GOTM 27 First Spoiler

Did I really forget to open the first one?

GOTM 27 first spoiler

Reading Requirements

1. You must have reached at least 0 AD.
2. You must have knowledge of the location of all civilizations on the starting continent.

Posting Restrictions

1. You may discuss general events anywhere in the world, but please no screenshots of anything off the starting continent.
2. Please do not discuss events post 500 AD.

jesusin, challenger. Goal: fastest cultural victory.

Plan:
low waters plus 6 opponents means lots of land to settle. Be quick taking the best spots. Financial but no philo, build early cottages (specially with all that FP) and get a lot of cathedrals. Alphabet soon, given the challenger handicap. Maybe CS slingshot. Maybe Parthenon.

First moves:
War SW sees oasis. Settler SW-W (not very clever, could have defogged more).
War W, see cow and oasis. Think a long time about settling on the PH or on the wines. Unhealth seems to be a bit too much on the wines, but there are so few FP on the hill...
Settle on the PH, realize that I have 2 unhealth due to FP with only 5 FP, start crying. The civilopedia is lying. Why 2 unhealth with 5 FP?
I want Pottery for cottages and AH for the cow, so I won't be trying the CS slingshot. I will "beeline" Alphabet instead. Start with AH and Worker.
Techs: AH-Wheel-Pott-Wri
Worker tasks: pasture cows, mine gold, road gold, mine hill, cottage.
Production: wor, war, war, war, settler.
Why not try to get an early religion? There will be lots of land available, I want a quick developpement to claim the best spots.
Why 3 warriors before settler? The second was because I prefer to grow while the gold is not improved and to produce a settler while working an improved gold, not the contrary. The third because I had lost one to bears, I needed settler scorts and I grew to pop3 to work the hill mine, so the settler wasn't delayed.

No strategic resources against the barbs:
When I chose Writing I made a mistake. I thought that a library and 2 scientist for an Academy was my priority and that I could handle the barbs.
Then I worker stole Montezuma, finished Writing and chickened out. I wanted to research Alphabet and to build Library, but I didn't have the guts to do so and chose BW and Warrior instead. It was safer that way, considering the increasing barb menace (they had broken my peripheral defense) and a possible Mont's stray Archer.
CF Monte (it gave me +1peace later on anyway). Alpha after BW.
2nd city in t55, with cow, species, rice and 7FP to be my main GPFarm.
3rd city was difficult. Gems+Gold river site N was nice, but too slow to develop. E of capital would be slow and woudl claim no new land. Stone W woudl be nice, but was barb infested at the time. So I chose SW of capital, claiming no new land, with wheat and fish, very quickly helping my empire. Settled in t80.
4th in PH, with stone, corn and oasis.
5th N, with gold, pigs, gems, to be my second cottage city. Quite bad with all that jungle, few cottageable land and settled so late (t114). Also there was a barb city 3 tiles W form it, impossible to work the gold.
After Alpha I found that HC hadn't met anyone and they all had little to trade. Got Myst, Fish, Sail, Poly, Mason. I thought hard about whipping the Library or whipping the Granary and getting a Warrior. I would have liked the former, but chose the latter. Security first. Remember I was confroting barb Archers with my Warriors. I started fogbusting too.
I didn't hire my 2 scientist till t111. I should have made BW before Wri for security or Alpha before BW (traded) for quick research. The way I chose was the worst possible one.

Good and Bad news:
When I saw the first Barb Axe, 5 turns before I could connect my iron, my Warriors wet their pants. I hastely traded for Archery and wipped some defense. That was bad for my WFYABTA but I repelled the barbs.
I tried to be first to CoL, but they took it with Oracle and beat me to it by 14 turns. Then I researched Lite for an early NE.
NE t135 (540BC).
Academy t140 (400BC). The GS could have been used to be first to Philo.
Judaism spread to my lands very late, in t146.
I remembered that chopping is allowed. Athough a bit late, I chopped a marbleless Parthenon in t 156 (160BC).
I took a barb city E of my capital.
I chose my second GP to be a GA to start working towards culture. I could have chosed it to be a GS and pop Philo, but I thought it wouldn't combine too well with the Academy.
So I lost Taoism by 7 turns... Then tried for Music, but got beaten to it too!
Just before 1AD I took a jungle barb city far N with 4 food resources.

How am I doing?
1000BC stats: 4cities, 9pop, 2worker, 6War. Nothing. 1Lux, 1health. fpc=37-12-25, 27sust bpt, 3cpt, 0GPPpt. 100g, 0c. 0WW, 0NW,0GP. 2Gra, 1Obe. 14Techs: Alpha, sail, all wri prereq,BW, mason. 0reli. 0 civs killed. 3/3cottages used.
1AD stats: 7cities, 35pop, 9worker, 5Swo,2Axe,1Arc,7War. 5Gra,2Lib,Obe,Barr. Iron,.Stone. 3Lux, 5health. 87-37-56, 107 sust bpt, 53cpt, 28GPPpt. 100g, 0c. 1WW, 1NW,2GP. 23Techs: CS, Lite, IW. 1reli. 0 civs killed. 10/11cottages used.
I wonder how Tosti11's and Niklas' stats will look like. No need to think about Erkon's, he must have accidentally triggered a conquest victory by now.

1AD checks to get an expected victory date:
Do you have enough cities? Yes, 7.
Do you know which ones will get Legendary? Yes, my 2 cottage cities and the main GPFarm.
Is research about 175bpt? Not really, more like 100bpt.
You are about to get Liberalism, aren't you? Errr, no, I am starting Paper right now.
Do you have the 3/4 religions needed? To tell you the truth, there's is one single religion in one single city.
Do you have about 5 temples and 1 cathedral built? None of them. I don't even have Music.
Your NE is up and running, isn't it? Yes, I am proud of this one, it was an early NE. The problem is I won't be running Pacifism anytime soon.
Are you working 6 cottages per cottage city? Hm, almost there.
Are all civs Pleased with you? Not yet.
Do you control the strategic resources needed for Hermitage and for th cathedrals? I just have stone.
If you are playing Quick Speed and you have answered "yes" to every question above, then your expected victory date is 1355AD. Else, you have to calculate your own expected victory date.
Considering that my 6 religiousless cities will get another religion sooner or later, my cultural victory expected date is:
Idus of March, 1769AD.

I'm utterly amazed that this is the 2nd player posting. Since I barely scrape by on Noble, my goal for this game was merely to survive (using the Adventurer start). Well, at 785 AD I'm still around, but way down on all measures from all the other known civilizations.

I know of a couple of significant mistakes I made, the first of which was caused by ignorance about the rules for resources on the square where you build a city. I reasoned falsely that since you get an extra hammer for settling on a plains hill you'd get an extra food by settling on a floodplain. Should have made a simple test, I guess.

I went BW > Wheel > AH for strategic resources and was, of course, disappointed. I then went for Pottery so I could build cottages, and soon thereafter IW. That let me find the two nearby iron sources as possible locations for a second city (Shanghai), but this was 1785 BC and I imagine others had at least a second city by then (attached is map from just after discovering iron). By the time I connected the iron I'd survived an onslaught of barbarian archers (with a few warriors) having lost my cottages (not that there were very many in the first place) and the cow pasture E.

I built a small stack of swordsmen to take over the barbarian city that arose near the iron to the SE, then the one near the pigs and gems to the N. The NE one near the Incas was too strong for me by the time I got there, and I hadn't started researching Construction yet for the catapults.

I'm sure I mishandled trading Metal Casting -- or rather, not trading it: the AIs wanted to trade at ridiculous-seeming ratios, like Priesthood and a few gold -- but a few turns later none of them wanted to trade it at all, presumably from someone having researched it and traded it around. So, I could have received a few low-level techs in return for the MC instead of getting nothing; was that what I should have done?

The other attachment shows my territory at 410AD; I'd discovered the territory of the last of my opponents a bit earlier but don't have a save from then.

I don't know what to do next, but I'll try to keep going for a while longer. Peter, Victoria, and Saladin are all pleased with me, Monty and HC cautious. I imagine Monty will eventually attack me so I suppose that's what I should prepare for next.

Edit: Attachments deleted.

Well, this one won't be one to submit from me. The first time I played I got tottled by the barbs, and then Monty joined in the fun and I gave up. The problem was, I didn't get a good enough barb defense, and my 2nd city was too far away. Grabbing stone for wonder chasing which was a bad move.


So, I tried again (not to submit) and did a lot better this time. I settled on the wine 2s1w (same as first time). This time I built the initial cottages close to the city, and settled my 2nd city on the coast close to the iron. I figured being industrius and financial it was worth some kind of slingshot and as our UU needs machinery, lets try that.

Well, I managed to pull it off,
So by around 500BC I had cho-co-nu's pumping out. I rapidly captured the 3 or so barb cities that had sprung up and settled a couple more and am about to start picking of the AIs.

Shame I didn't manage it first time correctly. Oh well.

dalamb said:

I'm sure I mishandled trading Metal Casting -- or rather, not trading it: the AIs wanted to trade at ridiculous-seeming ratios, like Priesthood and a few gold -- but a few turns later none of them wanted to trade it at all, presumably from someone having researched it and traded it around. So, I could have received a few low-level techs in return for the MC instead of getting nothing; was that what I should have done?

Click to expand...

Yes, I think you should have got something for MC.

There are 2 explanations for the ridiculous-seeming ratios,
- they were close to completing the research of MC themselves, so they put very little value on it
- you are not used to high difficulty trading ratios

The key to stand a chance at Deity, for example, is to trade like crazy. If you can sell the same tech to six AI for 6 "unfair" techs of them, then they get 1 tech while you have got 6 techs in trades (that you can trade to another AI that has missed it...). The exceptions would be not trading Feudalism to the AI you plan to attack, not trading Education when you want to be first to Liberalism, etc...

Well, people told me I'd learn things even playing 'way above comfort level, and that's a lesson I won't forget!

So, is surviving the inevitable Aztec onslaught a reasonable goal? I could never have expected to win this game, so I'm looking for the maximal learning experience here.

jesusin, don't floodplains give 0.4 unhealthiness each? So five floodplains should give 2 unhealthiness.

I mostly play monarch/emperor, and I totally botched the last two monarch GOTM's, but managed to do ok this time.

Founded Beijing on the wine, because I wanted the extra commerce. Went worker first, and researched AH and BW. When no strategic resources showed up, I played it safe and researched Hunting+Archery next. After the worker, I built warrior, warrior, warrior, archer, settler. I pondered my second city site for a long time and finally settled up north at the pigs/gems site along the river on turn 65. Teched wheel/pottery.

Because of the jungle, and because all the iron/horses were pretty far away, I research IW next, which completed on turn 78, then mysticism. Founded third city by the wheat/fish/iron SW of Beijing on turn 103. Founded my fourth city on the coast to the NE on turn 130. I built a lot of archers during this period as well to protect from the barbs.

Teched up to Literature (turn 133) and built the GL as my first wonder. Traded around while I teched Construction (turn 152), Metal Casting (turn 167), and Machinery (turn 182). Also acquired Monarchy and COL via trade. Started cranking out Cats/Swords/Cho-Ko-Nu. Took a barb city in 455 AD while preparing to go to war with one of my neighbors.

dr_s said:

jesusin, don't floodplains give 0.4 unhealthiness each? So five floodplains should give 2 unhealthiness.

Click to expand...

You are right, thank you. The civilopedia doesn't say so, though

Hi all, I just started playing Civ4 and still trying out different approaches, especially for the start. I read some articles on this page and got the impression that worker, worker, settler oder worker, settler or maybe worker, warrior settler was a decent start. Now I read that people build 3-4 military units before the settler. Do you need it at this difficulty level? Or are there any characteristics to the map that favour this approach? Do you chop trees to get the units fast?

Being the first time that I've played vanilla since bts came out, this was a game when I kept remembering neat stuff halfway through the game. eg 'oh yeah, cavalry are kickass in vanilla, let's go for that'. It was also a reminder of how much quicker they tech in vanilla as compared to BTS and how much smaller their armies tend to be.

I settled 2s like dalamb for the mass food + hills spot, in preparation for a heroic epic + ironworks (if it gets that far) city. After early exploration, I settled my second city relatively far NW for gold + pigs, a third city SE for fish + wheat + gold, and a fourth N for gems + 2 spices + 2 floodplains. I also used archers for early defence/fogbusting and didn't have real problems with barbarians.

I then settled N -> NW (next to the Incans) for sugar + dye + spices, then another one NE for pigs + rice. After iron popped up in the SE city's cross, I took a barbarian town SW for fish + cows + iron. At around 0 AD I therefore had 7 cities.

My research path was alphabet/maths -> currency -> MC -> literature (woo no aesthetics prereq) -> CoL -> CS. This got me my first wonder the great library in 235AD and hanging gardens soon after. At 500 AD I don't plan on building many other wonders. I've almost finished CS at 500 AD and plan to then build a good macemen army and take on the Aztecs (who'd just recently declared war on the English and are starting to fall behind in the tech race). I'm falling a little behind in tech, but if I traded civil service around I'd be pretty much en par with the AIs.

I'm not adopting a religion for diplomatic reasons. My economy is mostly driven by the gold and gems with the occasional cottage thrown in. Otherwise it's mostly farms and hills: I plan on getting the tech lead through having more land than everyone rather than having a lot of cottages. Militarily, the plan is to see how well the macemen army do, and then power towards cavalry or grenadiers.

jesusin said:

... No need to think about Erkon's, he must have accidentally triggered a conquest victory by now...
Considering that my 6 religiousless cities will get another religion sooner or later, my cultural victory expected date is:
Idus of March, 1769AD.

Click to expand...

Nah, I have been very peaceful. As of 500 AD I have 10 cities, 4 religions, started Education at 60% research. No-one else has paper, I've only captured to barb cities, no worker steal. Monte has been in war with the rest of us for god knows how long. Poor relations with Saladin and HC (apart from the Aztecs), which means I can only trade with Peter and Victoria.

I plan to run my three legendary cities fueled by cottages, not great people nor wonders.

I have absolutely no idea if I'm doing well or not. I've built a couple of temples and monasteries, and I still have a couple of cities with no religion. HC has founded Confucianism and I've got at least one city trading with him, so I hope I will get conf soon. I missed Music with one turn (due to a mis-click ). Tech trade has not been optimum, but I got good city locations.

Right now I have to balance the production of Temples, Missionaries and units. I've got the cities and workers I need. Throw in a couple more forges and markets, and I'm not that far from starting accumulating gold for the 100% culture end period.

I took a different route settling my Capitol and went 2E on the PH. Turned out to be a decent capitol, but nothing like where everyone else settled. I decided to tech to Poly or Mono in hopes of controlling relations with an early religion, but lost both by 1-2 turns. This left me rather helpless in the early game, with no usable tech till AH BW and Writing after the failed religion founding. Went Warrior Warrior Worker Warrior Settler in capitol, settled 2nd city on PH SW when most settled their capitol. REXed out 3 more cities NW S and N, keeping HC England and Monty from gaining good lands. Monty and england backfilled on me, taking me SE Iron and a decent port city.

I decided to make use of my failed attempt, and built Stonehenge in my Capitol. This proved to me more helpful than planned, as i started putting cultural pressure on 3 Cities, 1 barb, 1 monty and a HC city in the North.

Most the world in Buddist, except for England, who myself and monty have been in and out of war with since 0Ad. I do not know if i can win, being as i have not won emperor and i had a horrible 25 starting turns, but i hope to squeeze out a victory somehow. @ 500 AD, England had been pillaging my Western lands with HA, but monty had just re-declared on her so i should be able to get peace soon.

Erkon said:

I have absolutely no idea if I'm doing well or not.

Click to expand...

Just go and check yourself against the checklist. I think you are doing nicely.

How did you get 4 religions?

EDIT: And what about the barbs in the early game, please?

jesusin said:

Just go and check yourself against the checklist. I think you are doing nicely.

How did you get 4 religions?

EDIT: And what about the barbs in the early game, please?

Click to expand...

I hope I have a save from 1 BC...

I didn't spread any religions to vacant cities, so they spread from my trade partners (judaism, buddhism, hinduism and christianity). I still have a couple of vacant cities, so I hope I get Conf. Taoism is FIDL. I'm thinking of founding Islam, but then I may loose the Liberalism race. And Victoria may beat me to Islam anyway...

The barbs were very annoying. Once I managed to fog bust, and when the AI and I settled more cities, the barb threat almost vanished. As of 500 AD, I still haven't seen a roaming barb axe (only in a city).

Have just played up to 1AD so far. Trying to go for Diplomatic victory using the contender save.

I settled on the southern forested plains hill and started going for a CS slingshot. My build was worker, war, war, war, (war?), settler at size three I think.

My first warrior got eaten by a bear at 25% odds on about turn 7 so I didn’t get much early exploration. I was very focussed on fog busting and my little warriors did a great job. Second city went next to pigs, gems and spices on the river. Third city went to plains hill just east of the starting spot to get floodplains, hills and the plains cow.

I chickened out of the CS slingshot since I had no barb protection and wouldn’t get archery for a long time. I researched Alphabet instead of COL while building the Oracle and traded for BW the turn before Oracle came in allowing me to get Metal Casting with it. By choosing Alphabet I could finally get some archer defence.

Like Erkon, I never saw a barb axe so I might have been able to pull off CS slingshot – but it was leaving too much up to chance since I had ZERO contingency to my fog busting warriors if an axe did show up.

My next tech was Machinery whilst trading for plenty of useful stuff from Peter, Vic and Monty. All of these three were Jewish at the time and it eventually spread to me, lucky!

I was planning to hit HC but he declared war on me just as I started pumping out choku’s and swords. Choku’s were overkill. I repelled his attack and then marched slowly all the way to his capital and took it without losses once I had 6-7 units there. Sued peace for a tech+ gold but will take his next best cities in 10 turns time to hopefully leave him as a crippled and mutually hated enemy.

That’s where I stand at 1AD. 8 cities, about to finish CS research, Incan’s are missing their capital and ripe for the picking (although they don’t have that many great cities). Victoria and Monty are pleased with me and hopefully can be used as attack dogs vs Saladin and Peter (who are now both Confu). Victoria is teching like mad and is highest in power so I have to make sure she doesn’t turn on me. Will probably try to settle the last few nice city spots and tech to literature/music. Should be able to get Philosophy in trades and then work towards the Mass Media beeline.

jesusin said:

How am I doing?
1AD stats: 7cities, 35pop, 9worker, 5Swo,2Axe,1Arc,7War. 5Gra,2Lib,Obe,Barr. Iron,.Stone. 3Lux, 5health. 87-37-56, 107 sust bpt, 53cpt, 28GPPpt. 100g, 0c. 1WW, 1NW,2GP. 23Techs: CS, Lite, IW. 1reli. 0 civs killed. 10/11cottages used.
I wonder how Tosti11's and Niklas' stats will look like. No need to think about Erkon's, he must have accidentally triggered a conquest victory by now.

1AD checks to get an expected victory date:
Do you have enough cities? Yes, 7.
Do you know which ones will get Legendary? Yes, my 2 cottage cities and the main GPFarm.
Is research about 175bpt? Not really, more like 100bpt.
You are about to get Liberalism, aren't you? Errr, no, I am starting Paper right now.
Do you have the 3/4 religions needed? To tell you the truth, there's is one single religion in one single city.
Do you have about 5 temples and 1 cathedral built? None of them. I don't even have Music.
Your NE is up and running, isn't it? Yes, I am proud of this one, it was an early NE. The problem is I won't be running Pacifism anytime soon.
Are you working 6 cottages per cottage city? Hm, almost there.
Are all civs Pleased with you? Not yet.
Do you control the strategic resources needed for Hermitage and for th cathedrals? I just have stone.
If you are playing Quick Speed and you have answered "yes" to every question above, then your expected victory date is 1355AD. Else, you have to calculate your own expected victory date.
Considering that my 6 religiousless cities will get another religion sooner or later, my cultural victory expected date is:
Idus of March, 1769AD.

Click to expand...

70 BC stats:
6cities, 23 pop, 8workers, 2axe, 6arch, 3war, 1scout, 1wb
5Gra, 2Lib, 2Ob, Iron, 4lux, 5health
88 sustain bpt, 0GPPpt, 108 gold
26techs: IW, MC, Monarchy, Currency, Calendar, Drama, Music (in one turn)
1 reli, 8 cott

It's pretty fascinating that jesusin-the-peacemonger has a stronger army and has captured two barb cities, while Erkon-the-warmonger is the dove.

Checks:
Enough cities? 6 - no, I want 10
Do you knoe which ones will get Legendary? Yes, my three cottage cities (including capital)
Is research 175 bpt? No, but I have traded me techs
You are about to get Liberalism? Surely, you're jesting! That will happen 1000 AD. I want Machinery first....
Do you have the religions needed? No, but I will.
And no temples, but they're coming...
And no damned NE either...
6 cottages? Pah! I will run 10 soon. Anytime. Before 1000 AD I promise.
Pleased AIs? Not really, and it wont improve after I DoW Montezuma.
Hermitage? Don't know if it's worth the beakers... But I will soon have stone.
Expected cultural victory date: 30 turns after jesusin. Anything closer is considered a great achievement.

Hi Erkon. Thanks for the data and the info. Should I give (unrequested) advice while the competition is still running? Hmmm, I'll do it:
A sixth religion is useless. A 5th religion is detrimental to my play when try to use it full strength, while it is marginally beneficial when I spread it to only 3 cities. I'd say, don't risk Liberalism for a 5th religion. It is a good idea to wait some more before spreading religions to the religionless cities, though.

Erkon said:

70 BC stats:
6cities, 23 pop, 8workers, 2axe, 6arch, 3war, 1scout, 1wb
5Gra, 2Lib, 2Ob, Iron, 4lux, 5health
88 sustain bpt, 0GPPpt, 108 gold
26techs: IW, MC, Monarchy, Currency, Calendar, Drama, Music (in one turn)
1 reli, 8 cott

It's pretty fascinating that jesusin-the-peacemonger has a stronger army and has captured two barb cities, while Erkon-the-warmonger is the dove.

Click to expand...

No CS? Really? Going for Music before Bureaucracy looks like a waste.
When I read your first post I thought you were ahead. Nopw I am not so sure. You don't mention CoL or CS, but I am sure you had one of those already, didn't you?

Erkon said:

Checks:
Enough cities? 6 - no, I want 10
Do you knoe which ones will get Legendary? Yes, my three cottage cities (including capital)
Is research 175 bpt? No, but I have traded me techs
You are about to get Liberalism? Surely, you're jesting! That will happen 1000 AD. I want Machinery first....

Click to expand...

You must be joking. Liberalism can easily be got in 200AD in such a cottageable land. Liberalism must be got before 500AD. The sooner you go 100% culture, the sooner you win.

Machinery???? What for??? Trade Education for Machinery when you have already got Liberalism. I only trade for it when I am at 0% research, in the hopes of trading up to Banking or PP.

Erkon said:

Do you have the religions needed? No, but I will.

Click to expand...

3-4 religions is enough. Oh, i missunderstood, you surely mean you got 3 new religions between 70BC and 500AD! I only got 1 more in that period.

Erkon said:

And no temples, but they're coming...
And no damned NE either...

Click to expand...

Well, you stated that your strategy was to "more or less ignore" GA and concentrate on cottages and cathedrals.

Erkon said:

6 cottages? Pah! I will run 10 soon. Anytime. Before 1000 AD I promise.

Click to expand...

The point with this question in the checklist is to be sure that they will become towns early enough, so you must already be working them to count.

Erkon said:

Pleased AIs? Not really, and it wont improve after I DoW Montezuma.
Hermitage? Don't know if it's worth the beakers... But I will soon have stone.

Click to expand...

Beakers? What beakers? Nationalism comes for free with Liberalism. Liberalism is worth the beakers because of FR.

Erkon said:

Expected cultural victory date: 30 turns after jesusin. Anything closer is considered a great achievement.

Click to expand...

Come on, keep the spirit high. We have chosen the best two possible strategies (9+ cities and 3 cottage cities with 4 religions versus 6+ cities and the GPFarm is bombed all the way to Legendary). This is not simply Erkon versus jesusin, we are the paladins of the best two possible cultural strategies.

This game didn't really turn out the way I had planned. Have I ever said before that I hate barbies?

I had a great plan that would get me an early second town, Stonehenge and a CS slingshot. In over my head? Sheer stupidity? Not really, since I would also have 7 early fog busters out to cover my immediate surroundings. And playing three test games, all with worse starts than the one we were given here, I managed to pull it off all three times. The barbies were never more than a nuisance, never getting close to my core areas. How different this game would be.

Things started going downhill early on. My two first fogbusters found good defensible locations to the north and west, on forested hills. Together they covered a vast swathe of land, and getting two more out east and south and I would be almost in the clear. Things were going great so far! Then in a few turns, both those two fortified warriors were killed by bears. Each had well over 70% chance to win such a fight, but didn't. I had to send my next two warriors out to the same positions, and nr 5 out east, only to see them all killed by barbarian archers a bunch of turns later. The same archers also razed my second town 3 turns after it was settled.

You can imagine what happened after that. In 1000 BC I had 1 town (of course), and one single surviving improvement, the gold mine. I would have been dead if it hadn't been for a scouting English archer, who even protected my capitol a few times. But all my nicely matured villages were gone, as were my farms and the pasture on the cow. At this point I almost quit. But I'm a stubborn bloke, and I wanted to see if I still had a chance to win the game.

On the plus side I had managed to almost follow my plan, despite having to throw out a lot of units every now and then. I did get the Stonehenge, that was before the troubles started for real. I also held out to get the Oracle and CS, after which I could trade for Alphabet and a lot of other techs (Archery!). I revolted to Bureaucracy, and for a number of turns I churned out nothing but archers.

Like through a miracle I actually had my worker still alive, he had been hiding down south while I was besieged, building a camp on the furs among other things. And when I traded for IW, and found the iron source down south, he was able to hook it up while the barbarians were still outside my city gates. Once I had it connected, a few axemen made short work of the remaining barbarians, and managed to set up a defensive perimeter.

I managed to resettle my second town during the early ADs, making my empire consist of two towns at least. A bit later Monty declared on me, but I was good friends with Vicky, and she would gladly help me out. Monty was forced to send all his units that way instead (and Vicky was stronger by far), and I could send a few well-promoted axes to capture the former barbarian town that Monty had captured between the spices and gems.

In 500 AD I thus had 3 towns, but things were still looking much better than it had 1500 years ago. I had founded both Confusianism and Christianity (GP), and I had Hinduism from the town I took from Monty. I had cottages that were once more growing nicely, and I was still doing well in the tech race, even if Peter had just passed me by. It would be a long haul to bring this to a win, and I was still set on a cultural one.

Did I make it? If yes, in what year? I'm taking bets.

Well, this was a short game for me.
Settled on turn 3 on the hill for all the obvious reasons, explored a bit and found stone.
So I got a settler out, escorted by 2 warriors and marched towards the hill nearby the stone. (Pyramids!)
At the same time my scouting warrior got ambushed in the north by a barb archer.
My second city got settled according to plan, just before finishing alphabet.
And then a barb archer appeared at the gates and defeated my 2 promoted fortified warriors on a hill.
Yep, I was attacked by Rambo!
Stupidly, I wanted revenge and another 3 warriors died before that $%*(#& barb got killed.
By the time I chopped another settler, 2 barb cities appeared at my borders, axemen were marching towards me and I still had to produce my first archer.
I survived the slaughter, I even re-settled the city, right about the time the 'mids GBIAFL...
So, no GOTM for me this month, I'm going to let this one alone, way too dangerous...



Maybe I should have built warriors to fogbust instead of that barracks, maybe researched archery, maybe IW before alphabet,...
I don't know. Is emperor level that much harder than monarch?
Forget about wonders and go for the basics??

cheers
Bart_civ

I have some questions for the good players about dealing with barbs when you only have warriors. As I mentioned above, I went for early archery when there was no source of horses/copper nearby, which is what I've taken to doing in emperor-level games. But it's clear that good players can survive the "archer barbarian" era with only warriors. How do you do it? In particular:

(1) How do you garrison your cities? A single warrior? Two warriors? What do you do if a pair (or triplet) of barb archers show up? What promotions do you use? Combat I -> Cover or ... ?

(2) Do you use the minimum number of warriors to bust the fog, or do you station additional warriors as "barb magnets" even if they're not needed to bust fog?

(3) Do you use rovers to prevent pillaging? If so, how? Do you just move a warrior into the woods next to a barb archer, or are you more aggressive? Do you use warriors in pairs to actively try to kill barb archers, or do you wait for them to attack you?

(4) Any other suggestions?

Thanks!