BOTM 100 First Spoiler

DynamicSpirit · Feb 2, 2016

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD! Where did you settle? Did you find the enhanced map knowledge at the start useful? Are you friends with any AIs yet?

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 100, 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

Seraiel · Feb 3, 2016

I just wanted to write, that this map is great. I've seldomly been confronted with so many interesting choices between 2-3 options that all have about the same strength

. I hope it's ok to write this, as it's basically not spoilering but praise for the map-design, which can be understood as an advertisement for other players to play this GOTM, it's awesome

!

Moderator Action: Moved to first spoiler thread. Once you open the save, you should never post in the announcement thread just in case you post something that becomes a spoiler for someone else. Thank you for the positive comment to the mapmaker.

Major Tom · Feb 4, 2016

Happy 100 Anniversary to staff for making this possible
and the players for keeping it alive :clap:

After 10 years on CFC I have never submitted any games but this must be the right occasion. My style is rather lazzes-faire. An enjoyable journey is more important than the endpoint. And for me strategy gaming is about dealing and manipulating AI. So, no surprise, I have a diplomatic win in mind for this game. Religious is just as good as a nuke-assisted UN-win. :king:

Big and small involves lots of islands and coastlines which suits my attempt fine. Early domination win must be a logistic nightmare with galleys only.

These kind of maps screams for TGL. For my plan, Stonehenge along with Oracle for bulbing Theology seems mandatory. Free steles and a free tech as a bonus comes in handy too

I wont say much about initial decisions, but it is the usual stuff: worker, worker techs, BW, whipping this and that, yadayada. Enough said about my micro management.

Now here is the dates for the stuff needed for AP:
2400 BC: Stonehenge (Prophets and Steles).
825 BC (this is Prince, right?

) :The Oracle (more Prophets and Metal Casting).
650 BC: The Great Lighthouse (in another city as the prophets genepool must be clean).
400 BC: Moses is born in Aksum. He founds Christianity on the spot.

1AD Foreign affairs:
Christianity autospreads all over the place in the coming years, including Churchills cities. So we are friendly. The well known warcriminals, Stalin and Sury are jews and cautios atm. Rest unknown.

1AD Domestic affairs:
The Apostolic Palace: 14 turns away
Missionaries for Stalin (future ally (+4 diplopoints) against Churchill as Churchill probably will compete for the residency at the AP) and 1 for Sury too.
Producing some military and boats and other useful stuff in a relaxed prince mode.
4 cities. Not much, but sufficient at prince. Will expand to around 60% of the land on my island and Churchill will lease 40% before the Omo warriors starts talking.

:popcorn:

Happy gaming to all of you!

nocho · Feb 4, 2016

Major Tom said:
Happy 100 Anniversary to staff for making this possible
and the players for keeping it alive
<snip>
Happy gaming to all of you!

Ground control approves of this message! :goodjob:

I settled on the marble as all the pros seemed to agree on that one. Turned out indeed as an early game super spot, but I have my doubts about it as a long term capital, especially after sharing the pigs with a coastal spot near the original settler location. I hate cottages on non-river tiles, so not all that cottageable as a city, so apart from the super tiles not that wonderful in the long run. But early game no doubt is very much boosted by this site.

By 1 AD I'm at 14 cities, 3 of which off shore, 1 of those from barbarian origins. 2nd city at the food rich spot NW to be great people farm and early settler/worker pump. City 3 at the floodplains and city 4 on the elephants near the original spot.

City 4 turned out the major hammer city and built GLH and mids there. The capital built Oracle (for CS sling) and MoM and at 1 AD is 4 turns from GLib.

Paper is in the bag and through maps of Darius and Boudica nearly got circumnavigation, I hope to get the final pieces from what looks like Justinian who I haven't met, but there's a grey AI above Boudica who I'll meet in 2 turns. There's another AI I haven't met who is blue like Sury.

At this point 278bpt @100%, but only about 150 sustainable. First GS built an academy, I have a second that can bulb education, but as I'm half way music for my first MoM enhanced GA will wait with the bulb after finishing music.

I was thinking of conquest supposing we needed astro to meet half the other world, but that doesn't seem to be the case. So maybe for conquest I've been a bit too research-focussed instead of just going to war asap and rely on galleys for everything. Right here wasn't sure to change plans to space or maybe diplo.

BornInCantaloup · Feb 4, 2016

I've played to 1 AD, probably a little too fast for my own good, on the day the map was released.

Stats :
13 cities, 56 pop, sizes 12, 6, 6, 6
6 workers :cry:

Oracle (950 BC), GLH (925 BC), Great Lib (100 BC). Colossus due in 2, MoM due in 5 turns.
2 galleys, 2 swords, 5 axes
8 Granaries, 4 Lighthouses, 4 Libraries

cry

, 2 Forges, 1 Barracks, 8 Fishing boats

crazyeye

, 8 hamlets, 3 villages

nuke

2 GS popped (Academy, Edu part bulbed), 1 GA popped (Music)
Education next turn. Music, Metal Casting and Calendar most advanced techs on other lines.

+288 science, -96 gold at 100% science slider
+130 gold, +15 science at 100% gold slider
23 gold in the bank.

Fun fact : Founded Judaism in 975 BC and never got it spread to another city of mine ;
Missed on the Temple of Artemis in 650 BC and will probably never get a shrine ;
Adopted Confusionism after the religion insta-spread to 3 cities when I founded it, in 625 BC.

Raw commentary :

Spoiler :

Pangaea · Feb 5, 2016

Finally arrived at 1AD as well

As seems to be the norm, my heart sinks a little when reading the other updates :sad:

Thought I was doing well this time. Not that it's crap, but.. you know.

Settled on marble, then ivory and goldfish. GLH in 1320BC, and Oracled CS in 700BC, later than I hoped for, and that despite skipping Pottery, which may have turned out to be a major mistake

As a result, cottages in the capital is a very sad sight. Like nocho, I can't stand non-riverside cottages, especially in the capital. But there weren't many other fine sites available, and Churchill's crib looks like a fantastic NE city, so I figured, rather late, it was better to just cottage the capital as I wouldn't be likely to find a better spot elsewhere. I hoped more AIs would be nearby, but they were not.

Alas, Churchill is dead. He only got the one city. Stole two workers from him, which set him back, and then kept a little control of what he was up to...

Spoiler :

This meant he had few defenders, as we peaced out as soon as he would talk after the worker steal. Turned out I was a little lucky though, as there was only one archer and a warrior in his capital, with another archer close to a worker on the floodplains. No OB so I couldn't know. Suffice to say, 10 chariots was a bit overkill for such a task. Only lost one (on the archer). They've since fogbusted the whole land.

Justinian has built the Mids, so I'm thinking about getting out an army to steal it from his cold, dead hands. But I've been sidetracked with infra since self-teching MC, so many cities are trying to get up forges.

Got hit with a pretty severe random event too

It was the healing plant event, and every city lost 1 population point (but at least we got +2 :health:

out of it). That's a very hard hit when most cities are size 1-4. Not to speak about the 20-turns of 2 :mad:

... It's mostly worn off now, though, so we should be good.

Got the horse whispering event too, but it looks a bit crap, so don't think I'll bother with it. Cheaper to just build 6 HAs myself instead of 7 stables and then get them for free.

Circumnavigation in 350BC or thereabouts, from exploring workboats and galleys. Have got most of the world surveyed now, thanks to map trading and more exploration.

As a summary seems common in here:
11 cities, 268 :science:

(at -84

), break even at 60% or 161 :science:

. A settler en route to settle stone.

London had a granary and lighthouse upon capture, but otherwise:

Spoiler :

The AIs are pitifully slow, so it looks like I'll have to self-tech pretty much everything I want/need. A long time since I've self-teched Monarchy and MC, but I figured it was needed here. If it wasn't for more or less gifts for puny amounts of gold, I'm not sure any AI would have Alpha yet. Stalin appears to be doing best, as he has expanded to 9 cities already.

Haven't picked a religion yet, as auto spread is more like non-spread, but very recently Stalin and Sury changed to Confucianism, so maybe I'll go with that. It's only in one of their cities, though, so their beliefs may not last.

Wish I had got out more settlers, as I hoped for about 15 cities by 1AD after killing Churchill so early and figuring out the entire continent was now vacant. 9 workers, which feels a little light, but it's not terrible either.

Seraiel · Feb 5, 2016

Nice to see that some of you posted and even posted more than 1 or 2 sentences

. Interesting to read of your games. My general thoughts are, that I thought I'd be in a better position compared to you all, but the positions seem very similar again, at least research-wise. Why Pangaea thinks his game is bad, Idk because he conducts the same research as we all, here's a screenshot from my game that shows most important things:

10 cities.
All cities with Granaries, Lighthouses, all planned University cities with Forges.
Directly before Horse Archer rushing Churchill. I thought about stealing Workers from him, but then he blocked the land so I let him live. I started on researching Writing to get through his Borders, then my scout got killed by a Lion... Changed Research, researched almost all basic techs myself, went CoL after Maths, GLH 1125BC, Oracle->CS 800BC. Continued with Paper to get some maps, have MC, Calendar, shortly before Philo, got Monarchy and half of Education. 2nd GS is mostly ready, will use him for a GA because researching Music would take longer, I'll simply use the GA from Music for a 2nd GA. MoM almost done, Colossus in production, Mids went so early that I didn't even have the slightest chance (1600BC on Prince

) but built the HGs with 10 cities and research is compareable interestingly, even though less cities.
Pushing towards Oxford as early as possible again, Stone is in preparation and building the Universities won't be a problem with OR + Forges and with the land being so strong food-wise. Plan to go conquering with Elepult afterwards, but not sure that Galley-warfare is really that attractive, but Astro is still away by quite a margin.
Got Alpha and IW by trade :whew:

. Was amazed, that the AIs "only" needed 'til 400BC for Alpha

, everything else I researched myself.

I think I generally could have played a little less safe and could have started to conquer Churchill earlier, like Pangaea i. e. did, but I noticed that he started with at least 1 Archer by looking at the demographics, and fighting against 2-3 CG2 Drill1 Archers wasn't that attractive to me, after I played 2 test-games and once loste 9 Chariots against a 40% city with 4 Archers without killing even one. Therefore probably again playing a little overkill with producing 12 HAs for Churchill, but I don't mind, as I can use them for the wars after aswell and the land simply has good production, otherwise I wouldn't. i. e. have Forges in the major number of cities already. Left quite a lot of Forests and playing with minimum Workers, so 11 Workers for 10 cities currently.

Pangaea · Feb 5, 2016

Those CG2 Drill Archers are horrible, but since it was on flatland it was more bearable.

There could have been more of course, but because I paid copious attention to the demographics and power ratio, I knew he only had 2, max 3, archers. So that should be doable on flatland for 10 chariots.

Looks like a good game Seraiel, as always. You look set for a very early Oxford, with forges and OR at the ready. One of many things that didn't go to plan in my game. But more about that later I suppose.

Seraiel · Feb 6, 2016

Pangaea said:
Looks like a good game Seraiel, as always. You look set for a very early Oxford, with forges and OR at the ready.

Yes, I like to play with slightly less cities and superearly Oxford. Maybe not optimal on this map, because the capital truely has low :commerce:

, but I changed Cottages always in the way so that the most-underdevloped ones get worked and like that I have a city full of Hamlets and Villages currently. The advantage of the capital for Oxford definitely is that it has so much :food:

so it can recover really quick after 1-turning Oxford via whipstacking. In the long run, Grassland Villages also are awesome tiles. Overall I'm amazed how good that capital actually is, normally I don't i. e. play starts without Freshwater, but it doesn't really seem to matter and I usually also don't pay that much attnetion to high :food:

and a 3

centre tile, but the experience I made with this start was really amazing, settling went so fast. Really a nice counterpart towards that horrible map in the last GOTM

. Still waiting for a start that will have a Gold in the BFC ^^ .

BornInCantaloup · Feb 6, 2016

Seraiel said:
Interesting to read of your games. My general thoughts are, that I thought I'd be in a better position compared to you all, but the positions seem very similar again, at least research-wise.

Agreed, this is very comforting to me

I was feeling down when I reached 1 AD and now I feel a little better about it.

I still think some positions are better than others.
Namely, I think the games that emphasized production the most will fare better :
City count, infrastructure, worker count all matter.
(You have a low city count, Seraiel, but very good infra + worker count + army, so you don't seem backwards in production, at all.)

In this light, my biggest regret, apart from self-teching Alphabet instead of Sailing/BW has been to produce the 2nd great scientist already.
I'm in no position to start on Universities and could have used the extra 200 hammers on workers/settlers.

Maybe the tide can be reversed.

ps :
lol, what's up with the city names, Seraiel ?

Jastrow · Feb 6, 2016

Not use to Prince anymore, and as a result made a few decisions that I would do differently in hindsight...

Firstly, I passed on Oracle. I did not expect it would go THAT late, and never wanted to risk it. By the time I finally did try it, I actually was too late, so only got a bit of fail gold our of the deal.

Secondly, I over-expanded a bit, and cooked my economy somewhat. A combination of that, and missing the Oracle means that I am still 7 or 8 turns away from Education, and also dont have a way to set up for a really quick Oxford after that, so Oxford is likely nearly 30 turns away (maybe only 25 if I can plan whips well.) Gunpowder will follow Education, and is scheduled to come in around T130, and my current plan is to use Oromo's to take out at least Churchill, and probably Stalin as well. Havent made a plan beyond that yet.

On the Rex front, as I said, I think I overcooked it, and might well be better off had I stopped at around 15 cities. As it is, I expanded to 20 + 2 settlers a couple of turns away from cities 21 and 22. This does bring in 357 bpt at 100@, which is quite nice, but only 160 at break even. I do have some ~700 gold in the bank, so at least I can sustain 100% for a few turns.

I kept some notes of my thinking in real time as I was progressing through the game. Will put them in spoiler tags because they are a big long an unwieldy.

Spoiler :

Seraiel · Feb 6, 2016

Very different approach from Jastrow, but with GLH and Prince maintenance it probably will be superior if he really also pulls of what he planned with Oxford 20T later and Oromos directly afterwards. I think I didn't think big enough again to simply keep building nothing but Settlers and REX after the REX ^^ . 0 experience with Prince also added up to this, I just overestimated the maintenance.

Anyhow, I ask myself how Jastrow wants to pull all of that off. He doesn't has more resources than others, if he built 20 Settlers, there must be things missing. 70 population also is not a lot for a 20 city empire, I somehow doubt a little about Oxford 20T later, Universities are 4-pop-whips with Forges and OR, I assume you didn't spread Religion thoroughly and also didn't focus Forges Jastrow, and then, Universities are 6-pop-whips. Oxford is also expensive, if you need 7T alone for Education, then you'd have at most 11T for Universities, if you wanted Oxford 20T later, assuming you 1-turn-it. I wouldn't even have known how to build that many Galleys, I have 5 currently at 1AD and I really focussed on them as much as I could spare resources because I knew that they could easily become a bottleneck.
What gives me hope, is that while you are able to conduct more beakers, you're not further advanced than I am and I got a lot of GPs in production... :undecide:

BornInCantaloup said:
ps :
lol, what's up with the city names, Seraiel ?

I wanted to have a little more personality in this game, because I like Big&Small and also like Space and therefore put a lot of effort in this round, so I named my cities after virtues like i. e. Kindness (the Ivory city

) , Humbleness (the capital) or Diligence (the GLH + Colossus city) . I also got a Woodsmen II Axe early and named it Tachywaxon, because I know nobody who was better at workerstealing then him. Unfortunately, my inGame Tachywaxon is controlled by me though, so while she even got the Championship promotion by a random-event, she actually didn't see a single Worker yet :lol:

.

nocho · Feb 6, 2016

Seraiel said:
I also got a Woodsmen II Axe early and named it Tachywaxon, because I know nobody who was better at workerstealing then him. Unfortunately, my inGame Tachywaxon is controlled by me though, so while she even got the Championship promotion by a random-event, she actually didn't see a single Worker yet .

What on earth is the Championship promo? Thought I'd at least seen it all after 10 years, but this doesn't ring a bell.

BornInCantaloup · Feb 6, 2016

Jastrow said:
T115 0AD
20 cities, 70 population. 2 settlers in transit. 357 bpt at 100%, ~160 at breakeven (~45%). 724 gold in the bank.

Ah ! Now I feel bad again

Thanks for sharing, this looks great ! I hope your game keeps developing that well.

I don't think earliest Oxford University matters at all, compared with the production you managed to get and are now going to get out of 20 cities.
If need be, you can just bank gold for the time being, with little use for research.

Major Tom · Feb 6, 2016

I see all you pros settled on the marble. What about have access to sea with +2 traderoutes from TGL and also the benefits from Harbour and SIP?

Jastrow · Feb 6, 2016

@Seraiel,

I think you misunderstood my Oxford time plan. I am hoping for Oxford 20T AFTER Education, so about 28 turns from 1AD. Still tight, but significantly easier than the numbers you are giving.
I have 3 universities that can be chopped, and in the capital a Uni can be 3-whiped pretty quickly. I also have two cities with decent production for #5&6. I will not be 1-turning Oxford. I expect to be able to whip-stack about 120 hammers, and do not have stone, so it will be about a 10-12 turn build.

As to galleys, I am not sure what you are referring to. I have only 2 galleys in the water.

@Major Tom

I consider SiP pretty bad. Yes, you get 2 trade-routes in the capital (instead of in another city, since you need the inland cities to pick up some tiles.) Even at say turn 150, this essential means routes of 4 gpt are in the capital instead of another city. Assuming bureaucracy and Oxford and an academy, that is a net gain of about 12 beaker per turn.

Because your capital is less central on the main continent, you are likely paying half of that back in extra maintenance, but even ignoring that nuance...

At size 10, realistically,:

on marble (F/H/C):

city sq: 2/3/1
3xresources: 15/2/3
2xhill: 2/6/0
5xcottages: 8/2/25
-20 F to feed citizens (with beuro)= 7/20/44

SiP
City sq: 2/1/1
3x resources: 11/4/5
2 hills: 0/8/0
lake: 3/0/3
4 cottages: 4/3/20
-20 F to feed citizens (with beuro)= 0/24/44

SiP is stagnating, and with no decent way to grow further. On Marble is still booming. Add to that that on Marble is MUCH faster at the start, and is seems pretty clear to me.

Major Tom · Feb 6, 2016

Thanks Jastrow for the analysis. Good point about the maintanance, didnt think of that.

By the way, i saw a post around recently which refered to a tool or program that analysed all the city locations in your way. Anyone have a link?

Pangaea · Feb 6, 2016

Looks like a mighty fine game, Jastrow. So you're aiming for Oxford by maybe T145? What is that, about 700AD? That's still pretty early. And since the capital is poor for cottages, super-early Oxford may not matter as much as it tends to do.

I also feel bad now

But then I didn't have a great feeling at 1AD to begin with, since the city count was low. One thing that worked out well, however, was stealing workers from Churchill (3 I think, altogether), and killing him early, gaining a sickeningly good NE site.

Davi... Major Tom: I didn't like SIP either. After thinking a little about it, settling on marble looked much stronger, despite losing a little research for those first 3 turns. You get the worker earlier than by SIP, and it's pretty easy to get out workers and/or settlers fast, and of course warriors. Don't think I've ever had a 3 :hammers:

city tile before, but it is certainly good

My 2nd city then went on top of the ivory, 1W of SIP. Not a great site foodwise, but it does catch the horses we knew about, and I figured the island we can see to the SE may need the food anyway. And I definitely wanted to settle that island pretty early. Unlike Jastrow I didn't REX so fast in the beginning though, and only had 3 cities when building GLH in 1320BC.

Suppose the Stele is excellent for those going for culture. +25% is pretty darn huge.

Major Tom · Feb 6, 2016

You guys are good. I realise the need to adapt....Ch-ch-changes.

Minou · Feb 7, 2016

@BornInCantaloup: I'm very impressed at your empire built with only 6 workers. How did you manage to get all that infrastructure with so few hands to chop, mine, etc?

As for me, I settled on the Marble PH like most. Stole 3 workers from Churchill over time with the starting Warrior. It seems like he could have been rushed with 2-3 Warriors very early, but perhaps it was more useful to get the extra Workers and the small research bonus for a few early techs (plus let him found a few more cities in the east). I ended up waiting until 100BC to attack him with Elephants and Catapults. I built more than twice the number needed, but the surplus will do nicely for attacking Stalin once they finish shuttling across to the southern island (where I have three cities).

Got the Oracle for COL ~1100BC fearing it might go by 1000BC, but it seems from others games I should have delayed for CS. Confucianism spread to 5 cities automatically over the BC years, so I have not actually had to build any missionaries. Missed GLH though, which will surely to hurt quite a lot as it will likely be ~750AD when I conquer it. I just did not have a decent production coastal city to build due to weak planning. First GS built an Academy at the 5x FP city. Otherwise I mostly grew cities using HR Warriors for happiness and started settling the surrounding islands - Creative was very nice to get those offshore Fish workable quickly. All the AIs have been contacted (they had Archery, IW, Polytheism and Monotheism to trade). I have not yet circumnavigated the globe but should make it in about 4 turns.

Now at 15 cities with 65 pop and about to tech Paper (have CS, Currency, Construction, but not MC or Calendar). Research is at 285bpt at 100% thanks to pillaging and about 160bt at break even. Not much in the way of events - just one "lost food" event and one "stored food" event in minor cities.

BOTM 100 First Spoiler - 1AD

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BOTM 100 First Spoiler

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