BOTM 27 First Spoiler

[Grifftavian]

It's a sad thing to have cities captured by barbs, Grifftavian ;(
I don't know what exactly went wrong for you but I'm truly sorry... Maybe your Heliopolis was really too far away, as you mention.

I didn't have to fight barb spearmen, that sure makes a difference.

My second city, Memphis, was only defended with a single un-promoted Warrior when I lost it to the Barbs blush: major mistake #1 ). Plus I settled it on a riverside plains tile; I think the better option would have been 1W on a grasslands hill for a little more defense. The other two cities I lost to the Barbs were to Spearmen defeating my War Chariots. I had no Copper, and the Barb Spearmen showed up well before I had researched Iron Working ( should have made that a higher priority without Copper nearby ). Chopping out The Great Wall as others have done would have made a big difference in my game.

 

[shyuhe]

My second city, Memphis, was only defended with a single un-promoted Warrior when I lost it to the Barbs blush: major mistake #1 ). Plus I settled it on a riverside plains tile; I think the better option would have been 1W on a grasslands hill for a little more defense. The other two cities I lost to the Barbs were to Spearmen defeating my War Chariots. I had no Copper, and the Barb Spearmen showed up well before I had researched Iron Working ( should have made that a higher priority without Copper nearby ). Chopping out The Great Wall as others have done would have made a big difference in my game.

I fought barb spearmen using woodie 2 warriors on forested tiles. It had the added benefit of helping to unlock HE very early.

 

[Grifftavian]

I fought barb spearmen using woodie 2 warriors on forested tiles. It had the added benefit of helping to unlock HE very early.

Hmmm... Woodsman promotions would have a nice synergy on this type of map. Wish I'd thought of that, thanks for the tip!

Just to kick off the discussion with a few questions...

...
What did you do with the dye? Several people in the pregame were talking about settling on it, which surprised me because I think a worked dye tile is pretty good for commerce (albeit only after calendar).
...

I settled on it. I didn't work out the math, but getting the one extra commerce from turn 1 seemed the better option than waiting on Calendar (which I never got to anyway ). Plus it got rid of an unhealthy Jungle tile right away.

I didn't think of it until just now, but a better option may have been to Settle 1S of the Dye, then chop a Cottage on top of the Dye once you knew Iron Working and could chop the Jungle. The Cottage most likely would have grown to a town before you got to Calendar and generated more commerce than the Plantation.

 

[Arnold_T]

thanks adrianj for posting your path to sucess!
I'm going to retry playing the game after I lose this one using some of your initial decisions.
I decided to settle on the dye too, but after that I waited too long to get AH. I also didn't build another early scout, so was pretty blind about the northern country. I read Snaaty's guide and it helped alot and getting Archery early really helped with Barb defence, but I was unable to get a city site near the Gems. With this map and this Civ Chariots earlier would have been a better decision.
by 1AD I had six cities, but I was spread way too far apart (from Goldville and MarbleTown east antogonizing Napoleon, to Heliopolos 6W,1S of Thebes - Heliopolos is a rather pointless city - would have been better to get the Gems.)
By 200AD China had declared war on me and was looking to take HorseTown just north west of Thebes. by 500 AD Napoleon was marching on Marbletown with a huge stack, and catapults.
Maybe trying to get the Marble was too ambitious?
Did anyone else attempt to snag the Marble?
Also, I shoulda paid more attention to Snaaty's advice to avoid adoption of a religion.
I spent too much time and effort on religion,founding Judaeism.
At this point, it looks like I'm going to get clobbered from three sides, the chinese dbuddist, the french buddists, and the Hindu Russians. Maybe if I renounce Judaeism, give up a couple of cities, chop the Statue of Zeus to encourage peace, and the chop the Shwedegon Paya and adopt Free Religion?
I think another mistake was spending too much time and effort on Obelisks. don't really need the culture boost, and the Priest specialists are kinds lame.
Being in last place (points-wise), with Napoleon almost double my points, I don't think I have any chance of winning this thing - my goal now is merely survival!
It's been an interesting learning experience. I love this forum for all the tips that available here!

 

[skystream]

Man, I have to say, this is a very cruel game. Pangea with 3 other expansive civilizations (2 of which are aggressive), no copper, iron, stone, or marble nearby, and inability to expand more than 3 cities without the economy crashing ... Thanks at least for the gold and the war chariots.

 

[Jbourne]

Man, I have to say, this is a very cruel game. Pangea with 3 other expansive civilizations (2 of which are aggressive), no copper, iron, stone, or marble nearby, and inability to expand more than 3 cities without the economy crashing ... Thanks at least for the gold and the war chariots.

I agree. But someday when I am a top player, I will be hoping the game designer will create similar challenging games. But untill then, I say what evil is this? Why all the maniacs? Why? Why? OK i am better now.

 

[Arnold_T]

There's Marble a long way east by the French. Did anyone sucessfully go after it and hold it?

 

[beestar]

Man, I have to say, this is a very cruel game. Pangea with 3 other expansive civilizations (2 of which are aggressive), no copper, iron, stone, or marble nearby, and inability to expand more than 3 cities without the economy crashing ... Thanks at least for the gold and the war chariots.

No resources for early wonders means good training in forcing yourself to build units and workers/settlers instead of those oh so tempting wonders

Actually I thought Arboria is sort of nice. The plentiful forested-deer tiles are 5 1 which is pretty damn powerful. And there are a bajillion forests to chop into anything you could possibly want. After chopping, beautiful flat grassland is revealed to cottage your way into utopia. Admittedly, I imagine being told that is not much consolation after a defeat

 

[skystream]

No resources for early wonders means good training in forcing yourself to build units and workers/settlers instead of those oh so tempting wonders

Actually I thought Arboria is sort of nice. The plentiful forested-deer tiles are 5 1 which is pretty damn powerful. And there are a bajillion forests to chop into anything you could possibly want. After chopping, beautiful flat grassland is revealed to cottage your way into utopia. Admittedly, I imagine being told that is not much consolation after a defeat

If Napoleon, who is organized, I think, builds all of the economic/scientific wonders (Great Library, Temple of Artemis, the Great Lighthouse), then no amount of Egyptian War Chariots, Macemen, and Catapults, can stop a stack of French Tanks and Artillery. You just can't compete with 6 cities against an AI with 10-15 cities who has such an economic advantage. I think the only way to win this is to kill one of them, and then try to convert the others to be a different religion. Maybe build an Apostolic Palace.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I agree that the map is hard (dunno if it is the map or just the Immortal settings... Immortal counts, I bet... *Still struggling here*), but I've got to say that spreading both to the East and West coasts is of course bringing a DoW upon your head.
First, it means you're Peter's only neighbour (bad point). Then, it may depend on the religious situation, but if treacherous Mao and Nappoleon befriend, there will be wars earlier than you hope. If treacherous Mao and Peter befried... Eeek !
With 3 AIs, Peter and Nappy being likely to (attempt to) found religions, it is a safer plan to ensure that religious foes will have common borders. It will distract them from DoWing you. And they won't need to stampede over your land to reach their archnemesis.

This is tricky because we started right in the middle of the map, right. Still, I think that one "key" is to ensure your own expansion while ensuring that the AIs can expand in a way you will manage. If your own expansion is detrimental to the AI's expansion, in the end it may prove to be detrimental to you as well.
With a creative leader, I tend to settle closer to barb cities than to AI cities.

Of course I'm sure some of you can manage early wars at Immortal. Well, I can't Hence the input (if you look at my game, not a war was declared up to 500 AD...).

 

[shyuhe]

There's Marble a long way east by the French. Did anyone sucessfully go after it and hold it?

I settled it reasonably early (around 1 AD if I remember) and used it for a bunch of wonders.

 

[adrianj]

There's Marble a long way east by the French. Did anyone sucessfully go after it and hold it?

I left it alone. It was just too far away, and at this level I wasn't really planning on building all that many wonders with the Marble anyway.
I did build one earyl wonder - The Oracle. I was fairly lucky, grabbing it very late in 850 BC. At that point I didn't even know Masonry, so marble was irrelevant.

The key for this game for me was mostly luck with the religions. Nappy founded Buddhism, Mao founded Hinduism - so those two basically hated eachother more than me. When Nappy spammed missionaries to both me and Peter it was obvious for me which side to choose.

 

[RD-BH]

Actually I thought Arboria is sort of nice. The plentiful forested-deer tiles are 5 1 which is pretty damn powerful. And there are a bajillion forests to chop into anything you could possibly want. After chopping, beautiful flat grassland is revealed to cottage your way into utopia. Admittedly, I imagine being told that is not much consolation after a defeat

But what a beautiful picture you paint ... I want to live there! 8)

 

[RD-BH]

How do some of you have such accurate data ? (e.g. Turn N : Tech researched, city founded, etc.) It looks pretty useful !

Not to take away from Beestar's reply,
... I use both the ingame log (as mentioned) and the HoF game history log (it fills in all the "far away land", "unknown civilization", etc. data). These two sources pretty much give you every thing you'll want to talk about.

 

[Mutineer]

I got marble, use it for a few wanders.

Actially game was combination of bad luck and couple not best decision.
bad luck:
1) My Starting warrior die to fist bear he see.
2) I lost Oracle by one turn, I was going to take Feodalism from it.
3) I lost Sistine chapel by 1 turn, yes, I am not joking and it is not finished there.
4) I lost Golden age wander by same 1 turn.
5) I lost game by some reason Chinese voted for Russia when been in different religion. I actually did not expect it and have no idea how that happened.

I made some mistakes. I should have researched writing first, then mysticism-meditation-Priesthood. As result I had nowhere to put some hammers in.
I should have spread Buddhism to my city and switch religion before vote. that would have let me to block religious win.

Game wise I was disappointed on this very doctored map. It should had 2 food resources at capital. I settle in place, thinking I will exchange hidden dear/something on gold. But no, capital had only 1 food resource. There should have been one more food resource.

What I did was extreme specialization my first 2 cities.
Capital become commercial, with all river ties except 1 hill been cottages.
second city had gold, 2 food resources and 7 hills, supper production city. I build all my wanders there. I claimed gems and second gold, ivory as next 2 settle cities.
Claimed marble, iron, bananas/different seafood on next cities and settle total 10 cities before I run out of space.

 

[PutCashIn]

Thank the GotM gods for a nice isolated start Prince WotM, as this BotM was savage.

Peter declares on peaceful Hattie at about 20AD, I fight him to a peace accord at about 480AD. Bang on 500AD, (like, 1 turn or so later) Napolean decalres war. All my shizz is on the Peter front line, I think I'll leave this untill the last couple of days of submission, go for an ambulance lol.

Crikey, and its Immortal Adventurer save next time, it hurts being perma noob.

 

[wiley23]

Hello everyone, first time participant in the GoTM so I just want to get the newb question out of the way -- although the many directions keep mentioning need the HoF mod, it is the BUFFY mod that is all that is required for BtS GoTM right?

Okay, onto my first 4500 years. The easiest and most accurate way to sum them up are -- poor. I've never played on an aboreal world and was thus unprepared for the economic crash when I expanded to 4 cities (which is the number I've been at for many 1000s of years). I was also unprepared for the number of giant bears lumbering around, although I as lucky enough only to lose 1 warrior. Since my economy has crashed, my science went quickly with it. The only scientific bright spot was chopping my way to the Oracle and getting Monarchy which solved my happiness problems. Although I am far behind ( 750 pts vs. 1400 for the French ), I still have the 1st and 4th of the top five cities. But that doesn't count for much when you only have four cities -- 11, 15, 15, 9. So far the land has been peaceful and I think I can hold my own for awhile given the massive pile of archers I created while I had nothing else to build -- I forgot that alphabet could let me "build" research and only recently got it. As soon as bows-and-arrows are long forgotten then I am sure I am toast.

Thanks for posting their experiences so far everyone, very helpful for me to see what strategies people took.

 

[Grifftavian]

Hello everyone, first time participant in the GoTM so I just want to get the newb question out of the way -- although the many directions keep mentioning need the HoF mod, it is the BUFFY mod that is all that is required for BtS GoTM right?

...

Welcome to the xOTM competitions and the Forums. Your are basically correct, all you need is BTS patched to version 3.19 and the BUFFY-3.19.003 HOF Mod for the BTS GOTM, or BOTM. Good Luck!

 

[Duckweed]

This map is brutal. The land is good, but all 3 neighbour are dangerous. So I DOWed Peter to grab his free worker and had surpressed him for the entire game.

Mao entered WHEOOHRN mode ~1500BC before I even saw his border and DOWed me in 775BC with nearly all chariots and Axemans, so I was happy to harvest those GGPs and took all his cities but one bordering Nappy and hoped Nappy would go for Mao. I even gift one of Mao's city to Nappy to hang him at cautious

Spoiler :

However, the funny thing was that Nappy enevitably entered WHEOOHRN mode and DOWed. I don't want to complain that Nappy did not choose the weaker and closer Mao as his target but me. It was the SOD (1 swordman and 1 chariot!!!) he sent made me laugh. Furthermore, he remained quiet during the 10 turns of peace treaty and entered WHEOOHRN mode soon after and his target was me again!!! Nappy has been cautious to Mao and me all the game.

Spoiler :

 

[Grifftavian]

...

Mao entered WHEOOHRN mode ~1500BC before I even saw his border ...

However, the funny thing was that Nappy enevitably entered WHEOOHRN mode ... Furthermore, he remained quiet during the 10 turns of peace treaty and entered WHEOOHRN mode soon after ...

WHEOOHRN Mode?