GOTM 34 - First Spoiler

[AlanH]

GOTM 34 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

1. Reached at least 0 AD.

Posting Restrictions

1. You must not discuss anything post 500 AD.

[Gosha190]

terrible map! no food, no research... hammers only.

My aim was diplo victory. Settled in the place. Second city 1N to the gold. 3-d city south to my capital 2 fish + sheep (no hammers at all, it will be my GP farm )

research farm-animal-writing-....-CoL(925BC)
Biult Oracle in 925BC -> CS

Next research Alph-MC-Mach-Liter-Paper-Philo-PPr-Compas-Optic-Astro....(beeline to MM)

445BC GLigthH
280BC Colossus
220BC Pyrs by GE
445AD GLib

320AD-485AD War with Khan. He was fully eliminated.

1AD 5 cities 7 workers and very low bulbs per turn.

485AD 11 cities.

[Kakaj]

I have 7 cities on my island.

Starting to prepare for war against Mongolia. I plan to ship with several Galleys and attack in many places at the same time.

I have built : StoneH, GLightH, GLibrary, Colossus, HangingGardens

[DynamicSpirit]

God, this was the game in which if anything could go wrong it did.

Here’s my rather sparse 500AD map:



As usual I was aiming for space. I explored a couple of turns before settling and ended up in the SW corner of the land to get the two fish. I'm not wasting ANY food resources on an arid map! 2nd city Osaka was founded to pick up the gold, and Tokyo down south, basically because at that stage I judged all the viable northern sites to be too far away from the capital.

My first inkling of what to come was a misjudged forest chop in Osaka, which needed culture to bring the gold into my borders. So Osaka started on a granary while I researched mysticism. I’d beautifully timed my forest chop to come in straight after mysticism to give me a fast obelisk, but of course forgot to change my build and saw the chop uselessly go on the granary.

Next came the exploration fiasco. I sent a workboat around our island, saw the other land to the north, and judged from the lack of AI units there when my workboat passed that it was probably empty, and that therefore (a) there was no point exploring it now, it would be guaranteed to be my land when I was ready to settle it and I had free units to explore with, and (b) that I would need optics before I could meet any other civs. Thus, my entire exploration and tech strategy went off hopelessly on the wrong foot. Until many, many turns later, my settler arrived by the marble to found Satsuma, only to discover that ‘my’ northern cows had already fallen to Mongol culture. Ooops!

This of course called for plan B: War, especially after I send a chariot to explore Mongolia and discovered his land was miles better than mine! Bloody evil Ainwood… But therein lay another problem. I had no copper or iron, having long since concluded that the sources on our island were all too far from any food to be worth settling (especially when I hadn't been expecting any wars). On a quick reassessment I still didn’t fancy settling any of them and decided instead on plan C: beelining for construction and invading Mongolia with catapults and chariots (It’s worked very nicely in some previous GOTMs). So after some quick building, my initial force of 4 catapults, 1 archer and 1 chariot arrived outside the gates of the very lightly defended Cimmerian and started bombarding its defences.

Two turns later, Genghis’s large stack of swords, axes and spears showed up and instantly took out a catapult and the chariot. I did a quick mental assessment of his stack’s strength and my likelihood of being able to capture and hold Cimmerian and… next turn all surviving members of my invasion force were back on galleys headed home.

OK, let’s move to plan D. Ummm, what is plan D? Let’s have another quick reassessment of the copper/iron sources. Nope, now that my other cities have eaten all the food, there’s no way to settle any copper or iron without damaging my long-term economy with a long-term useless city. So instead I decided to get culture in Osaka and wait till it hits 750 culture, at which point it'll take the copper into its borders. So that’s where I’m at in 500AD. Still not off the starting island, and waiting, 3 turns away from being able to start hooking up copper. I’m just glad this is only a prince level game.

[Gosha190]

Originally Posted by DynamicSpirit

Bloody evil Ainwood…

agree!

There is only one good point: he gave us iron! Samurai with 2-3 CR is a very strong unit. There was no problem to kill Khan. But I did that too late and lost any chance to get early diplo.

[Conquistador 63]

Originally Posted by Gosha190

My aim was diplo victory.

There goes my slim chances of finally getting a GOTM diplo award.

Originally Posted by Gosha190

agree!

There is only one good point: he gave us iron! Samurai with 2-3 CR is a very strong unit. There was no problem to kill Khan. But I did that too late and lost any chance to get early diplo.

Do you really think that?!? My BC game was similar to yours (did not get Mids/Colossus, though), but I didn't attack Khan until I had Samurai, shortly before 400AD. By 500AD I was still a few turns from getting Astro.

If it serves me a relief, at least I have chosen the same overall strategy of a Civ4 GrandMaster. Lots to be worked on translating theory to practice, though.

[Gosha190]

it was absolutely clear (around 3500BC) that player have no good land to achieve good results. So... WAR looked like only chance to speed research!

Look at my tech path! I researched all tech beeline to samurai: CS->>Alpha (fore tech exchange)->>MC(for forge: +1 happy, +25% hammer production, +GE points for GE for UN)->> Machinery = samurai! And only after that I researched Filo and so on.

But my cities was too weak in 145BC to build samurai. I needed to research Liter and built HerEp in my capital. After that my capital was able to build 1/2 samurai per turn.
While I did all that my latest cities grew to size 8-9. All of them got forge, granary, library. After all needed preparations I began to build samurai. 17 samurais were build within 300 years and in 320AD I declared war to Khan. I got 17 samurais +4-5 spears + 2 chariots for scouting cities defence before attacking. And only after 320AD I began to build GLib. I did not build HG because of lack of stone and forest.

[Gosha190]

Originally Posted by Conquistador 63

There goes my slim chances of finally getting a GOTM diplo award.

I'v played weak game, I believe. It seems, You can beat me...

[Conquistador 63]

I was able to build Samurai since 10BC when I got Machinery, but I suppose I wasn't focused enough on building them as of 500AD I had built only 5! And it took me a while to build HE as I didn't have a lvl4 unit early.

[Ronnie1]

God, this was the game in which if anything could go wrong it did.

How about losing a city to barbs at 1.1% odds! That was painful, more details later.

[Gosha190]

Originally Posted by Conquistador 63

... so I might change my mind about VC.

There were time in my game when I decided to play for a cosmic victory
But in a few turns I changed my opinion again.

[frunobulax]

Well, I just hit 500AD so am reporting in. I settled in place 4000BC, second city 1 tile N of gold, 3rd (Tokyo) North on coast near marble and (luckily) iron but I haven't moved off the island yet.

I have seven cities, with six wonders in Kyoto - Stonehenge, Oracle, Great Lighthouse, Parthenon, Sistine and Great Library (no forests left though ). Kyoto's currently giving +81 culture and +27GP per turn. Tokyo (at 6492) and Kyoto (at 4865) are top cities culturally.

My first GP (Prophet - appropriately enough Moses) discovered Theology and I converted to Christianity, third GP (also Prophet) recently gave me the Church of Nativity in Tokyo - which also gained 6000 culture from my second GP (Artist) - so there's a lot of cultural pressure on Genghis Khan's neighbouring cities over the narrow straits, which are also now Christian. Bismarck converted to Christianity too. No wars yet, but am stacking Swordsmen ready to hit Genghis, as he keeps demanding techs. In first spot at moment but need to get conquering militarily, as well as culturally - but no Samurai yet

[Ronnie1]

I cant find my notes, but here are some details from memory.

I settled SE as I said in my pregame plan. City 2 went NE so copper was in second border pop and horses were available at the 1st pop. City 3 went S to use the 2 fish and be my gp farm. City 4 went up the coast in the same position as DS's coastal city using the fish and wheat. City 5 went in the same spot after #4 was razed by barbs at 1.1% odds, so sad. City 5 went NE to get the marble, and City 6 went SE to get the sheep. That's all the island could support. Wasn't sure what i wanted to do VC wise so I of course did nothing early and that hurt in the long run.

By 500AD, I think I had just captured a barb city on the mainland between the Mongols and Germany.

[The-Hawk]

Originally Posted by Gosha190

terrible map! no food, no research... hammers only.

And, on an island, so no religion spread. Naturally, I decided to go for a culture win. I wonder if Jesusin will be all over me again .

[DynamicSpirit]

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

How about losing a city to barbs at 1.1% odds! That was painful, more details later.

OK, I will give you that I didn't lose any city to the barbs at 1.1% odds.

[kcd_swede]

I'm writing from memory... so exact dates and specifics not possible.

As stated in the pre-game discusion, I was profoundly concerned we had an island start. So I settled in place and started playing a traditional "isolated start" strategy. I put Sailing early in the tech tree, which in retrospect is probably why I felt everything in this game move so friggin' slowly. My second city to get copper and horse. Third city by north coast wheat. In fact, almost every city after #2 was settled with coastal access. I had in mind (and accomplished) building GL and Colossus in capitol. Oracle in city 2 gave me MC for the forges and Colossus. Unfortunately, the sore lack of food made this a bad choice, since most sea tiles were very hard to justify working. Another reason it was a bad choice was that we were not isolated, and had Galley access to a major continent with 4 AI. As soon as I realized that, I knew my start presuppositions was going to be a handicap instead of something clever.

But with the early sailing, I was able to settle my 4th city on the mainland before getting boxed out, roughly where Cimmeran is founded in DynamicSpirit's post. I continued to fill out my island VERY slowly. I'm Ghenghis' best friend and trading partner. However, he is the only AI that I can easily access militarily. He doesn't even have any metals hooked up, the sorry bloke. I feel so bad backstabbing friendly AI... so I ended his misery quickly. He had been the score leader and the largest civ. My BtS mind kept hoping he would just capitulate... but alas, he insisted on seeing how nice his head would look on a pole. I started the war with axes and HA's, ended it with Samarai & Cats. He had a lot of cities. Now I do. But half my island is still unsettled. Forbidden Palace in Samarkand keeps my economy from failing.

At roughly 500AD, I'm comfortably ahead in tech, production, and land area, and my armies are feared all over the known world. Still only know 4 (ahem, 3) AI, but even if the other two are together, they can't possibly be ahead techwise with this block of 4+1 players, can they? Not on Prince level. I don't think. I hope.

I'm behind culturally, so that would be a bad choice for VC. I weary of building all those damn monuments, and wish I'd built that damn Stonehenge. Long peaceful Space race could be acheivable, but (yawn) this game is going slow enough as it is. Diplo? I always manage to screw that up somehow. So I'm giong to finish this game with a Domination, since that's where my biggest advantage lies. (My single SOD could probably do it by itself like it virtually did for Khan). At least with Dom VC, I'll have lots to do besides hitting "enter" and rearranging tiles that are worked. My early calc say my island plus the mainland might not equal 64% though, so Astronomy is finally a priority -- gives me something to do while I scout France.

At this point I have dreams/hopes/expectations of ending this game in the 1500's, and getting a (for me) fine score. (To be continued in next spoiler).

[nokem]

I've been struggling with the jump from prince to monarch recently, so I thought I'd make plenty of notes during this game and get some advice on my strategy and decisions. I got a bit carried away...

Starting location

Spoiler:

Moved warrior SW onto cows. No sign of seafood so I settle in place. See fishes to the S. Hmmm is that what the adventurer workboat is for? I can see a future GP farm location but not a better starting spot.

Ok let's assess our capital. Firstly, there's not much to eat. Before civil service I can farm two floodplains & a grassland, and milk a cow. Grand total of +6 food. I don't generally count the 2 free food from the city centre - they'll be mostly used for growth or running a specialist to squeeze out a key tech.

Six cottages is not great. There's not many spare river tiles anyway for the +1 coin. Three specialists are ok for the early game but not a long-term solution. However we can work those plains hills and cows for 16 hammers at pop 7 - not too shabby. And after CS we can farm the rest of the land for 20+ hammers. Ok it's decided: We'll make this a production city, spam workers and settlers, rex some better commerce locations for research and see if we can't find someone else's capital to make our own.

Early strategy

Spoiler:

3670BC Agriculture
3190BC Animal Husbandry
2890BC Mining
2290BC Bronze Working

Build order
worker, worker, settler, warrior.

First mistake was AH; should have gone direct to BW to chop the settler earlier. With 2 flood plains we don't need to work that cow straight away.

I'm ignoring the hunting/archery line as we're on prince level and I don't think barb archers are going to show up early. I'm gambling on copper or horses nearby and if neither show up I'll be left whipping warriors. I'm taking a risk with my settler too - my only warrior will have to make it back alive, escort him safely and defend the new city. As it turns out I get lucky. We have horses in the the BFC and copper is just a border pop away.

Exploration

Spoiler:

I'm not sure yet if I'm S or N of the equator so the warrior goes SE to find out. Bingo. Snow on the trees means I'm a fair way S on the map. Unlikely to find any neighbours in the tundra so the warrior swings NE. He spots coast. Are we on a peninsular or an island? And is there anything here at all apart from desert and plains?

Warrior follows the trees and hills up the east coast, disposing of a few beasties on the way and earning WoodyI. Things are looking tough: there's gold, but it's surrounded by trash tiles. Oasis shmoasis. Further north there's at least some cottage-worthy grassland, but overall it sucks. And then...

The final insult. Which sneaky SOB has dug a ditch between us and the rest of the world? The poor starving warrior sits on the shore and gazes longingly upon the green fertile lands beyond. The distant squawk of parrots. The laughter of children playing. All the ingredients for Arroz a la Cubana. Finally, wearily he struggles to his feet and trudges back the way he came.

The Big Plan

Spoiler:

Let's review the situation. I'm semi-isolated (I guess - haven't explored fully S yet). There are a couple of city sites with respectable food sources (+6 or better). There's one pre-calendar cash resource. I have a decent production platform. So what are my strategic options?

1. Cottage economy? Not much green on that map.
2. Specialist economy? It's possible - there's room for a GP farm between the fish and sheep S of the capital, and another city along the coast could pick up wheat and fish for 3 scientists. Beyond that I'm hunting for scraps.
3. Trade economy? There's plenty of coastline to support cities and it would help me squeeze cash out of a small population. But who's to say when I'll find a trading partner? Besides, if I do find someone I'm going to kill them, not sell them stuff.
4. Religious economy. Bit late for this - missed the early religions already. Even if I had one I don't know if I'd be able to spread it beyond my borders.

So SE it is then. Tech writing for libraries. 1st city by the gold for early cash. 2nd city Fishywheat. 3rd GP farm by fish/sheep. Chop like crazy to get Pyramids in the capital. Chop the Oracle in the Gold city if there's time. Run rep for research. Build galleys and axes. Go bananas.

What Actually Happened

Spoiler:

Tech writing for libraries... check
1st city grabs gold... check
2nd city fish + Wheat... check
3rd city fish + sheep... check
Pyramids in capital... built by an unknown civ in 625BC grrr 10 turns from completion
Oracle in Gold city... check (640BC)

Techs: Myst, Med, Priest, Pott, Writing, COL (from Oracle), Alpha, Poly, Sailing, (Hunting, Iron, Maths + Archery traded), Philo (bulb), Construction

Polytheism was an unfortunate detour when I thought I might be isolated. I was slow to get exploratory workboats out and didn't meet Genghis until 250BC. Since he had no religion I opened borders immediately and he duly converted to Confucianism shortly afterwards. At about 50BC I ran into a buddhist Napoleon on the far side of the second island. Choices, choices! Bribe Genghis into a big French tangle - that's a no-brainer. But do I join in and dogpile the surrender monkeys? Or backstab the dangerous Mongols?

The boat continues around the frozen north and down the east coast, where it finds a motley crowd of leaders are lined up along the shore. There's Napoleon's land - it's a fair distance for a galley to sail. Also some Chinese and a backwards German. And it's the dastardly Hun who's managed to snag the pyramids in his only half-decent city. That's almost enough to make him prime candidate for a slap. Berlin's a peach, but the rest of his land is meh and he's totally boxed in. He can wait. Genghis it is then.

Pointy stick diplomacy

Spoiler:

I bribed Genghis into war with the French and declared on him shortly afterwards (about 200AD). I considered sailing a stack all the way round to take his capital but I decided it would take too long to build all the galleys. So I set up a 4 galleys as a ferry service across the channel and chewed through his jungle cities towards the Mongol heartland. I built about 6 cats, 10 axes and a couple of spears for prodding keshiks. The attack force was followed by archers as garrison troops.

I lost a few cats and axes. I made the mistake of leaving spears behind to protect cities. In fact the keshiks attacked my stacks peicemeal in the open ground. But at 500AD my stack stands at the capital gates. I've driven the horde into the northern turndra, but I'll leave the last few border cities. Not enough units to garrison what I've captured and carry on the advance. Also the Japanese economy is looking a bit like.. well, like the Japanese economy actually.

After this battle I'll go into full-on scientist economy recovery mode: trade for a few financial techs, run caste sytem and pacifism, measure every spare citizen up for a lab coat and win the liberalism race.

Techs: Lit, (Calendar + HBR traded), Currency, Monarchy (traded), CS (bulb), Paper (Bulb), Feud (trade)

[The-Hawk]

nokem, a couple of thoughts:

- Your thought process is very sound. Looks to me like you are considering all the right factors and thinking them through carefully. I see no reason you can't progress to monarch and beyond.

- IMHO, the higher the level you play, the more critical it is to decide on a victory condition and focus towards it. In all your discussion, I didn't see any consideration for your goal (although it appears you are going for a military victory). If you don't focus on a victory condition, you tend to build or research stuff you don't need. At mid-levels, you can get away with it, but at emperor-immortal, it can be fatal.

- One tactical suggestion. I think worker-worker-settler start is almost always sub-optimal. You need your city to grow to take advantage of all of its high productivity tiles. I often build one worker first (to improve tiles), then a couple of warriors or whatever so pop can grow.

- If you aren't already, you might want to look at some games in SGOTM or HOF. In SGOTM, you can follow discussions in the threads. In HOF, there are player logs posted for each game. You can see many of the tactical decisions people made in achieving very fast finishes. Both are great ways to learn.

[nokem]

Originally Posted by The-Hawk

In all your discussion, I didn't see any consideration for your goal.

Fair point. I think I ruled out culture early - I would normally look for 2 good cottage-heavy cities in the first 4 settled. Also I don't usually play for conquest without vassal states. I've never had a non-cheesy diplo victory - I just haven't grasped the mechanics yet.

Up to 500AD I hadn't picked a target between domination and space, but I think my path would have been the same in either case. The starting island just didn't have enough research potential, so alpha -> construction seemed essential to take down a neighbour. Then liberalism picks itself of course.

Looking at Gosha's report I can see my early game MM is terrible. COL and CS sling in 925BC vs my COL sling in 640BC. I was unlucky to miss the Pyramids, but Gosha even picked up the Colossus on the way! Early representation would have transformed my game.

Originally Posted by The-Hawk

worker-worker-settler start is almost always sub-optimal

Yes it was an experiment after reading the article on optimum early growth. I wouldn't try it on a harder level and I don't recommend it for a game where you can't reload after a bad RNG.

Thanks for the advice.

[Gosha190]

Originally Posted by nokem

Looking at Gosha's report I can see my early game MM is terrible. COL and CS sling in 925BC vs my COL sling in 640BC. I was unlucky to miss the Pyramids, but Gosha even picked up the Colossus on the way! Early representation would have transformed my game.

It was enough difficult to research CoL to 925BC and it costs me as I said in my upper post: only 3 weak cities in 925BC (6+6+1) = my total population.

My second city (1N to the gold) worked on The Gold Mine and did not grow more than 1000 years It gave me 30% of my research power. I let him grow after Alpha only!

Next point is my 3-d city. It was settled close to one of two fish. So it was able to grow fast without waiting culture expantion. Earch new citizen worked on a water tile (there was no Lighthouse at that time) to provide max research.

PS I think when you are researching Calendar and Construction you spend your bulbs for nothing This tech you can exchange later.

PS I built pyrs by GE from forge. GE was born not in time. It was only 12-13% for him. But later GP was born (with 6% chance) instead of GS All that events is jokes of the game random.