[BTS] BOTM 224: Zara Yaqob, Prince - First Spoiler - 1AD

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM 224: Zara Yaqob, Prince - First Spoiler - 1AD



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD. Where did you settle? Did you modify your normal playing style because of the restrictive victory conditions?

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 224, 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

 

[WastinTime]

Settled 1S to get the corn/wheat. I grabbed the oasis-gold for my 2nd city (with 3rd-ring stone) cus I wanted the .
I'm playing like I'm going for 100% land and high score. In other words, placing cities 3 tiles apart.
I've got my Great Engineer already for Mining Inc to go to Space.
Inca are conquered and they built the Great Lighthouse for me.
Although I was able to secure an Ivory, I'm just conquering with Cats and Chariots and added a couple swords. Working on Khmer (too slowly) and collecting workers.

 

[nocho]

It will be interesting to see how all the space games will pan out, the advantage of limited VCs is that games will be more easily comparable. That said, guess I'll end a mile behind WT I'm sure!

I also setlled 1S. At 1AD I'm at 12 cities with 70 pop, having conquered 3 Khmer cities so far including the capital. The rest of Cambodia should fall soon. With all the rivers and green I won't go the corps but the commy route, also too lazy for the former.

 

[MirrorGuard]

Challenger save.
SIP. City #2 wheat+corn. City #3 copper+cattle. City #4 corn+horse+oasis. City #5 floodplain+iron. My original plan was to conquer Inca and harvest his wonders. To my surprise, Khmer completed the Mids. I sent my horsearchers against him. I took 3 out of 4 cities and got 3 techs including math. Then I turned my army towards Inca who had stonehenge and GLH. I took 2 cities from him but failed to take his capital. I called for a ceasefire waiting for my catapults.
Meanwhile, SB attacked Netherlands slowing them both down. I hope the war won't slow them too much to finish the Parthenon and MoM in time.

 

[mscellaneous]

Settled SE. Took the peaceful route and settled 8 cities by 1 AD, 55 population. No wars so far, Sury vassaled to Joao in 275 BC. I share Judaism with Sury and Joao, while Inca, Dutch and Natives all have their own religion. Incans are very backward, so I should be safe till I reach Cuirs.

Philo and CS in by 1 AD, just switched to Buro & Pacifism. With sources iron and horses secured I will probably go for Cuirs and claim as much land as possible. Probably will beeline Communism afterwards, then shoot for space.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Deity save. Not doing as well as MirrorGuard. I sent the scout 2SE and saw another wheat and settled 2SE from the starting point, on the coast with 2 wheat and 2 silk. At 1AD I have the most cities (9--others no more than 7) and 49 pop but no Wonders. I have the oasis horses, but only recently, and missed out on the gold site. Colossus and MoM are maybe a dozen turns away, but others have MC and Calendar so we'll see. One AI still unmet. (My original scout got eaten by a bear, as is tradition.) Everyone has been peaceful, although one (Portugal, I think) is showing a fist. Portugal in the lead with 7 cities and 896 points, then Dutch, Khmer, me (785), Inca, and Sitting Bull way behind (443). I'm hanging in there on tech but the Dutch are getting pretty far ahead.

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

Challenger save. I settled 1S and teched Agri -> BW -> AH (for the cow by the copper) -> TW -> Pottery -> Writing -> Aesthetics. I got pretty unlucky with religion; Capac founded Hinduism and thoroughly converted me, Willem founded everything else. I went Hinduism early hoping it would catch on, but now everyone except Capac and Joao are Confucianist. I was and still am pretty scared of Sury; he's the biggest civ with 11 cities and he has Construction and ivory. For a while he was annoyed with me and I was his worst enemy, so I gifted him a city and he's now Cautious with me and his worst enemy is Joao. I don't want to count on that though so I think I'm going to drop out of Hinduism, unfortunately I don't have Confucianism anywhere.

After Aesthetics I picked up Fishing, Sailing, Masonry, Mysticism, Polytheism (traded for Alphabet), Monarchy (traded for Aesthetics), and Math + Mono for Aesthetics + Monarchy. I self-teched Currency and Literature, which is still a monopoly.

At 1AD I have 7 cities, and am 4 turns away from TGL and 3 turns from Music. I'm tempted to sell Literature to Sury for 110 gold because he surely won't beat me to those things. I also finally got my first Great Scientist, which will build a late academy in the capital (Taoism already founded by Willem).

After Music I want Civil Service and plan to head up the Paper path to Lib, grab Military Tradition and conquer the continent.

The Prince starting units must nerf the AI quite a bit, I'm pretty happy to be middle of the pack in both score and number of cities on "Deity". Capac way underexpanded and let me grab a lot of the south coast. I didn't manage to settle his gold like some of you did, but I did claim it with my culture so I'm at least getting the happiness from it.

Empire and tech situation at 1AD:

 

[Powerfaker]

This was a nice opportunity to pick challenger and maybe I should have done that. My intention is to go for culture. I prefer low diff levels for that vic type, so stayed with contender.

So I suppose it was much easier to expand to 12 cities peacefully.
But also more work self-teching stuff. The AI were expanding so slow, I didn't even trust them with the task to get Monarchy for me and Oracled it myself for finally some extra happiness 1120BC. Willem got Alpha at some point. For IronW I had to wait till 300BC while heading Calender/Currency/CoL myself. 100BC I reach CivilService.
Despite 6 food resources in his cap Inca expanded to one very late 2nd city and has hardly room for more. I am thinking this is a nice chance to experiment with city gift + spy bombing for culture.

Different city placement than others I think:

Spoiler :

North Side. That bloody Khmer did found his 2nd city in the middle of the jungle on territory that is supposed to be mine, and will be mine once the cultural explosion takes off.

South side. Total pop size 64 (down from 68 previous turn). Also, a GP birth next turn, most likely prophet due to Oracle. Useful a for GAge. It wasn't easy to prevent running scientists with all the food, but 1 non-artist is fine.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I took the Contender save, and also settled 1S. My expansion has been much slower than the other reports: only six cities, and I've just completed the Pyramids. Everyone has been peaceful, so far. Sury started plotting when I refused to give him iron. I later agreed to give him Mediation, but even with the 10 turns of peace that established, he's still plotting, so he's got to be my first target.

Since it's obvious from the other reports that I'm not on track for a fastest finish towards either space or culture, I suppose I'll just have to drag things out in pursuit of a cow.

 

[Pangaea]

I started on this but only played 20 turns or something. Couldn't decide what victory to try to go for, and felt terribly constrained by the whole thing. Today I ended up reading this thread, so that's that. Good luck to the others.

 

[jnebbe]

Spoiler :

challenger save.
smooth sailing so far; got CoL+philo first, most cities on my continent, gifted sury a city so I'm relatively safe from him. Really the only thing that went remotely wrong was sury still not spreading Buddhism to me, I'd love to get him to friendly.

Going for space and building courthouses in every city, not sure if markets are worth it though.

Probably going to go for rifles and take out huanya at some point, I'd imagine the deity bonuses will kick in eventually and I want to have more than 10 cities by then

 

[Fine_Distinction]

Joining late, going for culture-espionage, always wanted to try this victory type. Since the deadline is close, I am playing without any testing/sandboxing, based on what I have read about espionage victory on CFC some time ago. I am trying pure espionage culture, but beginning to think it may be a mistake, I am much behind in development compared to most y'all here.

At 1AD, I have 10 cities but only 44 pop and I was generally prioritized commerce over food to prepare to generate massive esp points, but that prolly was a mistake, my empire sucks . Ah, and Willem marched out of the blue with his 6+ units army (left below banana) and almost gave me a heart attack - and cause to emergency build units - but looks like he marched from the other side of the world to declare on Huayna lol.

Other than that, I am at the early stages of preps for esp victory, I would probably go more traditional culture/usual strategy later, as this espy victory seems to be taking forever