BOTM 238: Pericles, Monarch - First Spoiler - 1AD

[MarleysGh0st]

BOTM 238: Pericles, Monarch - First Spoiler - 1AD



What have you done to take advantage of your early Democracy tech? How is that working for you?
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 238, 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

 

[krikav]

I took the challenger save to have a game where I'm more comfortable and familiar with the timings.

Spoiler :

Game started bad with losing the scout to a nasty panther...
Went for a workboat before the worker and agri->AH->TW, did not improve the piggies until second worker was built.

Land on this map was very abundant, and Qin was really starting to pile up the wonders, so I tried to rush him (somewhat) with catapults

He popped a GEng, and ofcourse he picked Chichen Itza to rush, and not pyramids... T_T

The Phalanx I had in this city was uninjured but not promoted, the invading axe had slaughtered a warrior or scout prior and was not even full health. Was so annoying to lose this city as my empire was dependant on the fur for happines.
I had also painstakingly constructed a granary and was halfway to a lighthouse by doing 1pop whips of warriors to get overflow enough for 1pop whips of the other buildings.
Thankfully at least the granary did survive the multiple city exchanges.

I doubt that Qin had good odds against the barb axe... but he got it.

I did really not want to DoW him already, since this made him spam units everywhere. And he is teching at breakneck pace too due to GLH+Colossus. But I felt I had no choice, I needed that fur, and letting him have this city too would make everything following very hard.

I wanted to get some XP for my catapults to quicker gain a CR2 one. But ofcourse I lose one instead... T_T
I think I have taken all the bad luck from this map, so hopefully others will have an easier time.

1AD I catch a break and Louis find me. I get alpha for construction and then I'm in the trading game.

Well... this is the moment.
I'm getting nowhere in tech, army and city upkeep is killing me. And Qin is just blazing away in tech. If he gets ChuKuNus before I get Beijing it's game over so I just decide to roll in and hope for the best.
Protective longbows on a hilled city with Chichen Itza... This is going to hurt.

 

[LowtherCastle]

17 cats!!! I don’t think I’ve ever built a stack that big, especially by 1AD, that’s amazing. I’d say Qin has met his match. Go Krikav!

 

[krikav]

It will be needed, grinding protective longbows on hills down with collateral are no joke.

 

[Xcalibrator]

17 cats!? Wow. Surely that will be enough? I can't imagine assembling being able to assemble a stack like at 1 AD.

I also took the Deity save but have taken the peaceful route, because I could never make an opportunity to attack. I have 10 cities and 41 pop, with identical city placement to Krikav from what's visible in his pix. My fur city wasn't molested by barbs, though, and I have another one to the west to grab the iron, one more in the south, and another on the southern island. I tried for the GLH but missed by about 6 turns, and have met everyone and am last in score (410 vs the leader's 573) but not doing tooo badly. I've focused on rexing and have very few cottages at this point but am building more workers to concentrate on those and will soon revolt to Emancipation and hope that juices my research rate. Universal Suffrage might be good once I get a bunch of towns but I figure there's only a temporary window of aggressive opportunity, because the AI cities will eventually get their towns, too.

 

[MirrorGuard]

17 cats!!! I don’t think I’ve ever built a stack that big, especially by 1AD

A typical T115 catapult push requires 15 siege weapons+15 last hit units. More units means you dont have to stop to heal for the first few cities: injured pults can do bombardment job and let healthy ones do the damage. Saving one turn could be vital, not for just fewer longbows, but also for a chance to end war before AP peace resolution or third party intervention

 

[LowtherCastle]

Game started bad with losing the scout to a nasty panther...

Incidentally, I consider barbarians to be the worst random factor in terms of GOTMs, arguably worse than goody huts. Early scouting can be invaluable and losing your scout as early as you did is a huge disadvantage compared with other players. I took the contender save so our games aren’t comparable but my scout is still alive at 1AD and has all of 0 XP.* That’s right, not a single battle yet. Granted I moved him one turn at a time on flat terrain as much as possible after Barb units spawned, but there is still an element of luck in not getting trapped anywhere.

You’ve had some atrocious odds in your losses but in my view losing your fur City could’ve been prevented by simply blocking access with two units to the left and right until your borders expanded and then only one unit to the right.

in my game I had Barb’s completely blocked. I settled fur City 2s1w so I needed two units northwest of that. I had a couple warriors to the far south and two warriors on the desert tiles between the two gold tiles to the east. One more unit north of the gold tile until those borders expanded.

But that’s another difference between the contender save and the Challenger save. For me Barb units started spawning on T35 and they weren’t able to start invading cities until after 11 cities worldwide, which occurred on T64.

* I also have played peacefully so far and my only Barbarian battles were with a scouting chariot And a lost work boat attempting to circumnavigate.

 

[nocho]

Contender save, still too scared to play deity if not necessary. Expanded to 11 cities, 47 pop. Two cities off shore, one at the gems on Darius' turf, one on the island down south. Built the GLH, just started on Colossus. Oracle was gone before I even pursued it. Met all but one AI, which is France as I learned from krikav. Tech up to Cal, CoL, Cur, MC, monarchy, just started on CS. Land mass seems to be huge, so this promises to be a nice slog.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I like my game so I’ll do a write-up.

Before starting I made many custom continent maps and the land tile count varied between 1100 and 1800. Occasionally circumnavigation was possible. When I saw this map has 1784 tiles I realized I might not need astronomy but at the same time astronomy would make access to and warring with other AIs a lot easier, faster and cheaper. So I was pretty sure I wanted astronomy by about 1AD.

I wasn’t sure how to juggle slavery and emancipation. I was tempted to play a no-slavery game just for fun. But in 1960 BC I decided to go with slavery. In 500 BC I switched into emancipation. At 1AD I have only 13 villages/hamlet/cottages. I should’ve gone more heavy on the whip. I simply don’t have the workforce to build a lot of cottages. And I don’t have the happiness to work them either.

I made some stupid micromanagement mistakes early in the game which were annoying but not game breaking.

At 1AD I have nine cities, two offshore on the south island and the west island which includes the gems acroos the channel (Cyrus settled there but lacks religion and mysticism...) which is accessible through open borders with Persia. I built the great lighthouse in 1120 BC and the oracle 850 BC which netted me machinery. And 1280 BC I bulbed mathematics which helped completing those two wonders.

Qin built the Pyramids in 400 BC but I don’t covet them because I’m not interested in representation. I’ve been running two scientists nonstop in my capital but I plan to work colleges rather than specialists mainly. Beijing is nice but otherwise I don’t covet his lands at all. I plan to do my warring elsewhere. I hope to get him to friendly ASAP so he won’t backstab me. I might even gift him civil service since bureaucracy is his favorite civic.

in addition to having calendar construction currency code of laws and machinery I will finish optics next turn and double bulb astronomy. At 242 base bpt at -72g with 455g in my vaults, CS is 5t away. And then plan to revolt to slavery and bureaucracy, whip two galleys galleons and six Maceman, and attack a rival with happies that I dearly covet. I also covet slaves. I need to turn those heathens into civilized cottage makers.

I do not yet know if it’s possible to circumnavigate without optics nor whether some AI already has. I’m about three turns away from finding out.

 

[Powerfaker]

Love the map. This mapmaker thought of everything. A nice productive capital early on. A lot of good places to expand to, yet easy to fogbust with very few units. A few happies, a few strategics. A desert that prevents border tensions with the nearest neighbour.
And the reports show it, strong plays, advanced with around 10 cities.

As for my own progress.
Opened AH - Mining - Bronze - Agri and a workboat before worker. City 2 north at wheat, gaining the fish (hail Cre which made several double food settling (and working) possible). City 3 further east.
Next head for sailing/masonry and GLH (completed 1000BC) and Metal Casting/Colossus (completed 350BC).
Keep on expanding, northwest and southwest + island to the south. Persia snatched the gem site 2T before I arrived, but didn't snatch the gems (2nd ring) so I did, placing my city nearby.
Around the time I finished Colossus I started growing core cities, so at 1AD 11 cities / 62 pop. Got Curr / CoL / Mon, 1T away from Cal, other then that nothing fancy.

GLH got me a GM. With a Eng specialist at work I hope my next will be a GE, so I can finsih this within 10T (50/50 odds, fingers crossed):

Spoiler :

For the fun of it, to profit from Democracy in one way at least. I'm not doing anything with the Democratic civics. Did and will not build a single cottage.
I also intend to bulb (towards) MilScience. That requires avoid Civil Service. This is a nice oppurtunity to try that with this non-bureau cap, although I miss the hammers.

 

[Lich_Lord]

I'm playing the challenger save as I usually play on deity.

Spoiler :

Started with workboat 2x then worker. I think I built warrior, settler, warrior after that. Initial scout and first warrior both died to the same barb bear, but since then I've had little trouble from the barbarians. They were even kind enough to settle a city for me and on conquest I discovered it was a great city because of the cow.
I prioritized going for the great lighthouse and by 1240BC I'd teched Agriculture->AH->wheel->mining/bronzeworking/sailing->masonry and was about halfway done building the GLH, which was completed in 1160BC (I think that's 2 turns from this screenshot).

A phalanx marches towards Carib.

Spoiler :

By 725 BC I'd finished researching pottery and writing. A library in Athens, which I'd been building in between settler whips, was completed 8 turns from now.

Spoiler :

By 375 BC I'd discovered metal casting and surprisingly none of the AIs had researched alphabet yet so I decided to go for it. China built the oracle and took feudalism as their free tech so it was looking like peace would reign for awhile. I was up to 11 cities and a turn away from settling the 12th next to the gems near Persia.

Spoiler :

By 200BC I'd finished Alphabet and was somehow the tech leader. Traded for IW and glad I did because it let me avoid settling on the iron in the area west of the fur city. I'd settled a couple more cities and began construction the Colossus and statue of liberty. Maybe one day it'll finally be built...

Spoiler :

Now to the present 1AD:
Settled my 16th city this turn and 3 turns away from #17 in the area to the south. The map creator sure gave us a lot of land to settle! I count 3 more city sites I want to grab and might even build 1-2 settlers after that. As the colonization efforts start to wrap up I'll probably hunker down and attempt to widen the tech lead in preparation for liberalism and maybe a renaissance era military push.

I got a notification that China had started building the hanging gardens around the same time I discovered the stone to the SE. Unfortunately Luis got the pig near it, but at least I got the stone. I'd saved two forests near Athens for wonder building so I rushed to chop them and am now about to complete the HG and 2/3 done with the Colossus after that. +16 pop should be pretty strong

Finished researching currency and am now two turns away from literature for the great library. Also given the idea of democracy I've built more cottages than usual this game in the hopes of running those civics but for now I'm still running slavery and not sure I'll ever go that civics route. Still one AI left to meet and the AI I've met are around the same score and all have between 10-12 cities. I'm 4th in score, right behind China at 502.

Spoiler :

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm playing the challenger save as I usually play on deity.

Spoiler :

Started with workboat 2x then worker. I think I built warrior, settler, warrior after that. Initial scout and first warrior both died to the same barb bear, but since then I've had little trouble from the barbarians. They were even kind enough to settle a city for me and on conquest I discovered it was a great city because of the cow.
I prioritized going for the great lighthouse and by 1240BC I'd teched Agriculture->AH->wheel->mining/bronzeworking/sailing->masonry and was about halfway done building the GLH, which was completed in 1160BC (I think that's 2 turns from this screenshot).

A phalanx marches towards Carib.

Spoiler :

View attachment 634398

By 725 BC I'd finished researching pottery and writing. A library in Athens, which I'd been building in between settler whips, was completed 8 turns from now.

Spoiler :

View attachment 634402

By 375 BC I'd discovered metal casting and surprisingly none of the AIs had researched alphabet yet so I decided to go for it. China built the oracle and took feudalism as their free tech so it was looking like peace would reign for awhile. I was up to 11 cities and a turn away from settling the 12th next to the gems near Persia.

Spoiler :

View attachment 634409

By 200BC I'd finished Alphabet and was somehow the tech leader. Traded for IW and glad I did because it let me avoid settling on the iron in the area west of the fur city. I'd settled a couple more cities and began construction the Colossus and statue of liberty. Maybe one day it'll finally be built...

Spoiler :

View attachment 634410
View attachment 634411

Now to the present 1AD:
Settled my 16th city this turn and 3 turns away from #17 in the area to the south. The map creator sure gave us a lot of land to settle! I count 3 more city sites I want to grab and might even build 1-2 settlers after that. As the colonization efforts start to wrap up I'll probably hunker down and attempt to widen the tech lead in preparation for liberalism and maybe a renaissance era military push.

I got a notification that China had started building the hanging gardens around the same time I discovered the stone to the SE. Unfortunately Luis got the pig near it, but at least I got the stone. I'd saved two forests near Athens for wonder building so I rushed to chop them and am now about to complete the HG and 2/3 done with the Colossus after that. +16 pop should be pretty strong

Finished researching currency and am now two turns away from literature for the great library. Also given the idea of democracy I've built more cottages than usual this game in the hopes of running those civics but for now I'm still running slavery and not sure I'll ever go that civics route. Still one AI left to meet and the AI I've met are around the same score and all have between 10-12 cities. I'm 4th in score, right behind China at 502.

Spoiler :

View attachment 634413

That’s quite some expansion! Just out of curiosity how many workers have you built since evidently no warring so far against AIs.

 

[Lich_Lord]

I built my 8th worker in 700BC. At 1AD I now have 10 workers.