*Spoiler1* Gotm20-Spain-Continent Map+Middle Ages

This is the first spoiler discussion thread for Gotm20-Spain.

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For Gotm20-Spain:

• Absolutely must have full visibility of the landmass that you start out on in this game, including a view of most of the surrounding coastal edge with trivial exceptions AND
• You must have contact with all 6 rival civilizations on that continent or their remains PLUS
• you must have discovered the last required technology for the ancient age but should not discuss any aspect of the middle ages.

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   [/list=1]
   
   This thread is intended to focus on things that you did in the game that are both on the starting landmasses and in the ancient age.
   
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After a month or so's lurking thought I'd give this GOTM a go. Playing it on conquest as I can just about play emporer but have never managed to get a deity game out of the BC era.

The first continent is proving very interesting so far. The Zulus are our leader by a long way with a massive empire, culture, science, millitary and so on. The other civilisations are slightly smaller than my mighty Spainards (TM), somewhat courtesy of the truly amazing start position. The exception being the French who are my tiny underdeveloped neighbour and are due a good stomping in the next couple of centuries. I've managed to settle a lot of the sub continent that I started on and only have slim borders with other nations (Celts, English and French) which makes for a nice safe position.

It's about 500BC-ish (can't check, havn't got the game on this PC) and I've hit the middle ages with the mother of all polyethism (sic?) slingshots - netted me 6 missing techs, several workers, maps and some loose change. The entire continent is pretty much populated, fishing villages and all. Currently switching production towards culture and the millitary, with the Great Lighthouse nearing completion in my second city, as part of my grand exploration plans.

Not sure where I'm going to head with this game yet, waiting to see what's under all that black on the rest of the map first. Although that might not be as easy as it sounds - seen a squid or two scuttling round just off the shore, never faced them before and they bring to mind stories of the Kraken... scary!

Anyway, having a lot of fun! Cracker, thanks for setting this up, has really enhanced my enjoyment of my favorite game!

Curious to see how other people are finding it...

:upyours:

Saw those tiles as well. All within my territory, but not sure what they do... need to check a map of Spain and work it out.

I did wonder about Shaka - I don't have my game with me, so can't check, but... has he started/finished any wonders in your version? I'm wondering if he had a similar tweak to the Romans in GOTM-19? Simply so much larger and more powerful than the other civs. Still, he's polite and friendly. In fact, the whole of the continent is so far (apart from the rude Ottomans...), looking to provoke World War zero sometime soon and see if I can slow the rather blistering tech pace down a bit.

Some nice trading there, Itcoljt, havn't seen Writing used for that gambit before, but havn't started as a commercial civ recently either. Seems a smart way to go.

My exploration was a bit botched as well. Had several warriors sprinting about, but, from the coast, assumed that the continent was Spain shaped and missed the connection through the jungle to the south (Doh!) - met the celts and english long before the French! Just suprised/lucky the french didn't take too much of an advantage from it. Wondering if they lost a settler or were modded to be weaker. How are they in your game?


Eddited as I forgot a detail or two.

On wonders:

1750 BC: The Ottomans have built the Pyramids. This is not good, but nothing to do about it now. Murcia founded: warrior@10:growth@10. Madrid=4: granary@5. Adjust slider.

1775 BC: The Zulu build the Oracle. Horseman@Seville: worker@3.

900 BC: The Great Library has been built in Zimbabwe.

Of course I didn't build any wonders.

Edit: Joan is doing well in my game. I think she was a little slow off the blocks due to the jungle.

That's cool. Just couldn't recall if they'd been building any in my game. Really ought to keep a timeline, but too lazy

Looks like I may actually scrape an ancient wonder this time: As I played conquest I had the extra settler and the treasure chests to build a temple in its town. Turned out starting things off rather faster than I'm used to... ended up with a 'spare' high production city quite early on. Figured I'd try for the lighthouse and see if I could steal a march with the exploring. I love that wonder, aside from the exploration possibilities the ability to trade resources over sea squares has had a massive impact on some of my games. It's very low on the AI build priority as well. Figure I have a reasonableish chance at it. It's a 300ft tall gamble!

Jungle would make sense, she didn't have the ideal position I guess! Doesn't do herself any favours either - when I established an embassy - Paris was size 1, grow in 1, settler due in 1 - not an ideal state for a capital!! Even when the settler pops out there's nowhere for it to go...

My best start ever! Finished QSC with 15 cities. Built on start positions and built W to E along a line S of the capital to enclose my Southern neighbor. Used some warriors to block of the peninsala to the NE, so only a few settlers got through.

I think the Hispanola, etc. are regions. I was searching the net and stuff trying to figure it out.

Checked out those names -

Andalucia is just north of Morroco and in the very south of Spain.
LaMancha is north and east of that, around Madrid.
Catalonia (Catalunya) is on the North East coast...

Map is here
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/mapshells/europe/spain/spain.htm

Not sure what that all means - wonder if there will be some similar tags on bits of the map we can't see yet?

I kind of wonder whether it's a kind of hint to advise you where and when to place your towns..... Take the list of Spanish towns from the intelligence agency and place those on the map in their geographically correct locations and see what you get.

v1.21f

I lost my timeline when my computer locked up somewhere around 500bc, and since I can't think of way to recreate it short of watching the end video, I'll miss the QSC.

Zulu was the early leader followed by Otto. I went for writing-lit gambit and both times was able to only sell it to 1/2 of my landmass. The only tech I could not get in trade or as past of peace treaties was Republic, which I bought and then switched to somewhere around 200 bc.

Did anyone else see barbs? Someone above said they saw a Pict, but I didn't see anyone. I fought a few early battles, mostly to beat off the Celts and England who were trespassing, but both of them will take gpt, so they can't be too mad. 1 great leader was created, forming an army allowing me to get the Heroic Epic,. Every ancient wonder was built, I missed the GL by about 11 turns, building the FP instead. Now i have to take enough land to properly space out my palace and FP.

I wonder if the regions that Cracker placed on the map are just to make us wonder or if they will be related to future resources? I'll do some checking about that.

Sorry for the long post.. I was able to settle in place and churn out settlers every 4-5 turns. I still can't mm enough to get it a stright 4 turns. Drives me nuts

My trading business is going ok for this game. Since my civ is a comercial civ, I'm focusing on stockpiling my gold first and haven't found any war yet. So far, all AIs are either polite or cautious with me. Basically, they're all pretty much in love with me so far. I think I would have no problem following the diplomatic path. This is the first installment of my game; the rest of them is beyond the scope of this thread.

//note: Just editting out the free tech.

This is my first diety game.

I built Madrid right where I started. I moved my second settler NE for five tiles with a treasure chest and built Barcelona (there were horses within two tiles). I moved my workers (one of which was named Pancho Sanzo from "Man of La Mancha") SW to the plains to build a road and irrigate it. From there I built a road betwen Madrid and Barcelona. I also noticed the names of areas of Spain.

I used two of the treasure chests to build a defense unit in Madrid and Barcelona. I used the last one to jump start a granary in Madrid. I got disease in Madrid once, and that really hurt my settler building campaign.

For the rest of the ancient age I expanded thoughout my area. I found a choke point near the English and fortified a warrior there. That kept the English out of "my" area until they built galleys. They only manged to built one city in "my" area.

I kept the border with the French at the jungle, with a couple of exceptions. They built a city on the coast SW of Madrid. I couldn't allow that so I went to war and destroyed it. I built a city near it so that wouldn't happen again. The war was brief. I kept out of anymore wars throught the ancient era. They later built two cities on tundra on the northern bit of "my" area.

I used the strategy of no researching or buying bronze working so I could build defense units. I built two of them in each of my cities before I got bronze working. I gambled that I had iron somewhere close, and I was right.

I was WAY behind in tech the entire era. I bought what I could and was able to trade luxuries for the continental map first and then techs. Having extra incense, horses, iron and furs to trade for techs was great, but at the end of the era I was still FAR behind in tech. I did have a decent amount of land and population though.

Originally posted by serttech2003
I lost my timeline when my computer locked up somewhere around 500bc, and since I can't think of way to recreate it short of watching the end video, I'll miss the QSC.

Zulu was the early leader followed by Otto.

Did anyone else see barbs? Someone above said they saw a Pict, but I didn't see anyone.

Click to expand...

You couldn't have loaded an autosave to re-start after your lock-up?

The Zulus and Ottomans were also strong early in my game.

I didn't see any barbs or their camps either. I also found no goody huts.

I must admit that I had a little panic when it froze and wasn't thinking quite right. (Feeling quite sheepish actually.) It was the notes in NOTEPAD that I was concerned about. I did find a save that I want to look at, bit I'm just not sure I can recreate the same moves again.

ItCone

I saw a hut, south of the starting location on the south coastline of the jungle region. It produced pictish barbarians... guess I was lucky getting both!

A nosy squid came and checked out my coastline as well.

Guess that the land barbarians are switched off but the sea beasties are still roaming...

- PREDATOR
v1.21f

Well, I decided to play the predator class.

I planted a city at the start site, and started my worker building a road between the incense and the wheat.

I explorered NE, then S, then E with my first three warriors. Contact w/ English, then Frence, then Celts. Found one hut, got maps. Got pottery via trading, finished a granary in Madrid, reread Bamspeedy's settlers article and started pumping out settlers. Unfortunately I didn't get to this point until 1800 bc'ish and several times forgot to micromanage to get the proper outcome. Stupid computer can't figure out that 1s, 2g, 2f is better than 1s 1g and 1f (computer continually put a citizen on an unworked plains tile rather than a mined grassland, which left me one short of food).

Interesting logistical items:

Great Library was built by Celts
Pyramids were built by Overseas Civ

All in all my QSC ended up with 12 cities and two settlers outbound. I am not submitting as I couldn't get the timeline program to work, but I wanted to post for comparison.

I traded for mapmaking and built 3 galley's. A suicide galley reached the other continent in 400'ish bc. Contacts with all other civs were made by 350bc and I had one of those monster trading turns.

I got up to the 15 city range and began pumping horseman. I had barracks built in most cities and got up to 40 veteran horsemen. I decided the time was right to attack the Celts. They had the great library and there were knights running around. I wanted Chivalry to upgrade my 40 horsemen. Signed an ROP with English. I managed to take Entremont, home of the great library and at the end of that turn, my ability to post in this spoiler ends.

Predator class impact

No wheel at beginning means I didn't know where horses were. No biggie as when I got horses, I found I had already settled one tile away. Didn't miss the extra gold.

Raging barbarians. Lost several workers to barbarians (mostly slaves) but never lost a settler. Lost 500ish gold and a few pop points as well. Had a MASSIVE uprising near my jungle town (the one getting the dyes north of France). I had two fortified spearman in that town and about 50 horsemen killed themselves trying to get in but never could. Obviously, I had two elite spearman when all was said and done.

Strategically, the only impact predator had on me was that I would not send out a settler w/o an escort.

1000bc graph

Originally posted by TriviAl
ItCone

I saw a hut, south of the starting location on the south coastline of the jungle region. It produced pictish barbarians... guess I was lucky getting both!

A nosy squid came and checked out my coastline as well.

Guess that the land barbarians are switched off but the sea beasties are still roaming...

Click to expand...

I just wonder if open and conquest classes are different with the barbs and goody huts. I never saw the goody hut you're talking about. The French could have gotten to it first, but i doubt it...

I was a little confused when someone mentioned Otto, I thought for a second that the Germans were in the game and Shaka might of eaten them.

Question of the day: Is the 1000BC turn number 80 or 81?

I'll try and remember what I can. I'm at work right now.

At 1000BC, I had 12 cities and was holding my own. Then things went a bit bad after that. Basically the whole world went to war with me. I refused to give Zulu tribute and they must have paid everyone else off to fight me. India was the only one who didn't join up (they liked me ). I thought I was safe since both Zulu and the Turks were far away. Nope, they just strolled through Franch and I had to rush everyone and anyone I had down to my border. At one point I didn't think I would make it. Celt and English coming from the north, everyone else from the south. But I gave in and paid off Turks and Zulu and held back the French. They paid later I took a Celt town and 2 French towns in the conflict.

I too never found a single goody hut or barb. Hmm, not complaining though.

I found it incredibly hard to keep up in the tech race. No one wants to trade with me and I'm so far behind. Any advice?

Dislak

Pay tribute to the nasty guys would be my advice. If your Zulus were like the ones in my game then they are about twice the size/power of me. Easy and cheap to cave on a demand for a few coins or a map?

Certainly a lot easier than an early 'dogpile' war?

Although it sounds like it didn't put you out of the game it must have delayed production/expansion?

My prefered method with techs is to do a 40 turn research on a tech the AI doesn't research as a priority (Polyethism/Printing Press are my favorites) and trade it around for other tech. It is a gamble, but can really pay off. Failing that you could take a risk and partially bankrupt yourself buying a tech only 1/2 others have and trading it for the stuff you are missing...

Another option would be what someone termed 'pointy stick' research - go to war and thrash the hell out of another civ (preferably bribing the others into helping you). As a peace deal insist on a lot of tech...