GOTM 31 Spoiler I - End of Ancient Age, Map of starting continent.

This is the first spoiler for GOTM 31

In order to read it and / or participate in it, you need to have satisfied the folowing conditions:

1. Have advanced to the point where you are at least researching a middle-age tech.
2. Have a full map of the coastline of the starting continent.
3. Have contact with all other civs on the starting continent (or their remains... )

You may post maps, but please do not post any screenshots or minimaps that show:

1. Any other landmasses.
2. Any galley-routes off-continent (successful or not)
3. The locations of any non-ancient-age resources (eg saltpeter)

So tell us how you fared in the Emperor game. Remember: There is the players' choice award on-the-line for the best write up / contributions to the spoilers.

EDIT by AlanH: We have a lot of new players this month, which is great to see, but it means it's worth repeating some of the standard spoiler rules to reduce the amount of moderator ink I have to spread around ...

- Please don't name any civs you have met outside the starting continent, or give clues as to the direction to go to find them.
- Please don't post spoilers outside of this thread or the subsequent ones that will be posted as the month progresses.
- Please read and abide by these rules for the enjoyment of all players.

Oh, and while I'm here, please can you try to work out how to use your paint programs to reduce the widths of screenshots below 800 pixels before uploading them? The spoiler posts are getting rather wide. Thanks for your assistance

PTW 1.27f Open

Start. Like presumably many, I saw the wheat in the SE, so a movement in that direction seemed in order. I moved the worker due south to have a look figuring that he could mine the BG there if appropriate. Of course the two Wheats showed and the settler moved SE to found and run a Settler Factory.

First builds were two warriors. One took off for the hinterlands and found England and the Iroquois on the same turn. And one for local scouting and defense/MP duty.

I irrigated both wheats and kept citizens assigned to them for max growth. Whipped a granary in 3050BC. First settler came out in 2710BC. I pumped out a warrior to tune up the factory and it was one settler every 4 turns thereafter. The extra food was shared with the city to the south, although I didn't get that set up until later.

Victory Condition and Build Pattern. I addressed this around 2800BC as the first settler was coming of the production line. These two concepts are tied together for me. For a military game, I like a 3/6 build pattern. And sometimes you get forced into that by terrain and/or land grabbing neighbors. (If I do it it's expansion, if the AI does it, it's land grabbing!)

I have submitted four GOTMs to date, all with different Win Conditions. So I may as well keep up the string. Additionally, I consider myself as still a newbie to the game, so a new type of victory should be a good learning experience. So Domination, Conquest, Space Ship and 100K are out. I didn't think this was particularly good for 20K. I don't know very much at all about Diplo...need to play one of those "off-line" to get the concepts. Leaving Histo which I've never done, but I figured I could learn on the job.

So, the combination of terrain and the prospect of going late into the game led me to choose a 4/7 build pattern. After meeting the English and noting how close they were, I went for the 7-ring first to block them. Took the Flood Plain NNE, then westward. Filled in the 4-ring as I felt they were effectively blocked. Seemed to work well although England didn't expand very rapidly.

It's interesting to note that at this point, RCP is just part of the game. When I fiddle with Conquests, I still do RCP without even thinking about it. Will need to unlearn that sometime.

Barbarians. As advertised they were all over the place. But strangely, not particularly aggressive. The Barb Camp at "Land's End" south of Paris had a chance to ransack one of my towns and turned away to come after a warrior. I had been resigned to take the hit. Lucky with that and also lucky fighting them. Redlined warriors beating off Barb horses and stuff like that. After they appeared I just made allowance for their presence; they were not much of a factor with a little attention to defense. And patrolling the tundra keeps them away.


Research/Tech. Pottery at max. Then a 40-turn Math. Writing seemed a natural for my neighbors. Got 4 techs + gold for Math. They both had Writing one turn later. Polytheism at max. While researching that renegotiate peace and give 48g for HBR and 43g for Writing. After Polytheism I figured they'd probably have MapMaking soon so I went for Philosophy. Gave Philos+Poly for Currency+160g and Philos+Poly for MapMaking.
Managed to keep pace with them. A two-civ tech whip isn't enough to bury you. They were as usual very friendly with each other tech-wise.
A beeline for MapMaking would perhaps have been a better choice, but the game feels as if it's progressing well.

Government. I usually endeavor to switch governments as soon as possible. However, having decided to play Histo pretty much pinned Republic as the government of choice. I needed a relatively large number of workers and military to develop and to rid my continent of rivals. At small numbers of small sized towns the unit maintenance penalty is too high with Republic. So I stayed in Depotism until into MA and researched Republic and switched later.

Wonders. I started a pre-build for the Lighthouse in 1200BC, probably a little late. I think it took me way too long to figure out it might be useful. I don't build a lot of wonders nor do I usually count on getting them .If a GL shows up and a wonder is useful, I'll build it.

The world at 1000BC:
14 towns
38 pop
1 Settler
13 worker (1 foreign)
20 Warrior
1 Granary
1 Temple
4 Barracks
Missing 2 tech for Middle Ages(and Gov't)
383 gold
358 Score

The rest of Ancient Times. Not a lot to report. A peaceful buildup of warriors for upgrades to swords. The first galleys begin attacking the fog. London got beat to the Pyramids by 5 turns. That might have helped for a Histo game.

Continued to pump out settlers for a bit. Built more of everything.

Curiousities. Watched a barb de-camp and board a galley. Hadn't seen that before.

Entering Middle Ages. In 730BC I shut down research to avoid Middle Ages (and the Uprising) as there were still barbs in the area. I sent a couple of horses to the tundra area to the west to clear out the last camp and "light up" the area. A few turns later I cranked up research again and in 610BC we got CoL and entered the Middle Ages and no uprising to contend with. Maybe I'm starting to figure a few things out about this game, I'm thinking ... later events would disprove that statement! And maybe anticipating the uprising sooner...oh well.

The sword army is coming together...soon we will be making "social calls" on our neighbors...but that will need to wait for the next installment.

As well I have a strong candidate for Blunder of the Month, but that too will wait.

This game went very well for me -- I moved the Settler Southeast, then East and got this beautiful start:



Paris quickly became a Settler factory, and I covered the entire southern end of the continent. With Horses close to Paris and Iron to the south, safe from the nasty English and Iroquois, the start location seemed ideal. I didn't attack the English until the Middle Ages and the Iroquois until much later, but all of the continent is mine now.

One of the main advantages I had was that the English and Iroquois seemed to hate each others' guts, declaring war no fewer than three times in the Ancient Age alone. I guess, since the English had Iron and the Iroquois had only Horses, both squabbled over resources. (The Iroquois never managed to connect the Iron on the small island to their north.)

I managed to build the Great Library in Orleans, though I let every other Wonder slide by. The Iroquois built the Great Lighthouse and succeeded in contacting the anonymous others very early in the Middle Ages.

Some screenies:




And modern, unified France (resources hidden):

Considering I was killing green infantry with French Modern Armies last night, this is ancient history literally.

Like HighDesert, I moved my settler south, met the English & Iroquois within the first 20 turns and went for a 40 turn mathematics gambit. That's about all we had in common aside from a couple of trades. I saw very few barbarians (and only killed one myself) and I went for the Great Library method.

Edit: and my game looked nothing like Cuivienen's did. I just don't have the early warmonger gene in my body.

I am disappointed to see the first posting being a histo victory choice as I was hoping to sneak a medal that way. The point that I'm at it's too late to change course, so I guess I'll have to hope I played a better game.

Back to the Ancient Age recap: I managed to setup a pretty good settler factory in Paris and had 9 towns at the end of the QSC period. I had a very peaceful first 3000 years and was moving along nicely on tech waiting for the Great Library to come in.

I'll add more to this later once I have my post QSC notes available.

One last nugget: as probably seen I did manage to discover the catapult to cannon modification. I kept my little stack of cats around until artillery and they came in quite handy at that point. (I had already upgraded them when Ainwood's patch was announced).

This game was a bit curious, because I have never seen that the AI is as weak as this time in a game on emperor level. The AI expansion and the tech pace is very slow for an emperor game. The AI used their best cities for wonder production and this kept their expansion slow. Nice for me, because I have captured all these nice wonders later. This also was my first game on emperor level in which I have build libraries in the AA and researched at a rate more than 10%.

4000BC: I moved the worker E, Settler SE.
3950BC: Founded Paris and revealed the second wheat. What a perfect place. It was not possible to set up a combined settler/warrior factory as Offas in the last gotm, so I decided to set up Paris as a 4.4 - 6.4 settler factory. This allowed me to irrigate both wheats and give a southern city the 4 surplus food each second turn. Also not a single shield was wasted in Paris including the bonus shields at growing (I learned this from Offa).

I researched writing at 40 turns and hoped to get Pottery from the first contacts. I have built 3 warriors, 2 for scouting, one as MP and for the barbs. Then I used the Pyramids as granary prebuild.

In 3110BC I met the Iroquois. We traded Pottery and BW for Masonry, 48g, 1gpt. In 3050BC we met England. Liz has CB and needs Masonry, but she has almost no gold and does not want to make a gpt deal, so I hold back.

Paris completed the granary and began the 4 turn settler production in 2750BC. The first city ring was used to build Barracks and units (also sometimes a worker) in the grassland cities. The southern cities produced workers first, later also barracks and harbors.

In 2710BC Liz had WC. She didnt want to trade it for a good prize. So I traded Masonry for CB and 19g. In 2270BC Liz had the Wheel. I waited until we had researched Writing. In 2190BC both, the Iros and England had Wheel, WC, Myst. In 2110BC Writing came in and I decided to wait for Iron Working. So no trades at this moment. I research Math in 40 turns.

In 1750BC i buyed Wheel from Iro for 90g, and WC from Liz for 64g. Very cheap. In 1700 both AI had Iron working. I traded Writing for Iron Working and 150g with Liz and Writing for Myst and 60g with the Iroq.

The next deal was in 1300BC: I buyed MM from Iroq for 231g and HB from Liz for 98g.

In 1100BC Iros completed the Oracle (in their most productive citiy). This has slowed down their expansion. Liz switched to Pyramids. Go! Go!

In 1025 the Iroq and England beat me at Math (i had 2 turns left). I buy CoL for 185 g from Iroq.

In 1000BC I had 12 cities (could be 14, but Paris switched to a worker factory for 8 turns). Also a settler, 9 worker, 2 warrior, 16 spear, 8 swords.

Also Math came in and now I moved my research slider up for Literature in 7, this came 825BC in and I traded this with Liz for Phil and 122g. I also selled this to Iroq for 108 g. Now i researched currency in 10 turns. I researched this in 610BC and traded this for Construction and 181 g with Liz. I had to trade with Liz, because she completed Great Lib just the turn before.

Then I researched Poly in 6 turns (a few cities have built a library instead of units in the meanwhile) and entered MA in 510BC.

So the AA was the expansion phase. After entering the MA i was prepared for the first strike on England. Goals for MA: Get the home continent ang get at least one Great Leader for a FP in the the center of the upper half of our continent.

Next in the MA report. I had much more luck with GL this game than in the last gotm.

Alright, this is my first attempt at an official spoiler. Here goes.
I followed along what just about everybody else did by moving my settler SE and built my city with a freshwater source and 2 wheats. Played conquests so I already had one warrior. I built one more,then a granary. then I set it to settler/warrior build untill I got about 5 or 6 cities. Had a couple of problems with the barbs killing a couple of workers. Honest newbie mistake, no extra warrior patrols.
I met the Iriquois very quickly with their goodie hut turning into a settler very early. Then the English. We all traded techs and had laughs, untill the Iriquois and English went to war (didn't last long, and I didn't have a chance to make good of their dispute.
When I started the game, didn't really have a clue how I wanted to win the game. Honestly at emperor didn't think I had a chance at all. I think philosophy is the only AA tech I researched, I traded and or bought all of the rest. I didn't think I had as much as a land grab that I could have though. But fortunatley the eng/iri war stunted their expansion fairly well, and the english only ended up with a total of 7cities. One of which was way down on the SE part of the continent.
I was absolutely stunned that I was able to build a wonder. Built the Great Library in 370 AD in Paris. I always forget about Palace pre-build or I forget and MOVE CAPITALS. haha. which actually happened to me later in the game. Anyways this is my first attempt at a spoiler so forgive me if I wandered to the left or right.
Sit rep 50 AD entered MA:
cities: 13
Units: 5 warriors, 1 archer, 9 spear, 3 swords, 4 horsemen, 8 workers
Score: France 535
Iriquois 429
English 376

Open

What's he doing here this early?
My excuse is that I had to play a fast and furious first phase in order to find out the geography, so that I could set up the automated submission system to calculate jason scores on the fly. All this needed to be done in time for your first submissions, and I still failed to satisfy one or two of you. How does *anyone* play out one of these games in under 48 elapsed hours?

The dawn of French civilisation
As soon as I opened the start file I could see the tip of the wheat peering out of the fog. So settler south east, worker starts to road, and found Paris in 3950 BC. I decided to go for Writing to allow a Literature or MapMaking option next, and hope to trade for Pottery.

Meet the neighbours
We irrigated the first wheat and mined the second to provide a 5fpt settler farm, and then waited for Pottery to happen along. Paris produced a few warriors who went out and about and met England very soon, in 3600 BC. We traded Masonry and cash for Pottery and Ceremonial Burial, and noted that they must have met a militaristic civ because they had Warrior Code as well.

In 3250 BC we met the Iroquois and both they and England had the Wheel, which we bought for gold and 3 gpt so that we could find our horses, which actually took a little while even though there were some not far from Paris.

The first expansion
In 2750 BC we had a Granary and 5fpt and pop 5 in Paris and we started churning out settlers every four turns. I usually like 3-3.5 first ring, but I thought I'd try a slightly wider city placement this time with rings at 4-4.5 and 7-7.5. This was mainly because England and the Iroquois were rather close and I wanted to grab land and lux before they encroached. Orleans was built in 2510 BC on the wine river (the Loire?), Lyons was settled in the north as well, in 2190 BC, just beating an English settler to a prime spot north of the river, and Rheims founded on the next turn on the east coast.

Writing was a Good Idea
We completed Writing in 2110 BC and traded it to England for Mysticism, Bronze, Warrior Code and 82 gold. We then traded it plus 95 gold for HBR and Iron Working from the Iroquois. That worked out well We decided to go for 40 turns to Map Making as it was apparent by this time that England and Iroquois were our only land neighbours, and we needed to go boating to find more civs.

Wonders where we went wrong
We had picked up Map Making from England in 1300 BC for 10 gpt and switched to 40 turn Literature, hoping to snag the Great Library. France grew peacefully and prosperously to 13 cities by 1000 BC, with a modest army. Our navy went exploring around the coastal waters, but only found a northern island that was being colonised by the Iroquois and one English city. They demanded improved navigation aids to find other worlds and we decided to build a lighthouse. We won the race for the Great Library in 310 BC and immediate learnt several techs including Monarchy for free. We ignored Monarchy and ran max rate research on Republic. We were beaten to the Lighthouse by the Iroquois in 270 BC by ONE LOUSY TURN, and cascaded to the Hanging Gardens.

Vive la Republic!
In 130 BC we were two turns from completing research on Republic at maximum rate, and I tried an interesting experiment that could have gone horribly wrong. Because we had Monarchy as an alternative government option I figured we might be able to revolt now, turn every available citizen into a scientist to keep the research rate going, and complete the research for Republic during the anarchy period. We had food in the bins in most cities, and this ploy effectively turned that stored food into beakers. I was indeed able to get the number of scientists up to the level needed to complete the research within the anarchy period of 7 turns. I fact they sustained the pre-revolution rate to complete in two turns, returned to normal anarchic food production, and the First French Republic was born in 10 AD!

Outward bound
We had already sent one or two galleys to certain watery graves in suicidal attempts to find other worlds, but now, having missed out on the Lighthouse we decided on some more calculated suicide attempts. One of our galleys was able to pick up an Iroquois galley leaving coastal waters, and we figured they knew where they were going. So our brave galley captain followed in the same direction and lived to meet some new friends. They put new books in our library and we were suddenly in the Middle Ages in 70 BC.

At that stage we had been at peace for nearly 4000 years, we had 20 cities and 88 loyal citizens. England was a small country boasting the Great Wall, and the Iroquois was a culture monster with the Great Lighthouse, the Oracle and the Colossus. We'd run out of space to expand at home, we couldn't voyage overseas safely, and we had a substantial army that was itching to get started on the English, our natural enemies. And we also wanted to recover *our* lighthouse from the Iroquois, to assist with safe travel to the rest of the world. So the next spoiler will not be so peaceful. Look out for our next installment - Bob the Builder turns nasty

Here are my F3 screens at 1000 BC, and at 70 BC with slightly edited ocean.

Civ 1.29 Open

I wrote a QSC, but I don't remember much details about the rest of the game. Here is my QSC if anyone have the stamina to read it:

QSC Template V1.0 by RufRydyr
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48286


Nickname: el_kalkylus
QSC #: 31


Pregame thoughts/observations: Start on a production square so I will move my settler either SE or W. Worker will explore. Map is to the south, so my future warriors will go north. I have no other plans for now.


Turn # /Turns Left Year
0/540 4000 BC- Worker S. Settler SE. See two wheats, a lake and a river.
1/539 3950 BC- Paris founded and start warrior. Worker start mining. I was thinking of irrigating a wheat first, but production is nicer for now since France is industrious.
2/538 3900 BC- Lost 3 gold because I put the science on 100 instead of 0 as planned!! Research Pottery at full speed.
3/537 3850 BC-
4/536 3800 BC-
5/535 3750 BC- New warrior goes N. See gold.
6/534 3700 BC- Warrior N. Worker moves to wheat.
7/533 3650 BC- Warrior N. See 3 Wines.
8/532 3600 BC- Meet english scout. Trade masonry for Warrior code and 22 gold. They have Pottery and Ceremonial burial as well. Warrior N.
9/531 3550 BC- New Warrior in Paris fortifies to keep citizens happy next turn. Start worker to increase production and build roads for future cities and a granary in Paris.
10/530 3500 BC- Paris size 2.
11/529 3450 BC- Culture expansion see Wine to the west as well.
12/528 3400 BC-
13/527 3350 BC- Worker in Paris.
14/526 3300 BC- Meet Iroquois. Trade Masonry for 25 gold, Pottery and CB. Research Writing.
15/525 3250 BC-
16/524 3200 BC-
17/523 3150 BC-
18/522 3100 BC- Trade 69 gold for Bronze Working with Iroquois. See spices near Iroquois and English.
19/521 3050 BC- Paris size 3.
20/520 3000 BC-
21/519 2950 BC- Iroquois discovers Mysticism.
22/518 2900 BC-
23/517 2850 BC- Paris produces first Settler, start a new warrior. Reload because worker moves wrong when I click on a map square.
24/516 2800 BC- Orleans founded and starts building a granary. Wines connected to Paris.
25/515 2750 BC-
26/514 2710 BC-
27/513 2670 BC-
28/512 2630 BC-
29/511 2590 BC-
30/510 2550 BC-
31/509 2510 BC-
32/508 2470 BC-
33/507 2430 BC- Second settler in Paris.
34/506 2390 BC- Lyons founded and starts building a granary.
35/505 2350 BC- English discovers Iron Working and traded it with Iroquois. English town Nottingham founded near Lyons next to wines. Not good. I will build a city next to Nottingham with my next settler.
36/504 2310 BC-
37/503 2270 BC-
38/502 2230 BC-
39/501 2190 BC-
40/500 2150 BC- Granary complete in Orleans around this time I think.
41/499 2110 BC- Third settler in Paris.
42/498 2070 BC-
43/497 2030 BC-
44/496 1990 BC- Rheims founded.
45/495 1950 BC- English and Iroquois discovers Writing and The Wheel. I buy Writing for 128 gold since it is cheaper than researching it myself. Research Philosphy at full speed.
46/494 1910 BC- Attacked by two pictish warriors. Both my warriors survives. Settler in Orleans.

Stats 1910 BC: 4 cities, 1 granary, 1 settler, 3 warriors and two workers.


47/493 1870 BC- Archer in Paris.
48/492 1830 BC- Scout blocks settler passage.
49/491 1790 BC- Granary complete in Lyons.
50/490 1750 BC- Tours founded.
51/489 1725 BC-
52/488 1700 BC-
53/487 1675 BC- Fourth Settler in Paris. Barracks complete in Orleans.
54/486 1650 BC- Phalanx in Rheims. Destroy barbarian camp. Find silks.
55/485 1625 BC- One regular warrior lost when attacking a barbarian horsemen with two warriors.
56/484 1600 BC-
57/483 1575 BC- Barracks complete in Lyons.
58/482 1550 BC- Discover Philosophy. Trade for The Wheel, Ironworking and Mysticism. Research Code of Laws.
59/481 1525 BC- Archer in Orleans. Barbarians are all over, so is the english and Iroqoius with their warriors. I am getting nervous with my undefended cities.
60/480 1500 BC- Marseilles founded near silks.
61/479 1475 BC-
62/478 1450 BC- Iroqoius and English has Map Making. Settler in Orleans. Barbarian camp near Marseilles destroyed.
63/477 1425 BC- England declared war on Iroquois. England is as good as dead. Two barbarian horsemen killed.
64/476 1400 BC- Chartress founded.
65/475 1375 BC- Settler in Lyons. Barracks complete in Tours.
66/474 1350 BC-
67/473 1325 BC- See spices south of Marseilles.
68/472 1300 BC- Avignon and Besancon founded. Now I have horses.
69/471 1275 BC- One veteran warrior killed by horsemen.
70/470 1250 BC- One veteran warrior killed by horsemen. Chartress Ransacked of 7 gold.
71/469 1225 BC- First chariot. Make a deal with England and declare war with Iroquois now when the Iroquois troops have left my cities.

Rouen founded. Hurry production in Marseilles for galley.

72/468 1200 BC- Discover Code of Laws. Research Polytheism.
73/467 1175 BC-
74/466 1150 BC-
75/465 1125 BC-
76/464 1100 BC-
77/463 1075 BC-
78/462 1050 BC-
79/461 1025 BC-
80/460 1000 BC- Silk connected.

Click to expand...

End of QSC period: 1 settler, 8 workers, 5 veteran warriors, 2 archers, 1 spearman, 9 chariots, 2 galleys, 9 towns, 4 barracks, 2 granaries, 1 temple and 2 luxuries.

Obviously my plan was to upgrade chariots to Horsemen and then kick the english and iroquois off the island, which I did eventually. What doesn't show without pictures is that I also planned a palace jump to London.

A turn after 1000 bc a suicide galley survived and I met with all civs in the ancient age, so I could trade myself to the middle age at 250 bc.


I entered the middle age at 250 bc.

Open 1.29f

I honestly have to say I was a bit nervous at the start of this GOTM because of the difficulty level. The emperor level still causes me.....great concern. Therefore, I went on a trip back in time to seek out inspiration. No, neither Napoleon, Joan, nor "Louis the whatever number" would be my motivator. My inspiration would be derived from a simple man, ......a man willing to do the dirty work for those who judged from afar. This man is Henri Sanson, better known as......"Henri the Executioner." Marie Antoinette herself met him.....once.



So, w/ Henri in mind, I set about establishing an empire Napoleon himself would be envious of. Unfortunately, things wouldn't end up quite that impressive. I debated on whether moving the settler at all. Sometimes I wonder just how beneficial it proves in the end. But, I did move him, but unlike the others, I moved him one tile west and established Paris. I built my second settlement south-southwest of the starting position.

I didn't play my opening turns exceptionally well. But, once I was aware of the number of neighbors and the starting landmass, I was fairly confident I'd overcome my errors later on. I gave no consideration for RCP, which is not unusual for me. I was able to settle the general area w/ some expansion westward. Edited In: I did lose my first settler (unprotected) to a barb camp hidden in the fog of war. When the Iroquois and English settled some cities among mine, I knew how my next expansion phase would come about.

My research path was: Pottery, Writing, and Literature. Paris built the Great Library in 70 BC and France entered the Middle Ages in 50 BC. I remained in Despotism throughout the AA. In the Middle Ages, my plans entail controlled wars v. the Iroquois and the English and venturing forth from the French homeland to meet the "neighbors."

Originally posted by AlanH

Vive la Republic!
In 130 BC we were two turns from completing research on Republic at maximum rate, and I tried an interesting experiment that could have gone horribly wrong. Because we had Monarchy as an alternative government option I figured we might be able to revolt now, turn every available citizen into a scientist to keep the research rate going, and complete the research for Republic during the anarchy period. We had food in the bins in most cities, and this ploy effectively turned that stored food into beakers. I was indeed able to get the number of scientists up to the level needed to complete the research within the anarchy period of 7 turns. I fact they sustained the pre-revolution rate to complete in two turns, returned to normal anarchic food production, and the First French Republic was born in 10 AD!

Click to expand...

Very nice Alan. My mind just doesn't think this way, or should I say, I don't give my mind time to think this way. Since you already had the Great Library, why opt for researching Republic yourself? Do you continue researching yourself even after obtaining the GL? At this difficulty level, I use it to help gain tech parity and to save money for rushing science improvements after entering a republic government, but before it becomes obsolete. Of course, this approach has its kinks when my neighbors don't play nice.

I found the wheat as well, like most players, mainly because the prophet stonewolf read the goats entrails in the pre-game discussion and declared there to be wheat to the SE. I think players who missed out on the wheat won't be to put out though what with the game / cattle tiles in the north.
I founded Paris in 3950 BC - worked the BG tile at first to churn out a quick warrior for scouting. Min. research gambit on maths from the start. Then currency both of which paid off.
Met with both the English and the iroquios fairly early and figured I was stuck alone with them soon after that.
I connected up my iron around 1500 BC and upgraded in the region of 13 to 15 warriors to swords. I went for the English as I wanted to start with galleys and my currency gambit wouldn't pay off until 975 BC. The English had MM.....and some quaint villages which could clearly do with frenchifying.
Unfortunately.........

Both the english towns were autorazed when my swords took them. One was a size 3 before I moved in the other a size 2- they either rushed something or popped something.....perfidious albion!
I declared peace with the English in 1025 BC when I realised that London was building the pyramids. I should have done it sooner but I was in the middle of a full blown temper tantrum at the time and I was thinking to hell with MM I'm just going to wipe the English out for denying me their towns. The potential of grabbing the pyramids stayed my hand for what seemed like an eternity only for the english to be beaten to the pyramids by an off-continent civ......damn incompetent perfidious albion!
This is a screen shot of my military at 1000 BC twiddling their thumbs after the misguided peace of 1025 BC. At this point in the game I was currently gathering more gold for another mass upgrade (only have about 250-300 gold at 1000 BC and have disconnected the iron again) and building galleys in my coastal cities. In addition to my workers I have 5 Engliish slaves - none of whom can cook and have very poor dress sense.

Like denyd, I'm looking for some screencaps without railroads on 'em. Fortunately, I found a few.

Early game: I plopped the settler down right then and there in 4000 BC. Yup, that's right, just like the "stupid AI". Though I didn't get a proper settler pump going in Paris, I founded my second city SW near the wines, built a granary, and did okay in the initial build out phase. I did your basic Warrior-to-Sword upgrad gambit, and...

Here's how my relationship went with the first civ I 'met':



On the second civ - a couple of real winners here. First - to all of you who have complained about the "Killer Spearman" I say pooh, feh, and if you return I shall taunt you a second time. You simply haven't seen real combat until you've met the "killer galley". (There was actually a warrior there that I met when I sent a 3/4 horseman in from Niagra Falls...



Now here's one that I was pleased to see...(this gets better)



Now - this next screenshot appears remarkably similar to the previous, only you'll note 2 things. First, I've got some units in striking distance of Cattarugus. Second - where's my $@%$%$@ Army?!?!?! That's right, I'm re-taking Salmanca, and my Army is nowhere to be seen. That's right, the army was there in Salmanca when it culture flipped. This seems to be a recurring theme here... Scout posting remarkably similar (and painful) screencaps in GOTM forums. On the off chance that I become a 'regular' here, I'll call this "Scout's Ouch v.31.1" ...and BTW, I also lost almost my entire navy in Cattarugus when it flipped...



@ Ainwood: I'd appreciate it if you'd PM me after looking at my replay. I gotta know if Salmanca flipped twice, or if I dreamed that third flip after playing these turns...

Moderator Action: Moved from the public forum. Please do not post your own spoiler threads

I have just settled a town plonk on top of the silks on the west of the starting continent for GOTM31. For some reason though, the luxuries box on the city display shows ivory instead of silks. Is this something to do with the new luxuries that have been added to GOTM? I am not sure whether this will really be a problem unless I want to trade silks to an opponent who already has ivory.

Moderator Action: Tis is a well known display glitch with the GOTM mods. Because the resource icons have been shuffled in the modified resources.pcx file the game software seems to get confused. It only affects the city screen display and does not modify the actual effect of the resource on your citizens or your ability to trade the resources .

Tile assigns at 1275bc. Warlord, Farmer and Explorer:



and this resulted my 1000bc stats:

43 pop
21 towns (2 captured from England)

11 workers
+3 slaves
20 warriors
9 swords
1 galley

3 Granary
3 Barracks

score 345
188 tiles

91g
all mandatory techs expect Contruction.
Republic in 16 turns.

-----------------

590bc I formed Republic and qualifield to this spoiler by starting to research Monotheism.

Edit: Barbs threatened once. Ransacked over 30 shields

This is my first GOTM. The level I usually play is moving from Emperor to Demi-God on Conquests. I am playing the open version on PTW.

I did not keep quite the record of my game some have, but I thought I would add a few points about my game that could be interesting. Sorry if it is a bit rambling, I am doing it from memory and have never written up a game before. I hope someone finds something worth while in it, and I am open to comments on my decisions.

I think I was pretty lucky, I made some bad decisions but they paid off

Like everyone else, I moved the settler SE. However, I did it 'cos I saw the sea in the top right, and the water in the bottom, and though that was sure to be the coast. Saw it wasn't, doh! Saw the other wheat yeah!

I started researching Writing straight away, because that is what I always do. Recently I have been playing the Iroquois and so have started with Pottery. So I started building warriors to map my land. 1 turn before I finished my 3rd warrior I meet the English and traded for pottery. Changed my production to Granary, and I soon had my 4 turn settler factory.

By the time I was producing settlers, I had mapped the area between me and the English, and tried for a bit of a gamble. I wanted to place my 1st 3 cities across the "neck" of land between me and the English, roughly along the second river. If this succeeded I would have most of the continent to do with as I please. For some reason the AI's seemed to be spreading slowly, and I got my first 2 cities. My 3rd settler was about to found the 3rd, and so close off the continent, when I got iron working. I saw the iron on the mountains, moved my settler one tile north east, and I had prevented the English from getting any strategic recourses! That made a difference

I have been playing Conquests recently, and I had completely forgotten about RCP. So my cities where founded wherever I liked the terrain, with roughly 12 tiles each. However, it did not turn out too bad as I only put 1 city closer than 5 from my capital, and the AI's gave me a nice ring of 5 cities all 5 tiles from a perfect FP location.

I did not go for any wonders, but my greatest bit of luck was that the English built the Great Library, and the Iroquois built both the Pyramids and the Great Lighthouse, as well as the colossus and were building the Hanging Gardens. They are mine!

I wanted all this continent, so in all my cities but 1 (a worker factory) I build barracks then military. I was researching straight for Republic, and let the AI's do the military research. I got republic and had my revolution about 4-500 BC, and started war with the English about this time. I did not go for MM, and totally concentrated on making war. Possibly a mistake, but as the AI's on my continent had built all the decent wonders, I thought that there was not too much loss in not meeting the others for a while. Just about worth it I think, as it turned out on a couple of occasions the last few horsemen I had (that would not have been built if I had built Galleys) made all the difference.

I had Iron working before HBR, so my first army was half Swordsmen half Horsemen (would have been all Horsemen if I had had that first). The English crumbled in front of my armies, having only spearmen and archers to try and hold me back. They were building the great wall, but did not get a chance to finish it. With my last attack of this war on this continent I got a great leader for my FP (my last great bit of luck).

The Iroquois were a bit more of a challenge. I saw then roading their horses as I was finishing off the English from my continent (they had a couple of cities on that island to the north). My first turn of war took a couple of their cities, but they counter attacked with mounted warriors, killed a couple of my horsemen but did not take anything back. But now I guessed they were in a golden age. I continued slowly and steadily until I got to Salamanca. Twice my 15 odd stack of horsemen and swordsmen were turned back at the gates with them having only 1 or 2 redlined defenders left. 3rd time lucky, and the Pyramids and Colossus were mine (the Great Lighthouse had fallen earlier).

They were still building the Hanging Gardens, so I decided to leave them one city for a few turns. They started it well before anyone else, and were in a golden age (probably). 5 turns later of so, they built it, and I destroyed the Iroquois.

I have played about 2 more turns. I have all the Ancient wonders except the Great Wall and the Oracle. I Have not been researching since I got the great Library, and have now about 10,000 gold. Not sure what I am going to do with it. I have been waiting for someone to get Engineering for about 15 turns, when they do (and sell it to someone) I shall go for full research to Military Tradition, hopefully getting Chivalry from the GL.

Not sure how many cities, but I have 80 unit free support, and am bringing in about 830 commerce per turn, of which about 230 is corruption. I am contemplating foreign wars, I have never done it long distance with Galleys, and rarely at all, as I tend to play on Pangea. It should be interesting. This is at 500 AD.

I have still not decided what victory to go for. The only ways I have won before are conquest, domination (when I have been on the way to conquest) and space ship (though that has been a while, possibly pre Civ3). I normally give up on a game if I am as strong as this early,and only end up finishing a game when I come from behind with a hoard of tanks. I am thinking conquest or domination, as I seem fairly well placed for this, and I cannot think what else to do with my production

Moderator Action: Moved from public forum. Welcome, but please do not start your own spoiler threads

Hi, Just finished my first GOTM.

I have plyed a fair bit of Civ over the years and am not a newbie - but a newbie to this type of game. Extra fun with the pressure of trying to do well against others.

I play a peaceful Civ 2 style (I know it's not the best) - build peacefully, build research improvements etc.

A couple of questions:

What does AA mean?

Ancient Age - what this thread is about

What does BG mean?

Bonus grassland - an extra shield per turn

Could someone point me to a good thread on the 40 turn research gambit? I don't understand it it but it sounds like something where you try to pick an avoided item and then trade for lots of advances.

Research in Civ3 has a minimum and maximum number of turns per orject. As long as you are putting at least one beaker per turn into research it will never take longer than 40 turns to complete

Anyway to my game. Similar to others I got a good settler factory going in SE. My 2 neighbours kept pounding on each other so I build up some Swordsman and waited for my chance. Early for me to go to war but....

England were easily killed and the iroquois soon were all but wiped out. I picked up the Oracle and Pyramids and when I realized i owned the continent I went back to my peaceful style - racing to sanitation and building huge cities.

Moderator Action: Paragraph deleted. Please wait until later spoiler threads are posted before disussing events after the end of the ancient era

Anyway, good fun and enjoying everyone's posts.

Regards,
chill888

Ok, it's time for my second GOTM and i planned a win not a loose like my first one.
But then, all things changes because my citys can't grow as quick as my neighbours could. And by the way, i'm no in the industrial age and i still don't know why.

I early met my two neighbours England and Iroquois and they been miles ahaid. So i early had to fight against one of them. I tried the english because they expand very quickly to my location.
The only problem was, that i can't build up my forces quickly. I have to fight step by step. I collected two english-citys very fast and signed into peace. This saved me the horses for streight up my forces.
To get good forces i searched on the war-path.
At this period i tried to expand quickly to the south to found more citys and later to build more forces.
But my culture growth not like the others culture and i lost one city to the english. They should not have done that better.

I again started war against the english and i asked the iroquios to join me. They loved that idea.

Bevor this, i changed into monarchy.

After collecting two more english city i went into MA but more of them later on.

Originally posted by scoutsout


Second - where's my $@%$%$@ Army?!?!?! That's right, I'm re-taking Salmanca, and my Army is nowhere to be seen. That's right, the army was there in Salmanca when it culture flipped. This seems to be a recurring theme here... Scout posting remarkably similar (and painful) screencaps in GOTM forums.

Click to expand...

Good start. Flips are annoying. It's very risky to leave important units in captured towns, at least until after you have eliminated the civ.

Why did you have an army anyway? How were you hoping to get it on a galley?

Originally posted by Kuningas
and this resulted my 1000bc stats:

43 pop
21 towns (2 captured from England)

11 workers
+3 slaves
20 warriors
9 swords
1 galley

3 Granary
3 Barracks

score 345
188 tiles

91g
all mandatory techs expect Contruction.
Republic in 16 turns.

Click to expand...

Steady on there. That is an outrageous number of towns, and everything else.

Originally posted by dojoboy
Very nice Alan. My mind just doesn't think this way, or should I say, I don't give my mind time to think this way. Since you already had the Great Library, why opt for researching Republic yourself? Do you continue researching yourself even after obtaining the GL? At this difficulty level, I use it to help gain tech parity and to save money for rushing science improvements after entering a republic government, but before it becomes obsolete. Of course, this approach has its kinks when my neighbors don't play nice.

Click to expand...

As you can tell from my ploy to save a couple of turns, I was very keen to get to Republic. When the Library arrived I took a decision to fast track it because the gpt benefits. I felt the shift to Republic would pay for its research very fast. I only knew two civs at the time and they weren't researching very fast, and I was likely to slow them down even more by my next planned actions

With some major real world changes going on, Peanut hasn't played a GOTM for a while. Luckily a window opened in the Peanut schedule so I decided to go for a quick game (quick for Peanut that is ...). I haven't got exact dates as I am just writing this quick note.

Most of my games are peaceful affairs - explore, expand methodically, build, establish friendly relations,and then get attacked by some loopy neighbour. Not this time though - it was going to be a feral Peanut this game.

I settled Paris one square from the start so as not to squander a bonus tile- you'll see why soon.

Then it was Pottery at max, build a warrior just in case, prebuild a granary then Paris just cranked out settlers and the occasional warrior and worker. All the cities were settled 3-4 tiles away, crammed together, and put to work building warriors like there was no tomorrow !

A trade for BW with England, then on to Iron. After that, no research. Expanding, connecting a lux or two, spending what I had to on entertainment, saving the rest of my cash, churning out warriors, then finally a barracks.

When I had about 40 warriors it was time to connect the iron, upgrade what I could afford to (about 15 swords I think) and then to march out !

Peanut's French Foreign Legions were going on a grand tour ! They sliced through Lizzie's lands like a hot steel knife through butter. (this makes a change from Peanut's usual battlefield results - more like a hot butter knife slicing through steel).

Sadly, after two wars, Lizzie is now bereft of her empire. She staved off her doom by offering all her knowledge and spare cities - then 20 turns later it was on again, but just for a few turns.

Then - the Iroquois decided to try their luck. Not very smart. There were about 40 of Peanut's French Foreign Legions camped on his border, eager to re-blood their swords. Two wars later, and the Iro's have given up all their knowledge, been turfed off what is now the continent of Greater France, and exiled to share that northern island with 15 of Peanut's Foreign Legions just itching for the 20 turns peace to expire.

All this before 300AD. Astounding for a mild-mannered Peanut eh what ?

Oh yes - one leader who built a FP in the old Iro lands, and now Peanut's scientists are chipping away at feudalism to get at MI's and eventually Knights. Then it will be time to raise Peanut's Mounted French Foreign Legion and send them on a "world tour".

Hopefully this window of opportunity won't slam shut too soon, and I will get a GOTM submitted for a change.