BOTM 04 First Spoiler

[Half Nelson]

Churchill again for England in GOTM!!!!:- why not one of our money-making queens? As I only play GOTM and have not yet got to grips with BTS, I though I would try out the lovely test map provided by JungleIII (many thanks) for experience. Here my strategy panned out brilliantly (SH, Oracle/MC, Mids, Theology lightbulb and AP by 0AD)erhaps I’m not so bad as the GOTM maps make me appear! I approach the real thing with renewed confidence and set the masterplan in motion. Move SW2 for the hill (coastal capital with river:- reasonable spot). Worker – Settler – Warrior (research BW/Hunting/AH). My warriors explore cautiously (LOTS of bears and lions afoot) and meet Gilgamesh (a new foe) but no sign of SB anywhere on our landmass ????!!!!! Settle York on NE coast for the corn and 2 gold as planned, ignoring the huge forest to W (first mistake). Surprisingly outchopped to SH by someone (2050BC!), switch to slavery but still lose out to Oracle (1000BC) by a single turn, largely due to a rapid series of nasty events in London (pig virus, mine disaster and slave revolt:- give a man a break!). Both ToA and GW long gone by this time, indicating serious Wonder competition from somewhere:- why did I ignore the forests? Settle Hastings for bronze to N and Nottingham to E for marble/pig, again ignoring said forest. Gilga looks fairly well established to SW so will need time to take him out. Establish Canterbury on isthmus to W for clams/copper/stone (380BC) but still lose out to Pyramids in 185BC (can’t ever remember losing so many Wonder races at Prince before). Ironworking reveals no iron anywhere on the whole continent, complicating matters even further! My military need thus prioritises ivory for Eles, so I take a galley containing a settler and archer around Greater Sumeria and settle Coventry way S on the lovely coastal spot covering copper and 4 ivory. Maintenance costs spiral but in 10AD I discovered COL for Confucianism and very welcome courthouses. By 500AD I am on par with Gilga and SB in score and Tech, but I sense that others far away may be significantly ahead of us ………… (gulp!)

 

[dalamb]

I started too late to finish in time to submit, so went back and played around with several different ways of starting the Adventurer-level game. In my original game I waited for a second city before producing warriors to go after Gilgamesh, and he had archers by the time I got to him. I obviously forgot the "rush" in "warrior rush" There was no trouble getting 5 warriors to take on his single defender from the initial city. In another alternative where I tried a workers steal first (on turn 50), I didn't have enough warriors yet to take his city, and he had many defending warriors by turn 66 when I was ready to attack him. So, did anyone manage both a worker steal and an early conquest via warrior rush?

For those people who started 1W to work both golds -- I avoided that because it looked like it would take a long time for the city to create the first worker, and a long time to grow, given the pigs aren't available right away. In all the variants I tried, I went for a city just south of the corn, which grew fairly fast (worker first, farm the corn, then farm one grassland time); it also had trees for chopping out the first settler. So, if you started 1W, did you have a lot of trouble with city growth rate?

I used Uruk to generate settlers and workers. I tried out two different options for my first settler: southeast of Uruk for the copper, pigs and marble, and far west for the stone for wonders (pyramid particularly). For some reason I completely forgot about a city to work the 2nd gold, so my science was far behind where it should have been.

There was a Tribal Village? Where?

Southwest in the jungle. It gave me a puny Warrior.

Hmm. Why did the Challenger save have a tribal village when the Adventurer didn't?

 

[Lexad]

The hut was SE in the jungle, almost at the end of Gilgamesh's peninsula. It gave me warrior.

 

[jesusin]

So, did anyone manage both a worker steal and an early conquest via warrior rush?

A rush is a rush. In particular, a warrior rush must be done particularly quickly, lest the enemy gets an archer and then all your initial strategy is a blunder. So I don't think anyone did that. Some of the succesful warrior rushes have reported that a worker was born the turn they took the city. Others took the city even sooner.

So, if you started 1W, did you have a lot of trouble with city growth rate?

I beelined AH, so no, no growth problem.

Hmm. Why did the Challenger save have a tribal village when the Adventurer didn't?

The adventurer had the same GH, but you allowed Gilga to get it.

I Axe rushed Uruk, so I had the time to take a warrior E and S of Gilga before his border expanded. That's how I got to the hut to claim my reward: 3 barb warriors.

 

[dalamb]

Thanks for the clarification. I explored SE with the initial warrior, and maybe either took a suboptimal route or was too slow; the Adventurer-level extra scout might have got there a teeny bit faster.

I guess I should have said "did 1W have slow growth" in the context of trying to work the gold ASAP -- the +4 from pastured pigs offsets the -2*2 from gold, so there's only (I think) a 2food/turn from a grassland for growth until you have time to farm a bit. I suppose people grew to the happy cap before working the gold? or at least before working the second gold?

In one of my experiments I warrior rushed Uruk and found 1 warrior, 1 more created the turn I declared, and took over the city easily. On another, I found something like 4 with 2 more created by the time I moved adjacent to the city, and couldn't afford to attack (just went for pillaging). I didn't keep track of the exact circumstances for each, but was surprised by the variability (still working on learning "early rush" warmongering -- though I was fast enough with worker/warrior/... in the capital, postponing 2nd city, but only sometimes).

I imagine these are all naive questions/comments.

 

[Mesix]

I realize that the time for submittalshas expired. BOTM #5 was my first game of the month, and I failed to achieve victory. In preparation for future BOTM games, I downloaded the earlier four, and I am playing them as though I am able to submit...not reading the spoilers...etc.

My current game is at about turn 1500. I took out Sumeria early (turn 48) and had my second city.

My initial thought was a warrior rush sine the game is set to Prince and the AI does not get archers to defend. I queued up 4 warriors. Upon looking at the tech tree I realized that I could get archery in 9 turns and went for an unconventional archer rush. After building one warrior and one archer, I got finished researching bronzeworking and switched to slavery. I whipped my second archer and had overflo finish a third in one turn. This formed a really nice attack stack of two warriors (one built and one that I started with) and three archers before turn 40. It took a few turns to move them into position.

London was able to build the Oracle which I used to slingshot metal working for the forge and colosus. Since I was getting prophet points from the Oracle, I decided to have London specialize to eventually pop a great prophet later on. Later in the game I would add the the Apostolic Palice and Spital Miniot using great engineers that popped from Urak.

As my civilization developed on the now vacant continent, I had a couple of lucky occurances. A mine near Urak found iron and then the same hill got the tin event for an additional +2 production (a total of 8). That coupled with the four food resources made Urak into a very nice GP farm and wonder producer. I was able to build the Colosus, the Great Library, and the Parthenon early on. The four food resources allowed me to run two scientists and an engineer and eventually more scientists when I adopted caste system.

Thy third city, York, was founded to the southeast of Urak to connect up the bronze. When I discovered code of laws, Confusanism was founded in York. This made it an ideal site for my eventual commerce city where I plan to build Wall street to take advantage of my holy city.

I was able to outpace the other civs to Optics, and proved that the world was round. I was also able to use my boats to spread Confusanism accross one of the other continents (which I will not give any details about since this is a up to 500 AD thread). I will say that I am in like third or forth place score wise die to some slow expansion on my part.

As I reached the end of my playing session and saved the game, I became the first to liberalism and used it to pop Astronomy early. I plan to build up a decent sized attak force and take advantage of my ability to carry my soldiers accross deep water. I am also building universities in my cities in plan to construct Oxford University in Urak where I have the Great Library and several settled great scientists.

I will edit this post with a screen shot and a little more info when I get the time...