[BTS] BOTM 125 - First Spoiler - 1AD

[neilmeister]

BOTM 125 - First Spoiler to 1 AD

Sorry for the delay to this

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD! I imagine it should be 'a lot'


Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 125, 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

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

 

[MarleysGh0st]

A lot? Why should a lot have happened by 1 AD? Or are you referring to how the AI have expanded a lot and hemmed me in?

At 1 AD, I'm still at peace, with six cities. I've built the GLH, but that's not much help with only two of my cities on the coast. I'm on good terms with my fellow Buddhists, Joao, Willem and Gilgamesh. My neighbors to the north don't look so friendly.

 

[Frederiksberg]

A lot happened in my game .

I decided to go for early war trying to take advantage of the immortals and the cheap courthouses. Stole workers from de Gaulle and Joao with the first two immortals and went on to a long war with Joao who was expanding fast in the south-west. Managed to prevent him from getting copper and took all his cities in 3 consecutive wars. A misclick led me into war with Ragnar but nothing really happened except that the relationship was spoiled. Then de Gaulle showed up in the north with a stack of 6 swords and 4 axes. My immortals were fvar away mopping up Joaos western cities and I almost lost Susa located on the northern hill between copper and marble. Got some gold in the peace deal with de Gaulle and was thinking about attacking Willem when Ragnar declared around 50 BC. He has Construction and will soon have HBR so it could get ugly.
Tech pace has been moderat with all the warmongering going on. I prioritized Monarchy, CoL and Currency and got Philo from a GS but even with these techs I'm currently doing -9 gpt at zero tech slider. A soon as I have built more courthouses (currently five are done) the plan is to build commerce to get Litterature.
Built Oracle (Monarchy) and captured The Great Wall.
At 1 AD the Persian empire is composed of 19 cities with 68 pop. Two settlers will settle next turn and one is under construction and will settle the last free spot for a total of 22 cities.

If I manage to finish this game I will probably go for domination or conquest by vassals. Tech pace has been too slow for a good space game or diplomatic game.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I settled in-place and was delighted to find neil had left us horses nearby. I'd never really tried to take advantage of immortals before, but I built two of them as quickly as possible to capture a Portuguese worker and generally pillage around Joao's lands. I would have like to do the same to Ragnar but he got chariots before I was ready, which kinda made it too much risk. Unfortunately, between my trying to get enough settlers and workers and Joao filling his cities with archers, I never managed to get enough immortals together to be confident of actually capturing any of his cities. And then when Ragnar went into 'enough on our hands mode', I realized I'd need my troops up in the North pretty quickly, so had to abandon the war with Joao.

So at 1AD, I still haven't taken any AI cities. Embarrassingly, despite that I thought I'd basically pillaged Joao into nothing, he's still ahead of me in score. As is every other AI. I have 5 cities, 24 pop, 49 beakers/turn sustainable science, although I'm currently running 0% while waiting for a great scientist due in a few turns. Ragnar's second stack of 9 axes/swords etc. is about to enter my lands (how does the AI get so many units??). However, since 5 catapults and 9 immortals/axes/spears of mine are waiting for him, I don't fancy his chances too much... Hopefully I'll prevail eventually. The one good thing is I seem to be roughly level with the AI in tech.

Very impressed by Frederiksberg's 19 cities!

 

[Xcalibrator]

I have my typical competent but peacefully meh start. 6 cities, 39 pop, 500 points (tied with Rags for last), and haven't attacked anybody, except for taking one barb city to the SE with 3 wine, cows, and wheat, for which the immortals were very handy. Portugal is 1st with 680 score and 12 cities. I have 22 techs, Aesth in 3 turns, MoM in 5, and Great Sci in 3. Ragnar seems like an easier target than Joao so I'll likely go after him first, when I get around to it. Pretty well out of room to settle now so it'll be soon--need some more cats, though. 19 cities!?

 

[nocho]

Wow, 19 cities is pretty amazing!

I got myself in a rather deep financial hole with just 9. I used my immortals to contain Joao a bit and captured Lisbon, Oporto and Guimaraes. Acquiring more cities at that point looked like economic suicide so left it at that in 575BC. The lack of any early happiness hurt too. From the war, I've been building cottages all over and by 1AD it's starting to look sustainable, as I'm a turn away from currency, but CoL is still lacking for instance.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Yes, 19 cities is quite unusual for my games and at 25 AD it was even 22 cities so I tried to go through my saves looking for an explanation. Here's a list showing the expansion in numbers along with the technologies discovered:

• 2160 BC, 2 cities, TW, Agri, Hunt, AH, Min, BW
• 1800 BC, 4 cities, Pottery, Myst
• 1360 BC, 5 cities, Med, Masonry
• 875 BC, 7 cities, Priest, Writing, Monarchy (Oracle)
• 775 BC, 8 cities, Sail (trade), Arch (trade), Poly
• 675 BC, 9 cities, Alpha (peace deal), IW (peace deal)
• 450 BC, 10 cities
• 350 BC, 11 cities, CoL, Math (trade)
• 225 BC, 12 cities, Currency
• 50 BC, 19 cities, Aesthetics, Philo (bulbed)
• 25 AD, 21 cities

One piece of good luck was that Joao discovered Alpha as the second AI (After Willem) and that made it possible to get this valuable tech in a peace deal. This opened up the possibility to research both CoL and Currency before my capture gold ran out. In addition to this I exploited the marble and got substantial fail gold from building ToA with marble multiplier.This is also the reason behind going Poly, Aesthetics and later Litt. I wanted to open up a lot of marble wonders I could build for massive fail gold thus putting the large empire to good use. With CoL and Currency in hand I was convinced that I could easily turn around the economy using fail gold, courthouses and the additional trade route plus, of course, cottaging the many river tiles. Consequently I pushed hard for expansion from 225 BC until there was no more room for cities.
Another way to look at this is the build stats:

Captured:

8 cities x 100 h = 800 h
3 granaries x 60 h =180 h
The Great Wall = 150 h
10 workers x 60 h = 600 h
-----------------------------------
Total of 1730 hammers gained​

Lost:

2 axes x 35 h = 70 h
2 archers x 25 h = 50 h
11 immortals x 30 h = 330 h
------------------------------------
Total of 450 hammers lost​

The archers and axes plus 1-2 immortals were lost in the defensive wars against de Gaulle and Ragnar. So warring with the immortals against archers was HUGELY favorable. And this estimate is actually conservative because some of the captured cities had more than 1 pop and that should be added as 30 hammers per additional pop. On top I got capture gold and two techs in a peace deal.

I guess my conclusion is that Neil set this up nicely to be very favorable for an early attack with immortals as he hinted in the game description. The combination of the immortals bonus against archers with the nearby placement of an expansive, non-protective civilization really made the difference. If you catch the AI in the expansion phase many cities will be defended by only 1-2 archers and they can be captured easily with a small stack of 2-4 immortals.