BOTM 83 First Spoiler - 1AD

[Deckhand]

BOTM 83 First Spoiler - 1AD

This is the thread to discuss how your game went up to 1AD (not later).
How fun is it playing a strategy game with no nearby strategic resources?
How are you getting along with your neighbors?
Just remember before you post...

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 83 then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You have reached at least 1AD 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 1AD.
• Please do not discuss modern era resource locations (Copper and Iron are OK).
• Please do not divulge your final result if that happened after 1AD.
• Please do not divulge the names and locations of any AIs not accessible by galley
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

 

[georgjorge]

How fun is it playing a strategy game with no nearby strategic resources?

...and not too many forests to chop, I might add.

Going into this game with the intention of Axe-rushing my neighbour, I wasn't thrilled to see Sitting Bull already with an Archer in his capital. Still...

Tech to Bronze Working - no Bronze. No problem, I need Iron Working for the jungled Gems in my BFC anyway.

Tech to Iron Working - no Iron. Curse you, evil mapmaker!

Thankfully, the mapmaker forgot to delete the Elephants, so I just made a city over there (thank god for Noble maintenance), Oracled Maths (weak, but I'm always nervous about losing it) and went for Construction. Thankfully Sitting Bull doesn't have metal for Spears either, so a few Elephants and Catapults were able to do the job.

At 1 AD, I've nearly finished conquering Sitting Bull, and will do the same with Napoleon (Marble - hopefully going to build nice wonders) and then Toku (Pyramids). Almost no cottages so far because I've focused on military. Oh, and I'm going to space because I seldom have the opportunity to do so. Even with selling techs cheaply for gold, other AIs are so far behind I'm pondering what to take with Liberalism - probably SciMeth or Physics.

 

[haphazard1]

Definitely a very evil map maker this time around.

Sent the scout SW to check for possible seafood (as if! ) and found the jungled gems. Settled 1S1W for a very nice commerce capital, although food and hammers are both quite weak. Second city went to the cows/rice site as the only semi-decent spot in the region, and to help avoid getting boxed in by Sitting Bull. Realized quickly that we lacked copper, horses, and iron so rushed a settler to claim the ivory. Barely squeezed in a city directly on the ivory, as Sitting Bull had gone east and settled to grab the sheep/deer. I did not get any more land to the east as Tokugawa and Napoleon had claimed everything over there. Fourth city for the other gems, and as of 1 AD that is it. Pretty sad for Noble, but this start is a just slightly tougher than normal.

Relations with all the AIs are decent -- no real friends but no enemies either. I founded Buddhism and sent a missionary early to Sitting Bull to avoid getting attacked -- his power was over twice mine so I was worried he would see me as an easy target of opportunity. Now I am (slowly) building elephants and catapults to annex Native American territory, which should be plenty to put me in a position to win however I want to. Especially since Cahokia has built Stonehenge and the Pyramids for me. Thanks in advance, Sitting Bull!

I have a huge technology lead -- it has been a long time since I played at Noble, so I keep being surprised at how slowly they are researching. Of course my capital with the two gems and 7 cottages is pumping a huge amount of commerce. I did lose the Oracle to Huayna Capac by a couple turns -- I did not meet him until long after knowing all the other AIs, and I was misled by none of the others even having Priesthood at that point. Oh well. The fail gold was useful, and there was not much good to sling anyway. I miss the prophet points and culture, though, as the cows/rice city is getting pressured by Sitting Bull's capital.

So that's it at 1 AD: building an elepult army to add Sitting Bull's land to my own, then who knows? With the tech lead I could do anything at that point.

 

[High King J.J.]

Bah. Having read what others were doing back 1AD I don't want to disclose my lack of progress. Curse that pipe-smoking lung cancer of a neighbour.
Worst noble start in a long time and I'm kind of expert with starting badly.
No, I don't have construction by 1AD. Not even close. No HBR either so Oliphaunts are just a future dream. By the time I have any everyone will have longbows and possibly pikes. All I can hope is a horrible painful lingering death.

Spoiler :

Or maybe I have enough time to cry "Londo killed me! Aaagh."

 

[Ronald]

Despite the nice gems it is a mediocre start with little food. Just dry rice.
Moved scout to the north in the hope of more food. Saw only spices. So I settled 1S.
No seafood to the north, nothing worth settling there before CS to at least irrigate something.
Sitting bull has a highly promoted archer, so no warrior rush for him. No copper, no horses, but ivory. At this time I was pretty sure that there won't be iron either, so instead of wasting some turns to get that confirmed I tried to oracle construction.
2nd city next to cow and rice and then build oracle in second city while capital builds another worker and settler to claim ivory.
I built two more cities down south: 1 between deer and sheep and the last one between wheat and wine.
Got the oracle and construction and started to build catapults. researched HBR and invaded Sitting Bull with an army consisting of 6 catapults and 5 elephants.
Sitting bull had some highly promoted archers (city defender III with 2 first strikes - how does he get them?) and he whipped his cities merciless.
Nevertheless, by 1AD I had 8 cities, 5 of my own and 3 conquered ones. Sitting Bulls last two cities should fall quite soon.
Did not make any plans yet what to do next.

 

[georgjorge]

Sitting bull had some highly promoted archers (city defender III with 2 first strikes - how does he get them?) and he whipped his cities merciless.

Totem Poles!

Yeah, the mapmaker picked a pretty annoying neighbour for us here. Worse would have been only if he had metals for Spearmen, or if the Elephants would have been blocked by him, in which case I would have needed to go for Oracling Feudalism and attacking him with Guerilla III Longbows. But Elepults seem much safer.

 

[toller pretzl]

Not sure I'm playing this very well, but it has certainly been entertaining sofar.
Founded buddhism. Built a barracks and dun and put two archers with guerilla II next to Cahoka. Together they stole 10 (ten) workers. So in that department it has been an embarassment of riches. The guerillas have also kept S.Bull fairly weak. At 1 AD I have just razed one of his cities. My attacking army consists of 2 Elephants, 2 cats and 6 archers.

I only founded one more city besides the capital, by the ivory and pigs. I did see the cows and rice site of course, but considered that I couldn't spare the hammers to build another settler. (Or the hassle, since I was at war all the time). Maybe I should found it now, not sure yet.

My guerilla's have also arrested a Great Prophet - unfortunately the rules say he was killed resisting arrest. Maybe that could be changed in the next version of Buffy ?

 

[haphazard1]

Curse that pipe-smoking lung cancer of a neighbour.

I think Deckhand is laughing and saying "My work here is done."

Sitting Bull with his protective, totem pole boosted archers is definitely a very nasty opponent to have that close at the start.

 

[nocho]

I decided to try and find a bit more food for the capital and wandered a bit to the SE where, certainly in retrospect, I was lucky to find a PH to settle on with cow, rice and the gems.

When no early strat resources were found, decided to go for elepults. Mistakenly let the Oracle finish too soon just before finishing maths, so had to settle for HBR (rather than CoL or MC which were available and more expensive, but less urgent).

SB however was so nice as to build me some nice goodies, mids, stonehenge and a juicy jewish shrine. He's dead by 1 AD and am about to settle a 9th city. Looking to expand a bit more into France next and will see from there what kind of VC to pursue.

 

[ecawilson]

Slow on the uptake, I was convinced I needed Iron Working right away. Finally I settled near the ivory, another city south of that by the deer/sheep, and am just a few turns away from being able to build elephants. Sitting Bull just built the Pyramids, so when I take him out I will have a good border between me and France, and more than enough land to be able to win easily. Obviously not as fast as the rest of you guys, but this is my first xOTM.

 

[Jastrow]

Like Nocho I headed for the plains hill with the capital. It was a spur of the moment thing when I started the game... I bassically realized that I can take two turns to move to the PH, settle on turn 2, and since the worker is 12 turns instead of 15, I lose nothing! I figured the chance of that spot being worst than the starting one were pretty slim.

Then, on T3, I saw culture borders of a VERY near AI. We are playing Noble... WARRIOR RUSH !!!

T4, actually meet the neighbor and see inside his capital. Oh look, it is SB with a city defense 2 archer in his city on a hill. Yep, that warrior rush will be great....

Oh well.... No warrior rush, but I did rush him with Cats and archers, and as a result, SB is no more...

At 1AD, I have 10 cities, with a settler comming in two turns for the seafood city, and one more in about 8 turns for the deer-sheep site. I can research 130 bpt at 100%, but only 65 at 50% break even. I am about 3 turns from Calender, 20 turns from Education, and still need to pick up HBR for elephants. The Camp for the elephants is just completing, so my first phants will come of the line in about 5 turns... From here I plan to elepult the French... If all goes well, I should be able to whip him out in about 30 turns, so am targeting T150 (800 AD) for that to be done.

 

[whb]

Apparently this is "No Bull" level but at 1AD there is still a (Sitting) Bull in my game. Not for long if I have anything to do with it though...

I also went for the elephants. Though as is typical for me I left the war late. I was a bit worried about that -- given how much better our neighbour's site is, this map is clearly one where early invaders will have a big advantage.

 

[billybgame]

After a very long hiatus, I gave this one a whirl, being around difficulty I prefer.

Guess my hiatus caused some issues, though. I also was chagrined about the lack of military resources....more like amazed! But, plopped my 3rd city by the Ivory, as well. I had started building my army before 1 AD, when lo and behold, right then, Napoleon and Qin declared on me.

Guess that's as far as I can go, but obviously, I'm way behind some others.

 

[shulec]

Archer in Cahokia - douche move.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Sitting Bull, huh? He's actually a neat opponent to have... no need for him to have a Strategic Resource and he can still throw his version of Axemen our way. But, with no Strategic Resources of our own, we build Archers instead of Gallic Warriors (where the Gallic Warriors would have been vulnerable to Dog Soldiers), yet his Dog Soldiers end up being far weaker than any other Civ's Axemen against our Archers... we can't easily take him down, but he can't easily Axe rush us and take us down, either. The situation makes for an interesting standoff.

I really expected Sitting Bull's capital to be located on top of an Iron Resource, but then we might have actually benefitted by taking him out.

Anyway, Sitting Bull survived, but Napoleon is in deep trouble, as I've just started to take on his empire with a large force that I built up for Sitting Bull but never really got to use on Sitting Bull, as Sitting Bull just turtled in his Cities too effectively, and I didn't feel like throwing everyone away and possibly still not taking his capital.

I missed The Oracle by a turn, but the Failure Gold came in handy for getting me up to Construction reasonably quickly. Instead, I built The Temple of Artemis, which I rarely build, but I just happened to have a bunch of pre-Chopped trees that had been waiting for Math to come in. Hopefully, I'll earn a Great Person out of that Wonder in a little while, essentially turning a pile of trees into a Great Person.

I saw a Barb City with Copper, so after Napoleon, that'll probably be my next target, so that I can try out some Gallic Warriors (they can be built using either Copper or Iron, similar to Macemen, remember).

On the plus side, I wasn't foolish enough to let Sitting Bull have Alphabet (you didn't let him have that tech in your game, did you? ), so he hasn't been able to build Spies to Poison my Wells.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Deckhand is definitely in competition for the evil swede award with this game!

I settled 1S to get both gems in the capital. My early game followed most other people's it as far as I can tell from this thread: 2nd city, Vienne, to get the cows and rice SE plus about 5 hill - a nice production site. Then, after realizing there is no copper, iron or horses, 3rd city to get the ivory. I built a library and ran two scientists in Vienne to speed up getting construction/HBR and then put an academy in the capital.

I declared on Sitting Bull around 500BC with two stacks, each of 3-4 catapults, 3-4 archers and a war elephant. The idea was to simultaneously take his pigs city to the East and a coastal city of his that lay roughly between our two capitals. Then to march both stacks on his capital, where the promotions they had from their first city captures will help compensate for the capital being on a hill and defended by CR2 archers. It turned out that idea worked really well.

So - as at 1AD, I have 7 cities, and will found an 8th city next turn. SB has just two cities left, on the SW coast - they shouldn't be hard to take. It turns out that even SB's massively promoted archers fall quite quickly once you've sacrificed a couple of catapults over them....

My 8th city is to part-replace SB's capital further east - I rather reluctantly razed the original because the location made so many good tiles by the coast almost unusable without massive city overlap.

As for plans for the future: Once SB is out of the way, France will hopefully be next. I made a point of settling the land NE of the ivory early on. That means I have territory quite close to Paris, so hopefully I'll be able make Paris itself the first target when the French war comes...