BOTM 46 -- First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 46 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 46 (Saddam Hussein), 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? Seen any action yet?
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 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.

 

[Greeder]

Where did you settle? Why?
I settled on Plain hill E-NE. Several reasons: additional hammer, flood plains, oasis and Marble nearby. I mean just one field from capitol, which was important given my anti-barbarian strategy.
What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?
Pottery - for early commerce, Mysticism and Polytheism as I aimed for Religious victory.
What were your first 4 city builds?
Worker, warrior*3. Again it was about my anti-barbarian strategy.
Did you prioritize any particular tile improvements? Which ones?
River cottages for commerce. Then Quarry for commerce, hammers and Marble.


Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.
Recently I played dozen deity games aiming for Religious Vic as described by kcd_swede in BOTM40. I succedeed once and learned a lot.
Saddam's case at first looked hopelessly but I played several test games and discovered that building Oracle is achiveable IF you discover Pottery first AND land is preferably (rivers, rivers, rivers).
Starting this game I had just Oracle in mind, on deity I need this powerfull booster. Then I found Marble nearby and performed some calculations. Maybe, just maybe I could get Theology from Oracle.
So I researched Pottery, then Mysticism. During discovering Polytheism I had 2 cottages already.
I was lucky in this game.
First - ideal starting positions. Flood plains and Oasis compenseted for luck of food and gave me much early commerce. And necessary Marble.
Second - I was first to Hinduism at 2975BC! This consolidated AI's around Buddism, very handy in Religious game.

After Poly I researched Masonary, my worker built 4 near-river cottages before constructing Quarry. This allowed me 15gps during building Oracle, and that was key point to discovering Mono and Writing early enough to beat AIs.
I mustered 4 or 5 warriors, put one or two in the city, and others around my borders for fog busting. I put them in the forests so they stood a chance against barbarian Archers.
They were vital for my commerce-tiles defence. I couldn't afford lost any single improvement. I lost 2 Warriors and as I recall barbarian Archer razed my Hamlet once.
2375 BC I discovered Priesthood and started Oracle.
Third piece of luck was Oracle at 2000 BC. In one of my test games AI built it around 2400 BC!
Only 3 warriors survived till this moment so I built two or 3 more before Settler. Worker was preparing site for new city - constructed road to Singapore, Buddism founder.
It paided off. I founded Akkad 1625 BC, my neighbour sent missionary, and I got buddism 1575 BC. Being weak as a newborn kitty I converted immediately.
1350 BC I finally discovered Bronze Working and switched to OR and Slavery. I could aslo start building AP.
775 BC I discovered Maths myself. Chopped some forests and converted to Christianity. 525 BC I completed AP. Now I could trade Theology for Monarchy, Calendar, Meditation, Archery, Currency, Iron Working and Alpha.
Of course I reconverted to buddism asap.
395 BC I founded 3rd city, 350 BC built christianity Shrine.
Fourth piece of luck - christianity spreaded not only to my 2 neighbours but also to Italy and Salvador. It was impotrant in case of Italy, Silvio was the only Jude (everybody else were buddist) and world villian. Now I could DoW him or stop trading with him any time my buddist buddies asked me to.
140 BC I founded my 4th and last city. 110 BC I discovered Paper and trade for world map. That way I know exactly where to spread christianity.
Paper was my last innovation in this game. 3 or 4 AIs had it already, but still I was able to trade for Aesthetics, Metal Castings and Literature.

At 1 AD I was christianity sole leader, I had 4 cities, christianity was in 6 from 8 civs. Nathan (Singapore) was my friend, 4 other buddist were pleased with me, nobody were planning war. Ideal circumstances for diplo victory.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'm glad someone got some good use out of one of my spoilers. Sounds like you've had a bit of luck thus far, but there's a lot of skill in recognizing what your advantages are and making the most of them. There's many ways for things to go badly wrong, too. Some call it cheesy, but its not easy... not on Deity. Very small window of opoprtunity for a number of things you need to have happen. I'll look forward to your next spoiler to hear whether you made it through that window, or it slammed shut on you.

Nice game so far!

 

[azzaman333]

My game ended rather abruptly because I figured I could get away with having 2 warriors for barb defence in my capital. Turns out, I couldn't.

 

[Rusten]

^Yeah. Barbs are annoying at this level. I think I had the first barb entering my cultural borders 2500 BC. I've started going archers pretty much no matter what. Saves many a headache. Means you have more options as to where you can settle too.

Archers (and especially bowmen) aren't useless against these 2000-1000 BC DoWs either.

 

[Rusten]

SIP. Hunting -> AH -> Archery. AH finished just in time for the worker to pasture sheep so hunting first is profitable if I want it anyway.
Worker -> warrior -> bowman -> settler whip

2nd city (including capital) went on the PH for corn+horses. Managed to beat Portugal there by a few turns -- I could see a settler party heading there after settling.

3rd city was settled on top of the ivory and #4 by the copper/floods. Left room for #5 by oasis+sheep and a 6th by marble+sheep and thus enabling national wonders.

Stone was nearby, but with both neighbours having HR as favourite civic the Pyramids seemed a waste. Went for Literature while expanding instead, but the old pig beat me to the GL just as I was about to chop it (485 BC!!)
Didn't get much out of that tech diversion.

I ended up having to bulb philosophy with my first GS over building an academy to make sure I'd stay in the trading game. Tech trading is the biggest amplifier.

20 BC I am 2 turns away from paper with 1300 gold in the bank somehow. Reasearch at about 200 bpt with 100%.

Since forever Portugal has been at 20% or more of the total population. Add fantastic land to that and I have a headache.

Friendly with Singapore. Soon to be friendly with Portugal. Been safe from any harm with Estonia constantly battling with Dubya. Should've ignored WFYABTA from the start as there are so many with HR civic here, but realised soon enough to trade decently.

Mainly farming except a few cottages plotted down very early before writing and of course the capital. Cottages not that mature yet, but capital already giving 41C (before bureau).

Some screens:

Spoiler :

I also wanted to know which resources were added to the challenger save, but I guess you can't divulge that until final spoiler which isn't up yet.

 

[zamint3]

Settled on the PH north east, hoping to see more food.

Build: Worker-Warriorx3

Research: AH->Mining->Bronze

Warriors went fogbusting around the capital, so I did not find either horses nor copper initially

2nd city go by the copper eventually.
3rd by the horses.

My fogbusting was better than ever, I had 3 warriors posted (W, SW and S) and they took care of archers from these directions. I did have one bad incident, settling on the PH left one unrevealed tile in the upper NE corner of the map from where a barb archers appeared. He killed my warrior fortified on the sheep, pillaged the sheep and attacked my whipped warrior in the capital but wounded as he was died in that attack...

Researched Aesthetics (but wasn't first) and traded it for: Alpha, Mysticism, Archery, IW, Math, Masonry and Sailing.

I did build the GLib and then researched Music but was beaten by several turns, it was still worth a lot in trading. Bulbed Philo and traded a lot more.

Oracle went 1375BC and Mids 1275BC to some cities with American names.

Tried to stay friendly with my closest neighbours, and Singapore spammed Hindi missionaries all over the place, but after some time they all adopted Buddhism, witch have not spread to any of my cities. Singapore is still Hindi so I have stayed out of religion. Recently Portugal build the Shwe Paya and changed to Free Rel, so now I consider adopting Hinduism

1AD stats: 6 cities, 39 pop, 1 village, 13 hamlets, 2 cottage

Screenies not that much different from Rusten's:

Spoiler :

I'm fighting a cultural battle with Singapore over the gems at our border, I think I'm about to regain them.

Plan is to research Nationalism (and trade some more ) and build Taj Mahal, I still got a lot of forest left.

Will grow one pop and hire two more scientists (Edit: I will revolt to Bureaucracy shortly)

Not sure how to win this, but I don't think I'm doing too bad....

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory.

Warrior SE and later NE saw no reason not to settle on the PH E-NE. It's the best place available if you don't want to explore for half a dozen of turns. The only bad thing about it is you are moving away from the sea and the center of the map. But that extra hammer is worth too much to ignore.

I was tempted about mining first (and mining the sheep) but in the end I chose the orthodox approach: AH-Mining-BW-Pottery.
Built Worker-3xWarrior-Settler.

Why? I prioritized security over research (cottages).


Cities:
Capital: Legendary, cottages and hammers.
02 S on Ivory, Cow, Stone, 4FP, no fresh water. Legendary, cottages.
03 SW, 1N of horses, corn, horses, no fresh water.
Singapure was fast and took from me the site with the 2 remaining FPs, in the middle of my civ.
04 W, sheep, silk, oasis. Just before Jorge could take it.
05 E, sheep, shared Marble (just to get to the magic number of 6 cities).
Sixth city was to be the barb city on the river mouth, with copper. Legendary, GPFarm.



I lost my explorer against a bear around the sea mouth and the 2nd city site fogbuster against a Barb Warrior in an unlucky 99.1% chances fight, ending up almost unhurt too!!!
This led to later problems with barbs, losing a couple of improvements.

Very soon the world was settled and barbs were no more.
The mapmaker was very kind to put so many AIs with HR as their preferred civic. Epic speed also made this look more as Immortal than as Deity. Also the inland sea map is kind: with only 2 neighbours it is easy to survive for a long time. But making Joao (Jorge) one of our neighbours was a cruelty: it is hard enough to try to claim your chunk of land in a Deity game without having that crazy-REXer next door. He had 5 cities before I had 2.

1000 BC Stats: 5 cities, 13 pop, 4workers, 10units(2Cha), 1 strategic resources, 0 luxury resources, 3 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=52-18-28, 12 sustainable beakers per turn, 10 culture per turn, 0 great person points per turn, 280 gold, 3Gra, Lib, Monu. 1 religions, 2/2 cottages used, 8 Techs: BW, Wri. 0 civs killed. 5 hours played.

Religions: Singapure had sent a missionary to each of my cities. Jorge was kind enough to send me one of his'. Singapure had founded Judaism too, but they never sent one of those missionaries. So I was lucky to be able to build very early monasteries and temples, but had only 2 religions.


I researched HBR just because of its trading value. Every AI had Alphabet by then, so I didn't bother to trade for it immediately. I got: Maso+Poly+Medi+IW+Fish+PH+Mono+Hunt+Sail+90gold+90%ofMaths for HBR.

Revolted to slavery while the first Settler was on its way, OR later.

Academy 335BC.

After HBR I researched Aesth, Also because of its trading value. As nobody had it when I got it, I kept it till I built Parthenon (wasn't a long wait, I built it in just 5 turns with the help of my friends, the trees). Then I restrained myself from trading it, in order to get to Music first and specially in order to make sure Sistine's would be mine.

I saw a trading opportunity and I stopped researching Music to research CoL for 2 turns, then trade Aesth for the rest of CoL and the next turn Iw as able to trade for Monarchy, Currency, Alpha, a lot of money and a lot of improved relations because of fair trade. With this diplomacy boost and HR I wasn't going to be dowed.

NE built.

Got first to Music and traded Lite to 3 AI for 1100gold. I should probably have traded it to the rest of them for the few coins they had.

1AD Stats: 6 cities, 41 pop, 7workers, 11units (4Cha), 4strategic resources, 4 luxury resources, 4 health resources, 2 great persons, 1 world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=113-69-236, 143 sustainable beakers per turn, 59 culture per turn, 5 great person points per turn, 1300 gold. 2 religions. 10/10 cottages used, 26 Techs: Music, Monar, CoL, IW. 0 civs killed. 10 hours played. 12rel*city, 11temples, 0cath

 

[jesusin]

I ended up having to bulb philosophy with my first GS over building an academy to make sure I'd stay in the trading game. Tech trading is the biggest amplifier.

Researched Aesthetics (but wasn't first) and traded it for: Alpha, Mysticism, Archery, IW, Math, Masonry and Sailing.

I researched HBR just because of its trading value. Every AI had Alphabet by then, so I didn't bother to trade for it immediately. I got: Maso+Poly+Medi+IW+Fish+PH+Mono+Hunt+Sail+90gold+90%ofMaths for HBR.

After HBR I researched Aesth, Also because of its trading value. As nobody had it when I got it, I kept it till I built Parthenon (wasn't a long wait, I built it in just 5 turns with the help of my friends, the trees). Then I restrained myself from trading it, in order to get to Music first and specially in order to make sure Sistine's would be mine.

I saw a trading opportunity and I stopped researching Music to research CoL for 2 turns, then trade Aesth for the rest of CoL and the next turn Iw as able to trade for Monarchy, Currency, Alpha, a lot of money and a lot of improved relations because of fair trade. With this diplomacy boost and HR I wasn't going to be dowed.

I'd say that realising the importance of trading and then learning how to do it efficiently, what techs are less likely to be researched by the AI, etc. is the key to Deity difficulty. Getting left out of the trading game is the surest way to defeat.

I'd say the 3 quoted players are going to win their games, just because they have noted and mentioned this key factor. I'd even bet a couple of