BOTM 115 First Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 115 - Deity - First Spoiler to 1 AD

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 115, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD! Are you still alive? Have you met the AIs? Is there even any space left on the deity great plains map for you to put a 2nd city anywhere ?

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD. (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games

 

[georgjorge]

Before the game, I thought for a long time and decided I would try and go for peaceful expansion instead of early war. I would settle a Bureau cap by the western deer for at least six riverside cottages etc.

But it didn't work out that way.

On about turn 25 Wang settled exactly the spot I had fogbusted for my second city, on the same turn a barbarian city popped making my planned Bureau cap impossible. Next turn another barbarian city popped south of that.

I was ready to give up then.

But I remembered that a) barbs did not have Archery b) I was only six turns away from Bronze Working. And behold, all praise DynamicSpirit for making us settle right on top of Copper . So after my first Settler I whipped out four Axes and managed to take both Barbarian cities right before the AI got there.

The barbs actually showed excellent judgement with their settling. Just look at that city!

Spoiler :

With four cities at 2000BC, an obscene amount of food around, wimpy Pacal nearby and no great Bureau cap I switched plans: Mathematics - Masonry - Construction Crawled to Construction at 525BC, a few turns later those guys paid him a visit:

Spoiler :

At 1AD I have 8 cities (razed one of Pacal and let him keep the last one for peace). Economy is tanking, only kept afloat by a settled Scientist and putting overflow from Axes and Catapults into whatever wonder I can build for failgold.

Next stop: Machinery - Engineering. Then onto Sury, because he's in the way and because I am Hindu like Wang and he loves me for it. I probably won't ever get to something like Chemistry before the game ends, but if I can get to Civil Service for Samurai I might have a shot. Sury is the big obstacle with 11 cities, but Roosevelt behind him only has 4 so he could fall even while being technologically advanced.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Either this is an easier than average Deity or I've gotten lucky--probably both. I only have four cities (42 pop) but they're nice, and I have 29 techs. Civil Service next turn and I'll launch a Golden Age (with MoM) to switch civics and get into high gear for an assault on Pacal. Score is 993 (4th = last with Roose dead by the hand of Sury) vs Sury in 1st with 1986 and 12 cities, but he's behind in tech. Wang has 1466 with 7 cities, Pacal 1299 with 6.

The corn and pigs struck me as requiring a lot of time to set up. The river looked inviting for a Bureau cap and moving west would stake out more land (since we're on the right edge) so I gambled a bit and moved NW to the hill to get a view. Niiiice. I settled 3W1N on turn 2 with 3 deer and 10 forests (not including the deer), lotsa river squares for cottages, and 3 hills for eventual mines. With deer and fur, Hunting was all I needed--no need to bother with Ag or AH. I therefore beelined for Alphabet (1920 BC) and backfill-traded for about 10 techs. I also got lucky with huts: popped 3 with warriors, 126 gold, one of them just before Pacal.

City2 went south on the coast to grab crabs and fur. It's getting squished by Pacal's culture but hanging on, and the crabs are nice for health given my big cities. City3 went on the north shore of the little lake with 2 pigs, spices, and copper, one turn before Wang. City4 was settled by the barbs farther east on the sea shore with fish, whales, corn, and copper. Pacal's holkan knocked down the 4 barbs for me and I was able to take it with 2 warriors. Lucky lucky. That's now my Nat'l Epic city and will pump out Merchants during the upcoming Golden Age.

I lost the Oracle (after a late start) by about 4 turns but got the Great Lib. I built the Parthenon to within one turn and cashed in for fail gold. MoM went in the Nat'l Epic city. Sury has picked up most of the other Wonders and is going to be a monster if I don't hit him pretty soon. He and Roose were at war for a long time, apparently with Roose only having 1 city. He recently fell and Sury has been expanding everywhere, especially into the rich western hills.

I have a pretty good army built up (mostly axes and cats, with samurai next turn) and need maybe 5 more turns before I attack Pacal, who has MY horses. I hope to knock him down quickly, maybe vassalizing if I can get Feudalism in time. Then probably best to hit Sury before he runs away with it. Knights on the plains, and trebs etc for the hills? I like the (relatively) small map and fast pace of this game and might even beat the AI.

This game could have gone very wrong if I'd had less luck and gotten boxed in. Settling on T2 slowed things, and then I didn't get BW until after Alphabet, so no whipping to speed settlers. I barely beat Wang to a spot, and the one by Pacal was probably also close. The juicy barb city would likely have fallen to Pacal if he'd had more than one unit over there.

 

[georgjorge]

Wow, looks like a strong game from you so far! Hope you take the battle to the AI.

I thought about moving the Settler but figured that I would need to be fast with my first cities to not get boxed in, so I stayed on the plains hill. Of course, if I had known the barbs would settle them for me...

Three huts? I counted myself lucky to get one hut (for a map ) one turn before an AI scout, don't know what I would have to do to pop three on this map.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Three huts?

Yeah, like I said, lucky. But after the butt kicking I took in the previous Immortal game I guess I was due. Sounds like you have a good game with 8 cities!

 

[LowtherCastle]

Sheesh. I didn't get no such luck. 1 hut. No barb cities with 4 warrior defenders. Surrounded by AIs so I could only settle 3 cities. Sury attacked Pacal instead of Roosy so Roosy and Wang are tech whores, both with massive economies. At 1AD both have Feudalism, Philosophy, Engineering and are teching like freaking maniacs. Pacal is DEAD, the other three are Hindus, so I went along with that.

I managed to capture 4 of Pacal's cities while Sury only got the crappy one to the west. I now have Civil Service and want to attack Sury next, but he still has about 30 attack units roaming around, so my only chance, I think, is to get Roosy to DoW him so Sury goes toward him, then backstab him. But Roosy is miles ahead in tech, so I'll try to get Edcuation first and see if that's enough to bribe him to war. Probably not and I don't know how to calculate that, so we'll see.

Sury beating down on Roosy was major good luck for you folks. Not sure I feel like grinding this one out after hearing that. We'll see.

 

[georgjorge]

Actually, in my game nobody beat anybody else up (except for me of course). No war between AIs ever. Strange, that, with everybody having a different religion...

 

[Rusten]

I wanted to try out Samurai.

Spoiler :

I got 40+ gold from a hut.
Settled 6 cities peacefully with some overlap.

1 AD stats:

Army: 8 catapults, 13 samurai (and another 3 next turn), 6 axes, 2 spears and some chariots and warriors.
DoW on Pacal just a few turns ago but already have almost 2x his power.
I think I might be #1 in soldiers already even.

Tech: ~5 turns left to engineering (depending on conquest gold). My good pal WK and I have a tech edge on everyone.
Traded for alphabet 800 BC. 475 BC music and 275 BC CS. Was unlucky and got another artist just after researching music (at ~2-3 % chance -- the NE had only been up for 2-3 turns! ). The artist is still sitting around, but I have the option of starting a GA together with a GS in 2 turns. Don't think it's worth it though, I can take the 1T anarchy for vassalage+theocracy. I had to "rush" another GS to bulb philosophy.

Spoiler :

I'm having a hard time deciding VC. I wanted to go on a rampage with samurai, but it's a small pangea-shaped map, so there's not that much to conquer. Maybe something like space will feel more rewarding.

Early game:

Spoiler :

My initial plan was to SIP and tech hunting-AH and improve deer furs --> pigs. I found that AH would be finished just in time and then the pig would be improved just in time for size 2 later. It seemed strongest. It had really strong commerce and I thought about beelining alphabet.
It all changed when my warrior scouted 1NE though.

Spoiler :

I settled on deer furs because:
-lots of BFC food in various directions. This matters a lot on deity as you can get boxed in and this way I'd be flexible where to overlap. You rarely get more than 6 cities, so you (almost) always end up squeezing in 1 or 2 with overlap.
-moves towards centre of the map which reduces the chance of being severely boxed in by deity AIs.
-only needed hunting to improve tiles (which were in close vicinity). This gave the option of going straight to BW after hunting for early chops.
-reduced barbarian threat (matters less when barbs don't have archery).
-possible strong bureaucracy center.

Pacal beat me to my pig blocker by 2 turns --> settled 1SE of furs instead. Annoying, but still plenty of food/resources around. This is definitely deity light in that regard as you have so many options to settle.

Spoiler :

The barbs settled an annoying city which ended my trade network with America (silver). And the stupid AIs refused to do anything about it. In the end I had to send my own worker to connect Pacal and Roosevelt.

Spoiler :

1000 and 500 BC empire:

Spoiler :

 

[shakabrade]

aaargh interupted, will update, anyway, trying to get super aggressive, inspired by Fippy
Capture gold will be the fuel.

Aim is the fastest conquest this time.

 

[Rusten]

When did you settle Osaka, BiC? It looks like your settler got their later or at the same time as mine based on screens, but Pacal did not settle there in your game. I wish I had that city early on too.
A little curious as to what caused it as we share capital spot. That usually causes similar behaviour. Maybe due to barbarian cities.

A macewar would start just as the economy would reach a plateau.

Yup, it's very natural in that regard. Great tech pace until the key tech and then it's no problem if it falls off.
At 1 AD I've whipped away most of my populace, so my BPT is not too great. It was just as high or higher some centuries ago.
Current BPT: 184 at -96
Tech progress (own and AI): (~700 beakers into engineering)

Spoiler :

Military stats in other post. Key tech dates in other post -- but some BPT counts since you asked:
300 BC: 206 at -50 (golden age, but not building research/wealth)
675 BC: 132 at -46
1000 BC: 73 at -36

 

[shakabrade]

Spoiler :

So you started warring already ? What was your tech level at the time ?

Maya have taken 2 super food and 1 commerce tile with their 3rd city from me and I was forced to attack with Chariots! Against Maya! Switched to Axes to get the capital. I wanted to start warring much later, when Currency was near. Now, my economy is not where I wanted it to be. Stupid Pacal! Happy cap was used for army.
I have taken 3 cities and razed 4th from Maya. Also, I had way too many losses because I was stupid, tired and impatient. Other stuff are in progress and I won't discuss them before screenshots. If I had more luck (I mean even more than I already had, not complaining to RNG) I would be so much more ahead. Will write a small write-up when I get some time. (Currently, I am slacking at work).

 

[Fippy]

I "retired" turn 36 or so

Very rich map + handicapped barbs, did not feel like Deity.

 

[nocho]

I settled in place and I had a fairly decent start. At 1000BC I had six cities, one captured from the barbs on the south coast. At that point 26 pop, so in that sense (and surely only in that sense ) even ahead of what I see in Rusten's screenshot at that moment.

However, a turn later all hell broke lose with Wang dowing me. While I had seen the red fist I had hoped he went for a religious adversary, but instead he picked the weakling human. My army was something like 4 warriors and 2 chariots at the time. At least I had some turns to prepare as he was heading for the capital, so I got defenses up in time. He showed up with a secondary stack for Tokyo located on the river, so by then got all cities whipping out axes. Held the cities without much trouble, even after a second wave with hwachas. However, as he kept seeing me as the weakling, he would only talk peace for a city (neither of us had alpha yet). So the war dragged on to 375BC when finally he accepted peace and even threw in some minor techs as by then he did have alpha.

With all the units I built, my economy had seriously tanked however. In the middle of the war I succesfully begged IW from Pacal, but other begs were not as succesfull. To do something useful with now a sizeable defensive army I took it to Pacal to thank him for his help. And to relieve myself of some units as I got into 2 strikes. He only had three cities which I could take without much trouble with my double and triple promoted axes and some swords. The conquest cash served to finally finish aesthetics which netted alpha and maths in trade and then I proceeded with compass which nobody had, which netted CoL, MC and construction. I still had enough cash to finish currency too.

So by 1AD I'm in fairly ok shape, although CS will still take a while, but at least I have the essential techs to keep the economy afloat. I'm at 9 cities with a settler ready to fill a gap that was left between me and Pacal for a 10th city, total pop of 59. I was thinking of declaring on the Americans as my army is in Pacal's former turf and his border cities don't look too well defended, however, Wang got redfisted again, so probably I'd better save my units for him as I guess I'm the likely target again. Also, Wang has been wonder whoring and has virtually all interesting wonders (Mids, MoM, GLib, Parth among others), so would be a great acquisition. If I'm able to get on the offensive, that is. The plan at least is to get some cats out to accompany my axes and swords and tech to samurais and trebs.

Statistics tell me I killed 63 units until now, I suspect about 45 to 50 Korean, so not all too futile what he sent me. Lost 15 units myself. Army currently consists of about 20 non-MP units, probably should size that up a bit still for a succesfull launch on Wang. Not sure whether to just wait for the samurais all together, he already has some pesky protective xbows. Meanwhile, Sury is turning into quite the monster with 12 cities.

 

[Rusten]

^Good job battling through the DoW!

Did you have the option to adopt Wang's religion? I did this early on as he was the only shared border I feared. He doesn't DoW on pleased. But maybe he went into preparation before he had time to spread in your game.

 

[nocho]

^No, Wang, Sury and Roos were all hindus, Pacal a buddhist. Only buddha and maybe judaism had spread to me, but not hindu.

At 1AD still no hinduism, but 8 out of 9 cities are budd. Conquered the shrine though. At least Sury switched to confu just recently, although I think Wang's new red fist was before that.

 

[shakabrade]

I got DoWed by Khmer during or soon after war with Maya so my plan to recover my economy was a bit challenged. At least Khmer built Mids and I captured them in retaliation. I had to sign peace and gave techs to Khmer but kept the Mids. Anyway, nothing going my way in this game thanks to that 3rd city Pacal settled into my face but I am getting most out of it. Getting to Knights will take time and they will face much more resistance. Converted to Hindu during GA, just like (only) Wang Kon. GA was fired because my economy was already in red (in BCs) otherwise.

I like the game as it actually managed to be tense, but that is hardly something you'd want for your GOTM game.

Screenies coming...

The famous resource stealing city (chariot love):

Spoiler :

I am at good position actually (notice that I have missed to get Iron ):

Spoiler :

I am at bad position actually:

Spoiler :

When life throws you lemons...

Spoiler :

Too bad you can't see how I lose most of my army in a few turns due to frustration.

Too many losses but only drop in the sea that will be spilt:

Spoiler :

Somehow managed to squize this one out (too bad it is late for Samurai, next stop, Guilds):

Spoiler :

 

[neilmeister]

There is a lot of blood thirst in this thread! I took the peaceful option, and didn't do any warring, though reading the results others had this was surely the wrong option.

Settled 6 cities and decided to go for Culture.

 

[neilmeister]

I shared food and whipped hard, and deciding early to go cultural this meant whipping temples everywhere, which surely helped. I got a silver in trade very early as well.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

But I remembered that a) barbs did not have Archery b) I was only six turns away from Bronze Working. And behold, all praise DynamicSpirit for making us settle right on top of Copper .

He he! That was the result of some test plays. I initially thought I'd been sufficiently nice to you by putting Bronze in the SouthEastern corner of the map, where you were almost guaranteed to be able to settle there before the AI. But I'd reckoned without the barbarians. In a couple of test games, barb cities appeared on the SouthEastern copper extremely early, which basically made the game next to impossible to play. I figured the only way to rescue it was to put copper right underneath the obvious starting point, to make sure you could build a few units that weren't warriors! Of course, I didn't realize that quite a few players would disagree about settle-in-place being the obvious thing to do, and would head west to settle