[BTS] BOTM 286: Shaka, Deity - First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 286: Shaka, Deity - First Spoiler - 1AD

Which save did you choose, and how did you start out?
Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 286, 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

 

[Frederiksberg]

Contender save.
I scouted east and saw some forests there. Decided to move the settler east also and settled on the marble tile to get the worker faster with an expansive bonus hammer. Built a lot of warriors to combat barbs until I could settle my second city near the copper. This meant that unit costs exploded and I couldn't get to writing in a timely manner and I was forced to delete my scout and 4 of my warriors to get my research going again. Because of the tight finances, it was impossible to expand fast and Lizzy beat me to the spot with the gold. She did, however, leave this city with a ragged garrison of two warriors and an archer, so I decided to declare war and take the city with my impis. Captured a couple of workers as well. Lizzy didn't have metals for a while and I took the opportunity to pillage her lands with my impis. That ended when she got iron working and now the problem was to get a peace deal, but fortunately I had time to research aesthetics right before her stack came knocking on my door and I gave it to her in exchange for peace. Then I quickly built a settler and settled a city I could give her and switched to Judaism to get her pleased again. I also settled a city and gifted (liberated) to Pacal, because he is Buddhist and I wanted to keep him pleased after my conversion to Judaism.

@1AD all my neighbours are pleased (Lizzy and Hammurabi are also in Judaism) and the empire consists of 6 cities with 44 pop. Researched up to Currency/Literature/Monarchy and have 900 gold in the treasury. Justinian is at war with Hannibal.

I like the modifications to the map. Makes it easier to keep a tap on advancing armies from the more distant civilizations. The crowded map also works in favor of the human player and my empire of 6 cities is about the average size. Mansa has 9 cities and Hammurabi has 4 and everyone else is somewhere in between.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Adventurer save here. I'm afraid this report won't be too relevant but here it goes.

Settled 1E of the lake.

I was a bit disappointed when I noticed that the promised workers were missing, but soon discovered that the archery tech was not only removed from barbs, but also from the Deity AI, so it looked like a fair trade after all.

Met Pacal and Hammu early enough. Scout on a hill noticed Babylon had a lone warrior for defense. T13 we attacked with 2 archers and eliminated the 1st civ.
Pacal still lives (2 cities), as he had been providing us with workers (5) until he wisened up and started building his resourceless Holkans.

The last neighbour (Liz) helped in keeping our economy afloat until 300BC. Some early tech trades, then techs in peace deals, also lots of cottages for pillaging, were key for us to ultimately reach Currency exactly 1 turn after her elimination. In the meantime we did lose a handful of units due to a few turns of strike, as we definitely overexpanded.

Now that we are over those hard times, we resumed our expansion and at 1AD we are up to 13 cities (plus another to be settled next turn and also a barb city that should fall in a couple of turns. Our army is in the move towards Pacal. Pop is 72, 14 workers. Tech up to Currency, Construction, Calendar, Monarchy.

We adopted Buddhism, sharing it with most of the southern leaders. Mansa is hated by everyone else, so that should give us some time to build up before any unwanted wars. Unfortunately Hannibal (who is pleased with us) settled a couple of cities on our side of the "river", let's see how this unfolds.

Great map and generous concept for the adventurer save, I am enjoying this one a lot so far.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Guided by complete and authoritative advice that our task with the standard game was impossible, I chose the Adventurer save, although I now see that kcd was, in fact, nice to us (relatively speaking ). I salute Fberg's skill in doing so well with the Contender save--that lies above my abilities. I knew that the Great Plains map had richer land to the east, so settled my first two cities a little in that direction and immediately started researching The Wheel to connect them to each other for trade routes. Next techs were Pottery (to get river cottages going), Mysticism (to build monuments and pop borders to reach resources), Mining, BW, and Writing, with Alphabet achieved at an uninspiring date of 400 BC. After that I was able to backfill reasonably well with trades (for awhile).

At 1 AD I have 8 cities and 46 pop. Byzantium is first in score with 945 and 8 cities, Carthage 743/7, me with 626/8, Babylon 540/8, etc. With one of those four archers that kcd so generously provided for the Adventurer start, I nabbed Pacal's worker as soon as I saw him. Took a ceasefire, did it again. Repeat. And then got a bit greedy and careless for the 4th snipe: Pacal had an archer and holkan by that time and razed a barely defended city I'd recently settled close to him. Eventually I amassed an army of axes and captured his two cities in 400 BC. England is relatively small and backward and will be my next target; kcd's map mods have made it easy to conquer and defend the northern landmass. See, I told you he could be nice!

(Conq63 just posted as I was writing. Oh gosh, what a surprise, he's doing much better than I.)

 

[MirrorGuard]

Contender save.
I was thinking about settling on marble, but I didn't see the deer tile then. So I settled 1E of the lake. Built 5 cities including the capital. Beelined for aesthetics. My original target was Liz. But GK got busy pretty early followed by Pacal. Apparently Pacal's target was either me or Hammurabi. Either way I'd have to rally my troops near east-south border. After long preparation GK and Maya DOW on Hammurabi. I joined them in BC200. Right now Babylon is about to be partitioned: I took 2 cites and 1t from a third, GK got 1, Maya got 1, Hammurabi has 3 left. Justinian and Hannibal, 2 Buddhist friends, are top 2 on the scoreboard, having 9 cities each. Followd by 2 Hinduist friends, Liz and MM. GK's early war preparation delayed his expansion. Despite taking 1 city from Babylon, he lost 2 to Ottoman. Now he has 4 cities including the newly captured Opis. Ottoman has 8. Maya has 7. I have 7， 6t from feudalism(enough cash for it). 1 GS in place, 17t from a second. There is no ivory on this map so I'm in desperate need of crossbowman and pikeman to cover my vulnerable catapults against maces/knights. I intentionally skipped fishing and COL, so I still have the option to commit 2 GS for engineering. Or I could bulb philosophy and hope to get machinery/engineering from MM?

 

[High King J.J.]

Took the adventurer save and am surprised to be still alive and doing almost fine. Unlike more adventurous players I've been peaceful so far. Paccy founded Butt-ism and has spread it to half the civs, myself included. Hind-ism (apparently they worship Hind attack helicopters?) was founded in the south, the other half have that. Even though Hanny and Justy are both Hind-ers they fight merrily. Mansy peace vassaled to Justy during the war. Otherwise nothing much to report. Built Hengy and temple of Arty. Settled east of lake, waited until founding second city until had scouted enough. Settled 2E of the gold, incredibly rich with cattle and wheat. That city is about 3 turns from completing Pyras. Have 8 cities at 1AD. Scouted most of the world, this would be a great map to play on decent difficulty. Future plans include taking Paccy eventually, he's got 3 cities. Hope to bulb theology and get the AP to get religious defence pacts, then might survive at least for a while. Everyone nearby shares butt-ism up to Gengy. Beyond him it's Mi-24 Hind worship. Other faiths have not spread much. Tech rate is very low but have managed to avoid strikes. Early on lost a healthy impi to barb warrior at 99+% odds. Yes, this is deity even with the initial help from adventurer save.

 

[kcd_swede]

Keep going, it's exciting to hear about the victories and tribulations that the players experience.

 

[kcd_swede]

If you have a completed save to submit, as long as it was finished on or before 15 March, send it attached to a PM to me and I will upload it for you... the normal submission tool won't accept anything since the original end date wasn't updated on the server (mea culpa).

 

[MarleysGh0st]

I took the Adventurer save. With the extra archers that gave me, I decided I needed to use that advantage while I could. After contacting Pacal and Hammurabi, I attacked and razed Babylon in 3600 BC, at the cost of one archer. At least I wasn't going to finish in last place. (If I wasn't going to try a worker-stealing strategy like Xcalibrator did, I should at least have waited until the city grew to 2 pop, so I could keep it.) But by 1600 BC, with four cities, my economy was completely bankrupt, without any of the techs I needed to generate gold or beakers, and no chance to get those any time soon.

I never saw a point in continuing the game after that, or submitting it as a "retired" game.

​

 

[Frederiksberg]

I was too busy to finish this one. Thank you for a well-designed game. Definitely a winnable scenario and I'm sure there will be several wins submitted.