BOTM 93 First Spoiler to 1AD

BOTM 93: Return of Befudlov - First Spoiler

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD! How did it go?
Have any barbarian trouble?
Settle anywhere besides your island?
How close are you to discovering Optics?


Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 93, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

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

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD. (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Please do not reveal names or locations of any civilization not accessible by galleys.
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

Still alone at 1AD, with 8 turns to go for Optics. A little disappointed not to have broken out yet.

Settled 1E to gain the Crab and add 2C from Financial Spice to the city tile. This turned out to be a pain for later development and in hindsight I would have much preferred to leave that grass Cow, Crab and the Horse for a nice later city. Given the info available on T1, I still think it was an OK choice.

The barbarians on my island donated 10XP to the Mechanized Infantry and then died out when a few Warriors were posted to bust the fog. I settled the second city on the Plains Hill by the two Fur since I could use the commerce, had no way of popping borders early at any of the coastal sites, and didn't want to push my luck with those initial raging barbs.

An early Workboat scouted the long island to the north, and I got excited at the thought of raiding a nearby AI. A Galley was whipped, but by the time it reached the island it was clear from the Workboats further charting that it was empty. Oh well, not a great use of the whip, but transport would be needed later anyway.

With no one to Mech-rush, I shifted focus to the GLH (completed around 1700BC) and settled more cities on the home island. I lost the Oracle race by a single turn in 750BC, which was terribly frustrating - certainly I could have planned better, but after all the nail biting turns it sucked to lose it on the last one. A Great Merchant was used to bulb Metal Casting (which would have been my Oracle tech) and a second Great Merchant is stashed for Sushi Corp.

In the waning BC years, I was able to grab Colossus and will have Pyramids in 25AD (unless I lose by a turn again). I've settled five cities on the home island and one Gem city on the long island and have another ship with Settler/Worker en route. Not sure how effective my Mechanized Infantry will be, now that the AI will probably have large numbers of troops - I foresee some centuries long wars blasting away through stacks of ever-replacing units!

I settled in place and am all alone at 1AD. Haven't beelined optics, actually have gone for the wonder hogging path. GLH and mids done, Hanging Gardens are nearly done, MoM underway. Literature nearly in, so GLib and NE will go to Lisbon too. Tech is up to currency, calendar and MC, think I'll first go to CS before optics, because Lisbon starts looking glorious. Settled a GM and have an academy. 8 cities, 7 on the island and 1 at the gems on northern long island. 33 pop now, about 130 bpt at break even. Need 1 more barb to unlock the HE.

Meh. I'm a scrub but was to have optics bulbed with a great scientist if I remember right, after researching machinery (it would bulb aesthetics otherwise, but with machinery will bulb optics)

bleh

I settled in place and now have 8 cities with pop 27. 5 are on the mainland, plus two on the small islands to our NE and one on the eastern shore of the big northern island, by the gems. I don't recall which island it was, but shortly (immediately?) after I settled it I got a message about letting it join the *** empire, even though I had yet to meet them (and still haven't met anybody at 1 AD). I don't think I've ever seen that before. Anybody else get that? [Would I have gotten trade routes with the other empire's mainland cities if I'd liberated my city to them? I thought about it at the time but didn't want to give up such a nice city location, and I already had 3 island cities giving me 2g internal traderoutes so it didn't seem worth it.]

I was late in going for Monarchy--should have prioritized for Hered Rule happiness. I got the GLH in 1280 BC and Oracled MC in 900 BC. First GP was a Prophet, whom I settled. Second was a Merchant who is fogbusting on the big northern island while waiting to conduct a trade mission. It sounds like I'm behind nocho and Minou on techs, as usual.

The mech inf has been very handy for keeping the barbs under control. Early on he was dashing to and fro to keep them away from my cities but things are completely fogbusted now. I'm leaning toward Space at the moment.

I also got the message about liberating my city to **** without having met him. The distance check seemingly doesn't look whether there's contact.

Isn't there a final spoiler thread btw?

Yeah, I was looking for the final spoiler thread, but had to settle for this one. I don't remember what exactly was happening at 1 AD, but replay tells me that I had 8 cities. 6 on the mainland (I would later fill in a 7th right in the middle). One on the 4-tile + lake island, and a barb city on the north island. I actually got to put Befuddlov's Legacy to work! It sounds like many of you were still waiting for that chance.

No contact either, but I think I had spotted a Roman border at the edge of the fog. I concentrated on GLH and expansion to the exclusion of most everything else. I also used my first GM to bulb MC.

At 1AD I have ten cities. Economy is mostly GLH and currency. Wonders are very slow and I will start building mids now.

I gambled on that I would meet someone with my wb so that did not work out. MNaybe 20 turns from optics and have only a 40% geat scientist on the way. Maybe I should have built less cities.