COTM 11: Second Spoiler

COTM 11 Spoiler 2: Map, end of the middle ages

This spoiler thread is meant to discuss the middle game phases: wars, diplomacy, and the unfolding of your starting strategy.


To qualify for this spoiler, you must:
1. have reached the industrial ages, or submitted your completed game, and
2. have knowledge of the "full" world map (see below).

Please, try to:
- avoid discussing Industrial-Ages matters (events, tech, resources).


At this point in the game you should have gained knowledge, by direct exploration or by trade, of most of the world map.
In order to participate in this thread, it is necessary that you possess sufficient knowledge of the various inhabited regions: sufficient, that is, to cover at least the land/sea routes between them and the location of the various resources.
This means that if you haven't discovered Navigation, you are not necessarily excluded: I trust you to apply your own judgment to your knowledge of the map being 'sufficient' for the purpose of the thread.


So, how did things fare in the Middle Ages? How did the world scenario evolve?
How did your growth proceed? Did you conquer new lands? Or were you the target of someone else's greed? Or did you choose the peaceful path and set your mind on research or culture?

Oh dear am I the 1st to post??

Here are the buildings for the MA for my beautiful Seoul:

Knights Templar 320 AD
Leo's 590 AD
University 630 AD
JSB Cathedral 1030 AD
Shakespeare's 1210 AD
Heroic epic 1265 AD
Cathedral 1275 AD

I lost out on Sistine and had to settle for Leo's. That will probably make this attempt uncompetitive (conquest to start with). It was purely to build the KT so that I could get free units to fight as I was in war most of the time.

Also missed out on Newton's but had the HE made available in the nick of time.

hoping for an 18th century finish, fingers & legs crossed

The middle ages were mostly peaceful for me, and I tried to keep it that way. My main goal was to research and get to the next age as fast as possible. The Vikings declared war on me in 390BC, two turns after getting Invention. I immediately allied with India, and later Carthage. So the only Viking units that made it to my shores were 3 warriors.

Luxuries
Happiness was an issue as the start of the middle ages, and I expanded aggressively towards the luxuries.
750BC: City built on Wines Island
690BC: City Built on Gems Island
390BC: Reverse war weariness from Vikings
370BC: Use ROP to complete Fur trade route with Carthage
350BC: Rush harbor on Wines Island
270BC: Rush harbor on Gems Island
70BC: Rush harbor on the far north Silks.
At the end of the age I could support size 12 cities with no luxury tax, temples, or marketplaces.

Research
I never dropped my science slider below 80% for the entire age. I depended heavily on 1gpt-for-17g loans from the AI. When things got really bad I even took out a few 1gpt-for-7g loans. I was able to cancel most of the loans by selling my latest techs.

1125BC: Free Engineering
825BC: Monotheism (12 turns)
800BC: Trade for Monarchy
690BC: Trade for Feudalism
630BC: Theology (9 turns)
490BC: Education (7 turns)
370BC: Banking (6 turns)
Trade for Invention, Chivalry
290BC: Gunpowder (4 turns)
190BC: Chemistry (5 turns)
90BC: Metallurgy (5 turns)
50BC: Trade for Astronomy, Printing Press
30AD: Physics (4 turns)
110AD: Magnetism (4 turns)
190AD: Theory of Gravity (4 turns)

I entered the Industrial Age with a stack of Hwach'a next to Bergen ready to trigger my golden age.

Open class, goal = fast space launch.

I entered the Middle Ages at a respectable 730 BC, but I was still deep in a Republic recession. I had concentrated so much on libraries that I neglected marketplaces and aqueducts. I gained Engineering as my free tech which I immediately gifted to everyone, but it took me until 210 BC to get Monotheism. During that time, I managed to connect the wines, spices, and furs so I had 5 native luxuries which made life much easier. I learned Theology in 110 BC, Education in 30 AD, and then it was 4 turns per tech for the rest of the Middle Ages. I researched the top half of the tree first, gifting the AI as I went so they could work on the bottom half. I learned Feudalism and Invention via trades before the AI became useless the rest of the game except for buying my outdated techs for gpt (and building cities for me).

The only wonder I completed during the Middle Ages was Copernicus’ Observatory finished in 360 AD. I had no wars during the MA, but I knew I would need more cities to maintain 4-turn research, so after my core had universities, I finally started building military. I built a handful of muskets and Medieval Infantry and a large amount of trebuchets and Hwach’as.

I entered the Industrial Ages in 460 AD preparing an assault on Scandinavia.

Open, going for 20K

Middle Ages

The free tech was Monotheism which was the best one to get in this case. Research orders: <Theology> <Education> <Banking> <Astronomy> <Printing Press> <Democracy> <Free Artistry>. Building orders: cathedral, colosseum, Sistine Chapel, university, Copernicus and Shakespeare. After building Shakespeare I squeezed in a harbour in Seoul. The harbour enables growth to 20 pop with a lot of (uncorrupted) commerce. The commerce would be very useful for the science-pace. Ofcourse pop-20 would also mean pollution. And pollution became a regular guest. Not that I minded that, the only annoying thing was that pollution struck half the time at my irrigated deer, which produced 5 food. I lost in all 4 pop due to that and had to irrigate another tile to get a positive growth in Seoul.

After Shakespeare I didn't go for JS Bach but for Newton's. Newton has a far more culture per shield. I could trade for Feudalism, Engineering and Invention. (The regent-AI researched much faster then I expected.) After Newton was build JS Bach was the best wonder to go for. But it would be completed in the Industrial Ages. The other cities build library, university, marketplace, aquaduct, harbour and barracks, roughly in that order.

Throughout the Middle Ages my army consisted of 1 archer, 6 MI (swordsmen earlier on ofcourse) and a pikeman that came with the joining of Russadir. I made sure that I had good relations with everybody and no hostilities took place. In fact the whole game I never had a war. I gave in to every extortion, even by the weakest of the AI. (A weak AI can bring a strong one in the war.) The only odd thing in foreign policy was that the Vikings always fell back to being annoyed with us. I don't know why. The lack of luxuries was not a problem. Trading with everyone to keep relations good also meant I got 4 or 5 luxuries. I could only trade with techs.


20K-EVENTS

3950- palace
3200- temple
2070- Colossus
1225- Oracle
1175- library
590- ----------------- Republic (after 3 turn anarchy)
370- Great Library (start Golden Age)
310- aquaduct
270- ----------------- Middle Ages (free Monotheism)
210- cathedral
130- colosseum
30 ------------------- end Golden Age
270 Sistine Chapel
310 university
390 ------------------ Russadir joins Korea
460 Copernicus' Observatory
560 ------------------ Wonsan builds Forbidden Palace
650 Shakespeare's Theater
670 harbour
850 Newton's University
950 ------------------ Industrial Ages

Enter Middle Ages in 825BC. Get Monotheism as free tech. I set max commerce for a while to be able to rush cathedral turn after Great Library finishes. I then go for Theology and Education discovering the latter in 210BC rusing a university in 110BC, the turn after Hanging Gardens are finished. I then set for Free Artistry to be able to build Shakespeare as quickly as possible and then for Newton. The plan is to come back to the really big builds like Sistine and Bach once the production capacity pumped up with industrialization.

Culture builds
2310BC Temple
1450BC Colossus
1350BC Library
--------------------- 825BC Middle Ages
610BC Great Library
590BC Cathedral
430BC Statue of Zeus
130BC Hanging Gardens
110BC University
300BC Copernicus Obervatory
330AD Colosseum
580AD Shakespeare's Theater
590AD Heroic Epic
630AD Forbidden Palace
--------------------- 730AD Industrial Age

At that time my 20K city is making 70cpt and total culture is 4199.

Leader farming
First Leader in 450AD. I build an army to be able to build Heroic Epic later on. In 560AD I get my second leader. This is perfect 'timing'. I will just get him to the 20K city the turn after Shakespeare is done to rush Heroic Epic. And the turn after Heroic Epic is built luck strikes again. I get my third leader in 600AD. I have a few turns before he is in place to rush FP so I will will build harbor and Marketplace in 20K city in the meanwhile.

I can honestly say the leaders are completely deserved. I am doing heavy farming against the jap border. I have been at war for ages against the Mongols and Celts (two of the most powerful AIs) and they graciously provide me with all the cannon fodder my Trebuchets can take. I have very few elite promotions, but the ones who become elites have LOTS of wins. I never use an elite before I see a redlined bastard with a death wish. War weariness has not been a problem as they declared on me and I am just defending.
Fourth leader appeared in 690AD, and then it dries out...

EDIT: I can also add that Ancient Cavalry got me all leaders, so status of Zeus is worth its weight (and culture) in gold.

Sadly, sometime before the end of the second age, the Vikings declared war and captured my undefended capital. I seem to have a problem with that. I was playing predator and I had about five musket men and a longbowmen for an army.

I could have played through and it would have just been a bump on my histograph but I was having too much fun doing research and making trades so I reloaded and put muskets in the city and kept playing.

Oh well, gotm 42 is starting, maybe I wont mess that up.

MiniMe said:

The plan is to come back to the really big builds like Sistine and Bach once the production capacity pumped up with industrialization.

Click to expand...

Wow, how did you manage to do this? i know it's a regent game, but holding sistine chapel till IA seems a little risky... even if no AI wanted to build it, they might get it from the Sun Zi's Art of war cascade...


for all the 20kers, which there're quite a few this time, can you extrapolate your winning date based on your current game?
i'll post my spoiler once i get back home.
it seems again i made the mistake of building whatever wonders available instead of choosing the one with highest cpt ...

@ionimplant
I dont think I am spoiling by saying that I got Sistine, but could easily have lost out. One AI built Leonardo one turn before I finished Sistine (I got VERY nervous as I saw that popup), and Sun Tsu was built just after (or just before dont remember). Annoyingly Magellans was lost in a cascade. So yes, I was lucky with Sistine.

And regarding the win date, I am currently in 940AD and I see that CivAssist predicts 1778AD, but I assume it does not take into accont the wonders that will still double in culture nor the wonders yet to build. Maybe there is a way to predict more accurately but I dont know how. The closer it gets to 1700, the happier I will be. In any case its my very first 20K attempt, so I will be happy either way.

Predator

I can be really short about my MA.
I entered the MA around 500 BC (don't have an exact date). I was a builder the entire MA. I entered the IA in 370 AD... Nothing happened at all.

I rebuilt my military at the start of the MA, having previously concentrated on infrastructure. I resumed the war with Carthage, taking Utica and Leptis minor before getting peace 100 years later in 650 ad. I was behind in technology so I decided to concentrate on getting back up with the others, plus I doubted warriors and swordsmen were going to be a decent deterent with Gunpowder discovered. One mistake I made was to buy Chivlary for 900 gold, as I hadn't realised I had no Horses anyway. I let my cities grow and rebuilt my military for a few hundred years before resuming my war with Carthage in 990 ad. This time my medival infantary and Muskets were easily able to defeat numidians, and I advanced my way through his empire, taking Carthage in 1010 ad and gaining a great leader that I used to build an army. I could have finished him off sooner, but I wanted my Golden age and had to wait in order to bring the UUs to the frontlines. Even then I didn't have much luck with the RNG, and had to wait until 1160ad to trigger it.



s

Carthage was by now down to one city on the mainland, with a further 3 cities on islands. I laid seige to the town, hoping I could get him to give me his towns on the nearby Island with a luxury. He was far too stubborn for this. By now a stack of Celts was heading my way, and duly declared. I thus gave the Carthegenians the peace treaty they wanted, and moved my forces to repel the invasion. I also got Japan and the Dutch to ally with me, and the turn prior to the celtic attack the Scandanavians had paid me to have a MPP. The celtic invasion was thus repelled, and he found himself facing a war on 3 fronts. I was now admired in the world, and thus easily traded my way in the Industrial age in 1240 ad.

Drugged_Unholy said:

Carthage was by now down to one city on the mainland, with a further 3 cities on islands. I laid seige to the town, hoping I could get him to give me his towns on the nearby Island with a luxury. He was far too stubborn for this.

Click to expand...

well, considering that city has a luxury, his stubboness isn't too surprising.

I had a long drawn out war with Carthage throughout most of the MA. I was doing minimal research (one scientist) after I learned Engineering and got Fuedalism for free. Carthage had the GL in their capital. Unfortunately, those pesky NMs were fantastic defenders (especially when the cities were on hills). I started the war to claim the incense and ivory from them which went pretty well, but their capital was one tough cookie to crack. My first attempt I lost 8 Medieval infantry and a MI army. I ended up having to take all their other cities first and then overtake the capital. The good news is that although this war put me behind in infrastructure, I got 3 luxuries and all the MA techs except Physics and Democracy (and those behind them) by way of the GL so there were not many left to research.

On other fronts, I am playing my first predator game and so I was wondering if anyone figured out which civs started with the extra settlers? I am guessing it was the Mongols and Celts. They have huge empires in my game right now (and of course they are the only ones with horses) . I usually do most of my fighting with calvary so this is going to be an interesting game. Man I hope I have coal!!!

The Mongols took all the Japanese cities except for the capital and are presently attacking the Celts with little resistance. I am going to assist them in hopes that I can snag the horse resource.

Also I must note that every civ except Japan and India have declared war on me at least once after demanding tribute. They have mostly just been annoying, but good for war happiness.

I was also able to snag an island with wines on it just before India could which was great since we didn't seem to start with many luxuries nearby. This was accomplished once I was finally able to trade world maps.

Man, how do you guys go so fast with the 20k? I don't think I entered MA until AD, and no MA wonders (Sistine) till like 400AD or so. How do you guys manage to gun so fast for MA, AND get so many wonders without AI finishing them first? I had to do some crazy shifting to avoid getting owned in the cascades...

Did many of you have GA while despotic? I tried my best to avoid it (thus not Great Library), and wondering whether I should've bit the bullet instead (my GA was near the end of MA, and only got to build like 2 wonders with it)

I have (at work right now, so OTOH):
Colossus
Oracle
Hanging Garden
Sistine
Copernicus
Shakespeare
Newton

Someone built Bach's

I'm finding I'll have a lot of "wasted" turns in IA, where I can't build any wonders, since I'm so far away from Modern Age wonders... Any pointers for next time? (I've been doing my best to slow tech pace the whole game...)

ÆnigmÆffect said:

Man, how do you guys go so fast with the 20k? I don't think I entered MA until AD, and no MA wonders (Sistine) till like 400AD or so. How do you guys manage to gun so fast for MA, AND get so many wonders without AI finishing them first? I had to do some crazy shifting to avoid getting owned in the cascades...
I'm finding I'll have a lot of "wasted" turns in IA, where I can't build any wonders, since I'm so far away from Modern Age wonders... Any pointers for next time? (I've been doing my best to slow tech pace the whole game...)

Click to expand...

it's a learning process... are you going all out for 20K? did you try to make your culture city to maximum production ability ASAP (filling in workers and maintain highest shield production at 0 food excess)? did you research techs in the right order? regent AI normally cannot compete with human players in grabbing wonders... and for regent AI, sometimes you don't even need to slow down the tech race. if you can give more details (date of wonders and techs from you and AI), maybe someone can help you figure out what you did wrong.
BTW, it's true that IA doesn't have many wonders and that's why you should research out of it at full speed.

ÆnigmÆffect said:

Did many of you have GA while despotic? I tried my best to avoid it (thus not Great Library), and wondering whether I should've bit the bullet instead (my GA was near the end of MA, and only got to build like 2 wonders with it)

Click to expand...

if you got the republic slingshot, which should happen around 1000BC, you should be able to spend your GA in republic..

MiniMe said:

I am currently in 940AD and I see that CivAssist predicts 1778AD, but I assume it does not take into accont the wonders that will still double in culture

Click to expand...

I’ve actually paid attention to this and yes, CivAssist does take into account the doubling of culture. I was really paying attention as my win date was rather late and was hoping the doubling would change that. Unfortunately it didn’t.

I'll try and add my spoiler later tonight. I'm another 20k player.

Open, goal: 20K and minimize RL playtime
first spoiler

30 AD, made peace with viking...
Celts asks for feudilism, i refused. and he didn't go mad.
finally i got another ancient cavalry... my 2nd one... i should have known better to keep my ivory connected. that't the army i'm expecting to use again viking but yet because their city disconnect my road network i didn't produce any of them... i was just wondering whether 5 turns have passed while actually more than 20 turns passed.

100 AD declare war on Dutch, get Carthage with me, giving him currency and get Celts with me with 23 gpt.

310AD, finally met everyone. but no trading opportunity with everyone being so poor.
Celts made peace with Dutch!!! i was paying them gpt to fight and now they want peace??? pay them 420 gold to make them fight again. i cannot trust them anymore..

330AD declared on Mongol, the strongest civ then, allied Japan, India, Carthage (giving everyone engineering).

Sun Tzu's art of war built in 350AD, preventing any wonder cascade.

declare on Viking, get Carthage with me for monotheism

400 AD, everyone is at war...viking constantlyh landing units. the serious threat is 4 swordmen next to my capitol. i only had 3 units defending it... luckily it did't fall.

550AD, learned theology from GL, traded to India for 78 gold and 26gpt!!! they're rich!


610 AD, can berserk attack a city from sea? i have one city undefended and one medieval infantry next to it and a berserk choose to attack the unit. ??? strange.

630 AD, sue for peace with viking, with their 2 berserks standing to one of my cities defended by one unit. my reputation was gone since i had deal with India and Carthage against them..

640 AD, declare war on Carthage, my long-term friend... sorry to do that but i have got to get the incense to prevent my cities from rioting

660 AD, Celts asked for 65 gold, i refused and he declared. he's the strongest civ and i'm looking for an opportunity to ally someone against him.
710 AD, learned chemistry and education from GL. good job, great library!

980 AD, democracy discovered. traded to celts for 100gpt and 60 gold.
build Bach's cathedral, wonder cascade result in the Copernecius's observatory. there's really no way for me to get it with my current strategy.

1230 AD, enter the industrial age. getting nationalism as free tech. traded to india for 224 gpt and 1251 gold.

-3900 Palace
-3100 temple
-2110 colossus
-1250 oracle
-800 MofM
-590 SoZ
-150 great library
-130 library
-50 colosseum
350 sun tzu's art of war
400 cathedral
530 knight templar
780 sistine chapel
790 university
1020 JS Bach's cathedral
1180 shakespear's theater

ionimplant said:

well, considering that city has a luxury, his stubboness isn't too surprising.

Click to expand...

If he just gave me that city, I would leave him alone for the rest of the game....no really.

Redbad said:

Open, going for 20K
3950- palace
3200- temple
2070- Colossus
1225- Oracle
1175- library
590- ----------------- Republic (after 3 turn anarchy)
370- Great Library (start Golden Age)
310- aquaduct
270- ----------------- Middle Ages (free Monotheism)
210- cathedral
130- colosseum
30 ------------------- end Golden Age
270 Sistine Chapel
310 university
390 ------------------ Russadir joins Korea
460 Copernicus' Observatory
560 ------------------ Wonsan builds Forbidden Palace
650 Shakespeare's Theater
670 harbour
850 Newton's University
950 ------------------ Industrial Ages

Click to expand...

Redbad, we remain close -- at 950AD, Seoul in your game, according to my estimation, has 5687 culture and is making 74cpt while mine has 5581 and is making 71cpt. however it seems inevitable that i'm going to lose the race... just due to my stupid building sequence... even my MoM and SoZ couldn't save my game. i really learned a lesson this time.

Well, this is my first ever GOTM.

I thought I was good at this game, and now I see everyone reaching the middle ages hundreds of years before me.

I got there just before AD started.


I didnt have a plan for a certain victory condition when I started, so now I'm trying to figure out the best way to go. I'm currently in 1400 AD, crushing the AIs with Modern armor. I've taken out 3 of them, I figure I can take the entire mainland and reach a Domination Win. But it seems a 1600 or so Domination win isnt so impressive, looking at past GOTMs. I reached Tanks 8 techs ahead of the nearest AI, started crushing htem, and now have a bunch of Modern Armor and they are still 3 techs from tanks.

I am 4 techs into the Modern age now (Ecology, Synthetic Fibers, Rocketry, Computers), researching at about 6-7 turns each. SHould I go for Domination, or for Spaceship, to get the best Jason score?? Any thoughts?