7OTM07 - Completion of Age of Antiquity Spoiler Thread

[Eyswein]

At the top of your post please post: Difficultly Level & Number of turns

A few questions to consider:
- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
- Did you settle in place or move?
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital and/or other early cities?
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
- What were key production/purchase focuses?
- Pantheon chosen and why?
- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
- Other good info we didn't think to ask?
- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
- Did you enjoy this Age?

 

[Manpanzee]

101 turns Antiquity

This was my first time trying the Archipelago map, and I wasn't sure what to expect. First impressions are pretty positive. There seemed to be a good amount of chunky landmass, and I liked this more than what I remember of Archipelago maps in older civ games. I did run into some annoying bugginess with trade range to different landmasses, though. My Dhows had to wait way longer than they should have to be able to use their charges.

I wanted to warmonger and chose the science celebration, which I value a lot for the early push to Wheel/Bronze Working. Probably the more intuitive strategy here was to double down, take the culture celebration, and push harder for Future Civic. That might have been better.

In any case, Confucius was easy to wipe. He only had two settlements, and my army of Chariots and Archers arrived when he still mostly had tier 1 units. He was also kind enough to embark most of his army and try to come at me across the water, which didn't help his cause very much.

After Confucius went down, I turned my attentions to the north. I hadn't been sure who else I wanted to go after, but Augustus conveniently lost a war to Hatshesput right around the time I finished up with Confucius. That brought Augustus down to two settlements himself, making my choice easy.

I didn't quite get to Augustus fast enough to wipe him in a really relevant time. I could have downed him on turn 100 to end the age, but I had a Future Civic and another Army Commander coming in on turn 101, and I decided to wait for those. Leaving Augustus on one settlement also meant I'd have an easy target for a Civ wipe in Exploration.

I continue to think that Aksum is one of the strongest Antiquity civs. The gold from the UA is amazing, the Hawilti are situationally very good, and the culture-on-resources tradition is among the very best in the game. Sure, they don't get extra settlement limit, but that's offset by their amazing culture generation, which lets them get all the settlement limit from the main tree way faster than other civs.

 

[CMDR_Limespace]

Immortal 131 Turns

A few questions to consider:
- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?

The focus was on a cultural victory but for some reason I focused on maximising the culture produced per turn over building wonders. The reason why is because the AI gets such a huge bonus to science and culture on Immortal that they outresearched and built their wonders before me.
- Did you settle in place or move?
I settled in place from the tile I started on.
- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital and/or other early cities?
scout > warrior > warrior > brickyard > library
- Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritise for technology/civics?
I researched sailing > pottery > writing but as a noob I didn't realise you required a fishing quay first to build ships. The third city I founded with a settler was razed by Galley spamming barbarians as a result meaning I didn't get to use the advantages of the sailing tech to its fullest early on.
- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?

José Rizal has the unique ability Pambansang Bayan and gains +50% happiness towards Celebrations, his Celebrations last 50% longer. I did not utilise this ability and should have declared a war against either Confucius or Hatshepsut to take advantage of the happiness bonus. Unfortunately, I settled with my first 6 settlements and did not bother with a warmongering expansion during the antiquity age.
- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
I settled 6 settlements (3 cities and 3 towns).
- What were key production/purchase focuses?
Focus was on production and culture tile yields.
- Pantheon chosen and why?
God of the Sun (+1 Culture, Food, Gold, Happiness, Production and Science on the Altar.)
- What government did you select? Which bonus did you chose most and why?
Despotism for the +20% Science and +30% infantry production.
- Other good info we didn't think to ask?
None.
- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
Maintained many alliances: Confucius, Isabella, and Hatshepsut. I didn't want my cities revolting from war weariness like in other games I played in the past. But this ended up in causing me to have a very long and extended antiquity age.
- Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into, how did you deal with it?
Loads because I am a noob at Civ Vii. There are so many things I can do to improve my game on reflection.
- Did you enjoy this Age?
Yes, I enjoyed playing the Archipelago map because I don't normally do Island maps. Exploring the unknown was fun.

 

[MACKA0ili]

Immortal - 105 turns

After playing passively for the last GotM, I was pretty excited to go full warmonger this time around to end ages faster.
I settled in place and went straight for sailing to get my dhows out quick. Initial build order was Scout > Warrior > Granary > Dhow > Dhow with a bought settler in there too which I sent to the north part of my initial landmass for the resources there. Second settle was a forward settle on Confucius on the island with the natural wonder. Went for classical republic to gain more culture and god of the sea for extra production. Influence went to converting three city states and then to stealing techs and civics. Once I had a sizeable navy, I declared war on Hapshetsut and took her two island cities pretty quickly. Her capital took a little longer to go down but I got it eventually. Confucius declared war on me next along with Isabella who declared war on me before I even met her. For some reason Augustus really liked me and I ended up in an alliance with him which I guess I'll keep moving forward. Unfortunately, I waited a bit too long to take on Confucius and his lands were filled with chu-ko-nu which prevented me from taking his inland settlements, but I still managed to take all of his island settlements with my dhows. I started razing two of them, but wasn't able to finish before the age ended which makes me wonder if they will still be there for the next age. He sued for peace on the final turn and gave me a third settlement though so I've got a good base of operations for eliminating him at the start of the exploration age. I also got a settlement from Isabella in a peace deal too which left me a total of 10 settlements (3 cities I settled myself and 7 towns conquered) though she soon declared war on me again and might actually take it back when I hit next turn. Overall, I had fun going back to a more aggressive playstyle. I ended with a dark cultural age, tier 2 science age, and a golden Militaristic and Economic age so I might actually go for the Militaristic golden age legacy for once since I mostly focused on navy which has no way of carrying over during the transition. Not sure what mementos I will use since we're allowed to change them this time, but I'll probably go very military focused at least at the start and then transition to getting my culture way up for the final age.

 

[Calcifer]

Immortal - 135 turns

Oh boy this was rough. Started pottery> writing for clay pits yileds + great stele, then sailing for exploring, then masonry and beeline to navigation for stronger Dhows.
I had my eyes on Hatsheput that had a couple of easy settlements on small island/coast, got to her with 12 dhows.
Then the most frustrating thing happened which almost got me to give up the game: of the 3 settlements I planned to take from her she gave 2 to other civs (Gebtu and Akethaken) as peace deals the turn before I would have got them. Bye bye military golden age. I was left fighting a super long and boring siege to Waset with egyptian units spawning from god knows where and my reinforcements having to roughest way to come.
Then luckily Augustus decides to help me (surely as a thank you for the free settlement he got earlier) and manages to get the last district in Waset in the last turn of the age, giving me the city (I was controlling the other 2 districts). Hatsheput is eliminated without shortening gthe age of even one turn.

Basically very unlucky age that strengthens my belief that going offensive during antiquity is just a waste of resources.

 

[vitorbaixinho]

Immortal - 101 turns (1 science, 1 cultural, 2 military, 3 economy)

What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
My plan was to eliminate two opponents. I started by launching an early attack to the south against Confucius. The inland city was harder to capture because it forced me to invest in land units.
By the time I eliminated Confucius, Hatshepsut and Isabella declared war on me. I managed to eliminate Hatshepsut with help from Augustus, who was my ally.
Looking back, I should’ve taken a city from Isabella as part of the peace deal — that was a mistake, especially because that city could have helped me explore the New World from the east.

Did you settle in place or move?
I settled in place.

What were your initial 5–10 builds in the capital and/or other early cities?
Three scouts, a fishing quay, purchased a brickyard, and then a settler.

Early order for technology/civics? What did you later prioritize for technology/civics?
For technology: Sailing → Pottery → Animal Husbandry → Writing, then I beelined Navigation.
For civics: Mysticism → Discipline → Mysticism Mastery → First Aksumite Civic.

How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
The Aksumite ships (Dhows) were essential for my conquests.

How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns? What was your mix of towns vs. cities?
I founded 3 settlements, but in hindsight I think founding the third one next to the natural wonder in the south wasn’t a great move.
I captured 4 settlements. By the end, I had 4 cities and 3 towns.

What were key production/purchase focuses?
Dhows.

Pantheon chosen and why?
Stone Circle — for the production boost.

What government did you select? Which bonus did you choose most and why?
Classical Republic, mainly for the wonder production bonus.

How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
The usual approach: befriending city-states, doing some trading, and managing war weariness.

Any surprises/frustration/elations you ran into? How did you deal with it?
I couldn’t build the Ha'amonga'a Maui, and the Age ended two turns before I finished the Colosseum. Also, I missed the third military legacy point by just one, which was frustrating.

Did you enjoy this Age?
Very much.

 

[Bleidraner]

t100 Antiquity

The plan:
Double down on culture to get a couple of future civics, finish 4 legacy paths and wipe one AI, for a t90-95 Antiquity win.

The execution:
Well I was too optimistic . I thought Immortal would allow all the above, but my slow science dragged me down, and I could not complete the third science legacy. Also, I did not get the first future civic until t100 and only got that one, (I was running 4 turns late on influence to bulb the next, 4 turns is too much). In fact that future civic ended the age.

I went Sailing-Potttery-Animal Husbandry-Irrigation. Given the pretty good capital, my idea was to explore hard with Dhows to meet as many IP as possible and of course fulfill Jose's mission to meet all civs. I also wanted to plant 3 settlements quickly (t32) and wonder spam starting with Hanging Gardens (t42). I was hoping for some goody huts to speed things up, but I got only 1 to the north of the city and none on water, which I find weird on an archipielago map. I also wanted dhows early as in my test archipielago maps I had seen the hostile IPs being pretty aggresive on naval attacks. Build order was scout-granary-fishing quay-buy dhow-dhow-settlerx3 (I think).

On Wonders, I went start Giant Steele-Hanging Gardens-finish Giant Steele-Gate of all Nations-Mundo Perdido-Weiyang Palace in second city-Emile Bell in third city-Colossus to finish the culture path,

For the military path I killed Confucius (t80) who always stayed at 2 cities, and then I declared a surprise war on Hatsh and her ally Isabella declared on me. I took one island city from Hatsh and got another in a peace deal which I gave to Isabella the next turn, but those 2 plus the 2 from Confucius allowed me to finish the military path on t90. I was trying to keep within the settlement limit as, in spite of the happiness advantages, I was not swimming in happiness and I needed high yields for my plan to work.

By t90 it was clear that I was going to finish t100 and was not going to be able to finish science, and my befriending was running 4 turns late to be able to bulb a second future civic, so I just planted a few unique improvements and created enough units for the one Army Commander I had.

Regrets:
I screwed up, I chose fertility rites as a pantheon, not sure why, it was available and it usually isn't, so I took it instead of taking Stone Circles or God of the Sun. I immediately forgot I had chosen it, so every time I was managing the build queues I was wondering why the hammers were not there for the altars and choosing to build something else. So I ended building zero altars or maybe just one for the happiness at the end of the era, so no impact from fertility rites . I think with Stone Circles or G of the S I may have been able to finish the science path, and potentially could have shaved a couple of turns.

Also, I denounced Confucius to get a formal war and I spent 60 influence that I would have needed later on to bulb the second future civic. I relied maybe too much on the dhows (which you lose in the age transition), I maybe should have build a few more military units and a second commander, but frankly, as I am writing this, I realize did not have the space in the build queue, as I ended up with only 3 cities. Clearly I should have converted to cities sooner and created a 4th city, maybe Changan, I kind of forgot.

I am pretty happy with the game, t100 is a good finish and my set up is OKish for Exploration. Even if it is not the t95 finish I expected, I found Immortal harder than I remembered and misscalculated times, especially the land war. Also the settlement limit was low in spite of the high culture, as there is no 7th expansion which I really did not realize until midgame.

Ended with 11 legacies, all but the third science.

GoTM staff, thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. On to Exploration.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[ndymck]

Immortal - 130 turns

Ended with 7 legacy points

- What was your plan for moving toward the victory condition? What are the major steps you planned to take? What events, if any, changed the plan in execution and to what new plan? Any interesting decision points?
Plan was to go for an econ & cultural age. Econ went really well, I was able to get the golden age really early. Cultural was a disaster, only ended up with two wonders, and got sniped on at least 3 or 4 mid production. I dont think I got my culture up fast enough to build them before the AI.

- Did you settle in place or move?
Settled in place. It seemed like a good spot to maximize number of land tiles in the capital.

- What were your initial 5-10 builds in the capital and/or other early cities?
Started with pottery, then sailing so that I could get my scouts off of the island.

- How did the leader bonus and civ unique ability impact your plan/play, if at all?
It didn't really, although it probably should have. I was just focusing on settling good city/town locations to set me up for later in the game.

- How many cities/towns did you settle and/or capture? Where did you settle your first few towns? What was your mix of towns vs cities?
Ended up with 2 cities & 4 towns. Didn't capture any. Settled my first town on the north side of the starting island. then worked my way south to confucius. Didn't capture any, actually didn't get into any wars.

- Pantheon chosen and why?
Stone circles, for the production.

- How did you focus your use of influence for diplomacy?
I had a decent amount of spare influence, because I was not able to find many IPs, and by the time I did they were taken. Used influence to boost culture with hatshepsut, and I did end up cancelling denunciations multiple times from both Confucius and Isabella, because I didn't really want to get bogged down in a war.

- Did you enjoy this Age?
Yes! All said and done it went ok, definitely need to find some more land masses in exploration to set up some more cities.

 

[GoblinMatron]

Turns: 98

Plan for finishing the age quickly:
for sure: eliminate 1 civ, military legacy: 3, economic legacy: 3, cultural legacy: 2, scientific legacy: 2
situational: eliminate 2. civ, 3. cultural legacy, 3. scientific legacy, future civics
I knew that I wanted to eliminate at least 1 civ, which most likely will automatically finish the militaristic legacy path. Then it depends very much on how close other civs are and how strong they are if I could eliminate a second civ.
The economic legacy path is trivial with Aksum.
The cultural legacy also depends very much on the AI and how fast they are building wonders. 4 is almost always no problem, 7 sometimes works, sometimes not.
I almost never get to 3 scientific legacy points when I focus on culture, only if I can befriend many scientific IPs it can work.
Future civics are always nice, but depending on the IPs and how much I have to focus on war, they can happen or not.

Plan for a good setup for the next ages:
Explore the whole homelands map.
Have a good spread of settlements across the map, if possible on all continents.

Techs:
Pottery - Sailing - Animal Husbandry - Masonry - Masonry2 - Irrigation - Writing
I wanted pottery early to make the clay pits better and build a brickyard. Then I wanted sailing to be able to scout more and send my 2. settler to an island.

Production:
Scout - Scout - Scout - Brickyard (half bought) - Settler - Granary (half bought) - Settler - Saw Pit - Settler - Fishing Quay - Monument
I wanted many scouts to find IPs and good spots to settle. Then many warehouses to make good use of the clay. Since I did not have enough gold to full out buy a settler, I sped things up by finishing the buildings with gold.

Civics:
Periplus of the Erythrean Sea - Book of the Himyarites - Discipline - Mysticism - Maysticism2
I wanted Book of the Himyarites as early as possible to get the tradition that gives culture on coastal resouces. Since I did not go to war early, I did not need the General from Discipline and there was no pantheon I value so much that I wanted to rush Mysticism.

Pantheon:
God of the Sun
Always solid, I did not have much choice when I got to Mysticism.

Government:
Classical republic
I always chose the culture

Influence:
Mostly spent on befriending (ended up being suzerain of 5 IPs). Later started some endeavors to finish that quest and increased number of trade routes.
I always forget the spionage option, I probably would have finished my future civic if I had done that.

Wonders:
built: Great Stele - Mundo Perdido - Gate of All Nations - Colosseum - Oracle - Sanchi Stupa - Colossus
from Hatshepsut: Pyramids - Terracotta Army - Mausoleum of Theodoric
The AI did not build many wonders this game, so I got all that I wanted

Settlements:
7 total (+2 being razed) - 3 cities + 4(+2) towns - 4 self founded + 3(+2) captured

Game:
I settled in place to get all resources.
Early on I focused to get my empire up and running. I founded 3 more settlements, build warehouses, monuments and libraries. I was happy to get Mundo Perdido in Aksom, because all the tiles are tropical.

Both Conficius and Hatshepshut were close, so I planned to go to war against at least one of them. Hatshepsut was a little stronger, but unfriendly since I settled close to her and Conficius was friendly, so the war was against Hatshepsut.

Sadly, she had many alliances, first with Isabella, later with Conficius as well. And she was even stronger than I anticipated. She had many units and walls in all her settlements. I endud up defeating her turn 96/97. The price was a very beautiful Waset with a well placed unique district, the Pyramids, Terracotta Army and Mausoleum of Theodoric. Why did she not build Petra, it would have been so perfect there?

Confucius and Isabella are also at war with me, but I ignore them, because the are not very close and I have enough to do with Hatshepsut.

I focus on turn 100 as the end of the age, because then I will finish my first future civic. Surprisingly, the age ends at turn 98, something must have happened at the other side of the world...

Result:
I am very happy with the number of turns, although I think it would have been better overall if the age had lasted 2 more turns to allow me to finish the future civic, 3 more trade routes and some more exploring.
I am not happy with how much of the world I have explored and the spread of my settlements. All the war has prevented me from exploring more.

It was very fun, thanks!

 

[Suicidekills]

Immortal Turn 115

First Game of the Month ever. Super excited.

The Plan:

Take advantage of map and Aksum to create a trade empire, and use other Aksum bonuses to gain as much culture as possible.

Stay peaceful as much as possible to make the most out of trade.

Dhows are high priority for military presence firstly. Once the hostile IPs are handled, they must go and find a port to trade their wares.

Since I was investing in culture, building a bunch of wonders seemed like the most natural strategy.

The Execution:

I moved SE one tile for my capital placement. There were three reasons for this:
1. Aksum civic that provides 15% gold for coastal cities.
2. More (potentially) marine tiles. I was thinking ahead and was taking Hawaii into consideration.
3. It didn't affect the rate of me getting to the two clay tiles.

My initial builds began with two Scouts. Then, I'm not sure of the exact order but, Granary, Brickyard, Dhow, Fishing Quay (partially finished with gold), and Saw Pit. It's an Archipelago map so I just went with two scouts to start. I was going to do most of my scouting with dhows anyway, and if the landmass wasn't too big, they wouldn't be able to go any further until I got sailing anyway.

For technologies, I started with sailing, moved to Pottery, and then to Animal Husbandry. I went sailing first because of Dhows and it's an archipelago map. I followed that up with the remaining warehouse building techs to take advantage of the two clay resources. After that I proceeded with the tech tree normally. Science wasn't really that important to me. I did go navigation earlier than usual and tried that Wonder but was a little bit too late. Not sure if the upgrade to Dhows was worth it. I enjoyed them better when they were cheaper to build/buy.

For civics, I did all of the Aksum civics first. I was going to use my Dhows as trade units so I didn't think I needed to worry about the merchant civic; however, the merchant civic also has that handy diplomatic action that increases trade relations. I was able to get the civic in 12 turns, but this might have cost me a few turns overall. After that, I burned through the rest of the tree as fast as possible to collect as many Wonders as possible.

The Leader bonus is a very generic one. Since I was going heavy on gold and culture, the influence received was the most noticeable. Besides that, not much to say about Jose Rizal. The Civilization on the other hand was pretty much what I built my game around. Use all of Aksum's bonuses to create a trade empire, and have some nice culture too while you're at it.

For settlements, I settled a town NW of me on the same land mass and then settled a town on and island to the West. I wasn't trying to forward settle on anyone, but I also wanted to get 3 settlements up. Later on after more scouting, I decided to take out Meroe because they were blocking a perfect settlement location, and Lalibela was born. My next two settlements would be founded on the landmass to the East with Thera on it. Right before the age ended, I would find my last and seventh Settlement to the South of the landmass with Thera. I did no warring so no capturing.

For production, I invested heavily in Dhows and Wonders. For purchases, I invested heavily in converting cities and purchasing infrastructure.

For pantheons, I went with Stone Circles, and I was confused. It states "+1 Production on Clay Pits, Mines and Quarries in Settlement with an Altar. Warehouse bonus." but, in my Capital it only gave me a max of +4 production even though I had the 4 resources (ruby, clay, clay, iron) and a clay pit. I also found out that if you put a UI over one of these, it no longer counts for the bonus. It also didn't seem to add up in other settlements. Oh well.

For government, I went with Classical Republic. I was going for culture, so getting the culture boost, I believe, was the most efficient use of government. I didn't need the help for wonder production. I'm not sure if the +50% celebration length Jose Rizal provides is a good thing. I found myself wanting more social policy slots, and the longer celebrations were delaying that. So I'll take the +50% happiness towards celebrations, you can keep the +50% celebration length.

My influence went towards friendly greetings, endeavors (creating and supporting), increasing trade relations, and open borders. I didn't use any on IP's. I took out most of them around me. Samarkand survived because Confucius was already befriending them, and I didn't want to upset him.

Conclusion:

For my first Game of the Month, I can not say I'm one bit disappointed, and I'll definitely be doing more. I've had an absolute blast playing along and seeing what everyone else. Specifically for this game, I had a lot of fun creating a trade empire and building wonders. I ended with most of the homelands explored, 7 settlements, 15 trade routes, 10 Wonders, and 10 Codices. The thing about the codices is you need to put them in a building for it to count towards the legacy path. About 10 turns before the end of my game, I kept looking at purchasing a library, as if I needed it or something. Could not for the life of me remember what I needed it for. I moved on trying to convert my last settlements into cities to buy an ampitheater to have an extra boost of culture for exploration with the golden age ampitheater legacy card. When it was finally over, I noticed my science legacy points were at 2 instead of 3! I was in shock! Alas, I finally realized why I was staring at that library....... I could have probably shaved a couple of the turns but not bad for my first attempt. See you in Exploration!

 

[leif erikson]

First Game of the Month ever. Super excited.

Welcome to Game of the Month!

Thank you for sharing your game.