Featured Game 1 Spoiler thread #1

Thalassicus

Bytes and Nibblers
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Messages
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Click Here to begin Game 1 of the VEM GotM. As fair respect for your fellow competitors, do not read the Spoiler threads before starting the game.

This thread is to discuss what happened in your early game - strategies, other civs, resources, game play and the like.

Please DO NOT post in this thread if you have completed Astronomy (modern resources and 2nd continent revealed soon after). If your game is past that point, visit Spoiler Thread #2 to discuss the late game and post your final victory save.
 
Somehow taking screenshots with F12 (the Steam method) doesn't work... it causes the game to crash with Runtime Error (the same crash one experiences when loading a save game without the proper mods). As the normal print screen method doesn't work either, the only workaround I can find is to alt-tab and do this :
Spoiler :

either that or I mouse-over the CiV icon to display the game screen
 
I hit the windows key to bring up the taskbar, then click Civ, and hit print screen. I think it's basically what you did, but it's possible to hide the taskbar.
 
It's an interesting and pleasing map Thal. How much of it have you manipulated and how much of it was auto-generated? The marshes to the south make the strategy interesting.

Research:
Mining

Units so far:
1 x scout, 1 x warrior

So far here are my random elements:
3 x barb camps NW, W, SW
1 x ruins for +1 pop



Will the random elements be different for everyone?
Cheers
 
loads of barbs in mine, not played King level before so i am miles behind :mad: I often put my workers on auto but had a problem in this one as the hill just north of my capital kept changing from farm to mine to farm etc which took up a load of my workers time. No bugs found. I never really get involved with minor states but have decided in this one to befriend some :)
 
@glider1
Most of the map is auto-generated, with small tweaks around AI start locations to ensure each AI expands in a competitive way. I also placed Natural Wonders more intelligently than the automatic system. Civ 5 stores the random map seed in the savegame, so everyone's random chances will be somewhat similar at the start. The barbarian camps and ancient ruins appear at turn 0, so those will be the same locations for everyone. The main early difference will be the rewards from ancient ruins... getting free culture can result in a wildly different game from a free tech, or map reveal, and so on.

@ttwii
I think there might be an option in the game options menu that prevents workers from overriding existing improvements, though I don't remember for sure.

========================

Here's the midpoint of my game:



Policy path: Liberty tree → Commerce tree
Tech path: Masonry → Sailing → Calendar → Optics
Wonders: Great Lighthouse (free citystate ally) → Pyramids (free settler) → Colossus (+12:c5gold:/turn)

I built a mix of improvements around my cities, with mines on the hills, villages on grassland or floodplains, and farms on plains. There were a few exceptions to this... I've focused exclusively on villages around New York, since it's next to rivers, coast, and the Rock of Gibraltar, all of which provide high gold. It's been a fantastic gold city.

Alexander to the southwest has been occasionally attacking his neighbors, and succeeded in capturing one city from each of Harun and Suleiman. He burned down both cities, probably short on happiness. The other three players on the continent have kept strong control of the southwestern citystates, so I've focused on keeping the northeastern CSs.

At this point I'm thinking about settling next to Mt. Fuji on the northeastern island (+3:c5gold:5:c5culture:), and the coastline to the southwest of the capital (near the fish, stone, and coal). Another city will claim Krakatoa down the coastline to the southeast. Depending on the happiness situation at the time, I might then settle a few more of the small islands that have Stone, since the Stoneworks provides some happiness from those.

Once all the settling is done I might possibly go conquer some neighbors with Minutemen and Cannon. I think either a conquest or science victory would be viable at this point.
 

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Wow! astronomy already at turn 128! :goodjob: America is a really interesting civ to play because of the tension between going early wide with pioneer forts, or tall with Washington's abilities. The map is great because of the tension between exploring the oceans and exploring the interior. I was surprised to be the first civ to make contact with the CS's on the mainland, and also surprised that there would be so many CS's on the mainland, because I thought continents+ put the CS's off the coast much more. My first scout got stuck exploring the north coast impeded by the mountains immediately north. Wasn't expecting that and it wasted scout movements big time.
Cheers
 
Finished Astronomy at t118 (but third to Renaissance). I could've gotten there sooner, but spent a little time teching up to Metal Casting for the production boosts. I made a few mistakes in the beginning, got horrible luck with ruins and was a bit wary when I didn't meet anyone and found 10+ barb huts by t20(!), but the camps didn't seem to spawn units anywhere near the rates I expected - because it's King difficulty? Anyway, everything is going swimmingly now: good tech rate (115), gold income (~50/turn profit), cultural output, and plenty of happiness. Growth is also fantastic, Pioneer Forts practically negate the growth modifier from unhappiness I've noticed, interesting effect.

I stayed on two cities for much of the game, now expanding to five at the gold, dyes, and gems (basically Philly, Seattle and Chicago on Thal's screenshot, though not one of them on the same spot, I didn't put New York in the same spot either, one north. Interesting to note that the AI didn't follow the same settling patterns either - almost none of their cities are in the same place as my game.) I've been able to sell just about every luxury throughout without worrying about happiness (thanks, Tradition and varied CS luxuries!) and have maintained DoFs/OBs with all three Civs on the continent, despite Alex's efforts at warmongering. About to head overseas and make contact and cruise to Diplo or Science. It's decision time, because I have to choose whether to go Commerce, Rationalism or Patronage in the next few turns.

Policies: A mix of Tradition and Liberty that I've been working with recently in my America test games that's quite strong and versatile, going back and forth as the situation dictates. (Currently one SP short of completing both trees.)
Wonders: Colossus, Oracle, Hagia Sophia, Porcelain Tower, [NC]
CS allies with almost every one known (got lucky with quests; lots of barb camp removals, great scientist, Hagia, etc.)

-----------

Note on Natural Wonders and terrain: Mt Fuji's yield is a measly 4 gold? That's so incredibly weak there's no way I'll bother settling that site. I got 100 gold from discovering El Dorado "first" (on something like turn 30) even though Arabia's capital is three tiles away? :confused: Also, before this game I have never encountered Stone or Marble on hills (though Horses on rough terrain has been common in VEM for quite some time); was this your doing Thal?
 
Mt Fuji is 3:c5gold: 5:c5culture:. There's an vanilla bug that does not display culture until the tile is within cultural borders. I did shift terrain around in a few places to ensure interesting city sites, since random map generation is, well, random. :)
 
Hum, 7 cities by turn 121... looks good. I have 3 in turn 80, now finishing sailing as there are few more good areas in my continent. Will try to find better spots for the others, another option is to attack Alex he is already at war and has couple of nice locations...
 
Hi there
It's been a lot of fun so far. I think something might be broken with barb camps. Has anyone seen any barb come out of a camp? I've played king level just a few days ago on a tectonics map under 107beta and the barbs were emerging out of their camps much earlier and in quite large numbers. I think Seek might have a point wondering about it. Personally I still haven't had a barb leave a camp and I've just finished calendar. It makes it much tougher if the barbarians do their their thing and also a lot more enjoyable too.
Cheers
 
Well, crap. I have to confess it looks like I may be losing this one :eek:
I usually play a tall civ with tradition/honor, going on offensive around middle ages after both those trees are about filled. So I thought I'd do something different outside my comfort zone this time, and since this is "only" King difficulty I can fool around a bit... Went liberty and still did a couple wonders, blew off some money at the citystates...

Things were going relatively well, and I was focusing on the topside technologies, figured I'd go astronomy soon to explore the map, which was looking fun. Certainly much more fractal than usual continents maps. Only after building my first caravel I noticed that unlike maps so far, this one actually had large, worthwhile islands within coastal reach.

Alexander had been doing quite well, he took a city from Arabia, and at least two from Ottomans, and not long ago made peace with both. He's clearly the score leader. I was just finished with education when I got backstabbed by Alexander. This wasn't that unexpected, I had just built Boston just west of Budabest, to claim the Ivory and Dye, and was relatively confident in its defense as Budapest, my ally, had the flank.

Here's the thing: Alexander bloody bought Budapest off of me just as he did his backstab! On the first turn of the war, Budapest slaughtered my catapult and archer, set there in anticipation for the attack, from the rear! Meanwhile Alexander did the anticipated frontal attack. Boston was promptly surrounded by pikes and the lone catapult couldn't keep it for long, even with the pioneer fort.

My forces are now securely holding New York just west of that little lake west of the start. But the situation seems stalemated. Taking Budapest is hard, due to two hills just so on the north side shielding it from bombards from my direction, and Alexander holds a very wide front from my northwest to southwest.

In retrospect, my biggest mistake was not exploring the islands, and settle to the free space, instead going towards the middle were everyone else was. Another was not playing either tall or wide, going liberty but still not able to avoid my old habit of wonder-building. Now I'm stuck with a tall empire with neither Tradition for all the perks nor Professional Army to pay for the war.

I guess I'm going to hold the line in the war, and only now, in the later middle ages, go settle islands. This should prove to be interesting...
 
EAT THAT Alex, I was at war with him since the start of the game, Ottomans and Arabia joined later. Allied CS capture one of his cities, I should have been closer.

Manage to grab another city after my "team mates" weaken it. Then grab his capital with some losses, offered peace in exchange of 3 cities, sold 1. Now I am in a tight spot between Ottomans and Arabia, with 8 cities, some happiness problems and hopping that my "allies" stay friendly. Do you think I have a chance for it? or should I worry about them? Suleiman is the strongest civ together with me on points.
 
Suleiman can be militaristic at times. He's a somewhat neutral leader - friendly with warmongers, but not too overtly warlike himself. I've seen him start wars when he thinks he can win. Haruun is relatively peaceful and rarely starts wars.
 
@Thal - Ok, maybe I will be settling it after all.:lol: Is it because of the changes you made to culture that Fuji's culture doesn't show up on mouseover? It does in vanilla..

@Toddy - It really looks like you are past Astronomy in your game: could you edit your post to remove the spoilers (basically the screenshots) and repost in the GotVEM Spoiler Thread #2 please?

@glider1 - I've seen some barb Triremes and a few other roaming barbs, so *some* barbs are spawning, but very few. It could be a bug..

@tlaurila - I experimented with a straight Liberty opening a few times in prep for the GotVEM, and found it fairly difficult maintaining happiness. It requires a lot of micromanagement of city growth. The Tradition/Liberty one-two punch (especially if going for wonders) has been much easier in my experience. You really think you are going to lose outright? Or just the competition?

I think you should have no problem playing a defensive war in that position: the choke west of New York and the marshes to the south between yourself and Budapest should be manageable. Once you've taken sufficient units you can move on the offensive or possibly secure a fat peace deal (and maybe get Boston back). Try getting Arabia or the Ottomans to join in the war too, it'll keep Alex distracted.:goodjob:

@rf9000 - I would worry enough that I'd keep the bulk of my army around the cities close to their borders, but if you keep good relations (agree to demands, etc.), maintaining the DoFs with them should be possible - unless you're planning a domination win of course.;)
 
The only change VEM makes to Mt Fuji is a gold increase from 1:c5gold: to 3:c5gold:. Culture is the same as vanilla. Happiness went okay for me with Liberty because each new city so far picks up at least one luxury resource. Filling out Commerce in the midgame also helped.
 
Well, at turn 254 I finally acknowledged that my game strategy was bad to the bone, and decided to call it quits.

I thought I was a good player and decided to use my traditional "going tall" strategy, with a slow but steady territorial expansion. Wel, that sure backfired on me, and was a terrible misuse of the American's ability to quickly explore in early game.

I had a small, but strong army, and an easily defended territory, with four cities, one puppet and two allied city states. My capital was size 24 population, had finished the Liberty, Piety and Freedom policy trees, and has researched up to riflemen (and was only two turns away from artillery)

However, my point score was puny - only 571 versus 1917 for the Ottomans, 1385 for Gandhi, and 1389 for Napoleon. Much worse, however, was while I had fought off two Greek invasions, the Ottomans had moved in behind and conquered most of Greece and were about to turn on me. They had three times the number of cities, and an army four times the size of mine, although not quite as advanced technologically. Unfortunately my army was all the way forward on the Greek border, and the Ottomans has moved their army to completely surround mine. Not a good place to be.

Well, so much for going tall - that was sure a bone-headed move on my part!

Have started a second game now, just for fun, to see how well I can do going wide instead. Am doing much better this time, and have grabbed some key territory before the others could. Around turn 100, I had six cities, but then it was the Ottomans turn to invade me, and they quickly gobbled up my forward most city. Have just finished wiping out their entire invasion army, and am now building my counter-invasion force.

Yes, going wide is definitely working much better, even though it's really tough keeping the Happiness level above zero with more cities.
 
I control happiness by controlling population. Halt growth in big cities to let smaller ones catch up, and halt more growth whenever you plan to build or conquer new cities. It became much easier to deal with happiness after I increased my use of the 'avoid growth' button in the city view (padlock symbol). :)
 
I control happiness by controlling population. Halt growth in big cities to let smaller ones catch up, and halt more growth whenever you plan to build or conquer new cities. It became much easier to deal with happiness after I increased my use of the 'avoid growth' button in the city view (padlock symbol). :)

Speaking of which, could we get a notification when a city on halt growth misses a turn of growth due to the lock? It would be useful in remembering to turn it off :p (damn city, you've been on 1 turn to grow forever, am I losing my memory? WHY WONT YOU GROW ARRRGG) lol
 
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