GOTM26 First Spoiler

GOTM26 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM26, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You must have reached at least 500 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not discuss anything post 500 AD.
• Please do not name any civs or discuss any events in any locations that are not reachable by galley.

So how was your game? Quite a few people in the pre-game discussion seemed to think the starting position was generous, despite the lack of any dedicated food resources in the starting screenshot, and there was some talk of slingshots. Did you attempt one, or did you try to go conquesting (or both )?

After moving scout SE-SE and finding nothing, I settled in place. I wonder if anyone has done differently. Built a worker, researched AH for the cows and was happy to find horses in FC. Then wheel for fast chariots to defend from barbs, then fishing for a scouting workboat. We contacted the 3 reachable AI's by 1800BC.

We had lots of room to expand in our island but since I planned a fast space game I focused on the slingshot techs for a while. I was able to build just 1 settler before I got CS from Oracle in 1090BC.

After that we went for Alpha and then traded for the usual stuff, most useful being BW and IW. I then noticed I had no access to them, as a barb city had been founded to the north just near it. A small detour to construction was required to dislodge the barbs.

I ran Caste for a while to get a couple GS's for an academy in Moscow (610BC) then bulbing PP in 470AD. I reached Education in 170AD. Too bad I didn't have 6 decent cities to get Oxford in a reasonable timeframe. In this spoiler timeframe I had only 5 cities. In hindsight I think that was a big mistake.

Oddly enough, Toku went wonderwise in my game, he built Pyramids, the Lighthouse and the Library. Never seen that before. If he wasn't so far away I might have gone for him. Instead I just grabbed the Colossus (80AD) and planned for a medieval war against a much closer opponent, but that's for the next spoiler.

Biggest thing about my game is that I missed the oracle-civil service slingshot in 970 BC by ~4 turns . I wasn't surpised that I missed it (should have done test games) and I also took the challenger save (mainly to practice up for the Erkon challenge in the BOTMs), which gives me some consolation. It hurt that moved the settler onto the plains hill (no scout) only to move back to the original starting place, but that was another risk I wanted to take. After the failed civil service, I backtracked to monarchy and rexed the place and am doing a decent job in tech- nowhere near a fast finish but should be able to win on Monarch. Right now elizabeth is at war with me (she was my confucian buddy but she switched to christianity), but has not led any offensive and in the future I plan to attack her.

View attachment 167136

edit- am planning to go for printing press in the screenshot, then to liberalism

Playing Contender.

Current Status: My overall goal at 500AD is to go for diplomatic. I wish I could say I could to it fast, but I've never had a pre-1800 diplomatic victory on Monarch, so that's my goal. But I don't know the other civilizations out there. Hopefully Mansa isn't there and out-teching us all! I'm going to continue to produce Horse Archers and other horsey goodness because, well, my UU is a horsey, so I might as well get some experience with em!

I had used a single fishing boat to explore Toku, Fred, and Liz's territory

I'm going to be beelining for liberalism

Here are my comments from my autolog:

User comment: Founded Moscow on the Desert Hill next to the Flood Plain after scout moved SE, SE. It grew to a size 7 city and built the Colossus in 470 AD. It has 2 Gem resources and a rice paddy. I've mined the hills and grew cottages on the grass plains and floodplains.
User comment: St. Petersburg was my next city. It was position 2S,1W of the Cows on the plains. It also had wheat. I mined the desert hills and horses were found in its city radius when AH was discovered. I have cottaged the grasslands.
User comment: Novgorod was my 3rd city founded to the south of Moscow, 1 NE of the grassy hill by the sea and 1 S of the plains hill. It shares a gem mine with Moscow, and has Cows and Dye. It is a size 7 at 500AD
User comment: I mined the hills and cottages the grasslands
User comment: I built a fishing vessel and that allowed me to meet Frederick, Tokugawa, and Elizabeth.
User comment: I was beaten to the Great Lighthouse by 5 turns by Frederick, who has a monster economy. (Note: He had this economy because of having a great age. I was third in GDP at the time.
User comment: Frederick and Elizabeth are pleased with me and Toku is annoyed. Toku and Fred are Hindu, Elizabeth is Confucian, and I have Taoism and Hinduism in some cities. I am currently spreading religion around
User comment: Rostov is a size 5 city I founded 4th. It is located next to the wheat an 2E of the cows and 2N of the iron in the North
User comment: Yaroslavl is a size 1 city I just founded on the penisula to the west of Rostov. It will have Cows
User comment: and silk
User comment: Anasazi was a barbarian city I captured with my horse archers. It was located 1NW of the cows in the jungle to the south. It also has a rice paddy
User comment: Elizabeth currently has some culture claiming the 2nd horse resource. I am trying to win a culture battle there to take that back
User comment: I am 3rd in GDP, but that masks Frederick who is double my GDP during his golden age. I have managed to stay with enough of a tech advantage to research and trade. At 500AD I am 10 turns from Music and earning a great artist.
User comment: My current plan is to build my population up and found two more feasible cities on my landmass (this was made alot easier than I thought later). I will need to bring my economy up to compete with Frederick...UN Victory appears most plausible now, but I only know half of my rivals, and there has been no war yet. That was soon to change.
User comment: Oh yeah, I popped Bronze Working from the lone Goody Hut!
User comment: My economy is at 60% science at +2 gold per turn



My autolog is below cut off by spoilers.

i'm playing my first GOTM, in fact, I've never played a non-historical custom map. This one seems cool. The starting continent is pretty good around the start. the north adds an interesting twist. i assume that is one of the major modifications mentioned in the earlier thread. Since i don't want to settle up there i get permanent barbs. Killing Barbs is so fun.

Anyway, I had kinda a slow start. I'm at 515ish and just got Civil service. That means that my GP farm has been hurting since it's not on a river (That southern one requires too many water tiles with no seafood). Now that I got CS, i need to make farm chains to get there. However, once I do so, I should be able to run enough specialists.

On the research side, I am currently beelining naval techs. I get Optics next, but Liz already has it and won't trade it to me and is just ahead of me in tech. Hopefully I can still get the circumnavigation bonus since I find that one pretty useful, but that'll be the next thread.

My economy is struggling a little, but a few more buildings and I'll be back up to 100%. Then time to build an Army and Navy.

Diplomacy/War wise, I'm friendly with Liz (Buddhist love) and just Cautious with Fred. He'll trade techs, though.

I considered getting the barb wine city, but I am not in that much happiness trouble and the upkeep will be pretty bad. Maybe Liz will get it and trade me one of the wines.

Anyway, I am currently scouting out Frederick, but I haven't seen much yet. I don't really want to go to war until I meet everyone else. Unless Fred really has something worth taking. Even so, I don't really have a strong enough empire to support a war and not lose on tech. Once I get there, It's just war, war, war until I Dominate or Diplomate. I'm definitely not good enough to conquer from here.

All the above assumes that I can easily handle at least one other empire out there. I'm 2nd in Land and Pop, so there's gotta be an easy victim out there. Throw down a Forbidden palace and we're good to go. If I can't win a quick war anywhere down the line, I can stay on builder mode and try to launch a ship. Spacerace is definitely the boring way to go(imo), but on this map, It won't take too much of a navy to defend the Island.

And I have a question for y'all: What do you plan to do with all that space up north. It is pretty worthless, but I'm sure that the AI will settle up there if I don't and if it's my ally (Who is currently Liz and loves to do just that), we're talking a lot of Artists to flip them back. I already have 2 cities that need flipping and the AI could definitely fit like 6 (bad) cities in the empty space. Though, I guess I can make up the lost land by conquering elsewhere. and making sure that my cultural borders are strong. Hopefully the Barbs will settle up there. No idea if they will, but beats the heach out of the AI doing so.

Second, what are y'all gonna do about the Barb winery?

Third, how do i take a screenshot? my Macbook doesn't have a Print Screen Key. Doesn't really matter that much now, since I'm sure everybody's civ is similar at this point.

Anyone actually tried invading yet? How'd it go?

Gsfgf,

I settled two cities up there in the north. There's enough lakes and food resources to get a few good mid-size cities. Prior to 500 AD I had settled two cities near the northern penisular, and no city to the east. That would change, but its post 500 AD.

As you could see by reading my spoilers, I took out the barb winery. I mainly could do this because I got lucky when I popped bronze working from a goody hut.

A nice start
I played a couple of practice games so I followed the plan and settled in place, built worker, warriors, settler to settle S by the cow and built a Lib in this city. CS slingshot in 11xx BC and a academy in Moscow 6xx BC.

Down the drain
After this the disaster began. I settled a new city W (cows and wheat) but I did not have enough workers so it was uneffective for a while until all of a sudden an axeman appears fron one of the few tile I was not fogbusting and walk all over 2 of my chariots and a warrior and burns the city.

Reading the spoilers I see that Fred and Toku is reachable by galley! Dispice getting an early WB out exploring (East!) I never noticed this. Well, a good thing I was out of the race anyway due to the burned cities and bad worker handling because otherwise I would have been at myself right now

Some comback
Resettled the burned city and one by the marble and iron and built the GLig and GLib in Moscow while teching my way towards the (as it just turned out non) essential caravels at a nice pace.

I started and played a long time yesterday, and zoomed past 500 AD. I believe I had 7 cities at that point, so as to not struggle too much with economy. I had no luck with the Oracle or Stonehenge, that usually seems to get built by the human players in easier games. But, then, I have played little above Prince. Only wonder we built was the Parthenon.

As far as cities go, I settled Moscow at the initial starting spot. Having scouted out the marble, among the many other goodies on much of our land, I put my next city NW, in an effort to make the 3rd city have the marble in it's radius. That plan worked, and I was able to fend off an axemen, and some archer barbs, unlike Thorrez. Once those 3 cities were built, I began building my chariots, as a barb city had cropped up in that extremely nifty spot, just south of Moscow, with the 4 special resources in it's radius. 5 chariots and an archer later, it was close, but we took out the 3 barb archers, and had the city and another worker. One more city to the south, is all we could fit that way. Liz had put Hastings on the tip of her continent, and claimed the horses down at the southern tip of ours. No worries, as we had gotten them so easily, and Liz is a pleased bud of ours, along with Frederick.

I am wondering how some seem to be doing well tech and score wise. Not us. But, again, I'm a Monarch newbie. I had planned to try culture, but the Great Artists are not exactly rolling out. And, being quite a bit behind Fred and Liz, I have doubts I can do diplomatic or space. In retrospect, and especially having traded so many resources with Liz and Fred, maybe we should have built early granaries. Not sure if that's what made us lag, or not.

More to come.

Billbgame,

Reasons why my economy did well I believe were:

1) I built cottages ASAP and my capital city had two gem mines.

2) I specifically founded cities near food and gold resources first. I could have cared less about the marble, because it was obvious to me that I did not have a wonderlific start (And I came within 5 turns of the Great Lighthouse and did build the Colossus...darn shame I didn't have both, that would've cut years off my finish date).

3)I never had much of a barb threat.

4)The goody hut popped bronze working, which meant I could settle the jungle about 13 turns earlier, and therefore got there before Lizzy. I never did flip the horses to my country though, her city's across the way founded taoism.

5)When AH hit and I had horses, I beelined for Horseback riding and my army consisted of about 10 HA's that fogbusted and protected my cities...A great rapid reaction force.

6)My city with the marble used 1 food resource and the lakes to grow. I knew that city wouldn't grow much.


For your game, I view the Parthenon as a wasted wonder. Stonehenge was a wonder that Catherine doesn't need to build, she already gets cultural expansion. Not being spiritual, we didn't have an advantage to get the Oracle. No Biggie.
I focused on techs that I could trade. I did hoard Civil Service and did not trade it to ****** the AI's growth.

Too bad I had the autolog turned off so my writeup won't be very detailed.

This game did turn out to be interesting.

I settled in place, starting researching animal husbandry in order to use the cows for quick settlers. After animal husbandry I teched towards prieshood for the oracle slingshot. I went for polytheism so I would be on my way for literature. Guess what?? I founded hinduism at around 2500 BC

I found my neighbours quite quickly and Hinduism spread to them, making even Toku friendly. This game was turning out to be a shot for diplo! This has never been my strong point, but looking through the excel sheets trying to find an optimal way towards mass media I found that the biggest techs were poppable by GS's and optics was along the way. This was important in order for me to spread my religion early.

At 2500BC I made the following plan:
Techwise: After the oracle-CS slingshot tech for literature (GL) and philosophy (Pacifism), then go for liberalism, backtrading necessary early techs up to machinery so my free tech could be printing press. After that, optics through to mass media.
Build GL, shoot for parthenon, build shrine with GP
Build a strong economy with cottages and spam GS and try to get a GE with a forge
Spread Hinduism like crazy, except to the the next largest CIV (let him have another religion PLEASE!!)
After having teched for Mass media, go for constitution in order to rushbuy the UN if I didn't pop a GE
Irrigate all cottages to maximize my population (ouch)
NEVER trade away liberalism (to keep the religious bonus) except maybe when that would be the only way for him to open up borders for me to get my missionaries in
Maybe bully a civ with my friends for the extra diplo bonus
Edit civics for diplo bonus
Improvise
Win

How it went:
1100BC-ish: CS with oracle
Missed the Parthenon by two turns
600BC-ish: academy with GS
BC's: Shrine with GP
Liberalism around the deadline of 500AD I believe, after succesfully trading for machinery and taking printing press.
Ended up founding Hinduism, Confucianism AND Taoism

So far so good, but how long would my luck hold? Would I keep on popping GS's and possibly even a GE or would I end up with useless GP's, having to tech and build myself? Next spoiler....

Man those barb axes and their archer backups.. . I had to go for horseback riding which I rarely research, just to stay focus.. . First session was great, pulled off the CS sling and were basically doing well untill the session 2 happened.. . Or was it meeting Toku.

Settled in place hoping to go for cultural and founded 2nd city fast.. . Founded Budhism and Confusionism.. . Had total of 6 cities by 500AD, 3 more production cities were planned and stopped for the first day.. . Learned drama, music, CS and about to complete Machinary.. . So it was set to go for the culture game.

Session two ME did not do any of the planned things and DOWed on Liz and got very gready seeing oll those juicy cities.. . And that was the end of the plan.Something just absolutely crazy happened about another 2 centuries later.. . A good reason why people should not play when they can not fall a sleep.. . This has no spoiler info just comedy.

The worlds worst invasion took place with about 9 or 10 frigs escorting a single gallean invaded a far off continent. . .. . Had to leave a whole bunch of CR3 units just waiting at the beach.. . Oh yeah the plan was to take 2 teams of 4 gallean full of units with two frig escort.. . It worked still Boy did I get that backwards or what?I better go sleep and it is not 4 AM where I am at just 1 AM

I'm more interested in BTS than Vanilla, but I had some time to spend, so I fired up this GOTM (contender class).

I settled in place (nice site - I renamed Moscow to "Paradise Bay"), and slowly (too slowly maybe?) filled up the opening continent with cities. Barbarians could have been a problem, as rather early some Barbarian Axmen (eek!) emerged from the north. But some well-timed attacks with Chariots fended them off, and in the end I think I only lost one Warrior and one Chariot to Barbarians (and an exploring Galley near Japan) - could have been much worse.

I had only three cities by 1000 BC, but I completed the CS slingshot around 850 BC (a little late, so I guess I was a bit lucky there), and after that my civilization grew quite rapidly. Oh, and of course I founded Confucianism on the way to CS, and soon built the shrine with the GP from The Oracle.

At 500 AD I've decided to go for a Space victory, but I need some more land, which I will take by force from the English (who have founded Buddhism). I have 8 cities (46 pop), and I am building Horse Archers and Catapults to attack the English, while researching Metal Casting --> Machinery to be able to build Macemen. This war should be a pretty one-side affair, as they have only Archers and Axmen for defense, and no Horses.

I see in Spock's screenshot above, that he has built Nets on the Fish resourse outside Vladivostok and Yaroslavl', I didn't think that was possible! The Fish was in Ocean, and I thought Work Boats can not enter Ocean??? This had a significant effect on the positioning of my cities. What a pity, I feel like a complete noob.

Roland Ehnström;6340150 said:

I see in Spock's screenshot above, that he has built Nets on the Fish resourse outside Vladivostok and Yaroslavl', I didn't think that was possible! The Fish was in Ocean, and I thought Work Boats can not enter Ocean??? This had a significant effect on the positioning of my cities. What a pity, I feel like a complete noob.

Click to expand...

Nope....just like galleys, they can go anywhere culture has expanded it's reach. Not just yours, but anyone you have open borders with.

Bad later AD times for me....but we'll save that for another spoiler. Ah well....off to other things.

billybgame said:

Nope....just like galleys, they can go anywhere culture has expanded it's reach. Not just yours, but anyone you have open borders with.

Click to expand...

Wow, I can't believe I didn't know this! Thanks.

Just a few things from memory... The horses were nice. I didn't connect up iron promptly, so I used lots of chariots. I got the CS slingshot and later built an academy and a shrine. I didn't manage great people production very well after that. I got the GrLib, but didn't try for any other wonders. I filled the homeland with cities and then cottage spammed when appropriate. I should have built one more city in the ice up north, but didn't. I sent some galleys to settle a few cities in promising places. The rest will be in the next spoiler.

Russia GOTM 26 First Spoiler: Contender save

After a few good military games I thought I would compete for the fastest space victory.

I have raced to space a few times over in the HOF competitions and had a basic outline of how I wanted this game to go:

• Go for the CS slingshot.
• Rapidly expand onto the best adjacent city sites and cottage every grassland tile.
• Focus on expansion and commerce, any wars will be fought with a small number of superior strength units.
• Go for Liberalism->Democracy beeline
• Expand (with war if needed) to grab as much land as I can during the medieval/renaissance period while I have the advantage with macemen (and possibly Cossacks in this Russian game).
• Almost every city to be converted into a commerce city with granary, library, and observatory as minimum.
• Beeline for Computers and try to fill in some less advanced techs with trading partners.
• Standard spacerace end game from there.

With grassland gems the game was odds on for completing the CS sling. I settled in place, taking Animal Husbandry, The Wheel and Bronze Working before going for CoL and the Oracle. Wanted a tech from the goody hut but got some experience for my scout instead … whoop whoop!

The lucky horses in the fat cross provided excellent barb defence but I was disappointed I could not rush a neighbour before sailing.

Got the CS slingshot on 970BC (just in time by the sounds of things!), the same turn that I founded my fourth city.

My workboat exploration was very slow and I didn’t meet Toku till 445BC and Fred until 110AD.

Our home island was OK for the first few cities, but I desperately wanted to secure some more land to get the maximum number of cottage cities set up.

From the deck of my workboat, I liked what I saw on Elizabeth’s island and planned to take it during the opportune moment.

I self-researched Ironworking and got some swords over there to capture her first city around 140AD. My macemen joined the fray in the next few years and I was about to kick her off her home island at the end of the first spoiler period.

At 500AD I had finished Printing Press and was about to start Education, I was 1 turn from building the Colossus (Erkon had inspired me from his Victoria GOTM24 coastal based economy!), and had 8 cities, 5 of my own and 3 that I had liberated from England.

Immediate plans were to extort techs from Liz before finally finishing her off and then to go for either Toku or Fred, depending on whether I could find a decent tech trader among the undiscovered AI’s. I was on my beeline path to Liberalism->Democracy and hoped to get Oxford University in Moscow as soon as I could.

I expect there to be many other people who went for the CS slingshot and fast tech route. I think my start was pretty decent and hopefully I can stay in touch with the other “GOTMers” who are pursuing a fast spaceship launch.

I'm thrilled! I beat Jimmy Thunder to the Colossus and I got a tech from the good hut! Sadly, that's probably the only reason why I beat him to the Colossus.

I had decided to go for Diplo, hence I wasn't invading Lizzy. The horses helped with fog busting I thought. I did not have a big or strong military before 500 AD.

Hello all, as this is my first GOTM, I didn't realize how advantagous it would have been to literally take note of my progress at 500AD. However, I will try to piecemeal together my recollections from that time - i have, dissapointedly, moved far ahead in the calender without much progress ;(

To start, i choose to quickly grow the city to a level 3 before producing settlers - because of the flood plain. This worked out well because it allowed time for my scout to go 'observe' the surrounding lands. I choose to immediatly found a religion, because my aim in this game was to expand quickly, and the financial benefits have no equal. I founded hinduism, and was off to get the great library for moscow. This was my big mistake!

Surprisingly, i was able to grab the marble quickly after discovering literature, and with a few chops from my worker got the great library fast! There in lies the problem. With two free scientists i had no real chance at producing a GP to build the shrine. I kept popping out scientists left and right, (with pacifism), but no damn prophet! Since i hadn't built the oracle, and waited too long to get temples. So, instead of reaping the benefits early, i spent the remainder of the time building the infrastructure to somehow produce a prophet. I fear building the great library too fast was my big mistake; although moscow is a great person factory, it eliminates any real possibility of producing a GP from any other city ;(

And another fault; i think i expanded too quickly to the north! The benefit is i was able to eliminate all the barbarians by 1AD with the fog - but expensive. Better luck next month.

I went to bed last night dissapointed with my approach and execution; always playing catch up to Liz who is a powerhouse in my game (consistantly 100-200 points ahead!!)

However, after reading some of the posts, i feel i am not that far behind everyone else, so i have renewed optimism. Well find out in the next spoiler!

Good luck, and good hunting!

And thanks to Spock Federation who included a map, very more informative than just text...

mtt9999 said:

With two free scientists i had no real chance at producing a GP to build the shrine. I kept popping out scientists left and right, (with pacifism), but no damn prophet!

Click to expand...

You son of a ^&*.... I kept popping stupid priests all the time instead of scientist while only having the oracle in the city, running with up to 5 scientists!!!

Nice to see someone else who founded hinduism though