BOTM 43 First Spoiler -- to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 43 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 43 (Charlemagne), 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

Tell us what happened up to 3000BC, first:
Where did you settle? Why?
What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?
What were your first 4 city builds?
Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?

Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.
How are things going?
What were your goals to this point, and did you acheive them?
Have you come up with any creative ideas or strategies specific to this game?

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not discuss anything that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal the names or locations of any civilization that cannot be reached by galleys.
• 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.

 

[nocho]

Tell us what happened up to 3000BC, first:
Where did you settle? Why?
What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?
What were your first 4 city builds?
Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?

I gambled a bit and settled on stone. Figured that at least rice and a LH lake would be good enough early food for a relatively high-hammer capital, but of course hoping for another (sea)food. It wasn't to be. Anyway, by settling on stone didn't have to spend time building a quarry as I was eyeing mids, besides the GLH obviously. Anyway, also thought that the fish would provide for a decent second city with the PH and jumbos.

First 3 techs were, Agri, mining and BW. Needed to farm and chop.
First 4 city builds IIRC were worker, 2 warriors, settler (yay for imp, so built it at size 2).
Tile improvements, farming the rice, subsequently mining the hills.

Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.
How are things going?
What were your goals to this point, and did you acheive them?
Have you come up with any creative ideas or strategies specific to this game?

I played a bit further than 1AD already (600AD I think), but I'll limit myself by what I'm sure was achieved by 1AD... Things are going well enough. Built SH, mids, GLH and Oracled currency. City 2 went with the fish and 3 jumbos for a second decent prod city. Actually built GLH here, while the other wonders are in the cap. 3rd city went on the bronze island south which after border pop opened up the route to the lush island to the SE. 6 cities at this point IIRC, 3 off shore. Made a priority of scouting and met the divine Mansa soon, as well as SB and Wang. A bit later got to meet the 2nd advanced ice-packed tribe (Cathy) as well as Shaka. Mansa was good for some early trades (getting alpha from him proved useful), Cathy later as well. Got a solid tech lead.

Haven't really decided on a VC yet, but I think I'll try domination. Enjoying the setup quite much btw. Somehow it reminds me partly of the still current SGOTM though, especially if I stick with the idea of dom/conq.

 

[azzaman333]

Settled the stone, went settler first, researching Mining -> Masonry with the intent of building Henge immediately after.
That worked well, but from the then on I became aimless and lost TGL by a turn, built Mids and Moai in Prague (on the eastern edge with the ph ivory), and expansion and exploration were extremely slow. So slow that Shaka and Sitting Bull had claimed most of the good island nearest them before I'd even explored in their directions. Now I'm floating through the game without a goal beyond "win".

 

[kcd_swede]

Now I'm floating through the game without a goal beyond "win".

That is definitely a worthwhile goal... but you might benefit some by narrowing it down to something more specific. For example, will you plan a war (if so when?), or will you look for peaceful victory? Answer that, and the planning gets a lot simpler.

Don'y forget about the Seers... they might be a good source of ideas which guide you to wisdom.

Nocho: Built SH, mids, GLH and Oracled currency. City 2 went with the fish and 3 jumbos for a second decent prod city. Actually built GLH here, while the other wonders are in the cap.

Nothing like a nice tasty wonder-spam sandwich, is there?

 

[Jastrow]

I did not start this game which much of a detailed strategy, but did have a couple of strategic guidelines for the early game.

1- I am going to space.
2- In order to take advantage of tech trading with the "seers", I will beeline optics and go out and meet all the civs (I dont know if they will have anything to offer, but it seems like the most likely way to leverage the set-up.)
3. The unique building is very good. Early COL is also a priority.

As the game started, these guided my decisions. Now to address the three items suggested by kcd_Swede:

Settle location (why?)

As soon as I saw "magical fish" (See SGOTM13-OSS for the name; but fish on the coast.) I wanted it in the BFC. It is possibly the best starting square in the game. This meant 1E or 1S. 2 Ivory or stone? I bit of a close call, but starting with hunting for the camp typed the balance for me. I will be interested to see how 2S results compare.

first 3 techs (why?) & first 4 builds (why?)

These are connected... What do I need to most urgently to start this game consistant with an early push to compass?

1. A worker as always.
2. A workboat for magical fish.
3. A warrior as millitary police (scout is useless for that).
4. A library for the GPP slots to push drive the research.

This implies that I need Fishing and writting as soon as possible. Writting can be gotten through either AH or wheel+pottery. AH may be usefull early if their are horses in the BFC, but with all the ivory there my gut said that was unlikely. Pottery is of limited use because food is abundant enough that by the time I have a granery up, I will be at the happy cap. On that subject, we need a road for the Ivory for an extra happy, so wheel is useful. Since Pottery is cheaper than AH, I pick that route.

From there, it is just a question of working out the order, and that is purely an issue of micromanagement. A few test on a similar start location showed that growth was faster with workboat before worker, so that was the way to go.

-Warrior first while researching fishing and maximizing growth (2FH, then rice when possible).
-3760: Switch to workboat, while continuing to work rice; start wheel.
-3640: Growth to size two, switch to max hammers.
-3400: Research pottery, complete warrior. Continue to maximize growth.
-3240: After growth to size 3, build worker.
-3040: Start writting.
-2920: Worker is done, need to kill a few turns before I can start library... Given the size of our island and the lack of great 2nd city locations, I opt for an exploring workboat.
-2600: Start library asap. Will finish workboat after it. Research to sailing. (Decide to try for the great lighthouse). Once the library is done, maximize scientist to get Acadamy as soon as possible (1480 in my case).

Some key dates of other happenings:

3680 Boudda FIDL
3520 Hindu FIDL
2600 Juda FIDL
2240 Sitting Bull met me (This was a surprise! I expected to be more isolated.)
2040 Great Wall BIFL
1480 Acadamy is built
1360 My exploring workboat finds Mansa
1200 I complete great lighthouse
1040 Stonehenge BIFL
900 I found Prague on the 2 fish + copper site.
675 Oracle BIFL
625 Mansa gets Alpha, and will make trades.
475 Pyramid built by Sitting Bull
425 Meet another AI (Worried the name MIGHT be a spoiler pass 1AD for some)
350 Found Vienna on the NW type of my home island.

So at zero BC I have 3 cities, but I have research going well, and should be on track for a optics arounf 500 AD or so. I have the great lighthous to support growth, so can expand from here. Time will tell if this is a good or a bad start...

 

[Zechnophobe]

I played to 1200 or so AD, so I'll try to keep it to the early stuff.

I settled 1E of starting position after I scouted that spot first turn with scout. Working the Fish + phants allowed for decent production and commerce.

Second city to the west near the stone, which also then ate the rice, third city in NW peninsula near fish (and later, horses).

The obvious goals for exploiting the land here is Great Lighthouse. No real question, and starting 1E allowed for the fastest possible building of that, so I did. Since we have GLH, settling nearby islands was a big positive. I quickly snagged the spot near Shaka (size 17 when I quit, providing a 1.7 base trade route value!) . I then aggressively (fairly) expanded onto what I'm sure everyone knows as Gem Island. Later on I built a forbidden palace there to nix the colony costs.

Met all the nearby civs, including the Uruk with Map Making... and alphabet informs us he also has COMPUTERS!

So... what will the end result be? Considering the high tech options, possibly trying a space beeline, and trading for those high end techs. I'm not sure how feasible that'd be though, this is a rather low production world.

Oh, and yes, wonder spamming seems easy 'go' in this, as it is not a large land area to expand to without astronomy, so I have:

Colossus, GLH, Pyramids, Maussalleum at roughly 1 AD. I have a pretty massive point lead, I may just start snuffing other civs off the map...

Edit: As for how to use the Seers... I'm honestly not sure. Yes, we got a nice early map trade, but that revealed a few squares of ocean. If a Seer has an advanced tech like Computers... that's awesome and all, but what could I possibly trade them, since they are so far behind the game otherwise? I'm not a big fan of how these AI's are placed, are they all like Mansa Musa? You can't even wage war effectively against them without killing them, so no easy capitulation...

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hey, if I had random idea for Game of the Month, who would I suggest it to?

 

[kcd_swede]

Hey, if I had random idea for Game of the Month, who would I suggest it to?

You should send it by PM to whichever game-admin is responsible for the expansion you'd like to see it. If you make it public, it might be spoilerish and never get made for that reason. The admins are:

GOTM: Cactus Pete, Jesusin
WOTM: babybluepants
BOTM: Dynamic Spirit, kcd_swede

 

[kcd_swede]

I played to 1200 or so AD, so I'll try to keep it to the early stuff. We don't need to know that, and you probably shouldn't mention it since it occurs after 1AD

Edit: As for how to use the Seers... I'm honestly not sure. Yes, we got a nice early map trade, but that revealed a few squares of ocean. If a Seer has an advanced tech like Computers... that's awesome and all, but what could I possibly trade them, since they are so far behind the game otherwise?Is trading the only way you can envision getting those techs from them? I'm not a big fan of how these AI's are placed, are they all like Mansa Musa? You can't even wage war effectively against them without killing them, so no easy capitulation...You could always gift them a city... though you'd be advised to weigh carefully the implications.

My comments in yellow...

 

[srad]

I played a very long first session until 1000AD and I have mixed feelings about my game... but more about that in the final spoiler. How is the situation in 1AD:

3000BC spoiler:

Spoiler :

Settling location:
t0 at 1E - found no seafood near stone after moving the scout south.

Capital:
First build: Worker
Second build: Workboat - 3 turns to go
Third build: -
Fourth build: -

First City:
Planned on stone - share the wet rice - no better spot on the not very generous island.

Research:
First tech: Agri 3680
2nd tech Fishing 3440
3rd tech TW 3080 (to connect the ivory for +1 hapiness)
4th tech Sailing - in progess

Strategy: Rex like crazy and then start building the infrastructure.

13 cities - Rex was good, too good ... ?

Wonders:

Stonehenge 1600BC - It is a good wonder for rexing but the first Great Persons is probably not a GS for an Academy... -> got as expected a GP.

GLH 900BC

Oracle - Missed it 550BC by 3 turns. Didn't focused on it.

The Colossus - not started


Thoughts on this start and my grand strategy:

After I met two AIs and I saw that I have room for more than 10 cities so I choose to beeline Education / Oxford and not Astronomy first. But I underestimated the high maintenance costs when settling several cities on a separated landmass and my teching is too slow. I don't have CS and tech speed is not promising so it will take some time to research Education.
The balance between 'number of cities' and tech speed is the tricky part.

The known world in 1AD:

Spoiler :

 

[kcd_swede]

13 cities - Rex was good, too good ... ?

holy moly... I never got that many by 1AD in all my testing... and I even knew the map! You guys are amazing!

 

[cabert]

I went for rex + wonders, including the great wall.
So I settled on the rice on some island, and guess what? a barb came and razed my city
I quit for now.
I may come back, but that's really not sure.

 

[alturiac]

yeah i had that aswell, the great wall is just on the built continent, almost lost a city to that too, but seer cathrine of uruk saved my bacon lol

 

[srad]

I went for rex + wonders, including the great wall.
So I settled on the rice on some island, and guess what? a barb came and razed my city

Ouch! A lot of wonders have only an affect on the continent they are built on.

 

[bcool]

I read all about all the people going for space and decided to join the competition. And the seers seemed likely set up to help the most with the space victory.

Tell us what happened up to 3000BC, first:
Where did you settle? Why?
What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?
What were your first 4 city builds?
Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?

Settled 1E for the fish after the scout found nothing exciting near the stone.

1st 3 techs : Agriculture (for the rice) // Fishing (for the fish) // Mining (so I can get bronze working asap for chops and whips, and can assess any early rush possibilities)

city builds : worker // workboat // settler // settler (2 pop whipped)
I actually intended to whip out the first settler but forgot about the imperialistic increase to whip hammers so i mistimed the 2 pop whip for max overflow. It worked out nicely however and finishing 2 settlers was fine. The 2nd settler was whipped for max overflow into a galley (the copper and 2 fish site was very tempting)

1st city (Prague) settled 2240 BC west of rice and stone on the coast (sharing the rice with the capital)
2nd city (Vienna) settled 1960 BC next to 2 fish and copper

worker farmed the rice first to get my city growing asap, then circled around camping the ivory and finished in time to start chopping/mining the hill.

Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.
How are things going?
What were your goals to this point, and did you acheive them?
Have you come up with any creative ideas or strategies specific to this game?

Things at 1AD didn't seem that great compared to most games. I was in a decent position however. My goals were to expand, get key wonders (GLH, Oracle?, Pyramids), explore, set up capital with cottages for bureaucracy.

results
9 cities 36 pop
Great Lighthouse 975 BC
Oracle 800 BC (for Code of Laws--was debating waiting for something better but I wanted a religion and access to the rathaus and didn't want to lose it)
Pyramids 275 BC
The Hanging Gardens started ~9 turns to go

Moai finished 650 BC on the 2 fish, copper city site.

I met Shaka, Mansa, Sitting Bull, Wang Kon, Catherine (better than expected exploring and map knowledge was good through trading early maps)

teching Civil Service 7 turns to go (sustainable). (@100%: +183 research & -85 gold @0%: +41 research & +38 gold) (took a quick dip into caste system here --wouldn't last too long)

I decided to risk pissing off Mansa and took his free workers. I figured I would still be able to make friends with him later.

Probably should have taken Cathy's workers too, but I knew it would be hard to get along with her. So I never did.

I don't think I used the seers too well early on, later on in the game I figured out how to best take advantage of them, but it took me awhile to remember old lessons from sgotm12.

 

[babybluepants]

Not a very good start for me. I made some critical mistakes, like not popping borders in the 2fish/copper city and not even thinking of stealing MM's workers suicide. Wonders took too much away from expansion.

3000 BC:
Scout south, settle 1E for the fish. Agriculture and worker first, since we have irrigated rice and Hunting is actually useful. By the time Agri was done, I saw that there was no need for fogbusting and decided to skip warriors altogether in favour of multiple WB's for exploration. So, I teched Fishing second and built 2 WB in succession. Was intending to do a third, but the first hit a dead end in the SE. Would have been better just netting the fish with the first. Further tech was Mining - BW, with Sailing to follow.

Settling: 2fish/copper - rice/gem - 2gem/iron - fish/copper(MM) - stone

Built GLH, Pyramids and HG in the capital. Had the Oracle lined up in 2fish/copper and could have had either COL or my intended Currency. Instead chose to gamble on CS and lost by a good 5t. That's fine, I got a ncie chunk of cash to push me through Currency. Then I thought I would bulb CS with my first GM, but got a GE instead (settled it - could have just kept for later Mining Inc, but there are few Mining resources and it's quite early in the game).

At 1AD, I only have 6 cities, with two more settlers on the way. CS is 2t from completion. I only just discovered Shaka and the SE land a few turns ago. I don't think I'll be posting a competitive Space game.

 

[Jouzou]

Wow, srad. That's some rapid expansion, all right. I only have a grand total of 5 cities as of 1AD. Luckily for you, the rathaus cuts maintenance costs an extra 25%. Speaking of which, I like the Holy Romans' UB and UU. Too bad that I don't have access to iron, at least not yet. I definitely want to change that in the future.

I don't play achipelago maps very often, so this is actually good practice for me.

I settled the capital 1S from starting location to get the fish. The 2nd city, I built 1S of the spices in 2240 BC. The 3rd one went up in 1600 BC to the east coast claiming both ivory tiles in the BFC. The copper/fish island was settled in 425 BC, and finally - just before BCs became ADs - a fifth city next to the ivory in NW.

First techs: fishing - masonry - wheel - poly - agri - pottery - mining - BW (in 1160 BC, about bloody time)

Wonders: Stonehenge 1880 BC - Pyramids 650 BC - Temple of Artemis 275 BC (I got a GE and I didn't want to sit on him for too long. I could have gone for the colossus, but metal casting was kinda far away at this point. I figured that the free priest 'till scientific method will be good enough, especially since I'm already running representation. Also, the +100% trade route yield is going to be very nice as the game progresses).

I don't really have any long-term plan. Maybe I'll join the Spaceship bandwagon after whacking a neighbour or two. As for the short-term plans, the copper/fish island will definitely be hosting specialists after I switch to caste system.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Here's my techs.
Fishing -> wheel -> Mining -> BW -> agri -> pottery -> sailing -> masonry -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> Writing -> Metal casting
The first 2 didn't matter too much as they were being done whilst the worker was being built. TW was wanted; always nice to give workers something to do.

Settled 1E. Next settlement was 3W & is a good early production city, working rice, 2 mined GH and the stone.

Worker-wb (for fish) - warrior??

Took 3 nice wonders...

1AD...
6 cities - 3 on the homeland (haven't settled top-left yet - looked awful without clearing jungle - but just found the horses there). 1 on the copper island, 2 on the big land to the west. 1 settler 1 turn from being done - think he'll be off to the iron site.
21 pop
2 workers (there's so little to do!! Will build more soon)
64bpt @ 70%, -2gpt
Happy cap 5 is most cities - however next turn I will revolt into organized religion & HR (just finished Monarchy) oh and revolt again to adopt confu, and I'll be mining some gems soon, so happiness will be much less of a problem. Thinking of spreading confu to the religionless zulu. SB already has confu.

Wonders I built...
TGL 1040 BC
Oracled CoL T89 (This was stupid as MC costs more beakers than CoL but I had already invested a fair few beakers into MC by the time I realised this)
Colossus T113 (50BC)

Currency is the next thing to go for - a 4th trade route in my cities. Once I've settled my next city, a lot of cities will have access to 4 overseas trade routes, so I figure it's worth getting it now rather than maths for the slight discount. Not sure where to go to then.

 

[cain3456]

Settled south to get the fishes. I figured that since Burger King started with mysticism, he could get an early religion, which would help me to a culture win. WRONG! I went with meditation to get Buddhism--got beat. Then poly--got beat. Then mono--three for three.
I finally gave in and started to research the infrastructure techs--wheel, fishing, ag, sail, mining, BW (double switched to slavery & OR afterwards), AH, archer, now at IW.

Scouted my homeland and had enough land for five cities. Founded Prague on turn 43 by the lake on the coast near the elephants. Vienna founded turn 84 to the north, Nuremberg to the NW next to the phants on turn 96, Augsburg to the sw on turn 102, Mainz was just founded next to Mali.

My first contact came on turn 52 when SB sent a work boat to my island. This just keeps getting better. Sent out my own workboats and on turn 99 discovered MM, one of the uplifted, behind a wall of ice. On turn 103, SB demanded some phants, my spies told me I was less than half his strength, so I gave in.

My starting plans have gone to hell, so now I'm just building up my military, since I know I'll have to deal with SB sometime. I'm not sure how you're supposed to use the uplifted, since you can't even get to them. I have Aachen building the Pyramids, and Prague has already built Moai.

 

[dima42]

Goal was to join in on the space race. After seeing srad's opening, I don't think I'm competitive, but hey.

Opening: scout went south to see if there's seafood by stone. There wasn't, so I settled 1E on t0.

fishing/agri while building worker, then workboat while growing (worker farms, then camps), then settlers starting at pop 3 or so.

mining->bw for the early whipping

glh built in aachen at 1040 bc
lost to oracle at 850bc

could have used the henge, but didn't realize it early enough

1ad: 10 cities, 34pop. i have the stating island and the one north of mansa. shaka beat me to all of island north of catherine. just finished CoL, about to whip a lot of Rathaus's to salvage my economy.

from now:

I guess CS->paper->education. not actually feeling good about my game; I'm sure I'll win but no idea how I'm going to post any kind of respectable date. Goal now is to come above average in space race.