[BTS] BOTM 221: Brennus, Immortal - First Spoiler - 1AD

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 221: Brennus, Immortal - First Spoiler - 1AD



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD. Which save did you take? Was this a challenging start? Have you met the AI?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 221, 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]

I settled NE of the stone, figuring that food really does triumph all at the beginning, and giving me an extra capital happiness to make better use of it. I beelined to Stonehenge, but have no other Wonders. At 1 AD I have 7 cities, 28 pop. 5th in score with 619, part of a cluster that's below the Greeks (1096) and Babylonians (751). The Babs beat me to the rice/cows coastal hill site to the east but at least I have control of the horses over there. I have 4 nice cities on our starting peninsula and grabbed the sheep/gold spot way up north next to Greece. I'm hoping to settle some islands up north but barb galleys have stymied my exploration attempts (2 dead Celtic galleys and a workboat ). Greece, Carthage, and Inca are well ahead in tech; I'm hoping to be the first to Music and trade it around, but that's going to take awhile. Among the things I'm missing are HR, Calendar, MC, Currency, and HBR. It feels like I'm behind my usual Immortal pace, though I'm not sure why that should be. At least all my neighbors are fellow Hindus, so I'm not too worried about being attacked.

 

[nocho]

I ended up settling in place. I had contemplated the PH 1E as mentioned in the announcement thread, but I figured that working the cow after pasture would more than offset that extra hammer especially when churning out settlers for my first cities. I also fancied staying on the river. My second city went NE of the rice towards the Babylonians basically to cut them off, number three 1E of the northern corn to secure horses and cut that part off. Number 4 south of the fish, nr 5 south between sheep and rice. Then nr 6 with the fish to the SW and nr 7 1NW of the cow to help with the cottages and work the sea. Unfortunately way up north next to the Greeks, the region that xcalibrator mentioned, was already taken by the Greeks when I found it. There is a barb city behing the 2 mountains near the bananas that I'll try to get though. I'm at 45 pop and 4th in score with 775. Aesthetics got me out of what felt like a pretty steep tech disadvantage. I'm one turn away from Music, but also still miss Calendar, CoL and MC. Can maybe trade for part of those, although it seems both Alex and HC think I'm way too advanced for them already, so already did some too aggressive trading to their liking. Early on Alex spread a lot of buddhism to me, so I took his religion when asked, as he was and still is the top dog for a change and I feared he might attack me otherwise. Hammurabi is the lone confucian and seems to be universally despised, so eventually looks like the first victim. The rest of the world is hindu, but I feel relatively comfortable behind Big Brother Alex's back and they will still trade with me anyway apart from HC.

 

[mscellaneous]

I gambled a bit and settled on the stone. Despite some early unhealthiness, this worked out quite well working both Corns and 2 mined hills. Met Hammurabi on T4. Sent the first settler east to block him, managed to settle the desert hills 2W of Cows. Captured 4 Hammy workers in 2 instances, which provoked an attack on Vienne at 1000 BC. By that time there were 3 archers defending the city, absorbing the attack without losses. Pyramids built in 825 BC. Alex spreads Hinduism, which I adopt to share religion with both neighbors.

At 1 AD, I have 5 cities, 39 population. Tech situation is a bit lopsided as I have had little opportunity to trade.
Teched Buro, but lack Alphabet. Beaker rate looks great at this point, so I'll probably Lib MilTrad for a good ol' Cuir stomp.

An overview of the glorious Celt empire

Spoiler :

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

I settled 1SE on the PH and was thrilled to learn I hadn't killed any seafood. Tech path was Agriculture, AH, Wheel, Pottery, Mining, BW, Writing, Aesthetics. Circumstances seemed favourable for a chariot rush against Hammurabi -- horse readily available, his UU is only stronger against melee, he was my only direction of expansion other than jungle, and most importantly, his capital and second city were both on flatland. They fell pretty easily to my hastily chopped 8 chariots



but Dur-Kurigalzu, on the hill between the rice and cow, was the bane of my existence. My five remaining chariots were no match for his five bowmen in a hill city, and my economy was about to crash, so more units were not forthcoming. I shamefacedly had to take peace for Fishing and Archery and accept an ugly split empire.



(He settled Nippur later during peacetime, just beating me to the site. It's not on a hill though so I don't mind him settling it for me.)

I went Aesthetics because Hannibal has been an absolute tech monster this game; he had Writing already when I met him and Alphabet by 2080 BC. I got some good returns for Aesthetics, trading it for Alphabet, Math, Calendar, Iron Working, and Sailing (a big boost for me, opening foreign trade routes and connecting the two halves of my empire). That all made me more than solvent and allowed me to reach Currency, with Construction next.

First priority is obviously to finish the job vs. Hammy with the aid of some catapults, then try to hunker down, settle and develop my land, switch into Caste System and try to bulb toward Liberalism.

 

[High King J.J.]

I quit playing millennia before 1AD. Just as I was sending my first settler out, the barbarians spawned all around. Couldn't even found the city, having to flee ftom barb archers. Of course I didn't have archery then. This delayed me enough that my closest neighbour settled in the place I would have settled except for the barbs. Basically it's completely hopeless situation and I shouldn't have even started playing.

 

[Powerfaker]

Discovering the 2nd fish T1 forced me to rethink the settling decision. Stuck to the plan 1E. Grew to size 4 and produced settlers/workers for a while on corn and mines. Didn't secure SE immediately and Hammi settled 1T sooner, so had to settle on the rice there.
Met and mapped everyone. There was an amazingly early war going on , Rome vs Greece and Carthage. Later Hammi joined Rome side and Greece pulled out of the war. Hammi isn't moving though, his units pile up on my border.
Alex spread Judaism to all my cities and to Hammi. There is a pair of Hindu and another pair Buddhist.

At 1AD I have 6 cities, trying to get a 7th at crab/marble up north. It's an annoying fertile birthplace of barb galleys, so no success yet.
I'm working on a massive Moai failgold set up using the dun trick. Just finished Curr+CoL, will try to secure Music next. The tech pace seems high, or mine is just so-so. I needed both Aest and Compass to trade quite a lot. Gilgamesh is the most advanced at this point. I built Mids but didn't run much Rep specialists so far. Well, +3 hapiness is also nice. Oh and thanks to Spi I could drop in Police state for a few turns since I needed galleys (could do a modest ''dun'' trick here too).

So, sadly, I don't see a window for Brennus' to deploy guerilla boosted units. It's probably going to be Cuirs.

 

[krikav]

I went with the contender save, couldn't stand the events in the deity save.

Spoiler Game :

I think I played the opening wrong.
I figured I wanted to go for the spot below and go fishing first. (Grew to pop2 and then build a workboat with two 1F2H tiles).
The reason for this is because the celts starting techs are horrid, and it's so easy to get stuck in a commerce hole for ages.
I also wanted to make sure I could get pyramids so securing stone felt important.
Also, this spot makes sure I get at least some land, which I thought was very important, keeping BOTM219 with lincoln fresh in mind...

I was plannning on settling second city on that PH in hte middle, but that plan was sabotaged by a nasty barb city.
Settled second city SE of the corn with the idea that pyramids in that city would flip the hilled barb city easily.

Got alot of failgold from TGW, and making good progress toward pyramids too. But I for sure feel the pain of going for a slow start with fishing first and a 1 hammer city center...

Alex ruined my expansion toward the east. >_<

Pyramids in, but the barb city has built a monument... How often does that happen?! Can't remember many times I have ever seen barbs build monuments.
This spoiled my plan to flip it though.

Barb galley... ZzzzzZZzzzz
I did spawn a GSci from Vienne and once math was done I bulbed philosophy. Was first to CoL too so I founded two religions.
Most of the game I stayed in Judaism though, to keep most AIs happy.

Apparantly, I should have settled this spot way earlier because Hammy took a boat which I missed and stole it from me.

I built a galley and intened to lure the barb galley who camped by my fish up north, and planned to drop of a scout up there to fogbust... But I had to hurry back into town since there was more blacksails in the water. :|
Traded for casting shortly after this and got out a trireme, but ages without fish was annoying.

Bulbed machinery. I'm on my way to get medieval because I think thats fun.

 

[krikav]

Oh, forgot to mention... Partly the reason I wanted to go medieval was to at least try out some fun action with dun-powered CHA xbows. (and Dunned longbows).

 

[MirrorGuard]

Challenger save. It's not deity though.
I moved 1 step SE and settled on that PH. City 2 on the green hill W of horse to get chariot asap. City 3 between fish and corn. City 4 on desert hill between rice and cow. City 5 W of iron. City 6 settled on the NW corner sharing fish with city 3. Built the Pyramids and chopped all trees in capital BFC for it. Most of the world were Hinduists. Alex was the only Buddhist. Since he was such a threat to me, I decided to nip it in the bud. I prepared an army of UU and catapult against him.
As for the random events,there was no bad news throughout the game. No barb invasion, nor slave revolt. Before AD1 I only got +13 beaker for accelerated research.

 

[Powerfaker]

@krikav There's no way to escape events ......... such as spawning a barb city. Nice teching though.

An addition. I did save a picture (minimap spoiler: exploration of all + north, except Alex' land)

Spoiler :

''Cities dropped nicely all around''

 

[jnebbe]

@krikav


Went agri-mining-bw-masonry-tw-pottery. Delaying pottery was 100% an awful move and after getting the eastern city spot stolen 1 turn before I settled I just rqed
My worker/city micro is good and I think my decision making is also good, but I'm consistently making abysmal early-game tech decisions

 

[krikav]

@jnebbe Well... My early game was a mess here too.
But with experience the intuition builds, and celts always ring alarm bells for me to pay attention to commerce early on.

I see you got the nasty barb city on the same spot... That was so annoying. :|

In another BOTM that we played recently where I struggled, I had a "stop fighting" vote pass on, and my war which was going great grinded to a halt prematuerly. I was very close to a ragequit then too but composed myself and made a save "Txxx Peacekeeping bullfeathers" and quit for the day.
Was able to salvage it somewhat after that.

 

[LowtherCastle]

@jnebbe Well... My early game was a mess here too.
But with experience the intuition builds, and celts always ring alarm bells for me to pay attention to commerce early on.

I see you got the nasty barb city on the same spot... That was so annoying. :|

In another BOTM that we played recently where I struggled, I had a "stop fighting" vote pass on, and my war which was going great grinded to a halt prematuerly. I was very close to a ragequit then too but composed myself and made a save "Txxx Peacekeeping bullfeathers" and quit for the day.
Was able to salvage it somewhat after that.

I agree. Rage save always wiser than rage quit.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I took the Contender save and settled on the PH 1E of the starting position. By 1 AD, I've settled 6 cities (with a settler almost completed for my 7th) and I've completed the Pyramids. I've met all but one of the AI; two are Hindu, two are Buddhist and Gilgamesh is Confucian. Alex is plotting and will probably start a war against Augustus, soon. I haven't picked a religion, yet--trying to stay neutral until I'm ready for a Cuir rush.

Positioning on this peninsula seemed pretty good to me. After some initial scouting to the east, my scout took up a fog-busting position to the west. He barely survived a mauling by a lion, but no more animals/barbs bothered me after that.

 

[Implo]

Contender save.

I SiP'ed to have better city placements later. With only needing AGG for food and having FP's i usually go for some fast settlerwhips. Had fast rex, got mids and THG. Had 7 cities and 43 pop @ 1AD.

Begged from alex while he plotted. Turned out that he went for hammi. So with a comfortable tech pace i decided to tech towards engineering and join the war.