Civ4 GOTM 54 First Spoiler

[jesusin]

GOTM 54 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 54, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD (Iron is alright to discuss).

Did you find your way off the maze?
What could you have done to be in a better position at 1AD?

 

[Markus5]

What an awful game for me. Settled 1S. Researched to expose copper. Built worker, warrior, warrior, settler. Go to capture copper to the SW. I can't! Its already settled. Iron? Horses? OK. So now I need to use archers to capture the copper city. Guess how many archers it takes to capture a city protected by one archer and one axe? I don't know, but 10 isn't enough. I quit and won't be submitting. Grrr.

 

[Holy Cheese]

Shortest game I've ever played. I managed to settle the copper city, but Saladin settled between it and my capital, and within a couple of turns his culture zone expanded to take the copper.

I was amazed how quickly the AI expanded, I was boxed in within a matter of minutes, and within a short space of time they all had several cities established.

JC wiped me out with praets in 276 BC.

Jack

 

[smitsk00]

Sneaky map (though not as sneaky as that ice age noble gotm last year...yet?). Settled 1S. Saladin settled the copper city, but I settled to the west of it and eventually popped borders to use the cows. Settled 3rd city to the north in between grass hills. No copper, no iron, no horses...I am so happy I have vanilla cats....

 

[magicgunnar]

Settled on the plain hill. Saladin settled on a hill 4 squares south of my capital. Lucky for me I got the cow and copper with my second city and started churning out axemen. I didn't see iron anywhere, but since Saladin was so close I threw all my axemen at him and learned how difficult it is to capture a city on a hill with only axemen. I succeeded with heavy casualties. Maybe, just maybe, I should have scouted out both Caesar and Saladin and attacked the one with iron in close reach and without cities on hills. Maybe I will try the game once more after I have completed my game and submitted my entry.

 

[kcd_swede]

I settled 1S, teched BW and revealed the copper, Chop/whip settler to get copper with second city. Make 3rd city in north before building a force of axemen. I am too slow for proper rush.

I usually play Quick speed games so the Normal speed wasn't really the problem. game speed usually affects my war ambitions rather than war strategy: faster game speed means the number of cities I can take with my stack (before it is obsolete or main units are effectively countered) is lower.

Despite Pyramids, and a couple other early wonders, I want no part of Rome since I note he has 2 sources of Iron (Praetorians) and I have no iron. Mecca, OTOH, is defended by 2 archers. Yes its a hill, so it will be costly, but I'm boxed in at 3 cities unless I try something (Saladin even settled between me and Rome in the east on southern facing coast - where my city #3 was supposed to be). I went after Mecca, but by the time I get there he has added an axeman. I've pillaged his copper, and expect that it will only be archers now... but NO! he must have iron or copper i nthe south! He whips another axe and I break off the attack on Mecca, after suffering a few losses to counterattacks on my reinforcing units in transit, mostly. I capture his city between me and Rome (it wasn't connected to resources and was on flat) instead, and take peace. Now its on to cats to try Mecca again later.

The failed attack on Mecca costs me, though, and I find I am trailing in the tech race very badly for Monarch level. All focus now on getting cats first and taking Arab cities to try and catch up.

BTW... the reason (I think) that I lagged in tech and/or slowed my initial axe rush is because I chopped out the Oracle (took Monarchy) in my second city, which is probably why I was able to avoid culture pressure on the copper.

 

[Monnet]

Shortest game I've ever played. I managed to settle the copper city, but Saladin settled between it and my capital, and within a couple of turns his culture zone expanded to take the copper.

I was amazed how quickly the AI expanded, I was boxed in within a matter of minutes, and within a short space of time they all had several cities established.

JC wiped me out with praets in 276 BC.

Jack

Exactly the same here, apart from JC wiping me out with a chariot rush a bit earlier than you.

Normally the frustration and feeling of impending doom build up over several hours in my games, but this time it was so quick that I should have hooked myself on a blood pressure machine before I started to measure the sudden effect. A string of very annoying setbacks in a very short period of time = not good for your health.

I should have taken the Adventurer save.

 

[kcd_swede]

Exactly the same here, apart from JC wiping me out with a chariot rush a bit earlier than you.

Normally the frustration and feeling of impending doom build up over several hours in my games, but this time it was so quick that I should have hooked myself on a blood pressure machine before I started to measure the sudden effect. A string of very annoying setbacks in a very short period of time = not good for your health.

I should have taken the Adventurer save.

Do you recall your initial tech path? If you research BW first, you should have easily been able to get a settler slaved or forest-chopped very quickly and get to the copper long before the competition. With all the food and trees (for chopping), putting Bronze Working as your first tech should be a strong move even if no copper is found.

After that...

I think going Myst>Poly>Priesthood (like I did) in order to get Oracle was probably a weaker strategy than beelining alphabet and then doing Math/construction and trading for the filler techs would have been. Cultural defenses were up to 40% and no mature city was going to be taken before catapults.

One other thing: If Rome is your neighbor, be nice until you know whether they will have Praets or not. If they will, keep being nice until mace arrive. They usually are quite reliable neighbors unless you do something to anger them. (What did you do to anger Julius C? Let me guess... you traded with his worst enemy Mansa, didn't you?)

 

[Arnold_T]

Saladin beat me to the city site with the stone, but I managed to get the copper/cows site, and built up a force of axemen, but too slow, so I decided to wait for catapults before moving on that hilltown. This looks to be a very difficult game - I think I should have taken the adventurer save!
I'm not sure how to go about this without Iron. Also my population is severly limited by lack of Health resources. I think I've made a huge mistake not researching for Optics. If there are any more resources up for grabs, I've probably long lost the race.

 

[lymond]

Not a fun game at all. Settled near copper. Built axes. Took the stone city from Sal with much loss. Then it was just a grind against Sal for some time with not luck - terrible unlucky losses. I did build the Oracle but found myself falling way behind in Tech. Only way to expand is via war and, well, it didn't turn out well. I"m giving up...it's pointless.

 

[Deckhand]

Started out very similar to y'all's and very unfun. Thought it would be very quick.

Spoiler :

Surviving the double onslaught was fun. I don't expect a very high score but might actually survive.

Sal settled his 2nd city by the copper and stone. I settled to E of cows with intent to culture flip the copper city [fail] and also blocking Rome [succeed]. Saladin DoW's, I manage to hold him off with archers.
Caesar joins the dog pile. But I make peace with Arabia and manage to keep my other city. Building Oracle wasn't a mistake for me - I got civil service from it. IIRC, I got feudalism from someone for civil service and held off the praets with longbows and catapults.

1 AD - just made peace. I thought this game was lost, but I'm doing well in tech. Let's see what catapults can do. ...

 

[Mad Dog]

I also settled 1S and started building a worker and researching bronze. By the time the worker was out my warrior had found the Romans and Arabs just next door, giving me almost no room to expand, but a couple of very viable axe rush targets. Given the situation I abandoned my original plan of trying to use the CS slingshot, chopped up a settler without even building a covering warrior, and hoped I could get another warrior out before the barbs came a knocking.

This worked out, and I built a warrior, followed by barracks, another worker for a total of 2 and lots of axes in my 2 cities. Fog busters were completely unecessary in the sardine tin of a continent.

Scouting the Arabs revealed nasty defence, too much for my 10 odd axes to be sure of victory, so I sent a scout off to check the Romans out. By this time I'd got Iron working, and realized that:
1) The Roman's only had archers.
2) If I didn't take them out quickly I'd have praets to deal with as they were sitting on Iron.

I declared on Julie in about 700 BC and had finished him off taking 3 decent cities by 350 BC or so. The economy wasn't doing so well, but I managed to get monarchy around 200BC, and his former cities helped it considerably.

Tech wise I can't clearly remember, other than BW first, I think I went for animal husbandry and then up towards alphabet. I may have veered off to get bronze after that before finally grabbing monarchy a few turns after I should have in 200BC.

This was a good result, and I had a force ready to hit the arabs, who only had one worthwhile city where they'd built the Colussus and head toward domination, plus iron and horses. I was in monarchy with slavery and ready to conquer.

An interesting game...the tech pace is very slow because the terrain is so poor, and the boxed in start forced an early rush.

 

[Fluroscent]

Hmm, looks like settling 1S made sal settle the copper, but settling on the PH made him settle on the hill.
Then again, why would anyone NOT settle on the PH?

I did that, and went fishing-BW, 1 chop into settler and pumped axes. Saladins hill city had 40% due to stonehenge there, so went for JC, which turned out to be smart as he had iron under the capital, so it was imperative to beat him down early.
RNG luck made the war way too costly. Lost the first three axes at 61%, 61% and 88% attacking his worthless all grass/jungle city that was in the way. Had to camp a bit outside Rome before attacking, and thank god vanilla AI are bad at warfare, as I only had to deal with four archers there, even though he had six at one point... Peace afterwards for a few techs, and took Antium when the treaty ended. Sal next, with cats+eles added from Oracle->construction.
Playing very sloppy so far, but nice to have MM to trade with. Think I'll just keep going past sal and whoever is that way until I decide on a long term plan.

 

[BCLG100]

Settled 1S but snatched Sal's worker early on (very early iirc, he had only roaded a couple of places when I did so. This meant that whilst i was flying by the edge of my seat in the war (having no troops at all, I had two workers and settled the copper city during the war, had a third city done before Sal had settled his second iirc.

I'm not sure why so many had trouble settling the copper, there were more than enough forests to chop to get that settler out early.

Game slightly petered out after I worked out the layout but became increasingly disinterested in finishing (not because of the map, was fun to play!)

 

[Thorrez]

Settled 1S, hoped for horses for an chariot and later HA rush. Un such, horses, luck so teched BW instead.

I managed to steal a worker from Saladin so build order was something like warrior, wb, warrior, warrior, warrior, settler. Beat him to the copper site by ~2 turned. I did not want to face preats so I build a stack of axemen hand attecked ceaser, did not go all to well as I had to many losses (conquered rome but he took it back the next turn) but I was able to wipe him the planet before I attacked Saladin. Not sure about the years here so I won write more.

I built no wonder, built basically no buildings except baracks and just axes as attacker. No problem taking hill 40% cities with axe only, it just takes a lot more losses.

Reading the other postes it looks like setting saladin back with that worker steal we crutial...

 

[BakeliteRules]

Not fun. Sal settled copper before I could get settler out! Settled west and decided to culture squeeze copper city. No other choice. Sal declared before I could get copper and Ceasar's Praets declared and dogpiled from the west. Doomed at 900AD. (Just a comment: this was the shortest and most un-enjoyable game of the month I have played. It sounds like if you didn't go straight settler/military/military etc there was no chance to get established in the game. Playability on a scale of 1 to 5 has to be a 1.

 

[Deckhand]

Not fun. Sal settled copper before I could get settler out! Settled west and decided to culture squeeze copper city. No other choice. Sal declared before I could get copper and Ceasar's Praets declared and dogpiled from the west. Doomed at 900AD. (Just a comment: this was the shortest and most un-enjoyable game of the month I have played. It sounds like if you didn't go straight settler/military/military etc there was no chance to get established in the game. Playability on a scale of 1 to 5 has to be a 1.

I disagree about playability and unenjoyment. Yours was my attitude at start of game when both attacked me. But since I managed to survive I thought it was fun coming back from disaster. The limited land area and quality keeps the AIs from getting too far ahead. (Similar to BOTM28 in that respect)
Agree if criteria is to do well in GOTM score - you need a good start for that.
Also agree that Sal taking our copper is "messed up" - I suspect that didn't happen in play test.

 

[BakeliteRules]

I disagree about playability and unenjoyment. Yours was my attitude at start of game when both attacked me. But since I managed to survive I thought it was fun coming back from disaster.

Ahh! survival = Fun I'll have to try that next time

 

[Trystero]

I haven't played Vanilla in ages*, but gave this a go as my second xOTM game, playing the Contender save. I didn't think things were going so well, but I seem to be having better luck than a lot of people (so far). I settled in place, went with BW first, then (fortunately) decided to chop out a settler. I grabbed the copper/cows site and had Sal drop the stone city south of my capital. I built a stack of axes and rushed that city, in which Sal had built Stonehenge. So far so good my stack failed to grab his capital, so I resorted to pillaging for some cash and razing a couple of his tundra cities. I probably spent too long at war with Sal. I've teched Math and Currency (should have gone for Construction immediately after Math), but it's 1 AD and I have 3 cities. I am going to build catapults and swords and try to capture the Arabian capital. Hopefully I can keep JC off my back by gifting him cash. No one has researched Alphabet yet.

*I forgot Saladin wasn't Protective at first, and thought I was really screwed.

 

[The-Hawk]

Comedy of errors.

• I wanted to play culture, so I decided to settle inland to get more cottages. This meant I couldn't use the clams until a 2nd city could send a WB, but I figured the rice would get me started.
• Within 5-6 turns of settling my capital, a jungle grew over my rice. Now I have a complete crap capital until I get IW.
• My exploring warrior gets eaten by a lion and panther dogpile.
• I decide to a risky worker steal from Sally to try and gain some time back from the disaster with my rice... and an archer pops out of the fog and kills that warrior.
• I get a settler done and try to grab the copper, but there is a barb warrior in that area. By the time a warrior can catch up to escort, Julius settles the site.
• With my settler and workers hanging in the capital, the barb pillages my only decide tile (mined hill)

This may have been salvageable, but would have taken forever. I decide the view is not worth the climb and quit the game.