BOTM 22 First Spoiler - 1 AD

[nealw]

i went agri, mining, bw, fishing, wheel, pottery, writing, alphabet(such a bad idea... i killed all my beakers cuz of REXing)... i didnt get alphabet till like 400 bc... so bad

i popped a GS for mathematic after i got alphabet... hoping i could trade it for some techs...nope

i then got iron working like 150bc

i was so far behind in tech i tried to declare war on churchill... i razed his expansion citie and only got 10 gold for it(i was expecting to get more)

i got 6 cities before 1k BC... there was a barb city and i took it

hrmm i should provide a snapshot... how to do this?

yeah been trying to play deity for a while... just keep getting raped repeatedly... either by barbs, by getting out teched/out produced (sucks when your nieghbors SoD is twice urs...)...

heh has anyone tried deity with tiny islands? i wonder if thats doable... i tried doing that just for fun and could never get more than 3 or 4 legitimate cities and then i still get raped

overlal this BOTM is my first and was pretty rape... need to learn more so i dont get raped

the best i've ever done was pull off cultural victories on emporer a few times
oh yea its my bday and i just got my ass kicked look forward to reading everyone else's experience

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

hrmm i should provide a snapshot... how to do this?

Create an account on photobucket (free) then upload your pics here using the

tags (put the link in between ofc).
And happy birthday! (yeah I see this a bit late )

 

[Harbourboy]

Contender save

Where did you settle and why? In place because it looked OK
Was your UU of any use on this particular map? Not really - has it been for anybody?
How did you get along with your neighbors? They're so far away they seldom visit.
Oh, and... did you survive this far? Yes, but only because everyone is so far away.

 

[Simon_c]

Here's my notes.

Paying notes for botm-22

Got workboat Worrier out on turn 7, grew on 8.
workboat out on


Met english from the south-east and shortly after germans.

Turn 50:
2nd city established. Found copper close to city#1
spear heading south-east to see what's there.
Scount heading south-west.
Sites for two blocker cities.
GW could be good here, but probably too late to build it.


Turn 73.
Seem to have a lot of space to expand into.
Have 4 GW out and about. Maybe worth trying to stoneage churchill. Can investigate now have OB.

Turn 84:
OK, Churchill has some very nice land. London has the colosus and the great lightlhouse, which will be nice. York is Jwe/Hindi holy citie with stone henge and a shrine so very nice to have. The defences seem OK right now, but they are on hills. I guess the critical make/break point is can I get some cats down there before Churchill gets longbows. If I can, I'm in with a chance on this game.
I can see two blocker sites on either side of the central mountain range.
East is 2N of the pigs, west is e21n of the fish by the bay ( a fort would be needed there to to block a war party moving north, but it's probably worth it oget fish and bananas in the cities BFC.

The question is, do I build the cities, and risk dropping the tech rate too low, or crank out Galic wariors now, and cats when construction is in (about 40 turns according to the current rate)

Looking at Fredrick he may bring a war party up the east coast if I spend a long time with Churchill, so I think a east coast blocker + dun, but not a west one. And try to delay building it for a while.

Turn 94:
Need to settle west blocker because there's a English settler heading north there. Hope it doesn't cripple the research.


Turn 96: Churchill has Coventry blocking access to London now....
He also has Alpha, I wonder if I can get any trades out of it...

Turn 115: 1AD: Building cats, and sending them to the front. Not sure if I'll have enough time to do enough damage before Churchill gets longbows.

 

[lymond]

I played the Adventurer save as I thought that would be a sufficient enough challenge considering Deity is way over my head right now.

Where did you settle and why? Settled in place. It looked like a nice starting position - coastal plains hill with plenty of food.

Was your UU of any use on this particular map? Yes and No. In terms of barbs it was great, especially capturing barb cities. Plus, the ability to get to guerrila II helped with speed on those hills. A great advantage, but unfortunately not much of one against the AI at this level.

How did you get along with your neighbors? Fine. Churchill and Fred are both Hindu and now so am I. Of course, taking a little hit with Churchy due to the borders.

Oh, and... did you survive this far? Yep, but way behind in tech, especially military.


Interesting map, but the speed and difficulty level are a little more to bear. I'm not sure what other's experience in this regard, but despite what I thought was good scouting and fog busting, several barb cities popped up in the area. Several of my new cities were from these as opposed to settlers. I took two cities to the south west (one eventually became my new capital) and another to the south east just over the hilly coastline and next to Churchy.

I think I did an ok job of trying to rex and grabbing as much land inside the midland hills just north of Churchill. I've maintained an approach of peace especially as I was appalled to find Churchill already had longbows. Wow! that was quick.

No wonders for me. Just impossible to keep up with that with no resources and the AI hitting the prereqs earlier than me.

The AI is just out-teching me like crazy - it's ridiculous. Luckily I have yet to be attacked, but if Willem or Churchill decided to attack I would not put up much of a defense.

I'm currently in the process of building up a windmill economy, which only seems logical - yes, I do have cottages. I'm trying to build wealth and research as much as possible in order to catch up. I definitely need a leg up military wise so as not to be easy pickins.

At this point, I can only think of one of the peaceful victory options. Unfortunately, I'm clueless as to how to gain more land that I already have without suicidal conquest. Also, I certainly hope to gain defensive pacts with Churchill and/or Fred as my neighbors are also the two most powerful and advance at the moment. I haven't been able to get them above pleased at the moment and they won't gift me any freebie techs. At the moment, I'd say Willem is the most likely to attack.

I plan to continue to maintain a focus on rapidly teching as fast as I possibly can and just holding out as long as possible before I'm wiped out. It's just a matter of time unless I get lucky. Victory of any type is highly unlikely, but I will keep playing for the experience. At least I'm still around.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Music: Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield (sets the mood I think)
Goal: to survive past the first movement

4000 BC: Settle in place
* Build Worker
* Research Mining
* Start exploring the backyard in semi-circles
3640 BC: Discover Mining --> Agri
3520 BC: Build Worker --> Warrior
Worker moves to plains hill and starts mining
3480 BC: Scout dies to a lion on a forest hill
3240 BC: Discover Agri --> BW
3200 BC: Build Warrior --> Worker
2840 BC: Discover BW --> Wheel
Build Worker --> Warrior
2720 BC: Warrior --> Warrior
2600 BC: Warrior --> Warrior
2520 BC: Discover Wheel --> AH
2480 BC: Warrior --> Settler
2440 BC: Second movement starts
GW built iafal, so much for delusions of grandeur

Seriously, I made one huge mistake that I was made to regret for the rest of the game. I settled the gems and fish spot to block off Winnie. Confu spread to me, founded by Winnie, but I didn't switch right away b/c I wanted to finish some project first. Winnie DoWed and razed the gems city. I got there first (again) and started rebuilding a few centuries later, but b/c that city required a border pop to be productive and I also needed both gem sites to be worked b/c of maintenance costs, the momentum went out of my game.

I did build some gallics and even used them on Winnie, but promoted them along the wrong path. 8 CR3 gallics might have taken a city from Winnie. a mix of CR and guerillas had no chance.

 

[Gosha190]

evil joke! we have no stone and no marble... We'v got very stupid and poor leader and I have no any idea how to play with him. I built 3 cities before 1000BC and 6 cities more later before 1AD. My second city placed like RRR did. All rest cities are seaside placed cities. Terrible map! There are a lot of hummers but I cannot grow up my cities fast because lack of food.

I lost GLh, but got GW and Oracle (Alpha in... 1740BC), GLib (50BC)

1Ad 9 cities, 7 workers. I found hindu in 2200BC(!!!). Churchill found Confu and Tao. I accepted Confu very late because Churchill did not spread it to me and I got Confy casually.

My neighbours and me are all accepted Confu. We are pleased and allmost friendly.

Settled in the place surely. Researched agri-mine-BW-mason-poly-priest-wrt-Alpha(by Oracle)-Math-Currency-Aestetics-Liter. Then I set research to zero and stole all I need from Churchill and some techs I got by exchange with rest AIs.

Production: worker, 3 warriors, settler, GW, Oracle, 2 workers, lib (it is my only lib so far), setller, settler, settler,... All together my capital built 7 settlers and 3 workers.

Events. Around 1000BC my miners discovered gems in capital's mine. So I'v got 3 gems now.

 

[jesusin]

I said in the pregame thread one should play Deity as if it was Prince, and I stood by my word and played my game that way.

jesusin, contender, goal: Gold medal.

Plan: military victory, maybe milked with sushi if I have the time.


Start: Settled 1SW.
Why? Scout had seen the pigs. So it meant losing 1 turn, 1 forest, seaside, clams but winning pigs, many more hammer tiles, more centered, no need for lh and the like, a lot of unknown tiles.
Result: puaj. All desert. Worst still, no way to settle any city around the horses that has food for itself. And the clams are for a city with nothing else.


Research: Agri-mining-AH-wheel-fishing-writing-Alpha-Currency
Production: Worker-Warrior-Warrior-Settler-Warrior-Warrior-Settler

With a protective leader so far away I planned my REXing.
If I had thought I was playing Deity I would probably have settled GemsCity in the E and GPFarm city in the W (with bananas, fish, sugar), then filling inwards. But I was worried about tech pace and I was pretending to play Prince, so my settling went:

- 3N of start with clams, built Moai.
- Corn, Dyes, Silk half blocking the W
- PH, Clams in the E, many hills
- fish+iron N
- fish, 2 gems, blocks the E
- PH, sheep, many hills
- fish+iron+hills blocking the rest of the W
So all in all I got 8 cities and only missed the GPFarm.

Quick city settling and a little bit of fogbusting meant I never saw a barb, not to speak of barb cities.


1000 BC Stats: 4 cities, 17 pop, 3 workers, 8units(1cha), 1Set, 1 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 3 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=50-26-42, 27 sustainable beakers per turn, 5 culture per turn, 3 great person points per turn, 98 gold, 1Monu,1Lib. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 12 Techs: Alpha, IW, AH, Sail, no Pott. 0 civs killed. 3 hours played.

When I see Pyramids in a close by Fred city my plan is set, 0% research, build 10GW and 10Cats, kill all Churchill quickly, take that Fred city, make peace and evaluate.

But... Churchill gets (protective) lbs 125BC. The plan is now to take 2 Churchill cities in the first turns of the war with 2 15GW+15Cats stacks, then go for the GPFarm.


First GS was settled in the capital, second will be used for Acad. We are all hindu.

1AD Stats: 8 cities, 44 pop, 7 workers, 8 units (1GW), 3 strategic resources, 2 luxury resources, 4 health resources, 1 great persons, 0 world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=109-80-113, 70 sustainable beakers per turn, 37 culture per turn, 7 great person points per turn, 220 gold. 1 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 19 Techs: Alpha, Constr, Curr, Medi, IW. 0 civs killed. 6 hours played.

cities count: 13-8-7, Fred is looking scary. I'm at 0% since 250BC while recruiting my army. No slavery (no food).

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

^^ I just saw you posted in the final spoiler thread... I am in 660 ad currently in my game and I can't wait to finish it to read your report to be honnest... From my experience I would say that what you planned is impossible (taking on Churchill -> Fred with axes/swords/cats), but perhaps best players can execute it or perhaps I am just a sissy when it comes to declare on AIs

Anyway, can't wait!
Cheers,
Raskolnikov

 

[Gosha190]

as for me, I didn't plan early war because of:
1. normal game speed and huge distances
2. my insuffishient deity experience
3. protective neighbour with hills placed cities
4. I never want to lose my game to AI and I'm more comfortable at settler level still

 

[Munro]

Deity is my preferred difficulty level (even though I've never beaten it yet) so I had to give this one a shot, even though - being the micro-loving warmonger I am - I knew I wouldn't have time to finish it before the deadline.

At 1AD I've got 7 cities and a bunch of stolen English workers, and I'm losing money at 0% research. This is the phase of the game I refer to as 'Warmonger's Remorse'. I just couldn't resist those jungle hill choke points...



Anyway, I wish Churchill had built some protective archers because all those axes are causing my gallic warriors a gallic headache. In fact, this part of the game didn't really go so smoothly...

Still, although this screenshot is more than a week old, I've no chance of actually finishing before tomorrow's deadline so I'll hold off from posting more in the final spoiler until I've actually finished, so I can still compare results with those that did. But it's shaping up to be a really fun game...

 

[Airny]

Contender save 1AD
...My back up plan is to NOT fogbust the western coast and that desert island in the east, and play at "hunting galleys" with my trireme... hopefully it will work.
My second back up plan is ofc to build the Globe somewhere.
If I can kill Churchill, this game could end well... always easy to say...

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

Nice writeup.
I didn't get those two plans at all. Why would you not not fogbust? You could discover other civilizations.
What is the Globe?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

My early obsession was to unlock Heroic Epic. Tx to Oxford and specialists and GLH, I had fairly chances of being able to keep up in science with AIs (having some friendly helps a lot too because you don't have to cope with "we fear you are becoming too advanced" thing, and trade your way to tech parity). The problem is to keep up with deities in troops .
Having a ten XP troop (8 here as we were charismatic) is key for this reason. I failed to do it with one of my axes, thus was planning to do it with triremes. The idea was to let part of the coast in the fog so barb galleys are generated.
Obviously that was a complete failure ... my trireme died with 6 xp only... but a fresh rifle sent on that western island between us and Lincoln unlocked it killing barbarians... I put HE in the clam/iron city on the western coast.

Globe is for Globe theater... sorry for being so lazy that i write half the words It let you draft one musket/rifle by turn in the city it is built. It' s really powerfull, food to production convertion while drafting rifles is close to the best you can do in this game. It appeared I didn't need it at all tough... I used Heroic epic, and forges in all cities to increase my production, and that was enough (together with airships support) to bring Joao and Lincoln down.

Cheers

 

[Airny]

Wow, a lot more stuff to memorize for my next games.
Thanks for the details!