BOTM 57 First Spolier - to 1AD

[kcd_swede]

BOTM 57 First Spoiler - 1AD

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 57 "Ice Elation!", 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.

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

Did you survive this long?
Do you have any realistic hope of actually winning the game somehow?

 

[IvanTheFearsome]

Well this is embarrassing...

 

[Falabello]

Not so much, IvanTheFearsome!

- Total disappointment . I lost the game to Barbarians, which were a serious problem . When I almost finishing the horse pasture in my second city, they began to invade my two cities. Several Archers and Warriors destroying all my buildings. I lost the horse pasture 4 times and almost lost the two cities . My game resumed itself in rebuilding pastures and war units – Chariots and Warriors. It took me a long… long time to win the battle against Barbarians (including Axes and Spears after). Hundreds of years waiting for the third city (only in 450 BC) …
- This resulted in a mediocre Empire at 1 AD: 4 cities founded, Pop 12 / Treasury 2 / +2gpt at 30%, Hunting in 2 turns / 8bpt and no army prepared. Wonders and Great Persons didn’t make part of this tiny, insignificant and delayed Empire .
- I tried two maritime escapes (S and SE) with a WBoat, but it turned into Ocean tiles.
- The intention: to learn some tips about Barbs and the Green Ambulance!

=> Some questions to the experienced:
- This game seemed to me like raging barbarians. Is it normal in this level?
- In lowest levels, Chariots dominate Barb Archers easily. In this game the Archers won almost all the duels against my Chariots (even promoted or in the defense of forests, and with both in two cases) and they got out just a little injured (at least in my game). Are they also strongest than normal?
- Is there any relation between barbs and fog tiles?

Humbaba is still on vacation. Immortal level barbs can be challenging enough anyhow.

I agree with you, Kcd!

 

[Solyaris]

Weird (but funny) game so far. Highlights:
- Early FOG by 3 warriors (after first worker)
- 2nd city close to horses, chopped out 4 chariots when the barb-army came rolling in around 2000BC (killed 18 archers and 16 warriors before AD's!!!)
- 3rd city w/2 golds, around the same time I got TGL (1400BC)
- 4th city to the north, used mainly as GP farm and FOG city
- 5th city along the floodplains, gonna be new capital + main commerce in the early ADs (after growth and granery)
- 6th and 7th settler ready, will get them in early AD's
- Total POP of 27

@1AD
- Tech (62BPT, 25G, +0GPT) : got currency, CoL (with religion =D) + most of religous techs/early techs, going for monochary (heridatery rule for happyness)
- Neighbours: None(!), will try to send out some workboats soon (this was probably a mistake to not do earlier)
- Goal: Space, techspeed is slow so hoping for +/- 1900AD

In hindsite I should have gonne for TGW (esp. consider I had early masonry) and sent out some workboats to, hopefully, met some other civ for tech-trade and foreign trade routes. Early archery would be a valid option too.

Not so much, IvanTheFearsome!

=> Some questions to the experienced:
- This game seemed to me like raging barbarians. Is it normal in this level?
- In lowest levels, Chariots dominate Barb Archers easily. In this game the Archers won almost all the duels against my Chariots (even promoted or in the defense of forests, and with both in two cases) and they got out just a little injured (at least in my game). Are they also strongest than normal?
- Is there any relation between barbs and fog tiles?

I agree with you, Kcd!

- Large amounts of hidden tiles always results in large amounts of barbs, earlier FOG (3 warriors worked for me untill I got chariots) and a little bit of luck mean the difference between small issue and complete failure
- Unpromoted archer has always ~25% chance of success against unpromoted chariot (chariots dosn't receive defence bonus). In other words, just some bad luck
- The more fog tiles, the higher probability of barb spawns (each foged tile has a random chance of spawning a barb)

 

[kcd_swede]

Yeah, Immortal barbs are not to be underestimated. People who don't play this level often will find that out the hard way. Not much I could do about that, except maybe turn off barbs... but that's almost cheating.

Sorry you guys are having a tough time of it. In fact, being isolated on a landmass makes matters much worse since you have to do all the barb-spawn-negation (fog-busting) by yourself. Normall, Immortal AI are in your face so quickly, that barbs are the least of your problems.

Too bad this never came up in the pre-game thread.

 

[georgjorge]

I almost gave up on this game when my third city was razed by a Barb Archer (Warrior fortified behing 20% culture, with the hidden bonuses I usually win those battles). Too much of a disadvantage that early. But I continued onwards after reading others had even bigger barb problems...

Built a lot of Chariots and am slowly gaining control over the continent. One city with Horses, one with double Gold, a fourth one by the Floodplains. Capital built the Oracle for Code of Laws, then went for Aesthetics for the Great Library + National Epic + hopefully Parthenon. Some turns away from Civil Service.

Havent't been able to find an escape route so far. I think the only way out is through culture expanding two or three tiles into the ocean?


@Falabello: At lower levels your units get hidden combat bonuses against Barbarians. Those decrease or vanish at higher levels. As far as I know, there are still hidden bonuses when defending against Barbs in cities, not sure if those apply to Chariots as well though.

 

[kcd_swede]

I almost gave up on this game .... But I continued onwards after reading others had even bigger barb problems...

Built a lot of Chariots and am slowly gaining control over the continent. Havent't been able to find an escape route so far. I think the only way out is through culture expanding two or three tiles into the ocean?

Excellent... I love to hear about tenacity in the face of adversity! Good luck in the continuation.

BTW: no, you don't need to take the tiles by culture, you can always research Optics and travel oceans. Or just be a happy hermit.

 

[Jouzou]

Yeah, the barbs were giving me a lot of trouble as well. Starting with my initial warrior who got bear-mauled. I also lost a settler due to my own stupidity (didn't realize the barb can use the road I put in neutral territory >.<). Let me tell you: it was not easy trying to fight barbs without strategic resources. I guess I did get a lucky break in that the barbs didn't field anything better than archers, either.

I managed to survive at least. In 200 BC, I settled the horses (finally!) and could actually spare some troops to do spawn-busting instead of fighting the things directly. I was slowed down pretty bad, though, so I'll have to see if I can actually win this.

EDIT: Forgot to mention: In the game thread, I said, if there's no additional food, I'd go for the seafood. However, I saw the sheep when I moved the warrior and thus settled in place. Not a great capital by any means, but I figured it was good enough. Didn't want to give the AI a 2-turn headstart on top of all their bonuses.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Yep, the same, barbarians crushed me. Deity won't help, so see you in October !

 

[WelshGandalf]

Feel a lot better having read this thread.

The day before I was going to start playing this properly, I loaded the game up and settled in place to see if I was right to argue for it in the pre-game thread. I felt vindicated and happy

So next day, I started playing properly. 2nd city grabbed pig and 2 gold. However they were hardly being used through to 1AD, due to barbs. I did some fog-busting in the west, but they got killed after a bit. My north fog-busting went quite well though, and I settled a city up there too, so at least they were all coming from the same direction.

There were indeed hoardes of barbarians. I've played maybe 4 or 5 games at this level, but never had this big a problem... as kcd mentions, usually the other AI expand fast enough so the barbs are raraly much of an issue. In the end I reluctantly researched archery, which made quite a difference.

I had one moment where I was on the brink of quitting. 1 of my 2 workers was next ot a barb archer, he was in the middle of building something and he carried on building it, so I was unable to move him. I thought units were supposed to realise they were in danger and stop what they were doing?? Anyway I could save him by killing the mostly-dead archer that was threatening him, but this meant leaving my nearby city with only 1 defender. In the end I decided I needed the city and the worker to have any chance, and thankfully I kept them both, my city defender winning with a 72%-ish chance of victory.

Thankfully I only saw one barb axemen... the rest were archers and warriors. It's hard to get any sort of decent infra up though, as I'm building archers all the time, and there's not all that much food around to whip with.

As of 1AD I think I had 5 cities and about 60bpt without losing any cash, which seemed awful to me but maybe not so bad after reading the above! I also built the great lighthouse. If I zoom in the capital I can see the top of it sticking out of the ice

@Falabello: At lower levels your units get hidden combat bonuses against Barbarians. Those decrease or vanish at higher levels. As far as I know, there are still hidden bonuses when defending against Barbs in cities, not sure if those apply to Chariots as well though.

I think it's a 20% bonus for defending a city against barbs - I saw it in the combat log. It came in very useful... don't know if you get it for chariots though.

- The more fog tiles, the higher probability of barb spawns (each foged tile has a random chance of spawning a barb)

Mostly true, but any tile that is within 2 squares of a unit will not spawn barbs, even if that tile is fogged.

 

[georgjorge]

Small question, I accidentally loaded up an earlier save of the game but quit without doing anything, is that a problem for submitting the game?

 

[Jaybone]

i usually play immortal so I didn't underestimate the barbs, but sort of walked ass-backwards into a good early game. SIP as well, expanded to a 2nd city and built a few warriors early for spawnbusting. Due to the marble, i got masonry early to get it up for oracle. However, while waiting for Priesthood to come in, I wanted to let amsterdam grow and the only thing to build besides more warriors was really TGW, figuring I'd get some gold for it at least. And then I chopped into it once to pick it up even though I wasn't really trying for it.

Seems like that was key given the insane number of barbs others have been wading through. Better to be lucky rather than good I suppose

 

[kcd_swede]

Small question, I accidentally loaded up an earlier save of the game but quit without doing anything, is that a problem for submitting the game?

The proper procedure is for you to send this notice to me by Private Message, and then I make note of it and tell you to continue. If after submission the record reflects your description, no problem.

I've made note, so you don't need to PM me this time. But in the future, etiquette demands that how we handle deviations is not a public matter, its between you and the staff. So PM when you are in doubt about something you did or had happen to you.

Thanks!

 

[WastinTime]

I chose to settle 1W. I wanted to trade in a bunch of ice and a couple grass tiles for 5 better tiles. This might be the correct move on a random map. However, since this map is manually created, there was probably 0.01% chance that I'd get something really good by moving West. I've noticed that mapmakers don't like to give any advantage to people who might gamble settling. It's not like you can hope for a river/gems which would just make everyone mad who SIP.

So, in hindsight, bad move. I lost the ability to make a lighthouse

Still, I got 6 nice cities. I tried to put one at each opening in the ice. My 2nd city got Sheep/Gold/Gold/Horse.

I'm less than 10 turns away from Optics. And then ~20 turns to Astronomy.

 

[srad]

I had also my problems with the barbs and made some bad teching decisions ... so I quitted the game a bit disappointed about my sub optimal play

The game setup is really interesting and it isn't easy:

- Isolated
- Only gold as early happiness (and only one calendar resource)
- Barbs (due to a lot of land)

I did two replays after my failure teching Archery early and oracling CoL. Second city north is very productive and expanding to the western floodplains put me in a good position.

 

[srad]

I'm less than 10 turns away from Optics. And then ~20 turns to Astronomy.

Can you share some insight on tech order and wonders? Looks not bad from my experience!

 

[WastinTime]

Can you share some insight on tech order and wonders? Looks not bad from my experience!

No stone, so no wonders. I really wanted Mids.

Research: AH obviously.
I went Mining, Wheel, Bronze to get copper....no luck.

I was going to Currency next, but had a couple detours.

Writing.
Had to get Hunting for all the Deer.

Then Math, Pottery, Currency

Next stop Optics.

Barbs were annoying, so I got IW first.
Sailing, MetalC, Machinery, Compass.

 

[georgjorge]

The proper procedure is for you to send this notice to me by Private Message, and then I make note of it and tell you to continue. If after submission the record reflects your description, no problem.

I've made note, so you don't need to PM me this time. But in the future, etiquette demands that how we handle deviations is not a public matter, its between you and the staff. So PM when you are in doubt about something you did or had happen to you.

Thanks!

Thanks, I'll do that next time!

 

[ZPV]

It seems like a lot of people struggled with the barbs on this isolated start. I suppose you have to remember that if you struggled with a difficult feature of the map, then other people probably did too. I played it a bit too close to be optimal (I think I lost a mine and a road to pillagers), but was for the most part unscathed - just a little slow in filling up the continent. I did this by building a bunch of fogbusting warriors, blocking off large swathes of the north, who were thus sufficient to divert all the barb archers into one stream of pain but did give me enough time to get a couple of chariots out. By 1AD I have the entire contintent fog/spawnbusted, except for one barb city.

I'd determined before I saw the scenario that I'd like to go for culture. Having played through to 1AD, I'll have to call it a learning experience.

I settled in place, and built my second city as a canal, joining the capital's lake to the southern sea. That canal city built The Great Lighthouse in 575BC, since I planned for mainly coastal cities to get full use of the lakes. By AD1 I have 5 cities (including one offshore), one settler ready to settle next turn, and two more settlers in production.
Civil Service is 3 turns away.

Here's the bad news: no religion, no great people. I have a city preparing a GS to bulb Philo, but that's the only religion I expect to get. Hopefully I'll be able to make up for this by popping lots of 100% Great Artists later.

Another lesson learned: I should have prioritized Monarchy, so I could revolt to HeredRule and grow my cities. My land is crying out for citizens to work it.

Tech path: AH - Mining - Wheel - Writing - Sailing - Masonry (2000BC) - Bronze Working - Myst - Poly - Priesthood - Mathematics - CoL ->> Civil Service.

 

[High King J.J.]

SIP. Got hinduism. Even built a chariot. Then quit playing at 550BC due to hopeless strategic situation. Barbs have taken my first and only other city on a hill with horses in the BFC. No bronze, no chance of prevailing against pillaging barbs. Had played too many Gotms lately that were on a much too easy level, did not remember properly that the barbs were worse than raging on a lower level.
Good to see I did not fail alone.
I'd rather take Humbaba than these barbs.