GOTM 27 - Spoiler II: End of middle ages, full map of nearest other continents.

As with the first spoiler, because of the changes to such things as communication trading and map trading, it is likely that your knowledge of the map and of other civilizations (and be inference even the technology rate), will probably be progressing at a somewhat slower rate than in previous games.

SO PLEASE PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE QUALIFICATIONS TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS SPOILER, AND TO WHAT CAN BE POSTED IN THIS SPOILER!

Qualifications for participation:

1. You must have reached the end of the middle age in terms of research.
2. You must have visibility of the entire starting continent.
3. You must have contact with the other civs (or their remains) that start on your home continent.
4. You must have the full map of the continent the immediate north-east of the starting continent (and obviously contact with the other civ there).
5. You must have contact with the seafaring civ that started on the continent to the north-east of the first continent.
6. You must have full map of the continent that the seafaring civ started on (to the north-east of the first continent)

Please DO NOT post minimaps!, or screenshots that show the minimap.

If you have views / contacts / details of any other continents, then please wait until the final spoiler to post them (I'll open that in a couple of days).

PREDATOR Panther 1.29

We entered Middle Ages in 710bc still in despotism with an on-going in-decisive war against Spain. We have contacts with the Vikings and the Oda, which built a settlement on the coast NW of us in 975bc.

We get 2 elite promotions from the Spanish war, but no leader. When in 530bc 17 Spanish units appear we make peace. Seattle near the wool now has walls, barracks and temple and hopefully will stop any Spanish ambitions.

In 650bc, our horseman "kills" the volcano and "frees" the iron. We build road and upgrade warriors to swords. When the English city of York finishes the Great Lighthouse 490bc it becomes a prime target and we make a military alliance w Spain vs. England. We conquer England with the gems and silks and the Great Lighthouse. In 50ad, all the English cities belong to us.

In 330 lots of Spanish units appear. We trade chivalry from Spain for gunpowder. Our saltpeter is connected and we upgrade pikes to muskets, horses to knights. Then we ask Spanish forces to leave, they declare war, and we form an alliance w the Vikings against them. In hindsight we were very lucky, because the Spanish source of saltpeter near Barcelona was exhausted about the same turn we declared war and thus with few exceptions our knights only faced pikes, not muskets. Our knights (supported by a couple of catapults to red-line the 2-3 muskets and defended by our muskets) capture all of Spain but 2 coastal cities which are acquired by the Vikings. In 870ad, Spain is no more. It gave us however Colossus and Great Library in Barcelona and The Pyramids in Madrid. The Library was useless and did not give us any tech, whereas The Pyramids gave the usual push to our development by furthering fast population growth.

Regrettably all the fighting did not produce a Great Leader and thus we hand-built our Forbidden Palace in Valencia between 610 and 840. Waste and corruption are very low (supposedly because of the large world size), thus it takes only 230 years. Once the FP was completed, we could do 4 to 5 turn research for the rest of the game.

We sent a lot of ships exploring dropping scouts on the Viking and Oda continents. We found one of cracker's favorite barbarian-infested islands and in 110ad onward also contacted other civilizations we may not talk about yet. We may reveal(?) that fighting among them eliminated two of them in the timeframe of this spoiler.

Our research starts low level w engineering (need money for upgrades) which we learn in 70bc and trade for feudalism and republic. We revolt and after 4 turns of anarchy the American Republic is established. In 110ad, an overseas civ trades us monotheism and monarchy. We are 1st to learn invention (by 1 turn) but don't get chivalry for it. We get gunpowder same turn as the Spanish, are 5 turns late on chemistry, 3 on theology, 2 on education, 2 on astronomy, but are research leader from then on only getting metallurgy from the Vikings.

We did not engage in the early medieval wonder race but built Copernicus' in Washington (now working on Newton's) and Magellan's in New York, the latter starting our Golden Age the same turn we entered Industrial Times by learning magnetism in 880ad.

General observations:

The late date for contact and map trading was a disadvantage for us. By the time these options became available, we already had all the AIs money, resources, etc. from other deals.

The map is cleverly designed making us loose quite a number of suicidal ships before we succeeded in finding "the rest of the world".

The low level of corruption was a nice feature for this game allowing fast production and research. Thus I will aim for Space victory.

Since we nearly own our continent, we plan to eliminate next the Vikings (close enough to be productive) and the Oda (luxuries) and maybe establish some resource-rich colonies on the other continent. We do not plan any major conquests there, because we want their money to fund our research.

For some reason I couldn't build the FP, even though I had more than 8 cities under my control. Not that it mattered much though, since I estimated the gain of having the FP on my starting continent wasn't worth it.

Some people complained about elite promotions and GL, but I had a lot of great leaders. But then I waged war a lot too, and built the heroic epic early.

After waging a quick war to deprive the spanish of their iron, which let me in control of all the iron of the starting continent, I declared war against the english and quickly wiped them off, taking control of all their cities. Now I had enough leverage to take on the spanish.

It took a few turns to produce and mobilize my army, and I only stopped when the spanish were definately anihilated. That left me in a comfortable position, controling ressources, and with most of the continent to myself (but for a few scandinavian and asian cities), plus I captured the great library from Madrid. I then decided it was time to turn my sights to another continent...

The scandinavians, as it turned out, have an interesting hobby. It consists of training each and every able man into a veteran soldier, and have all of them roaming the country. My first scouts to reach this busy island reported a very high number of roaming units. So my strategy was to land a dozen muskets on a mountain, and inflict maximum loss on their troops.
My dozen muskets was quickly obliterated, but scandinavians paid for it dearly. Since I was at war with the scandinavians, I also razed their cities that are on my continent. Then I declared peace, and planned for a return in this weakened country as soon as I could have a consitent force of riflemen. So I started saving money and researching.

Technologicaly speaking I was keeping up, amongst the advanced nations after I captured the Great Library. I switched to republic early in the middle age, keeping 10-20% of luxury to contain unrest when at war.
My cities are busy building the beginning of an infrastructure, I have been producing military units most of the game, and they need infrastructure badly. I am also producing the next army.

PREDATOR PTW1.27

Link to first spoiler

Exploration, ancient age

1725 BC --- Gained contact with Scandinavia. A scout saw Uppsala from across the strait north of Madrid. The Vikings lacked Masonry, The Wheel and Iron Working, but would not sell Polytheism for these three + gpt. I guess that even if an AI civ doesn’t know other AI civs, it still knows what the most valuable techs are. So I had to postpone trading until the other civs had polytheism too, which succeded. I fortified the scout on its “golden tile” until the discovery of Map Making.

1675 BC --- I was surprised to see a redlined squid on my coast. None of my contacts was even close to Map Making so I think they had gone to work on it with a catapult! Not a bad idea considering the power of the squids. My first galley was later destroyed by this same redlined squid, and my second one killed it.

730 BC --- Gained contact with Oda as I was exploring the area around the “4-Tile-Island”, and realized that they had the seafaring trait. It wouldn’t be long before they knew everyone that I knew, if they didn't already. They were well ahead of me in tech. I should have bought Code of Laws from them and traded it to England for Mathematics, so that was a mistake.

Warfare, research

510 BC --- A 40 turn gambit on Monarchy paid of partly. The Vikings gave me Mathematics, Philosophy and Code of Laws for it, while the others had learned Monarchy 5-10 turns earlier. Revolted to Monarchy and got a 2-turn anarchy on my first try. .

410 BC --- In my first spoiler I stated completely erroneously that I destroyed England during the ancient age. I took Nottingham (Iron) and Coventry before I reached this date. Then England lined up 9 archers on the mountain near Coventry. I was down to 7 horsemen and so made peace and gained Construction. I then bought Currency and entered the Middle Ages, going for a 40 turn gambit on Engineering. Proceded to build horsemen to redeclare on England in 20 turns.

In hindsight, I should have made peace with England 5-10 turns earlier, when they learned Construction, but I had no idea they had so many archers.

320 AD --- Despite this mistake, the Engineering choice paid off fully. I wiped out the English the same year that I researched it, and traded it around for Monotheism, Feudalism, Chivalry and Theology. What a break! An interesting thing I found out when I replayed this part (I have submitted) was that the fact that I had wiped out England lowered the value of those 4 techs considerably. With England still alive, Theology would have cost me my life’s savings ~800 gold. The value of the techs Monotheism, Chivalry and Theology would have been higher because England did not know them. After Engineering I went for Printing Press and the tech pace quickened a bit.

Then I upgraded about 12-15 horsemen to knights, but decided that this was not enough to attack the powerful Spain, who seemed to have lots of pikemen. This was no brave decision, and I soon realized that it would slow the game down. Besides, the decision made, the gold used to upgrade knights should have been saved for universities. About this time I decided to go for another Space Race Victory. My military progress was too slow, as usual.

Exploration, Middle Ages

430 AD --- Gained contact with a distant rival. No details about that here I guess.

670 AD --- Settled the Barbarian Island after lots of preparations. I'll truncate that description too, in order not to spoil.

More Warfare

810 AD --- Finally declared war on the beautiful Isabella with 11 musketmen, 32 cavalry (almost all upgraded) and some elite horsemen. In the end I captured 12 cities, 1 town and razed 1 city, and Spain was no more. Most cities had marketplaces, so I didn’t have to starve them.

940 AD --- Built JS Bach in London after an arbitrary prebuild.

980 AD --- Hurried Forbidden Palace in Madrid with my one and only leader.

1020 AD --- Entered the Industrial Age. This was a late date mainly because of the long preparation for war with Isabella. I did not have enough cities during to Middle Ages to achieve a good tech pace (or go republic). I don’t think I gifted a single tech, not until the very end of the age. Just tried to squeeze money out of the week civs and keep up with the tech leaders. The war itself was also fairly long, partly because I left at least 3 troups in or around each captured city to avoid awkward flips. The Spanish Galleass kicked ass, what a nuisance! When they had 3 cities and 1 town left they also learned Nationalism which slowed me down further.

Wonders gained: Hanging Gardens, Colossus, Sistine Chapel, Newton’s College. Hanging Gardens was good because it is an Industrious wonder. Now I could plan my Golden Age and get it by building Universal Suffrage. I decided to try for a late construction of Theory of Evolution, in order to get one or two Modern techs from it.

The plan is to revolt to democracy and get Universal Suffrage pretty quick to avoid cascades. Thanks for reading all this.

My favourite Easter Egg shows whales inaccessible to exploitation. This is one of the nice details that made exploration such a challenge. Seeing a whale, one hoped to see land soon, but no sir.

1.27f
Predator

Link to Ancient Age Post

I left off in 800BC, having just hit the Middle Ages by trading the Vikings Currency for Philosphy and Construction. I started on Republic (28 turns) and was ready to invade the English (just because, as I explained to my son, they are on MY continent). I also saw a strange ship dart out and into the fog. In 750BC I saw it again, Nobunaga’s Junk, which belonged to the Oda, who others reported in the last thread. As this was a unique name, I assumed it was Cracker’s way of giving them a starting unit to replicate the Curragh, and it had movement 7 (Seafaring), and appeared safe on sea. They were up Monarchy, but behind Philosophy, Currency, Construction, and MapMaking (definitely must have been a starting unit). They wanted all that AND 700g for Monarchy, no thank you. I rushed a galley to follow his, as I didn’t know if he had already made contact with anyone else. I wasn’t able to get much from contact with the Oda, as he made contact with an English Galley two turns later.

Also in 750BC, the English finished the Great Lighthouse in York for me, as I had already captured Nottingham (S of Iron) and razed Coventry. Madrid finished the Great Wall, which would be a problem later. I also built Kansas City in a central spot on the continet (SW of the wool) to be my future FP city. I continued fighting the English, getting York and then London in 590BC. I pushed on, though as I wanted Warwick and the silks, which I finally got in 450 after razing their new capital, leaving them 2 cities on the west coast. Meanwhile, I found “Barb Island” to the south, seeing barbarian Samauri as well as the usual horses, it was swarming with units already. I didn’t return until the industrial era.

370BC I completed Republic, and was shocked to get a 1-turn anarchy (I assumed Cracker had somehow given us that part of the religious trait, to bypass the tactic/exploit of trying for two random rolls, but then I read where many others had 4+ turns, so I must have been incredibly lucky). Kansas City started on FP, and I started researching Feudalism in 12, no one else had any MA techs. Feudalism came in in 150BC, and it was time to march on Spain.

The Spanish-American War


This war drug on longer than I had planned. Knowing the new Great Walls would make every city tougher to crack, I decided my main attack would push through Barcelona (her Iron source) and then straight to Madrid to take out the Great Wall. Then I would mop up the rest of the cities. My initial attacking force was 7MI, 6 Cats, 3 Pike, and a couple elite swords. Barcelona fell in 50BC, but then it would be a long fight and siege to get Madrid. First, I faced an onslaught of counterattackers in the forest NW of Barcelona, where my cats helped get a good kill ratio, but still had to constantly wait to heal. The second major battle was on the ridge W of Cincinnati, where he sent dozens of archers and horse. Again the terrain and some cats helped me hold them off with minimal losses, but it kept me from pushing my reinforcements forward. The tide turned, however, in a 3-turn period. In 70AD Kansas City completed the FP, making my westerm cities productive and even improving some of my core cities. Two turns later, I got another great leader, Lee, who rushed Sun Tzu in Cincinnati, triggering my Golden Age (Since I had built the Pyramids and captured the Lighthouse). I was able to speed up Chivalry w/ the GA, and crank vet horses. I was finally in position for the siege of Madrid, but after the first turn, I was disappointed to watch as my cats destroyed the Palace, the Colossus, and finally the Great Wall. Luckily I had already triggered my GA, as if I had been counting on the Colossus, that would have been pretty traumatic. I was hoping for the commerce bonus, and the Walls would have been nice in case the Vikings invaded. (I realize this is a reported bug w/ Conquests, looks like the coding that caused it was already built into PTW, if you have a wonder that acts as walls). Destroying the palace had no effect on Spain that I could tell, but all the walls disappeared (It was like Han Solo taking out the Shield Generator!). Madrid finally fell in 210AD, and by 350AD Spain was no more. Another GL, Sherman, rushed Leos.

Another strange sight:


Note that they have the Kublai (Caravel), but don’t even have Theology yet, much less Astronomy. I later found it in the Civilopedia, they got the Kublai with Monotheism. (More Seafaring advantages!).

By then I was researching at 4 turns, beelining first toward Navigation. A suicide galley had spotted a border in the distance, just out of range, before sinking, and the next 10+ also sank trying to find new lands. My GA ended in 380, but I was able to buy Invention from the Oda for Chivalry and Theology (one of the few techs I got from the AI). I got Navigation in 410AD, and was able to make contact with ????. (I’ll save that discussion for the next thread). I also turned then on England’s two cities, as a fishing expedition, but no leader, and they were gone by 430AD. I finished Copernicus in Kansas City in 550AD, and in 570 I had Military Tradition, and invaded Scandanavia. After using cannons and my leftover MI to take a port, I was able to ship cav over quickly, and ran over most of his cities pretty quickly. I only faced 3-4 Beserks as counters, he didn’t even have Invention when the war started, but the Oda must have given it to him. The Oda declared on me the turn after I attacked,(for no reason, that I could see), except they had a Kensai Oda parked next to the Viking capital. I sank a few ships, and took the small island they had near Scandanavia, then got peace. I got another GL, Jackson, who formed a Cav army, and started Heroic Epic. I finally got Magnetism in 720, taking me into the Industrial Age (and out of this thread . . .) I had all of Scandanavia at this point, and the small Oda island, as well as our continent.

The American Dream

tao: Tough luck with the Leaders. I think given that the number of civs from our neck of the woods will be reduced by the time contact is made with the 5 other civs, there wouldn't have been much to gain by the time that Navigation and Printing Press became available. That said, I really enjoyed the postponement of map and contact trading.

Bolka: due to the unusually low corruption, you needed more cities in order to build the FP.

Megalou: what is a galleass, and what victory condition are you pursuing?

Justus: good and interesting warmongering! Why did you build your FP so close to Washington? And what victory condition are you going for?

Txurce:
I picked the location for Kansas City because it is almost perfectly centered for the continent, about 12 tiles to the East and West coast, and centered N-S except for the NW part of spain, so I thought it would keep my whole continent productive if I jump the Palace to another continent. (I normally don't move my palace, but I used the Palace Jump last GOTM, and this game I wanted to try it with a leader). During this time frame, I was trying to decide between Space or Domination, I ended up going for Space since I was able to maintain the 4-turn research through the Industrial age. (Plus it just seemed like a good American style of victory!).

Justus II

That is an impressive Middle ages. I didn't manage to take control of my island until I researched Military tradition, which was much later than you. (can;t remember what time)

I will have to go home and check my save games before I can remeber what happened (I have already finished)

I honestly thought that I was hammering the AI yet when reading the QSC stats and your thread I can see that I was well behind. I think I made the mistake of not settling my capitol in the Flood plains

Other than that I also have to figure out how to speed up my early advances as by the end of the QSC period I only had 4 cities (18 population though)....

Well back to the drawing board.

Tech Step: you didn't need to move the settler to the flood plains to build the typical number of cities we've seen in Spoiler 1: 7-12. I was one turn from having ten, without moving to the flood plains or building a granary. I did nothing special, just used all my cities to pop out the occasional settler as they hit 3 or pop. If there was a key, it was making sure every worked tile was irrigated, so every city could produce a settler or two. That's all it took to be in this ballpark.

On a side note, I would argue that moving to the flood plains wasn't optimal, because what increased settler production it may have afforded would have been constrainjed by the English and Spanish expansion, and - more importantly - keeping Washington further west was ultimately much more beneficial vis a vis corruption on the continent.

Mac 1.29

Link to Ancient Age Post

I decided to stick with my original notion of going for a 100k cultural victory, just because I really enjoyed going for it in the recent Persian tourney game. My choice proved to be amusing, given how many flips I suffered in the early Middle Ages.

My war with Spain, which began in 430 BC, continued until 300 AD. It was fought entirely with horsemen, who encountered surprisingly large numbers of spearmen. I had conquered Barcelona and its iron on the first turn of the war, but the city flipped back four times! This gave Spain a few swordsmen here and there. Fighting such a long war in Republic with only barracks for infrastructure eventually led to a 50% luxury rate. Two turns before Spain fell, I began a six-turn war with England, taking back one flipped city and Canterbury, their iron source. For this I used a few swords and captured cats that I had in reserve. I didn’t go further because my republic needed to recover, and England without iron would be easy pickings once my horsemen upgraded to knights.

I had built the Library with my original FP prebuild in 130 AD, and shut off research. (I wouldn’t have done this if I weren’t going for a cultural victory; gold seemed more important than a slighlty higher tech pace at this point.) The wonder brought me surprisingly little – monotheism, feudalism, chivalry, theology and education – but did allow me to sock away lots of gold, to be used later rushing cultural improvements. Finally at peace in 330 AD, I rushed the FP in the new city of Buffalo, smack in the middle of the former Spanish lands. This created a perfect balance with Washington’s relatively westerly location. My cities filled in some of the space the Spanish had neglected, and began a much-needed nationwide library and marketplace construction project. I was amazed by the resultant low corruption throughout my empire. The Library petered out in 520, but I found I could research astronomy in 5 turns. Navigation also took 5, but everything was four after that for the rest of the Middle Ages.

England’s 20 turns of peace expired in 530, and after allying with the Vikings for security, I invaded with what knights I had. The rest of my civ stayed on its peacetime program, which proved to be wise, as England collapsed in 8 turns, as its few swords proved worthless against my knights, making it knight vs. spear. As of 610, I controlled the entire continent.

I took Spain ahead of England because Madrid had the Lighthouse (as well as the Colossus). I quickly explored the Viking and Oda holdings, and then found the barb island, but had no luck finding the other 5 civs until 700, after navigation. The Lighthouse obviously provided an edge, but cracker was determined to make full contact difficult this game. (And in my game at least, it wouldn’t have helped much had I met them immediately after capturing the Lighthouse.) Once I met the other civs, however, I did trade them techs for heaps of gold, as well as luxuries. The Oda, however, proved to be the most useful tech partners. From them I acquired engineering, metallurgy, and military tradition. I have no idea how the Oda did so well researching, given their small size, lack of the scientific trait, and no distant contacts.

The continent was now building culture at a solid rate, researching at max, and socking away more and more gold. I had decided to save it for rushing improvements in the Viking lands, once I conquered them, rather than rushing buildings on the productive mainland. I’m not sure if this would ultimately be for the best, as all that gold wasn’t earning me any culture points yet.

My plan had been to time my GA late in the Middle Ages, when I could benefit from both rushing universities, and getting a fast start on the early industrial techs. To get a GA then, however, required capturing an expansionist wonder (the Lighthouse) and an industrious one, then building one of my own. The only industrious wonder near me was the Hanging Gardens, in the Viking capital of Nidaros. The problem was that the Vikings had the galloglass by now, and Nidaros was inland. I would need to capture a coastal city, and not lose my invading force to Vikes or flips, then move on to a capital that would probably be well-defended. The sure approach was to take the Vikings the way I took the Spanish: city by city, culminating with the capital, taking what losses were necessary. At this point, however, I didn’t want to build the number of knights required to conquer the Vikings before I took the capital. And I also didn’t want to needlessly break a RoP treaty.

The first step of my solution was prebuilding Smith’s in one of my cities. I then made a RoP treaty with the Oda, who had two cities on the Viking mainland – including one north of Nidaros – and shifted 17 knights over there. By 800, Smith’s was two turns from being built. I declared war on the Vikings by moving onto the iron mountain north of Nidaros. The next turn, Nidaros fell, and the Gardens were mine. And the turn after that, Smith’s was completed, launching my GA.

Knights on mountain north of Nidaros. Smith's two turns from completion in Atlanta.


I then decided to take radical action. Having little doubt that size-10 Nidaros would soon flip back to the Vikes, and having no desire to retake it, I took a coastal city, and razed Nidaros, along with the Oracle and the Gardens. That’s the sort of cultural superpower I intend to be! I then waited the four turns it took to acquire military tradition, and set about cleaning up the Vikings. I had one close call, emanating from my worst fear: a single galloglass attacked Madrid from the sea, endangering Bach’s, which would be completed in 9 turns. By a miracle – my civ was essentially undefended – a knight was passing through Madrid. I don’t even recall putting him there. The knight redlined, but held off the galloglass… and the marauder didn’t have any backup. Whew. By the time I entered the Industrial Age in 900, the Vikings had three cities left.

Txurce: Nice surgical strike to get the Gardens! For some reason, it makes it more interesting when you only need one city, rather than just overrunning the whole country, (even if you take out the rest later). I remember a game a long time ago, when I invaded someone just to grab Leo's, upgrade like 80+ muskets to infantry and a ton of cannons, then gave it back to them!

Did anyone run out of iron early on?

Both my sources dried up on the main continent.

OPEN PTW

Last era ended with war against spain that was settled. I built up a large (about 15) veteran horsemen stack and then I took on England.

I had already met the Vikings and Oda (sorry about mentioning that in post 1). Since I had the Great Library I put nothing into science for the time.

The last english city fell around the same time as I got chivalry and invention. I managed to snag Leos and make the knight upgrade. Unfortunatly Spain was on track. So I started to put some money into tech again to reach Cavalry before them, I did and that was the start of the American Spanish war.

They didn't really put up that much of a fight, for some reason they had not built that many knights. So it was mostly pikers and longbow defenders. Then came the even that would suck suck suck, as I took the last Spanish city there was no spain wipe out message. THey had escaped my clutches ... They had no town on viking or oda island. They had previously had the Great Lighthouse so they could be anywhere. This led to culture flipping. How on earth can a city want to flip back to a single stupid settler on a galley?! So basically I had to have light guard in the cities and try to build temples. Flip I re-take .... This went on for a LOOOOONG time and really slowed down the game for me. Eventually the problem was solved by me paying off all others to start a war with spain and one of them found the galley and sunk it. Game over for spain.

The Oda tried to take me on a few times but never got further in land then the beach before they where cut down. The vikings tried to, one think I know for sure now is that the computer really doesn't know how to use its berserkers. Instead of attacking my coast towns by boat he insisted on putting the berserkers on shore and then attack. With their poor defence value they where quickly put to the sword/gun.

I had my island, looking at the vikings island. Oda was to far away. At the end of the era we met the others, they shared their land mass about equally. They where hopelessly behind in tech at the time but got a big boost from meeting us.

I also found what can only be described as barbarian island. It took some patiens to get a beach head on that. But before the end of the era I had two cities there.

I managed to snag nearly all of the wonders of the era, exceptions the once for theology and navigation.

The vikings had to many troops for an invasion, it would have to wait another era before we tried that.

btw SIRPLEBIDAH, nice city name.

@Tech; Didn't run out of any iron. Had both my main island sources until the end of game.

Justus II,
Good play. I wish I could be as aggressive as you. As for the 1-turn anarchy - are you sure? I believe that if you hit "Yes, let the revolution begin" on the pop-up, 1 turn passes before you get to see the domestic advisor in the F1 screen.

Txurce (how do you pronounce your membername?),
The galleass is the name in PTW for the frigate-like ship that in Vanilla civ was named "Galloglass" by cracker et al. I aimed for spacerace because I suck at early land claims. Also, I'm expecting a good tech pace with my load of universities and my GA coming up in the industrial age, where I might win back some turns I lost in the beginning. Diplomatic would just be too small a challenge. I would probably learn a lot if I played a few games where I decide on conquest or domination from the beginning. Good game, Txurce, 4-turn research pace in middle ages sounds impressive.

Originally posted by Tech Step
Did anyone run out of iron early on?
Both my sources dried up on the main continent.

Click to expand...

Yes ... but luckily I manage to have other source from Viking island.
I also considered trying to settle on barbs island but it was impossible to land and I would require at least Infanteries to survive the onslaught.

Easter Eggs : I have notice also some Barbs samourai (Reg 4/4/2).

Originally posted by CdB
I also considered trying to settle on barbs island but it was impossible to land and I would require at least Infanteries to survive the onslaught.

Easter Eggs : I have notice also some Barbs samourai (Reg 4/4/2).

Click to expand...

I am tempted to call this a "design flaw" in the otherwise great map. I noticed lots of Oda junks passing the south of our continent on their way to and (damaged) back from the island. The AI is always very eager to hunt down barbarians and by sending so many junks at least in my game they had killed all the squids by the time my first galley set sail.

Since inspection from sea did not show any resources and since I was very confident that AI landing troops would not survive, I only positioned a frigate on a sea tile (no attack from barb galleys) and watched the circus during the Middle Ages.

Justus, you couldn't be more right about the pleasures of single-city conquests. I am entering a stage in my play where I'm very comfortable one notch below SirPleb, and would rather entertain myself like Zwingli does, as opposed to keep raising the level of my play.

Megalou, the four-turn research pace came free with control of most of the continent; I only had a few libraries and markets at the time. You are on to something in considering setting a military target from the start - it makes it much easier to achieve those goals if you don't spread yourself too thin by playing a "balanced" game. If aiming for domination or conquest, all you need at the beginning is towns, workers, and barracks.

In an earlier post, you wrote that "My favourite Easter Egg shows whales inaccessible to exploitation. This is one of the nice details that made exploration such a challenge. Seeing a whale, one hoped to see land soon, but no sir." But I think that if you follow the whales, you reach the Oda and the barb island! If so, this is an even cooler touch on cracker's part.

-Txurce ("Choor-seh")

Txurce,
to expand on the whales, I think it is strange that in random games the computer doesn't create these merely "decorative", inaccessible whales. So that change only is a good touch by cracker. I think you're right that they also show a path, but before the Great Lighthouse Oda could not be reached, which is why, to me, the whales seemed like red herrings.

Originally posted by CdB


I also considered trying to settle on barbs island but it was impossible to land and I would require at least Infanteries to survive the onslaught.

Easter Eggs : I have notice also some Barbs samourai (Reg 4/4/2).

Click to expand...

I had three galleons with a couple of frigates for protection surround the island and just waited for a square to become free, when one did I dropped 12 musketmen there and watched as the barbarians flung themself at me, dying for whatever pagan god they belive in

I didn't even get a chance to settle on the island to the south of the main continent. The Spanish had that but as soon as I found It I went in and took it during one of the many wars that I had with them.

A quick question for all concerned.

When you attack a civilization early on do you usually go for a quick kill? ie: Do you save up heaps of units and kill them in one or 2 quick wars. Or do you drag it out a bit and continually take their stuff each time you declare peace with them? (Although it does get harder to declare peace with a civ that you continually fight with)

I ask this because in my game I was at war with the spanish at least 4 or 5 different times. (taking a city here then a city there) while letting the English do most of the damage (In an attempt to weaken them)