BOTM 85 First Spoiler - 1AD

[Deckhand]

BOTM 85 First Spoiler - 1AD

This is the thread to discuss how your game went up to 1AD (not later).

Where did you settle?
Are you keeping with the spirit of the season and staying peaceful?
How many of the other civs have you met?
What's your latest tech?

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 84 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.

 

[zbgayumn]

Where did you settle?
Are you keeping with the spirit of the season and staying peaceful?
How many of the other civs have you met?
What's your latest tech?

Well, after all the discussion about SIP or 2NE, I opened up the game and totally changed my mind. I went 2W1S to the plains hill for a crab/pig start. The 2nd city picked up the fish and gold.

Up to this point I've been peaceful (with the exception of a barb city that I took). I reached 8 cities in southern and eastern Africa, and had a settler almost to a site in the Middle East.

I think only one civ was unmet. My recollection of that isn't so good.

Looks like I had just finished Metal Casting. I was kind of torn between the beeline toward Lib and the one toward Astro. I was headed toward Astro at this point to see what kind of mischief I would find in the new world.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Where did you settle?
Are you keeping with the spirit of the season and staying peaceful?
How many of the other civs have you met?
What's your latest tech?

Before starting the game, I generated a couple of Earth2 starts. I realized that by settling northbound would be helpful on the land grabbing phase, as the south coast should be safe from the AI. So I settled 2NE. Not great but decent site, helps with the overall dotmapping for the subcontinent.

Africa seemed a good place for coastal cities, and with a lot of reachable AIs for trade routes I beelined GLH - thanks for the tip on the pregame discussion, WastinTime.

I met 6 AI, but lost the Mids by a few turns to the faraway civ. At least failgold helped.

I settled 12 cities (43 pop), including 2 islands for the TR's. I tried to be peaceful but declared on Zara and Lincoln just for a few workers, no cities taken (yet...).

Techwise I oracle'd currency and have up to MC and Aesthetics. 2 turns away from Lit, but no CoL yet. Trying to leverage IND trait and stone/marble/copper.

Not sure if I should mention it here, but the land tiles count is very unusual for this mapscript...

 

[Deckhand]

... Not sure if I should mention it here, but the land tiles count is very unusual for this mapscript...

You might find some of the tile arrangements very unusual as well.

 

[WelshGandalf]

Settled 2NE. It looked a bit of a sad location to start with, but when horses appeared, it turned into a pretty decent production capital. 2nd city went north, on the flood plains and got cottages. Possible future beauro site.

Went for wonder/sse strategy. May not be the best, but that doesn't matter to me, I like to pick a strategy and enjoy the ride (eg my Ormoro-only game last month). Oracled MC, built the great lighthouse, traded with Ethiopia for Marble then missed ToA by 1 turn.... but I got the Colossus and as of 1AD I'm closing in on Parthenon and then The Great Library. Only one specialist so far (a settled great prophet) but I'm sure that will ramp up soon. Kinda forgot about the Pyramids, but since they went in 950BC I may not have got them anyway.

Cheap forges everywhere as I need that +1

I'm ahead in tech but not by a huge amount. Planning a war on Ethiopia is I do need a bit more land. I have 8 cities (including 1 island one) and about 120bpt at 0%. Got beaten to 2 great city spots by a couple of turns - in both examples the AI picked a stupid location instead of the great ones....

PS My PC crashed and I lost some 8 turns but I replayed them the same way, eg I missed ToA by one turn for the second time; I didn't use future knowledge to whip it instead. This makes me unable to submit but since I won't compete for any prizes this doesn't bother me too much. I will still play along & join in the conversations.

 

[ecawilson]

I believe my worst mistakes so far have been losing an early settler to a panther, and focusing so much on blocking Zara in that I don’t have a city to work the gold. I probably should have settled that as my capital, but I didn’t know that land grab would be so important later.
I only have 6 cities, and haven’t even explored all of Europe or the Middle East. America just took the Sinai from me a few turns before I was going to settle it, but Ottoman is about to declare on someone, so hopefully America (or Ethiopia, I would like their holy city/capital). I don’t want to (and haven’t) declared war on anyone yet, in the spirit of the game, and everyone likes me so far.
Just finished Math, working calender.

 

[High King J.J.]

I almost ragequit once, having lost an easy defence combat and 2 workers to a barb archer but now seeing how well others are doing i'm thinking of quitting anyway.

Settled NE on the coast with corn, clams, horses and 2 mountains in the BFC. Haven't fought anyone yet but Zara is annoyed and preparing to kill me. Bulbed theology recently. Met all but one Civ, which is apparently the most powerful.
Extraordinarily lousy game, might quit playing Gotms since all I do is struggle by before losing or quitting due to hopeless situations and/or lack of time.
Oh well, Christmas is the season of despair and self-destruction so at least I am keeping with the spirit of the season.

Spoiler :

At least the fascists in Moscow are hurting from cheap oil. All it takes is one and it's time everywhere.

 

[Minou]

Generous start! I settled on the coast to get Pig, Gold and Crab. Second city was by Corn, Clam and Horse, third city near Copper, Sheep and Wheat and the three bonus food lake tile (Maori Statues built here), fourth and fifth in the flood plain zone. In the early game I focused on claiming all the land in Africa and ended up with 10 cities (37pop), most placed along the coast for GLH bonus. Managed to grab the Oracle (MC) and Colossus too but narrowly missed the Pyramids (built by Russia). Most cities have Forge / Granary / Library (great to have half price on the last two) and I used my first GS for an Academy. 26 techs so far including COL, Currency, MC and researching at 176bpt.

There were more AIs than I had expected in the Old World so I was surprised to meet the 6th in 275BC after most showed up much earlier. I think that is all of them now.

In the spirit of the game I plan to go for Space, though I think a little warring will be necessary along the way. Now that Africa is fully settled I think it would be wise to expand in order to gain more resources and land. There is a barb city guarded by a single Archer in Asia sitting on a site with 2 x Gold and lots of Floodplains and I am hoping to grab that with two Axes in a couple turns. I'm also working on a batch of about 10 Horse Archers hoping to run through Russia and steal those Pyramids!

 

[Frederiksberg]

Settled west on the plains hill to get a fast worker. Research was AH for the pig. 2nd city to get horse and corn, 3rd city was gold and fish, 4th city wheat and sheep.

Declared two times on Zara to steal 4 workers. No "real" wars.

Met all civs except one.

Currency is due in two turns. Have CoL and Monarchy. 12 cities. Built The Great Lighthouse, Colossus and The Hanging Gardens. Have a GE and is aiming for Space.

 

[kcd_swede]

Where did you settle?
Are you keeping with the spirit of the season and staying peaceful?
How many of the other civs have you met?
What's your latest tech?

Yes, I am nice, but mostly because there were no good opportunities to gain anything by being naughty.

I've met all but one. Presumably the last will require higher tech than galleys. Saw an ice wall... wonder what that is for.

May last tech was.... hmm... metal casting maybe?

BTW I took the challenger save and am very rusty, so I'm just over-building, over-cottageing, and over-expanding for now. I got the GLH, though-- lucky since I did not remember I needed masonry to build it, and just assumed someone else already built it when I couldn't build it after sailing. Only got masonry to collect the stone in a misguided (and failed) attempt at the Pyramids.

I settled the 2sw plains hill, and built 2 more cities quickly with some overlapping tiles. Too much food until I got Monarcy a few turns back (traded CoL). I founded Confu, but am running no religion because a) I'm lazy, and b) the Hindu/Bhudism schism is something I'm not ready to deal with.

Having so much fun I haven't thought about how to win, yet. What a shame to end such a lovely game. Mayke a Time victory just to be weird. BTW- I started playing today, straight thru to 50Ad. i'LL PROBABLY RUSH THROUGH THE REST today too, since I won't get another opportunity to play anu time soon. Thought I should play this one just to work out some of the kinks before SGOTM20 starts.

 

[Jenarie]

I settled on the coast to get Pig, Gold and Crab. Second city was by Corn, Clam and Horse, third city near Copper, Sheep and Wheat and the three bonus food lake tile

Sounds like I saw the map the same way Minou did - I would guess our first three cities are in the same exact places.

Not really sure how I'm doing but since I didn't take the Adventurer save this time my only goal is to survive until I can get a cultural victory and I don't really care if I'm the slowest one to do it. I don't have the lowest power rating so hopefully no one gets the idea to target me but I'm behind on the culture thing because despite signing as many open borders as I can get no one has spread a religion to me yet.

I have six cities but I didn't head north quite fast enough to get any of the luxury tiles except for maybe the dye which I'm currently fighting a cultural battle over.

Doing well in tech because I got the oracle and also got currency with a bulb since I wasn't really sure what else to do with a Gmerchant.

Guess that's enough babble from the current 'most likely to get last place' contender.

SOOO happy I finally got everything working and I can play again!!!

 

[Deckhand]

Guess that's enough babble from the current 'most likely to get last place' contender.

SOOO happy I finally got everything working and I can play again!!!

You've already won. Grats.