BOTM 41 -- First Spoiler to 1AD

If its any consolation, I probably feel worse about it than you do. *

*never trust a mapmaker. :lol:
No to worry Swede. :beer:

Look at it this way, you will never be forgotten... :mischief:

Maybe we should change it to:
"Never trust WorldBuilder... ;)
 
Gave this one a try but after ~15 truns a mobile artillery(?) entered Uruk and the game was over. :eek:
I should pay more attention to text in red ;)
 
Add another victim to the mobile artillery. I read the warnings and thought a warrior 3 tiles away from my capital was reasonable caution. Apparently not.
 
Did you disregard the stern warnings?
How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go?
Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful?
Do you have a victory stretegy in mind?
What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map?
How many cities at 1AD? Pop? Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats?
I read the warnings several times, and yet almost lost the game by not following them strictly. :crazyeye: But got lucky to be able to intercept Humbaba on its way to my capitol (t12), and thanks to the Noble level free wins, the fire-breathing demon retreated with 1/26HP left, and the warrior killed it the next turn. Too bad it did not get the free 10XP from killing it inside the city, just 1 measly XP.


Civ4ScreenShot0103.JPG

I settled 2NE on t1, but blocked Humbaba's path to Aztec, so it came towards me, but decided to attack my warrior first. Interesting to learn from the spoilers that Mobile Arty is siege (never built one myself), and that siege can capture empty cities in BTS...

I was able to dodge the bear and wolves until their extinction, and a lucky archer killed Enkidu defending on a forest tile. Still couldn't figure how to settle and work the heavenly lake guarded by the sea monster. :confused:

I will probably go for space and my capital is in a half-decent spot for it, been cottaging its grass/FP tiles.

I think I built like 4 vultures who managed to capture a couple of barb cities.

I kinda like the challenge posed by fantasy map/irrational resources for a decent city placement plan. But after revealing the whole map (just learned Paper), it seems evident that the map was heavily edited (all those ice tiles between us and the AI) to make conquest/domination harder... :evil:

I think I had like 120bpt breaking even at 1AD, and 9 cities (2 taken from barbs).

Fun game so far! :goodjob:
 
Played to 445 AD on April 16. Will finish after playing GOTM & WOTM.

Did you disregard the stern warnings? No. That would have been foolish.
How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go? Humbabda lost attacking my exploring warrior. [built: warrior, worker, scout]
I really liked the BeoWulfs. :mischief:
I don't know what I'm going to do about utnapishtim. :eek:

Where did you decide to settle? 2W of copper to get the floodplain hill.
Were you pleased with that choice and why? Well, the Waters of Life are in the Oasis 2W. :) Copper is 2E. :D Other locations look very nice as well.
Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful? Used them to capture Cherokee from the Native Americans :) near east edge of map (banana and fur, 2NW of stone) and to take/raze another barb city.
Do you have a victory stretegy in mind? No. I usually go domination because I like planning and conquering. But might not have a lot of time to finish. So could go to space or another VC.
What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map? certainly confused me :blush:
How many cities at 1AD? 4
 
At 1 AD I had 3 or 4 cities. And only capitol was decent one. I built it 3E1N on plain hill. Bad spot for fast start but in long term quite nice. Especially after finding Bronze nearby. Humbaba just passed by. The big problem was Berserker who I killed veeery late, around 1AD. I settled second city west, near Marble and Deer. Third on the coast to grab Horses, but even with Pasture and Road I don't have them. :confused: I grabbed Monarchy from Oracle having happiness issues. I'm tech leader, which is really strange for me ;)
I'm going to win Space. But my production just stinks. I'm planning one late war (around cannons). Maybe I'll grab some better production sites... After killing Enkidu I'm going to expand peacefully to east. There are few good barb cities.
 
Moved the Warrior to the plains hill, saw Wine and Gems, and moved my settler to the plains hill via the hill sheep. Shat myself when I saw the modern artillery, but he cruised past and I decided I was building the Great Wall before any more scaries decided to show up. Built it in 2250BC, before settling any more cities. Eridu came in 1725BC, 1NE of the deer, since I hadn't explored into the barbarian lands to the east and found all the great land. I was extremely slow to expand, and Kish was built in 675BC, 2E1S of the Iron. Not too sure when I met everyone, but I'm quite sure I knew them all by the time Monty (the jerk) declared war on me in 525BC. Fortunately, I was building the Oracle with the intent to get Feudalism from it, which paid off in 365BC. I instantly switched my civics to HR, Vassalage, Serfdom and OR, which probably caused me to lose Eridu (in 155BC) but my Longbows should be able to recapture it in good time. I'm also eying off Apache, which is across the inland sea 1SE of the Crabs. Looks like a great candidate for Moai.
 
Third on the coast to grab Horses, but even with Pasture and Road I don't have them. :confused:

You don't have the horses because roads can't directly link to coasts - hence the horses aren't linked up by a trade route to any cities. The only way to get the horses on that tile is by either settling directly on them, or by building a fort on them (which serves as a mini-city for the purposes of calculating trade routes). (Yeah, totally unrealistic, I know :( )
 
Did you disregard the stern warnings?
No, I paid very close attention to them.

How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go?
Humbaba charged at Uruk and roared and belched fire in a most fearsome manner. But when it exhausted itself, my heroic warrior killed it with ease. (Humbaba had 1 point left, which was no match for the warrior's 1.5.) Later, I killed a couple BeoWolfs. Enkidu killed a scout and is still roaming in the east. I have no idea what happened to the Bull of Heaven.

Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
I settled 1E, on the tundra. It's not a bad location, considering the fantasy terrain.

Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful?
I didn't try an early rush, so they weren't particularly useful. It was nice for peace of mind, if my neighbors had gotten aggressive, but I still have good relations with them.

Do you have a victory stretegy in mind?
Not yet.

What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map?
It's slowing the AI down more than me, so that's good. What about the "unusual" resources like the movies and pop songs? Do we need the corresponding advanced technologies to take advantage of them? I'm really eager to taste the fruit of those Phonograph trees. :lol:

How many cities at 1AD? Pop? Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats?
Five cities. I didn't record any other stats, but my economy's in good shape and I'm leading in science and population.
 
I never saw Humbaba. More accurately, he suicided on a warrior of mine before I even saw him. I didn't bother to look in the combat log so I didn't realize he was a mobile artillery unit until now :eek: I did think it was odd when my warrior got 10 XP though...
 
Did you disregard the stern warnings?
No, I was paranoid.
Settled 1NE on turn 1. (w/warrior as 1st build ... did I mention I was paranoid?)
Fortified warrior in capitol on turn 2.

How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go?
Humbaba suicided on my warrior.
When I saw Enkidu, I fortified on the choke point (south of missile cruiser).
Mysteriously, Enkidu then showed up in the fog between capitol and the choke point.
I had to Vulture him.

Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
1NE. Not satisfied ... paranoid.

Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful?
No more/less than usual.
Swords and HA replaced vultures as I mostly went after barb cities (2 archers).
Like I said ... PARANOID.

Do you have a victory stretegy in mind?
I don't like victory ... boring.
I just PLAY 8)

What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map?
Seems logical.

How many cities at 1AD? Pop? Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats?
3 @ 10AD (hmm, no 1AD save visible).
Pop 5,4,1.
Bpt 28 (ewwww, that's just nasty).
Gpt -3/+22.
Nothing special happening ... paranoid goofing around 8)
 
Did you disregard the stern warnings?
No, I started too late for that to be a problem. Sometimes having too little time on your hands is a good thing :p

How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go?
Humbaba rolled in and started pounding my warrior. My warrior was 0.7 Hpts for two rounds until Hunmbaba lost the rng retreat roll.
I stayed clear of the others for a while. I think Ram's scout killed the bull, and when I went after Enkidu, I had vultures.

Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
I wanted the PH Oasis, so quickly decided to move.
Settled on the desert hill 2 NE, 2E of the start. Thought it looked decent, but should have sacrifised the FP to settle W of where I did. That would have made a killer bureao capital. As it was I had too much health probs and I'd also like to have levee in that city.

Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful?
Well, got a barb city with them, they were also nice for defs, but I always start conquering too late. I guess they should have been awsome in my game...

Do you have a victory stretegy in mind?
"There's a space man, waiting in the sky" ;)

What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map?
I had never played that script before, so I enjoyed it very much :)

How many cities at 1AD? Pop? Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats?
8 cities, I REX decently, then I lose focus :(
Around 37 or 38 pop, I have a later save.
Sustainable bpt 80 at 50%
Total commerce ~ 110

I slinged CS, bulbed Philo and at 1AD was just about to start Engineering for my Aztec crusade.

Thanks for an easy game again, I can't be bothered with most of the tough ones, and I never play anything but BotS with Buffy :rockon:
 
So I played a bit.

And I'm alive.
Not well, because I just didn't see you couldn't move through the SE and lost something like 26 turns on the roads:mad:.

the strange barbs we funny, and I actually thought about how to get rid of them.
I even planted a city in a specific position so I could get a boat to destroy the beast of the sea ;). I lost several warriors to Enkidu, and had free (?) wins vs 2 others (the bull and the rolling thunder).

I was utterly confused by the map, and only have settled a handful of cities.
Slow research too.
I oracled feudalism, to go for conquest but when my units got lost in the SE, I saw I wasn't going to get a fast one :cry:
 
Settled on the PH to the east with 2 sheep, 2 FP, gems, wine and copper, and I had the sheep on the hill pastured for free... :)

Humbaba raced by towards Montezuma, I did explore east and played kind of a dodge game with Enkidu and the bear, forgetting anything about free wins :blush: , popping 4 huts (gold, warrior, gold and tech).

Build one city, W by the deer, left the east to the beasts. :crazyeye:

Vultures took Montezuma's two cities, he was gone 700BC, I had some problems as he seemed to produce an archer each turn. :mad:

From there I sent a Vulture in three different directions looking for the others, and it did take some time before I found the Mayans, meanwhile I had researched archery and HBR, whipped a stable in my two home towns and started spamming HAs, my Aztec cities build nothing but cats for a long time. Conquest is the name of the game.. :cool:

At 5BC I have taken two of Pacal's cities, I underestimated his Holkans but he will be gone soon. :hammer:
Started this war a bit early, could not resist 3 workers begging for a steal, this was a mistake. :(

5BC stats:
Cities: 6 (Build 2, Aztec 2, Maya 2)
Pop: 31
Sustain 17 bpt at 20% - going broke soon :cry:
Units: 8 workers (build one on my own) , 6 warriors, 8 vultures, 8 HA, 9 cats
 
I too settled on that plains hill.

Boy, my jaw hit the ground when that mobile artillery showed up right at the start. Seige can't take a city if something is guarding it, but my warrior was 1 tile too far out. I held my breath as it cruised on past my empty capital.


PHEW :eek::eek::eek:

This is a very nice map. The super barbs spiced things up nicely.
 
Did you disregard the stern warnings? No. I did move my warrior around for about 5 turns but then fortified.
How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go? I got my 10xp -> woodsman 3. This warrior was my medic unit for future wars. I killed a few beowulfs. The berzerker is still running around outside my great wall. Haven't met any others... sounds like I'm missing out on a great seafood site that I haven't scouted yet (despite scouting 60%+ of the map...)
Where did you decide to settle? 1E - surprised no-one else seems to have? I'm a sucker for settling on poor tiles (ice, desert) as it then makes it a useful tile.
Were you pleased with that choice and why? Very much so - especially when Iron popped. Some flat grassland for cottages, a couple of hills, river, flood plains... love it :) My 2nd city then settled 1S of wine, two cities of awesomeness.
Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful? Yeah! Built 10 of them after I got to 3 cities and marched towards the Aztecs, for whom I have a pathological hatred of. They died horribly & suddenly I had 6 cities. Wanted to roll on someone else but couldn't find anyone for ages... :(
Do you have a victory stretegy in mind? Military I think. Maybe "early" domination would be possible. There seems to be a lack of decent city sites out there though.
What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map? crazy but fun for a change! I'd go mad if we had this all the time though!
How many cities at 1AD? 10.... one of them is size 6, the rest 5 or below :lol: 4 in my capital-area, 3 in the Aztec area, 1 ex-barb city out to the east, 1 by the native american border (ex-barb) and another I've settled between the Aztecs & the americans (no resources in BFC, but there is plains oasis).
I got +13 gold at 0% science. Noble is fun for allowing infinite city sprawl :p Economy is horrible but I have just gone into HR so I can finally grow my cities. Calendar will give me 3 more :) and hopefully I can nab the great lighthouse (7 turns left, will give me 14 more trade routes). Oracle still not taken so I'm going for that too, researching CoL so aiming for world's latest CS sling. I'm somehow #1 in tech by a fair distance... greeks have CoL on me but that's it. Come 400AD or so hopefully the economy will be fine & I can go on a mad cats/elephant spree. Still haven't found one of the AI's location yet though.
 
I have reached 1AD in my game. I've been enjoying it a lot. But now I have read this thread and my game will be completely affected by what I have read. I wish I hadn't read anything here.

Please read how my game will get changed by my unasked for knowledge:

- Endiku doesn't get out of "his zone". So I can actually settle around the gems and not attract him to my capital? So I can leave my capital undefended?

- The red text that I did read was worth only for the first 20 turns of the game. So I don't need my settlers to wait for a defending unit to reach the tile the city is going to be before settling? I had understood that having a single city undefended for a single turn anywhere in the map would call the attention of an even more terrible barb unit that would come from the other side of the map to kill the city.

- There are a couple of really wonderful city sites in the East. Considering how bad the rest of the land is, I must immediately set to the task of getting the East. Having seen Endiku there, I had decided never to go in that direction.

- The wonderful lake can be used in spite of the watery monster. Ok, once I get there I will put WB on the tiles non-adjacent to the beast, in order not to awake it.

- I don't need to feel extraordinarily lucky because I could kill a 1HP left Humbaba. In fact, I've been unlucky not killing it in the first place and not getting 10XP. And I'm in an even worst position that those who have already found the great city sites in the East. I must play more aggressively now, I was thinking I was ages ahead of everyone else... when in fact I'm behind.



So, do I have a proposal to improve this situation?

Certainly not opening spoilers till the month is over has more drawbacks than benefits.

Maybe moving the cut-off date of the first spoiler to 2000BC would be a good idea, though.
Every good player knows that the very first moves and decisions are more important than anything else later in the game. The main drawback I can find here is about exploration: at such a date it is very likely that some players have explored much more in a given direction that others... hummmm:confused:
 
Did you disregard the stern warnings?
Not at all. In fact, I've been all game long having a defending unit in all my cities every single turn.

How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go?
Humbaba is a great concept, congratulations on your idea. :goodjob:
If used in a no-free-wins-against-barbs situation it would have been a fantastic way to put a handicap int he game. Can you imagine it? You would lose no units if careful, but you would have to have a warrior in every improvement and another warrior scorting your worker. That would have made for a slow start, for sure!


Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
I settled 2NE, leaving the gems out. It wasn't an easy decision. Even if in the border of the map, I wanted to get that 3-2-2 tile in my capital for a spectacular take off. I was thinking a long time about settling 4E-2N (but it was hammerless) or on the PH (but that would have delayed the Worker for ages, not having the great tile) or getting both the great tile and the gems (but that would have lost 2FP).

Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful?
Extremely. I am replaying the game now, I think I can get a Conquest victory in the BC.

Do you have a victory strategy in mind?
why?!:eek: How long have we known each other?:eek: And yet you're asking?:confused:
Cultural, of course!!!
:lol:

What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map?
I hate irrational resources. I've been training for years and now all my knowledge about the game is useless and I spend hours looking at the map and trying to ascertain if a given settling site is good or not.
Also there weren't really any good sites on the map, except for the two probably-engineered-ones on the East.
Also there were more marble resources than tiles on this map!!

How many cities at 1AD? Pop? Beaker rate? Gpt? Other stats?
A proper spoiler will follow soon.
1AD Stats: 8 cities, 54 pop, 7workers, 16units (10Vult), 5 strategic resources, 2 luxury resources, 7 health resources, 1 great persons, 4 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=142-84-180, 71 sustainable beakers per turn, 83 culture per turn, 20 great person points per turn, 350 gold. 3 religions. 7/7 cottages used, 27 Techs: CS, Philo, no Music, nothing after Maths. 1 civs killed. 12.5 hours played. 11rel*city, 1temples, 0cath
 
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