BOTM 55 -- First Spoiler to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 55 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 55 "Lakota versus Aliens!!!", 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 (Copper and Iron are 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 your goals first, what kind of victory do you want to pursue?

Do you need metals to acheive your goals, and if so, have you figured out how you will get some?

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

 

[LowtherCastle]

25BC

Goal: Domination

7 cities so far, but research is grinding to a halt. I've been sticking to the coast mostly to use the coastal coins for research. I lost my warrior early so I only managed to explore to the south where Hannibal is, so I settled in that direction to get teh fur happiness. Took me a long time to win it culturally. In fact, I think I got the other fur about the same time with my fifth city.

I stole a worker from Hannibal and then noticed around 2200BC the barb longbow, who had decided to pillage Hannibal's corn. He attacked my Dog and died, making up for my lost warrior. I was already trying for SH at the time so I decided ot go for the GW also. I missed on SH but got the GW, in my city down by Hannibal's fur, which helped get the fur eventually. The GW has puny for an amazing historical treasure.

I let Hannibal settle the gems and improve it, since I wasn't planning to get IW early on. I'll capture it when I mobilize. That was probably a mistake.

I finally found the marble around 1200BC when I was about to settle those furs. Instead I settled on the marble and chopped the Oracle there, which I got around 925BC. That enabled me to annex pop3 Despair in 250BC. I expected to lose Despair immediately, but after two turns I still hadn't, so I started wondering if the annexation had caused peace with the barbs. Then I finally remembered that I had the GW. Duh! Now that was cool! Annex it and the barbs can't recapture.

Now, I took CoL with the Oracle because I wanted to be able to spam GMs and GSes. So after getting Despair I finally revolted to CS and hired a couple of artists so I could use all the nice tiles there and eventually annex Death, hopefully.

My first GP was a GSpy, intentionally, so I could walk into the BarbZone and explore it along with exploring the entire map to find stone. I wanted stone to abuse the forests and walls to acquire cash. At this point I still haven't found any stone, although I've met all 6 AIs and almost circumnavigated the Arboria. I still have a lot of unexplored land within.

I haven't been playing as well as I had planned. I got turned off by losing my warrior and the slow research pace, though I plodded onward. I got distracted from building lots of workers, which jesusin was right to recommend, so that's a problem. I think I've made plenty of other strategic mistakes so this one won't be a great effort, but I'll probably try to finish, if I can find time. I havent' gone the warring route, which is probably the best way to gain cash. Others surely will.

One more detail, I settled finally on T4 after exploring first S then back up N...

 

[Greeder]

3800 BC I founded capitol some S from starting position between 2 Deers and near Fish. I didin't regret this. It was much better than Crab+Deer and well wotrh of wandering 4 turns.
3520 BC I stole Worker from Hannibal. Settled S, so my capitol was not far away from his and I was in ideal position to harvest Workers from his outer ring.

Mining -> Hunting for Deers -> BW+slavery -> TW -> AH 2040 BC and nasty suprise, only 2 Horses on the continent, both close to Hannibal.
Then Pottery and Oracle path. 775 BC I Oracled Monarchy. HR helped a lot with happines.
50BC Alpha. I was 3rd to it. Traded for Maths, Poly, Masonary, Sailing, Mono, Archery.

At 1 AD I had 6 cities, 2 from Hannibal and 2 Settlers in production. I declared on him 4 times and I've stolen 4 or 5 Workers. The last time he gave me even IW for peace.

Things I did right:
wandering for more food for capitol,
stealing Workers from neighbour ASAP, it crippled him for good,
fog busting - surely 4 cities full of barbs had a big impact on it, but this time I encoutered just few barbs and handled them easily
war - I was prepared, I didn't attack cities without overwhelming forces (Utica, 4 Dogs against single Archer... and the first one killed him )


Things I didn't rihgt:
REX, as usual, in hindsight maybe I should skip Oracle and focus more on cities earlier...

 

[WelshGandalf]

That enabled me to annex pop3 Despair in 250BC. I expected to lose Despair immediately, but after two turns I still hadn't, so I started wondering if the annexation had caused peace with the barbs. Then I finally remembered that I had the GW. Duh! Now that was cool! Annex it and the barbs can't recapture.

This is completely brilliant, if unplanned (I guess you didn't know wher the barb cities were when you built the GW?). Should give you an advantage...

I'll post properly later, but I stayed at peace and expanded well, boxing Hannibal in. I took the gems city (it had 4 resources, great location), and also managed to grab the horses to the southeast. I built Stonehnge (for free UB's everywhere) and Parthenon was 2 turns from completion at 1AD to make best use of philosphical trait (and since I had marble, thought I might as well).

 

[Conquistador 63]

My goal at the start was to win fastest space. A side quest (I always like to play these, regardless of its benefits to the finish date) was to acquire the metals under barb control.

As usual in this difficulty level, a good finish date for space should be reached by growing the empire as large as possible, especially in this mapscript, where we should benefit from all those green tiles and forests. It was too early to tell, but with the special game setup (resource shortage), State Property should be more efficient than Corporations.

I also like to "play the leader", leveraging as many traits/UU/UB as possible. However, I was only able to benefit from the resourceless UU and from the PHI trait so far, and with limited success. I tried to run a specialist economy, but ended up using cottages.

I settled in place. 1st builds were WB/warrior/worker. I planned to build many workers but ended up capturing most of my workforce from Hannibal. He settled his 2nd city close to the SW horses, so the best I could do was to deny him the horses while building a catapult/dog army. I did not even try attacking hill archers with dogs only.

I built Oracle around 900BC IIRC. I bulbed Math with the 1st GS (rarely do that, seems a waste), so could take Currency, CoL, MC or Construction as the free tech. Not sure if it was the right choice, especially for my VC, but I did pick Construction...

At 1AD I had 10 cities, with room for 3 more in our subcontinent. Hanni was gone. Bad news is I wasn't able to settle coastal cities on the strait separating us from Persia, so next war should take a while while galleys will need to be built on the west coast.

I think I had Parthenon and GLib by then, both built in the marble city, to benefit from PHI and culture press Despair, but had no luck in flipping it yet, even if it had 99% Native American culture in the city tile. I think that having 6 LBs stationed there has something to do with it.

Economy is in ruins (losing money at 0%) but I shall be able to trade for Currency soon enough, as I'm teching towards CoL/CS, and plopping down lots of cottages. I'm sure the game is won by now, but I doubt I'll get anywhere near a decent finish date.

ps. Silver popped in a mine - I'd rather have Iron, though.

 

[kcd_swede]

He settled his 2nd city close to the SW horses, so the best I could do was to deny him the horses while building a catapult/dog army.

The weather report in Carthage says it will soon be raining cats and dogs.

 

[Solyaris]

SIP
Stealed 1 worker, and killed the Chartagians early with dog-soliders. Then rexed + cottaged up most land. Going for space. @ 1 AD - 10 cities (+2 more settlers in place), couple of turns on CoL. 4/5 AI on pleased (all sharing hinduism). Wont care much about the metals, as I got gold by random and not going for war victory anyway.

 

[happyturtle]

I've been playing terrible! Missed the Oracle, fell way behind on tech, missed any chance to rush Hannibal. I did manage to get Stonehenge and Parthenon, and settle 7 cities, so I'm going to go for culture.

Mistakes I've made:

* Missing the Oracle by a mile
* Settling one city one square off where I meant to so it has not a single hill.
* Giving a tech to Pacal by misclick during negotiations
* I researched a monopoly tech and made a list of who to trade for what so I wouldn't mess up - and I still messed up! Traded for Monarchy to the only leader willing to give Construction.

I'm ridiculously, stupidly behind. I intend to keep going, but GAH!

 

[Manco Capac]

Settled 1S. Nothing interesting in the gamble.
Killed Hannibal T48 with 6 dogs and 1 warrior.
Settled on gems because I refused to tech IW just for a friggin' tile, but I needed happy resource and furs where misplaced for a good city.
Oracle - 1040 BC for Metal Casting.
Lost ToA.
Lost GHL
Got Mids.
Barb city revolted to me many times to finish in barb hands. Now, I need to capture Cyrus GW.
Bad RNG with my HA's as always. Good luck in all my other games, but never my BOTM's. Bummer.
Stupid Peter will suffer to stole from me the GLH.
Now, 75 AD, I captured 2 cities from Cyrus, preparing for capital, but my computer overheated of awesomeness...or lameness...I had to remake my moves within the turn.
Now, I'll have two sessions within a session...dammit!
Mr. Swede will verify if it worths continuing as I repeated correctly my moves.

Was gunning conquest again, but my half-assed attempt is already at loss with some people around...

Anyways, heat vanquished me.

 

[Manco Capac]

I stole a worker from Hannibal and then noticed around 2200BC the barb longbow, who had decided to pillage Hannibal's corn.

Da wut?

 

[happyturtle]

I had a barb longbow spawn too, before the fog was all covered.

 

[Manco Capac]

Godammit, no attachments in PM function...

 

[Manco Capac]

I had a barb longbow spawn too, before the fog was all covered.

Makes no sense because I've seen archer, not a longbow around like 500 BC...not 2000 BC. What happened?

 

[happyturtle]

The barbs had longbow tech so could spawn as such, I imagine.

 

[nocho]

Fun game so far, played rather peacefully so I'm at 6 cities at 1AD but the economy is doing ok. Settled in place, but the only good thing of the spot is the amount of forest to chop. I think I actually went WB first as I thought going worker first would mean a lot of idle time with the tech path of hunting, mining, BW. Quite soon noticed the barb area and the marble, so that was one of the first cities I settled. Built Oracle there meaning to take CoL or MC from it, but forgot to pause Oracle production when teching pottery (decided on MC somehow) so had to settle for monarchy. Did mean to flip Despair asap and realized in time GW would be very useful to keep the city safe after the flip, so chopped that out in the capital. Despair flipped immediately on the 2nd border pop of marble city. Meanwhile blocked Hanibal enough to the south and there's room for 1 or 2 more cities up north. May try for diplo this time. Also had the barb longbow btw, he came by before the GW was finished so held my breath for a moment there. Lost a dog on it but I think it succumbed shortly after to a roaming Carthaginian unit.

 

[wwassme]

Also had the barb longbow btw, he came by before the GW was finished so held my breath for a moment there. Lost a dog on it but I think it succumbed shortly after to a roaming Carthaginian unit.

For me, the barb longbow attacked one of Hannibal's roaming archers first, which weakened him for me to take out with a chariot before he got to my borders.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Nice trick on flipping the barb city + Great Wall, LC! That was definitely the clever way to get a beach head. I had no chance at the Oracle; HC got it 1840 BC , and has 4 other Great Wonders. GLH went to Russian 800 BC, and Great Wall to Maya same year. I have no Wonders at all.

I settled in Greeder's spot, south with fish, 2 deer, and 6 river tiles for [Edit: 4 ] cottages. 6 cities with around 45 pop: #2 went NW of gems, #3 in the original settler spot, #4 way up north, S of the furs for happiness, #5 east on the channel coast 3S1E of marble (Hanny beat me to the marble), #6 way up NE bordering England, 4N of the barb cities to get cows, horses, and 2 deer.

Early techs were Hunting, Mining, BW, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Alpha (850 BC, but I waited to trade it). Some biggies were Monarchy (300 BC--fixed the happiness problem), Construction (225--catapults!), and Currency (50 BC). Feudalism will be next, and I'll use LBs and cats to go after Hanny, who has 2 cities settled in MY land and a nice city to the east with wine, horses, deer, and 2 silks. Those Numidian cavalry are a pain, hence the need for LBs with the cats. Wiping out Hanny very early, like some people did, just isn't sporting, don't you think?

I've explored all the coasts and have met everybody. HC is #1 in score by a fair bit, and I'm just barely #2. I'm a coward about worker stealing, and there have been no wars so far. I'm not sure if LBs and cats are enough to tackle the barbs--might have to wait for Gunpowder. I think the fastest (well, for me) approach is to beat down Hanny to get some more cities and unlock the Heroic Epic, and then get some barb metals for knights, or if I'm too slow, for cannon. Then again, muskets might be enough to pummel the AIs.

 

[zamint3]

I also settled south between the 2 deer (T3), but I only have 4 river tiles for cottages.

A city raider 1 dog does not stand much of a chance against a guerilla 1 archer on a hill, so I had to abandon my attack on Carthage....

I did steal 3 workers from Hanni and crippled his land.

HC has gone wonder crazy (SH, GW, ToA, Oracle, Mids, HG and Colossus), Peter's got GLH.

Cyrus popped iron.

Not sure where to build GLib, is there any point in annexing Despair without the GW?

8 cities at 1AD

I'll take out Hanni before he get's his Num Cav and then probably go get Cyrus's iron, or may be the other way round....

 

[Jastrow]

Total disaster...

...describes my game so far. I am not a fan of tree heavy maps, but still got of to a decent start, and I though I was doing OK, designing an empire for a specialist economy. A combination of poor play and a bit of RNG screw have turned that around however.

It started when I got a Gspy as first GP instead of the favoured GS that I wanted. I then missed the mids by 3 turns, and that took all the win out of my sails.

I tried a cat and dog rush on Hannibal, but bad RNG roles made my (admittedly risky, but certainly well above 50% overall attack) fail, and he got a bit lucky in a counter attack to take a fairly safe city... At this spot, given the level, I could probably recover and eventually save the game, but right now, that strikes me as more tedious than fun. I probably will w(s)imply wait for the next game instead.

 

[soundjata]

All my dogs died against hanni's capitol. I resigned.