BOTM 73 - First Spoiler

[neilmeister]

BOTM 73 First Spoiler

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM73, 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

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 1 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 1 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 1 AD.

Hmmmmmm, Donuts!

Enjoying the neighbours... are they still alive?

 

[WelshGandalf]

SIP, built workboat first, can't remember what after that. I didn't bother with a third WB for ages though. Just too much food to make use of! 2nd city went due west, 2W of the copper. Researched mining -> BW (to make good use of all that food) -> sailing -> masonry (for the great lighthouse).

Decided on a SSE game (for the uninitiated - super specialist economy - basically build loads of wonders in your capital which generates loads of great people which you then settle). Got the great lighthouse around 1800BC, and the Pyramids later on. Didn't try for the Oracle but it was built by someone else 300BC!!! What a mockery, compared to the last BOTM when it was on a lower difficulty and built around 1600BC in my game. Just about to hook up the marble and am lining up a ton more wonders - national epic and the great library for starters.

AI's have sucky tech rates, I'm cruising ahead already.

I only have 5 cities, but they are really good ones. 6th to come by the iron due south. I am however boxed in due to concentrating on wonders/poor play but I have hammers to burn and poorly-teching AI, so I've started on some axes/catapults to attack the Germans with. Once I feel I have enough cities from them, the plan is a peaceful game with wonders galore and a space race victory at the end of it all.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I settled-in-place. It was nice having two hammers coming from the plains hill beneath my city. I expanded to eight cities while building the oracle, mids, and GLH. My defenses were weak. I thought the purple borders surrounding me was from Gandhi and didn't fear an early attack, so I just planned on building a strong bureaucracy capital and build wonders.

Anyway, the purple borders were not Gandhi, but Hammy. He sent a nice stack of axe men, swordsmen, and spearmen my way and took my luxury city. My citizens became very depressed when they lost their wine and ivory. I messed up further when I gave up republic, and switched to police state. I switched back as soon as I could. The +3 happy faces from Republic was needed with all the whipping I did. Eventually I built my own huge stack and got my luxury city back.

The war weariness and whipping almost emptied my cities. Somehow, despite all this, I have managed to retain a tech lead--probably due to the republic SE, settled great scientists, great library, and all the food at the capital.

 

[TalladegaKnight]

SIP also. Went worker 1st then workboat. Initial tech path was AH-mining-BW. Wonders are very easy to come by. Oracled Metal Casting in Boston. Next was GLH and Mids in capital. Currently building Great Library in capital. Got the Parthenon in elephant city. I also have a great engineer waiting in the wings. My goal is to win by state property fueled space game, haven't done a space victory in awhile. So I was thinking of using him on oxford. Engineering rush is tempting too.

At 1 AD have 6 cities with a 7th in works. My plan for the breakout is to declare Buddhist to keep Germans happy and push west starting with Hammy and moving through the Hindu lands Saladin and Justy. Peaceful game so far. Degaulle was plotting for awhile but changed his mind.

 

[UnirrigatedCorn]

Let's see,

SIP, built workboat first, then settled on the coast south of capital with a GP farm in mind. Then expanded westward, especially towards the ivory. Built GLH, and Oracle (for construction) in capital, and Pyramids in third city. Then elephant rushed Hammurabi about 300bc, taking three good coastal cities and burning two very young ones.

Freddy is next, but concentrating now on mopping up every conceivable wonder (and hooking up the marble to the South).

 

[neilmeister]

Sounds like everyone was wonder whoring like crazy!

 

[shulec]

Settle in place. Workboat, warrior!!!, workboat. The warrior was an unexpected build in my ominous start.

Spoiler :

On T18:

Did he survive?

Spoiler :

Barely!

I researched Mining, AH, BW, TW, writing, pottery, alpha.

I did eventually build my first worker at about 600 BC. My neighbors helped me with the rest!


I built the Great Lighthouse, followed a late Oracle (without Marble) for CoL, and the Pyramids (without stone).
Research CS, Lit, CoL. 180 BPT at 100% research. Construction in 3 turns.
I have 9 Cities, 7 built, 2 captured, and two settlers.
I am currently in two wars that I don't expect to harm me.

The big pariah is #2 in tech behind me.

 

[zamint3]

Capital: SIP
2nd city south with corn, fish, copper and cow built GLH 1680BC
3rd west along the river with corn and copper
4th city SW along the river with cow, wine and 2 ivory


Library, barracks and stable in all 4 cities (I just now realize that I haven't built a single granary ) , with precut forests I went all in on horse archers around 700BC and dowed Hammu 550BC

I did steel my first two workers from Hammu (got 11 now, built 3 myself )

At 1AD I have 11 cities, Hammu and Fred are dead!
I've built 42 horse archers so far.

I've got a GM at the gates of Mecca, hopefully this will finance research of feudalism.

Let's see if the horse archers can make it all the way around the donut.

 

[neilmeister]

Ned Flanders: Heidely-ho, neighbor. Wanna go to the game with me? I got two tick...
Homer: No, just give me all your workers!!!!!

 

[zamint3]

How do you kill a worker?

I killed one myself, nut sure when or how!?

 

[enKage]

Obviously settled in place, workboat mass hammered, grow to size 2, worker, 2nd, 3rd workboat with chops followed by settlers. Settled fairly quickly north and south to share seafood.

Explored along the coast, so I didnt found any AI for a long time! Finally I found Sal and DoW, just to pillage farm and make him 1 worker less. Then I realised I got Hamii nearby and he just settled copper site, so I declared with a chariot and pillaged even though I had no force to take his cities, I prolonged the war to make sure he doesnt settle Iron sites. Now at peace, but took copper site and have some HA ready, but the result of long war was that he has 4 bowmen every city

I got GLH of course, I hope I will finish Mids also, missed Oracle to Gandhi, but at least he took Monarchy, so I could trade for happines sake in case I miss Mids.

Long war meant also I lost by few turns silk site to Germans, so I am with no happiness resources left (elephants are in Hammis borders). At least I found Confu, adopted buddhism, so will try for temples.


The set to 1AD is definitely a little less I expected, I will try maybe diplodomination later, finish, Hammi, later maybe Germans who overexpanded a little (8 cities and little commerce) take Saladin, whatever....

1AD
8 cities (1 inland) 9th in 2 turns, 6 workers, but it is definitely enough, 5 granaries, 3 libraries, Academy in Wash, 1 barracks, 1 stable, 4 HA, 7 chariots...

116 beakers on 100% but in fact able to research at 50%. commerce - slightly more than 50% comes from foreign trade

Techs: 2 turns to civil service, tech lead, only Gandhi has esthetics I dont know, but he lacks of currency

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest cultural victory

I thought a lot about the starting position. Worker+AH first leads to worst worker turns, worst research, more growth, not advisable. So I went for BW first.

Research: Mining - BW - AH - Myst - Masonry(for Pyramids)
Builds: WB at maximum hammers - Worker at pop2 - WB - Warrior - Settler(2pop whipped) - Worker

Food rich map with no happy resources calls for Pyramids even without Stone. I made it my absolute priority. Got it 1200BC.

Capital was built in place. Legendary GPFarm.
2nd city S, 1E of copper, with corn, fish, copper, cow, shared horses. Legendary hammers city.
3rd city far West, next to Hamms capital, with Clams, pigs, Copper. Built in order to get enough room for my cities. Legendary city, quite poor.
4th city was rushed for the MArble South;with Crabs, sheep, marble; Ivory and Whale on the third ring.

I delayed TW to get it for free through Alphabet, which was my next goal. This decision lead to some exciting moments against Barbs. I had to pay the price in the shape of 2 whipped Warriors when I needed Monuments and Granaries.

1000 BC Stats: 4 cities, 10pop, 3workers, 8units(8War), 1 strategic resources, 0 luxury resources, 2 health resources, 0 great persons, 1 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=45-16-36, 15 bpt at breakeven, 14 culture per turn, 2 great person points per turn, 140 gold, lib, 3Monu. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 8 Techs: Almost Alpha, BW, AH, Masonry. 0 civs killed. 3.5 hours played.


5th city in the middle with corn and copper.

Alphabet 800BC brough in TW+Medi+Sail+Poly+PH+IW+Pott. The exploring WB in the inner sea helped a lot.
Then I decided to try for Oracle, delaying my next Settler. Forced research at maximum to get CoL and get Philo for free with Oracle. Gandhi sent a missionary, so I got 3 religions all of a sudden.
GLH was still available, but I ignored it.

6th city far West with Corn, Sheep, Iron, river.
7th even further West with fish, wine, corn shared with barbs. Settling so far gets as an advantage that it gets the religion of the far away civs. 4 religions in.

Built 7 units (Swords mainly) to take a barb city, Parthenon, SoZ and NE.

1AD Stats: 7 cities+Set, 35pop, 7workers, 12units (2Swo), 3strategic resources, 1luxury resources, 8health resources, 2 great persons, 4 world wonders, 1 national wonders, food/production/commerce=115-56-171, 66 sustainable beakers per turn, 91 useful culture per turn, 31 great person points per turn, 0 gold. 4 religions. 0/0 cottages used, 24 Techs: Curr, CoL, Philo, IW, Lite). 0 civs killed. 8 hours played. 11rel*city, 6temples, 0cath

 

[euripides]

Homer eats them all

SIP and BW first. 2nd city west for copper and corn. Got some quick expansion to 5 cities and realised happy situation. Well, pressed in whine ivory against hammy and quick tech to monarchy.
Wonders parth and glib. Cap moved to 2nd city. First city goes spec and then whip with Globe.
Expanded to 9 cities. AIs very slow.
Complete tech lead with mass scientists, so i try for fast cuir conquest

Hmmm... this donut looks tasty

 

[Htadus]

I did something and was alive at BC-AD cutoff but can't find the bloody autolog and do not know exactly what was done in BC's.

I think it is safe to say I SIP and built a worker. Founded at least a city (usually before T40) and likely attacked someone in BC's but can not be sure. So I will stop at SIP since I am not sure if I built a worker first either.

Where is that darn Autolog?

 

[_Eureka_]

Decided on a SSE game (for the uninitiated - super specialist economy - basically build loads of wonders in your capital which generates loads of great people which you then settle).

If you look through the ancient threads, I believe Obsolete named it SSE - (Settled Specialist Economy), which was quite different from the traditional LSE - (Lightbulb Specialist Economy).

 

[WastinTime]

WastinTime, Challenger goal: Culture!

It has been almost exactly 5 years since I submitted a serious culture game (if the Simpsons count as serious.) I forgot a few things and made some mistakes, but I also brought 5 years of new tricks I learned.

jesusin has made an appearance in the HoF recently, playing in my stomping grounds, so I figured I'd return the favor.

When culture was my thang, I played quick speed on vanilla and I had the usual triple gem HoF start. It was challenging to adapt to this setup.
I also played all Deity (with Mansa) so this was very new and different tech situation. They tech so slooow and rarely will trade.

Here we go! Hills/plains, so SIP.
I picked my GP farm to be 3 South of the capital (dry corn, fish, sharing clams) (remember I had no pig) A pretty sad NatEpic city.
3rd legendary was 5 tiles West near the Corn/Copper (and all those forests/rivers)

One thing I learned to always do is steal a worker. I only stole one from Fred and then I reverted to my old way and turtled up like I always used to do. In hindsight, I should have gotten at least 3 workers this way.

I wanted that marble, so I put 2 cities down there. One was (crab, sheep) the other was on the marble (sharing sheep). Two pretty sad cities, but I was going for the G.Lighthouse.

Very late, I finally had to grab the Elephant site. I'm not used to playing games with no gold/gems, etc. I'm whipping aggressively, and I needed the happy. Especially since I couldn't switch to HeredRule. Monarchy came a couple turns too late.

1 AD stats:
Only 6 cities.
Only 4 workers! (I play with less workers than anyone I know. On this map I should have more tho.)
Only 1 religion. yikes! Again, I'm used to the Deity AI sending missionaries. I guess I'm going to have to actually try to get religions.
Only 3 cities have my religion.

I have only 1 hamlet and 2 villages . And one village is where the challeger-Pig was removed so it's not even on a river. It was the only tile I could improve before Alpha-trades allowed more worker options.

So it looks like this game is a bust, but it feels pretty good, so something must be going ok. Let's check the tech and wonders:

I have about 90 sustainable beakers/turn (at 0 wealth/turn). I'm about to get Paper. I already beelined, in order:
2120 BC Alpha
775 BC Oracle->CS
Aes->Literature
Horseback Riding (my new favorite thing on normal speed)
Music
Paper

I have 6 world wonders and Sistine is half done. No stone wonders tho, (i.e. no pyramids) Since I have very little religion, I can't build any missionaries, cathedrals, etc. so why not wonders.

So, can HBR save me? I have 6 horse archers and 3 chariots. I'm going to have to pick up some barb cities and some AI cities--with religions! I never used to mix war with my culture games. Times have changed. Hamm's bowmen don't have anything that helps them against my horses.

 

[WastinTime]

Here's a strange thing I did before 1 AD.
I stopped whipping and switched to caste in 325 BC. I never returned to slavery even tho I've learned to (ab)use it much more than I used to.

I did this because I was building all those wonders in my culture game and I didn't want to start popping non-G.artists. I was able to get a couple quick GA's out of my GPfarm first.

I could never find a good time to return to slavery. Probably a mistake.

 

[pomthom]

Here's a strange thing I did before 1 AD.
I stopped whipping and switched to caste in 325 BC. I never returned to slavery even tho I've learned to (ab)use it much more than I used to.

I did this because I was building all those wonders in my culture game and I didn't want to start popping non-G.artists. I was able to get a couple quick GA's out of my GPfarm first.

I could never find a good time to return to slavery. Probably a mistake.

Did you have to stall growth? With the happiness issues of the map and the fact you mentioned you had few workers that must have been difficult to balance

 

[WastinTime]

Did you have to stall growth? With the happiness issues of the map and the fact you mentioned you had few workers that must have been difficult to balance

I never felt like I had to stall growth. My legendary cities had temples to keep them happy and my other cities never got much larger than 6-7.

and I could finally take on HeredRule once i started my golden ages. (three of them.)

 

[Falabello]

The beginning and cities:
#1- Sip – Work Boat / Worker / Work Boat. The Warrior scouted the surroundings…
#2- New York S (2080 BC) – 1 fish, 1 cow, 1 corn, 1 copper, 1 horse shared
#3- Boston SW (1720 BC) – 1 wine, 2 elephant, 1 cow shared
#4- Philadelphia S (1240 BC) – 1 clam, 1 sheep, 1 marble
#5- Atlanta W (425 BC) – 1 corn, 1 copper

The game:
- I guessed it would be better to build the Pyramids (600 BC). This way my first war was delayed and only at 1 AD I was prepared to attack : Hammurabi was the target.
- I don’t know why, but I built the Great Wall (800 BC) !
- One Great Scientist (352 BC): Academy in the Capital Washington.

1000 BC Stats: 4 cities, 12 pop, 3 workers, 7 units (5 Warriors, 2 Chariots), 2 strategic resources, 0 luxury resources, 2 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 World Wonders, 0 National Wonders, food / production / commerce = 30 / 28 / 39, 33 bpt at 100%, 24 bpt breakeven at 70% (-1gpt), 10 gold, 6 culture per turn, 3 great person points per turn, 2 granaries, 2 libraries, 0 religions, 2/0 cottages used, 10 Techs: Sail, Writ, AH, Mas, BW, Mathematics (9 turns), 0 civs killed, 1:04 hours played, Score: #5 (5 Empires) – 183 / 34,357.

1AD Stats: 5 cities, 34 pop, 3 workers, 25 units (8 Axes, 1 Spear, 3 Chariots, 8 Cats, 5 Warriors), 2 strategic resources, 1 luxury resources, 5 health resources, 1 great persons, 2 World Wonders (TGW, Pyra), 0 National Wonders, food / production / commerce = 75 / 61 / 78, 79 bpt at 100%, 36 bpt breakeven at 20% (+2 gpt), 0 gold, 27 culture per turn, 13 great person points per turn, 5 granaries, 3 libraries, 5 barracks, 1 lighthouse, 0 religion, 3/0 cottages used, 14 Techs: Sail, Writ, Alpha, Construction, Masonry, BW, Currency (6 turns), 0 civs killed, 1:42 hours played, Score: #3 – 406 / 54,121.

My WorkBoat almost circumnavigated the donut . Here it's the eclipse lunar :