[BTS] BOTM 292: Boudica, Immortal - First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 292: Boudica, Immortal - First Spoiler - 1AD

Please tell us about your strategy at the start. What was your strategy for maximizing the seafood-rich start? Fishing first? Worker and worker techs first? How's your metal?

Tell us if you learned anything unusual, and what you plan to do going forward.

Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD

Reading Requirements
If you are participating in BOTM 292, 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

 

[LowtherCastle]

So it goes. I was really looking forward to this game and enjoying it. Scout got attacked by two wolves same turn, survived first attack fine then second wolf with 11% odds won. First built settler defended by a warrior on a forest hill loses to a lion at 1.1% odds. Fkitall. GAMEOVER.

 

[nocho]

That's tough luck, LowtherCastle!

My scout died relatively soon too, trying to avoid a lion it ran into a bear. Other than that I had few barb problems.

Anyway, I did go fishing first and switched building a worker to workboat when possible. After the WB I let the city grow to size 2 building a warrior IIRC and then finished the worker. The hammers invested into it already started to decay. Tech went fishing-mining-BW-Wheel-Sailing-Masonry. I settled Vienne to the north on the plains hill sharing the most northern sea food with the capital, with 2 of the golds and the flood plains, and later the horses which was nice. Seeing we were not in a real competition for settling the rather crappy snow filled lands to our west, barring some half decent coastal spots, I decided to go for the GLH after having gotten the first settler out and was happy to get it around 1400BC. With nearly everything being coastal that at least gives a fighting chance to hang on economically. No bronze to be seen felt a bit uncomfortable at first, but the land could be fogbusted more or less efficiently and when the horses popped up, it was all good. And at least there was iron later on.

After building the GLH I expanded to my current 7 cities, not too many other spots to be had anyway, lol. First two cities are decently sized at 10 and 9, the others are developping still, 32 pop total. I've set my eyes on attacking Pacal as soon as I have an army to speak off, currently building it with the first cats and gallic warriors coming out. I went construction and am now busy with machinery, eyeing engineering afterwards. So tech is not doing too badly thanks to the GLH and our shiny metals. I ended up self teching alpha as I couldn't get a decent deal for it. So far I met Pacal, SB, Ham and Washington. I just got a Great Scientist at about 1% odds, literally only the last turn I hired some scientists in the capital that converted the GM points from the GLH into a GS. Not quite sure what to do with him yet.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Nocho, your gold city site was the hill I died on.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I'm having a typically meh game. 6 cities, one on the icy island way out west, last in score (of 6, but close to overtaking Sitting Bull), and a number of Wonders (zero is a number, you know). I SIP and then got the spot up north, positioned to work all three golds (by taking one of the capital's clams and farming the two floodplains). That city is becoming quite a production site, at the cost of forgoing cottages on the FPs. Cottages in general are pretty scarce, which suggests to me that I need to attack somebody soon to take over their nice tiles before I start falling farther behind in tech. Pacal is conveniently close and doesn't require boats, but SB is weaker. Hmmm.

No real trouble with barbs, apart from one archer who nearly captured my silk city out west. I had to devote a lot of warriors and scouts to fogbusting, though--still do on the expansive barren ice to our S and W. I'm going to settle near the horses soon even though it's a crap spot. There are two other plausible, even crappier spots to settle--not sure when/if I'll get to those. No copper, ivory, marble, stone... This will not be an easy game, no sirree.

 

[Mitchum]

Tough luck, LC. Although, your rarely actually finish a game these days so Sid took that choice out of your hands...

I too lost my only warrior to a lion at low odds while on a forested hill (~10% odds). I had to scramble to build 2 more (I wasn't going to take any chances) before building my settler. I was very careful with my scout only moving one. tile. per. turn. He came back and spawn busted south of my capital without having gone too far west. My 2 warriors both escorted my settler north because there were scary barbs in the area. Once the second city was settled, one warrior went further north to spawn bust and the other went west of the capital to spawn bust. My early exploration was stunted but I never had problems with the barbs having only encountered 2 human barbs so far.

I SIP and went Fishing (warrior -> partial wkr -> wb -> wb -> wkr -> war x2 -> settler) -> Mining -> BW -> Sailing -> Masonry. My second city went up north on the PH in the same spot as Nocho (coastal so it missed 1 of the gold resources but luckily ended up with the horses). I considered settling this second city inland to capture all 3 gold resources (which is where I think Xcalibrator settled it) but I decided early on that the GLH would be good on this map so the coastal location was better in the long run. I whipped the GLH just to make sure that I got it.

I have 8 cites (+2 settlers), 25 pops, GLH, Math, Currency, CoL, CS and Calendar. I made exploration a priority once I knew the barbs were under control so I have met all 6 AI. I'm doing 132b @ -52gpt and 79b sustainable @ 60% slider.

I'm not sure which victory condition I'm going for yet but likely either Conquest or Domination.

 

[kcd_swede]

@Mitchum, I'm glad it's going well for you and some others. I didn't test-play it for more than 20-30 turns and didn't see any barb issues that would ruin everyone's day. Sure, the ice fields were prime spawning grounds, but not too hard to spawn-bust, iirc. Funny though, when I play-test a game I am rarely pushing the limits of what can be accomplished or how quickly... just try to stay alive until a couple cities are up and see what the rest of the world looks like in case it looks like the human player is already so far behind it will be a grind.

Of course, sometimes I try to make it a grind just to keep you all honest. But this map was unaltered by me, so blame Sid if you came across insurmountable setbacks. Have fun in any case! Game theory says that if you can never win it becomes frustrating and one tires of the game, but too easy win every time and you tire of it pretty quickly. This game is surprising and usually balanced enough that we are all still enjoying it many years later (don't tell me how many, that would make me feel old ).

 

[Mitchum]

@kcd_swede To be clear, I don't think anyone is blaming you. Do we trust you? "Hell no!" Do we blame you when things fall apart? "No!"

Facing barbs and losing the occasional low probability attack/defense is part of the game. Not having a warrior ahead of the settler to fog/spawn bust is a recipe for disaster. Having a settler defended by a warrior is asking for trouble. I'm sure that LC blames himself (or maybe Sid) much more than you. I was faced with a similar dilemma and chose to have 2 warriors defend my settler in the off chance I lost an attack. There is an element of risk/reward that we all understand and we make our decisions accordingly. Sid giveth and Sid taketh away!

I think the map is quite good and well-balanced. There may be a civ or two that has room to grow and possibly run away from us but that's normal on a higher-difficulty game. If the game were easy, we would have all quit long ago as you said. I've quit twice but keep coming back for some reason...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@kcd_swede To be clear, I don't think anyone is blaming you. Do we trust you? "Hell no!" Do we blame you when things fall apart? "No!"

Facing barbs and losing the occasional low probability attack/defense is part of the game. Not having a warrior ahead of the settler to fog/spawn bust is a recipe for disaster. Having a settler defended by a warrior is asking for trouble. I'm sure that LC blames himself (or maybe Sid) much more than you. I was faced with a similar dilemma and chose to have 2 warriors defend my settler in the off chance I lost an attack. There is an element of risk/reward that we all understand and we make our decisions accordingly. Sid giveth and Sid taketh away!

I think the map is quite good and well-balanced. There may be a civ or two that has room to grow and possibly run away from us but that's normal on a higher-difficulty game. If the game were easy, we would have all quit long ago as you said. I've quit twice but keep coming back for some reason...

I praise myself for trusting my warrior at 98.9% odds. The barb lion winning 8 worse-than-50-coinflip battles in a row is probably 1 in a million odds.

Meanwhile I don’t blame anyone, least of all kcd. I feel free not having to finish the game. The start is the most fun anyway.

The real problem is enthusiastically planning a great strategy, hitting <enter> and getting shocked.

 

[Mitchum]

@LowtherCastle I'm interested in your enthusiastically-planned great strategy. Any chance you are willing to replay the game (for fun of course) up to at least 1 AD and post your progress in the 1AD spoiler thread? I don't think there is an issue doing so if you also post that you're playing for fun and the game won't be submitted...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@LowtherCastle I'm interested in your enthusiastically-planned great strategy. Any chance you are willing to replay the game (for fun of course) up to at least 1 AD and post your progress in the 1AD spoiler thread? I don't think there is an issue doing so if you also post that you're playing for fun and the game won't be submitted...

I’m not sure the strategy was earthshaking, just encouraging. In any case, I’ve already read the spoilers so I can’t really play it properly. Thanks for the invitation and idea. I’ll just wait for the next game to come along…

 

[Conquistador 63]

Just got back home after a few weeks away and started this nice game, enjoying the challenge so far.

Lost the scout early to a panther near Pacal's lands. Later on a barb spear invaded our lands but suicided against a fortified warrior on our silver city (had 2 units sitting there just in case). No more barb action on our continent from then on.

My game is pretty similar to @nocho , as we have expanded to 7 cities and are at 37 pop. Got a late GLH at 700BC.

Tech is up to Currency, Monarchy, MC, Construction and can research 167bpt (-62gpt) @100%.

I also met Pacal, SB, Ham and Washington, but lost my exploring WB to a barb galley before I could get more contacts for the overseas trade routes, so planning to settle the ice island to our west.

Just started amassing an army and should try to go for Pacal at some time (rest of the world's worst enemy), not sure if he will get LBs soon, in that case cats won't do the trick and we might need trebs instead.

 

[High King J.J.]

For once I didn't lose my scout. One bear ate someone else's scout and was wounded enough to die against a warrior. Have met one barb axe. It died when I got my first chariot to kill it. Have met a bunch of other people. At 1AD Pacal had 2.5 times as many cities as I. So far no wars but zero chance of winning in any way. Not going to invest countless hours on an already hated game. Next and less impossible Botm please...
And no, not blaming KCD at all. This time he didn't remove the copper or freeze half the continent (almost, at least it felt like that). No barb galley pillaged my wb's. Only there's not enough decent sites for a city without harassing Pacal and that's just a faster way to die. (Damn politically correct smilies, they have removed the suicide smiley.)