BOTM 38 First Spoiler -1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 38 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 38 (Alexander of Greece), 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

How’s the game going?
Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
Did you steal any workers or make a rush?
Did you find your UU (Phalanx) useful?
Do you have a victory stretegy in mind?
How many cities at 1AD? Pop? Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats?


Posting Restrictions

• Please do not discuss anything that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not name civlizations that required caravels to meet.
• Please do not discuss modern era resource locations (iron is OK).
• 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.

 

[Mad Professor]

Found myself with some time for a change. Decided to play my first GOTM for about two or three years... Well - my FIRST BOTM actually, the last GOTM I played was really a GOTM and since this is BOTM38 I guess that says something...

I settled the capital 1 SE of the starting point - mainly because I wanted to be able to cottage the flood plain the settler was sitting on. As it turns out that worked well with the copper still in the fat cross, and some good hammer producing hills to the east for [oops - censored - that was after 1AD]

My result will not be the quickest I think unless no-one else went for my victory condition, though I was happy enough in the end. I managed 6 cities before my neighbors made further settling unrealistic. I considered war a couple of times, either against Hatty or Roosevelt, but never went to war in the end - there were diplomatic advantages playing it peaceful - I was heading for a diplo victory, you see!

Tech trading got me out of an early tech hole and by the time AD came around I was screaming away from the AI's in tech for the most part.

I was wondering if my luck was going to be bad all game when I lost the original scout to a bear - I had just killed a lion and was healing on a forested hill next to Hatty's border with the bear two tiles away - no problem. However IBT, Hatty's borders popped, shoving my scout down onto the plain next to the bear! Aaargh! The bear ate the scout of course. Things looked up from there though

 

[Greeder]

I'm happy, that you are happy. I'm not. My settling performance was crappy at best. Till 1 AD I think I had 4 cities. I got everything I wanted - lots of gems mainly. But maintenance cost ate me and I fell backward in techs.
So in 1AD I already felt what's going on - a loooong game again.
I settled SE-E on the hill. I'm quite satisfied with that spot. Sheep and irrigated floodplain is a nice start, but all of this meant lot of basic techs to develop. With copper nearby barbs were almost no problem.
Overall not a bad start, but my neighbours got better. It is really shameful, that only thing I'm better in than AIs, is modern warfare.
I wonder If I got any early wonder, but I'm afraid that "none" is the answer.

 

[srad]

The start:
There was a lot of discussion about where to settle in the pregame thread and I was also thinking a lot about the first moves. Skurn came up with the assumption that the tile N-NW of the settler is a lake (->fresh water) so before I loaded the game I was in favour of settling 1NW. Why? Because this location would have fresh water, the gems, the spices and three grassland hills (grassland hill >> plains hill).
But after loading the game I came to the conclusion that the tile N-NW is not a lake but probably a desert. So what now? After discussion the pro and cons of moving the scout NW I did so and found the oasis. Nice! Settler NW and BFC reveals a wet rice resource - bingo. Actually I didn't realize that the rice was wet ( 5 food and not only 4 food ) for some time so my improvement order was gems, farm on floodplains and mine on grassland hill.
Second city was west towards Hatty.

What to do with Hatty?
Very early I captured a worker but after that Ghandi was -2 and Roosevelt -1 towards me so farming Hatty for workers would maybe not so wise because it will deny open borders and tech trading with the two other guys. All religions were found on the other continent.
Hatty settled the nice wheat, marble, copper spot and I started to debate once again if it is wise to attack her again. Some turns later my scout met Asoka and I realized that the other continent was only two water tiles away what will give me tech trading possibilities even if I make the guys on my continent angry. And my scout found gold in Hatty's BFC and another gold beside the BFC.
So every time a worker starts improving the copper in the second ring of Hatty's marble city my warrior escorted the worker home . My relations dropped to -12 Ghandi and -6 Roosevelt. Finally I built several Phalanxes and attacked Hatty (during one of the worker escorting actions I scouted her capital and found out that it was not placed on a hill) - captured marble city and the capital.

Wonders:
Stonehenge Nice!
Oracle -> MC
Hanging Gardens
The Great Library
The Mausoleum of Maussollos
Missed The Pyramids by several turns
Missed ToA by one turn
Missed The Colossus by several turns
Missed The Parthenon by several turns
Invested hammers for cash in the Shwedagon Paya

Around 1000BC my economy was broken, +0 gold at 0% slider. So I build research and with the money of failed wonders I got Currency and my problems were solved.
I have no Academy in 1AD :-( only got Great Priests. Probably I have to research Physics for a Great Scientist.

Future plans:
Take over my continent with curassiers and conquer the other one with cuirassiers / cavalry.

Remark on my scout known as 'barb slayer': As far as I remember he killed two barb warriors while hiding in the trees .

 

[neilmeister]

Settled 1SE, which was almost certainly the best place to settle, explored and discovered that all the other AI had lots of resources and/or FP, so tried to do a Phalanx rush on Hatty.

My 12 chopped Phalanxes were no match for the 5 Archers that defended Hatty's copper city and Thebes. Rage quit in about 1000BC.

 

[Mad Professor]

My 12 chopped Phalanxes were no match for the 5 Archers that defended Hatty's copper city and Thebes. Rage quit in about 1000BC.

Looks like I made a correct decision then by cultivating the friendship of all my neighbors! I was looking with much great temptation to the west at a couple of Egyptian cities but in the end decided (since I was going for diplomatic) that I could use Hatty's help more than I could use a couple of her cities.

Greeder and Srad both talked about broken economies. That caught me a little too because recent games I've played have been on a much bigger map and "distance from the palace" maintenance really increases very quickly on a smaller map like this one. I went to currency fairly early and the extra trade routes helped, particularly since I'd got a work boat past Hatty's area to the west and met some people over there and so had some intercontinental trade routes. Then I also built a couple of markets which I don't usually bother with but this time the maintenance was biting more. That might have slowed me or helped me, I'm not sure - the math was too complicated to work out! I can say that by 1AD my economy was roaring, helped by flicking cheap techs at the AI for all their gold after getting currency fairly early, and techwise I was killing the AI's as we went into the AD's and I kept trading whenever possible to try to keep the AI up with me a bit more.

Srad talked about the wonders - I wanted Hanging Gardens and Pyramids for engineer points as well as their other benefits, but missed them both. I'd hardly got started on the Hanging Garden when a distant AI built it WAY earlier than I'm used to seeing it built As for the pyramids, I was just slack. With that stone to the SW of the capital I could have got it but delayed for other things and missed it. I used the gold well though keeping my tech pace up. Consolation prize only, but not useless. The lack of engineer points became a problem later.

 

[godotnut]

I settled two tiles south on the plains hill. I wanted the stone early for a run at Pyramids. In retrospect, it might have been better to settle one south, keeping the spices and two grasslands to the north and giving up the plains hill and ocean access. At the time, I was thinking of going for the GL and expanding/conquering along the coasts, but that part of my plan wen out the window later when the GL was nabbed early by AI.

I did manage to build the Pyramids though, and used my popped engineer on the Great Library. After I lost the GL, my plan was to keep the empire small toward the beginning, build two or three key wonders, then rush one of my neighbors with a modest army of cats, elephants, and phalanx. Confucism conveniently dominated my continent, which kept me on good terms with my neighbors and allowed me to use a religion fairly early.

Hatty had settled some cities on hills, and seemed to have a little better military than Roosevelt. I also saw that Roosevelt had Stonehenge. When he built the Temple of A, it was settled. He would be my target.

Tech trades kept me essentially tied with the visible leader, until I popped the GL with my first engineer. Then I started to pull away. With the mids and philo, I'm rolling with Representation, Slavery, Bureaucracy, and Pacifism, which is pretty cool this early.

I can't recall when I declared on Roosevelt, so in order to prevent the possibility of a spoiler, I'll refrain from discussing how that war went.

 

[zamint3]

With SGOTM12 finished, I actually have some time to post in a BOTM spoiler.

Settled on PH 2E with sheep and horses, but no copper.

1AD stats:
Cities: 6
Pop: 33
Research: Sustain 10% , +4gpt
No wonders, Roosevelt built Oracle in 2000bc, all others were built on the other continent.

I stole one early worker from Hatty and then one more shortly, doing a Phalanx rush, well rush may not be the correct term, I'm so slow....
I took Thebes first and had a lot of trouble with her marble city on the hill and then left her with a city on the west coast, where she spammed archers.

On the way back from the Egyptian campaign my "glorious" army spotted two Indian workers and a settler out in the open I couldn't resist.
That was easy, only problem: it caused Roosevelt to declare and Hatty to redeclare, so here I am almost broke, with no wonders and at war with everybody on my continent!

@MP: So you're going to be best buddies with Gandhi and Roose after the atonement.

 

[srad]

My 12 chopped Phalanxes were no match for the 5 Archers that defended Hatty's copper city and Thebes. Rage quit in about 1000BC.

I had way more 'luck' with my attack: A warrior was constantly observing the copper tile and had view on the city defense. Hatty had only one archer in the city for a long time. So I built 5 Phalanxes and moved them to the city border. Hatty had now 2 Archers in the city but moved one out. I waited one turn and the archer went on the copper tile- nice. I attacked, killed the archer and moved to the city. Only one defender, lost one phalanx and took the city. Capital was only defended by two archers, also lost only one phalanx.

 

[neilmeister]

Hehe, thats why I rage quit.

I lost 3 Phalanxes on the very first Archer, one at 99%. I should have taken the hint.

 

[Tredje]

I went south with my settler and was pleased to find stone and plains/sheep. Not the best food source, but decent enough to make me decide to settle. I meet Hatshepsut early and due to the poor land available to us, and the time it would take to get cities in the jungle belt productive I decide to rush her with Phalanxes. BW revealed Copper in the BFC, which is great. As I am settling my second city I run into some problems. Apparently it was also the target of a massive bear migration, so I had to dance my Settler back and forth a bit before being able to settle.

Spoiler :

After building about 7 or so Phalanx I move in on Egypt. I lose quite a few, but I grab two of her cities. I don't have enough troops to take the third, so I have to wait for reinforcements. Meanwhile she founds Confucianism in her remaining city. Yes dear, that's what you need right now. After incorporating the Egyptian lands into my empire my economy crashes. I manage to build the Pyramids and with Writing I get some Scientists out. Unfortunately I forget to switch to Rep for a long time, hampering my science. I settle two more cities once Currency and CoL is in, preparing to tech to Lib -> MT -> *Curassier -> *Cavalry. I pick up the Hanging Gardens in my capital, before spawning a GE that rushes The Great Library. I also manage to build the Parthenon in Elephantine. At 1 AD my position is very good and the game is practically won at this point.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

I settled south to be on the coast, with the sheep, the gem and the flood plain. From there, I decided to emulate the awesome Rexing I saw done by Duckweed on previous Botm, and other top players. Since the neighbours were fairly close, I boldly went for landgrabbing by settling cities far from my capital.
A few turns later, I lost the Oracle by 3 turns, and to describe my cities as mediocre would be describing Charles Manson as slighty kooky. My economy was twitching on the floor and bleeding from the eyes, and the other kids were laughing at me for being stoopid. In a last attempt to turn the situation, I axe attacked Hatchepsut, in a way too late pathetic excuse of a rush, grabbed the confucianism holy city with a sanctuary, but my economy was still convulsing, begging me to put her down. I watched the disaster, hung my head low and wept at my ineptitude. I then despair-quit.

After firing another game and (on the very advanced point of) winning an isolated start on Emperor, and getting a boost to my self-esteem, and for my personal sake, I might give another go at the map, with less stupid rexing. I mean, they say it all the time on the news : sustainable development !

 

[Greeder]

I submitted and checked my save. So in 1AD I had 5 cities, 2 of them far away and fighting cultural war with Roosevelt and Hatty. Science on 70%, 51 beaker points, -9gp per turn. Roosvelt had 9 techs more than me, worth about 2600 beakers. I was 4 turns from CoL. 17pops (whipping like crazy).
My plan then: survive, get techs parity, kill them all!

 

[Xenocaust]

I settled 1 SE and by 1AD had 5 cities.

I forgot about the philosophical bonus and neglected my GS until quite late, and found myself well behind on techs. I bulbed Mathematics, and traded with Hattie for Iron Working.

Massing phalanxes I went for Roosevelt, taking out Avar from the barbarians on the way. Boston fell quite easily, and the experience my surviving phalanxes received boosted them to City Raider II - this helped take New York netting me the Great Wall and Scotland Yard. Roosevelt then negotiated for peace, giving me Sailing and Mysticism as well, filling out my early tree.

I don't normally play at Emperor and am a little concerned I've crippled my teching, but will see how it goes.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Cities : 6, 4 of mine plus 2 Egyptians (& 1 razed Egyptian city)

Plan - leverage both traits whilst rushing and running a specialist economy.

Settled 2S on the plains hill. Finding stone made me stick with the plan. Thought my city was pretty poor for production but then glory be! Copper appears! Nice. 5 sweet tiles to use is more than enough.

Really struggled with deciding where to build my next cities. Me 2nd one eventually went 3NW of the starting spot, giving cows, oasis, rice & lots of hills. 3rd one was even more of a struggle, was going to build it NE with the elephants but then spotted the clam so I agonized for a while & eventually put it 2S1W of the clams. Noting in the small cross but clam & cows in BFC. This decision turned into a masterstroke when iron appeared 1S of the city The short-term plan for this city is to run 2 scientists at 0 growth whilst building gold to keep economy afloat.

4th one went W on the coast, next to the marble. This city grew to size 2 & then pumped out a unit every 4 or 5 turns. I declared on the Egyptians in about 175BC with a stack of 14 or so troops, a mixture of swordsmen, phalanxes and spearmen. They took one city which was defended by 2 archers with no losses (hurrah!) then marched on the capital which had a bizarre defence of 2 axemen and 2 war chariots, no archers I lost 3 troops but that's fine. I also razed a new city that was defended by 2 war chariots by sending 2 spearmen at it All this happened in the 7 turns of warfare that happened before 1AD.

Economy crashed but never mind, engage specialist economy! Currency took 9 turns at 0% science, got it about 100BC. Managed to get construction from it by trading with the Indians so I can get catapults/elephants.

Went for writing quite early on & used libraries to pop borders instead of obelisks.

Got the mids around 800BC I think. Have an academy in my capital and a great engineer standing around doing nothing. Think I'll use him to make a dive for the great library since that give me +18 science a turn in my capital. Not that I have the techs required yet though....

I have 6 cities, the Americans have 6, with the Indians & Egyptians with 4 each. Still a bit of land left to settle, at least 2 safe spots for myself and one dodgy one that I could try for if I wasn't so busy with my war.

Not too sure where to go from here - crush Egyptians but then what.... I'm considering going on a mad medieval war against the Americans & staying afloat with pillage gold.... Americans are confu, the rest of us are Jews.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Well, I only ended up with 4 Cities and a war that has been dragging-on, killing my economy, going nowhere, and helping to make me miss many Wonders.

Of course, I perhaps shouldn't have been trying for Wonders if I had wanted to make my war work... but they were so tempting to try for. The only early Wonder that I managed to complete was The Temple of Artemis, which meant a whole +1 Commerce on my single Trade Route plus some Great People Points.

The one saving grace is that I have around 10 Workers for my 4 Cities, thanks to capturing Workers during my war... rather than throwing-away units at Cities, I have just been fighting units in the open and capturing Workers/Settlers. With all of the Jungle squares, this extra Worker force has been a God-send... getting multiple Jungle Gems online may be one of the major factors that helps to salvage my game.


@Tredje
Wow, that's one crazy mass of Bears! Hopefully, you settled where the Settler is placed in your screenshot, essentially "pushing back" the Bears with your Cultural borders.

 

[Grifftavian]

Moved the Scout SE-S to the eastern plains hill, which did not reveal any food. Moved the Settler SW-SE to the plains hill at the mouth of the river, which revealed the Stone. I settled there on Turn 1, and was presently surprised to find the Sheep nearby.

But the name for my Capitol come up as Sparta, so right away I'm thinking there is another Greek Civilization in this game, and that the "Evil Greeks" are on the "Mirror Universe" i.e., the Mirror Continent on this map. Later I meet an American Scout with a green flag, and an India Scout with a light blue flag; more evidence for my "Mirror Universe" theory. And several turns later, a Greek Work Boat with an orange flag sails by Sparta, and much like the evil Spock in the classic Star Trek TOS episode, this Greek leader has a beard, although he goes by the name of Pericles!

What an outstanding concept for a BOTM!

Only 4 cities at 1 AD, three of my own plus a captured Egyptian city. Founded my 2nd city to the east, on the Horse resource so I could get the Fish in the BFC. Made this my Moai Statues city (10 water tiles, 1 with fish). Third city north of the second, on the Iron hill near Cows and Ivory.

Decided Hattie would be my first target since she was closest to Sparta, and had founded Judaism, and figured the Phalanx defensive bonus against Chariots would come in handy against Egyptian War Chariots. Signed an OB treaty with Hattie, and sent in a Scout to map out her territory. She had two cities at the time (her second city was the Jewish Holy City) and had access to Horses, but no copper. I was building up my army of Phalanxes just outside her territory when she sends a Settler and a War Chariot toward some Copper. I don't want her to be able to build Axemen, so DOW and attack, killing the WC and capturing the Settler, who become a Greek Worker! I move my forces to Thebes, only to find it defended by 4 Archers behind city walls with 40% cultural defense. My Phalanxes have low odds to attack, so I decide to make Peace and wait until I can build some Catapults to even up the odds, but I did pillage her Horse pasture first to delay her building any more of her UUs.

The peace Treaty gave Hattie time to build another Settler and found a city near the Copper, so when the treaty expired, I declared war again, and captured this city as my 4th city.

So at 1 AD, I'm bogged down in the second Egyptian War, but can now build Cats and Swordsmen, so hopefully I'll be able to eliminate Hattie this time. In the interim, thanks to the Stone, I did manage to build both the Pyramids and The Hanging Gardens in Sparta.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Hey kcd_swede, nice game design!
Let me try to address your questions.

How’s the game going?
The BC years have been of great sacrifice to the greek people - they aren’t particularly happy with their leader, and have passed the last century on strike, but I have promised them a brighter future, starting tomorrow! No need to work for food anymore, you’ll get paid with little metal pieces, we’ll call them coins.

Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
I settled on the riverside PH, 2S. It is coastal, and has copper, sheep, stone, gems and a FP. Good enough for the early game unit-pump. A new palace will have to be built in a more central location (and with more food!) soon. I have to take note and actually do it, can’t remember the last time I moved my palace. Also, it has already an academy and a settled GS, making it harder to break my (bad) habit of never moving the palace – but the distance maintenance costs are alarmingly high. Maybe a forbidden palace would solve that?

Did you steal any workers or make a rush?
The greek people are too honorable to “steal” anything. If other lesser people stand in their way, too bad for them. Any workers caught inside or around their cities in a legitimate war of conquest is fair game, though. And there were plenty of wars.
The Egyptian campaign took place 1600-1200BC. They even tried to please me building a city named after me (Alexandria) , but the location was awful and it was burned to the ground. We only kept their capital and Elephantine, located…next to an elephant camp. We built the Pyramids there, as those Egyptians didn’t build them as they were supposed to, when they could.

Then our soldiers got restless and went for India next. It happened 725-275BC. We took 3 cities and now Gandhi has a city on the ice, but the peace treaty (where we got MC) has just expired, and I don’t think he is needed alive anymore.

Did you find your UU (Phalanx) useful?
Let me rephrase that: does Greece need any other unit? Aside military police and a super-medic chariot, all my soldiers up to this point were phalanxes.

Do you have a victory strategy in mind?
Undecided. I always like to play for space race…but I’m not sure my early game was well suited for it. In this game, my choices were dictated by the leader’s traits and UU. The land had enough hammers for a military-based land grab, but is very food-poor for a specialist-fueled economy, though.

How many cities at 1AD? 7
Pop? Just 28, have just whipped hard for 4 courthouses.
Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats? Too embarrased to answer, just check the screenie if interested.

 

[Mad Professor]

Thanks for that writeup C63 - I enjoyed that. Looking forward to the conclusion in the other thread!

 

[Fluroscent]

So I just reached 1AD and read the thread. Was very surprised to see people with so few cities at 1AD. Then read C63's post and thought, well at least someone else has made good use of the UU+agressive trait!
I also have eliminated Hatty and Gandhi down to one city, though not on the ice, he didn't settle any there. Left him the last city because I could extort some techs. And Asoka on the other side has -5 declared on friend by now, and he can block all my overseas trade routes if he closes borders.

So answer to questions:

How’s the game going?

Quite nicely. Now I have to choose a VC. I am quite unsure, with only diplo seemingly a bad idea at this point.

Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?

I settled NW. I sent the scout NW like discussed in the pregame thread and saw the rice on T1. Settler went south, but then back again for the better location. Having a 5 food tile is most certainly worth the turns moving. Turns out it also worked well being closer to the AI than a southern capital.

Did you steal any workers or make a rush?
Did you find your UU (Phalanx) useful?

Not rushing with Alex' aggressive phalanxes with an AI that close would be a bad play in my book, so naturally I rushed. Phalanxes' advantage is basically that you don't have to worry about the AI having horses.
Turns out Hatty didn't manage to build any war chariots until the last turn of her existence, and Gandhi didn't have horses anyway, so might as well have been regular axes. But the aggressive trait is what really matters here. Taking out two AI with just axes is normally a lot harder on emperor.

How many cities at 1AD? Pop? Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats?

-8 cities total, 5 captured, 1 newly settled lost to a barb coming from a single unbusted square .
-Preparing to attack Roosevelt (begin in ~3 turns) with catapult support now. 11 veteran Phalanxes are ready to go.
-All religions on the other side, including confu.
-Built Pyramids. Building GLib, Parth, MoM. Parth and MoM will likely not be in time, but fail gold is fine. Other early wonders built on the other side.
-Two great scientists, first settled, next academy.
-Making 62bpt, and losing 11gpt at 0%, but 175 gold in bank, and will finish a bunch of Courthouses soon.