[BTS] BOTM 213: Charlemagne, Emperor - First Spoiler - 1AD

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 213: Charlemagne, Emperor - First Spoiler - 1AD



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD. Where did you settle? Were the free archers useful? How did you manage against the barbs and the jungle?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 213, 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

• Do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• 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]

First to post for a second BOTM in a row!? And I am not a fast player. C'mon, you slackers, cough up your stories! Seeing nothing special south of the starting spot, I settled in place and concentrated on the Great Wall. The hill rice was mined and will stay that way. Techs were Mining, Masonry, BW, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery, AH, Writing, and Alphabet (800 BC). The AIs have been a bit closefisted on trading, but I'm roughly even on techs. Got the GW in 2280, lost Stonehenge in 1760. Currently working on Pyramids in my hammer city to the NE, but it's slow going. With so much food, running Representation-powered specialists with the excess pop seems like a good bet. Got a Great Spy from the GW--currently using him to explore. I only have trade routes with 2 AIs, and they occasionally get cut by barbs pillaging the AI roads.

At 1 AD I have 7 cities and 34 pop. City2 went S to get the furs (and horses), #3 NE for the copper, rice, cows, and 2 bananas, #4 to the E for 3 pigs and shared bananas (this will be my NE city with so much food), #5 WNW for gems and marble. Fogbusting worked well, although I lost a couple warriors. First in score (of 5) with 421. Not sure what victory type I'm aiming for--this is a big map--Dom or Conquest would be quite slow with so much forest/jungle and no high seas for speedy sailing.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Allright, here's my spoiler . I shouldn't be playing this one because I still need to finish the Inca game. The problem is that I often lose interest in the game after the opening phase .

Settled in place and my early tech path is very similar to @Xcalibrator's except that I went directly for pottery without researching fishing first. Built the GW in 2480 BC and the Oracle in 825 BC (got CoL and Confucianism). Have pursued a cottage strategy and intend to continue this a bit into the AD's (I have settled a couple of floodplain/gold cities to the north-east). I have also settled the fur/horses city and the wine/banana/pigs/rice city. The gem and the silver cities are next on the settling list when the economy is well enough to support further expansion (currently 9 gpt at zero research - it's easy to over-expand on these types of maps and with an imperialistic leader). The two archers were useful for protecting settlers but eventually they were both lost to barb archers. I have built more workers (10) than usual because of the worker turns required to chop down the jungle.

At 1 AD the empire has 9 cities and 37 pop. Teched to Math(trade)/Alpha(trade)/IW/CoL(Oracle)/Monarchy. Toku and Willem are at war.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Very enjoyable game so far.

I rarely play with raging barbs, so instead of trying to fogbust vast swathes of land, decided to rush the GW, and finished it in 2480BC (t38), in the same turn the 1st barb warrior appeared in the vicinity of the capital.

From then on, it was a matter of REXing as much as possible. I thought SH would be worth of the investment and also landed it in 1880BC. Apart from that, in the BC's I pursued no other wonder and little infra in my cities besided granaries and the occasional library.

My tech path was mining/masonry/BW/agri/AH/wheel/pottery/IW/writing/Alpha (150BC). Traded for minor stuff up to Mono, and crawling towards Math>Currency>CoL @1AD @0% research basically with beakers from scientists.

On the bright side, we have 10 cities, 49 pop, with 14 workers and 2 settlers waiting for better times to settle, avoiding unwanted strikes in our economy.

Now let's wait and see what the AD's have in store for us.

Spoiler HR Empire :

 

[nocho]

I settled NE as the scout discovered pigs and bananas and I thought an extra hill, albeit jungled still, would be good for future hammers. The bronze later was a nice surprise.

However, seems I was a bit slow on the GW as around 2400BC 5 barbs entered from the north and east, while I still had some turns to go on the wall. They pillaged all improvements which of course meant the wall would take even more turns. Had one of the archers defend the capital without trouble though. The other one on the way back from scouting perished to two roaming barb archers. Ended up being able to whip the GW in 2040, but by then of course had been greatly set back in development, having to reconnect all resources and such (and having had my workers sit idle in the capital during the barb onslaught).

After that didn't want to overexpand too much either, tech rate was very slow going in any case. Worked cottages over pigs even. All in all a very measly 22 pop with 6 cities by 1AD, one settler on the way.

On the upside, I managed to get Priesthood in trade and that meant I could rush the Oracle for currency just by 1AD, which means that at least tech should be picking up soon. The silver will be mined soon for an extra happy, the free settler will go for the gems. Also hoping monarchy for HR will be available soon in trade.

Not sure where to go from here, anything is still open. At least haven't rage-quit yet.

So tough game so far, at least the AI hardly seem to be doing better.

 

[NightOnEarth]

I waited to read here until I met all of the opponents in my game. Yesterday it finally happened (t137, 540 AD). As I said in the introductory thread, this is my first participation. So my expectations of my own game were low and I was not disappointed. I made the typical rookie mistake of playing way too fast. I probably lack the ideas for useful strategic and tactical concepts. My micromanagement is far from ideal. I played the map (rainforest) for the first time with all its peculiarities, but had informed me beforehand.

Ok, here is my story. After much deliberation, I settled 1S, sacrificed two forests, but got three coasts less. Pigs in the second ring, great. The next long consideration: warrior or workers first? I chose the worker, although I believe it would have made little difference in this case. Since I have no experience with raging barbarians, my first goal was the great wall. A good decision when I think back to the barbarian caravans that later passed my borders. Mining, masonry and bronze working (copper close in the NNE!), and TGW in 2400 BC (t40), just in time for the barbarian onslaught. Tech path: Wheel - Agriculture - Fishing (both because of tech bonus) - Pottery - AH. Finally IW, longed to remove the damn jungle (t80, 1250 BC?). In the meantime (t68) I founded Prague near the copper and immediately had health problems in the city.
Meanwhile my scout tried to survive while he was exploring the map and two or three axe fighters swarmed out as scouts for the surrounding area, collected xp for woodman I and II. Later the great spy helped out with the exploration, visited Babylon and discovered, next to Hammurabi, Gilgamesh and Tokugawa the fourth opponent, Huayna Capac's scout near Babylon.

The whole time I felt like I was very slow. More workers than usual, cities spread in the WE axis. My next goal was to grow and research, so I built some huts and researched towards the calendar to open up its resources. Writing, math, sailing in between, also to set up a trade route to Babylon (2gpt per city). The third city was Vienna near the marble (t86). That gave me the opportunity for some failgold (pyramids). Shortly before the turn of the times I founded the fourth city near gem and dye and the fifth in the E for iron (!) and silk.

1 AD, I'm still researching the calendar, don't know two civilizations yet and I'm last. I don't have a complete picture of diplomacy (diplo is another weakness of my gameplay). So it might sound strange, but I still have the feeling that I can win the game. Strategically, I'm not in a bad position. The opponents are apparently not much further in research. None has alphabet. The barbarian city of Illinois with all its FPs will be attacked as soon as I have iron connected and swordsmen, and I have enough space in the hinterland for more cities in the future. Barbarians will be a plague (but also an xp source) for the others for a while, which will prevent them from growing.

I like the map and the setup and find it very exciting and challenging. The edges of the world take some getting used to. The two archers were a nice touch at the beginning. I first used them for scouting, now they protect two of my cities. However, they would have become important if I hadn't built the great wall in time. The coast next to the settler was a deception. In my opinion this would be an inland lake once I built a lighthouse. I can't even build a work boat.

I'll get back to you in the closing thread, even if I fail with a crash.

Spoiler 1 AD :

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I settled in place. The GW was completed in 2320 BC, before the barbs gave me any trouble. After that, it was very nice seeing all the trouble they'd cause for the AI!

By 1 AD, I've also completed Stonehenge, I have seven cities, and a Great Spy is on a scouting expedition. No trouble yet with any of the AI.

 

[krikav]

I have had this game on hold for some time now, and I'm not 100% confident that I'll be able to muster up the energy to finish it.
Feel abit bad for not finishing the inca game too.
This game does provide a challenge though. Big thanks for raging barbs+rainforest, spicy!

What do I do in case I can't finish? Do I just go in, retire and submit that game?

Spoiler Game :

I probably made the worst choice one could do, and decided to NOT build TGW.
I wanted to get a feel for just how terrible the barbs could be, and my gosh... they where terrible.

Still hanging in the game though. I'm on my way to HBR with the intent to whip out some HAs and put overflow into marble wonders and then level up some HAs on barbs, and then perhaps do some opportunistic warfare.

Beaker rate is really bad because both fogbusters and multiple defenders are needed. They just keep comming. And more brutal all the time too, axes, spears and swords are on the menu now.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

What do I do in case I can't finish? Do I just go in, retire and submit that game?

Pretty much yes, except that you don't need to retire in the game. If you get to the point where you know you won't be able to finish in time and you'd like to submit anyway, then you just submit your most recent (unfinished) save in the normal way. IIRC there's a checkbox on the submission page where you can indicate that it's a retired submission (although I suspect our system will detect that anyway since it'll see it's an incomplete game).