[BTS] BOTM 278: Frederik Deity-- First spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 278: Frederick, Deity - First Spoiler - 1AD

Sorry I'm Deckhand (I mean late) lol. Please tell us about your game if you still are alive and have made it to 1AD
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 278, 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]

Hey kcd, thanks for the spoiler threads. I can joyfully report that at 1 AD I am still alive. (I suspect that later reports will be less joyful.) I have 6 cities and 24 pop, and I think this is probably the first ever game where I never ran slavery--just wasn't enough food to make it worthwhile. No wonders for me, but I did found Confucianism and Taoism, for all the good it will do me. With such a small, er, efficiently sized empire I'm doing well on the financial side and have been able to run 100% research almost the whole time--currently working on Education. I'm planning to run a Great Person farm down south in the one spot I've grabbed that has decent food (deer and floodplains) but it isn't really set up yet and doesn't have many hammers to crank out the National Epic. And it's very exposed to the moody whims (and cultural pressure) of Joao if we should get into a tiff.

I'm last in score (not counting Toku, who is now a vassal of Churchill--let us speak no more of the unimportant Japanese person) with 558 vs the Khmer 955 and top-dog English 1355. Everyone has many more cities than I. At least the Khmer have drawn the ire of the other AIs with their heathen religion--Ethiopia is currently at war with them and gave me palpitations recently when I saw a stack of 16 units on my border, but they were just passing through.

It's nice having so many gold resources to juice the economy, but I'm not very optimistic about this game. I could probably grab a city from Sury before someone pounds him into vassalage, but Joao is the next weakest and would be a tough nut to crack with my limited population and production base (and very exposed GP farm). I eagerly await reports from other players, to share our misery cheer your successes.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

This one was too hard for me.
I settled 1 south and really struggled to work out where to plonk my next cities because of the lack of food.
I ended up heading quite directly for Alphabet - but should have gone Aesthetics instead.
The first sign of conflict was Khmer starting to plot. He had borders against America, who was his worst enemy.
Buy instead he sent his stack to me and declared against my 4 city empire (with only warrior defenders) in 1100BC.
GG.
Now I will try again with the Adventurer save. Can I submit the Adventurer game for posterity (even though it won't be my first attempt at this map)?

 

[High King J.J.]

Only reason I'm alive at all is I took the Adventurer save. At 1AD (Ante Diaspora?) I had 7 cities and 1 settler waiting until the last city wouldn't crash my struggling economy. Then got bored of waiting and founded it the next turn. I'm at peace and thus alive. Founded Judaism (and built Dick Solomon's temple of the Big Giant Head) but never converted because Joao spread Butthead-ism and I chose to stay alive when he demanded converting. Zara had Hind-ism (I guess they worship Mi-24 Hind helos?) and went apostolic. I managed to get Swede-goon Payup or somesuch golden wonder and decided free religion wouldn't offend either of the 2 major religions. Khmer, Yanks, Brits and Japs love mutual group actions of the armed kind. Not sure who is against who at what time. I have RoP with most and actually built one scout early on.
Not going to win but and surprised to be still alive. Hasn't been much fun. Most likely will ragequit once someone sends a stack of doom to kill me. I'm only playing this because I ran out of time with the previous Botm. I'd prefer a winnable game to this misery scenario but I'm in the minority.

 

[Frederiksberg]

As expected a very challenging setup with the lack of food. Scouting the nearby area, it felt even worse than expected and with some of the AI having superior land this will be very hard to survive.
I have so far managed to stay out of wars thanks to Roosevelt being clearly the most unpopular AI (Props to @kcd_swede for setting this up). I think @Jimmy Thunder just caught some really bad luck getting attacked early.
I settled 1S and went for Alpha early with a quick detour to "The Wheel" to keep the worker busy. I got decent trade value from Alpha, surprised to read what happened in @Jimmy Thunder's game. Second city was placed at the triple cow site in the south. Other than this city there are almost no places with decent food and @1AD I only have 7 cities with a total population of 34. Tech is up to Feudalism and CS. I researched the former because Joao is showing a red fist preparing to attack someone. He has demanded a tech one time, and that has given me some time to prepare but I fear that his stack of 16 units are coming for me, they are positioned in a border city . The plan is to build walls in my border cities and some longbows. Fortunately Joao is now pleased with me so I can also beg gold to get another ten turn peace treaty. Im getting a great spy soon in my triple cow city and plan to use him to steal Machinery from Zara. With some xbows and maces, I should be ready to repel an attack from Joao. If time allows.
I think it's still a winnable game if none of the AI runs away. So far Roosevelt has been at war with several other civs but has held firm, probably because a pre-catapult AI attack has low odds of success. But Churchill is expanding in a lush, grassland part of the map and may become a monster...

 

[kcd_swede]

This one was too hard for me.
I settled 1 south and really struggled to work out where to plonk my next cities because of the lack of food.
I ended up heading quite directly for Alphabet - but should have gone Aesthetics instead.
The first sign of conflict was Khmer starting to plot. He had borders against America, who was his worst enemy.
Buy instead he sent his stack to me and declared against my 4 city empire (with only warrior defenders) in 1100BC.
GG.
Now I will try again with the Adventurer save. Can I submit the Adventurer game for posterity (even though it won't be my first attempt at this map)?

No, we do not accept games that have been pre-played at a different difficulty. But please play and tell us about it in the spoiler threads.

 

[kcd_swede]

@Jimmy Thunder[/USER] just caught some really bad luck getting attacked early.

I think that players create their own luck, or at least their own odds, especially about being targeted by the AI. But this isn't chess... it's more like... Civilization!

 

[nocho]

I also got attacked by the Khmer and said goodbye to this game. He started plotting and for a while I saw him moving around with units in his territory rather aimlessly. I took his religion judaism, which was spread to him and myself rather actively by Zara, so I thought I might be good with them as my most direct neighbours, if the red fist would drop or wasn't for me. Unfortunately, it was.

 

[Frederiksberg]

@kcd_swede: You can create your own luck to some degree, but in this case it's not so easy because Sury can plot war even when he is pleased as @nocho discovered. Your best defense is to research Currency fast so that you can beg 10 gold and get a peace treaty. Pre-construction it should also be possible to repel the AI by stacking your border city nearest to the plotting AI with archers and building walls. After the AI has suicided it's first stack it may be open to peace talks.

 

[antimony]

I played it very safe, BW after AH even if I wouldn't need slavery or chopping anytime soon just so I could make sure I have copper. Then wheel-agri-pottery and MC for trades and eventually to bulb machinery and engineering.

Settled 1 south just because I wanted to check the surrounding area, 2nd city for triple cows to the south (made first settler at capital size 3 instead of 4 to get it faster), 3rd and 4th in the mountains / gold / floodplains area in between, 5th SW where that copper and floodplains are near Joao and 6th in NW corner for sheep and again floodplains.

Portugal founded Buddhism and is the tech leader with all those gold and silver, he converted Ethiopia and Khmer so I took that as well; 3 others are following Hinduism founded by Roosevelt.

Engineering on T102 and declared on Sury, who was at war on America and England, around 100 BC with a 20 unit mix of axes/swords/cats/trebs, I took one city but unfortunately he capitulated to Churchill right after. Now I have an almost intact army, but the only target is Roosevelt because Zara is also at war with him. Meanwhile I would be Churchills only possible next target, so I am not so confident about the future.

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I knew Deity was beyond my abilities, so I took the Adventurer save. I settled in place and had a total of four cities settled before I was penned in, except for some mountain valleys to the west.

I converted to Hinduism, which was shared by Sury, ZY, and Roosevelt. My research was going well. Long range, I thought I might be able to consider a war with Joao. But Sury has other ideas. He was plotting. In 675 BC, I agreed to his demand to cancel deals with Churchill, who I assumed would be his war target, soon. But, instead, ZY declared on me in 525 BC, invading with a fairly big stack (certainly bigger than the single units I had defending each of my cities). I saved the game and put it aside for weeks, but I never saw any hope in continuing the game, so I resigned.

Onward to BOTM 279 and the raging barbs!

 

[kcd_swede]

Congrats! I told my fellow mapmaker that I would probably end up making an unwinnable game. So in a way, I am feeling vindicated. I hope (and am pretty sure) that BOTM279 is more satisfying.