BOTM 45 - First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 45 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 43 (Wang Kon), 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.

 

[WelshGandalf]

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 took the Adventurer challenge, because the bonuses were interesting & I struggle immensely at Immortal. Plan was build Oracle -> take MC -> bulb machinery with the great engineer. Then I realised, if I used the engineer to build the Pyramids, I would have a brand new engineer in time for the machinery bulb.

Therefore, I settled the GS, I teched masonry, burned the GR on pyramids, then teched BW, revolted into rep/slavery.

I move my settler SE and settled there - it was fresh water, coastal and had a FP. I hoped to reveal another food source and I did. First improvements were quarry on the stone (since I had masonry, I thought I might as well...), then I chopped the wood 1N of my city, then I farmed the floodplain. The pigs would have to wait as I was beelining Oracle.

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

After BW, tech went Agriculture -> The Wheel -> Pottery -> religious tech that I can't remember the name of -> Priesthood, then hunting, AH, writing, Iron Working and Archery.

I built the Oracle at 1840BC - just on the brink of what I was told was "safe" in the first thread, so I was relieved & took MC. I had some 94 great engineer GP pts at this point which were then diluted by the oracle, but a GE spawned anyway so I used him to bulb most of machinery as planned. The plan was to crossbow-rush a neighbour before settling down and cottaging up for space.

...however, I saw that it was julius, for the second game in a row. Crossbows would do pretty well against preats, but it wouldn't be easy, and seeing that he was my only neighbour, I decided to forget about war and just go for space. If I could keep Julius happy, I probably won't have to worry about the others.

Initial expansion was poor, and I let the Romans get one of the barb cities I wanted. They have 11 cities now I'm up to 7 cities, with 1 barb city falling and 2 city spots left, including one on the island at the bottom, but I don't have sailing yet.

Tech-wise, I have MC, machinery, aesthetics and literature on everyone. There's a lack of good trading opportunities though. There's only alphabet and Feudalism... one person has CoL and another has construction but they won't trade them, once they are available I'll start trading my monopoly techs.

Plan is finish the great library, get music and use the artists for a GA, then tech through to liberalism and take printing press. By then I should have a lot of villages/towns, and my tech rate should become brilliant, especially with the Korean UB.

Big screenshot in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

 

[neilmeister]

I played this immediately after finishing the current GOTM, and made some very silly mistakes.

Where did you settle? Why?
Warrior went SW and saw nothing, settler went SE, saw FP and stone and and island gems. Settled and hoped for some seafood, as there was nothing to the west, I assumed kcd must have given us something to the east . There wasn't any seafood of course, but there were pigs - awesome.

What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?
I clicked on Hunting (to get to AH asap) in the research bar at the top (or so I thought) and didn't realise that I had actually just missed it and selected Masonry until I got the popup telling me I researched Masonry. D'oh, this is going to screw my whole game... almost rage quit right there and then, no food tiles developed for what seemed like forever! After this came Agriculture (to farm the FP and give my worker something to do) then finally AH.

What were your first 4 city builds?
Worker first, of course, then I built the GW, since I thought I might as well and couldn't build anything else useful and Immortal barbs usually crush someone without food or bronze working. I'm not sure if this was a good move short term or not, as I didn't see many wandering barbs at all. Long term I think it was a bad move, as it meant I didn't build enough units to take the barb cities that sprang up around my empire. Then it was Settler -> Warrior I think.

Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?
Not really, I just tried to keep my worker busy. After quarrying the stone Agriculture was learned which allowed me to build a farm and mine a hill. When AH was finally teched the worker was already standing on the pigs in preparation.

How are things going at 1ad?
I'm in the hole, firmly last in score. The romans expanded like crazy and are a huge empire. We are friends and I just adopted his religion which is shared with KK and Giggles. My saving grace is that they all hate Monty (can't blame them really). I just researched Currency, which added to my GLH means my tech rate isn't too bad.

What were your goals to this point, and did you acheive them?
After my start, I felt religious was the only way I am going to win this one. But I just got beat to Theology by 2 turns , and my only religion ATM is the state religion of 3 AI's. So, not sure where to from here...

Have you come up with any creative ideas or strategies specific to this game?
Not by choice As always at this level, its all about survival at this stage.

 

[azzaman333]

I saw stone, settled on it, researched Masonry and started building Stonehenge. I think I built the Great Wall immediately after that, so I was extremely slow to expand. Compounding that, I built Pyongyang by the Silver and Wonsan claiming the northern Fish and Horses, so Augustus had a lot of space to expand into. Diplo wasn't very easy either, with most civs founding their own religions...

 

[Greeder]

I played 7 test games and 5 were failures, only 2 indicated a chance for victory. I had 6 cities in 1 AD at best.
So I chose Adventurer.
Great advantage of starting with GPs is scouting. I didn't realize that. But I managed to screw it. I sent GPs S, Warrior W and the best spot was on NE.
So I settled on turn 3, 2E from Settler's start position.
I settled GS 2 or 3 turns later, when he came back from scouting.
I discovered Agriculture first as better choice for AH later than Hunting. Then BW for forest chopping, next AH for Pigs and to discover where Horses are, because there was no Copper nearby.
Next Wheel mainly for Pottery, Masonary, Pottery and Fishing.
Immediately after MAsonary I built Mids via my free GE.
I was building Stonehenge while growing, so I constructed quarry on Stone asap and connected it. 2080 BC I managed to complete Stonehenge.
The same turn I built second city near Horse and Fish N from capitol. I lost 3 Warriors to Bears and barbarians.
I was out of army, needed to growth further and it was only 9 turns for building Great Wall, so I constructed it immediately after Stonehenge.
I still had only two cities and I saw that barbarians settled on two good spots, one SW near Horses, and one N, next to Pigs. I needed military power. I discovered IW and found Iron nearby. Luck!
At 1400 BC I got first GP - GE and settled him in capitol.
At 1360 BC I recalled that I have Mids and switched to Representation. Earlier on I couldn't afford anarchy and I forgot about it.
I discovered Sailing then and built 3rd city near jungle to work Iron tile.
From now on it was rapid expansion (as my expansion goes).
I founded Pusan S, near silver, Deer and Wheat. Then Namp'o W, in mountains, near Gold and Silk. Captured both barbarian's cities and 1 AD I founded Cheju NW, near Corn and Horse.
In the meantime discovered and traded Writing, Alpha, Math, Meditation, Poly, Hunting, Archery, Construction, Priesthood and CoL.

Statistics 1 AD:
8 cities (32 pops)
7 workers
8 units
4 strategic resources
1 luxury resource
5 health resources
2 great persons (1 GE settled in capitol, 1 GSpy scouting), well, +2GP from adventurer save
3 wonders
57 bpt at 20% and -2gpt
12 great person points per turn (14 turns to next GP)
6/10 cottages used
1 religion - Confucianism, open borders with several buddist, I hoped to get it also
4 AIs founded, all cautious, one Hindu.

I want to join Buddist club and expand peacefully till I got tech lead. I think around Rifles. Then I will go for military victory.

Forgot to mention. Julius DOWed Monty 100BC. My second piece of luck. If he attacked me then, it would be bloodbath.

 

[Rusten]

Deity save

Where did you settle? Why?

I settled in place, It wasn't possible to scout all the eastern tiles and it was impossible to know where the food was. Moving would've been too risky.

What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?

Hunting-AH-BW-the wheel

AH to hook up pigs. BW to look for copper and to whip. The wheel to hook up horses.

I grew to size 2 before starting the worker for some extra commerce (fp+river stone). Not sure if this was that much better (if at all), I didn't check it beforehand.

In hindsight I think fishing first might be the stronger play, at least on deity. The start is so low on commerce that working the lake with financial makes a huge difference.

What were your first 4 city builds?

2nd city went SW next to the horses for barb protection. 3rd went NE by the horse and fish. 4th went by the gold to the west IIRC.

Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?

The capital lakes after fishing and before pottery. They were vital.
After that I mostly cottaged as I had claimed a lot of land and there was not much commerce otherwise.

Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.
How are things going?

Fine and dandy.
Was behind on tech compared to normal due to low econ start, but have bulbed philosophy by now and am in the trading game. Have traded for some luxuries and starting to grow cities and halt whipping.

What were your goals to this point, and did you acheive them?

My goal was to stay safe in terms of diplomacy and to secure enough land for a strong mid-game economy. Managed to secure 8 cities (with a 9th to come).

Have you come up with any creative ideas or strategies specific to this game?

Rush-buy.
We are FIN and the land is very cottage-able. There's also stone and all the nearby AIs are difficult to attack. It makes sense to go for a later attack. Will aim for conquest/domination with the Kremlin. Already making buildings like markets which I usually skip.

- - - - -

Other things I remember as I go:

Managed to unlock the HE with a chariot from killing barbs. Always nice.

 

[dima42]

i settled on stone, and opened settler->stonehenge. i lost to stonehenge (sort of surprised; it was very early), and lost my second city to barbs in an unusual case (barb moved to attack, got next to city as a result, captured city). i decided that this was a sign and i retired rather than try to dig myself out.

 

[zamint3]

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?

Settling: After a little walk, why? looking for food , I settled 1NE of the start on T3 - 3880BC
Quite a nice Capital with pigs, corn, wine, stone, fresh water, grass on river and 7 grass hills (one with iron as I found out just a few turns ago )

Techs: Agri->BW->AH (T41-2360BC only 15 turns after 3000BC ) I wanted to improve the food but did not want hunting.

Build: Worker->warrior->warrior->settler (T43-2280BC)

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?

Barbs starting to show up and no copper so 2nd city went N by the horses!

Goal was to rex fast, but barbs slowed me down! (I'll have to practice this fog busting one of these days ) Initial research and build was slow!

1AD stats: 8 cities, 29 pop, 6 workers, 9 warriors, 5 chariots.
Research: Sustain 20%: 19bpt, +7gpt.

Just captured one barb city with the help of Augustus Caesar, two praetorians took down the first 2 defending archers and my chariots did the rest . Hope I didn't offend him...
Earlier he took one of my intended city spots, so I guess we are even . He's got a settler escorted by praetorians walking around, I might have to shut down my borders, don't know if that's wise though .

I'm way behind in tech, but hopefully starting to pick up speed.

Will settle 2 more cities and go peacefully into the next 1000 years before military win with cav and riflemen.....

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Deity save.

Where did you settle? Why?

In place. Moving meant loosing production which I value highly. And, baring some moves from the map maker, food was hiding in the fog for sure.

What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?

Agri -> AH -> TW. Why? good question. Something like "hey, let's irrigate that floodplain first." It was wrong for a couple of reasons. First because just one tile isn't enough to delay hooking up food resources, second because it delayed barb defenses techs. More on that later (I am a bit masochist, the correct smiley should be )

What were your first 4 city builds?

worker -> warrior -> warrior-> settler. So I had three warriors for fogbusting the immediate surrounding. Northern one got up to woody2 quickly. Quick settling is always a priority for me.

Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?

farm then pigs then mines. Since I did agri first, I settle the wheat/gem/silver site quickly, after the corn/fish one up north. I am not a cottage guy at all, but I had to land some in fps since commerce is such a pain on this map.

Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.

Honnestly? I think it's my worst game in a couple of years. Going on for the hell of it, and because Rusten is lame (ref to the sign up thread challenge)
So what went wrong: in one word, barbs. I lost my southern warrior while he was going to its fogbusting place (one of my three initial ones). Had to rebuild some to replace it. It delayed the first settler so the first chariot as well. (I skipped archery since I had horses -> wrong wrong wrong!)
Immediatly, the deity thing strikes in and I got two barb cities poping in. At first, I was glad since it means barbies fogbusting... but I was wrong. More archers kept coming to haunt me.
Things cooled down once I got my first chariot.
But then:

Spoiler enjoy the last first strike :p :

Better be safe than sorry. Lesson for next deity game: screw chariots, they are worthless. Even no defense bonuses... anyway, it leads to this funny pic:

Spoiler :

Note the number of barb cities. I wasn't out of my misery though. Look:

Spoiler :

Being a moron, I went on with chariots and decided to try and grab those barb cities with my chariot stack (yeah, yeah, I built one... don't do it in deity! ). Net result: wracked eco, useless chariots without 10 xp, no barb cities. AC becoming a monster.

How are things going?

Well after that nightmare, I took a two days break and started to play "a bit more" focused. My situation in 1 ad isn't "that" bad (well generally speaking, compared to what it should, and what most players will have done, it is a catastrophe ).

Somehow I managed to found both COL and Tao, and traded COL for everything I missed with my lackluster teching. THough WFYABTA is gonna hurt later, no doubt. I am up to 7 cities, and will finally get a barb city next turn (traded copper with AC since I gave up with chariots).

Here are the tech situation and an overview (beware all AIs met):

Spoiler :

Monty is already at war...

What were your goals to this point, and did you acheive them?

Finding motivation to go on, using booze. REX and getting in the trading game. First one was difficult because of my own stupidity, second was done. Though since I had to overwhip and couldn't focus on infra, my eco is in a pityfull state compared to 1 AD standards. I am lacking about 10 points of population too. Seeing the cap size 6 is painfull.

Have you come up with any creative ideas or strategies specific to this game?

Nope. Honnestly this is one of my worst game. U know after a couple of hundred games, u are used to have achieved certain things at certain dates. Here all failed (including unlocking HE) and I am late on everything. I will be happy to win it, and I can tell u it will be hard (not spoiling u but I went on and it 's hard ). Refining my late game warring will be needed if I went to have a chance. Some drafting should be in order to overcome the "no HE" penalty.

Cheers,
Ras

 

[Greeder]

Ha RRR, it looks like classic distaster to me and I'm experienced in that matter. I usually crawl out of such situation around RR and Rifles-Infantry. If not, if it's even worse the only hope is Combustion and marine assault. I found also air superiority and Paratroopers extremely useful before Laser and Robotics which gave you fast strike force.
Your game sounds like most of mine, really . Enjoy the thought it is one in several hundreds for you, for me it's 3 in every 4
Good luck!

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Ha RRR, it looks like classic distaster to me and I'm experienced in that matter. I usually crawl out of such situation around RR and Rifles-Infantry. If not, if it's even worse the only hope is Combustion and marine assault. I found also air superiority and Paratroopers extremely useful before Laser and Robotics which gave you fast strike force.
Your game sounds like most of mine, really . Enjoy the thought it is one in several hundreds for you, for me it's 3 in every 4
Good luck!

Hehe. I worded my report this way because it's how I felt and because I wanted it to be a bit usefull for people struggling at this level (so I stressed what went wrong and why, as I understand it). But don't worry, in real deity (2 settlers start), I finish less than half my games.

I don't want to discuss my game after 1 ad here, but I am planning something along those lines, an assault around rifles... or infantries mischief. Hell, if all fails, they will be nuked
I agree with you about air superiority. The AI doesn't seem programmed to cope with this and is totally clueless in that matter. I love airships for this very reason.

Good luck for ur game too!

 

[Htadus]

Tell us what happened up to 3000BC, first:

Where did you settle? Why?

The mouse tentative is saying to settler SE or 1N2E(I think on a hill) So warrior went to the hill NE, I think, and found corn and Pigs. So moved into the forest NE. The blue circle was recommending south away from corn and I thought the game is on drugs and settled on the forest. I guess the program knew where the gem was, but that would require settling on stone and I did not want to be coastal. The warrior started exploring NE and the CCW zigzaged toward west.

What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?

Aggri, AH and the wheel for food improvements and connecting cities as well as building chariots for barb defense. It has been a lifetime ago since I teched archery.

What were your first 4 city builds?

Worker, war (to fog bust the north, eventially the horse area), war to explore south and then to fog bust southwest horse site and a settler to claim the horse site. Then the Tango began.....barb warrior and later archer tango. You go forward, they come forward, then you go backward and take a stand in a forest, they come forward and fall before you kind.

Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?

Well after the food it was building a road toward the horses and then the horses. Oh yeah then there was this happened to that particular improvement at one point.

Spoiler :

The damaged archer was about to enter the tile and distroy the pasture before my first chariot was out of capital, it needed 2 turns and I did not know BW yet. So I took a chance and moved my city MP to the forest 2S of the city. As expected (hoped really) the barb attacked him and killed MP. This also gave me the needed turns to complete the new MP for the city and try to defend it and finish the chariot.

Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.
How are things going?

Well, the korea survived that incident because the injured archer attacked the city and died, and the other archer chose to destroy the road. phew. The Chariot took out the archer and managed to stabalize the area.

After the wheel, I decided to tech masonry to develop the stone and invest hammers toward the mids for failure gold. Since I lost a turn settling and did not have any commerce tiles, I was not going after the Oracel or any other wonders.

Next tech was pottary. After all we are financial. On T42 founded Pyong by the SW horse, on T59 (1640 BC) founded SilverGem city to south with FP in its BFC and next I took a chance and claimed the gold, ivory and some other resource by placing a city on a plains hill in the west on T78. Oh yeah, I still do not know hunting or fishing. Since that blocking city does not have enough food to properly work the gold tile, I place another city to work the gold south of the 3 mntn canyon. Then I realized even that does not have enough food to work the gold, so I settled another city north of the gold with dry corn in the initial 9 tiles. By 1 AD I had settled 8 cities and captured one barb city with the help of 2 Preats and 2 roman chariots. That was very nice of them. I wonder how well they attack protective archers....actually no I do not want to know and am glad it is not Juli i am dealing with.

What were your goals to this point, and did you acheive them?

I wanted to block Rome and was able to do so at the expense of under developed cities since I only have 4 workers for my 9 cities. Barbs killed a bunch of my warrior and am glad not to loose more. Spawn busting was the key for me in this game.

Have you come up with any creative ideas or strategies specific to this game?

Nothing really creative. The ultimate goal is to win and it is not too difficult in this particular game I am playing and it had very little to do with me. The reason is there are 3 factions in this game. Only Augustus(11) has more cities than us(9) and others are doing OK(5-7). But Monti is keeping many on their toes. First he went after the master of the bows and then the vultures. So I have been trading with all but him and when time comes, I will use the hawach army against the mighty Rome. Then sit back and decide if I want an easy war game or more compliecated diplo or science game. This particular game is going to work toward a fast war, so I may see to that.

The capital has a very late academy and a few villages. I am runing a few scientists in several cities and did finally settled the original horse city to northeast .

After pottary, the research went to Writing, BW, Aesthetics(325BC) and 1 turn of Alpha, and trade for Alphabet. The did 2 trades to get, math, IW, fishing and hunting. Started currency, and did one more trade to get sailing and archery. Two more trades got me the remaining lower religion techs closer to the 0AD.

I have been putting nearly all my espionage point on to the Romans. So the plan is to steal construction from them and plan for a circa 500 AD first war. Hwacha. axes, spear and swords against LB's and preats. I intend to whip 10 cats, 10 sword and build 10 more of support units for that war in 3 turns . So I need a minimum of 10 cities of 6 population. Not going to be easy but I do have room for about 5 more productive cities. This could get ugly, I think.

Also I hope I have time to finish it.

 

[Htadus]

Hi KCD, I just finished my game and realized that the site is down. Can I send the file to you or AlanH? I did not miss the deadline right?

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory.

Warrior SW, Set SE, then NE, see stone, pigs and island gems.
Warrior SW, nothing. What to do? Settler 1E, no seafood, ugh. Settler 1SW, nothing.
Warrior SE. In this situation I decided to settle 1N. That's how I ended up settling with a single food source (and with corn just outside of the BFC).

Worker first (even though it lost 2 turns doing nothing after the first mine, while waiting for AH).
Agri-AH-TW first.


I lost my scout very soon. I went Worker-Warrior-Settler but that wasn't fast enough. There was a barb archer around the horses and I had to delay settling for 3 turns. It would have been longer, but I took the risk and put Settler+Worker+2Warriors in the same tile, losing 1 of them and then settling on the next turn.

The second city was great, with sheep, 2FP, silk, horses, many hills, river... 21hpt at size 8. It would be Legendary and would build my WW, starting with Pyramids because we have Stone.

Then barbs caused real pain. I lost my exploring warrior. I lost a fogbuster against a wounded archer... so 4 barbs were approaching my second city.


I had to sacrifice growth, development, everything just to survive. I survived, but I think it wasn't my ability but the fact that barbs decided to settle thousands of cities all around and that gave me time to rebuild.

3rd city North, with fish, corn and horses, would be my GPFarm and 3rd Legendary. Rome has already 6 cities and it's the only AI I know.


1000 BC Stats: 3 cities, 12 pop, 3workers, 7units(7War), 1 strategic resources, 0 luxury resources, 2 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=31-23-22, 13 bpt at breakeven, 3 culture per turn, 0 great person points per turn, 40 gold, 1monu. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 8 Techs: AH, Mason, half of Alpha. 0 civs killed. 3 hours played.

Then I took the decision to go for settlers first and for the barb cities later, while starting Pyramids in the second city. Researching Alpha.

Pyramids and Representation 675BC. Meet the others.
Alpha 525BC.

Fourth city 400BC, West by the gold, just 1 turn before Rome got there! Few.

Fifth city South, fish and deer. No other option as there were barb cities everywhere. No more settlers now but Swords.

First GP and Academy 200BC.
Monty goes WHEOOH against me because of some refusal, but I'm not scared as he has no OB with Rome and can't reach me.

1AD Stats: 5cities, 23pop, 4workers, 13units (4Swo),3 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 5 health resources, 1 great persons, 1 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=55-43-82, 47bpt at breakeven , 23 culture per turn, 8 great person points per turn, 100 gold. 3 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 17 Techs: IW,Lite, Alpha, Maths. 0 civs killed. 7 hours played. reli/city, temples, caths== 3,0,0

Very bad start. I didn't handle barbs as I should have.

 

[kcd_swede]

Hi KCD, I just finished my game and realized that the site is down. Can I send the file to you or AlanH? I did not miss the deadline right?

Server has been up and down and up etc... Try again, and if it doesn't work...

You can send it to:

gotm_submit@civfanatics.net