[BTS] BOTM 151 First Spoiler, Deity level - up to 1 AD

[Deckhand]

BOTM 151- First Spoiler, up to 1AD.
Darius of Persia on edited Deity map.

How are you doing?
Where did you settle?
How many cities?
How are you getting along with your neighbors?

Spoiler :

I always adopt Isabella's (or Monte's) religion; and then we are best of friends until I get jealous of her cities.

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 151, 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

 

[Xcalibrator]

> I always adopt Isabella's (or Monte's) religion; and then we are best of friends until I get jealous of her cities.

Yup, worked here! I was lucky that everyone was Buddhist but Washington; he's made a nice punching bag.

I settled 2N1W on the coast, W of the corn, to get the cows and 1-tile lake, leaving 1 gems outside the BFC. City#2 was 3S on the river plains hill (with rice, fish, copper, gold, and horse, and #3 to the NE on the plains hill with corn, copper, ivory, and shared gem. #4 was on the island with 3 clams, #6 on the incense island. #5 was 3E of the ivory, captured from the barbs. I just captured #7 from Wash, who captured it from the barbs (N coast with clams and pigs). I have a settler en route to the SE corner of the big island to get dye and gems. Total pop at 1 AD is around 49 and I'm #3 in score behind Izzy (8 cities) and Wash (was 8, now 7 cities).

The abundant resources and Financial trait have provided a nice boost. (Thanks, DH!) I've beelined military techs and got Engineering in 100 BC, whereupon I DoW'd Wash (joining Joao) and captured City#7. In 50 BC, an AP vote forced Izzy and JC to join in. I'm now besieging another American city and will probably take peace after capturing it with Xbows, WEs, and trebs. My only Wonder is the Colossus--very nice on this map. The plan is to get Steel quickly for cannon and then Dominate.

 

[georgjorge]

Awesome starting position, thanks to the mapmaker!

1AD: 5 cities, 290 beakers a turn (with slightly negative gold income)

Settled in place, which I knew was greedy - insane commerce but lacking in production. That cost me a sixth city which I just couldn't get early enough, but might have been worth it.

I calculated, and figured out my Worker wouldn't be able to chop much early due to the many Gems he had to improve. So I went Alphabet before Bronze Working , got it in 2280BC when nobody else had Writing yet, and traded Writing + Pottery for Bronze Working. Prioritized commerce even further, the capital is making slightly over 200 beakers a turn - I even popped a lucky goldmine from a regular mine within the capital's BFC

Going for a classic Liberalism - Cuirassier beeline. First to Code of Laws, first to Philo (800BC). Right now, almost all the pieces in place - Education, Nationalism, bulbed Liberalism one turn short of completion. Only need Gunpowder (5 turns) and to trade for Literature + Music, which should be easy because everyone but Caesar (who is behind) is Friendly with me due to shared Buddhism. Making some Horse Archers and a Great Merchant for upgrading.

Joao is the target, first because his culture is annoying, second because I don't have Iron so I need to secure it soon into the war from him, and third because Caesar just declared on him.

@Xcalibrator: Seems a very nice game, with more cities than I have and faster start of conquest! But why make peace so early - not enough troops to go all the way with Washington?

 

[Xcalibrator]

But why make peace so early - not enough troops to go all the way with Washington?

Yup. And I think I didn't have Feudalism yet and wanted to vassalize him.

 

[WastinTime]

I built zero settlers.
Even tho I SIP and have early access to horses, I can't manage to capture a city til like T65
I grabbed 2 of Isabella's workers really early and then she whipped archers non-stop and built walls everywhere. My original target city became 6 archers on a hill with walls. Fortunately, I stumbled on her iron tile before she finished the mine, so I parked an Immortal there and stayed at war forever doing almost no battles. An occasional archer in the open. But she was stuck with archers forever.
I tried to move on to Joao. He settled all the way up next to me. But the 1st target city was stuck at size 1 and would autoraze

I just kept chopping and building up an army (along with an army of workers)
Then finally let them loose.
I thought Joao was going to be all archer/chariot, but a sword appeared when I was about to take his northern-most city. I guess there's iron up there.
I guess I'm lucky I went for Joao first after all.

Now I have 14 cities and razed 8 more.

Doing 0 bpt at 0 gpt.

Washington had 9 cities by the time I turned on him. I'm very happy with how I handled him. It was fun. I sent my stack deep into his land to pillage 2 elephants. I could not let him get those military units. He already had HBR and Construction was next. I also knocked out 2 iron and 2 copper. He could still build horse archers, but that's not so bad.
He had a giant stack of metal units in his 60% culture defense capital--with walls. Pass.
So I just circled him and took out his 8 satellite cities first. I really used the fact that he could not cross rivers against him.
Gifted a couple cities back to him so he would send out defenders.
In the end, I took his capital when it had only 2 defenders (axe and archer) which my Immortals ate right up.
His roaming 'stack' evaporated when he died.

 

[georgjorge]

I think WastinTime (as always) is playing a different game than the rest of us

At which time did you attack Joao and Washington?

 

[WastinTime]

At which time did you attack Joao and Washington?

I had to DoW Joao to take 2 workers off his copper (the copper right near to my/our capital). But I was still at 1 city T63, 3 cities T65.

I didn't attack Washington until ~T90, 625BC

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I don't find deity much fun to play so I took the adventurer save (thanks Deckhand). And wow - even that was pretty tough. I settled 2NW to pick up the cow and corn. 2nd city directly south of there to pick up the rice, gold marble and horsies. And after just those two cities I was already getting boxed in by the AI.

I figured that great lighthouse is usually very useful on tectonics maps, so built it in the 2nd city. By 1AD I'd managed to expand to 4 cities on the mainland, plus one on the island to the West. There is no more room on the mainland. I've explored enough to see the incense on the next island, but Portugal declared war a while ago and keeps sending in huge stacks of horse archers/catapults/axes. And with only 5 cities to build defensive units with, I'm kinda lacking in capacity to build settlers at the moment. I think I will eventually prevail because I have a technical advantage: I can build maces and war elephants, and I'm only 5 turns away from engineering and trebuchets. Combined with AI stupidity, so far I've managed to destroy several Portuguese invading stacks with only minimal losses to myself.

Sadly, I never got much chance to use the famed Persian immortals. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so quick to build the great lighthouse - a few immortals at the start might've been more useful. Especially as with only 4 coastal cities (plus one inland one), the great lighthouse is perhaps not being as useful as it would normally be. Still, thanks to all those enhancements Deckhand made to the map, research is looking healthy. In fact a (for me) astonishing 168bpt at 100% (and I have a lot of gold in the bank, so can sustain that for a while yet).

 

[babybluepants]

Didn't play very far. Settled 3N and second city in the south on the PH between rice and horse. Got really swarmed by barbs from NE (3-4 archers and 2 warriors in the space 2-3t in the 2400's BC), which messed up my second settler big time (had to emergency whip 2 immortals). I was expecting a bit of trouble, but not nearly as much as I got. Consequently, Isabella settled the ivory/cow/fish 1-2t ahead of me. I was equally surprised at how easy it was to get the rice/horse/gold/fish site, and yet how quickly she expanded right after that. The ivory/cow site was her 6th city just after 2000 BC. Also, I was stalking two of her workers, but just couldn't get around to them, and she had metal units very quickly. Anyway, I was angry with my opening, put the game (ca. 1800 BC) aside for a while, and then never got back to it.

Some really nice games above.