COTM 08 First Spoiler: Entering the Middle Ages

COTM 08 Spoiler 1: Entering the Middle ages.

To qualify for this spoiler, you must have:

1. Reached the middle ages.
2. Have contact with all other civs on the starting continent.
3. Have a map of the majority of the starting continent.

Please Note Also: Once you have started the save, PLEASE DO NOT POST IN THE PRE-GAME DISCUSSION or GAME RELEASE THREADS.

If you have more of the workd map, please do not discuss it or post screenshots of it until the next spoiler (this includes suicide galley paths). If any other civs settle on the starting continent, or you have contact with them, please only refer to them indirectly (eg Civ X settled in the south).


In this map, I tried to develop an idea to try to get players to adapt to the surroundings, rather than follow any sort of standard recipe. I am interested to know whether you played normally and coped fine; adapted and prospered; tried to change your style and failed etc etc.

Open Class, Barb Fix

Ok...first COTM, first time playing Demi-God so naturally I'm getting smoked by the AI but I would love to send out some mad-props for all the luxeries and strategic resources nearby.

Other than being way behind on the tech pace I seem to be managing. I don't think I'll have any chance to win this game but I'll see how the Middle Ages go.

ETA: What type of game I played.

COTM 08, OPEN CLASS, BARB FIX

Let's see if I can get the first post!

My game was a total mess! I'm still wondering how I could win it. I was to late discovering the Byzantines, so Babs were my only trading partner and I had nothing to expect from them. They expanded like crazy and got much too strong to conquer.
Moreover I lost the race for the GLib, tried to beat up the Babs instead to get some techs. This attempt failed miserably, so I went cheeky and captured the < Glib city on another continent >!

Here's my log:

Worker N, settle on spot, Ur builds Enkidu
3950BC Worker chops dyes
3800BC new Enkidu moves E tw. mountains, Ur builds granary
3550BC Worker chops plains, Enkidu moves W, then on ccw around Ur
3150BC Granary in Ur, builds Settler, Ur size 3, lux 10%
2800BC Ur size 4, lux 20%
2570BC Meet Babs, they have 4 cities (incl. Capitol), I'm founding Sumer E of Ur

2310BC Founding Lagash
2110BC Trading with Babs: Alphabet = 9gpt + 239g
1225BC Buying Writing from Babs for lots of cash

Meeting Byz. sometime later, <another civ> founds a city on the E coast.

I believe I've been lost in the tech race b/c of not having met Byz. at time!

Trying to make a Prebuild to get Great Library

650BC Buying Literature from Babs, Code of Laws from Byz, Philosophy from <another civ>
370BC GLib for <another civ>, now I am going to war against Babs

Prebuild for GLib was a joke!

250BC Declare!
190BC Trading w/ Byz. Republic = 40gpt + 243g, meeting <another civ>: trading Iron Working, Wheel, Ceremonial Burial, Masonry = Republic

No resources on my lands! There are no horses, no iron. seems I have to stick with Archers for a long time.

<another civ> allies with Babs.

150BC Revolting to REP, 4 turns, declare on Byz. b/c of gpt deal.

I didn't think well about the gpt deal and should have traded with someone farer away!
The wars are pointless, so I'm trying to make peace ("Give peace a chance!").

70BC Now Republic, Peace w/ <another civ>
10AD Peace w/Byz. for 180g
50AD Peace w/ Babs for 12gpt + cash
260AD Peace w/ <another civ> for MST, MTH, HBR

There's also a peace deal w/ <another civ> including a SE coastal city I took from the Babs.

270AD Meeting <another civ>

I must get techs. All civs I know are in Medieval Age for a long time. I am still in Ancient Age.
So I am trying to build a disposable taskforce to capture <another civ's city> w/ the GLib on another continent. I cannot build enough galleys, so I make a ROP w/ <another civ> to send stacks of archers to <another civ's city>.

460AD I am ready to attck GLib city.
IT: Babs declare! It's getting really stupid now!
480BC Surprise, surprise! Attack on <another civ's city> w/ 24 archers and 2 Enkidus succeeds! Remaining 5-6 units fortify in <another civ's city>
490AD Getting the complete Medieval Age except Magnetism & Music Theory from GLib, earning several trading tokens:
BYZ: Mil. Alliance against Babs for Free Artistry
<another civ>: 30 Gold for Free Artistry
<another civ>: WM + g
BYZ: Incense + Music Theory for Theory of Gravity
<another civ's captured city> abandoned, rescue fleet to taskforce stack, lux 10%, upgrading 1st archer to Longbow

Names of Civs on other continents are a no-spoiler, aren't they? You can look them up in the F10 screen (or get them from MapStat 2.8.2 ). Yes - but some people don't WANT to do that )

EDIT: Oh, Ruprect! No first post for me! Welcome and good luck!

My first post to these forums.
This will be my first game submitted. (although I've played a few in "secret")
Demigod is out of my comfort zone, so this game has been F U N!
My goal is to survive, hopefully even pull off a win somehow.

The ancient ages were reasonably uneventful.

No wars, and fortunately met the Byzantines and Babylon, (and some other civs) so had tech parity for the entire ancient age. Civ X settled a city to the east of my starting location, although I already had contact with them before this.

I like the starting location, minimal resources and luxuries - what a challenge!

I've found it reasonably difficult financially, having to rely on the lux slider for much of my happiness, and more entertainers than I would like (which is none!).

Towards the end of the ancient age, I found sources of horses and iron, although I did not manage to settle them until after the cutoff for this spoiler.

Even in the ancient age Babylon's culture has proved troublesome, and by then end of the AA I had already lost one city to them by culture flip. In hindsight, I probably should have "trimmed" them. This decision may come back to haunt me.

Initial tech path was a toss up between The Wheel and Alphabet, as only one rival starts with each of these techs. I decided on The Wheel, as I thought the Philosophy slingshot unlikely on Demigod. Turns out I made the right decision, as pretty soon I met the Byzantines and was able to trade for Alphabet. Although my decision was right, it was for the wrong reason, and I ended up being first to Philosophy, choosing Map Making as my free tech (need to meet those civs!)

I entered the (edit) middle ages as a republic, beginning to struggle for cash, and hoping to survive the MA, and hoping to settle those precious resources I spotted before the AI.

I found demigod just too hard

Settler N and founded on Dye, eventually had eight cities in a good pattern around my capital, but other civs (babs and byzantines) were just too far ahead in techs. They also started settling behind me; Babs settled two cities behind me, Byzantines 1, Persians 1 and the <another civ> 1 too.

At this point without mapmaking, Literature or a Coastal city, I pretty much threw in the towel. I also missed the philosophy sling-shot, and GL (my prebuild was wasted when all other wonders were built by other civs)

Arrrghhhh!

Names of Civs on other continents are a no-spoiler, aren't they? You can look them up in the F10 screen (or get them from MapStat 2.8.2 ). Yes - but some people don't WANT to do that )

Click to expand...

Thanks, ainwood! I get the point. There was a city name left, so I edited it out, too.

Well I'm not going to submit. I tried an archer rush as I didn't have any better units (no horses or iron) and the Babs were starting to build a MA wonder when I was still in mid AA. My tidy stack of archers was depleted rather quickly and I resigned the game.

This game seems hard. I am eager to see how will the more experienced players adapt to these pretty non-standard starting conditions. Hese's what I did:

I started the game by settling N, chopping the forest in-place and building Granary, Enkidu, Settler. Following builds were Enkidus and Settlers as population permitted.
I strarted research Wheel at full speed, then Alphabet, Writing, Philospohy. I managed to get it first, so I got free Literature and then stoppedd research.
I had contacts with Babylonians and Byzantines since ~2800 BC.
I started building TGL in 1750 BC and finished it in 925 which solved my tech problems (finally got Iron working ).
Around 600 BC I finally broken Barbarian blockade and managed to make some contacts across the sea and TGL brought me into MA quickly after.

Having no offensive force worth noting (well I have 6 vet. Archers), no Iron or Horses, I am probably in no position for major conquest. However Babylon is near, has the Pyramids and in war with Byzantines, thus I probably try something as soon as I reach some advanced form of govt to enjoy GA.
Still I believe this game is probably one notch above my abilities and I expect that I will either Diplo-win or Space-lose.

I was playing on the Conquest class. I thought I started well, but I don't have much willpower to actually finish the game further. It's probably not unwinnable, but it doesn't look at all likely.

Right from the start, I knew demigod was well over my head. Prior to this I have not been able to finish on Emperor even and all my Conquest games had been Monarch. I also knew full well that the Conquest units only help lower leveled players if at least some sense of strategic thought is already there and I certainly never had that . However, I tried anyway and to compete, I was prepared to A) Depart from liberties - like wonders, B) Put the effort into micromanaging turn by turn. It's been a harrowing quarter of a game, living every turn in fear, not knowing at any moment when swarms of Bowmen will simply run over the Enkidus and burn Sumeria to the ground. It's also been a very valuable experience. Entirely because of these few turns competing with the AI at demigod in the early game, I pretty much graduated from Monarch to Emperor overnight.

I had begun the game expanding north and west, so I'd also nailed a lot of that awesome foody terrain there ahead of Babylon. I never even thought or noticed the lack of iron and horses because I got wheel and iron working so late :/. I did like all the food land, however, I never was able to capitalize on it. The concept of a proper, granaried 'settler pump' I only learned after the expansion was done. I'd still raced to 12 cities to my neighbour, Babylon's 11, in addition to two CivX cities planted on my east.

As another note, I opted to settle in place at the start. I had my Conquest bonus units and I couldn't see any reason to move about on my opening. I immediately sent my workers chopping on the dye forest. With some micromanagement, I managed to time the chop to give me an extra Enkidu. This was kinda cool. I'd never done something like it before. It was also pointless in the grand scheme of things.

I realized late in the ancient era that the map maker had been meaner with the land than I'd previously imagined. We were given some luxuries and a I for myself, managed to secure solid food, but with Babylonian bowmen next door and neither iron nor horse, any conquest would've had to be done with swarms of archers stacked with Enkidus. I realized too late, so no invasion of Babylon ever got off the ground.

As a note, I fixed the barb thing about the time my second city was down, but I never noticed any change in barb activity from the usual. Indeed, the barbs were annoying, but I never got any of the sudden uprisings of 20 or 30 units I seem to remember from vanilla Civ.


I in any case, give thanks for this game. I probably won't finish it, my willpower being so weak faced with such steep uphill battles, but I've learned a great deal already, like settler pumps, luxury slider use, a bit of micro, and certainly no more paranoia of the Emperor AI after this.

Predator

I started with worker north and didn't like what I saw.
Still no BG revealed and a volcano in the east, which ruled out settling NE for me.
Being already far in the south, I didn't want to go further that way.
I also don't like to settle my capital on ressorces on high levels. I have the impression from previous games that this paints a big target symbol on the city.
So I looked hard for the famous breadcrumbs and indeed there are some.
The hill 3 north is on a river. It's adjacent to sugar, so we don't end up in plains with no 2 food tile.
I still don't like it, but I went for the hike.
Settling on the hill visible would provide a decent location already from what I see, but sure I'm hoping for some food bonus.

So the settler followed the worker.
Two turns later when the worker reaches the hill he sees floodplains. The settler marches in this direction.
Finally in 3750 Ur is settled east of the floodplain wheat. Well, this will be a nice exercise in managing a food rich, but initially shields poor capital .
Start with alphabet @ max. Only 1 civ with alpha around. We may not even be able to afford it, if we should meet them.
3400 first enkidu is out. Ur makes a worker.
3350 the scouting enkidu sees a red border. Well, that's pretty near
3300 meet the Babs, no trades possible.
2710 first settler, moves west for a high food, coastal position.
2630 first barb comes wandering towards Ur, emergency enkidu build in Ur
Also note now that the red warrior blocking my settler is byzantine.
Trade alphabet for pottery+30g (with only 3 turns left on research). Get masonry from Babs for alphabet+3g.
Full steam research towards writing. The AI civs have still a lot other techs to research. Maybe I can get it first.
2550 settle Sumer on western coast. Builds the first of several curraghs. But none of these made it very far.
2190 settle Lagash in the east
1870 see the first barb horse. I had already lots of problems with the barb warriors, now the fun will really begin.
Settle Kish southeast near dyes.
1830 first of many times that barbs plunder a city. Sumer loses a pop and the work on a curragh.
1750 first of many times a curragh is sunk by a barb galley.
1700 AI has writing 2 turns before I complete it. Trade for it and go for philo.
1500 settle Umma on the dyes se of the start location.
1475 the first dyes are connected. I directly swap it with Babs for silk. This prevents him extorting it before I can trade, when I will have an extra.
1450 Philosophy comes in. Trade for math via big picture (no CoL around). Take currency.
Trade to tech parity and all gold with my neighbors. But that's not much what they had. The first tier techs IW and myst.
But now I know the resource situation in our land. Research literature.
Around this time Ur was able to operate as 4-turn settler factory in the rare cases neither I nor the barbs messed it up.
1400 now they know map making. Buy it for a rather high price. Should have waited with the currency deal, but that's always risky on high levels.
1375 Theodora wants gold. No! She declares losing quite some money in gpt payments from me. No way to get Hammi to join.
I can only hope that the long way and the barbs will prevent big forces to come.
Make RoP with Hammi for 3gpt to get into a better forward defense position.
1225 settle Agade
1200 settle Erech. Had the only battle with Theodora; killed an archer with my fantastic SoD of an enkidu, an archer and a catapult.
1175 literature researched. Make peace with Byzantine giving literature taking all their cash. Sell literature to Babs for all their cash, but no techs.
Research CoL.
1125 settle Isin.
1050 massive uprise warning. Oh no! I'm sitting around with tons of cash waiting for my neighbors to research something.
1000 Lost most of my gold (~400) in the interturn. Now the neighbors have construction, but I can't afford it.



I have 9 towns with 29 pop
1 granary, 2 barracks, 3 libraries
1 settler, 8 workers, 9 enkidu, 2 archers, 1 catapult, no curraghs or galleys currently, all sunk by barbs
8 gold left after several large stacks ransacked my cities
Still missing construction, HBR, polytheism, CoL (researching) and the govs.
Only contacts with Babs and Byz' and a very poor knowledge even of the starting continent. Several scouting enkidu fell to barbs and the curraghs and galleys didn't make it far.

900 Researched CoL->Republic, trade for construction. Barbs are still ransacking at least 1 city every turn.
690 Meet Civ X, which settled on our continent, trade into MA.
670 MA and trading around nets all starting techs and all the gold we know of. Still researching republic. We are tech leader together with Babs.
Minimap at the begin of MA:



Our knowledge of the world is still not much better. We do know that civ X made it to our continent with a galley, but no chance currently to look.
Also no units to spare for more scouting on our continent. One enkidu made it into Byzantine holding by now.
The Barbs are still not fully controlled, though the uprise stacks are absorbed already.

I will go for a quite peaceful game. In fact I know already that I made several mistakes in MA which will make diplomatic difficult.
So it will probably be a rather late space ship launch.
With my limited milking abilities this will also not be a good score, but I will try to submit.

>curraghs and galleys didn't make it far.

The weakness of the AI is that they don't know how to combine their troops, they'll just send a steady stream to be picked off one at a time. The converse of this is to bunch up your own.

Curraughs are pretty cheap, so I just waited until I had two or three and sent them out together. Fortifying when a barb ship was sighted also helped.

Bezhukov said:

Curraughs are pretty cheap, so I just waited until I had two or three and sent them out together. Fortifying when a barb ship was sighted also helped.

Click to expand...

Does the fortify bonus really work for ships? It seems funny to me...

COTM 08, Conquest class
First time playing in Demigod, usually win quite easily in monarch and lose in emperor.
3900 BC I settled 1 SW of the volcano on the east of the starting position in order to get the extra trade from the 3 silks and the sugar (would have been a mistake if I didn't find then the cow in the city area).
3600 BC met Babylonians, trade Ceremonial Burial for 30g + Bronze Working.
3050 BC met by Byzantines (didn't notice at first because of the color)
I started then to settle towards the North West, to close the door to the Babylonians.
My explorers popped a few gh, but only barbs came out of them.
As it was my first game in Demigod (not well prepared), I thought it was useless to research. Huge mistake for the beginning, as I can't find the other civs to trade with.
775 BC, I settled my first coastal city (another mistake, too much focused on closing the door and I thought it was some kind of pangea map) and started for curraughs and later trirems.
I used all my gold for some trades with the Babs and the Byzs, but they were hard bargainers.
310 BC, met new civs oversea, I thought I would be able to trade a lot, but as I was too backward, was little use. Got a few techs though.

At that point I thought, hey my shutting of the door was a good idea, I managed to settle all the east of my continent. I now just have to keep peace and catch back in techs. Let's head for a diplo victory ! I was only a little bit annoyed by the Babylonians who were so much powerful (they had a war with the Byz, and despite my help by buying Byz tech instead of Bab tech, it had gone bad for the Byz), controling all the middle of the continent and being able to settle vast land on the north. For a long time I was blackmailed by the civs I knew on my continent, tried to keep them happy as much as possible.

Then in 190 AD, I see the Babs coming in my territory with several huge stacks of archers (had rarely seen so many units attacking me). I thought it would be better if they could attack the Byz instead of me, so settled a good deal : the republic for 200g + 27gpt. Thought it would prevent them from attacking me. I was quite happy of my trick. But the Babs declared war nonetheless ! Unbelievable. I had to form an alliance with the Byz for 35 gpt + 60g instead.

I know I can't resist to such an army, I tried to build as many enkidu warriores as possible. Works, I manage to defend my major cities and they have to go to my northern cities after loosing quite a lot of archers.
After they took 2 not so interesting cities, I manage to go to peace for only 1 worker. The bad thing is that I triggered an early despotic GA.
I wasn't too much annoyed by the barbs, even with the barbs fixed. Only had one city pillaged by them, but I could buy a tech just before so only lost something like 11 g in total.

I realize now that my major mistake was the too early zero research policy. I wonder how long the Babs will allow me to live.

I couldn't play this game because of the luck of time, but can't resist lurking around.
It looks like a really interesting and "different" game. For the 1st time no resources provided at all and players must have fun with archer rushes on DG level...
I sure would love to see how people deal with such a situation.
Good luck!!!

As the 'land grab' phase came to a close, I had 2 more cites than Babylon, but I was woefully behind in Culture. All of my units were being used to reduce Flipping on border towns. Still, I had Grand Plans to hit him with an Archer/Encidu/Catapult rush. I built and built and built and was researching Monarchy for some warmongering and a non-despotic Golden Age. Yeah, right . And then I saw his Pikes and Medevil Infantry and it gave me great pause.

And then, totally unprovoked, Theodora attacked me, triggering my (still Despotic GA ). Instead of warring with Babylon, I traded luxuries with him to keep him out of the fight. Still, he had given ROP to Byzantine and she was taking full advantage of it. Lucky for me I had all of those Catapults and Archers. She had Spear, Archer, Sword, and Medevil Infantry. I didn't see any Pike from her, but, then again the war did not last long as I really devastated her initial wave, got a Leader and formed an Archer Army which really was quite dominating. We made peace after only about 8 - 10 turns of war.

I became a Monarchist (it was a bad idea, but it was that or stay Despotic) and was now WOEFULLY behind in Tech after meeting most of the other civs.
Decided to somehow get to Republic and Trade, Trade, Trade and somehow stay out of war at all costs. This seems to be working rather well - Science is at ZERO now, and I am buying my way forward.

CRITICAL - the establishment of Embassies with all other civs and World Map. This has allowed for me to be aware of all other wars and take advantage of them using ROP's and peacefully settling into the empty war-ravaged lands. I gained Iron, Horse, and 2 Ivory, (along with some other 'future' resources) . I have traded away both Iron and Horse, knowing full well that I could not afford an Offense, let alnoe a decent Defense against dramatically superior forces.

Understand that while I am posting here under the AA topic, that's where MY CIV is, while all of the others are almost a FULL AGE ahead of me. I could build Horsemen with those Horse, but the Civ that I traded them to is building Cavalry .

Still, (although this is a bit ahead of the posting topic), I seriously believe that I have a good chance of winning Diplo, as ALL other Civs are at CONSTANT war with each other, switching Alliances, back-stabbing each other, etc. AND they are ALL Fascists, while I am a VERY profitable Democracy, getting one of EVERY Luxury, have ROP with all, and they are all Polite towards me. It's actually kind of funny, trading away my Horse, Iron, Saltpeter, Coal, etc to the other warmongering Civs. They are all busy signing MPP's and MA's and what-not and yet none of them seems to make any real progress (land gains) in the wars. Sure, being Fascists, they demand $$ and Maps from me all of the time, but I am more than willing to give - I just make sure that I have no extra Lux or Resource at any time, as that is too valuable to just give away.

I am only 3 or 4 techs into the Industrial Age, and I expect the UN to be built any year now. All I can do is keep trading, give gifts, and pray for a winning vote. Wish me luck.

I actually found this game to be easier than the Austrian game last month. The lack of iron or horses was annoying but at least the other civs did not have them. It was a little unusual in that I met the Byzantines before Babylon. This is also the only game I have played where I moved my initial settler more than one space. What is the big deal about not building next to mountains or volcano? I prefer the river corners to maximize the number of cities that don't need an aqueduct. I also don't like building on forest but after reading the pregame thread I probably would have built over the forest dyes on the river corner.

I prefer a building game but anything above monarch is going to be a wargame and so I was prepared to defend after refusing the first demand from Babylon. In retrospect I should have done more research and had less cash on hand which may have postponed the early GA on turn 71. A Babylon attack at the end of turn 80 generates my first GL. So I built the FP with it since there was no way I was going to have an archer based army. I refuse to make peace in spite of WW until I take at least one city. On turn 105 I destroy Uruk, should have bypassed it. For peace I get two cities next to Babylon so I position myself for the kill, after backing up again to a barracks to upgrade the cats with the new tech I was able to get in the resulting peace trades. Lose the race to the Iron by one IBT.

The second Babylonian war went well except for a flip in a town I built to allow me to get closer to Babylon. Much less than a 1% chance and I was sure I had enough units in it but... Trebuchets are really efficient against bowmen, at least an 80% or more hit probability. Babylon is now so weakened and disconnected that they will be unable to use the iron and horse resources they are holding for me until the third and final Babylonian war. The other civs are so much more polite after trashing one of the club. Byzantium declined to join in the second war. I was so disappointed.

The barbarians on land seemed to go out of their way to avoid my units but on sea those devils have stalked all my ships. I was lucky to find and settle a barb free Greenland.

Had to research my own way to the war techs and Republic, but it wasn't so bad with a science civ. The extra tech for the new age really helped out during the brief opportunites to trade. Just saving up some cash now until more libraries come online and I can build some real units. Probably could have built fewer barracks and used those cities to produce even more catapults.

Also got a cultural conversion after Civ X plants a city on a very narrow strip of land and right up against our cultural border. Actually pushed it back. Never seen that before. Took 40 turns.



Moderator Action: Removed the city name, otherwise its pretty clear who the civ is.

3950BC Ur was built on the dye North of the starting point, 100% in science to the Republic, i dont care whether i could get it before the AI do. then i found there are sugar and wheet in the north and northwest, it is a good place for the second town

then i met Babylon, only sold Pottery for 10g, better than nothing, and they are 2 tech ahead of me. and then Byzantine they are advanced.

in the early age, i was struggled against Barb and volcano , and build settler. because lack of entertainment sad citizen were change into scientist, luckily, i got Writing before Babylon and was the first one got the philosophy , so i trade some tech from the other two civs. but i didnt sell Code of Laws until 10 turns before i got The Republic.

1000BC MapStat QSC score 4875
10 towns
22 citizens
2 settlers
5 workers
1 Archer
1 Galley
12 EWs
7 turns to the Republlic

710BC goverment->Republic, and right at this turn i set a town in the east of Byzantine and hurry up harbor 4 turns later and connect to iron. so i decide to trigger The GA(610BC). an civ of the other continent set a town in the east, i decare war on her and an EW win a war, all the town begain to build swordman and Ur begain prebuid of the Great Library(finished in 290BC), we are researching the literature.
250BC we learned tech from other civs and entered the Middle Age. Babylon didn't connect to iron, so the swordman conquer begain, it is a story in the Middle Age.

capture first town in 250BC

Moderator Action: Fixed the piccie, as it showed too much off-continent.

I recently joined CivFans and this is my first G/COTM. I've played and won at all levels of Civ2, but I'm still playing at Warlord in Civ3, but figured, what the heck? I've also played at game at Chieftan as the Sumerians, so I knew going in this would be a challenge.

I tend to play an isolationist go-along/get-along sort of game - trade techs, maps and goods but avoid "foreign entanglements." I figured from my previous experience in Civ2 that I would have to be more aggressive in this game. I also knew that playing as the Sumerians, I’d have to be aggressive early.

As I’ve never played nor posted to a GOTM thread before, I didn’t think to keep a timeline. What follows is to my best recollection.

4000BC – Knew I didn’t want to settle in a forest square and the area to the east looked promising. Moved settler one tile NE, sent EW and Scout out exploring S, N & NW. Settled Ur…<groan…> - look at that volcano! At least there’s 3 dyes and sugar within the radius. Built another EW, then another worker while Ur grows, send them building roads north while I build a settler. I sent him north to found Sumer in the plains near the desert flood plains around 3000BC.

Meanwhile, my exploring warriors and scout have determined that there is a lot of mountainous terrain to the south with no real good strategic resources. North looked more promising, but it didn’t take long to meet the Babs near their village of Ninevah just NW of The Lonely Mountain. Friendly enough people, but already more advanced than I. EWs work the area to the NE of Ninevah, soon turning back from Babylonian borders while the Scout worked his way around the western coasts, then turned south where the land opened up to the west. Soon met the Bizys – again, reasonably friendly, but not interested in my knowledge – darn geeks, think they know everything. About this time, my scout pokes his nose into a barb village on the west side of the Bizys and gets it cut off - along with his head.

Moving along, learning what I can, built Lagash and Kish along the western coast and Umma to the NE of Sumer. Got those peasants hard at work building these cool Pyramids in Ur. Round about 800BC…a rep from Hammy comes and visits…and the *$&% demands money and a map of our lands!! Well, I figured – no way, I don’t have that much anyway. They declare WAR on me! I figure my EWs can hold them off, maybe even take one of his towns – a little northward expansion sounds good right about now. Only, Ham goes and gets Theodora of the Bizys involved and before I know it, my lands are crawling with all these people in red unis – they were like fire ants!! I held ‘em off for awhile, but in the end, the Babs take Ur and I have to give them Lagash and I have to give Kish to Theodora to call off her barbarians. Fortunately, since those two were building settlements all over my end of the continent I never had to deal much with barbs.

OK, so that left me with Sumer and Umma – but there was some vacant land to the south, in the mountain valleys and along the sea coasts, so I built some towns where I could find some space. Saw some occasional other foreigners wearing other colors, so I knew they were from other lands, but I wasn’t sure where exactly. Met them, but they weren’t interested in trading either. Not that I had anything much to trade – my science advisor was always asking for more money. Besides, the Babs would eventually get into a fight with them and wipe out or takeover their cities. I also heard that by about 800AD, there had been some big fighting overseas and two other nations had been completely overrun. As much as my advisors were complaining about “lack of money” this and “we need money” that, I figured we were still around and that wasn’t a bad thing.

By this time, we were doing a little better – my advisors told me that we had “entered a new age.” I had sent out a galley and colonized some territory far to the north – but the Babs were running all over the place up there. My ambassador to Hammurrabi said that there were more troops in the Bab capital of Ur than we had in our entire military. Plus, they had these gun things – point them at a man, there’s a loud bang, fire shoots out the end and –boom! – another one bites the dust. My EW’s were proud, well-disciplined warriors, but no match for those. Everyone but us had figured out how to make them, so whenever the red (or green or yellow) Mafia would show up demanding a little ‘protection’, I’d have to pay up. I figured I’d just keep my head down and try to make sure my little band of blue guys survived.

Back in the present…I’ve just finished reading the first page of posts and am impressed by the level of skill of many of the players. I know from my own experience playing Civ2 that I’ll get there, eventually – but by then, Civ4 will be out!

Open

I decided to start off this game by researching Iron Working on minimum. If I were to get this before any of the others it would surely give me enough leverage to keep up in the Ancient Age. Moving my settler north onto the dye i realised there was sugar in the distance. This was good enough to make me want to settle, so I did.

I met both Hammi and Theodora before 2750BC and managed to learn The Wheel and Warrior code from them. Eventually I learn Iron Working in 1725BC (just after Hammi and Theodora, obviously...) and realise the horrible situation of being trapped on a small continent with no horses or iron. Start to prepare my archer army. Decide to head straight for Monarchy in an attempt to use this to barter my way out of the Stone Age.

In 1600BC, Hammi demands 23g. I capitulate, since I have hardly any me to my name. In 1025BC I am the first to reach Polytheism, I use this to buy Alphabet, Masonry, Horseback Riding, and Writing.

My stats at 1000BC:

9 cities, 24 pop, 2 settlers in transit.
98g, -3gpt, Lit in 8 turns.
2 contacts.
6 workers, 4 archers, 10 Enkidu Warriors.
3 granaries.

The world at 1000BC:



In 975BC we learn Literature in exchange for gpt. In 950BC, Theo demands 20g. We have to agree, since our army is poor, and we would probably could not buy Babylon yet. I continue to settle my third of the continent and more or less succeed in keeping out the riff-raff. Only one Babylonian city is nestled within my empire on the SW coast of my country. In 690BC we meet "Civ D" and trade Literature for Maths. The Babylonians once again demand money and I keep them sweet. In 550BC I meet "Civ E" and buy Monarchy for a small sum. I also buy Construction for a fairly hefty sum. We trade Monarchy to Babylon for Philosophy, MapMaking + CoL. In 390BC, we meet "Civ F". Eventually, in 170BC, we learn Currency and enter the Middle Ages. We get Engineering as our freebie. At this stage, we revolt, and get a 9 turn anarchy!

The world at 170BC:



I haven't done too badly considering my lack of experience at Demi-God level and the absence of any resources! I have worries about staying ahead in the research stakes though, i'm not looking forward to a cavalry onslaught.

Pre game thoughts

This time, i am going for a space victory.
I have never did anything else than go for the fastest domination/conquest possible, also in civ2, so this is something entirely new for me.
I know the game settings will cause many people to go for space, but that is what I like, I rather have some competition than win a space victory in a game where noone else goes for space.

I have been thinking about the choise between going for the fasteste possible tech or first get 65% territory asap for score. Luckily the game settings have helped me a bit with this tough decision.

We have a warrior replacing UU. I do not want a despotic golden age. I cannot upgrade the UU to swordsmen like I normally do with about 20 warriors to start my conquest.
Also are we scientific with cheap libraries. This directs one to the choise of building libraries early, before barracks and fully concentrating on science while conquest is secondary.

On the other side however there are a lot of facts that make it better to go for land first and tech later:
-Conquering land costs much more later in the game. The price of techs do not rise. Acturally, the amount of total science needed can only get smaller when research is a bit delayed in early game. (when the AI helps my research)
-Early conquered land gives more score than late conquered land
-Every conquered city can support a scientist and produces 1 gold from wealth

With most different races, the choise to go concentrate on conquest first would be an easy choise for me. In this situation, it is however a very difficult choise and I will try to find a balance between the 2.

After that, I will concetrate on conquering some land for score while the libraries will do the research work for themselves. Most likeley my conquest will start with knights. I don’t think horses will be doing an awfull lot of fighting. I hope I will be able to spend money on upgrading horses to knights without harming my research too much.

Market places will have a lower priority than normal. They will of course be most usefull for enhancing the happiness from the luxury resources. For tax I don’t think they should be doing much good however. I hope to keep some friends to sell my techs for gpt alowing my tax to stay as low as possible.

During the middle ages, I can probably spend much of my production on militairy. Universities are the only real important city improvement I want to build then.
Hopefull I can get enough land during the middle ages and have my hands free during the industrial ages for some wonders, factories and SS prebuilds.

Ancient Age
I settle in place. My build order in capital is this:
Warrior-Settler-Granary-Settlers…..

The Worker first mined the 2 BG, then roaded 1 of them and connected that road to the capital. It cut the dyes forest just in time to help the granary and then connected the luxury.

The Warrior scouted some food and flood plains so that is where my first Settler went.
This city did not have the production to become a settler factory. Corruption made it even difficult to make it be a worker factory. Intense micromanaging was needed to have it make workers at size 5. I didn’t want to grow it size 6 for happiness reasons.

I used a cycle where in 1 turn I got 6 food and 4 shields with irrigated wheat floods, irrigated floods, mined sugar, irrigated plains and mined plains.
In the second turn, I got 4 food and 5 shields by swiching from the irrigated plains to another mined plains, the city growth added the last needed shield, finishing the worker.
Also did I have to delay one city at closer distance than this city until republic.
It took me at least half an hour and a few A4 papers to calculate the corruption that was to be expected and find this solution, but I am proud of myself J.

Normally I build settlers in the factory and workers everywhere else. So this game, I am building workers in the factory and settlers in all other cities. Warriors are only build when a city has no food to produce settlers or workers.

I didn’t expect to have any chance at a republic slingshot. Maybe philosophy first would be possible, but without COL that is not very valuable and imo not worth the risk.
Therefore, I chose to go for the techs that I expected the AI to research least. I researched Iron Working – Mathematics – Literature.

After reaching Literature in 1325BC, I stood for a difficult decision. After some trading, Everyone I knew had all AA techs except the gov’s and currency. Construction was known by only 1 Opponent. As far as I know, none of these techs are really popular by the AI, but they will have to choose one and I really don’t know what they will choose, maybe all of them will even choose a different one L. Building an embassy showed that my neighbour was researching at 100% and had 14 science from its capital alone already. Their research is definitely faster than mine.

975BC, I had currency researched. The byzantynes wanted 9 gpt and 240 gold as well however to trade it for construction. I did pay this rediculous price.
Then traded Map making from Babylon and got 326 + 6gpt from another civ for it.
I got Feudalism for free tech and so did my neighbours L.

The first curraght I sent out sank just before reaching the coastal waters of another continent. Luckily however the captains parrot was just in time to flee from the sinking ship and tell me about the other civilisation they met minutes before sinking. This was somewhere around 1600BC I think.

I found No goody huts.

1000BC
13 cities, 28 pop.
20 workers
1 archer
5 enkidu
1 Curragh
2 Granary
2 Library
3 contacts
Missing: Currency, Construction, Governments, Map making. (Currency in 1)

The AI placed one city into MY Territory, and a settler from another civ has arived by boat.

I should have probably build more ships to meet more AI.

Well, i had all these plans and thoughts before starting, but it seems the game is making my decisions now. No swordsmen upgrade, no horsmen, not even swordsmen to build. AI's taking my landand large mountains screwing up a nice city layout.
The game as i am playing it now feels very much against my nature. I never built libraries, i never invested in my own research at this difficulty level. I do not yet have the feeling this is gonna be a real succes in the space ship contest. But no matter how weird and unnatural this feels, i started for a spaceship so a spaceship it will be.