BOTM 41 -- First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

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.

...
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

All very valid criticisms, and constructive suggestions. There are different problems with every solution, but I think we could certainly do better in tailoring the spoiler date (and other) limitations to the particular game. I'll certainly give it more thought in the future.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[kcd_swede]

Jesusin: 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!

I've learned enough about barb behavior now to know that Murphy's Law would surely come into play. Some players would experience the obstacle as intended, and some would never see it (and probably have a nearby neighbor get harassed instead, making their game easier than normal). Some would get lucky and do the actions that make the unit move on, and others wouldn't. Few would know what actions to do.

On Noble level (free wins), with Random Events and Huts enabled, the obstacle should be easily overcome by clever players -- assuming you didn't get killed before turn 14 . On a higher level where there are no free wins, I think a lot (more?) of the competitive players might get disappointed in games being decided by such seemingly random barb behavior. I'm going to try and be clearer in the announcement threads so that players know better what to expect. And I'm going to more rigorously test-play the final save. You'll see in BOTM43.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. (Caution: That was an idiomatic expression! I am not advocating that anyone should actually skin a cat. )

 

[neilmeister]

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.

.. snip...

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

I feel for you if your personal enjoyment of playing the game has been affected, but...I don't really understand the problem.

No-one makes me read the spoilers. I very, very rarely get any useful information out of the first spoiler. But I don't beat myself up if I do happen to get some useful info.

The situation with the barbs on this botm was quite unique, so are unlikely to be repeated again in the near future.

Besides, when I was just beginning and even Emperor scared me, reading other peoples spoilers really helped me to not only improve, but also salvage games I was losing.

 

[jesusin]

I feel for you if your personal enjoyment of playing the game has been affected, but...I don't really understand the problem.

My problem refers to the competitive side of GOTM.

Imagine you and me are competing for a medal and we take the competition very seriously. You have known how to deal with the situation better and you are ahead.
But then I read the first spoiler and I get info how to deal with the sea-monster, for example, even better than you. That can make me come ahead in the end.

In such a case the mere existence of the First spoiler would have influenced the result of the competition. That's a problem for a competition.

 

[azzaman333]

The problem is, the later the spoilers are opened, the less interest there is in posting in them/reading them.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I took the Challenger save and am going to try for a Cultural Victory. Ha, good luck with jesusin in the race, but we'll see how it goes.

I wanted that nice Plains Hills Oasis square in my big fat cross.

It seemed like a toss-up bewteen settling on the Tundra River or the Ice River. The Tundra River would give an additional Flood Plains square while the Ice River looked like it would probably just pick up a bunch of Jungle squares but Jungle squares usually have good things underneath of them.

But, a Tundra River can take a Cottage, while an Ice River can only take a Watermill (I think).

So, I settled on the Ice River square.

Of course, reading these spoilers, I now see that I goofed up and settled on an Ice River FLOOD PLAINS square. Sigh. Ahhh, whatever, what's done is done.


Humbaba freaked me out. My heart skipped 2 beats and I almost choked when I saw him. Fortunately, all of that red text (and the fact that I could grow using that nice Plains Hills Oasis square while building a Warrior) convinced me to go Warrior-first.

My Warrior got 1, maybe 2 experience points from Humbaba, since Humbaba withdrew on his first attack. I wasn't about to leave my capital to go attacking him, so I just sat there and he died the following turn attacking my Warrior.


I've gotten off to a very slow start, partially due to taking the Challenger save, I am sure... starting with 0 techs is a bit of a setback.


However, since I knew that all of the AIs were going to start with Bronze Working, I beelined Alphabet and got Bronze Working in trade. I wasn't able to rush anyone, but this approach worked out alright.


I think that at 1 AD (I've played beyond there) I had only 5 Cities and only 1 Religion, which was probably partially due to the fact that it's been a while that I've played a Cultural game, so I accidentally aggressively spread my State Religion of Confucianism to every City. I don't know what I was thinking, but auto-spreading of other Religions was not possible for me because of my aggressive Confucianism-spreading. Ahhh, whatever. You don't need 23423423 Cathedrals to beat jesusin, right? Right? Sigh.


Things that went well:
- I saw a highly promoted Bear from a Hills square and ran away... later it just disappeared, HAHAHA.

- I made good friends with Monte and Alex. They are my best buds. While that means that I did not get to capture and use Monte's Cities, it does mean that I got a good number of Foreign Trade Routes relatively early on.

- The world is constantly at war. Hahaha, early Alphabet is fun.

- Monte ensures that no enemy units make it to my lands, so I haven't bothered to build more than a couple of Sumerian Axemen (what are they called? oh yeah... Vultures) to deal with the extra-tough Barbs. Instead, I've been spamming Wonders (well, if you can't build Cathedrals and if you are too silly trying to beat your non-competition to Music, you won't found additional Religions either, so you need some kind of Culture-producing Buildings to build).

- I got the Civil Service Slingshot.


Things that didn't go all that well:
- I was hoping to use Monte and/or Alex as "attack dogs" to take on enemy AI Cities, but at this difficulty level, they aren't up to the task. So, a couple of lone wandering Vultures can't "swoop in and steal the prey" like a bird (a vulture) might do.

- I couldn't find Egypt. I still haven't found them. As of 1 AD, I have more than 60% of the map explored manually and I have yet to find Egypt, even though I went to war with them shortly after getting Alphabet. If I can't find them, I can't attack their Cities, now can I?

- The Beowolves got wasted... my unit that had more than 5 Experience Points fought them and didn't get any additional Experience Points as they act like regular Animals and don't give you additional Experience Points above 5. Of course, I didn't know that I'd be facing these Beowolves (well, I knew that Beowolves would exist but not whrere they were on the map... although it wasn't too hard to guess that they would be Wolf Units) or else I could have sent in an unpromoted Warrior and actually gained some Experience Points out of the fights.

- Grrr, I was one turn away from being able to switch Civics when I learned Civil Servce. Well, I didn't check my F3 screen again for a long, long, long time. Yes, that's right... no Bureaucracy as of 1 AD. I won't comment on what happened after 1 AD, but since I did not pause play at 1 AD, you can probably guess.

- I have no army and no real production base to build one.

- Enkidu (whom I have been calling "that kiddo over there") is still alive and is still taking prisoners.



As for Spoilers... I miss the days when we had 3 Spoilers. I am not sure that we have sufficient people posting messages in the Spoiler Threads to warrant 3 Spoilers, BUT...
Every XOTM, I feel like "okay, I have a bit of comparison at 1 AD or 500 AD or whenever, and we can support each other a little bit... I find out that taking out Monte is feasible, so, while someone else may have done so at 1000 BC or earlier, I can consider doing so at 500 AD, for example." That kind of a situation is fine in my mind... you gain a bit of info about what others have done better than you to date, and while it's too late to apply the knowledge/the idea as early as they did, it can still be applied at some point.

But, what I MISS compared to playing Forum games on the Strategy & Tips Forum is people helping giving tips on each others games... I know, it's hard to do so without spoiling things... but, it really feels like around the 1000 AD mark that if I'm going for a later-game Victory (i.e. not an early Domination or Conquest) that I wouldn't mind asking questions and getting some help.

For example, "what's the best tech path to Mass Media," "do you think that it's worth stopping my wars now or should I try to get more land for my Space Victory," or "I was thinking about sticking with 7 Cities for a Cultural Victory, but do you think that I should squeeze in 2 more Cities and more Temples, and if so, where would you put those Cities?"

I don't know how practical such a concept really is for a somewhat competitive XOTM, but we're also here to learn, and each game I feel that we give up certain opportunities to learn from each other. It's harder to learn a lot if you don't find out until after the game is over what you could have done better earlier, say, at a point in the game (I'd say around 1000 AD) where the average player is just starting to think about which Victory Condition to pursue.

Of course, it's also hard not to accidentally spoil people, but we seem to find a way to do so for our First Spoilers, so why not also for a Second Spoiler?


Anyway, I realize that I took the conversation down a different path than jesusin did, but I guess that my opinion goes in the opposite direction... I'd rather focus more on the learning than the competition. If you spend your games "training" yourself and learning, then the Awards will eventually come, and any Award that you do win can be credited, in part, due to your strong efforts to improve.

 

[Htadus]

Goal: Fast Domination since Gilga is good for this and see if I can score more that 220k (double my high score) So 12th-13th century with Bio to grow cities.

Original Plan:
Settle 2NE. Keep warrior around start another warrior. Then a worker. After that let city grow to max building a granary. So first tech is pottery and then to BW. Next tech stop was PHood and then CS sling run. During this time I hope to expand to 7-10 cities without wars if possible.

Start Game:
Founded the capital 2NE on T1 and started a warrior. When complete, I still had some turns to grow to 2. So started a second warrior till pop 2 and built a worker. I did keep the warrior fortified in the city. This is very rare for me but I am not color blind . Before the 1st warrior was done came rolling a unit I have never seen before. However realizing it was a siege unit, i was relieved. They do not kill(right?). And he died during the first attack. Now I have triple Woody.

Poor Abused Monty:
Woody does a CCW loop around the capital starting from SW and ended up heading through the Aztec Narrows to find Monty and a friendly worker. I know I said no wars but I just could not resists letting Woody run through a forest all free and picking up a stray Aztec. Woody end up harrasing poor Monty for many turns and kept him to a single city. Captured about 2 more workers during this time. Then I realized what level this game is and give him peace for some gold and archery so he could build some cities for me to use later.

During this time of exploration we meet all the naughty and nice neighbors. Also my wondering warrior found a nasty zerker in the east. He was able to discover the land of precious metals to east and come back with out meeting the Zerker. So I built 2 Vultures and send them both to meet the zerker. They found him in the valley west of Sushi Kingdom. The two heroes drew him toward the forested plains hill north of the fir and fortified. The Monster attacked viciously and killed a brave vulture. Immediately after, in a fit of rage, the monster was killed by his partner and the nation wept and rejoiced.

Expansion:
Once the capital grew to size 5 while building a Grainary and several Vultures, the growth phase started. City 2 went 3 east to work already mine gem. City 3 went west near between the deer and PH. City 4 went south claiming the iron....well i did not know there was iron until later during a trade. Cities 5 and 6 happened about the same time since my settler5 was getting poor guidance by the player. He went next to the fir site to east first, then to claim the Sushi Kingdom, then back to fir and finally back to Sushi and settled on a poor tile that did not give the option to build a LH but can work a gold. That’s when I saw the sea monster. City 6 was by fir. All but the fish city were connected by roads. Cities 7 and 8 were founded southeast of Aztecs after the war was over.

The Sea monster:
He sat there in his little corner of the world without even acknowledging my little city. First 2 boats built nets and were productive until I sent the last wb too close to the monster. in one turn he killed my poor fisherman and destroyed both nets. Brute. He is still there. But I just came up with a plan for him that involve 2 wb's. Hope it work. I Wish I thought about it 500 years ago.

Other events:
CS sling worked very well. I had to keep inserting other builds to queue to delay the completion but got it fairly early. Did not build or try other wonders since I plan to capture them. After building the forge and getting Beurocracy Civic, i was building a Vulture every 2 turns. I have been delaying Machinery for several turns now.

Plan: is simple; Win.

 

[kcd_swede]

Humbaba freaked me out. My heart skipped 2 beats and I almost choked when I saw him. Fortunately, all of that red text (and the fact that I could grow using that nice Plains Hills Oasis square while building a Warrior) convinced me to go Warrior-first.

Challenger save, eh? Well, (You have now convinced me you have more guts than brains )

Glad you were able to make it work, though.

 

[Arnold_T]

> Did you disregard the stern warnings?
unfortunately, I didn't take them as seriously as I should have. I thought having a defender a few files away from home would be OK.

> How did your encounters with Humbaba and others go?
Humbamba rushed past my defender and entered my starting city - seemed like Turn 5 (maybe it ws a little later). SHortest game EVER!

>Where did you decide to settle? Were you pleased with that choice and why?
I was thining of going NE-NE to settle, but decided instead to settle in place first turn. big mistake. After losing the game minutes later I decided to replay and try starting with a NE-NE settle location on second turn, and was surprised by how it changed Humbamba's behaviour. I was pleasantly surprised on the replay though when he rushed at my exploring warrior and attacked and my warrior somehow came out victorious at 10 experience points, wow! I had read the comments about how we get "2 free barb victories" at this level, but it never sunk in.

> Did you find your UU (Vulture) useful?
In the second game, yes. Love the Vulture!

> Do you have a victory stretegy in mind?
not sure I'll play my replay one out to the end - but Conquest I guess. But Not much point - I did submit my Turn 5 loss though - going for the Ambulance!

> What do you think about irrational resources on a fantasy map?
I think they're kinda weird. irrational on a fantasy map is just as irrational as on a real-world map. It's just plain irrational, and I don't get it. Interesting I guess, but I find it annoying to spend time looking at a lot of resources that aren't worth going after.

 

[kcd_swede]

> Did you disregard the stern warnings?
unfortunately, I didn't take them as seriously as I should have. I thought having a defender a few files away from home would be OK.

.

OMG... I owe another (sort of) sincere apology.
Look on the bright side, now you will have no trouble meeting the submission deadline which is looming ominously....

Thanks for sharing.

And I agree... irrational resources make no rational sense.