BOTM 34 First Spoiler - 1 AD

Erkon · Sep 27, 2010

BOTM 34 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 34, 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

Please do not discuss anything that happened after 1 AD,
Please do not divulge the names of any AIs that is on another landmass.
Please do not divulge your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

Lets get the first spoiler up a bit early, and restrict it to the BC years. Hopefully this will enable players to compare their starts better. How about reporting the state of the empire 1AD?

Such as: Number of cities, number of pop, number of techs, number of killed units, food/turn, beaker/turn at ~0 gpt, hammers/turn, anything else?

Was the game more difficult than a standard Immortal game? Please say yes, since that was my impression :please:

ArenaMan · Sep 27, 2010

Long stupid protracted war with Vicky. I've taken London 3 times, she keeps taking it back. My three good cities no match for her six cities. Hoping she will accept cease fire soon.

kcd_swede · Sep 28, 2010

I settled 1SW from the Cow. I tried a worker-steal, taking an undefended worker from Vicky using my starting warrior, but then saw it was next to London with 3 archers and figured I'd lose it anyhow, so deleted the worker (and she never attacked, of course). :blush:

Slowed her down a lot, though. Got peace eventually.

I went for AH first, then beelined BW. Could not decide whether t osettle city 2 for the west copper or for the south copper. Ended up doing both... settled directly on the copper next to London to prevent Vicky getting it, and settled for fish/copper in the south. Chopped like mad and whipped judiciously a stack of 6 axemen plus 2 axe 1t travel behind the stack.

London defended by 2 archers fell easily, only 1 unit lost. She had York in the south with copper in BFC not hooked up, and Nottingham in the north 1W from the fish. I went south, but this city had as many archers as I had axe left, so I left one there to choke it, and moved north to take the fur city first. I'd have taken peace for 10t at this point, except that she can give me nothing for it, and I don't want another -1 diplo with Jaoa at this point (they were both Hindu, founded by Joao, but Vicky has no more Hindu cities... thought she would end up in No State Rel after that but no... still Hindu). I convert to hindu, even though I won't use it for anything but the diplo with Portugal.

Eventually, Vicky moves 2 archers out of the city, and my 6 axes easily handle the 4 that are left there. They then move on to take over a very nice barb city further south with horse and pigs.

I beeline alfabet and as expected Joaoa thinks everything is monopoly so he won't trade any techs. We are at parity now and I could win this if I get him to trade... but no... I guess I'll beeline Monarchy so I can run his favorite civic and get him Friendly if I can. That or go for Optics and make contacts.

Anyhow... I killed my economy with war, and at 1AD am just recovering as cottages start maturing. But if I couldn't build Research, my tech would halt -- I've already built all the buildings I have enabled, which is barrack, granary, library... monuments free because Vicky had Stonehenge in London, which explains the 2-archer defense, maybe.

By the time I get Joao Friendly, though, I bet he and all the AI are so far beyond me that I can't trade. Perhaps a UN shot is my best bet for a victory. That or kill Joao sooner rather than later. Maybe I'm just being defeatist... this is actually quite a winnable position I think, if I focus.

One other thing... move my Palace to London for much better capitol than the one I founded.

Spoiler :

Mitchum · Sep 28, 2010

I settled the capital 1E of the starting location. I stole Victoria's worker on T14 and got peace on T58. My tech path was AH -> Mining -> BW -> beelined Alphabet... Although I did researching Sailing and Masonry for an attempt at the GLH, but it was built fairly early (1350 BC) before I could even start. By the time I learned Alphabet, I had already met 5 of the existing 6 AI with my exploring workboat. I traded to backfill all of the techs that I had skipped. I then headed toward Literature to make a run at the Great Library.

By 1 AD, I had 6 cities (3 on our starting continent and 3 on the landmass to the east). I have 30 pops, Pyramids (in the capital), Academy, 4 libraries, 4 granaries, 3 barracks and 3 lighthouses. My only war so far was the fake war with Victoria, so I've only killed half a dozen units (mostly barbs). I share a religion with two of the AI on the other landmass, which isn't making Victoria very happy. I know all of the Ancient techs plus Monarchy, Math, Aesthetics, Literature and Currency (in 6 turns)

I can tell who the largest civ is likely going to be, so I'm starting to form my alliances for a potential run at a diplo victory. If that fails, I guess I'll have to punt...

Conquistador 63 · Sep 28, 2010

Erkon said:
How about reporting the state of the empire 1AD?

Such as: Number of cities, number of pop, number of techs, number of killed units, food/turn, beaker/turn at ~0 gpt, hammers/turn, anything else?

Was the game more difficult than a standard Immortal game? Please say yes, since that was my impression

Immortal is always hard for me.

But I don't think this game is harder than than usual for the difficulty level.

Maybe it is too early to tell. But fun game nevertheless, Erkon! :goodjob:

Maybe because I got lucky from the start. I moved the settler to the PH and liked what I saw. Too many coastal tiles for a capital, you might think? Possibly, but not too shabby @10AD, check the screenie. Hopefully I will survive until dikes come into play. :mischief:

At 10AD the Dutch have 7 cities, 53pop, 101 :hammers:

, 28

. 253

@70%, +7

/turn. We have techs like CS, MC, Currency, Lit, Monarchy.

How did we get there? Well, we met Vicky's scout on the 2nd turn. T7 we stole her worker next to her capital. I feared being counter-attacked but her 3 archers stood still (maybe afraid of crossing a river?). Later we settled on the PH next to copper and axe-rushed her. She was gone in 1550BC. I took 2 cities, razed 1.

Another benefit of settling the PH was that fast border pop allowing us to sail to the landmass to the East. By 2500BC we had met all but 1 AI. We settled 1 city there by the wheat, and razed an ill-placed barb city nearby.

With lots of contacts and trade routes available, we tried for the GLH but lost the race in 1350BC. :sad:

As a consolation prize we did get MC from Oracle in 975BC, looking for an early Colossus which we got in 600BC. Gotta love those 2 :food:

/4

coast tiles. :love:

With the unusual capital placement we built Moai there. London is building a rather mediocre NE, but it already got the GLib, so I'm hoping for a bunch of GS's in the near future.

My medium term goals are to get as close as possible to Steam Power from Lib, then get State Property while getting more breathing room for a space race victory. Let's see how those plans unfold.

Mitchum · Sep 29, 2010

Conquistador 63 said:
Maybe because I got lucky from the start. I moved the settler to the PH and liked what I saw. Too many coastal tiles for a capital, you might think? Possibly, but not too shabby @10AD, check the screenie. Hopefully I will survive until dikes come into play.

Very nice capital!! You've got me beat by far. I didn't rush Victoria, which set me back quite a bit compared to what you were able to pull off. Nice work! :goodjob:

Xcalibrator · Sep 29, 2010

Yes, very nice Con63! I expected this game to fall into one of two camps depending on where people settled their capital. The plains hill location reveals the eastern land after 2 border pops and gives you an outlet for expansion, which you need since you can peacefully settle probably only one other decent city on the mainland. Settling west gives you room for probably 3 decent cities but then you won't know about the eastern land and your back will be against the wall, forcing you to fight Vicky and/or try an end run to settle on her west (which I was planning before the eastern land popped up). You've managed to get the best of both worlds by settling east but also rushing Vicky.

I obviously settled on the plains hill. I'll have to look up the details on my cities, pop, etc. but at 10 AD I think I had 4 cities (2 on each continent), with Moai in the southern city on the plains hill. The Oracle went before I could even start it but I got TGL and the Pyramids, which was a big boost. I was only able to go for the Pyramids because of the stone on the eastern continent--was hoping for the Hanging Gardens, too, but those were BIAFAL. I've pseudo-beelined to Construction and plan to do MC --> Machinery --> Engineering for Xbows and trebs to go after either Vicky or an easterner. Not sure whom to pick on first: Vicky is easy to access and/but a leader in score and Friendly with me. The eastern AI are easier pickings but harder to get to, plus city maintenance will be more of a problem over there until I get CoL and courthouses, Forbidden Palace, or even move my capital. If I leave Vicky alone I could likely keep her at Friendly and get Joao to the same, so perhaps a Religious or UN victory would work. But I do love using my military tech advantages whenever and wherever possible.

Yeah, I think the tallest blades of grass (Vicky and Joao) need to be trimmed first.

I'd consider this an easier than usual Immortal game, despite having only 4 cities at this point. The Financial trait and TGL (and I'm planning to get the Colossus too) are great for commerce, and getting the Pyramids (rare for me on Immortal) was huge since happiness resources are in short supply. Again, I was lucky there, happening to choose a capital location that allowed me to reach the eastern continent and grab stone. I'm stomping the AI on techs, which is unusual for me this early. One AI has Calendar and one has CoL--I'm holding off on those hoping to trade when they lose their monopolies, but I'd really like to get Civil Service soon with such a powerful capital so I may have to do CoL myself.

Warden USA · Sep 29, 2010

Well, I'm not dead yet.

Havn't really played at this high of a difficulty so I planned on trying to be friendly to all neighbors except maybe to try to fight Vicky early. Unfortunitly I didn't build enough defensive units I think so I was seen as weak. When I declared on Vicky the other AI that I had met who I think I was +6 with attacked me and so I think i'll prolly die or be stuck behind in Tech. But I'll see how long I can survive. I did not start on the plains hill, and settled in place. Prolly not a good idea.

Things I have learned from this run:
1. Build more Defensive units or the AI sees an easy target.
2. Don't trust the AI =P
3. Settlers should aggressivly place towards the AI so I can settle inbetween later. Esp. with a culture Civ

shulec · Sep 29, 2010

Warden USA said:
Things I have learned from this run:
1. Build more Defensive units or the AI sees an easy target.

This is true, but can be overcome by diplomacy. One way to ensure that the AI will kill you if you are weak is to run a state religion different than any of the AI. I am very weak, mostly warriors and a few archers. I am not running a state religion (hinduism) so the Buddhists and Confuscions do not give the -4 state religion diplo hit, so I haven't been bothered yet.

Exception: Psychopaths like Monte. He will attack you even if you're not weak. If you are not on his island you will be safe until he gets astronomy.

Earthling · Sep 30, 2010

Well I didn't keep any stats on things up to 1AD and am also surprised the first spoiler is so early, and can't even talk about half the things I might have done up to then, I don't actually remember:

edit: But it appears 1AD was around 175 turns and I do recall by about 200 turns I was pushing towards the Renaissance, had of course explored and met other AIs and so on, and I probably had Great Library and other wonders by then.

I will say, though, after all the pregame hype:

BOOOOOO! This was WAY TOO EASY!

There's no problem with the game but it wasn't like the preview suggested it would be. Anybody should have a feeling 50 turns in exactly how the game was playing out and know they could choose a path to try and win.

There were at least two obvious and directly accomplishable ways I'd say to do that, probably more, but there should be no problem at all keeping up and going ahead. I didn't opt for the early rush but just kept expanding but both were doable.

I did quite a bit of exploration even early on, I think I can say that, and set up for nice trading in the future, and no threat of war with our neighbors by land.

I was glad to have settled NNE I think on the plains hill, where we got another sheep and fish. I guess a player who didn't would have a rockier start. But REXing was still easy on this one, I got my first four cities up (on landmass/nearby, pressing towards London. Coast south of London was settled really fast but I got the marble/everything important anyway). Again I didn't see a reason to rush Vicky and almost no chance of ever getting DoW'd by her or Joao, (even running a different religion, they'll still like you enough for trade modifiers overall, and when civics kick in you're good) so instead went pursuing a typical build-up expansion strategy. Probably doesn't get me a medal or high score though, the people who have early rushes down and do it all the time are probably good again.

But it's been a fun game - know I can't talk more about the resolution of it but good luck to everyone else, regardless of whether you just played here to 1AD or played further.

shulec · Sep 30, 2010

Does anyone have experience with rising seas?

This could affect anyone going for a space victory or a late domination. I assume, it is somewhat like global warming, but puts an ocean tile where a land tile once was. I also assume cities cannot be lost to rising seas.

BornInCantaloup · Sep 30, 2010

Things aren't that bad, despite some mismanagement :
To 1AD :

Spoiler :

Duckweed · Sep 30, 2010

Erkon said:
How about reporting the state of the empire 1AD?

Such as: Number of cities, number of pop, number of techs, number of killed units, food/turn, beaker/turn at ~0 gpt, hammers/turn, anything else?

Did not save at ~1AD, so the nearest save before that is 380BC. 1AD empire state should be a little better.

Settled in place since I had in mind of chasing for GLH and those forests are critical. Early strategy was similar to what I had done in BOTM29, I aimed for GLH plus Colossus combo to push economy forward.

Moderator Action: Screenshot removed as it shows details beyond the first spoiler restrictions

Mitchum · Sep 30, 2010

Duckweed said:
Did not save at ~1AD, so the nearest save before that is 380BC. 1AD empire state should be a little better.

Great game so far!!

FYI: Screenshot shows AI not on our landmass... Maybe just show a shot of your capital, unless is shows trade routes with AI cities not on our continent. Then you have to do what C_63 did.

neilmeister · Oct 1, 2010

I got nailed. Settled on the PH, and then went about an Axe rush. Unfortunately my 6 axes did not have so much luck. 4 of them died killing 3 archers in the 2 border cities, by the time I got to London, it had 3 Axes defending it. Vicky then came after me -> game over.

srad · Oct 1, 2010

Settled on plains hill. Worker first (always not sure in such situations if workboat first makes sens). AH obviously as first tech.
Met Victoria after turn 3? Oha! She is imperialistic and really near. Found her worker and decided to take the risk: Three archers in her capital, pushed the end button, time stood still, none of the archers attacked - nice! Switched to workboat in capital.
No horses -> Mining -> BW: Copper south and near Victoria -> Second city on the PH west of the copper near Victoria -> Axe rush. DOW in 2100, Victoria is gone in 1875, kept London and York, raced Nottingham (near Fur).

Next goals: The Great Lighthouse and get the economy back into shape (+0 gold at 0 science). Crawled with the help of the cheap libs and assigned specialists to sailing and masonry. Settled a city south of the capital with 8 or 9 forests and chopped the TGL in: 1175BC. But no foreign and oversea trade routes!
After Alphabet trade I gifted the tech to oversea AI and I finally got a nice traderoute income.

Some stats:

10AD: 9 cities, 59 pop, 215 sustainable beakers

A fun game! And once again Great Lighthouse is in such an environment an insane strong wonder.

Moderator Action: Edited out an offshore Civ name. AlanH
"Please do not divulge the names of any AIs that is on another landmass."

Sorry! Missed that :blush:

cabert · Oct 2, 2010

tried to rush vicky ,
12 axes lost for me, 1 sword lost for her
gave up

babybluepants · Oct 4, 2010

Settled on the PH iron. Worker-stole Vicky asa my warrior could make it to her corn. Then got peace the turn I finished BW, and settled 3 more cities before axe-rushing her (fish/copper in the south; 1W of east copper and 2S of NW fish). I waited too long, I guess. Attacked around 1650 BC with 10 axes, but she already had 5 archers in London, and whipped another on the next turn. Turned out to be a stupidly long war, and I had to pay 15-20gpt for units throughout. She was finally gone in the 900's BC - I captured London and York (corn/copper south of London), and razed two stupid cities. Killed 20+ archers...

Met all AI very early, as my WB circled the other continent, while another went all around ours (no circumnav

). My economy's been in ruins all game. Only got off 0% for a couple of turns to finish Aest and 1t to finish Lit, and I've had to work suboptimal coast tiles for commerce quite a bit. Got GLH and I'm building TGL now, with no one on Lit yet. I don't have Currency/COL yet, but the overall pace is abysmal, so should be ok. 12 cities total (9 on our landmass and 3 on the eastern), with 2 infill spots left home and a couple of nice barb cities about to be taken on the eastern continent. Music underway now. Research @ 100% is a cool 250+ bpt, but I unfortunately still can't get off 0%.

chopster · Oct 4, 2010

Well to begin, I've never won on Immortal so I thought I'd give this one a real go.
I'll edit this post with some more accurate details when I get home and have access to my autosaves.

I settled 1W of the starting location, and started with AH with a view to get chariots out as fast as I could for exploration and defence. Well, no horsies so I decided that BW it was.

I met Vicky early on and decided that I'd be boxed in very quickly here if I didn't do something about it, so I decided she must die. I also met Joao shortly after and thought we'd play nice and be bestest buddies - CFC has taught me that diplomacy is key at higher levels for tech trading.

With the copper revealed I settled my second city where I had planned to plant one anyway, below the southern copper with the fish and hills - this would be my axe factory.

I also settled a second city on the NE coast to collect both fish and the other sheep with a view to this later being my GP farm and providing some support production.

I thought I would have more trouble with Vicky than I did, as I thought I was quite late to be "rushing" her with axes.

While preparing and warring I teched towards alphabet with a view to taking some techs for fake peace. I razed a city that seemed useless that she settled to take the western copper, and then set my sights on London with a view to this being my capital later on. (I don't think I've ever moved my capital before which is an obvious hole in my game).

London fell for minor losses and I had sufficient forces remaining to claim the city she settled on the north coast to claim the fish and spices - one tile west of where I would have settled it but that's just me. After some healing I took the fur city to the north, York and another city south of York, then took techs for 10 turns of fake peace with her having a single city left on the west coast by the horses. As soon as the peace was over I took that city but she had settled another which I set off for - I killed a chariot that had fled her capital with a settler and 4? workers on the way and then found the last city undefended - she whipped a single archer the turn I attacked but this fell (less easily than it should - I recall an 80+% battle not scratching it!) to the swords I had by this time and I razed it and she was gone.

Then it was time to try and resurrect my crushed economy - it took many turns to get currency and used most of the gold I got from conquering Vicky to pay for the gpt I was losing during this time.

I don't remember much more right now, I'll update this post later as mentioned.

Summary:
Axed Vicky
Buddies with Joao, even though I got -2 for the 2 war declarations on Vicky.
Explored the starting continent with a workboat, but neglected the Eastern Continent, even though I shold have worked out it was close when I met an AI from there quite early.
Economy crashed, should have got more specialists running earlier I think to assist in this area.
Feel like I'm in a pretty good position for an immortal game, but we'll see!

WelshGandalf · Oct 10, 2010

cabert said:
tried to rush vicky ,
12 axes lost for me, 1 sword lost for her
gave up

I feel your pain. Finding Vicky so early & seeing the size of the landmass, I knew she had to die.

I stole a worker early on, when I got my first axemen I was prowling around and razing all sorts of stuff. Before long I got to two cities & chopped to 6 axemen with CR1 and went against the 4 archers in London. She won with 3 archers left :mad:

I should've given up when the first two axemen did zero damage but the bloodlust was with me. I was going to submit whatever happened but this effort was so awful I think not...

Might give it another go & not submit, though. Never played Immortal before, the info I've got from trying it once will make it a bit easier, so I'll call it "Immortal-lite" difficulty

BOTM 34 First Spoiler - 1 AD

Deity