BOTM 97 - Frederick - First Spoiler (1AD)

[Seraiel]

Nicely done Falabello . Thx especially for the screenshot .

Seems that war was very expensive, but you still beat Settlers in terms of efficiency, though not really much, because the troops you built cost more than the Settlers would have. If you captured 2 Workers however, the war was the right choice, and you now have Ships and can maybe even directly proceed towards the next target .

The city east of your capital hurts me a little, I hope you're not working those Tundra-Mines, as those are horrible tiles. Whip whip that city as much as you can, maybe work the Food, the Horses, the Cottage and then always 5 -> 3 whip.
The war btw. was also good for you, because you got a better source of Iron, as the other one has no food because Roosevelt built crazy culture. Actually a very mean thing of the mapmaker again, because AI always tends to build Wonders and Culture and Roosevelt is IND, so it's probably planned, that that Iron-city on the home-continent needs a lot of work invested so it'd have a chance at having those Fishes.

You need to work on your research. I guess, you didn't build the GLH. If you still can, do it, there's no better Wonder on watery maps.

Tough luck on that Bear, but seems you managed still well. When I attacked mine at 75% chances with a Warrior, also after he had killed the Scout, I got a slight shock, but was lucky enough to win. Next time, I'd definitely build 2 Warriors though.

 

[Minou]

I opened the game on Christmas Eve and my Scout popped the dreaded map. Depressed, I saved and closed. It took me weeks to reopen the game and I lucked out with the second hut, which popped Bronze Working! I built a Worker, chopped some Work Boats and settled the second city by the Horse, Wine and 2x Clams.

That pesky Bear got the best of me too. It ate my scout off the top of a forested hill, and then the Warrior I sent to take care of the now-injured Bear also lost. I think ultimately the Dutch defeated the Bear, as by the time I finally got another unit up to that corner it was gone.

The Oracle went early, before I could even finish Priesthood, so I switched gears to Horse Archers and quickly captured two Dutch cities wiping out my closest neighbor. The war against America was more of a mixed result. I was able to take their capital (with Great Wall and Scotland Yard) easily. After healing up and shipping over some quick reinforcements I had 6 Horse Archers ready to attack 4 Archers. I expected at worse to lose the first 4 battles wounding all defenders and then make 2 kills, but ended up losing the first 5 battles at increasingly high odds. This really stalled out my advance, though I am ready to try again, this time 7 on 4, in two turns...

I remembered to keep some gold set aside for random events that can be "bought off" such as paying to keep an improvement from being destroyed. However, the only event that happened in the BC years was a diplomatic faux pas that gave me a meaningless -1 with Roosevelt.

So at 1AD I have a mediocre 6 cities with the GLH, an Academy, and (unless they are stolen away at the last second) Colossus and Great Library in the next few turns. I don't remember my tech rate but have 30 total techs and will finish Music in 3 turns (hopefully not losing that Great Artist). The map certainly looks conducive to Space with all the Sushi resources scattered about.

 

[Jastrow]

I got back from vacation, and played to 1AD in one session...

At the risk of making Xcalibrator sad again....

9 cities, 32 pop, 209 bpt @ 100%, and 150 bpt sustainable. I am 3 turns from education.

Note however that these numbers are about to go up quite a bit. I have an unused GS which will build an Academy next turn, and Colossus is 2 turns away. Assuming I dont get beat to it on the next turn, then I project 280 bpt in 50 AD. Oxford is about 15 turns away, so around turn 130.

Probably have room to grow to about 12 cities peacefully, and then I will need to decide who to take out first... All AI are sufficiently backwards that I should have my pick of the litter.

I popped a stupid Map using the border-pop for the first hut. The second hut gave me what I thought at the time was an equally useless scout. Now that I read this tread, it turns out the scout had some value.... With two scouts roaming our small continent, no troublesome bear spanned in my game

I did not try Oracle (not a great Beuro capital, and GLH was much more useful), so I have only GLH, with Colossus two turns away. I just settled city #8 (1 turn before city 9) on stone, so I will build the Moai Statues in the capital followed by Oxford.

Based on the hint in the announcement, I sent an early explorer north, and cities 4 and 5 went to the north pole. The downside is that I did little E-W exploration, and was soundly beaten to circumnavigation. Since I am likely going to space (If I find time to finish the game), that is not such a huge problem.

Oh, and Falabello, I have zero cottages, and dont really envision ever building one this game. That is not a disqualifier to a decent space game.

 

[Seraiel]

Seems Domination, Culture and Conquest will be the easiest just play and win an award games this time ^^ . Space gets more and more contested though.

@ Jastrow: Very similar position to Nocho and me. Same Beakers, Nocho same number of cities, I built the HGs, therefore 3 cities less. If you really manage Oxford in 15T, you're probably in the strongest position from us all and Colossus, where did you take all those resourcces from .

But you'll need to play fast, only 10d to go. Maybe that, or the fact that Nocho and me got Circumnavigation will decide in the end .

 

[Falabello]

@ Seraiel

Wellcome to BOTMs . I think that the next BOTM Deity game will be awesome. Your participation (if you don't give up till there because of other levels...) certainly will instigate the top players and will bring valuable lessons to all players.

I think my choice for war wasn't the best, but has a reason. All watery maps I started peacefully, but then someone did well with war. And this time I decided to do it to fell how would be my economy with units and ships. This will be a hard lesson, but I had to try. Thanks for the tips and stay with us (at least till Deity )

@ Jastrow

After several games with bad economy , I started to cottage my capital and this idea seemed quite good, so I kept it for all games. Reviewing some games (specially from Cactus and Jovan) cottages are very used. I already tried to think what would be better (cottages or farms for the cap ), but without an anser... And I got some lessons about economy (including Civ Illustrated #4 from Seraiel ). In this game, I want build troops, ships and more troops, so cottages seems the better choice...

 

[Jastrow]

If you really manage Oxford in 15T, you're probably in the strongest position from us all and Colossus, where did you take all those resourcces from .

But you'll need to play fast, only 10d to go. Maybe that, or the fact that Nocho and me got Circumnavigation will decide in the end .

Yep, 10 days to go is a problem, and I likely will not finish...

Oxford in 15 to 17 turns will happen unless I get some really bad random event. Everything is set for it.

As to the "extra" resources... Some may be different micro, but the big one is:

You used 250 hammers for HG (incl. Aqueduct, and with stone), while I used only 125 for Colossus. That means I get Colossus and an extra Settler+

I also have only two workers, so that gets me two extra cities.

Also, the stone city is very poor, and the fact that I waited later for that one (city 8) probably makes a bit of the remaining difference up.

I also think Colossus is a much better wonder than HG here.

@Falabello

As always in civ, "it depends"... In this case, my question was not "farm or cottage"... I choose "nothing!". A coast tile with colossus and Moai is 2F1H3C. This beats cottages until they are towns-with-PP. With 11 coasts (incl. the seafood) + Sheep = marble,+ 2 production hills, I dont plan to work a flatland tile until population 15 or so... By then, I can put down watermills, which also compete OK against cottages.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Jastrow: I built the HGs because of gonig for Space. It's my experience, that generating a 100% GE is takes quite long from a Forge only, so I always try for HGs, Mids or even both in those games. This game is different though, Fre is PHI and the map is a lot slower than anything I know from the HoF, leaving just sooooo much more time to get that GE. Still, the HGs are a nice wonder, got instant 6 population which was a nice boost, but especially being able to fully start on GP-prodoction earlier I see at least as a decent advantage. Yes, Colossus is ridiculous on this map, but it went like 2000 BC in my game.
If you want, delay Astro. You only need Astro for Physics iirc, so you could even get Transports and still have the Colossus ^^ .

@ Falabello: Someone having gone for war without telling is also my biggest concern. I actually have no idea, why I didn't go to war but expanded peacefully, maybe it was the lack of Elephants and the fact that Construction became available when the 1st AI already had Longbows. It probably was also my insecurity with Monarch AI, against which I have never played. I saw, some cities were only guarded by 2 Archers, conquering them would have been piece of cake, but then with Hills and Walls, it still takes a lot of time = more whips = maybe not that cost effective after all.

 

[Jastrow]

I was always (and still am) planning to have my 4th GP as a great engineer. From pure forge, that is 400/6 = 67 turns after a first forge is up, so around turn 170, which should be early enough for mining.

Of course if Colosus went in 2000BC, the point is moot, as I certainly could not have gotten it by then.

 

[Seraiel]

I was always (and still am) planning to have my 4th GP as a great engineer. From pure forge, that is 400/6 = 67 turns after a first forge is up, so around turn 170, which should be early enough for mining.

Good plan, but then the advantage of the HGs is, that one could get 2 GEs . GE-building Wallstreet, Kremlin or Ironworks are all things I like very much.

Honestly though, I think you're in a much stronger position than me, because of Colossus. But don't underestimate me, I also got my tricks, and I have double time to play that game. At my current tempo, I'm glad if I achieve 10T / d and I still got semester break, so that's hardcore .
Try to finish it in time, calculate exactly how much turns you need to make in which time. I'd tell you what I assume as a possible finish time, but I think you yourself know the timeline good enough, probably better than me even, because you're more comfortable with normal games.

T170 for the GE btw. is more than in time, I founded Mining T167 in my 1500AD HoF Spacerace. That's the fastest normal speed Spacerace ever played, so don't worry, that you could be that fast ^^ .

 

[Jastrow]

Oh, I am certainly not arguing against HG...In my game, the choice was HG OR Colossus, and I am just saying the Collosus seemed better.

As for: "T170 for the GE btw. is more than in time"... I am confident it is in time, but I would say "just in time"... Given my estimated tech rate, I would expect to found Mining Inc around the turn 175-180 range, with Sushi following about 10 turns later. (I like going mining inc first, because I find it easier to find the production for the Sushi execs this way).

As to how many turns I have to play... 270 turns (=1800) is a "standard" leisure stroll to space on these settings. 250 (1700) is usually competitive in the game, but with so many people going for it this time, I doubt that will be good enough... I guess I need to target something like a 235-240 launch... 235-115 = 120 / 9 = 15 turns a day.

If I had free time every evening, that would be easy, but I dont, so it will depend what real life trows at me...

 

[Seraiel]

1st Corp T175-180 2nd T190 is fabulous.

As this is the 1AD thread, do you have any war-plans already?

And already an idea how many GAs you'll go for?

 

[Jastrow]

No war plans yet... Of course, I will need to go at some point.... Definitely sometime post-Oxford. Either Maces and cats or Maces and Cannons are my usual (Everything else is outside the corporation beeline). On this maps, Maces and cannons will certainly role over any AI, so there is no need to think of going deeper. No idea who will be my first target.

As for GA, I *HOPE* to get the wonder to make them 12 years each instead of 8 (Forgot its name). Then, I obviously will take the one from Taj, and likely either 3 or 4 after that.

4 GA (excl. Taj) requires 10 GP, + the two for the corps, + the 1st Merchant which I used to bulb CS + the academy = 14 needed great persons.

Of those I will get two from the tech tree (Econ and Fusion; I usually skip music; I dont even remember if it is already gone, but I assume so), so I need to generate 12.

The 12th person costs 1200.... During a GA as a Phil leader, each specialist generates 9 gpp per turn, so 134 person-turns are needed.

If lengthened, my 2nd through 4th GA will last 36 turns, so any city that can run 4 GP during that time can generate a GP. If Sushi is up by 190, and I launch 36 years then, this means I should be easily able to generate my 12th GP by the time they end in 226, and start the 4th to extend to 238.

So, it will depend on how the launch date is looking, and if I get the right mix, as to whether I use 4 or 5 total (incl. Taj) GA.


BTW, I just remembered to mention. I don't believe I got a single random event to 1AD, not even a +1C on a square or similar. (I also did not pop anything from a mine, and I dont even remember a random forest growth). Not that I am complaining, since I usually get more bad than good random events. I just think it is a bit unusual to have so few.

 

[Seraiel]

Plz play that game 'til the end Jastrow, I want to see, how close you'll come towards those calculations, and what finish time you'll be able to achieve. Be sure, that I'll make a big writeup in the final thread, once I've played the game, should you beat me in less time, I'd had a lot to think about, but if you really stick exactly towards that timeline and we finish close, then we could learn a lot from each other. I'll explain this in the final thread, because I'm not allowed to spoil anything here. Play, but maybe also think about investing a little more in the final writeup, so don't throw away the saves after you've finished.

 

[Jastrow]

BTW, on the topic of "with everything in civ, it depends...." and the conventional wisdom that "Worker first is almost always correct", what was everyone's initial build order? I went with:

Warrior (partial)
Work boat
Warrior (finish it)
Work boat
Light house
work boat
Worker

So, worker was my 6th build!

 

[Seraiel]

I think I went Worker first and also finished it, because I believe I also went AH first and improved the Sheep, as I found out, that the Worker takes long enough to also finish Fishing to directly queue Workboats after it and not build any Warriors at all. Sheep are stronger than non-fish-seafood and the Worker multipliers through his actions, the Workboat doesn't. I also found TW in a hut, which helped very slightly as the Worker could pre-road towards the 2nd city, but I basically went BW directly afterwards, because I didn't find Horses in my BFC (which was 1E of the start) and suspected Bronze somewhere there too. I also wanted to whip Workboats from the Sheep if possible and I don't think I built a Granary or researched Pottery before Alpha, because the seafood already gave aswell as the TRs to city 2 and 3, which I would haven gotten via Sailing anyhow though, + GLH were enough for me. So finding Pottery really only was pre-roading to the 2nd city, after that, the Worker chopped into the GLH and Mined the green Hill.