WOTM 01 First Spoiler

Kauyon · Sep 23, 2006

I was really confused to see that the whole west part of the continent was empty. I've been real lucky with the hordes barbarians out there. Help build a tremendous amount of exp. with the new Numedian Horsies. By the time I could upgrade them to Knights, I had an army of 15 Horsies with a 50% withdrawal chance along with 50% bonus on Melee units. The Barbarians settled 3 cities out there. Now mine of course (in some prime locations too).

I'm not used to playing on normal speed though. So time is just flying. I was barely able to mount an offensive on the Koreans before 50AD.

My experienced Calvary blitzed 3 cities. Lined a horde of 10 Numedians with 4 catapults and 4 Longbowman outside Seoul. And an 8 turn war turned into having a new vassal still holding 4 great money making cities. It is a little wierd in Civ4 how there is only a -2 modifier for declaring war, but there is a +3 to 4 modifier for having the same religion. Nothing like taking over someone and them still loving you for it.

All in all I have had an easy time. With no one to the west other than barbarians and the Koreans having no source to Iron makes for a great combination to a continental conquest. Now its just a manner of managing maintenance cost.

I also suffer from only having 4 cities that have real production abilities. The rest are for money. Loving the financial trait and having towns surronding the cities.

I am worried about what victory I can achieve quickly. And right now it looks like space race. Which is not what I was hoping for. I wanted to have a conquest, but I am not used to the rapid play of normal speed. So we'll see how it goes.

Shillen · Sep 23, 2006

Kauyon said:
I'm not used to playing on normal speed though. So time is just flying. I was barely able to mount an offensive on the Koreans before 50AD.

My experienced Knights blitzed 3 cities. Lined a horde of 10 Knights with 4 catapults and 4 Longbowman outside Seoul. And an 8 turn war turned into having a new vassal still holding 4 great money making cities. It is a little wierd in Civ4 how there is only a -2 modifier for declaring war, but there is a +3 to 4 modifier for having the same religion. Nothing like taking over someone and them still loving you for it.

Knights in 50AD? Or do you mean the war started in 50AD and you later got knights? Seems like an insane tech pace regardless if you had knights before this spoiler is done.

Kauyon · Sep 23, 2006

Shillen said:
Knights in 50AD? Or do you mean the war started in 50AD and you later got knights? Seems like an insane tech pace regardless if you had knights before this spoiler is done.

Yes, you're right. Guilds was my beeline. Suffered by not researching any good techs to build more wonders. But the war was declared about 50AD when I made a save. It was about another 10 turns before I setup my units to the front line. So it was about (I'm not at my home computer, at work so I cannot just look at the game). But having Knights was my concentration for conquest on Korea. It takes me a little while to setup enough troops in which I feel comfortable to attack. Bad stradegy I know, you should attack when they are weakest, not when they know you are coming. But thats how it played out.
Plus I've been on 100% research tax since my 4th city was built. I ignored all else other than getting to guilds.

But yes, I see my wording was bad. Knights at 50AD, that is little crazy.

drkodos · Sep 23, 2006

ainwood said:
So - do you like playing warlords? Is it better or worse than vanilla? Do you like the great generals?

I enjoy Warlords a great deal more than the original 1.61 version. I am not so sure this particular session was a great one to generate Great Generals (so far :goodjob:

), so while, yes, I do love them, I wish I had been able to get some so far in this game! :cry:

I enjoyed the map because it really messed with my mind. :crazyeye:

For a long time I had myself convinced I might be going the Tom Hank's Castaway route and started talking to my military units as if they were Wilson. Aggressive scouting got my first warrior snuffed after I mistakenly boxed him in and while being down to .8 I kept wandering around in the hope of finding ANYTHING of value.

My initail move was N onto the hill and initial move with settler W (reveal wheat!) and then decide to get NW onto hill which showed now marble too in the captial city radiius. Originally not planning around an Oracle build, but with the marble I re-thought startegy and decided with good production tiles and on Noble I could get both the Great Wall & The Oracle if I got 2nd city up soon, so build order was: WORKER/SETTLER (Chopped). I settled the 2nd city NE along the coast where the 1st cultural expansion would put some
resources in the fat cross. Then started building The Great Wall while switching off whiping a warrior or three to cover both cities and do some more reconnoitering.

Tech Order:

BW / MASONRY / WHEEL / POTTERY / MYS / MED / PRIESTHOOD / AGRICULTURE / WRITING / HUNTING (Goody Hut) / COL /SAILING / MATH / AN HUS / IW / ALPHABET /

Significant Dates in Cathaginian History

3960 BC Carthage founded
2600 BC Utica founded
1080 BC The Great Wall built in Carthage
950 BC The Oracle built in Uttica
925 BC Bureacracy implemented
725 BC Hadremetun founded
50 BC Hippo founded
25 BC The Hanging Gardens built in Carthage
100 AD Hera (Great Engineer) Born in Carthage
325 AD The Colossus built in Uttica
475 AD Machinery discovered

As of 500 AD, Wardrums are beating, but no other Civ's blood has yet been spilled. Numidian Cavalry are lined up and overseeing a deep advance into the Eastern part of the continent looking to engage the only other occupying culture on the land mass. Barbarian cities to our West are also in the cross hairs and are set to soon become part of the ready to expand Carthaginian Empire.

Plans are to still aim for Conquest victory, but too much time has slipped past to think it will come very fast.

Currenty teching through Calendar and Compass on the way to Optics and then to Astronomy to get this Army some decent attacking chances on the other continents. Running first (by a wide margin) in point score and Power, but I am a bit troubled what I find out there in the great darkness once I get optics. Number 1 out of 2 could mean anything.

Final Word: I thought the map has been very challenging so far and give the staff A+ for the game. I have been repeatedly surprised at the size (larger than I thought it would be) and shape of our starting continent. Seems like a lot of land for a High Seas Map. I spent a lot of time gearing up for some agressive activity, so my boys are chomping at the bit right now. It's a lot of tiles to traverse on Normal speed so I am fearful that my sloppy wartime strategies will probably bite me hard in the middle ages.

Alea iacta est. Aut viam inveniam aut faciam!

Hannibal out.

MacBalt · Sep 24, 2006

Thrallia said:
Settler moved SE to plains hill...discovers tundra and coast. I shouldn't have been greedy and stupid, I could have moved to the same hill as the warrior and founded there and gotten a great capital, now I'm gonna be like 3 turns late on NORMAL speed.

I made a similar mistake, but compounded it by settling on the inferior site 2S of start. First, like an idiot, I moved my warriors NE -- partly to see if I could find another coast and and/or enough more floodplains to be able to fit another good city in along that river, partly to do something different than what Shillen said was the "obvious" choice to move them SW onto the hill. As a result, I did not at first see the cows or marble West of the river. (Lesson: better to listen to Shillen next time.

) So then I moved my settler one S to see if I could find coast. I did find the coast, but not where I hoped it would be. Thinking there wasn't much better to do, and that being on a coast might be better than not being on a coast, I plopped my first city down on the coastal hill 2S of the starting tile. It didn't seem like such a bad decision at first, but when I saw the cows and marble a couple turns later it began to look worse. By the time the iron showed up in the NE corner outside my fat cross the site had become positively ugly. Oh well.

DynamicSpirit said:
wow! This map is a challenge. Long snaky continent, filled with desert, very few decent city sites near the starting location, so distance costs are going to be bigger than normal. And no copper and almost no happiness resources anywhere on the starting continent. And of the three different happiness resources that are there, only one of them (the Easternmost incense) strikes me as being within the radius of a plausible city site.

I've also found this map to be a challenge. I am not used to having such poor choices for city sites and it threw me for a loop. Originally I went into this game thinking that the lower difficulty might give me a good chance to practice my military game (which I am not good at), but the lack of close neighbors and vast stretches of wasteland left me fumbling for what to do. I wasn't able to trade for any technologies at all. Wang Kon's territory looked so resource poor as to be not worth the effort of attacking it -- especially given all that open land to the West. In the end I dabbled with wonder building, half-hearted (late) religion hogging (don't ask me why--I don't know), some Eastward expansion (to block Wang Kon), and trying to get a general tech lead by cottage spamming. I managed to do the Oracle-CS thing, and I got the Pyramids & Great Lighthouse. I also founded Confucianism, Christianity, & Taoism. On the other hand I missed the Temple of Artimis by four turns and my REX plan fizzled-out after only five cities. At 500 AD I am thinking I am going to have to "find myself" soon or just hang it up and be content with flipping burgers at the Civ IV slacker stand for the rest of the month.

Screenshots from 500 AD.

Spoiler :

Technology Path:

Spoiler :

Cities Founded:

Spoiler :

Wonders:

Spoiler :

Events:

Spoiler :

PaganPaulWhisky · Sep 24, 2006

I didn't get off to such a great start in this one. I did not concentrate on many wonders and basically went straight for the great library. I let the AI take stonhenge and oracle since I thought I might go to war early. As a result I still do not have bueracracy and will have to research it manually. I'm sure a can manage a win on noble, but if this were monarch I would be in trouble. Looks like its gonna be culture or space race for me.

3640 bc - Hinduism founded in a distant land.
3000 bc - Buddhism founded in a distant land.
2520 bc - Adopted slavery
2120 bc - Utica founded (to the east near floodplains and wheat)
1000 bc - Hadrumetum founded to the west to claim marble and horses.
Wang Kon builds Stonehenge.
975 bc - Confucianism founded in Hadrumetum (adopted it).
825 bc - Great Wall built in a distant land.
450 bc - Oracle built in a distant land.
25 ad - Hippo founded to the north of Carthage (on coastal hill).
50 ad - Great Library completed.
75 ad - Parthenon completed.
200 ad - Wang kon converts to confucianism (looks like I may have an
ally for a short while).
??? ad - Somewhere around here I built Temple of Artemis (forgot to note
in the log file).
275 ad - Pyramids built in a distant land
Great lighthouse completed by Wang Kon.
Great Scientist born in Carthage (academy).
500 ad - Great Scientist born in Carthage (lightbulbed philosophy).
Taoism founded. (Will probably run with pacifism
for a stretch).

Meatbuster · Sep 25, 2006

Short summary of my game until 500AD...

CITIES:
So after moving that warrior on the hill I made up my mind and settled 1E of the Marble to get all the resources, turning my capital into a production monster but rather crap in research with only 1 floodplains and a ton of plains tiles to work with. I founded the second city where the settler was. This ensured that I was reseaching slower, so perhaps my goal of the UN was doomed to be slow. I founded the third city 1E of the mountains north of the starting position. Fourth city is at the flood plains about 5 east of starting position. Fifth city is at the small patch of land W of the starting position, with horses and cows.

Maybe I should've built the capital on the floodplains for faster research, le sigh.

WONDERS:
I made it a point to grab the Pyramids, Oracle (got Civil Service), Parthenon, and Great Library. Eventually I also scored Great Lighthouse AND Colossus in my third city. And then I decided to build Temple of Artemis in my capital for the gold, but I successfully built it... CRAP! I forgot to suspend the production... oh well.

ECONOMY:
Utica (second city) was running as a very unhealthy science specialist farm starting from the time Caste System was available. BTW did I say I love Avoid Growth in Warlords... the city doesn't actually grow rather than just having the computer minimize food. I have built 2 academies so far, first in Utica then on the capital. I hope to generate a Great Engineer someday; I'll save him for the UN.

GAME PLANS:
Past 500AD my plans were to go for Liberalism and maybe get Printing Press or Astronomy. Korea seems to be a good target since I have early Macemen (Machinery is en route to Astronomy anyway) so I might invest on trying to destroy them for more UN votes.

CONCLUSION:
I think I'm poor at building, MUST... WAR... MUST... WAR! I don't expect to grab the UN as fast as I wanted to, but I hope my finish time will be competitive. Why do I have to be stuck in a "snaky continent" with one pathetic guy!

RobertTheBruce · Sep 25, 2006

I was trying for a great scientist lightbulbing of Astro and got to Astro quickly but a bit of a waste on this map. I had tried a test with a couple of close neighbors which gave me a big boost. I researched Astro in 520AD but didn't have the cities or production capability to really get a fast finish.

Cities:
4000BC Carthage (founded in place)

2160BC Utica (northeast of horses). Its a poor location (a continuing theme for my city placement) but with horses, cows and wheat(unirrigated) it can support 3 specialists and I need two cities with specialists to get two GS's and a GS/GE before 600AD.

1440 BC Hadrumetum (coast N of Carthage) FP plus hills and clams for a decent location. I normally don't like desert hills but there aren't many choices near here.

750BC Hippo expand east to get the second FP river

300BC Kerkouane (Fish, Clams, 2 hills, and marble) The best location near the capital.

150AD Leptis (junk city but I need the silver)

410AD Thapsus (junk city but I need the incence)

I didn't attack Korea until I had galleons to transport troops so I really have little production base. (Although I did steal a worker from him so he never opened borders or traded with me) Carthage and Uttica were weaker than they could have been because I needed to have specialists.

Techs:

Spoiler :

The map was not suited to this tactic. It was interesting to look into getting astronomy quickly. My tactic involved crippling two good cities to get the great people needed to lightbulb techs. In a test, I still could rush a couple of neighbors and have their cities starting to pump units when Astro arrived. With no close neighbors,few good city sites, and access to few health/happiness resources; I should have tried a more conventional approach.

crunch · Sep 26, 2006

Found Carthage on the plains hill to reach cow/marble. Built GL and Pyramids. Founded another city on the plains hill north. This city built Stonehenge, Oracle, Temple of Artemis. Founded third city east on the grassland tile surrounded by floodplains and such. All these cities were near fresh water because I thought that +2 health would be nice to have, given that Charismatic gives bonus happiness.
I did not war with Korea, nor trade. Built a workboat to circumnavigate the starting continent, then rushed to optics.
Also got a bunch of religions for happiness. Stuck to workers for antibarb policy for a long time. But never met anything more dangerous than a warrior.
Later built another city (port) west, near 2 sea resources and 2 hills. And more west, on plains hill, hooking up horses. And another SE to get silver.

BLubmuz · Sep 28, 2006

Contender, never complete a game before on Warlords, just some test until middle ages.

The goal would be Domination (or Diplo with all votes of mine) or Conquest.

Settle in place (IMO a good position), went for wheel>pottery to take benefit from financial trait.

First thing that surprised me: Buddism founded in 3720 and Hindu in 3640, not bad for a Noble game.
some century later i discover the first was Korea, the second Celts.

With marble, and no luxury res. on sight, i decided to try a CS sling, hoping found Confucianism in the path, then Pyramyds.
I was luck with the GH: first gave me Sailing, 2nd money, some 50g.

Build queue was worker then 3 warriors.

After pottery i went for Myst-Agri-poly-priest-hunting-writing-CoL, soon converted (1200 BC).
Utica (Confu holy city) quickly expanded its borbers to marble and cows, then
Masonry-Mono-CS from Oracle, then revolt to buro and organ. rel. in 900 BC.

Then BW (no copper in sight), so archery, matematics (need it to maximise the chop of a new forest for Pyramids), then IW (OK, in the fat cross)
Completed Pyramids in 500BC, then revolt to Representation and Slavery in 450 BC.
Double revolutions are nice, they took only 1 turn at normal speed.

I had only 2 cities in 450 BC, then i build some unit for scouting/defending and planned 5 ASAP:
Hadrumetun near fps on the coast NW, 4th near silver and horses, 5th in the coast north, 6th near incense, to stop Korea and 7th in the istmus (cows/horses)

I'd like to build the temple of Artemis, but luckily i prioritized Parthenon (completed in 25), and WK build the ToA for me.
Built GLH (250AD) and GL (560AD) in Utica.

WK was annoyed, so i delay Alpha (1AD), researching MC before.

Used my first GP (GProphet) for Christianity (225AD) i wish the SC, it helps a lot to expand borders in new-conquered cities.

My economy was bad, due to the fast expansion, but i didn't care, for now.
I was spreading Confu in all my cities, to boost production.

Everything was peaceful until 500 AD, some other century before Korea falls to Carthage.

Barbarians was never a big problem.
Flat world was cruel ... the more in a normal speed game.
In late game this was particularly penalizing, and the lack of resources was terrible.
This compensate GotM10, a lowered-immortal.
Still not persuaded about the high-level oceans ... the landmass was enormous.
Curious to see some domination/conquest before 1800, and other victories, too, with all the research on the human shoulders.

Not much different from vanilla, i like the Temple of Artemis (IMO the only useful new wonder) and i like Julius Ceasar's new traits, making Rome one of the best civs with a good UB, too.
Pity for another leader, Qin Shi Huang, now weakened and his traits are on HC now.

Shillen · Sep 28, 2006

I didn't get any good huts. My first warrior explored westward but ran into 2 animals at once that killed him off. By the time I got around to sending another warrior off that way to explore WK had already popped all the huts.

I'm also very interested to see what finish dates will be like for both peaceful and military victories. With the poor starting location, only having one early neighbor and the normal game speed I think finishes will be much later than they normally would be on a noble continents map.

gorilladf · Sep 29, 2006

I've made some completely foolish mistakes in teh late game. Can't wait to see the next spoiler thread

MiniMe · Sep 30, 2006

My first spoiler for a long time. Have been busy relocating and adjusting to my new life (norway here I come) and so had barely time to play and no time for write ups.

Starting out I had diplo or domination in mind. And I really wanted to use the new warlord feature. But after seeing the land we had to work with, I rather quickly decided on few cities and to research as quickly as possible to a diplo win. So no war and no warlords this time around.

So an early academy and civil service was called on. I could make almost no tech trades, but I was reasonable happy with the tech pace anyway.

Technology
3280 BC Animal Husbandry
3000 BC The Wheel
2720 BC Pottery
2400 BC Writing
2240 BC Masonry
2120 BC Mysticism
1960 BC Polytheism
1880 BC Priesthood
1520 BC Code of Laws
1480 BC Civil Service (Oracle)
1320 BC ACADEMY <------ Great Scientist
1240 BC Alphabet
1120 BC Literature
1080 BC Sailing
1040 BC Bronze Working
950 BC Mathematics
925 BC Monotheism
800 BC Currency
750 BC Iron Working
675 BC Metal Casting
625 BC Horseback Riding
550 BC Compass
425 BC Machinery
325 BC Optics
275 BC Calendar
75 AD Astronomy
150 AD Paper
275 AD Meditation (trade)
275 AD Hunting (trade)
350 AD Printing Press
450 AD Philosophy

Great people
Had a lot more prophets than I thought I needed, but it was finally a good point I think. Apart from the first one (who built my shrine) they were all added to carthage for extra cash and hammers. They are the reason I could run 100% research almost throughout the entire game.

1360 BC Scientist
575 BC Prophet
350 BC Scientist
100 BC Prophet
175 AD Prophet
500 AD Prophet

Wonders
Focus was on science and trade enhancing wonders. The great lighthouse was started in a period where I was still thought I was going to build a lot of seaside cities. I had to dedicate my second city to and I am not sure it was worth it. But if your capital was a coastal city I see great synergy in the great lighthouse and the temple of artemis. And a cothon would enable a 5 trade route capital quite early in the game.

The parthenon and the discovery of Philosophy was mainly to increase the chances to pop a great engineer before building the UN.

1520 BC The Oracle
850 BC The Great Library
725 BC The Temple of Artemis
600 BC National Epic
550 BC The Kong Miao
275 BC The Great Lighthouse
150 BC The Parthenon

Hooha · Sep 30, 2006

This pace is maddening. I don't normally play on normal speed.

Spoiler :

BC 4000: Carthage founded. Carthage building warrior.
Researching Bronzeworking.
BC 3600: Hinduism founded in distant land.
BC 3520: BW discovered. Switched to Slavery.
Carthage completes warrior. Start worker.
Researching Wheel/Pottery.
BC 2880: Wheel/Pottery discovered. Building mine on hill SW of Carthage. Researching Hunting/Archery.
BC 2760: Settler started. Contact made with Korea (from the East). Planning second city near cow/marble to west. Third city will be east to block Korea expansion.
BC 2720: Hunting finished. Archery Started (5 turns). No bronze to be found. Need iron next.
BC 2520: Archery finished. Researching Masonry to take advantage of marble. Need city walls. Seeing frequent barbarians.
BC 2240: Tough time deciding next tech.
BC 2160: Judiasm founded in Distant Land. Working on writing/alphabet so I can hopefully trade techs.
BC 1960: With Utica working on barracks, started working on great wall in Carthage (I've had bad luck with barbarians in Warlords). 2nd largest civ according to reports.
BC 1920: Decided to research agriculture and animal husbandry to take advantage of wheat and cow.
BC 1560: Researching Iron Working.
BC 1200: Researching Alphabet, iron discovered right near city. Plan on Utica building military.
BC 825: Great wall built in Carthage! Koreans won't trade techs. Researching lower religions for Code of Laws.
Took break to fix lunch for kids.
BC 350: Hannibal the pathetic (power). Constructed third city East of Carthage. Took land near river for silver / block Korea expansion. Going to churn out settlers and military units, and let new cities build wealth/research.
BC 275: Confusingism is mine! Carthage and Utica building courthouses. Third city building granary.
BC 175: Researching Literature. Polythesim discovered.
AD 1: Literature discovered. Parthenon being constructed in Carthage (switched production a while ago). I don't know what the future has in store, but looking to dramatically expand my civ.

-----------------------------------
I still consider myself a new player. Is there a list of terminology (pop-rushing, abbreviations of technologies, etc?)

Thrallia · Oct 2, 2006

well, I did end up moving my settler back to that all-popular plains hill with the cows and marble, but the exploring my *drunk* settlers did cost me 3 turns before it was actually founded.

I'm extremely surprised also by the fact that in my game I founded Hinduism post-2800BC, yet it looks like in most games it was founded first, before buddhism.

orb · Oct 4, 2006

My game seems to be going to plan but after reading the first few posts in the pre-game I realise I have quite a different strategy.

First off all the continents setting made me think early conquest/ domination was going to be delayed (unless we were lucky with a galley route) - It transpires...No such luck.

So if no early conquest then I would have to tread the way of the culture win.

Having read a few of the guides elsewhere on this website I realised that religeous buildings are crucial. - Therefore early religeons were my goal. Tech route Myst/Poly/Mono, to get 2 religeons and "Organised" for the building bonus. - Alas somehow the AI completed Hinduism in 3600BC (faster than me) and Budhism 3200BC?.

Also in practise games I went fo the henge to get the monuments that the Carthaginian people like. - But it was never that successful as I noticed AI's were completing wonders the turn after the techs became available. i.e. They were using Engineers. - So my first target was to get Great Wall and eventually a GE centre in one of my 3 cultural cities.

I had moved settler SE to plains hill to get the extra hammer. - Good move as it mean't my fat cross included iron. - With the food from the flood plains and the hammers from the Iron and hills Carthage became the production city completing the Great Wall in 975BC. 975BC was a good year as Utica completed the henge the same year. (Mistake - I should have completed the henge a few turns earlier to ge the borders expansion before building the wall.) - As it was the wall stretched from coast to coast so no barbs were coming from the East. - Easy as I then sent my military (OK 1 Warrior) to the choke point in the West whilst I built up my cities further.

Carthage completed Pyramids in 1AD. Completion of the forge then set my Engineer centre off to a good start.

I didn't go for CS sling as my target was then Drama and the cultural slider control. - Got it and bumped culture research to 40%.

Discovered that Wang Kon was my only land mass opposition. It was Wang who got Budhism so he helped me out by spreading it to my 3 main cities. - Same religeon and lots of tech trading means he's very happy with me. - Allowing me to concentrate further on city building.

Wang and me are similar in score, but right now I'm wondering if I should even bother exploring the rest of the world. - Time (and the second spoiler) will tell.

Thrallia · Oct 4, 2006

well, the Great Wall will keep barbs out of your cultural area, regardless of whether it expands past the actual wall or not. The only reason to have higher culture before you build it is to have a larger and cooler Wall on the map

malekithe · Oct 5, 2006

On the easier difficulties I like to go for peaceful wins. I haven't actually completed a GOTM space race, so that was the choice for this game. I've had two previous attempts at the Space Race; one in GOTM02, which I never submitted, and then GOTM09, which I never finished. Neither of those were going particularly well, either. So, what I've taken out of it is that, as good as I may be at waging war, I really suck at building peacefully. So, this game was an attempt to turn that around (ironic, slightly, that my first full Warlords game would be as a peaceful builder... well, somewhat peaceful :mischief:

).

I actually did almost the exact same thing as Thrallia at the start. I moved my warrior SW to the plains hill, decided I might be able to do better, and sent the settler off to the SE (I think). Well, that didn't turn out too well. Upon seeing a heaping pile of nothing in that direction, my settler made haste to the hill the warrior had climbed.

I wound up playing a very rushed, disorganized early game. I went for hunting too soon, thinking there might be something to be gained through early scout exploration. That didn't pan out too well, though (found two goody huts with gold off to the west). Even with the three scouts, it took a long time to meet Wang Kon over to the east. He was definitely a ways away (contact was made some time shortly after 3000 BC).

I also took too long to get to writing and get a library out. Instead, I was alternating between building settlers and growing my city while building the occasional warrior or something. Part of the reason... I'm not used to such a high happiness cap; I didn't really know what to do with it. As it was, I wound up spending too much time just sitting growing and working unimproved tiles. Looking back, I'm not sure what I was thinking. Because of this mistake, I didn't get my first great scientist until after I'd already generated 2 (!!) great prophets. That put a considerable crimp on academy building.

Then, to top it all off, I didn't research alphabet and literature until much too late. For some reason the part of my brain that's supposed to see marble near the start and instantly think "Great Library" was malfunctioning. It thought Oracle and Temple of Artemis, but no dice on the Library. I guess my train of thought was, "Okay, only one contact and on a low difficulty, so virtually no need for early tech trading. Therefore, no need for Alphabet." No attention was paid, at the time, to the fact that Literature, and thereby the Great Library (not to mention the national epic), might be very important for a fast science pace.

Despite those mistakes, though, I think I've turned in a fairly respectable performance. My general plan was to build the Great Lighthouse, settle mostly coastal cities, build lots of cothons, beeline for Astonomy (more or less), get up to Free Market, and then wait as long as possible before obsoleting the Great Lighthouse. It played out fairly well. As of 500 AD, I'm a turn from Astronomy, and have met most of my eventual overseas trading partners. I also grabbed the Temple of Artemis in a coastal city, which was bringing in a decent sized chunk of change. I think it was the way to go given the lack of quality land. An absolutely obscene percent of my GDP is based upon trade and working coastal tiles (close to 50%).

I don't actually have any saves from around the cut-off so the only specific empire information I can provide is from 650 BC (when a barb axeman showed up and I had to take a quick break from the game to figure out how to deal with him). Here are some stats from that period in time:

4 cities
15 total population
17 total food surplus
19 total hammers
73 total commerce
Slavery and Bureaucracy civics
84 beaker/turn @ 100% with maintenance costs @ 6 GPT

I wish I had a slightly later save (my next is considerably after the window for this spoiler), as things really picked up economically after those modest beginnings. Judging from the rate of expansion in that later save, I can provide some guesses at my 500 AD stats, though:

8 cities
40 total population
15 total food surplus
70 total hammers
200 total commerce
Slavery and Bureaucracy civics
300 beakers/turn @ 100% with maintenance costs @ 40 GPT

Anyway, here's some of the nitty gritty details, for anyone who cares for such things:

Tech Path:

Spoiler :

Cities:

Spoiler :

My Wonders:

Spoiler :

Great People:

Spoiler :

Manic_ · Oct 5, 2006

First a bit about me...
Not played Civ 4 much from a few months after its release, Oblivion had a bit to do with that, but the Warlords expansion has changed all that.
The new units (the treb really) are very nice, it was a problem with catas that you needed 5 or 6 stacked to do and serious dammage to a cities defence percentage in one turn. Now 4 trebs level it all!
I like the idea of unique building too, it just makes the game so much better if the civilisations 'appear' the same, but once you play them they are totally different.
Not too sure about the warlord unit, the games i played so far, they dont count as great people, so you can't trigger a golden age (i think that should change) and adding them to a unit is great, but my warlord units seem do die all the time at 85% victory chance! Maybe i'm just unlucky. So i usually end up adding them to a 'military pump' city.
I have like 25 warlords games for the next update of the HoF, a few at the higher dificuty levels (i desided to move up from my prince/monarch level now i can win all levels), reason for the ammount is that i lost my job a week ago so i have a lot of spare time at the moment. Which is both a curse and a blessing!
My general game style is aggressive (I dont really go for the early wonders), so the new emphasis of warlords (hopefully) plays into my hands.

Now the game...
The starting location seemed ideal for whipping, and Charasmatic made this even more of an option.
The big problem on this map was going to be disease, but whipping at the start (max pop 5 city) this shouldn't be a problem until later.
Also with this type of map, settling away from fresh water is not an option.
The thing with this civ its definatly an ocean civ, Financial giving all water tiles 3 commerce, AND the UB. Unfortunatly Carthage is not going to be on the water, but all other Cities should be.

4000BC - Founded Carthage, set to research Agriculture, as i wanted the fastest 'grow back' times between settlers/workers, and also faster settler/worker production. Was going to make 2 farm, 2 cottage flood plains to start, with the wheet and a hill or two (no need for any more as pop was not going to reach that high).

- Next tech was Wheel, to hook up the wheat, then pottery for the cottage (also as now wheat is hooked up granaries give +1 Health, and also faster grow back time for whipping).

- After that i went for Hunting then Animal Hus. Probably should have done AH first, but it didn't matter, i needed archery anyway for the UU.
Saw there was Horse to the west, but not a really good city position to hook it with zero cutlure. There was one far off to the east, and that wasn't much better. Made the choise to go for swordsmen instead (and hoped for more luck).

- Next i hit Archery, as i thought Axemen would be too much for my warriors. (no horse so no chariots either

)

2400 BC - Bronze Working, slavery straight away.

2040 BC - Founded Utica, 5N 1W of capital, on river and coast.

Now at this point i saved and went away do do something ( can't remember what!) and when i came back i desided to hook up the Horse to the East with my 4th city (3rd being by the river to the east of capital, 6W 2N)
To be honest i can't remember why, considering where the iron was going to be, i think i just got pissed off with not good horse and no bronze. So i didn't get iron for ages (i guess i forgot it). I think about this time i found korea, so expanding that was would be best to minimise koreas land area. As i found no-one west for ~40 tiles.

1600 BC - Horseback Riding

1360 BC - Sailing

1280 BC - Hadrumetum Founded (3rd City, 6E 2N of cap)

1120 BC - Writing

1000 BC - Mysticism, I needed monuments in my cities to hook up horse.

825 BC - Buddism spreads to Carthage and Utica, so i switch, but i wait until 800 BC because i was making a settler and wanted to anarchy while it was moving.

775 BC - Hippo Founded (4th city) on the 2nd river to the East, With its SW tile the ocean (set to building monument first so can hook up horse)

750 - Iron Working (oh yeah now i remember it!)

After i see the iron and horse in my lands, i now turn my aggresive gamplay towards korea. But as korea is protective, their archers are going to be little buggers to kill. So i deside to go for construction to get some catapults to even up the score. But first i desided to get compus, as finding out what the maps all about while i crush korea would be a plan. Also the UB will help with a lot.

400 BC - Compus

225 BC - Mathematics

157 BC - Masonry

50 AD - Construction

200 AD - Decared war on korea, with about 6 swordsmen and 4 each catas and cavalry.

225 AD - Captured Namp'o. It was on the land bridge 1S 1E of the fish on the coast.

250 AD - Alphabet (So I could Trade Peace for Techs)

275 AD - Destroyed Ctejo (Was on the ice below Nampo)

475 AD - Calander (Going for astro, as i would need Gal's)

Ok, now i have to stop

Spoiler doesnt give anything away really, but i dont want to get into trouble :mischief:

Moderator Action: Welcome to GOTM, Manic. Late game info removed. Please stick to the spoiler guidelines. Spoiler tags don't let you off the hook

Thrallia · Oct 6, 2006

hm...I'm really getting antsy to post some more spoilers, Ainwood, any plans on opening another one?

WOTM 01 First Spoiler

Chieftain

Deity

Chieftain

Emperor

Learnéd Fool

Chieftain

formerly Robo Kai

King

Emperor

HoF Quattromaster

Deity

Chieftain

For Glory

Attachments

Chieftain

Prodigal Staffer

Warlord

Prodigal Staffer

King

Attachments

Prince

Prodigal Staffer

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