BOTM 04 First Spoiler

DynamicSpirit · Mar 24, 2008

BOTM04 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 04, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

You must have reached at least 500 AD in your game, OR
You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

Please do not discuss anything post 500 AD.
Please do not discuss any events in locations or reveal of the map not reachable before caravels.
Please do not name any civs that are not contactable before caravels.

Ribannah · Mar 24, 2008

[Challenger]

Despite all the suggestions in the pregame thread, I settled on the starting tile. The big issue in this game was likely to be a food shortage, and I wanted those forests, so moving 1 west was out. And in view of my goal, a cultural victory, I wanted the gold.

Since the starting cross didn't contain a 3-value tile we started with a Warrior rather than a Worker. Before the border expanded, we met Sumeria and found Uruk, unprotected no less, at a great location, which should really have been ours to begin with, so we continued building Warriors. The moment Uruk, now protected by one Warrior, grew to size 3, we attacked and our party of four managed to take the town. Exit Sumeria. As it turned out, the continent was now ours, and we went on to select 7 good additional locations.

Still we did not feel completely alone since at the starting site we had found a Palantir that allowed us contact with Native America, even though we knew not each other's locations. They remained cautious towards us, despite several technology trades.

My intention was to collect as many religions as we could, since I'm rather probing in the dark here with my first cultural game of Civ4. Lots of cathedrals per legendary city sounded like a good idea. So, the opening game went thus:

Central towns
4000bc London (pig, 2 gold)
3050bc Uruk (horse, 2 clam, 2 corn)
1975bc York (corn, whale)

These were intended to become our legendary cities, where obviously York needed the Moai Statues.

Technology (1)
3750bc Mysticism
3325bc Polytheism -> Hinduism in London
3075bc Agriculture
2775bc The Wheel -> towns connected in 2300bc
2575bc Mining
2375bc Masonry
2125bc Monotheism -> Judaism in Uruk
2050bc Fishing

We turned Organized Religion and chose Hinduism as state religion after Uruk expanded to catch the clams, revolting while the settler for York was underway.

In 1875bc London completed Stonehenge for cheap culture all around. London was chosen to generate mostly great prophets, coastal York great merchants, and food-rich Uruk great artists. Our main support city, Nottingham, would provide great engineers and the occasional great scientist.

Supporting towns
1300bc Nottingham (marble, copper, pig, wheat, 2 sugar)
575bc Hastings (stone, clam)
380bc Canterbury (pig, corn)
80bc Coventry (copper, clam)
35bc Warwick (copper, wheat, 4 ivory)
340ad Newcastle (horse, pig, corn)

Techwise, we were now aiming for Civil Service, but with no hurry. We used the Oracle for Metal Casting since all towns needed forges asap, and York needed wonders to build, while the capital would be alright anyway.

Technology (2)
1825bc Animal Husbandry
1700bc Pottery
1525bc Bronze Working -> Slavery
1350bc Sailing
1225bc Meditation
1125bc Priesthood
1000bc Writing -> signed Open Borders with Native America (very useful

)
650bc Metal Casting (Oracle)
550bc Mathematics
305bc Alphabet

We could now occasionally trade technology with Native America and spying through the Palantir told us their current research.

290bc Hunting + Iron Working (Native America)
35bc Currency; Archery (Native America)
130ad Code of Laws
160ad Calendar (Native America)
400ad Civil Service

Wonders
1875bc Stonehenge (London)
650bc Oracle (London) -> Metal Casting
440bc Great Lighthouse (York)
395bc Kashi Vishwanath (London) (great prophet)
215bc Colossus (York)
50bc Hanging Gardens (Nottingham)
20bc Moai Statues (York)
205ad Pyramids (Nottingham)
355ad Mausoleum of Maussollos (Uruk)

Great People
395bc Great Prophet (London) -> Kashi Viswanath
340ad Great Merchant (York) -> Golden Age

In the year 400ad, the Great Merchant from York started our first Golden Age, which allowed us to switch to Bureaucracy, Representation and Caste System without anarchy. Thanks to the timely Mausoleum, it would last 15 turns.

morpheus11 · Mar 25, 2008

@Ribannah, what are you refering to when you say Palanthir? I noticed that Sitting Bull was out there somewhere from the start, but I didn't know why I could see him.

I will put my first spoiler up in the next couple of days when I finish writing it. But, I will say that I made some minor mistakes that have made this game a lot harder than it should have been up to this point. It didn't help that Sumeria's land was amazing.

Ribannah · Mar 25, 2008

To Tolkien.

I am not entirely sure that destroying Sumeria is the optimal path. There is enough room for 9 towns, and they would boost the trade route income. Their capital site did look attractive though.

Gosha190 · Mar 25, 2008

contender, conquest loss 3700BC. :crazyeye:

Bleys · Mar 25, 2008

Contender, retired in the AD, forget the exact date, well before 500 though. Settled 1S to split the gold, since that gave me reasonable room for a city by the corn. Second city went for the Marble, on the coast to the NE, cutting off Gilga somewhat, but not horribly so. For some reason, despite my reasonable defenses, a shared religion, and a decent relationship with him, Gilga decided to start a war with me. He sent half a dozen Vultures supported by a few HAs and took out York, in which I had built the Oracle and Colossus. I tried to take it back, but when I was sending my troops up, he came around to the south with even more Vultures, this time including a couple Cats and Ellies (must have gotten Construction as he started heading to me). London was a goner and I just gave up.

I had focused mainly on expansion (5 cities, 8 workers) and wonders (Stonehenge, Oracle taking MC, hoping to pop a GE with fast forges to bulb Machinery, but got 2 Prophets, Colossus, barely missed GLH, tried for Mids but didnt hook up the stone fast enough and lost em half-way, or so, got GLib easily, as well as the Hanging Gardens). I was well on my way to having 8 or 9 strong cities, and plenty of potential for a strong tech position, but I dont know, I have never had an AI turn on me so fast. I had an Archer, Axeman and a Warrior in the first city he took, and another warrior up to the NW fogbusting (he didnt need to be there anymore, but I just forgot to move him). I had 2 archers and 2 axes in London, and at least 1 archer and 1 warrior in each of 3 other cities (the stone/bronze + 2-clams to the west, the corn to the north and the Horses to the far west, planning to back-fill later).

In retrospect, I did deny him a couple requests, but we had the same religion (I founded Confu, teched, and sent the missionary to him) and open borders the whole time, and even though my "You refused to help us" was at -2, I was still +4 with him overall. Kinda sucked. I think I am still relying on my tendency to go back a few turns and "correct" stuff like this in other games. I need to buckle down and start playing every single game without a single re-load. Its not like I do it constantly, once or twice a game, maybe, thats it, but they are usually big, like an AI DoW (go back and move units into the city that gets attacked), or missing a wonder by a turn or 2 (go back and whip it). Another archer or 2 in each of the cities closest to him would have been enough to keep him from coming. Of course, my wonder-whoring led to a bare minimum of defending units, and I am sure that played a role as well (my power was much lower).

Oh well, this is how we learn. I havent been playing these "official" games long, and I do still re-load on occasion in "unofficial" games, especially in the early years. Later in games I never do, but thats more a factor of not needing too because I have made a couple earlier "adjustments" that gave me much more dominant positions. Heck, one reload in this game (which I did do, knowing I had already failed, whipping 2 archers each in York and London, but didnt play much past it) and I would have coasted. So I am going to practice up without any re-loads and be ready for the next one!

You know what kills me the most, I played the "practice" map someone set up, and absolutely blew it away without a single re-load, and I even handicapped myself a bit with one of the resources on that map that was WAY too close to be "realistic" (delayed a quarry on the stone, for those who tried that map). I was overconfident going in, because an Archer and a Warrior in each city was enough in that game. Didnt have Gilga so close though, heh. My own dang fault. Like I said, I am learning, and fully expect to become an expert at these before long. Just need to break those bad habits. Good game, nice map, I am disappointed in myself because it was VERY playable, especially at Prince level.

Vynd · Mar 25, 2008

I'm curious if DynamicSpirit deliberately put us in contact with Sitting Bull from the start or if that was some sort of hiccup related to editing the map.

It is interesting to hear from Ribannah that Sitting Bull will tech trade. I hadn't researched Alphabet yet as of 500 AD, as I had other things I wanted to concentrate on and wasn't 100% sure the native Americans would be in contact with other civs and thus willing to trade. Probably over-caution on my part. I mean, what are the odds that we'd start with only one near neighbor and the Native Americans would have none at all?

I did take out Gilgamesh, though. After getting a good look at his capital--in the process of a couple of worker grabbing wars--I concluded that anyone who took that spot for themselves was bound to outpace the more peaceful players, and I wanted to be in that first group.

It took me a lot longer to nab Uruk, than Ribannah's Warrior rush, though. I wandered around a bit before settling (ended up in the starting location) and built a Worker first. So by the time I knew I wanted Uruk it had Archers in defense and I needed to build a force of Axemen and a few Catapults to capture it. The Sumerians had only one other poorly sited city, which I razed. Ruins south of Uruk seem to indicate that the barbarians gave Gilgamesh some trouble.

I targeted Aesthetics and Literature so I could build the Parthenon and Great Library early on. That worked out fine, I think they were both finished in the early ADs. I also took a late shot at the Pyramids, attempting to chop/pop rush them in Uruk (so many forests!). I missed that one but didn't really mind since the cash allowed me to ratchet up my research while gradually expanding across the continent.

I had a random event about medicinal herbs where depending on my choices I could either make my people happy for a little while or unhappy and risk population loss for a shot at a permanent health bonus. Since I was already nearing the health cap I decided to try the "90% shot at health bonus but lose pop and happiness." I missed my 90% shot at +2 health.

AgedOne · Mar 25, 2008

Pre-start
I had tried a few test games (I know, Prince level is not something you should need to practice, but I hadn't played much CIV for a while, and haven't tried any of the BOTMs - well not seriously anyway)
I'd tried an early military spree - which resulted in some pleasant crushing followed by a sad economic collapse.
I'd tried some sort of CS slingshot, but of course it isn't very nice in BTS. That start resulted in a good science but a poor military.
Finally, I tried going completely wonder-mad which made for an interesting game with numerous GPs (including 2 Gt Spies which was hilarious!) but overall I hadn't been too careful with my economy or military.
From these, I tried to learn some lessons - about ensuring I got CoL and other techs for good civics, remembering to keep a strong military even if I wasn't actively using it, and to not necessarily build every wonder in the world!

Start
So how did it actually go?

I decided to head for the corn rather than the pigs, as I like to have forests around my capital.

I was very puzzled at how I knew Sitting Bull. I decided it must be due to magic, or I was being visited by the spirits of his ancestors, or such like. Anyway, it was surely an Easter Egg rather than a mistake, and I found it useful through the ages. Several times.

My warrior wandered around and quickly found Gil. Funny coincidence. I'd just been playing a practice game with the Geezers in which we were Gil, so I knew a bit about him - certainly enough to watch out for those Vultures of his!

Middle
By about 30 turns in, I had resolved to do something about Gil before he got Vultures. Ha!
I didn't go for him with warriors because I realised Uruk was on a hill and I thought I'd need to stop what I was doing and build 4 of them quickly, and I just didn't fancy stopping everything else.

I also fancied the idea of getting the Oracle, Pyramids and Gt Library.

Early research went Agri - Masonry - BW - Wheel - Myst - Medi - Priest.

When BW came up and I saw where the nearest copper was, I changed my mind about York's location (I had been looking at founding it East of London by the marble).

By 100 turns in I had the Oracle - and had chosen Metal Casting as the freebie - but was still intending to visit Gil with a bunch of axemen just as soon as I could. Then I began to waver. I got an OB with him and went for a look around. Just archers. No vultures. But! While I was still on my tour he hooked up his copper and quick as a flash there was his first vulture, followed by another and another.

Since I still didn't have my visiting party of axemen ready, I changed plan. I'd obviously been too slow, and after all I was more interested in empire and wonder building than crushing. On a whim I used London's good productivity to finish the Gt Wall, my second wonder. Maybe we could befriend Gil, but use spies on him later? We had founded Confucianism by being first to CoL, so I revolted to that, spread it to him, and he adopted it too.

We had popped our first GP - as expected he was a Gt Prophet - and he built the Kong Miao for us Confucian folks.

When we got Alphabet, we found the mysterious Sitting Bull to be a useful tech trading partner. More so that the rather backward Gil, anyhow.

Approaching the Break
Towards the end of this spoiler period, something strange had affected my brain. Possibly too long talking to spirits. I forgot my earlier lessons about not building wonders for the fun of it, and at one point I had 3 going simultaneously!! Parthenon, Hanging Gardens and Gt Library. Thankfully the HG went almost as soon as I started it, so I could turn at least one city back to more normal building activities.

As we reached 500AD, I felt we had a useful empire. A couple of good wonders, and perhaps a Gt Library coming soon. Science and economy looking good. Trying to build enough military to not be left adrift of the others.

[forgot to mention: contender save]

Cabledawg · Mar 25, 2008

I would have thought more people went for the CS sling. The double gold seemed like a no brainer to me. I got the sling around turn 107. I whipped a Library while heading towards the sling. I also got a couple of settlers out as well.

My third city, Hastings at the stone built the mids. During all this time, I had stolen 3 workers from Gilly all at different times.

I went in to his capitol with 8 axes and i believe 1 chariot. He had 4 or 5 units there....something like 2 archers, 2 vultures and a chariot...I think. The first 3 axes that attacked all lost and only dented 1 archer a tad. I was pretty poed about that. Retreated and went for construction.

Came back with swords and cats and by that time, he had more cities in the jungle. I kept most of them even though my economy was dumping. It worked out though as i quickly got courthouses up.

Hastings which had stone, copper, pigs, and clam built Pyramids and Hanging gardens....capitol built Oracle and Great library. Uruk....gillys capitol, turned into a production monster will be building Collusus.

I was pretty pleased at getting the CS sling, but feel like I messed up attacking Gilly....I should have given it more thought considering its on a hill.

nokem · Mar 25, 2008

Second xOTM attempt. I've beaten prince twice on vanilla and once on Warlords, but this is my first ever BTS game so I took the adventurer save.

T-1
A gold-rich start and the English UB suggest a good tech speed should be possible. My warmongering skills are poor so I'll likely aim for a space victory but consider something more military if the terrain looks favourable. Initial build order will be worker, warrior x2, settler. First techs Ag and AH.

T0-T19
Settled 1W of the start. Sent the scout W and Warrior NE to look for seafood. Met Gilgamesh pretty quickly but unfortunately didn't stumble upon Uruk until quite a few turns later.

T20
We're on a long thin island or peninsular so the barbarian threat is easily countered with fogbusters. All the good stuff is W of us and we have a creative, protective neighbour blocking our way E with a supercharged city on a hill. His early UU could be a problem. We magically know Sitting Bull but can't find him - or anyone else.

We don't know if Gil will expand W or S so blocking him should be a priority. We'll also beeline BW to try to snatch any copper sites. We don't have the hardware to take down Uruk and his supply of horses also alarms us. We'll try to keep him friendly and open borders ASAP.

T21-149
Chop out 2 settlers to settle the blocking cities. York is founded T65 taking marble and pigs. Nottingham follows on the south coast within range of the clams and corn in case we can take Uruk later. London starts building Stonehenge to provide a culture supply.

Tech path: BW, Wheel, Sailing, Writing, Alpha

T150
We explored Gil's half of the continent and saw our blocking move was a waste of time. There's a lot of jungle to clear, but once he starts cottaging all the grassland Gil's going to tech straight by us. So far he's flat out refusing to trade anything and SB is no friendlier.

We'll beeline COL and give him religion to see if that helps. We'll start devoting a few spy points and try to steal some techs instead.

T151-500AD
Our spies revealed we were in a race with Gil for COL. Burning the great prophet from Stonehenge on a Golden Age gives it to us with 2 turns to spare. We picked up Maths and Currency on the way and managed to steal IW at the second attempt. No iron to be seen of course. After gifting some techs to SB we've managed to make a few trades and backfill the minor religious stuff.

I spent a while wondering whether to beeline Liberalism or Optics and decided that finding other civs will help more since we have techs to trade. We're about 30 turns away from being able to build a caravel. The larger cities have started to hit happy caps at about 8 or 9 pop so I built the Hanging Gardens in London.

No GP farm so far and only the 1 prophet popped. This is definitely the weakest part of my game. I marked a spot for it but always seemed to have some other immediate priority.

Overall I'm reasonably happy. 1st in score (just) and keeping up in tech. I just hope the caravels will reveal some room for peaceful expansion as I don't think I have good enough production resource to build the rocket first.

Spare the rod; spoil the child. nokem.

JerichoHill · Mar 25, 2008

Found 1 turn later for better position, like many of you. I found Yura quickly, saw his land, wanted it. Since he had only 1 warrior defending, I focus on building warriors (4), to ensure a victory. I also eye his worker.

I warrior-rush Sil. I capture Yura and destroy Gilga in 2800 BC. I now have two cities, and two workers. YAY!

I found York in 1575 BC for 3 cities, between my two that I have.

I get confused, nay, I found it, in 775 BC

I build the Oracle in 600 BC and CS Sling, and revolt to Bureaucracy.

I build the Pyramids in Yura, revolt to Organized Religion and Representation, in 425 BC

I found Nottingham in 200 BC

I get two random events in the early AD years, A champion and a bonus to my library.

I found Middleburg in 100 AD

I complete the Hanging Gardens in Yura in 160AD. Yura is going to be a GP Farm.

I found Hastings in 205 AD

I adopt Caste System in 325 AD

I found Taoism. Revolt to Pacifism sometime in this period.

I complete the Parthenon in Yura. It also has 5 Great Scientists, Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, and Parthenon, plus the Pacifist bonus. About 100 GPP a turn.

At 500 AD, I am filling in the continent. I currently have seven cities. I am getting a huge amount of GPP from Yura, and will get more soon. I expect about 150 GPP a turn after I get the National Epic my other cities are expanding outwards. My cities are focused on settlers and gold production except for Yura. I plan on attacking outwards once I get to Rifling.

PutCashIn · Mar 25, 2008

Being a pacifist kiwi, I didnt rush Gilgy, so around 1ad, he attacked I, with vultures as the strongest unit, followed very quickly by war elephants.

I had managed to get a warrior past him, so I saw his land was going to help him out more than my terrain would help I.

Being a pacifist builder kiwi, he had more troops.

So I went to slavery, and started whipping.

I finished whipping around 1800AD, lol, but as that is beyond the scope of this spoiler, it can wait.

Needless to say, it was an immensely challenging battle, I pillaged for the win, and in the final spoiler I will explain this and be asking everyones help for how to make the EXTREME comeback, also how to recover from 1300 years of slavery

Spare the rod indeed, bad boy gilgamesh!

DuncanIdaho v.1 · Mar 26, 2008

Contender save.

I settled in location, and beelined AH by researching hunting first; I built a worker. By the time AH was done, I had the worker built and he worked the pigs and then the gold. Then it was research BW for the chops and the copper.

By this time my warrior had found Uruk, and had seen the great location it had. My warrior edged around Uruk, saw the copper when it popped, and realized what an ugly thing Gilgamesh could be. So, I dow'ed as soon as his worker could be stolen, escorted him back to London, and chopped out five more warriors and a couple of archers for good measure. When I had four warriors at Gil's gates, I attacked versus his one warrior, lost two warriors, and claimed Uruk for myself in 2575BC. Bwahahahaha.

I turned Uruk into a GP farm and sought to build lots of wonders, while fogbusting. Popped a goody hut in the jungle south of Uruk with a warrior, and three angry barbs came at him. I thought he was done, but he was on a jungle hill and they all died! That was a tense moment.

I built Stonehenge, Oracle (CoS-->confucianism), Parthenon, Gr. Library. Also founded Taoism (220AD) and Christianity (385AD). By 415AD I had popped four GP's from Uruk - one prophet for the confucian shrine, and three scientists (two Academies and a GA, which allowed me to revolt to confucianism, Caste, and Pacifism - +90GPP's in Uruk during this period!)

I wasn't able to trade too many techs with Sitting Bull, as I was ahead of him for the most part, and he just didn't want to give up the goods most of the time. Jerk.

My early game, I felt, was pretty strong. I could have founded a few more cities, and cottage spammed more, but I did what I set out to do. I had about six cities by 500AD? My notes don't say.

MacBalt · Mar 26, 2008

Contender Save. Founded London 2NE of start (to get corn, coast & 2 gold). Looking for a domination win, as I haven't done that on BTS yet.

I had it all planned out. It was going to be such a brilliant strategy. I would research through Metal Casting on my own, get a machinery slingshot from the Oracle, and then begin dominating my nearby enemies with absurdly early crossbows while at the same time bulbing the maritime techs and building a fleet to span the globe. It was going to be great... :rolleyes:

Surprisingly, everything went according to plan for many years. I got machinery from the Oracle in 1325 BC (turn 107). A great scientist provided Optics in 160 AD. Astronomy was sure to come before 1000 AD too. I was psyched! Of course, my warrior had stumbled across Gilgamesh way back in 2875 BC, but I didn't bother to try to take him out because, I thought, "Ha! Let the the pesky little blighter build a few cities so they'll be ripe and ready for my crossbowmen! (snicker snicker snicker)." I'll just keep him from getting too uppity by stealing a few workers. :cool:

Even that went well. I fought four "worker wars" with Gilgamesh between 2775 BC (turn 49) and 55 AD (turn 177). The worker steals were so successful I never had to build any workers beyond the first one I'd popped way back in 3400 BC (at least one of those wars netted three or four in one go). Life was fine - all the way up until 550 BC (turn 138) when I finally researched Iron working and found out that some sadistic SOB forgot to put iron on our starting continent. :dubious:

My precious crossbowmen refused to show up at role call the next turn and I'm afraid I then vomited a string of rather colorful language in the general direction of Dynamic Spirit... (sorry DS). :trouble:

Oh well. By 460AD, when I finally got around to challenging Gilgamesh in a war of conquest (using axemen instead of crossbowmen, alas! :cry:

), he had of course produced an army of Vultures to make life difficult for me. Ah well... so much for my great early domination strategy! On the other hand, my caravels proved the world was round in 430 AD (turn 202) and began meeting other trading partners by 310 AD (turn 194). Maybe something could be salvaged from this yet...

Here are a few more details, if anyone is interested.

Spoiler :

kcd_swede · Mar 26, 2008

Contender save,settled 1W. Had worker same turn as AH and things seemed to be going my way. Then trying to settle the corn, I saw some hungry wolves that needed feeding. I think they really enjoyed eating my settler and its escort.

Now I am really in a bind, way behind and Gilga looking greedily at my land. Still salvagable I think. By the time I did settle that corn, Gigla had built towards me and had me blocked in with his 3 cities. Bythe time he DOW'd me, he had 3vultures and 4 chars adjacent to York defended by one axe, one archer, and one spear. He wins that attack I think I retire in disgust. But oddly, he killed the axe, but lost the rest of his stack (except 2 chars who withdrew). I guess protective is not entirely useless trait after all. I even had enough hp left on the spear to mop up his chars. Now would be a good time to counter attack (well, building an army takes time but I was already going in that direction anyhow). We traded cities back and forth for a long time before I realized there just was no way to beat him down. By 500AD, I traded for peace and hope there is somebody out there who isn't way ahead. Sitting Bull is behind me, so that gave me some hope to continue this farce. Time to start making Gilga my bestfriend.

JerichoHill · Mar 26, 2008

Because of Gilga's nice starting city location, I think it was optimal to knock him out quickly.

hellwitch · Mar 26, 2008

Contender save.
I've took Gilga capitol. I've build the oracle for MC and the GL later. I've got Col too. at ~150-200 AD i've got Astro. The stupid thing was that i didn't got enough troop at that moment so i lost 200 years to build good WElephant army with some Cats. At 500AD i had just captured my first transcontinental enemy capitol.

The unrevealed question for me is what is the optimal city number for Astro conquest. I've got 5 this game before Astro and except Gilga's capitol(a moster city) there were lack of hammers. I didn't have army when i got Astro mainly because the lack of hammer rich sites and because Gilga's capitol was busy with GL and HE.

MarkM · Mar 26, 2008

Cabledawg said:
I would have thought more people went for the CS sling. The double gold seemed like a no brainer to me. I got the sling around turn 107. I whipped a Library while heading towards the sling. I also got a couple of settlers out as well.

I did, but haven't had time to write up a spoiler yet. Have no idea what turn # I completed Oracle, but it was definitely still BC; even had to hold back on finishing oracle til CoL research was finished. Not only CS sling, but nearly beelined writing & then ran scientist specialists in my second city for 50 turns to pop a GS and build an academy in London (working gold) also sometime in BC. Also got Pyramids & GL & eventually took out Gil, after intentionally keeping him & his one city around through most of BC in order to let him build a bunch of workers for me to steal. I think Gil built > 75% of my work force for me

Details to come. Unfortunately my big issue is I think I expanded too quickly -- didn't think that would be such an issue on Price & with early courthouses -- and still haven't been able to get caravels, so I have no one to trade with & my economy sucks, a vicious cycle which is making it take longer to get astro ...

ADDED: It's interesting and useful news to read that SB will tech trade. To tell you the truth if I had read these spoilers right after 500 AD instead of now (after playing further past that) that would have affected how I played, and the spoiler would have helped me. I considered going for Alpha but decided not to only because I was not sure if there would be a point (if SB would trade). Just saying that spoiler would have helped me after 500AD, if I hadn't already kept playing before reading it.

adrianj · Mar 26, 2008

Adventurer save. Even though I'm generally comfortable on Prince difficulty, I'm sure there will be a twist in there to make it much tougher.

My guess here is that we're playing a fractal map, and that we are the civ all alone. So I'm going to target a cultural victory, hoping to found as many religions as possible. My game plan at this stage to have a go at either buddhism or hinduism by researching mysticism first, Oracle my way to Code of Laws, and aim to pop a GS for philosophy and a GP for theology.

If my adventurer scout finds another civ the gameplan will likely change and I'll head down a more military route.

Founded London 1W, while scout heads further W and warrior NE to scope out possible second city site near corn. Building another warrior since I want London to grow to net more commerce targetting early religions.

Plans changed when I met Gilgamesh and Sitting Bull. I manage to found hinduism, and research BW to discover close by copper. I smell an axe rush, although gilgamesh is considered the second most powerful in the world. I also got lucky and had a forest grow right next to London =)
Despite having contact with Sitting Bull, I don't know where he is.

With 4 axes and 4 warriors I set out for Gilgamesh, who has founded a city in my direction. I take Kish but fear I haven't got enough to finish him in a timely manner, so sue for peace. He also has copper and horses. Once I have catapults I take Uruk and Eridu, but this has hardly been the fast conquest of my continent I would have liked. Gameplan from here is to let Gilgamesh do my rexxing for me and pick off his cities one by one with catapults. From there I should have a solid foundation for a space victory. I've always been a builder at heart.

Lord Jimbob · Mar 26, 2008

It's been a couple of years' hiatus since I played a GOTM, but I have been playing Civ4 and BTS for a while. This was my first game at Prince level and I was surprised to hear about others taking out Sumeria early with a warrior rush- I am used to enemy civ capitols having several archers on a hill LOL!

I settled in an unusual spot apparently- I gambled on more resources and an early production and defensive boost on the plains hill 2 tiles SW (I was really paranoid about those barbs on the challenger save)- being able to work the pig hill immediately was a nice plus as well IMO. I was happy that it turned out to be a coastal spot, but disappointed in the lack of seafood resources...

As for techs I pursued agriculture->AH->hunting->archery initially. I hadn't decided on a victory strategy early on and focused early efforts on exploration and security. I did DOW Gilgamesh in 3150bc after stalking his worker so I could snatch it. I didn't want to stop developing in order to make a concerted effort to wipe out Sumeria, instead choosing to terrorize the Sumerian countryside, preventing Gil from connecting resources or developing any tiles. I did eventually dispose of him later in the game when I needed more room to expand, but I had to wait until I had catapults close to 1ad before I started taking his cities.

I decided to pursue a cultural victory in 1025bc, thinking nobody else would really consider it (learned of gauntlet condition belatedly!) as we are isolated from the early religion founders (Gil did not found any and I do wish in hindsight I had tried to found some earlier). I did found confucianism and LB'd Philosophy with a GS for dibs on Taoism, and Theology with a GP for Christianity. I decided to make London, Nottingham (a few tiles to the east on the river) and Uruk (GP farm) my 3 culture cities.

early wonders:
missed Stonehenge by 2 turns- that was a bit painful...
Pyramids 35bc
Hanging Gardens 430ad

BOTM 04 First Spoiler

Fear him of the pink tie

BOTM04 First Spoiler

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Jag är Viking!½

Bedrock of Knowledge

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