BOTM 53 -- First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 53 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 53 "Monty in Let's Make a Deal", 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, OR
• You have abandoned your game and will not submit.

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 reveal names or locations of civilization not accessible by galleys.
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.

---------------------------------

Tell us what happened up to 3000BC, first:
Whcih door did you go through and where did you settle? When and why?
What were your first 3 technologies researched? Why?
What were your first 4 city builds?

Then tell us about your game up to 1AD.
How are things going? Do you feel like you got 'zonked'?
Seen any action yet? How do you like your neighbors?
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 reveal names or locations of civilization not accessible by galleys.
• 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.

 

[SilentWatcher]

I chose door 3, mainly because of someones comment about door 2 being hammer poor and the fact we had hunting. Built worker warrior settler and set off to door 2 for 2nd city. Bit of a hike! teched AH for piggies then got nervous about KCD's mention of barbs and went for archery, missed a massive opp for a religion there.. dumb but hey. barbs havnt caused me any problems. You werent kidding about aggresive AI! even without the settings, First up Toku.. right next door.. OK guess I wont get open borders unless Im shagging him. next gilgamesh..stalin? ghengis? ok where have you hidden Shaka? (havnt met others yet). am tech leader. 1st in pop and production and army. Surprise surprise Toku DOWs me. Idiot move he has nothing.. closest city has one archer! others arnt much better defended and he has no standing army to attack with. by 1ad I have razed 2 of his and captured his capital along with the great wall. Running out of steam as I cant afford to keep pumping out troops. Maintenance seems higher than normal? getting stymied by cost of army and cant expand past 6th city. research at 30% but still out teching so things look good. Toku will be gone soon will prob turn my attention to Gilga but a bit worried about his vultures. he has a good few on show, must check out his interior cities for defence levels. My 3rd 4th and 5th city lie east of door 3 with kyoto (toku's cap) being my 6th

 

[Orion071]

I thought that I would try something different and go cultural, but realized that spending 3 or 4 turns before settling meant that I couldn't get an early religion. I went through door #3 and saw that the area around the sign was filled with mountains and riverside desert (no floodplains?). The surrounding area was pretty poor too so I definitely feel like I got zonked. Anyway, I dislike playing Monty and felt that the map was a little too forced so I abandoned the game.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Settled 2E of gold at door 2 with the intention of getting CS with oracle.

In 725BC, with 2 cities (I built the other on #3 site), maths 1 turn from researching an oracle one turn from finishing, someone else builds the Oracle

Not much worth mentioning other than that... it's hard for me to remember anything else other than that!!! So annoying. REXing is behind schedule but I am first to 6 cities, just. 5 turns away from my first GS and CS which will explode my tech pace (only 30 turns later than it would've been... grrrrr) Toku's going to declare on someone soon, and Stalin most likely on Genghis. I only have warriors, but with copper hooked up and a couple of sacrificial alters, I can get something decent together quickly if needs be.

Oh, and I love spiritual/caste. I settled my 3rd and 4th cities on the same turn, switched into caste, ran an artist in each, then 5 turns later switched back. Easy border pops 2nd city got its border pops from founding confu.

 

[cain3456]

As I indicated I would do earlier, I opted for door #3, settling s of the lake for the pig. This turned out to be a good choice, as there was plenty of good land available. My first builds were 5. warrior, 13. worker (upon hitting pop 2), 22. warrior, 25. warrior, 29. worker, 35. rax, 39. settler. My tech progression was 5. Wheel (to road), 13. AH (for the pig), 24. mining (preq to BW), 30. BW (slavery), 42 Ag, 49 HBR, 71 Mason (for the marble), 77 Arch, 82 IW, 95 Pot, 99 Writ, 101 Meditate (bulbed GP), 108 Priest (preq to CoL), 114 Alpha (traded Gil Priest+HB), 114 CoL (courts+Confucian)

My city development was on schedule:
5. Tenochtitlan, 46 Teotihuacan, 65 Tlatelolco, 80 Texcoco, 100 Tlaxcala, 113 Phyrigian (barb city captured near door #2), and I am ready to found another city between the wine and deer on the other side of the lake to the west.
Picked up Stonehenge turn 52, Pyramids 110. Contacted everyone on my continent by turn 50. Gil was my closest neighbor, Toku was being Toku, while Stalin and Genghis were across the desert.

We're still a bunch of pagans on this continent, trying to get CoL. But my game is going well, and the initial 4 turn search is but a memory.

 

[SilentWatcher]

I thought that I would try something different and go cultural, but realized that spending 3 or 4 turns before settling meant that I couldn't get an early religion. I went through door #3 and saw that the area around the sign was filled with mountains and riverside desert (no floodplains?). The surrounding area was pretty poor too so I definitely feel like I got zonked. Anyway, I dislike playing Monty and felt that the map was a little too forced so I abandoned the game.

you started with mysticism so early religion was still doable.. none of the doors where that bad! and we all get the same breaks so its a level field..
I was just happy it wasn't a deity as ive never beaten one before but I still attempt and don't moan about the map-makers voluntary efforts, noble with some hardship and a bit of originality?
YES throw me some of them!

Ya cant please all the people all the time!

 

[azzaman333]

Went door 3 since we had hunting, and grassland/forest deer are pretty nice. Tenotchitlan was settled on the plains hill 2SW of the door 3 sign after seeing the deserts and deciding the other deer and the pigs could be saved for city 2.

REX'd all over the place, with the AI being embarrassingly slow thanks to Noble difficulty. Should've axe rushed Tokugawa, who had warriors visibly defending his cities, but couldn't be bothered.

 

[Greeder]

Like almost all I took door #3. 2S from it, so I claimed Wine too.
Even before start I was looking for a fight, thus my tech path: Mining->BW->AH->IW. Jaguars are just awesome, and my nine year old son is conquering faster than me, using them.
2280 BC I constructed Stonehenge as it is very handy in BTS, first for REXing then in conquered cities.
Then Pottery trough Fishing. I settled door #2 2480 BC, well exactly 2N1W from #2, so gold mine was close, and I could hook up Stone.
But Pottery came late - 1120 BC.
I decided there is no sense to try for Oracle, so I went for Alpha. I regretted it because I traded just for few early techs, but in the hindsight I see that much more significant was the ability to build research and for that alone it was worthy.
Before Alpha I researched Masonary for Stone and Mids. I finished them 25BC, it took me just 16 turns to finish them.
I settled 3 more cities closer to capitol, expanding due east. The most distant city was 10 tiles from capitol, claiming Rice, Deer and Pigs.

Around 700 BC I took 2 barbs cities. One W from capitol, really nice spot with Wheat, Spices, Wine, Deer and Pigs. The other one NE from #2, also great spot - Banana, Corn, Iron, 3 flood plains and lots of hills. It was my Heroic+Moai city later.
It was Jags vs Warriors, easy meat.
I declared on Toku 450 BC. I should attack Gilgamesh first, but I mistook him with Hammurabi, and belived, he would have Bowmen.
Well, what's done, it's done.
Till ADs I captured two Toku's cities.
9 cities, 36 pops, 28 beakers at 10% rate, 16 turns to Currency.

Big empire and war eats my money, but I have 9 cities compared to AI's 5. Im even in techs with them at this point.

 

[Orion071]

you started with mysticism so early religion was still doable.. none of the doors where that bad! and we all get the same breaks so its a level field..
I was just happy it wasn't a deity as ive never beaten one before but I still attempt and don't moan about the map-makers voluntary efforts, noble with some hardship and a bit of originality?
YES throw me some of them!

Ya cant please all the people all the time!

Actually the early religion wasn't doable in my game. Both of them were gone before I had a chance at them. I just wasn't feeling it for this game. No big deal, it happens sometimes. I appreciate the work that the people put into the GoTM and I'm looking forward to the next one.

 

[zamint3]

Please do not reveal names or locations of civilization not accessible by galleys.

This probably means we can't access all civs by galley.

I saw the announcement saying "custom continents" and looked that up in the map script guide and on those blurry pictures the continents seemed pretty close together. Then I saw that we were playing with low sea level, so I thought "no problem". Just to be absolutely sure I loaded the game and customized a game with "custom continents" and "low seas" and entered the worldbuilder and yes: everything nicely accessible by galleys.
Now at 1AD I'm losing hope, and I've gone back to testing and it turns out that 9 out of 10 (or something like that) random games with "custom continents" and "low seas" don't have galley access to the other continent(s).

I can only blame my self and of course the mapmaker

How are things going? Do you feel like you got 'zonked'?

Settled 1E of door #3 (regretted this for a long time because it didn't allow city 2 to work the pig all the time, but later silver popped on that ph. )
City 2: N of horses.

Research: AH->Mining->BW. Plan was to conquer the world with HAs

Builds: Worker-Warrior-Warrior-Worker-Settler

Horses so near meant chariot rush.

Playing noble I figured that defense would be pretty weak, so I advanced on Gilgamesh with only 3 chariots and declared (1840BC) without knowing what to expect.

He had 2 promoted archers in his capital , so I turned to his second city and burned that. By the time I had 9 chariots he had 3 archers and a vulture in his capital. The first 5 chariots died, barely scratching the archers, so I abandoned the mission, deciding to wait for HAs, and turned to Toku after pillaging around Uruk.

Japan fell easily, don't think I lost a single chariot.

Turned back to Gilgamesh armed to my teeth with HAs only to engage a foolish AI. When I moved in he had just moved 2 archers and a settler onto the grass north of the city. He moved the settler back into the city but left the 2 archers on the forest leaving only 2 archers in Uruk (the vulture had been killed earlier on a suicidal mission) so my 5 HAs and 6 chariots was enough to do the job.... But Uruk was down to size 1

The Russians and the Mongolians are also history and now I'm looking for a passage to the other continent, just about to give up hope.

Astronomy is a long way ahead with my economy, so now I'm off to count tiles.

1AD stats: 11 cities, pop 39, losing 9gpt at 0% - and way to many units.



First 2 cities:

Spoiler :

 

[kcd_swede]

Looks like you spent a LOT of worker turns building roads. How so? Did you capture a lot of workers in your military actions?

 

[zamint3]

Looks like you spent a LOT of worker turns building roads. How so? Did you capture a lot of workers in your military actions?

Roads are essential to fast conquest I think.

Built 2 workers my self, the rest was captured. I think I got 2 from Gilgamesh and 3 from Toku.

 

[MangeTonChapeau]

I choose door 3 as well, thinking there would be more hammers and better access to spot #2. Expanded fast to door 2, then tried to prevent Gilgamesh from settling too many cities towards me with a city on the east.

Had 2 really "bad luck" events
- got a great spy at 95% great scientist chance (left the city on autopilot, I hate that there is no option to prevent the AI from using spy specialists)
- had my spot 2 city captured by a barb warrior (a bit of bad preparation from myself, it was only defended by a warrior, though the odds were still much in my favor) ; Japan conquered the city before I had time to bring an axe.

Bottom line : teching majorly disrupted, only chance now is "lowest scoring" victory.

Also, did the mistake to attack Japan by the west without significant defenses on the east, thinking the mountains would protect me on that side. Will have to fight a bad war with Japan instead of rolling through their territory as expected.

 

[WastinTime]

Settled 2E of gold at door 2 with the intention of getting CS with oracle.

In 725BC, with 2 cities (I built the other on #3 site), maths 1 turn from researching an oracle one turn from finishing, someone else builds the Oracle

Not much worth mentioning other than that... it's hard for me to remember anything else other than that!!! So annoying. REXing is behind schedule but I am first to 6 cities, just. 5 turns away from my first GS and CS which will explode my tech pace (only 30 turns later than it would've been... grrrrr) Toku's going to declare on someone soon, and Stalin most likely on Genghis. I only have warriors, but with copper hooked up and a couple of sacrificial alters, I can get something decent together quickly if needs be.

Oh, and I love spiritual/caste. I settled my 3rd and 4th cities on the same turn, switched into caste, ran an artist in each, then 5 turns later switched back. Easy border pops 2nd city got its border pops from founding confu.

That is early Oracle for Noble. Mine went in 925 BC ! so i missed it too.

 

[Marcvs Avrelivs]

Went with the Contender save:

Settled 2S 1E of Door3 at about 3700 B.C (?) (well, the demon did say "Or something else???") and had marble in BFC... along with horses Build was Worker>Warrior>Warrior>Warrior (took that much before the city went to size 4) before a settler. Research went AH>Mining>BW>TW and then agg/pot/writing (although I forgot which order I did them ) before going HBR>Archery. Although this isn't a map that calls for HAs (low commerce e.g no gems, gold) I still had the nerve to try them This is noble so Agg AI my foot

Declared on Toku who built the GW in Kyoto... Down goes Kyoto along with its defenders of 3 Spears and 2 Axes... His next two cities followed in quick succession... Adios,japonés amigos Now, I'm planning to go against Gilg who is apparently preparing a nasty looking stack

Regarding the map, the surrounding land seems to be calling for a SE since it has plenty of food: just finished researching CoL and founded Confu. Oddly, no religions have been founded Before spreading religion round though, I plan on waiting for philosophy so I can convert Stalin to Confu and Khan to Taoism so they can keep each other busy Seriously, the last thing I'd want is for those two AI to befriend each other while they're out of my meddling hands

Now, to find those 3 remaining AI -.-

 

[WastinTime]

Oddly, no religions have been founded

Now, to find those 2 remaining AI -.-

Funny, in my game, Stalin got buddhism and aggressively sent out missionaries to convert the entire continent. I plan to own that shrine.

Note: the game description says 7 AI rivals.

 

[Marcvs Avrelivs]

Note: the game description says 7 AI rivals.

Whoopsies, my bad, I had my mindset thinking that there are 7 players total

What scares me is that those 3 may be Mansas and Gandhis.... But this is noble, so how bad can it be?

 

[WelshGandalf]

In my game the 3 early religions were all founded not on our continent... my confu is the only show in town. Also 70% of wonders were built not on our continent so I expect to find Mansa and Asoka or something like that. Maybe Pacal, I seem to come across him a lot recently.

That is early Oracle for Noble. Mine went in 925 BC ! so i missed it too.

Good to know it wasn't just me. I would've made it if I'd skipped masonry, but since I had marble I thought I'd save myself 75 hammers... and as a result missed out on thousands of beakers

 

[Sleepless]

Door 3 for me as well though settled 1SW and leave the pig for a second city. Came across Toku's borders and a handy little path through the mountains as well. So first plan was war!!! Tech mining - bw - wheel. Settled second city 1sw of bronze to get an earlier start on axes hoping to find some warriors in Kyoto. Obviously not quick enough as I faced axes/archers. Still with enough force he didn't last to long and I'd added 2 new cities to the Aztec empire.

Next Gilgamesh as I'd noticed some vultures settled city 3 for the horses/fur/marble in the South and built a couple of chariots before starting on Gilgamesh. 3 cities later which I kept Gil was gone as well.

With Stalin/Genghis a fair way away plus one turn of stikes to deal with I decided it would be best to consolidate and get some sort of economy going.

Managed to build a couple of wonders pre 1AD. Capitol built SH once I had enough axes and the Oracle (took CoL) 800BC (later than some but have had it go 1400BC in a noble GOTM before).

Plan was to aim for a peaceful victory condition though I did want the continent to myself so not totally peaceful.

 

[billybgame]

I've given this one whirl, too, and also headed towards door #3. It went like this:

1) I took the 4 turn jaunt down to door #, but realized I liked it better, setting 2 SW of there....due 4 W of the Pig. I could see that good city site to the E.

2) I first teched Meditation and lo and behold got it. Next was Agric and Fishing. I never tend to beeline too much, even if I want to warmonger, which can be rare for me, anyhow.

3) 2840 Stonehenge....I just like it

4) Next was Archery, Mining and Priesthood

5) 2280 was city #2, 1 E of the Pig, E of the capital....I knew by now that Toku and Gilgy were nearby, so that's why I wanted to build in this direction. Very nice site with the Pig, Deer, Marble, and unbeknownst to me, Horses soon to come.

6) 1760 City #3 was even farther E, with the Deer, Pig and Rice

7) 1320 I made the Oracle and got Code of Laws.

8) I started noticing none of my neighbors had religions, and I had Open Borders with all but Toku....hmm....Religious Victory? Time to start spreading the missionaries. First I spread to Gilgy, then later the Mongols and Russians.

9) 650 BC city #4 was the uber city site to the W of the capital with 5 special resources

10)200 BC city #5 on the coast NW of uber city, to allow some ships and some Wheat, Crabs and Spices, to boot.

11) 125 BC, my diabolic religious plans started to form as my G Prophet got me Christianity and I started building the AP

12) also 125 BC, my wandering chariot happily spotted a barb city just 1 NE of door #2....took that for city #6.

We shall see how good my plans are, but we are pretty strong at this point. I'm making my Buddhism buddies and no one has declared on me, as of yet.