[BTS] News: BOTM 265: Ghenghis, Monarch - first spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 265: Genghis Khan, Monarch - First Spoiler - 1AD



Which save, and how did the early game go?
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 265, 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

• Do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I chose the Contender save. The settler went SW then W to settle on the river plains, with corn and gold in its fat cross. I built the GLH in 850 BC, then started on the Pyramids, but QSH beat me to that, so I got some failgold. By 1 AD, I have seven cities, including one on the gold island.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I settled on the same spot @MarleysGh0st did.
1AD stats: 9 cities, 39pop, 1 settler, 6 workers.
Wonder-wise I got GLH 975bc, Oracle MC 675bc, and I’m 2t away from Colossus.
Techwise we have math/(MC)/IW/Mono/Monarchy/HBR.
It is nice to have trirremes to stop any naval invasions for the moment.
Still can’t tell if I’ll be able to win this one, but one thing is certain: most enjoyable game I have been playing in a long time!

 

[kcd_swede]

Still can’t tell if I’ll be able to win this one, but one thing is certain: most enjoyable game I have been playing in a long time!

It is a privilege to provide the community with some fun challenges, and thank you for expressing the appreciation. I enjoy the games myself, and can't wait till next month when @DynamicSpirit makes the games, so I can play, too. btw... As always, goodluck&havefun!!!

 

[Bemep42]

I founded the capital in the same place as the previous commentators.
Before the game, I had concerns about whether there was enough space on the island for normal settlement, but there was even more space than was needed. Because of this, there were some problems with the barbarians in the beginning, but when they captured York, I realized that they were actually my allies. This time I played it carefully and took care of the economy and key technologies before spamming the setters. In 1000 BC I built the Great Lighthouse, in 575 BC the Oracle (took Metal Casting) and in 100 BC the Colossus (all in the capital). Nevertheless, at 1 AD, I have 16 cities, 50 pop, 1 settler (I will settle near rice in 2 turns) and 6 workers.

 

[nocho]

Certainly an enjoyable game! My idea was to settle on the same tile as the previous speakers, but as my scout went SE he saw the deer and I decided to settle on the initial spot of the scout with 2 food resources and on a hill, which it being AW appealed to me initially, but is probably totally irrelevant.

But for Bemep42's rather impressive early expansion (again!), I have a similar game to him/her and Conquistador63 in that I got GLH, Oracle for MC and Colossus in the capital. It's given me a GP which I'm keeping in reserve for now. I have 48 pop which isn't too far behind Bemep, but just 9 cities with nr 10 being settled next turn. Techwise, I'm at currency and CoL (founded confu) and started on CS a turn ago. Liz is the only one with alphabet and I do have cur/CoL/MC on her, so at least for now I should be able to keep ahead of the AIs, which are probably slowed down a bit by the AW setting. I think likely the English will be the first ones to attack as they look weak, but I'll probably wait for elephants and trebs before really invading.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

It seems in the recent games I will zig when others zag! Previously I built wonders when others went military and I got caught out. This time I go for military when others grab wonders.

I settled one tile west of the eastern corn.

Have 10 cities on the central island and have just razed 2 ai cities and taken a capital with keshicks. Currency is due in a couple of turns (but no CoL or MC for me).

I'm not looking forward to reading end game spoilers about how good isolated tech and advanced unit conquests were compared to my horsemen and galleys!

 

[Frederiksberg]

Settled 1S of corn where the capital could also work the deer. Like @Jimmy Thunder I was working from the assumption that it was possible to conquer the AI with Keshiks, but initially, I built a fleet of galleys and triremes (oracled MC) and some axe/spear pairs I sent to each of the AI lands to pillage and take away their metals. I had mixed success with this strategy. Monty attacked and eliminated my axe/spear pillagers early, probably because he has a lower threshold for attacking, while Gandhi and Quin were timid and allowed their lands to be pillaged even when they had decent attack odds. I forgot about the dog soldiers' special bonus against melee and had to replace with a Keshik/axe combo that survived for a long time. As the game progressed, it got less likely that a Keshik only attack could succeed and at 1AD I have changed my focus to research deliberately keeping my number of cities low. I have just started researching feudalism, and the plan is to carry on with machinery and guilds and do the actual conquering using knights. I hope they can do the job, but I fear that the best strategy might be to go all the way to Military Tradition and use Cuirassiers to eliminate the AI.

Stats @1AD: 7 cities, 46 pop. Built Colossus and Oracle.

So far a very interesting and well designed game. Looks like it's even possible to win a purely peaceful victory going for culture or space.

 

[kcd_swede]

Settled 1S of corn where the capital could also work the deer. Like @Jimmy Thunder I was working from the assumption that it was possible to conquer the AI with Keshiks, but initially, I built a fleet of galleys and triremes (oracled MC) and some axe/spear pairs I sent to each of the AI lands to pillage and take away their metals. I had mixed success with this strategy. Monty attacked and eliminated my axe/spear pillagers early, probably because he has a lower threshold for attacking, while Gandhi and Quin were timid and allowed their lands to be pillaged even when they had decent attack odds. I forgot about the dog soldiers' special bonus against melee and had to replace with a Keshik/axe combo that survived for a long time. As the game progressed, it got less likely that a Keshik only attack could succeed and at 1AD I have changed my focus to research deliberately keeping my number of cities low. I have just started researching feudalism, and the plan is to carry on with machinery and guilds and do the actual conquering using knights. I hope they can do the job, but I fear that the best strategy might be to go all the way to Military Tradition and use Cuirassiers to eliminate the AI.

Stats @1AD: 7 cities, 46 pop. Built Colossus and Oracle.

So far a very interesting and well designed game. Looks like it's even possible to win a purely peaceful victory going for culture or space.

Thank you for a very useful report! I wish you success in your plans going forward.

 

[Smiregal]

Initialy I hoped to connect the gold early so I went sw first when the scout found the deer on turn 2 and also revealed that the gold was probably on an island I decided to stay on the hill (same as nocho) for a two food heavy hill capitol although i was a little scared of orphaning seafood. Luckily it did not.
Then it was pretty much straight forward rex. With a foucus on the GLH 1280ad first and Metalcasting for the Collosus 75ad and triremes second. Also some Axes for Safety. Since I expanded so fast i did not try for the oracle which, looking at the other entries was more than possible. But I think i menaged to pull of my best 1ad rexresult as far as I can remember. (that is without crashing my economy of course) With 15, I was 1-2 citys short to bemeps 16 but I had 54 pop so I wa not to far of. Tec was up to currency with Code of Laws in in 2 Turns. At this point I was contemplating Trebs or Curiasiers.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

In my last game I went for wonders and got gazumped by war, so I decided this game to focus on war and maybe acquire a few wonders by force and by horse.
I wanted to avoid meeting the other civs if possible and focus on high production cities. I wanted a lean tech path with a quick keshick attack.

Obviously this meant Sailing and Horseback Riding. I wanted to be disciplined and also get Currency before going offshore.

One tricky thing about this map and my plan was that the starting island was so good for more cities. A constant dilemma about whether to continue settling or start attacking. I kept resolving to stop expansion and start invading, but also kept seeing excellent resource-laden city spots that were begging for settlers.

I was also tempted to try for the Great Lighthouse, but I had a few non-coastal cities (capital), was saving my forests for Math-chopping an army, and was probably a bit blinded by my no-wonder decision for this game.

I got a few Gers up and running – love that bonus exp. I launched my first offshore attack into England’s territory. Ugh! Their two best cities were both on hills, London and York (Judeo Holy City). I figure that I only have the economy to support a single overseas city at this point so decide that London is the better prize (and York is defended by spearmen).

By 1 AD I manage to seize London and raze two smaller English cities. Elizabeth is kneecapped now and shouldn’t be much of a threat, so I’ve just got the other 5 AI’s to worry about. This beachhead expedition also marks the start of the “long march” with every enemy stack coming to challenge my single mainland city. Each military move from this point onwards needs to count with a 6-1 hammer ratio of wins to losses.

My economy is on a knife’s edge with 10 cities settled, 1 captured, and a largish standing army. CoL and Construction are still needed post-1AD to enable commerce and conquest to happen in concert. These will be hard to research.
Metal casting would be nice to have one day soon since my galleys feel very exposed.

I’ve just dropped off a couple of keshick and axemen raiding parties – one for Ghandi and one for Monty. No ambition to conquer cities with these troops, just pillage and distract. Will these slow the AI down at all?

Theoretically the next proper military target is China, but can I get an effective army onto him before longbows? And how many hill cities and spearmen is he sitting on? Gaining control of his Pyramids would be lovely (and Stonehenge to a lesser extent). Inca built the GLH but I don’t see a chance for me to take that now that I’m logistically committed to the northern side of the map.

 

[ariosto]

Last time I tried GOTM, I died in the first 30 turns in the always peace game. So why not try always war after that - shouldn't be too hard, right?

I settled SE of W corn cause I wanted at least some hills at capital. I decided to REX as fast as I could; I rarely play IMP, so didn't want to miss a chance. As most players here, I built GLH on T87. GLH goes naturally here as you want sailing asap anyway (maybe I should've even researched it before pottery - who knows).

The Oracle is interesting here. On monarch techs are too cheap, so I didn't like the idea of getting CoL or MC with it. I mean, it's just 600 beakers for 280 beakers and 150 hammers (which could be 2 settlers) - not worth the risk. So initially I wanted to skip Oracle whatsoever, but in the AW we need to get our own religion and the shrine - and how do we get it? Actually, it is hard to get Great Prophet without Priesthood. So I changed my mind and decided to try Oracling CS - which is valuable enough, I think. In case of failure, I probably would have skipped the religion entirely and tried to attack the AI with stonehenge. Luckily, the AIs were anemic enough, so I grabbed CS T102

Spoiler Oracle 102 :

There are drawbacks of this play though. My first great person will come out only T126, and the second one 9T later - so no religion prior to that. Also, unlike most players here, I don't have MC yet, and I'm already at the happiness cap in most cities, so forges would be nice here. And triremes, of course.

I was able to capture this barbarian city, so now I have a foothold on the mainland. This city is nuts! It brings us 23 just from the trade routes alone. I hope to capture Hastings soon as well. Lizzy is the tech leader now, and she already has Monarchy, so I want to slow her down a bit before she gets Longbows.

Spoiler Uzbek :

T115 stats:
17 cities
73 pop
12 workers
215 Crop Yield
75 MFG
63 break even bpt
293 bpt at 100%
Tech wise I have Currency, CoL and CS. And archery. But neither MC nor IW yet.

 

[ariosto]

One thing I forgot to mention. Why can't I 1-pop whip settler in 55/100 city? Must be something with rounding error, but I don't see where

Spoiler Settler 55/100 :

 

[antimony]

Moved scout W then SE to reveal the most tiles I could for settling decision. Settled 1S of lake for deer and wet corn. 2nd city south of western corn (eventual great lighthouse location) for furs, then 3rd city further west for the pigs/copper/horse cluster. 4th and 5th cities grabbed fish north and east of capital respectively. Tech path was Agri-Mining-BW-AH-Fish-Sailing-Pottery-Masonry.

Overall, my goal is to reach Domination, with the plan being to secure enough land with Keshiks and then blanketing that land with cities. The tricky part would be building enough military, but not too much since the amount of land to self-settle will likely also be large. (I didn't expect our island to be so large and in the middle of the sea though, and with hindsight maybe fast conquest with mounted units is less important than in a "normal" island sea game.)

I expect great lighthouse, currency and cottages to sustain the economy for the most part, so the tech requirements beyond that are not great... Monarchy could be nice for the happiness, and if I can get through Metal Casting then the merchant from GLH could bulb CS.

Got GLH in 825BC (Oracle was built elsewhere on the same year) with 7 cities at that point including one on gold island, and tech was up to HBR and Writing, so I started producing Keshik to conquer a few cities on the mainland for GLH bonus. At the same time continued teching for Currency, Mysticism (need those border pops), IW. After first 20 Keshik I switched to settlers to continue settling my starting island, prioritizing happiness resources. I'm at 15 cities (11 on island, 4 conquered) and 48 pop in 1AD, and halfway to Calendar.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Initial exploring/settling was quite a dilemma with the two corns either side of the start. In the end I decided that the riverside corn was worth a lot more than the non-riverside one, so I should send the scout in that direction to look for the best riverside place to settle - even though sending the scout NW would have revealed many more tiles. Needless to say, the scout immediately saw the deer, so I settled 1E of the deer to get a 12-turn worker build, plus deer corn and an OK science-bureaucracy capital spot.

Built a settler at size 2 and sent it to a high production spot just North of the start, to get the fish and hills. I then had that city build Stonehenge at size 1 by working a plains-hill, to complete it in 2080 BC. Not sure if that was wise on always-war but I find Stonehenge so useful for letting me settle in good long terms spots plus getting me a prophet for a shrine. Meanwhile, mapping out the land showed there was enough to establish a decent economy with good happy resources before I started tackling the AI. I therefore built Oracle (1040 BC) for metal casting, Great Lighthouse (500 BC) and just like @Conquistador 63 I'm exactly 2 turns away from the Colossus (although as I recall, rather than risk losing it, I actually whipped it for the next turn). I also have the Kong Miao and am 10 turns from civil service and 18 turns from an academy in the capital. So sustainable research is already well ahead of the AI and about to really take off too (GDP 142 vs 87 for the rival best on the demographics, or 93 science on the F2 screen. Have to admit I'm not sure where the difference between those figures comes from). 7 cities, with the East of our continent not yet populated.

The only problem is that the focus on the economy means I have yet to do much to tackle the always-war AIs: I have a couple of triremes patrolling the central sea, and I have two small stacks (axe + spear each), one exploring/pillaging India and the other about to do the same in England. I probably could sit out the rest of the game on our continent, relying on naval superiority plus razing AI coastal cities to protect myself, but I want to go for space I'm not confident we really have enough land to do that before the AI. So at some point soon I'm going to have to settle on the outer continent, and that's where the 'fun' will really begin.... I think I may have an idea for how to deal with that, but that'll have to wait for the final spoiler.

At any rate, this geography is a well cool idea for always war. Kudos @kcd_swede