BOTM 27 First Spoiler

[Lexad]

Conquest here can be achieved before 1000BC, IMO.

I think of targeting score. Settled 1wfrom dye - lucky misclick as it brought me 2nd deer into BFC. Stole worker from Peter, then sent 1 warrior and 2 war chars and unexpectedly took StPete guarded by 2 freshmen archers. Later took 3 more cities, including Novgorod on top of silver and Moscow.
Initial plan was kill one and trade with others, but seeing how weak Mao was, went for him too. Was oscillating between Peter and Mao - hit one, peace, go for the other. Ran 1 chariot short of taking Beijing, after which Mao vassalized to Napoleon. Most techs received as war reparations, stole Calendar and Metal Casting - Napoleon stole Monarchy.

Should've went for Monarchy much earlier. Also saw gems-site city too late, captured ~500BC and waited a while to trade for Sailing.

Built Mausoleum and GLib. Captured GWall, Artemis and GLhouse from China. All the rest built by Napoleon except Henge (Beijing).

Ran into strike on the way.

Techs:
Hunting
Mining
BW
AH
Pottery
Wri
Alpha (mostly useful due to building bulbs at 0% science)
Monarchy for happies
Currency
Maths for chops and CS and Calendar (stole)
CoL for chouses
Aesthetics
Literature for GLib and epics
CS

 

[Lexad]

If you did not get any DOW in this map, then IMO you are really lucky

The answer is DoW [it] yourself. Keep 2 AI pummelled and this leaves enough space for the 3rd to expand and not take care of you. The AI usually start to build up army and rush wonders only after they run out of space for expansion - for Napoleon this is currently the stage, so I'm a bit nervious being at the Cautious side of his horse archers, elephants and cats. Time to chop a Heroepic and start fortifying the border while filling the empty space, it seems.

 

[beestar]

Wow. Just axes and chariots? Did you have to face longbowmen at the end?

I was tempted to chop out a million axes and attack everyone but chickened out !

 

[Lexad]

Napoleon has just (~500ad) researched Feud.

I never built an axe. Deliberately not connecting copper to build warriors.

 

[killerloop]

500 AD, since 4 turns in lead with score. Have 9 cities, place for 3-4 inside my land, also n0. 1 in landsize. I'm keeping up in Tech, of course not in military, but able to keep peace. Napy and Mao fought a war, that's why I'm probably still alive . Guess I can go for culture win. Together with Peter I produced 4 GL's, the other 2 are leaping 1 behind.
Plan is to go for free religion to keep some of the tension of my north neighbours that are bhudists. I'm hindu (discovered 1st) together with Peter.

Here some info on game:

Cities:
3960 BC Thebes SW-SW
2480 BC Memphis SW of Thebes
1680 BC Heliopolis E with gold & ivory
1160 BC Elephantine N with pig & corn
950 BC Alexandria NE with iron
625 BC Pi-Ramesses W with rice
600 BC Giza E with marble
550 BC Nubian SE with gems
50 AD Byblos SE with banana

Techs:
3720 BC Hunting
3440 BC Mining
2920 BC BW
2640 BC Pottery
2360 BC Mysticism
2040 BC Polytheism
1560 BC Writing
1240 BC AH
725 BC Alphabet
700 BC Fishing trade
700 BC Archery trade
700 BC Meditation trade
550 BC IW trade
450 BC Masonry
275 BC Priesthood trade
275 BC Monotheism trade
200 BC Sailing trade
75 BC Aesthetics
125 AD Math trade
175 AD Theology
275 AD CoL
350 AD Currency trade
350 AD HBR trade
450 AD Philosophy
450 AD Calender
475 AD Monarchy trade
475 AD Construction trade

wonders:
2000 BC Stonehenge Mao
950 BC Great Wall Peter
600 BC Oracle Nap
425 BC Pyramids Peter
375 BC GL Mao
250 BC Mahabodhi Nap
225 BC Kashi V Hats
150 BC ToA Peter
100 AD HG Nap
200 AD Parthenon Hats
300 AD ToZ Hats
450 AD Hagia S Hats

score@500 ad
1339 Hats
1320 Nap
1318 Peter
1022 Mao

 

[Ribannah]

CHALLENGER

At the challenger level, it looked essential to target one AI as an early victim and allow the other two sufficient room to grow until we could get back on par in technology.

So we grabbed Russia's first two workers at Moscow and then eliminated them after they settled some more towns (had to disband a couple of them though). They had nothing to stand up to our War Chariots, but China and France built huge stacks very early on so selecting a second target was out (wouldn't be able to keep anything anyway).

We discovered Hinduism, and France joined later, even united all Hindu, but still declared on us the turn they ran out of free land, as China had done earlier. But both went for our horses stronghold in the north only and although there was a lot of pillaging, we were quite able to fight them off. France is still busy there but are expected to suffer heavily from war weariness thanks to our prioritized Zeus, which will require them to build even more units yet to keep them as police within their cities. We plan not to let them off the hook until we take one city as a punishment, as we did with China.

Economywise, we were certain to suffer hard in this game if we wanted any decent territory at all. Indeed we were near broke for a long, long time until the Pyramids allowed for representation. Then Alphabet arrived, we traded for Currency, cottages started to mature. By 500ad, all is well. We control the south, from the far west to the far east, with some open land still to occupy that is too far for China or France to claim.


Cities
3960bc Thebes (2sw) (Dye, Gold, 2 Deer)
2600bc Memphis (river ssw) (Cow, 2 Deer) (blocking Russian expansion)
2040bc Heliopolis (river north) (3 Horse, 4 Deer)
1720bc Elephantine (river sww) (4 Deer)
1360bc Alexandria (river se) (Horse, Deer)
1200bc Moscow (Horse, Sheep, 2 Deer) (Russia, conquered)
975bc Pi-Ramesses (south of Moscow) (Copper, Clam, Crab; connecting Marble)
875bc St. Petersburg (west of Moscow) (Silver, 3 Deer, sharing Sheep) (Russia, conquered)
850bc Giza (river further se) (2 Gem, 2 Deer)
475bc Goth (far south) (Silver, 4 Deer) (Russia, conquered)
400bc Byblos (far east) (Gold, Ivory, 2 Deer)
50bc Akhetaten (west) (Corn, Deer)
100ad Hieraconpolis (lakes) (3 Deer (one shared))
100ad Abydos (far sse) (Iron, 2 Deer)
275ad Asyut (far see) (Fish, Clam, 2 Deer)
275ad Magyar (west lake on coast) (Rice, 2 Deer (one shared)) (Barbarian, conquered)
350ad Macao (river west) (Iron, Deer) (China, conquered)
450ad Avaris (lake ssw) (5 Deer (2 shared))


Technology
3680bc Hunting
3320bc Mysticism
3040bc Mining
2640bc Polytheism (-> Hinduism in Thebes)
2320bc Animal Husbandry
2080bc Pottery
1680bc Bronze Working
1080bc Meditation
800bc Priesthood
725bc Fishing
550bc Metal Casting (Oracle)
475bc Writing
450bc Masonry
1ad Alphabet; Sailing, Monotheism, Mathematics, Currency (trade)
50ad Code of Laws; Iron Working (trade)
150ad Theology (Great Priest)
225ad Calendar (trade)
275ad Aesthetics
300ad Horseback Riding (trade)
375ad Literature
425ad Feudalism
500ad Civil Service


Wonders
2400bc Stonehenge (Thebes)
1160bc The Great Wall (St. Petersburg, conquered)
1000bc The Kashi Vishwanath (Thebes)
550bc The Oracle (Thebes, -> Metal Casting)
200bc The Pyramids (Heliopolis)
150bc The Colossus (Pi-Ramesses)
400ad The Statue of Zeus (Moscow)
475ad The Great Library (Elephantine)

France have 7 wonders, including the Hanging Gardens and the Mausoleum unfortunately; China have 3.

It is between France and us (basically, the game is won). They still have a tech lead, due to a golden age and some bulbs, but we are starting to tech faster. Our GA's will have to wait until we switch to Universal Suffrage once we have lots of towns. China is already lagging far behind.

Thanks to the Great Wall and our neighbours we get lots of generals.


500ad stats
18 cities, 140 heads
37% population, 47% area
2 towns, 23 villages, 14 hamlets, 17 cottages

Score: Egypt 2163, France 2055 (14 cities), China 1309 (9 cities); Russia is dead.

Some historic details were difficult to obtain because for reasons unknown the Autolog refuses to work.

 

[Ribannah]

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

This was an unusual game both because of the low numbers of AI and because arboria is quite an unusual map in terms of terrain types - loads of forests and grassland, but less variety in the types of resources available. How did that change your strategy?

I decided that we needed religion for happiness.

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).

Food was more important so although settling on the Dye was advantageous, it was clearly not optimal.

How many cities did you found in the early game? On immortal level you are faced with high city maintenance costs that quickly kill your science after the first couple of cities, but on the other hand if you don't grab the land you can be sure an AI will.

As many as we could afford without our units going on strike.

What about warring? Fewer AIs would mean that a couple of early wars could wipe out any chance for tech trading, but on the other hand if you don't attack them early they'll grow huge. How did you cope with those dilemmas, with all the trees hampering your UU's mobility?

We dispatched of Russia and grew pretty huge ourselves.

 

[Ribannah]

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

No. Such an outpost cannot be defended and France would surely have declared war over it. Instead, we grabbed the southern Marble. France made good profit from their source though.

 

[zamint3]

CHALLENGER
Wonders
2400bc Stonehenge (Thebes)

Very impressive
With Memphis in 2600bc, how did you manage that and why?

Did you use the Russian workers to improve your land?

Technology
2640bc Polytheism (-> Hinduism in Thebes)

Was that not a bit risky, I mean it's quite late or?

 

[Ribannah]

If you read my report above, you'll notice that I took Mysticism as my second tech. We kept building Stonehenge as we grew and merely interrupted this to send out a Settler when the Workers had laid a path.

There were only 3 rivals, with one - our target - already in Buddhism. Since we already had Mysticism, trying to get Hinduism was not a mere gamble.

We were rather unlucky though that Hinduism did not spread to China and that therefore they never considered to agree to open borders or to trade any technology with us (but they did pay cash for our techs a few times).

Getting Stonehenge was essential to our strategy as this allowed us to run Priests and get the Hindu shrine, which kept the economy from collapsing with more cities than would otherwise have been possible.

 

[zamint3]

If you read my report above, you'll notice that I took Mysticism as my second tech. We kept building Stonehenge as we grew and merely interrupted this to send out a Settler when the Workers had laid a path.

So you did not build anything but a Settler and Stonehenge in that timeframe?

There were only 3 rivals, with one - our target - already in Buddhism. Since we already had Mysticism, trying to get Hinduism was not a mere gamble.

Is there any way you can calculate the odds?
I tried copying your techpath a few times and everytime Hinduism was discovered just around 3000bc.

Getting Stonehenge was essential to our strategy as this allowed us to run Priests and get the Hindu shrine, which kept the economy from collapsing with more cities than would otherwise have been possible.

Makes sense with so much food around!

 

[skystream]

Cities:
3960 BC Thebes SW-SW
2480 BC Memphis SW of Thebes
1680 BC Heliopolis E with gold & ivory
1160 BC Elephantine N with pig & corn
950 BC Alexandria NE with iron
625 BC Pi-Ramesses W with rice
600 BC Giza E with marble
550 BC Nubian SE with gems
50 AD Byblos SE with banana

Techs:

450 BC Masonry
275 BC Priesthood trade
275 BC Monotheism trade
200 BC Sailing trade
75 BC Aesthetics
125 AD Math trade
175 AD Theology
275 AD CoL
350 AD Currency trade

How can you have 8 cities, no CoL, no Currency, and still discover technologies within 10 turns?

 

[killerloop]

very simple:

as you can see a lot of it was trading, and libs with 1-2 scientists in most cities.

BTW, I run quite some time at 0% close to STRIKE, at 500 AD my research slider was at 30% again.

 

[Ribannah]

So you did not build anything but a Settler and Stonehenge in that timeframe?

We began with a Worker and a Warrior.

Is there any way you can calculate the odds?

If the AI are switching to Slavery you know that they are on another path.
Also, researching Mysticism reduces the odds that the AI will prioritize Polytheism.

I tried copying your techpath a few times and everytime Hinduism was discovered just around 3000bc.

In that case I would have known in time.

 

[zamint3]

We began with a Worker and a Warrior.

Okay: 3960bc Thebes (2sw) and then worker, warrior, settler and Stonhenge at 2400bc, seems impossible, but I'll give it a try!

If the AI are switching to Slavery you know that they are on another path.
Also, researching Mysticism reduces the odds that the AI will prioritize Polytheism.

I'm learning all the time.