SiP, great wall, as did a lot of you. Don't know about you, but my game is going really slow. I've played a lot of immortal, and the tech rate in this game just is so slow. The AI must really be getting harassed. I'm confident I'll win with my solid cities, and I know I will crush alex at some point, but I'm undecided what victory type I'll go for. Conquest and domination seem like too much work with this much land to cover
BOTM 39 First Spoiler
- Thread starter DynamicSpirit
- Start date
I also settled in place, Great Walled, and Oracled (for monachy). Alex bugged me by settling near my eastern copper, so I razed that city with Axemen, and also razed Athens eventually. The war took a long time, and was a drain on the economy. at 1AD I negotiated a deal with Alex not to eliminate him, extrorting Math and Iron Working. I'm doing OK I guess, but Mehmed and Churchill both have seven cities and I only have three. I've been kind of shy of expanding too quickly after my expansion disaster of the last GOTM. Time to start now though I think!
I settled 2E and went for the GW, completing it in 2120 BC, and following it with Stonehenge in 1760 BC. Then, after settling two more cities, I decided to rush Alex.
Before I began the war, the GW produced a Great Spy in 975 BC. I think I made a big mistake by using it to infiltrate Alex. That set up a conflict; while I wanted a quick kill, I also needed to build spies to steal some tech before the final city was destroyed. I captured Sparta immediately after declaring war in 600 BC, and Athens followed in 500 BC, but Corinth is still holding strong at 1 AD with a stack of archers defending it. And meanwhile, the cost of maintaining my troops is crushing my economy.
I tried for the Oracle, but lost that race by a few turns in 100 BC.
I don't expect to win at this level, but I'm still in a militarily aggressive state of mind.
Before I began the war, the GW produced a Great Spy in 975 BC. I think I made a big mistake by using it to infiltrate Alex. That set up a conflict; while I wanted a quick kill, I also needed to build spies to steal some tech before the final city was destroyed. I captured Sparta immediately after declaring war in 600 BC, and Athens followed in 500 BC, but Corinth is still holding strong at 1 AD with a stack of archers defending it. And meanwhile, the cost of maintaining my troops is crushing my economy.
I tried for the Oracle, but lost that race by a few turns in 100 BC.
I don't expect to win at this level, but I'm still in a militarily aggressive state of mind.
donsig
Low level intermediary
I'm playing the contender save. Followed the strategy of my first test game: SIP; teched min-BW-masonry; built warriors and then a worked timed for just after BW. Used the worker for pre-chops while the warriors fog-busted close to my borders. Built the GW in 2120 BC and by that time all my units were holed up in the capital.
Once I had the GW I set the worker about improving tiles while I built impis to attack Alex. Figured I'd send the early impis out to get some xp from the barbs. That didn't quite work out as I had planned. I took Sparta and Athens but couldn't manage Corinth which is on a hill.
I had a crazy idea of trying to build the oracle but my tech rate bogged down horribly. The Celts built the Oracle in 25 BC and the also built Stonehenge earlier. I used my Great Spy to infiltrate Alex but it appears I need a spy to use those points. I'm 14 turns from writing and I neglected to tech pottery so I 'm in bad shape. I did manage to take Corinth after the barbs weakened its defenses. I also built a city on the south coast so I have 5 cities total.
The Celts, Chinese and Ottomans have found me.
Not sure if I can compete with the AI long term. A good learning experience for me.
Once I had the GW I set the worker about improving tiles while I built impis to attack Alex. Figured I'd send the early impis out to get some xp from the barbs. That didn't quite work out as I had planned. I took Sparta and Athens but couldn't manage Corinth which is on a hill.
I had a crazy idea of trying to build the oracle but my tech rate bogged down horribly. The Celts built the Oracle in 25 BC and the also built Stonehenge earlier. I used my Great Spy to infiltrate Alex but it appears I need a spy to use those points. I'm 14 turns from writing and I neglected to tech pottery so I 'm in bad shape. I did manage to take Corinth after the barbs weakened its defenses. I also built a city on the south coast so I have 5 cities total.
The Celts, Chinese and Ottomans have found me.
Not sure if I can compete with the AI long term. A good learning experience for me.
Joe Banana
Chieftain
I have played Emperor level only 3 times, so Immortal with raging barbarians sounded well beyond my comfort zone, so it was with trepidation that I settled in place and found my nearest neighbour was Alex...
Still, building the Great Wall sent the barbarians off to hassle others. It was quite fun watching them pillage Alexs copper again, and again, and again...
This didnt stop Alex attacking me though, but I beat him back.
Ive limited myself to four cities to avoid crashing my economy and it seems to be working so far. I may not be tech leader, but Im keeping up. I hadnt realised that at higher levels you need to research techs you can trade for the techs you need (plus some gold) rather than just research what you need as you do at lower levels, so Ive learned something at least.
I need to decide what sort of victory to attempt, but I probably wont make a final decision until after Ive had a go at attacking Alex with Catapults and Macemen. Of course this could go horribly wrong....
Still, building the Great Wall sent the barbarians off to hassle others. It was quite fun watching them pillage Alexs copper again, and again, and again...
This didnt stop Alex attacking me though, but I beat him back.
Ive limited myself to four cities to avoid crashing my economy and it seems to be working so far. I may not be tech leader, but Im keeping up. I hadnt realised that at higher levels you need to research techs you can trade for the techs you need (plus some gold) rather than just research what you need as you do at lower levels, so Ive learned something at least.
I need to decide what sort of victory to attempt, but I probably wont make a final decision until after Ive had a go at attacking Alex with Catapults and Macemen. Of course this could go horribly wrong....
Htadus
A and L's dad
Your victory options are limited with 4 cities. If you are still at 1AD, I recommend that you build another 4-6 cities and build the minimum needed buildings such as grain, a Forge, Rax, something for culture (lib/theater for me), and a courthouse. Use a food economy to get these cities up; many farms and pop rush the buildings. Afterwords build some workshops and build gold or research.
As for alex, if he does not have Lbows, your axes can still take him down. Just bring 2-3 suicide cats for each city and about 2 attackers per each defender. I would attack two cities at the same time. Chose cities you can easily defend. Then brace for a few stacks of greeks comming to get these cities back. So bring many defenders. mainly axes and a few impies. good luck. Easier to say than to do it bu you can do it.
Nicol.Bolas
King
I took an adventurer save, since I am really only a prince player.
I built worker, then warriors, then settler, then more impis.
I had 4 cities, lots of impi and 1 library.
since no one has built GW I tried to build it, when Ulundi could build it in about 13turns.
however I didnt notice any abuse of other AIs..... especially never seen alex struggling woth them like others wrote
I succeeded ... so i though about easy expansion, but then ALex DoW..
I survived only barely, but then took his east copper city.
argos is on hill and on this difficulty I dont think its possible wth just impi and axemen....
1AD
thats where I am now at..... other civs expanding and I am stuck on 7 cities in this punic war.
i am in deficit at 0% and makins small progress thanks to 2libs and scientists in them.
this is really shock compared to prince difficulty, alex wont end the war....
(sorry for double post, but no one is posting)
Moderator Action: Deleted the rest of this post, which relates to events beyond the scope of this spoiler thread
I built worker, then warriors, then settler, then more impis.
I had 4 cities, lots of impi and 1 library.
since no one has built GW I tried to build it, when Ulundi could build it in about 13turns.
however I didnt notice any abuse of other AIs..... especially never seen alex struggling woth them like others wrote
I succeeded ... so i though about easy expansion, but then ALex DoW..
I survived only barely, but then took his east copper city.
argos is on hill and on this difficulty I dont think its possible wth just impi and axemen....
1AD
thats where I am now at..... other civs expanding and I am stuck on 7 cities in this punic war.
i am in deficit at 0% and makins small progress thanks to 2libs and scientists in them.
this is really shock compared to prince difficulty, alex wont end the war....
(sorry for double post, but no one is posting)
Moderator Action: Deleted the rest of this post, which relates to events beyond the scope of this spoiler thread
jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory.
General ideas:
Hey! Have I been the only one not building the GW?
You are all right, people, it was crazy on my part not to play a testing game first.
Also I am surprised to see the tech levels of some of the games here. Barbs have bitten hard on both the AI and me.
Settling:
Sco N-NE, see banana. Tempted to take a look 2W, but would take too long to come back. Set E-NE. Sco SE-NE. Tempted to move 2E to climb a PH, but here at size 9 I'll have +1fpt+24hpt, and its riverside. Settle 2E1N. When borders expand I'll get the +1h for worker.
Alex found immediately. My decision is to take him out, or he will dow me in the end. However, his cities are so poor I'd renounce to it later on.
Start with Worker and AH. When I saw no horses, I went for mining and BW. Worker farmed wheat and pastured sheep.
Next builds were 4 Warriors and then tried to produce a Settler.
Barbs coming:
I lost my first fight at 80% odds, which meant that I couldn't get out to fogbust as planned.
This fact, together with my no playing a testing game, made me make a huge mistake: I didn't protect my improvements. They got pillaged
Copper in the third ring is not such good news. Had to stop my settler for more warriors, till I could whip it for 3pop.
Panther and Barbs delayed my settling my second city to 2000BC. Settled 2W of gems, with gems, cow, copper and sheep.
New round of pillaging, including the road to copper. It isn't till 1500BC that I get my copper on line.
Whip Axes, settler and Workers. Third city settled N of the rices, with 2rice, 6FP, oasis. It will be a great GPFarm.
Now things were looking brighter, but I made the worst mistake of the game here. Decided to go to Writing and Alpha without picking Pottery first. If I could have researched those quickly, it could have been ok. But I should have gone for the friends-of-the-whip granaries (cheap too) and for the economy-savers cottages.
Deep in the hole:
1000 BC Stats: 3 cities, 6 pop, 4workers, 10units(1Axe), 1 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 2 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=26-7-19, 10 sustainable beakers per turn, 3 culture per turn, 0 great person points per turn, 155 gold, 1monu, 1Barr. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 7 Techs: BW, AH. 0 civs killed. 3 hours played.
I'm paying 9gpt for unit maintenance. Soon I am at +8gpt at 0% science. Everybody else has 4 cities, after having suffered a lot from barbs too.
I need to get out and explore more to know where to settle more cities. Find more FP up the rivers and Stone in the NE. That's my opportunity! Pyramids and gold will raise my happiness cap and will set my research in motion.
04 founded 1NE of stone, with Stone, Gold, Cow, 3oasis, already connected by roads to my empire. Stone connected, start Pyramids in capital (that city has hammers indeed!) and chop everything there.
My first GS is turned into an Academy (mistake?) and I get the Pyramids built. The game is saved... at least that's what I thought.
Get Alpha 100BC, while doing +1gpt at 0% and having 9gold in the treasury.
Hindu infects my capital.
05 built, 2E1S of ivory, I with voy, 7FP (one Mao's). Now -9gp at 0%!!! I wasn't expecting the new city to cost 13gpt. Ruin ahead again. 25 turns left for Currency.
Will I survive the STRIKE? You'll have to wait for my second spoiler.
1AD Stats: 5 cities, 15 pop, 7workers, 13units (4Axe), 2 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 4 health resources, 1 great persons, 1 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=58-10-58, 27 sustainable beakers per turn, 21 culture per turn, 8 great person points per turn, 0 gold. 1 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 18 Techs: IW, Alpha, Sail, PH. 0 civs killed. 9 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 1,0,0
General ideas:
Hey! Have I been the only one not building the GW?
You are all right, people, it was crazy on my part not to play a testing game first.
Also I am surprised to see the tech levels of some of the games here. Barbs have bitten hard on both the AI and me.
Settling:
Sco N-NE, see banana. Tempted to take a look 2W, but would take too long to come back. Set E-NE. Sco SE-NE. Tempted to move 2E to climb a PH, but here at size 9 I'll have +1fpt+24hpt, and its riverside. Settle 2E1N. When borders expand I'll get the +1h for worker.
Alex found immediately. My decision is to take him out, or he will dow me in the end. However, his cities are so poor I'd renounce to it later on.
Start with Worker and AH. When I saw no horses, I went for mining and BW. Worker farmed wheat and pastured sheep.
Next builds were 4 Warriors and then tried to produce a Settler.
Barbs coming:
I lost my first fight at 80% odds, which meant that I couldn't get out to fogbust as planned.
This fact, together with my no playing a testing game, made me make a huge mistake: I didn't protect my improvements. They got pillaged
Copper in the third ring is not such good news. Had to stop my settler for more warriors, till I could whip it for 3pop.
Panther and Barbs delayed my settling my second city to 2000BC. Settled 2W of gems, with gems, cow, copper and sheep.
New round of pillaging, including the road to copper. It isn't till 1500BC that I get my copper on line.
Whip Axes, settler and Workers. Third city settled N of the rices, with 2rice, 6FP, oasis. It will be a great GPFarm.
Now things were looking brighter, but I made the worst mistake of the game here. Decided to go to Writing and Alpha without picking Pottery first. If I could have researched those quickly, it could have been ok. But I should have gone for the friends-of-the-whip granaries (cheap too) and for the economy-savers cottages.
Deep in the hole:
1000 BC Stats: 3 cities, 6 pop, 4workers, 10units(1Axe), 1 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 2 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=26-7-19, 10 sustainable beakers per turn, 3 culture per turn, 0 great person points per turn, 155 gold, 1monu, 1Barr. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 7 Techs: BW, AH. 0 civs killed. 3 hours played.
I'm paying 9gpt for unit maintenance. Soon I am at +8gpt at 0% science. Everybody else has 4 cities, after having suffered a lot from barbs too.
I need to get out and explore more to know where to settle more cities. Find more FP up the rivers and Stone in the NE. That's my opportunity! Pyramids and gold will raise my happiness cap and will set my research in motion.
04 founded 1NE of stone, with Stone, Gold, Cow, 3oasis, already connected by roads to my empire. Stone connected, start Pyramids in capital (that city has hammers indeed!) and chop everything there.
My first GS is turned into an Academy (mistake?) and I get the Pyramids built. The game is saved... at least that's what I thought.
Get Alpha 100BC, while doing +1gpt at 0% and having 9gold in the treasury.
Hindu infects my capital.
05 built, 2E1S of ivory, I with voy, 7FP (one Mao's). Now -9gp at 0%!!! I wasn't expecting the new city to cost 13gpt. Ruin ahead again. 25 turns left for Currency.
Will I survive the STRIKE? You'll have to wait for my second spoiler.
1AD Stats: 5 cities, 15 pop, 7workers, 13units (4Axe), 2 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 4 health resources, 1 great persons, 1 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=58-10-58, 27 sustainable beakers per turn, 21 culture per turn, 8 great person points per turn, 0 gold. 1 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 18 Techs: IW, Alpha, Sail, PH. 0 civs killed. 9 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 1,0,0
2metraninja
Defender of Nabaxica
If I manage to finish this game this night and tomorrow, it will be the real challenge.
So far: settled in a good location near the starting position, built second city near the sheeps in the east, refused to go for the GW - Noblesse oblige. Done good job killing about 70 warriors, archers and axes with just 1 or 2 warriors dead, just one single road pillaged and having ridiculous 5 and 6 promo impis and axes at hand.
Teched well, rushed Alex 2 times the old-fashioned way - pure axe rush - each time taking techs from him for peace, he is now at 2 or 3 cities hopelessly defending.
I am at 6 or 7 cities, teching well, also having the most powerful military. Maybe the only mistake was taking Feudalism from Oracle, which now I dont use much, but it was the most expensive tech to get. Used my first GS settling him - might be a mistake, but I saw this as the best option at the time.
A lot of land to settle, but I settle cautiously - with big spaces between the cities, fearing the costs. Still dont know what tipe of victory I will pursue, but might be a diplo - it is the less time demanding and I have not much time at all.
So far: settled in a good location near the starting position, built second city near the sheeps in the east, refused to go for the GW - Noblesse oblige. Done good job killing about 70 warriors, archers and axes with just 1 or 2 warriors dead, just one single road pillaged and having ridiculous 5 and 6 promo impis and axes at hand.
Teched well, rushed Alex 2 times the old-fashioned way - pure axe rush - each time taking techs from him for peace, he is now at 2 or 3 cities hopelessly defending.
I am at 6 or 7 cities, teching well, also having the most powerful military. Maybe the only mistake was taking Feudalism from Oracle, which now I dont use much, but it was the most expensive tech to get. Used my first GS settling him - might be a mistake, but I saw this as the best option at the time.
A lot of land to settle, but I settle cautiously - with big spaces between the cities, fearing the costs. Still dont know what tipe of victory I will pursue, but might be a diplo - it is the less time demanding and I have not much time at all.
2metraninja
Defender of Nabaxica
I had a power outage last night and my autosave options seems to be to save each 4 turns and I had to replay turn and a half. Will this disqualify my game? It will be pity if so, as I played till 5.00 AM this morning to move the game on and hopefully finish in time to submit.
RRRaskolnikov
Goldfish
And immediatly set up your autosave to 1 turn 
Nicol.Bolas
King
I must say I do not follow this 1turn auto save either.....so far I have been lucky, no crashes or anything......
the game is slugish enough already
the game is slugish enough already
I took contender save, today, I hope to finish it before deadline...
SIP, worker first, than 3xwarrior, settlerwariar, GW
Tech --> mining, BW for gems, masonry for GWall
Barbs were no hurt, as i blocked them with my warrior on hills, but they made some destruction (my gems! where are my gems!)
When I was about to settle second city, Alexander did it 2 turns before, so I lost wheat and second bronze. So I settled on the forest hill north of Sparta. Made 3rd city on a hill north from Ulundi and cottaged the river.
Great Spy settled - gives more EP, second one will build scotland yard later
I produced about 10-14 axes (3 turns - Ulundi, 5 turns 2nd city) because Alex already had a lot of archers becoause of barbs and unfortunately phalanx as well. Took Sparta and Athens (a sh* not a capital, but I wanted it to convert to hinduism, because most of other civs were Hindu)
War finished at 225BC leaving Alex 2 cities - may be usefull as a buffeur and our relations will grow up as he was hinduist too.
Economy: few turns to currency (building research in main cities to get it). Than planning straight to CoL.
Slider - 0-10%, 6 gpt from selling rice
7 cities, lot of cottages, problems with unhappiness/
Victory plans - peacuful one? I have little time to submit game. But who cares propably AI will win...
After getting 2nd GSpy, will try to switch to espionage economy for some time, using Pacal as my researcher.
Later - we will see
SIP, worker first, than 3xwarrior, settlerwariar, GW
Tech --> mining, BW for gems, masonry for GWall
Barbs were no hurt, as i blocked them with my warrior on hills, but they made some destruction (my gems! where are my gems!)
When I was about to settle second city, Alexander did it 2 turns before, so I lost wheat and second bronze. So I settled on the forest hill north of Sparta. Made 3rd city on a hill north from Ulundi and cottaged the river.
Great Spy settled - gives more EP, second one will build scotland yard later
I produced about 10-14 axes (3 turns - Ulundi, 5 turns 2nd city) because Alex already had a lot of archers becoause of barbs and unfortunately phalanx as well. Took Sparta and Athens (a sh* not a capital, but I wanted it to convert to hinduism, because most of other civs were Hindu)
War finished at 225BC leaving Alex 2 cities - may be usefull as a buffeur and our relations will grow up as he was hinduist too.
Economy: few turns to currency (building research in main cities to get it). Than planning straight to CoL.
Slider - 0-10%, 6 gpt from selling rice
7 cities, lot of cottages, problems with unhappiness/
Victory plans - peacuful one? I have little time to submit game. But who cares propably AI will win...
After getting 2nd GSpy, will try to switch to espionage economy for some time, using Pacal as my researcher.
Later - we will see
Munro
Deity
I know it's a bit late, but some might be interested in a write-up still.. 
This was an interesting game for me.
Other than that, I settled 2E of the starting location as I had planned from test games, and built the GW after I think 4 warriors for defence. Looks like the barb techs weren't at Deity levels though - faced a lot of warriors early on and only a handful of archers, so 4 warriors was more than I needed.
At 1AD I'm still at 3 cities, but just taking the lead in techs as my tech stealing and alpha / currency / cottage / monarch beeline starts to kick in. I've got Alex to pleased through OB and gifting taway surplus resources - but with the GW sending all the barbs his way (and no copper within his reach), he's not much of a threat anyway. He already lost Thebes to the hordes of barb archers...
Overall things are looking pretty good.
This was an interesting game for me.
- I took the challenger save, and deity maintenance costs combined with the small map type and toroidal wrap meant harsh maintenance costs.
- Even though I had expected this and planned slow, cottage-fueled inital growth, they still took me by surprise. At one point I was losing money at 0% research with only 3 cities, and had to stop working power tiles in my capital just to break even.
- Fortunately it was a temporary slump. I had Alphabet by 275 BC and started stealing my way out of the hole thanks to infilitrated Great Wall spy with Alex.
- Buildilg research gave me currency in 25BC, and the combination allowed me to trade for all the Monarchy techs at which point everything started looking up again.
Other than that, I settled 2E of the starting location as I had planned from test games, and built the GW after I think 4 warriors for defence. Looks like the barb techs weren't at Deity levels though - faced a lot of warriors early on and only a handful of archers, so 4 warriors was more than I needed.
At 1AD I'm still at 3 cities, but just taking the lead in techs as my tech stealing and alpha / currency / cottage / monarch beeline starts to kick in. I've got Alex to pleased through OB and gifting taway surplus resources - but with the GW sending all the barbs his way (and no copper within his reach), he's not much of a threat anyway. He already lost Thebes to the hordes of barb archers...
Overall things are looking pretty good.
Nicol.Bolas
King
I know it's a bit late, but some might be interested in a write-up still..
This was an interesting game for me.
On the higher difficultly levels I normally try to overlap my early cities to keep city maintenance down, maximize early food resources and help with barb defence. I did have a couple of tiles overlap here on my 3rd city, but uMgungundlovu was completely apart and with hindsight I would have founded it a little closer to the capital. As my research rate slowed, I also started to run out of build options which compounded the problem. I ended up with more warriors and workers (and unit maintenance) than I really needed early on (though it all helped me surge out of the hole later).
- I took the challenger save, and deity maintenance costs combined with the small map type and toroidal wrap meant harsh maintenance costs.
- Even though I had expected this and planned slow, cottage-fueled inital growth, they still took me by surprise. At one point I was losing money at 0% research with only 3 cities, and had to stop working power tiles in my capital just to break even.
- Fortunately it was a temporary slump. I had Alphabet by 275 BC and started stealing my way out of the hole thanks to infilitrated Great Wall spy with Alex.
- Buildilg research gave me currency in 25BC, and the combination allowed me to trade for all the Monarchy techs at which point everything started looking up again.
Other than that, I settled 2E of the starting location as I had planned from test games, and built the GW after I think 4 warriors for defence. Looks like the barb techs weren't at Deity levels though - faced a lot of warriors early on and only a handful of archers, so 4 warriors was more than I needed.
At 1AD I'm still at 3 cities, but just taking the lead in techs as my tech stealing and alpha / currency / cottage / monarch beeline starts to kick in. I've got Alex to pleased through OB and gifting taway surplus resources - but with the GW sending all the barbs his way (and no copper within his reach), he's not much of a threat anyway. He already lost Thebes to the hordes of barb archers...
Overall things are looking pretty good.
this is interesting, how did you get so much espionage?
adrianj
Deity
Munro built the Great Wall. It eventually produces a Great Spy, which you can use to Infiltrate an AI player (a mission you run by sending it to an AI city). This nets you some ridiculous amount of
(~4000?) against that AI which you can use to steal techs or whatever.
Nicol.Bolas
King
yeah, thats right. at start the 3000esp is indeed powerful to get all passive benefits and stel 3-4 techs
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