CoL (40 BC, turn 164) - Confucianism founded in Seoul!
Research on Civil Service started





Builds - I can list all of these. Not so many with only one city...

Worker (3490 BC, turn 17)
Warrior (3160, t28)
Great Wall (1780, t74)
Barracks (1630, t79)
Library (1420, t86)
Pyramids (655, t120) - adopt representation
Trireme (565, t129) - sent exploring W
Trireme (460, t136) - sent exploring E
Parthenon (445, t137) - using the first GE born t136
Lighthouse (355, t143)
Granary (265, t149)
Great Library (170 AD, t178)
Temple of Artemis (185 AD, t179) - using second GE born t170



I did no exploration at all until sending out the triremes. The "raging" barbarians were very lame. I only had to defend against three warriors in the final turns before the GW was built. Things are looking very bright with 5 key wonders built already in the early ADs. Research-wise, the korean people are several techs ahead of the known competition. Seoul is size 7 and is working corn, sheep, 3 camps, a mine and the small lake for 16 hammers/turn.


Will the city state of Seoul be a match for the sprawling AI empires? Stay tuned...



Edit: There is another tiny little problem to consider. I have no access to copper, iron or horses...

Love that Great Wall. The barbs, bearing down on Seoul, were evicted in perpetuity from Korean lands in 1690 BC. Following a CS slingshot in 925 BC, P'yongyang was founded in 655 BC around the wine, and Monarchy was discovered soon after. With ample vino and Korean beavers, our citizens were rich and happy, and were advancing quite rapidly. A Great Engineer discovered Feudalism for Korea in 550 BC (Pyramids had been taken). By 500 AD, Korea had five cities and was well ahead in techs and score. The main need for the immediate future was to find horsies.

Techs:
3670 BC Agriculture
3430 BC Hunting
3130 BC Archery
2830 BC Masonry
2710 BC Animal Husbandry
2260 BC Bronze Working
2050 BC Meditation
1870 BC Priesthood
1600 BC Writing
925 BC Code of Laws (Founded Confucianism)
925 BC Civil Service (Oracle)
865 BC The Wheel
745 BC Iron Working
565 BC Monarchy
550 BC Feudalism (from Great Engineer)
415 BC Alphabet
400 BC Fishing
320 BC Sailing
235 BC Mathematics
220 BC Construction
55 BC Polytheism
65 AD Metal Casting
125 AD Literature
170 AD Monotheism
240 AD Music (GA)
485 AD Machinery

For the first time ever I actually built two workers before my second city because of all the early improvable tiles and all the forests to chop. Well, after improving all the fur/corn/sheep I didn't have bronzeworking yet and I was building my first settler so I started roading to my new city location. I had a warrior one tile away but not directly on top of my workers. Well, a panther came out of the only available fog space and killed both my workers. Really stupid mistake. After that I quit in frustration and I only tried once to continue the game before giving up on it. Of course I could still win it but I just don't think I'd enjoy myself finishing it when I know my game won't be competetive.

Well, as I mentioned in the pre-game discussion, in the interest of trying to finish in a reasonable amount of real-world time, I am going for a cultural victory this month. Normally I am an incurable domination player, so this is my first real attempt at cultural victory.

I went for poly, then archery then monotheism, then CoL. I think this is the novice cultural player in me since I don't think I really needed all those early religions. I also eschewed Stonehenge deciding to build monuments, but what I forgot about is the great prophet trick for theology and founding Christianity. Since Sistine Chapel is a great wonder for cultural, I think this was a big mistake.

Also by going for early religions, I skipped BW and IW until I realized that barb axemen were upon me with only archers to defend my empire! Luckily I got through this period with only a little pillaging.

My three cultural cities will be (I hope) Seoul (founded in place), Pyongyang (founded by the wines) and Wosan (founded by the marble / tundra). Looking back I should have probably built a production city to spam units and take care of the barbs more. A GP farm would be great, too - but I don't think there is really a good place for this, so maybe not really a mistake on my part.

One really lucky thing is that I managed to build the oracle in 295BC! This was an afterthought for me but it got me the CS slingshot.

Anyway I am making lots of mistakes, but also learning a lot.

Argh, I underestimated the raging barbs (probably because they did so little to me in GOTM11) and it set me back quite heavily. I'd read the pre-game discussion which mentioned getting the Great Wall early to block them, but for no apparent reason played my normal game, which leaves masonry until quite late.

I settled Seoul in place. Hinduism was founded there with my second tech. I decided to get a settler out then grab code of laws from the Oracle (was very tempted by monarchy because of all the wine). But rather than settle by the wine, I went for the location further north with the gems, marble, pigs and bananas. Stupidly, I did this too early, when all I had to defend the new city was a pair of warriors

1900BC P'yongyang founded
Suddenly there are barbarian warriors arriving from every direction.
1810BC P'yongyang razed by the barbarians.

I then fought off the raging hordes for what felt like ages. They never managed to get next to Seoul or pillage any of the surrounding improvements, but it felt like I had to go back and set the city to work the corn tile every other turn, so often were barbarians standing on it.

1260BC Oracle built. Confucianism founded in Seoul. This eventually produced a great prophet that I used to research most of civil service in about 1AD. I probably shouldn't have missed out masonry, and I probably could have tried to pick up civil service with the oracle itself.

Meanwhile, the barbs had set up a city by the wine (one square west of the northernmost wine; not the location I would have picked, but it worked pretty well). With a pair of my most experienced archers, I seized the city. At this point I'd turned the tide. I rename the city P'yongyang II and resolve to prevent it from sharing the fate of its namesake.

Though the odd barbarian axemen are appearing, and I've yet to find any metals or horses, casualties are light as I've plenty of archers in case one loses in battle. I founded Wonsan on the river to the west, between the corn/deer and the silver. It's not a brilliant location as it's largely tundra, but I didn't really have much choice at the time! Exploring southwards, I see iron in the snow, but I never got round to settling the area (Cyrus grabbed it in the end).

I founded Pusan on the ruins of the first P'yongyang. However, the delay in getting another settler to the site allowed Tokugawa to nip in and plonk a city by the bronze and cows. This was very annoying... I retaliated by founding Nanp'o some distance west of my empire, on a hill between iron and corn, just across a river from Tokyo (though at the time all I could see was a rather large red border). I was aiming to put two cities in the gap I'd left, but again Tokugawa founded a city in space I considered mine; southwest of the incense pile.

In 500AD, I've recovered from my early game stupidity. I've built the Oracle and the Great Library in Seoul. I've got quite a few cities and access to metal at last. War with Tokugawa seems inevitable. I've a fair amount of cultural pressure on his two "interloper" cities... which don't seem to be too heavily defended.

Or, The Small Wall of Korea

Or, Wang Kon Learns the True Meaning of Protective

Or, There's No Place Like Home

How To Be Ignored By A Barbarian

Bring the first warrior back to Seoul. Hey, there are raging barbs out there!
Build warrior.
Build warrior.
(Optional: found Hinduism for early border pop.)
Build warrior.
Build warrior.
Build... THE small WALL OF KOREA!



... what barbs? ...

Now that you're warmed up, build the Great Wall in security and comfort!

(I didn't think of this my first time through!)

i truely underestimated the harm barbarian could do. i lost seoul and p'yong to barbarian. end of the game.

this is without a doubt the worst game I've ever played of civ...

I started out doing great, I found Buddhism, I meet 4 AI, I do a worker steal from Toku(which then fails on the return journey about when everything else falls apart), and I found PyongYang with the pigs and wines in its cross.

Then, I pull in and station 5 of my 6 warriors on forested hills/plains at each chokepoint around my small empire and begin building the Great Wall.

I think I killed maybe 15 barbs before I start losing some of those troops, at which point I have to stop building the GW to replace them. Why do I have to stop building the GW? oh yeah...because when I had just gotten a 3rd warrior built and stationed in Pyongyang, a stack of 5 barb warriors shows up and KILLS ALL 3 OF THEM WITH NO LOSSES! Oh yeah, and Toku killed the warrior that was trying to escort the worker back to my country...leading me to an perpetual war with him. At that point I am in dire straits, I had not built but one archer so far because I was trying to build and chop the GW!

To make a long story short...I miss out on the GW to China, who also builds the Pyramids, Stonehenge and Great Lighthouse. On the plus side, I built the Oracle and took IW in a last ditch attempt to be able to build an offensive army to take over the !!5!! barb cities that were surrounding Seoul. Alas, that was not to be. I then began pumping out archers for hundreds of years, Qin converted to Buddhism, apparently it snuck into Shanghai on a merchant vessel. Once I lost my worker that was defended by 2 archers on a forested hill, I gave up...sent my remaining 2 archers exploring, and started building the Great Library in Seoul...I expected to die within 4 or 5 turns...NOPE!

The game seriously hated me, it put me in an impossible position, then all of a sudden the barbs stopped attacking me for 6 turns. a chinese spearman walekd into my territory, followed by 4 barbs, and he took up residence in Seoul! I assume it was because Seoul was the buddhist holy city, but when Qin saw it was undefended and the barbs were closing in, he defended me for 5 turns...until he founded Confuscianism...then he cancelled his OB with me, which expelled his spearman leaving Seoul defenseless against a barb archer that conquered Seoul the next turn.

Final tally? Conquest defeat in 290AD, contender save.

I'm thinking I should get the golden(or whatever color it is) ambulance award, if for no other reason than I won GOTM10 on Immortal and then got destroyed by a bad RNG, two bad decisions, and a bunch of barbs.

edit: My mistakes were in putting off archers for the GW, not chopping the GW soon enough, and forgetting to switch to Slavery when I could have.

Needless to say I'm extremely disappointed with myself...the only losses I've ever had were space race ones and one diplo one(oops, I'm the one that called for the vote too!)

@Thrallia: Good write up. I am not saying I enjoyed your suffering, but I do enjoy seeing that someone has the nads to post the write up of their not-so-glamorous games. And a well written and exciting one at that.

As a rock climber I learned that the best stories, the ones that last and make the most impact on others, are not the ones about climbs where everything went according to plan. Nope.



It is the epic battles where humanity is beaten back by the mountain that find their way into folklore and myth and live on long after we are gone.

thanks, I just wish my better games had good writeups too...perhaps I should try to keep watch on what turn it is, stop at the spoiler year, and write about my game while I'm still heated up about it...I wrote this one the instant I finished my game.

I would actually not be surprised if the game wasn't accepted. At 200AD I quit in disgust. I then remembered I might at least be able to get an ambulance, so then I went back into my most recent autosave and played again from there as best I could remember(not much difference...I had 3 troops and one city to remember), then when I was finally conquered, I didn't know that I needed a save from that last turn, so I then had to go back to my new newest autosave to get conquested again

a lot of effort just to post a game that MIGHT win an ambulance lol

Goal: Early domination victory

After struggling lately with victory conditions I am not used to going for I am returning to my best one. First step in going for an early domination is figuring out which unit you want to use as your main attacker. If this requires a resource you need to find it quickly and get it hooked up. For this game my plan was to use the resourceless and powerful special unit the hwacha. It is especially nice because it can knock down the cultural defensive bonus and then also be the attacker.

Next you need to set up a powerful core which is able to produce as many units as quickly as possible. Because of this I researched Ag first after settling in place and started a worker to get the corn improved ASAP because it is the most powerful tile. I went after AH next to work the Sheep which is the 2nd most powerful tile and would allow me to quickly grow to 6 working 4 furs after Hunting. Wheel was my next tech as it allows you to hook resources up but more importantly to get roads built toward your enemies getting your units to the battle zones more quickly. Next was Masonry for the Great Wall.

After the initial worker I built 3 warriors for fog busting, a settler, then 3 more warriors before starting on the Great Wall. The settler founded a city near the Pig/Gems/Marble but in a slightly different spot than it appears most people built it. I was 1 tile west of the other spoilers so that I could work the marble without border expansion because I wanted to build the Oracle here and the marble would greatly speed it up without losing any of the good tiles after border pop.

I explored west first and ran into an unguarded Japanese worker declaring in 3130 BC to steal it. Getting him home was a long slow process with all the animals around but he made it home safely and went directly to my 2nd city and started working on improving the marble. I made peace with Japan in 2830 with no bloodshed.

To combat the barbs I positioned 2 warriors on hills to the West/SW of the capital, 1 NE on a hill, 1 in between my 2 cities, and then placed 2 directly in my 2nd city. There was too much fog for them to bust it effectively and with only 1 improved tile it was more efficient to just fortify in the city and let barbs die to them. Luckily most barbs came from the north and I only had to leave the city to protect the marble once or twice. Things looked well in hand until my SW of capital warrior lost a 91% battle, then 2 more barbs showed up on the next turn. This caused me to halt GW building to get another warrior built and move some warriors around to take them out. I managed to kill them all off and get the Great Wall finished in 1240BC eliminating the barb threat for the rest of the game which was huge for the game I wanted to play. I pulled all my warriors except one exploring unit back into my cultural boundaries to try and get more barbs to spawn to slow the AIs and build cities for me to capture saving me Settler building.

On the research side of things after Masonry I went Meditation and Priesthood for Oracle building and then on to Writing and Monarchy so I could open up Feudalism for the Oracle. Feudalism was important to me for the civics it opens. I immediately switched to Serfdom when the Oracle completed in 1180. I wanted Serfdom because it would greatly speed my road building to the enemies. I had 2 workers building roads northward toward Qin and one toward Japan. (I would switch out of it for slavery when I got to the point where I needed to whip and my road network was complete in 160) and Secondly I went to Vassalage in 535BC right when the hwachas were ready to start rolling off the production lines. The extra 2 xp makes them much more effective.

I built one more city to the west of the capital in 745 BC in the middle of the silver/wheat/deer and captured the barb city near the pig and wines in 475BC. I had hoped to build the Pyramids with a Great Enginner from the GW but Qin built them in 730 BC and I didn't get an Engineer until much later. As soon as I had researched construction in 610BC I started making many many hwachas. They raced toward Qin as soon as possible and I declared on him in 190BC when I had a stack of 7 Hwachas and 4 warriors (former barb busters who would now be MPs) in the tree at the northern point of the continent. I would knock the culture defense down close to 0 and then attack. Most cities would cost 1 or at most 2 hwachas and then it would fall easily. In 20 AD I took out his capital which owned the pyramids and Great Lighthouse and switched to Police State. I got a Great General in 80 AD and joined him to my capital for the +2 xp. Even with Qin's protective trait he never put up much of a threat and was elminated in 305 AD.

Back to the tech side after Construction I went for CoL for courthouses, Literature for the Heroic Epic, Currency for the extra cash before my economy crashes from all these cities, Metal Casting, and Machinery to open up Engineering (470 AD) for the extra road movement. This really helps get units to the front lines and I used my Great Engineer from the Great Wall to research the majority of it. Next I went for Drama for the Theaters to get to domination limit as soon as possible. It was the last tech I planned to research unless Galleons became necessary to get to enough land for the domination limit. I wanted to slow the worlds tech pace as much as possible so I did almost no tech trading unless I was ready to attack and take that civ out. I didn't want any AIs to get to Feudalism and Longbows so I refused to trade Monarchy.

On the war front....my hwachas from the Qin war as well as some fresh troops (11 hwachas total) were at Asoka's border and I declared on him in 350 AD. When I felt like I had enough units for the northern attack force I had started diverting new units toward Japan and in 365 AD I also declared on him with 6 hwachas and 2 war elephants in position to attack. Asoka was unbelievably weak and by the 500 AD cutoff I had taken 3 cities of his including the Jewish holy city (no shrine though ) and his capital. At the cutoff point I had taken 1 Japanese city and had my attack forces bombarding his capital.

Analysis on where I am at, I felt like I had played one of my better games had hit no major obstacles and was in a dominating position. My biggest concern was that I wouldn't have enough land to reach the limit with the land I could see and that I might need to try to research to Astronomy with no trading partners and a crashed economy.

I actually remembered to save at 500AD for once so I was able to go back and take a bunch of screenshots of exactly what my empire looked like at the cutoff.

Self Research Pace


Cities/land


Advisor/stats