BOTM 08 First Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 08 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 08, 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.

So how was your first experience with an unknown map type AND unrestricted leaders? Did you adjust your early strategy as a result? And of course we had the unanticipated glitch with the number of turns - did that impact your pre-500AD strategy?

 

[ngraner42]

I can't turn down a chance for first post. I went wonder happy and am in trouble due to being tiny, but I continuously maintained the tech lead.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

I went wonder happy too, that was my goal within a goal.

I missed out on Great Lighthouse... that would have been a real boost.

Got Oracle, Pyramids, Temple of Artemis, Great Library, Colossus and Apostolic Palace. I think that was all I had by roughly 500ad.

I settled 6 cities, managed to get 1 city on the "mainland" with four food resources in the fat cross and 1 city on the eastern islands.

I don't really have any friends on the mainland. But most of the leaders were still good for tech trades even at cautious and annoyed.

Plan to go to war with Ghengis to grow my foothold on the mainland. I'm yet to have a successful warmonger game in the BOTM series since the weaker seige, better AI and big stacks tend to thwart my efforts. I'll see what I can do this time round.

 

[Erkon]

My purpose with this game was to explore the BtS features, while striving for a reasonable quick win. I met one lion on the starting continent, but no barbs. As of 10 AD, I had built another four cities and was running 17 cottages, since I had no intention for conquest/domination (which takes too much RL-time). A settler is on the way to the NW part of the mainlands. Gengis was very slow to expand north.

I was not quick to explore, so it took a while to meet the others, which delayed my tech trade. I was very surprised that I could quite quickly trade my self up to tech parity and later into tech lead. Why did the AI tech so slowly?

The Oracle was built elsewhere 425 BC, and I completed Parthenon 410 BC and GLib 320 BC. I missed CoL with two turns Academy was built 185 BC.

As of 10 AD I have (challenger save):
38 pop
97 bpt + 5 gpt at 60% research.
25 tech including Metal Casting, Monarchy and CoL.

PS: I noticed the 500 turn limit at the very start and thought it was odd, but then I forgot about it, since it had no effect what so ever in my game.

I liked the unknown map ALOT but I think the unrestricted leader setting was very confusing (music in contact screen was "wrong" and I constantly had to take a look who the Ottomans was etc )

 

[reuster]

This starting location was a builder's dream A continent all to ourselves, but with AI's in galley range for tech trading. As a builder, I thoroughly enjoyed it. This was my first ever XOTM and first time playing Emperor, so I decided to go with adventurer, as I knew I would make a lot of mistakes in forming my strategy.

Settled 1 SE to get all 3 food resources in Paris. Settled Orleans E to get marble and gold, but turned out to be just out of range of iron. By 500AD, i think I ended up with 5 cities on home continent, 2 on eastern islands, and 2 on the mainland.

Like ngraner and Jimmy, wonders are often my source of immediate gratification in this game. As such, before 500AD I had stonehenge, colossus, great lighthouse, parthenon, shwedagon paya, and sistine chapel in Paris and great library in Orleans. Stonehenge came in amazingly handy for taking the north shore of the mainland from barbs and for blocking Khan's expansion. I was using the pyramids as a wonder bank in one of my marginal cities for a long time, and when I finally realized at like 300AD that nobody had built them yet (did this happend to anyone else?), I started building it for real but got scooped by Frederick in 355. In retrospect, pyramids would have been really helpful for the strategy I chose later.

That strategy is also the reason I lost the tech lead. I realized slightly before 500AD that a cultural victory was my fastest shot. I never even considered conquest and domination (I don't have enough time), religious was a long shot since I didn't get hinduism till late (I guess that's a disadvantage of starting on an island...), diplomatic would have required a lot more conquest than I was up for, and I didn't have enough production cities for space. So around 300AD I decided to follow a modified-Godotnut cultural strategy, minus the pyramids (doh!) I can't say much more about it because most of it took place post-500, but if you are familiar with the strategy you know why I lost the tech lead. (be warned: reading Godotnut's guide will pretty much tell you how I played the 2nd half of the game, but it obviously contains no spoilers about this particular game)

Things I'm happy with:
-I cottaged more aggressively than I ever have, and I was surprised how well it paid off without hurting my wonder production. Go industrious!

-I learned in this game how to effectively use whipping and chopping, two features I had previously ignored because they felt vaguely wrong (you expect me to wantonly sacrifice people AND cut down trees?!?! ) That's what I get for injecting morality into a computer game. Don't even talk to me about s

-I actually chose a strategy before the endgame. Usually I just play for fun, bouncing from mini-goal (build that wonder) to mini-goal (take that guy's capital) until the "100 turns left!" comes up and tells me to get off my butt and start winning.

Things I'd change:

-Basically, take everything I learned and apply it further: cottage more aggressively (for a peaceful strategy), whip/chop more effectively, and choose a strategy earlier.

-Actually choose a state religion. I decided not to have one because the AIs were evenly split between buddhism and hinduism and I didn't have nearly the military to defend against any invasion. This decision worked out ok because I built the shwedagon paya and ran free religion starting in 310, but I can't always count on that in the future.

What are your opinions on this situation? If you're a builder with minimal defense stuck between 2 dominant world religions, do you convert or remain neutral?

How did the religious scene shake up in everyone's games?
For me, buddhism: Frederick, Joao, and Peter and hinduism: Pericles, Hammurabi, and Khan. The buddhists were more powerful, but the hindus were my 2 neighbors

Also, Erkon, have you picked a strategy yet if you're not going conquest/domination?

 

[GluZeDan]

I took the contender save.I'm beginning in emperor level, but I can recognise a crappy start, and that was one of the crappiest I ever made in every level.
The worst part was when the biggest bear ever seen eated all my poor warriors in a few turns and made the forest from east of Paris, a legendary place where anyone ever go...

I decided to lose a few turn and choose the best spot for Paris, and I finally settled 2E of the starting spot, near the river). It was a crappy decision because that made me lost a lot of space on the island. Add to that the very late techs tarde.. Wow that was hard.
As a consequence, I only have 5 cities in 10AD,with 3 on the main island (but 3 nice ones) and 2 on the island beside, almost ready to steal the 6th to barbs..highly hoping that Pericles of the Ottomans (lol) don't arrive before me to it.
I was already the last of the map in points...about 400...Not good..
Only 22 techs in 10AD and starting to search Aesthetics in 14 turns.. but one good point is that I was the first to Thelogy, so it made be believe in it again (I confess I what really close to abord the game seeing how crapy I was lol).
I was already decided to try the cultural victory in 10AD, because it was the last and only way I could imagine to make the difference at this point, with the huge late I was taking in everything.

 

[orb]

I started my game settling Paris 1NE...Not sure what game strategy to play, my only immediate goal being to cottage like mad. - In previous XOTM games my economy always crashes in higher level games.

Explored and discovered I was alone on a decent sized island. - Oversea's land was visible to the NW, E and SW....That's it strategy decided. - Lack of immediate military threat means I should go cultural.

So I needed to grab religions, keep my economy going (so no REX or big military), and try to pick up the tasty cultural wonders.

Founded Orleans 2375BC
Got SH in Paris in 2075BC
Got Judaism in Orleans in 1975BC. (This will help with temples/ cathedrals)
Got Oracle in Paris in 1500BC - Took Monarchy. Immediate switch to Hereditary rule.
Founded Lyon in 1675BC.
Switched to Organised Religion 1150BC...(Was this a mistake? - I could have switched in 1975BC but forgot, although I hadn't spread Judaism yet so I'm guessing no organised bonus.)

Paris was a G Prophet centre used to lighbulb tech.

Got Temp of Art in Orleans in 925BC...To keep the economy going.

In 800BC my first prophet was born in Paris...I wanted to use him to lightbulb Theocracy so held him back so that I could research the earlier required tech.
Lightbulbed Theocracy in 575BC to get Christianity...OK 2 religions, 3 cities..Plan was to build missionaries and spread the word.

Picked up the Apostolic Palace in 50BC (more to prevent an AI getting it and messing up my game like previous BOTM than for any other benefit. - I didn't think I could influence the world enough for the Religious win.)

Then just before the spoiler limit, founded Rheims (city 4 in 85AD) and Tours (city 5 in 400AD) on the Eastern island. - This got me the silver which I planned to trade to keep up relations with the neighbours.

At 500AD I needed at least 1 more city to allow cathedrals, I've got 3 possible sites on my island, but I wont found the city yet as I dont want the maintenance costs. - I'm getting on well with the neighbours (except Peter - who I used the Apostolic to block trade)

The plan...continue to spread the word (both of them), build more cultural buildings in my 3 starter cities, get the Parthenon for great person production bonus, get Shwedagon Paya and implement Pacifism and Caste system with theatres to run as many Artist specialists as possible whilst trying not to annoy to many of the AI nations. -

I'll also head down the standard Liberalism tech route as per the advice of many experienced players.

 

[Erkon]

...great library in Orleans ... pyramids would have been really helpful for the strategy I chose later.

... diplomatic would have required a lot more conquest than I was up for, and I didn't have enough production cities for space...

Also, Erkon, have you picked a strategy yet if you're not going conquest/domination?

Religious VC was not in my mind, and neither was cultural (which you normally decide on VERY early i.e. before second city since it has a major effect on city placement, tile improvement and tech path ). I was open to both Space and Diplo. Remind me in the final spoiler and I will tell you how I was thinking

To fully utilize the Great Library, you could/should also build the National Epic in the city for the extra GPP from GLib. The best location for such a city is next to a lot of food resources so that you can run specialists (something you don't want to do in your capital while running Bureaucracy), and next to production tiles that you can share with another city. It is usually good to share a couple of tiles (5 or 6) between your cities so that you always work the shared cottages. Very important in cultural games so that your legendary cities can work pre-worked cottages

Diplomatic does not require conquest, but intimate knowledge of how to manipulate AI-relations . And production is not a problem for space race (research is the most important), since you can easily turn a couple of cities to giant production centers (lumber mills + workshops + factories etc). Typically you build three new cities around 1200 AD, and skip all research + gold + happiness + religious buildings, and these cities can build your parts while your core cities does the research.

Good luck in your game. Hope you win!

 

[Htadus]

After meeting all the AI's it was very clear as to the type of map this was. So I planned to use that information for one last try at mostly peaceful Diplomatic game. Only time will tell how and if it worked out.

Nice job with the map DynamicSpirit. I will post more details after dinner. This should have been an English Civ game.

 

[karmina]

...and next to production tiles that you can share with another city. It is usually good to share a couple of tiles (5 or 6) between your cities so that you always work the shared cottages.

Uhm...
This is not civ2. The inner circle of a city can only be used by that city, and overlapping/"shared" tiles can only be worked by the city which was founded first (if both cities belong to your empire).
Or am I missing something? Is it possible to "give" tiles to other cities? Heck I don't even know how to abandon cities (except by razing, on the turn I captured them).

 

[JungleIII]

Uhm...
This is not civ2. The inner circle of a city can only be used by that city, and overlapping/"shared" tiles can only be worked by the city which was founded first (if both cities belong to your empire).
Or am I missing something? Is it possible to "give" tiles to other cities? Heck I don't even know how to abandon cities (except by razing, on the turn I captured them).

Erkon is just noting how you can click a tile 'off' of production in one city and turn it 'on' in another overlapping fat cross city. Very handy when one city gets up to enough culture points it isn't needing any more, and the second city is a little short to complete the 50,000 in time...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Uhm...
This is not civ2. The inner circle of a city can only be used by that city, and overlapping/"shared" tiles can only be worked by the city which was founded first (if both cities belong to your empire).
Or am I missing something? Is it possible to "give" tiles to other cities? Heck I don't even know how to abandon cities (except by razing, on the turn I captured them).

You can't abandon cities other than on the turn you capture it or it flips to you - that was a civ3 feature that was killed in civ4, presumably (and sensibly IMO) to ensure you'd be careful about what cities you found/capture.

You can however change which city works a tile. If you look in the city screen, you'll see that some tiles are slightly greyed out - the ones that don't belong to that city, by virtue of belonging to another city (or another civ) or being outside that city's workable area. You can click on any of the greyed out tiles that are within the fat cross but controlled by another of your cities - that transfers control to 'this' city - you'll see it un-greys, so this city can use it and the other city now can't. Do the same thing in the other city's screen to transfer control back.

 

[whb]

Edit: oops, someone beat me to it.

(note - I'm not competing in this BOTM because of the Steam upgrade problem)

 

[Erkon]

Uhm...
This is not civ2. The inner circle of a city can only be used by that city, and overlapping/"shared" tiles can only be worked by the city which was founded first (if both cities belong to your empire).
Or am I missing something? Is it possible to "give" tiles to other cities? Heck I don't even know how to abandon cities (except by razing, on the turn I captured them).

It is possible to transfer tiles from the inner circle as well.

You can abandon cities located on other continents i.e. cities not located on the continent where you have your capital by liberating them. This is normally done in the F1-screen (domestic page), but the HOF advanced domestic page seams to hide the feature in some sense. Just press ALT-F1 and you get the choice. More details can be found in the Civilopedia.

 

[karmina]

You can however change which city works a tile. If you look in the city screen, you'll see that some tiles are slightly greyed out - the ones that don't belong to that city, by virtue of belonging to another city (or another civ) or being outside that city's workable area. You can click on any of the greyed out tiles that are within the fat cross but controlled by another of your cities - that transfers control to 'this' city - you'll see it un-greys, so this city can use it and the other city now can't. Do the same thing in the other city's screen to transfer control back.

Wow, I simply didn't know this, after playing the game for a lot more than 1000 hours... Thanks alot for the info!

Anyway, here's my (short) spoiler until 500AD:

I settled 1 NE, and the 2nd city between gold/marble
~2000 BC: gems pop up in Paris' BFC! (that should make up for the rather bad city location decision)
1475 BC: MC slingshot
850 BC: Pyramids (heavily chopped, waited until Mathematics)
650 BC: met fred&jao
290 BC: Great Lighthouse (missed the Colossus though)
155 BC: Great Library
65 BC : ... 2nd Great Person = 2nd Great Prophet in a row, both times at <25% chance. Both settle down in Paris.
355 AD: Mausoleum of Maussolos
385 AD: 1st Academy, finally...
490 AD: declared war on Genghis with 5 maces

By 500 AD I have a surprisingly comfortable tech lead, with Genghis the single one being hopelessly behind. What I messed up is proper expansion; Just 3 cities on the home continent yet, and 1 on the northern coast of the southern continent. I had planned to capture a good barb city there, but Genghis was quicker. Well, he'll lose a couple of cities soon...

 

[kcd_swede]

HI,

Contender save: I was all planned to make a rush for SH, because of DeGaulles bonuses. However, I settled 1NE and immediately became suspicious that this was a small island... probably archipelagoes or such. Cool. Change plan, screw SH and go for Pyr + Glib. Build order was worker>warrior>settler (starts at size 3). Early tech order: mining>BW>masonry (for pyr, but with marble right there for Orleans to take even better!).
Then finally AH, next fishing and sailing (since by now I know we are on an island) then beeline to alpha + lit for GLib, with pause for pttery because I don't want eco collapse like all my other emperer level games. I take that back... I added myst + ph before the alpha route because I wanted Oracle too... greedy bastard that I am. Orleans builds worker while pyr is built in Paris. Orleans builds wb and warrior while growing, size 3 its settler time. Then Orleans startes on GLH. Lyons did a wb and a galley and the contact begins. First GP was a GS and he made an academy in Paris.
So by and by Paris has Pyr, GLib, Parth, Nat Epic, and even throw in ToA for fun. I think I did get Oracle, and took the most exp tech that was possible... definitely not a slingshot. And then race towards Liberalism running Representation. Very little whipping since slave revolts got me tired of that civic very fast. BTW, Orleans gets the Swedengone Paya, too. Not that I plan to use it, but it stops anyone else, I guess. But if I built units instead, I could have taken that barb city on the N of the mainland (4 chariots wasn't going to do it against 3 promoted archers, sorry to say). Ghengis took it, and I am denied the beachhead. This is starting to feel like other failed games, now, since in the late game I know the AI advantage is really big.

But maybe I'll think of something... there is an awful lot of black area between horizons, and I can't believe its all just water. Since DynamicSpirit is hopelessly romantic for the foregone days of the British empire (geographic similarities noted anyone?), those days when Britain really could claim to be Great... Well, lets just guess that there is something there worth a research path to Optics. If not, I'm truly f'd.

Oh... in case you are wondering, my goal is/was space victory. However, in light of the 1910 end date, I had to freak out and die. Then come up with a new plan for maybe a Cow. I will try for highest score at finish, and even killl to do it if I have to, and yes, I know I will have to.

 

[Htadus]

Since DynamicSpirit is hopelessly romantic for the foregone days of the British empire (geographic similarities noted anyone?), those days when Britain really could claim to be Great... Well, lets just guess that there is something there worth a research path to Optics. If not, I'm truly f'd.

Intersting Geography in deed.

Oh... in case you are wondering, my goal is/was space victory. However, in light of the 1910 end date, I had to freak out and die. Then come up with a new plan for maybe a Cow. I will try for highest score at finish, and even killl to do it if I have to, and yes, I know I will have to.

I have been reviewing some of the old games and find that Space may be possible still. I was hoping to go for UN but it is not a sure thing. So


At 500 AD I only have 5 cities and several usefull wonders. We know optics and heading to Liberalism with 17 turns for Education (GS I wanted ended being GE ). Never even started the Oracle. Got the Mids, TOA, GLH and GLib. We are Jewish and just got declared by Jewish Ganghis. I was sending 3 settlers to east so we can get a colony going.

You bastard Ganghis......well I could have given him 1800 gold he was asking. Oh yeah we do have a few Maces and Xbows and he has a bunch of swords and axes. I am not sure how well he is going to do.

 

[reuster]

Erkon said: To fully utilize the Great Library, you could/should also build the National Epic in the city for the extra GPP from GLib. The best location for such a city is next to a lot of food resources so that you can run specialists (something you don't want to do in your capital while running Bureaucracy), and next to production tiles that you can share with another city.

Thanks for the tips, Erkon! In retrospect, my city placement was inappropriate, though I think I made the best of what I had. The best location for the capital, by those criteria, would have either been by the marble/gold E or by the hills N/NW in range of the wheat/sheep. Those would have been good production/commerce capitals, leaving the coastal square 1 SE of start for a GP farm with tons of food. I'm learning a lot from this game.

Diplomatic does not require conquest, but intimate knowledge of how to manipulate AI-relations . And production is not a problem for space race (research is the most important), since you can easily turn a couple of cities to giant production centers (lumber mills + workshops + factories etc). Typically you build three new cities around 1200 AD, and skip all research + gold + happiness + religious buildings, and these cities can build your parts while your core cities does the research.

I guess if I could've built the UN first, it wouldn't have been a problem. What I meant by saying diplomatic would require too much conquest is that, assuming I didn't get the UN, I was not large enough to be first or second in population, so I would've had to roll over Khan or somebody first before being eligible for diplomatic. I'm also pretty bad at managing the AI

That space strategy is very handy indeed; I never thought of that. My only question is: where do you build those 3 cities, assuming the map is mostly settled by 1200AD? Do you just fill in the gaps within your own borders and donate tiles from existing cities?

Htadus said: We are Jewish and just got declared by Jewish Ganghis... You bastard Ganghis......well I could have given him 1800 gold he was asking. Oh yeah we do have a few Maces and Xbows and he has a bunch of swords and axes.

I know, right? Same thing happened to me. Khan has serious problems. I mean, he makes a demand from me when I'm at the top of the score list and he's at the bottom (though my power rating sucks), I had no religion for him to get mad at, and we had traded peacefully with open borders all along When I refuse, he declares, and ends up losing a city. He declared on me 2 more times throughout the game when he was more powerful. He would send units through my territory, and I would think "I'm screwed, he's gonna pillage all those towns in my culture city", but he never pillaged a single tile. Is that normal?

 

[Conquistador 63]

I was open to both Space and Diplo. Remind me in the final spoiler and I will tell you how I was thinking

Hmm, that surely sets up a tough benchmark for my game! Luckily, I took the contender save instead. I need all the help I can get to compensate my stupid decision to settle in place instead of getting a coastal capitol.

As of 10 AD, I had built another four cities and was running 17 cottages, since I had no intention for conquest/domination (which takes too much RL-time). A settler is on the way to the NW part of the mainlands. Gengis was very slow to expand north. We're roughly on the same page here, except I took 2 barb cities early AD, instead of settling them myself

I was not quick to explore, so it took a while to meet the others, which delayed my tech trade. I was very surprised that I could quite quickly trade my self up to tech parity and later into tech lead. Why did the AI tech so slowly?

All AI contacted from 1400BC to 1000BC. But I didn't beeline Alpha fast enough (only 650BC), when Joao already had it! I can't remember last time I was beat to Alpha on Emperor.

The Oracle was built elsewhere 425 BC, and I completed Parthenon 410 BC and GLib 320 BC. I missed CoL with two turns Academy was built 185 BC.

In my game I got SH 1675BC, GLh 215BC, GLib 20BC, Academy 35BC.

As of 10 AD I have (challenger save):
38 pop
97 bpt + 5 gpt at 60% research.
25 tech including Metal Casting, Monarchy and CoL.

30 pop (too much whipping?), not sure about bpt, but 27 techs (including the 2 I started with). CoL/CS in the pipeline. I bulbed Theo with 1st GP, all my cities are christian (non-missionary spread), but I was too chicken to convert and use OR.

I liked the unknown map ALOT but I think the unrestricted leader setting was very confusing (music in contact screen was "wrong" and I constantly had to take a look who the Ottomans was etc )

Same here. It makes me think that what really matters for the AI are their leaders traits/personality, not their civs UU/UB. Oh, and I get even more confused when many civs use roughly the same color - too many shades of green in this game.

 

[Erkon]

Thanks for the tips, Erkon! In retrospect, my city placement was inappropriate, though I think I made the best of what I had. The best location for the capital, by those criteria, would have either been by the marble/gold E or by the hills N/NW in range of the wheat/sheep. Those would have been good production/commerce capitals, leaving the coastal square 1 SE of start for a GP farm with tons of food. I'm learning a lot from this game.



I guess if I could've built the UN first, it wouldn't have been a problem. What I meant by saying diplomatic would require too much conquest is that, assuming I didn't get the UN, I was not large enough to be first or second in population, so I would've had to roll over Khan or somebody first before being eligible for diplomatic. I'm also pretty bad at managing the AI

That space strategy is very handy indeed; I never thought of that. My only question is: where do you build those 3 cities, assuming the map is mostly settled by 1200AD? Do you just fill in the gaps within your own borders and donate tiles from existing cities?...

My capital 1NE turned out to be reasonable good with four hills and one food resource. I usually use my capital as a research center, not production center, meaning that I try to run as many cottages as possible most of the time (with tile sharing during production intensive periods).

How do you manage NOT building the UN first? Just kidding . But if you beeline Mass Media and don't trade away radio, you should not have any problem, since the AI very rarely tech towards Mass Media. You can trade away Scientific Method, Physics and Electricity for any techs you need. It's all about uncompromising, ruthless play style where you don't deviate from whatever is needed for victory. It's of course part of the learning curve but you should always ask the question: will this building/unit enable me to win earlier? How much will this building boost my capacity? You don't build markets in production cities when running 70-80% research for example. You don't build temples if you don't have severe happiness problems. You don't build barracks in science cities etc.

I've had space race games where my most important production cities were founded post-astronomy. Else you steal cities from AIs (also possible with post-astro steals). Or you transform your own cities by replacing cottages with workshops.

The best is of course if you plan your production cities early on. Any city with hills, forests and food resources is suitable. Don't chop the trees though, since railroad does not provide bonus to workshops but it does for lumbermills.

Good luck!