BOTM 95 First Spoiler to 1AD

[Deckhand]

BOTM 95: No Espionage

[img=right]http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/botm95civ.jpg[/img]


Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD! How did it go?

Having Fun?
Have any events? Get anything nice from huts?
What do you think of No Espionage settings?



Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 95, 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. (Iron is OK, coal and oil are not)
• Please do not reveal names or locations of any civilization not accessible by galleys.
• Do not post any savegame file from the game. Discussions and screenshots are fine but not actual games.

 

[MeowZeDung]

I've been trying to become a decent(ish) player on Imm lately, so playing on noble feels kind of ridiculous. . . but fun I haven't been taking it too seriously or optimizing every little thing as a result, so I don't think I'll be winning any fastest times in this one.

I settled on the ph to the NW of the starting position, which was a very poor capitol. I moved the capitol later to the corn/gems/spice city that was just E of the settler's starting location, a great bureaucracy site. At 1AD I'm at 8 cities with 2 settlers on the way, and likely one more after that to settle an island for trade route cash. Since noble difficulty Willem is our only neighbor, and there's no tech extortion this go around, I've just left him alone (for now ). He did manage to beat me to one northern city site I wanted though.

I think I might have fogbusted too thoroughly. It might have been worthwhile to allow one barb city.

I went for the oracle and took CS as my free tech. Goody huts (5-6 popped iirc) yielded a couple hundred gold and archery. The gold was nice as it allowed me to keep the slider at 100% until after I teched through CoL and built the Oracle. Due to REX and the CS slingshot I neglected running scientists a bit too long. Then random events did their best to annoy me (hurricanes and slave revolts) and further delayed my first GS, who will pop in 4 turns

Literature is being researched now. One of my production cities is building the parthenon, a fish/corn city is set to build the NE, and the capital will likely build the GL. My plan is lit->HBR->sailing->calendar to build those wonders (MoM as well maybe?) and hook up the sugar/spice/dyes/incense for extra that will speed up MC->machinery->compass->optics while keshik crushing Willem. Somewhere in there I'll squeeze in music for the GA to fuel a golden age civic switch to caste and later caste/pacifism and bulb my way through to lib->astro. Don't know at what point an intercontinental keshik conquest is not feasible, but I'll only be a hop, skip, and a jump from cuirrasiers at that point, so I'm not that worried about it. Noble is just silly

 

[ikotomi]

I accidentally loaded the initial save instead of my most recent save. I didn't click on anything and immediately loaded the last save. Does that ruin the game for me?

I have 10 cities right now, and believe I can bulb Philosophy in 1 turn. I oracled Currency at 1480 BC. Hadn't met any other civs yet and the early religions were taken so I didn't want to risk going for something more.

I skipped HBR, and took out Willem's cities with Chariots. He had one city left on a hill, so I just took 10g from him and called for peace. Great Lib is done in capital, and I'm hoping to get Great Lighthouse in Amsterdam, but I'm not too confident about that one.

What's really annoying me is surprisingly No Espionage's affect on culture. I didn't realize until my later cities, but the border pop requirement is doubled! You really need to make sure food is in the first ring, or your city will be crippled for 20 turns at least.

 

[Deckhand]

I accidentally loaded the initial save instead of my most recent save. I didn't click on anything and immediately loaded the last save. Does that ruin the game for me?

Welcome to Game of the Month!

No that doesn't ruin the game for you. You can actually open old saves as long as you don't do ANYTHING irreversible. But we discourage that as dangerous.

You should set your autosave to 1 and replay any moves as exactly as you can if you have a game crash.
And PM the game designer (me for this one) and/or AlanH if you have any crashes or other issues.

What's really annoying me is surprisingly No Espionage's affect on culture. I didn't realize until my later cities, but the border pop requirement is doubled! You really need to make sure food is in the first ring, or your city will be crippled for 20 turns at least.

yes, this was mentioned in the announcement thread (I think by Dhoomstriker)
this should really hurt the AIs too, they probably weren't programmed to deal with it
player can put key resources in first ring of BFC and plan for the needed culture

 

[MeowZeDung]

Yeah, the 20 culture needed for border pops threw me off too. Not sure if I'll ever play a no espionage game again, but at least if I'll be the wiser if I do.

 

[enKage]

This hard borderpop by monument is so embarassing...

Anyway, as stated in pregame, I wanted to settle on one of spices to get +1 commerce. Moved scout east and I saw corn. I chose the northern spice for more riverside, so it ended up with gems in BFC.
However, if i went with scout to another hill, I would also see pigs and settle on PH and double food. Anyway this is my 2nd city, at least I had very fast GScientist for Academy.

Huts: fishing, archery and some gold.

Because on Noble pretty obvious is Oracling CS, I did it too. Though it also has a cost of missing GLH due to delayed sailing.

I used the nice fellow north to take some workers. Later he "gave" me a city and finally at 1AD I also conquered his capitol. Now heading esth - lit to make it superior great people farm.

At 1 AD:
14 cities (3 on islands). 37 pop. 1 city on no food island just to make contact with another civ. Now on a mission of settling those nice northern islands.
Wonders:
Oracle 1000BC (CS)
Even though Mids went late 125BC, I missed it because I didnt start it early enough.
Now 3 turns from MoM, I hope to get HG too as soon as I get my stone online (waiting soooo long for borders)

Techs: quite good, including CS, MC, Currency, Calendar, 1 turn to Esth. Then hope Literature Paper Unis

 

[yyeah]

800BC.

Hes moveing... OMG hes going for it ... no way i cant belive this ... he might do it ... YES he did it .

WvO settled 2nd city.

 

[yyeah]

Seriously.
I forgot that iam playing on Noble and went for Agc-AH-Pottery-HBR.
Yea had preety fast UU and you should see my face jesus when i saw WvOs warrior.
Didnt want to take out Willem instantly, i just wanted him to settle some cities for me 1st,but hes so exxreamly fast with hes expansions ... i take him out anyway... that was mistake i made lot of them to 1AD.
But anyway Oracle Currancy 14 cities( lost 1 settler to barb warrior ) i skiped monarchy since this is such a rich land that i went streigh for Calendar and MoM.
O and i have HG's too.
Iam still thinking about Victory condition becouse i dont know will i have fun taking out noble Ais in other hand for Dom you can usually have more points but idk we will c maybe i go for something crazy.

 

[ikotomi]

Fighting against Noble AI is so weird. I built way too many chariots to take out Willem because I didn't know he was going to not whip a single archer. I could have probably taken the hill city first before he built another archer if I knew how bad it was.

 

[Deckhand]

800BC.

Hes moveing... OMG hes going for it ... no way i cant belive this ... he might do it ... YES he did it .

WvO settled 2nd city.

thanks for sharing

 

[haphazard1]

Noble difficulty has been a bit...odd. Long long time since I played at this difficulty, and like others have mentioned it threw my expectations off. Kind of fun, though.

Willem did manage -- barely -- to settle a second city before I claimed all of the starting land mass. He is toast any time I decide to crush him, but I have been busy settling cities and doing my own thing. So he gets to live...for now.

The no espionage effects are odd. The border pops being so slow is definitely annoying. But overall it is interesting, and a nice variation that I doubt I would otherwise have tried. So thanks for the scenario, Deckhand!

 

[Minou]

I was so excited to open Goody Guts that I actually built a Scout first. Ended up popping a map, another Scout, Agriculture, and two Gold (84 total). In retrospect the second Scout was overkill and probably did not even get me an extra hut, but at least he was useful for fog-busting later.

Random events absolutely ruined my early game. A thunderstorm or something like that that destroyed my Marble Quarry the same turn as I finished a forest chop, costing me the Oracle. That made me contemplate quitting, but especially with all the talk about keeping GOTM alive I will finish out the game.

 

[Zulyin]

Hi everyone, I'm new to these gotm and I have a question about victory conditions. I'm pretty close to finishing my game and I have a few different choices as my winning condition, namely between domination, conquest or diplomatic. Is there any one of them that gives more or less points?

I've been trying some previous gotm but unfortunetly I couldn't finish any of them in the given time frame. First time I can and noble difficulty really helped.

 

[Deckhand]

Welcome to gotm!

The dominant factors in your score are your population and land. Scaled by date. Wonders and tech count some. The specific victory condition doesn't matter, but domination tends to have the highest scores because you have most land and pop with it.
If you satisfy multiple conditions on same turn, the game randomly picks one for you.

Awards are provided for three highest scores, fastest for each victory type and lowest score for each victory type.

 

[TalladegaKnight]

Enjoying the game despite my sloppy play. Focused on GLH, lost Oracle. Forgot about no tech trading, teched alpha to hopefully trade for IW. Oops. Wiped out Willem with 2 chariots after stealing a few workers. Now in isolation although with the game settings I don't think that matters. Currently have 12 cities, 4 island. 2 more cities planned. Just teched currency and built the mids. Don't have a real plan. Maybe sushi space game. Maybe diplomacy. Next priorities are civil service and astronomy. Although I can see culture to the east just out of reach and one of my island cities asked to join another empire who's culture I don't see. Wondering if I should settle a crappy island city with no food to get my work boat over to that side.

 

[billybgame]

Gave this a quick go.

Settled my capital in place.

We had decent hut luck, with 84 gold, a scout, and 1 tech(Fishing). Had a measly 4 cities at 1 AD, as I was building my war machine.

Beshbalik was my 2nd city, NE near coast, to get Marble. Turfan 3rd, to S to get Horses, etc. Then, Ning-Hsia 4th, NNE to get many resources and closer to the Dutch.

Built Stonehedge in 2080 and the Oracle in 1200 BC, giving me my religion and Code of Laws.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

So, upon entering the game, I was very pleased at the settings.
No tech trading, no tech stealing and, which is more, we're playing as Genghis Khan, the most CREative ruler of Mongolia !
Genghis is a fine man, indeed, as fine a man as there has been.

Moving the scout didn't reveal anything for me, so I SIPed.
Upon further examination of Genghis' traits, I found out that he is AGGressive, which is natural for a Mongol, but I became most excited when he appeared to also be IMPerialistic !
Genghis, you've got it all !

So, after Agri & AH (you never know), I set research to Mining, in order to make a good use of that trait.
Karakorum grew to size 4 before starting on 2 settlers. This allowed the city to work 2 mines. It also made growth from 3 to 4 easier than with starting on settlers at size 3 (and having mines improved).

There's been all this talk in the opening thread about how No Espionage doubles the needed culture for border pops...
... but this isn't a problem since we're CREative, right ?
So city 2 was settled by the gems, with corn in the second ring.
City 3 would be coastal, to the north west, with corn in the first ring and fish in the second. That city would attempt to build the GLH.

Of course, wonderspamming is appealing.
At this point, I had to think twice as hard, since I had a worker out, 3 cities to improve and border pops incoming !
So I checked the culture situation in city 2...
Oh Genghis, what have you done to me ?! Most creative leader of Mongolia, were you not the man with 3 traits ?


...


So, after this awkward discovery, I proceeded to REx and get my key wonders.
Despite the confusion, nothing too bad happened.

Spoiler :

Wonders were late :
Oracle : 825 BC (Currency)
Great Lighthouse : 550 BC
Hanging Gardens : 50 BC
At this point, I have hammers invested in the Temple of Artemis and Mausoleum of Mausoles.

Cities got up alright :
There are 12 at the moment (2 offshore).
A settler is in transition (3rd offshore city). Another is being produced.
51 total population points, Karakorum being size 13.
8 workers only improve the land (none stolen).

Infrastructure : 10 Granaries, 4 Libraries, 2 Lighthouses, 2 Barracks, 2 Monuments, 1 Aqueduct, 1 Academy.

Doing +116 gold/turn at 100% gold slider ;
+260 beakers/turn at 100% science and -80 gold.

Dotmapping has been interesting, although not easy. I have a few dead tiles here and there.
The peak between the gems, sugar and corn would have been a prime place for a city ^^

...


Regarding the tech path,
I've avoided beelining anything to far up the tree.
Notably, I went for Iron Working after Writing (jungle gems), for Monarchy after unlocking Currency and for Monotheism after Monarchy (double civic switch).

Although I've let him in peace, the man in the north has been very useful, in that he founded Judaism. So I've got a religion, with a nice spread, since he's also sent me lots of Missionaries, at least 4.
He's got the Moai Statues for prophet gpp in his lonely city, so I'm a little torn between the option to take him out with my handful of swordsmen (nice city) and the option to let him shrine Judaism (may take a while).

Tech path :
Mysticism (hut), Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Fishing, Pottery (before Bronze because IMP), BW, Writing (because not CRE and Libraries better than Monuments), Sailing, Masonry,
Iron Working, Polytheism, Priesthood, Mathematics (unlocking Currency),
Currency (Oracled), Monarchy, Monotheism, Calendar (because resources), Code of Laws, Civil Service, Metal Casting.

Now I'll head for Aesthetics & Litterature.
I may research Archery somewhere in between for cheap garrisons.


...


Miscellaneous :
Got a single GP, who, fortunately, has been a Scientist.
Got several hits from events and a couple improvements pillaged by barbarians.
Until...
... I got a free settled GP in Karakorum (significant !) and I chose a Merchant over Prophet and General.

Army :
4 swordsmen, 2 galleys, 1 axeman, 4 warriors.

Karak :

Spoiler :

Unhappy city is unhappy.

Also, I sneak opened (like 2 seconds) the Final spoilers thread for this game, yesterday.
Sorry about that. Was my mistake, clicking from the front page and not seeing the title entirely. Well, I won't complain if it makes my game invalid

 

[Htadus]

4 chariots is all it took to take WvO capital and raze the second city. He did not want to expand at all. Did not build a archer forever either. What could he have been doing?
I finally realized that his capital was the best city site to run bunch of scientist to get a few GS's. So I had to get rid of him.

 

[ikotomi]

My guess was that he was slowed down way too much because he had to build so many work boats.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I took the Challenger saved game, but I did not accept the idea that I wouldn't have an early Scout, so I spent 2 turns moving my Settler and then settled on the PH Riv For that was adjacent to another PH For and pumped out 2 early Scouts before building my first Worker.

After popping a 3rd Scout from a Hut and only getting about 100 Gold (Gold total from multiple Huts), I felt a bit silly for having delayed my first Worker, but overall, it was probably worth the effort.

Even with 3 Scouts, the delay in getting started on Hut-finding had me miss at least 2 Huts that Willem popped one turn ahead of me.

Thanks to the Pre-game Discussion, I ended up settling my Cities in odd locations--almost always adjacent to a Food Resource, even though I probably normally would have placed my Cities quite differently.

I missed out on The Great Wall and The Great Lighthouse, but I hit most of my other desired Wonder targets.

While the No Espionage setting has been a bit odd, the weirder part is the No Tech Trading. It's so weird having to go for Iron Working oneself, especially relatively early on (for the Jungled Resources), and to have to carefully contemplate every Tech decision. No longer does it make sense to get Philosophy for trade bait, so one has to be willing to run Pacifism to bother going for it early on, for example.

For Religion, I only had self-founded Confucianism, which got founded in an island City. I built Moai there just so that later in the game I would be able to build Wallstreet there without too much effort.

Being relatively isolated also made for an interesting game, as there's no way to mess around with the Noble AIs (besides Willem) early on in the game. But, being Noble, I'll definitely be toying around with the AIs later on in the game, you can count on that fact!