BOTM 99 (Louis) First Spoiler - 1AD

DynamicSpirit

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BOTM 99 First Spoiler



Use this thread to tell us what happened in your game, up to 1AD! Did you win before 1AD? :lol:

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM 99, 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
 
Yikes, looks like I overwrote the notes file I was keeping with notes from another game I was playing at the time.

What I remember from this game looking at the saves was that I researched pretty much all of the basic techs, including fishing, myself and teched Aesthetics. This turned out to be a mistake because the AI's took a very, very long time to get Alpha. Caesar and Bismarck were doing their own thing, and Hatty used the oracle and every single Great Prophet to get more religions, with nobody getting alpha. I vaguely remember my economy having a bit of a stall from not being able to build research for such a long time, and ended up getting Alpha and Currency pretty much the same turn.

I settled the PH, and while this gave quite a bit of a production boost, I decided early to move my capital north to the nicely rivered area.

After getting 6 cities up, I started building horse archers. Right before 1AD, I noticed that Hatty started Music to be finished in 9 turns, which was my next tech target. She had 3 cities and 5(!) religions (hinduism, judaism, confucianism, christianity, taoism), and was in general being a terrible trade partner due to only researching useless techs. So despite starting the game thinking I would be able to leverage Hatty as a research partner, I aim my arrows at her pitiful cities garrisoned by War Chariots with no intention of letting her finish Music.

This game I did plan on going for a Space Race, mainly because it's been quite a while since I finished out a long game, and even rarer one with a ton of Sushi resources. I made a pretty big mistake overestimating the Emperor AI and not going for alphabet, and am about to take out the easiest AI to get to Friendly, but I was curious to see how I could finish the later game with that start.
 
I settled NE on the PH. It did give me a faster start and long term it looks about the same as SIP. I have 9 cities, 50 pop, 21.5 techs (working on Currency), and 1050 score which is #1 ahead of #2 Germany's 761. I got Alpha first in 875 BC, which did prove useful for tech trading. Hattie is the most advanced, about 5 techs ahead of me, and has the Oracle (925 BC), GLH (550) and Buddhist shrine (375), but is pretty weak with only 3 mainland cities plus one island. She will be my first war target. :D Cities #2 and #3 went up north to block her and are turning out quite nicely. I have one city on each of the northern islands and another way out west with 2 silvers, fur, and deer. Germany is nearly as big as me and has the Mids (625) but is the least advanced. That and being a neighbor means he'll be next after Hattie.
 
Around how many beakers per turn do you get? Wondering if those early island cities are worth settling pre-currency and without GLH.
 
Around how many beakers per turn do you get? Wondering if those early island cities are worth settling pre-currency and without GLH.

Hah, I don't think I realized at the time how much maintenance was killing me! :lol: I'm making 168 bpt @100% but only 33 bpt at the ~10% breakeven. Currency, CoL/courthouses, and taking the GLH from Hattie will help that a lot, eh?

As for the island cities, I settled them around 500 BC and trade routes to them are worth 2 cpt. I've been whipping them a fair amount and they're only pop 3.
 
Oh dear... just realised I've been fogbusting and being worried about sending settlers into the unknown -- yet the blasted barbs are turned off. Only took 50 turns to realise it... :lol:
 
Ah, I don't have a save right at 1 AD, somehow, but I was running the slider at 100% at a little under 97BPT, with negative at 0%. You're doing quite a bit better than I was economy wise, and hitting Alphabet first probably is the biggest factor. Since I was waiting for Alpha that never came, I didn't have monarchy and had serious happiness issues at that point.

The army buildup didn't help that much for costs either, but I did get a lot of gold to run deficit research from currency.

Also, no fair that you got a shrine from Hattie! She used all her great prophets on bulbs in my game, lol.
 
Finally arrived at 1AD, and it's been arduous, much more so than I thought :sad:

SIP. As mentioned in the post that got moved from the other thread, I thought barbs were on, so were a lot more careful in the beginning than I could have been. That also meant much less exploration. Don't know if it was due to mapmaker naughtiness or bad luck, but the horse to to the NW was jungled, and I didn't notice the NE one until after setting 3 cities, when I had to focus on the Oracle to get it. Wanted to get Math first and Oracle Currency, but didn't dare wait that long, so Oracled MC instead, which isn't a bad option here with IND.

Spoiler :


AIs were ludicrously slow to get Alpha, which also meant veeeeery late IW. Got Alpha in 200BC or something sickening like that. But at least I could then get Monarchy and IW from JC, who is the tech leader, and is currently banging up Bismarck. Bismarck has wonderwhored, built the Mids, so I'd really love to get my hands on that one. But I've been hitting up Hatty instead. Hardly your fastest chariot rush given how darn late I got the horses hooked up, but I "rushed" her in 600-ish BC :lol: Didn't have OB due to previous workersteals, and must have been unlucky with timing, cause she had 4 archers and a WC in the closest city. I had to simply pull out, cease-fire, and collect more forces. Re-declared a few turns later and got her horse city instead, and smashed the horses.

Been slow going since then, but finally now at 1AD I captured her last mainland city, though she has one on the island to the NE. It doesn't look too big, but I don't have Sailing yet so can't wipe her out. I have a fair bit of horses left, and got a few HAs now, so if Bismarck can hold out a bit against JC's OP-rats, maybe I'll join in on that war and try to get JC to Friendly at some point. No chance of taking on those beasts of his until at least Maces, and that looks horribly far off into the horizon with the slow teching :(

JC started on CoL, so I switched to Aesthetics instead. I hope to get Sailing from Hatty when she will finally talk and we peace out. I need it badly to get trade routes with JC. He asked me to cut off ties with Bismarck, which I did, in the hope of getting JC to friendly to get a more reliable trade partner.

Barely over 100 :science: at 1AD (117 to be exact, but then I'm losing almost 100 :gold: a turn...), which feels depressingly weak (my target is usually 200). I even have an academy (and free GS), but not that much help with so little commerce and a weak-ish cottage capital. Perhaps I should have moved it too. Lack of Buro is a big deal, and I'm nowhere close to CS yet.

The idea was to go for space, but not sure I can be bothered unless I get out of the economic hole soon. With building Wealth in the capital and a few other cities we at least make a small profit at 0%, but we're getting killed at 100%, so teching is at a standstill.

JC has started building the GLH, so no chance of getting that. It would have helped a great deal, even if several cities are not coastal.

Kind of a long post explaining how things are going to hell :cry:
 
@ Pangaea: Usually, you may only view and post in this thread once you are at 1AD or past it. It reads like you already read it with T50 and then reached 1AD during your 2nd post. No biggie, as probably as it's your 1st GOTM, just wanted to make you aware of it.

---------------------

I can't tell you, how much I began hating this specific game. I again didn't trust the mapmaker, so I didn't SIP, and I also thought that the Plains-hill was a trap, so I moved 1NE and settled at the coast, which again means, 1 food-resources less for me :mad: .

I imo. had incredible luck with setting, getting 3 cities in direction of Hatty that are really very good, 5 food for 3 cities and 2 times Horses + quite a lot of Forests + green hills. The big problem on this map however is :commerce: and :) . I researched AH and Fishing and then skipped everything to reach Alpha really very early. Managing my capital was a pain with a Happy-cap of 4 with 1 whipping- :mad: , but you know what I talk of. I had great luck again, and Hatty went Monarchy early, so I could increase my happy-cap by the Wine and a 2nd Warrior and soon later, one of my exploring-Workers ( :crazyeye: ) found, that there are actually Furs to the south. Planted a city there too.
After Alpha I bulbed Maths with a Great Scientist and I oracled Currency at 900 BC. During that time, I researched HBR and then went full out Horse Archer rush. I had about 5-6 Horse Archers, when Frederick, who had been completely without resources 'til then and only would have had Archers planted a city on the Iron near my capital :run: . I could decide, raze it and get into war too early, or fulfill the war-plans and conquer it too 12T later, when it would have grown to size 2. Decided for the last, attacked with 15 HA... And found Berlin and Munich with Walls and Berlin had 6 or 7 defenders, ofc. at least 2 Spears while Munich had Walls and 3 Archers. Attacked Munich furociously and had my usual luck, 4 HAs lost against 3 Archers. Healed and reinforced and moved forces to the north of Berlin to capture the Ivory, and suddenly, a stack of 5 metalunits + 1 Archer which he had in addition to the 6-7 defenders in Berlin showed up at Munich :dubious: . I whipped an Axe in the city, and didn't take a cease-fire but let him attack. Because the Axe had no fortification bonus yet, it was chosen against the 2 Spears that attacked first. After that, about 5 HAs that I had left in the city killed every attacker. Conquered the Ivory city, conducted peace :goodjob: .

I built around 30 HAs 'til now and have 10 cities. Research is non-existent, but I'll get two further GPs in 10-25T. Hope on vassaling Hatty and beating Julius + maybe Cathy if needed with War Elephants and Catapults, target, probably Domination, unlikely I'll go for Conquest. Ofc., Bismark had to get a 2nd Iron before I could redeclare on him and finally conquer Berlin with the 21 HAs that I have left :sad: . Not my style at all, but I got good chances on being successful with it, because Julius can have Longbows at most and Cathy is completely backwards.
 
Yep, the PH turned out to be the best move even with some coast tiles, which is pretty irrelevant unless going for space, and even then probably not an issue.

Interestingly, I had no problem with Biz after taking out Hatty first thing with HAs. He did have walls, but only archers. Hatty went down easy though and 2 of her 3 cities were really nice, although quite far from the subsequent action.

JC looked like he'd be a problem with iron. Just depends on how many Praets he has. 1 Praet in a city aint' to bad but if a lot it means many dead horsies.

AIs appeared to be quite backwards by 1AD with Feud a long way off.
 
@ Pangaea: Usually, you may only view and post in this thread once you are at 1AD or past it. It reads like you already read it with T50 and then reached 1AD during your 2nd post. No biggie, as probably as it's your 1st GOTM, just wanted to make you aware of it.

That appearance is my fault. Pangaea posted his T50 update in the pre-game discussion without realizing that it was not permitted there. I immediately moved the post to this thread. So there's no reason to believe anyone accessed this thread before they should've done.

I can't tell you, how much I began hating this specific game. I again didn't trust the mapmaker, so I didn't SIP, and I also thought that the Plains-hill was a trap, so I moved 1NE and settled at the coast, which again means, 1 food-resources less for me :mad: .

I really am completely trustworthy ;)

It's kcd_swede you need to watch. He's evil
 
Was the NW horse jungled to begin with, or was I unlucky with jungle spread (if jungle can spread over horsies at all)?

I'm so far off the pace it's not even funny, due to not realising barbs were off, which meant I didn't know about the NE horse until well after T50. This meant no early chariots, and certainly no early HAs, which again made the war against Hatty expensive and late. Taking out Hatty and Bismarck with HAs would probably have been no problem at all, if I got them early enough, like you guys did. Heck, I may have been better off just REXing and turtling instead of crashing the economy going after Hatty.

Have "wasted" the whole day at IKEA today, but will play a few turns at least and see if I can begin to recover the economy, or join in on JC's fun and snipe a city from Bismarck. Getting Berlin would be fantastic because it has the Mids, which would help research despite a crashed economy, but JC has a truckload of praets and even catas now, so he'll get it soon enough I fear :(

Seraiel, how is your research and economy at 1AD? As I mentioned, mine is pretty darn bad. Not even close to Buro-heaven yet, and only making 117 :science: at 100%, and breaking even at roughly 0%.

Overall I'm pleased with the decision to SIP, but I should probably have moved the capital, because SIP is lousy for cottages :sad:

I was lucky early on with forest growth btw. 3 tiles grew forests, including the deer, which I didn't improve for a very long time due to late hunting. Skipping it early on worked out well, however, as I didn't get any wasted worker turns by getting BW a little earlier.
 
There was jungle on that horse in my game as well, so probably was like that at the beginning.

I've been burned by the no barbs thing myself before, i.e., not knowing the setting is on. I now always make sure I read those settings closely before each GOTM...just like with HOF.

If I recall, I think Berlin was probably the best Bureau spot in the area. I threw down a few cottages for Paris as well just for the economy.
I lost 10 pounds walking through an IKEA once
 
Seraiel, how is your research and economy at 1AD? As I mentioned, mine is pretty darn bad. Not even close to Buro-heaven yet, and only making 117 :science: at 100%, and breaking even at roughly 0%.

Same here. I got some gold by the conquest of the cities, but not much, and I need to build Wealth to make any + at all. Also roughly 120 BPT, so high research for the map, mostly through TRs, but already backwards behind Hatty and Julius. Getting Oracle Currency early was a huge advantage, because it got me Calendar, which ment additional :) and I also begged some money with which I could research Metalcasting which also got me 1-2 techs. Basically I have no chance against the AIs regarding research though, but I wouldn't know, what could make them stop me, if I have 10 cities and Elepult. I'm simply gonna play like Montezuma in the end "my 100 War Elephants will crush your 4 Rifles" ^^ .
 
Same here. I got some gold by the conquest of the cities, but not much, and I need to build Wealth to make any + at all. Also roughly 120 BPT, so high research for the map, mostly through TRs, but already backwards behind Hatty and Julius. Getting Oracle Currency early was a huge advantage, because it got me Calendar, which ment additional :) and I also begged some money with which I could research Metalcasting which also got me 1-2 techs. Basically I have no chance against the AIs regarding research though, but I wouldn't know, what could make them stop me, if I have 10 cities and Elepult. I'm simply gonna play like Montezuma in the end "my 100 War Elephants will crush your 4 Rifles" ^^ .

Pretty similar positions then, at least with the economy. Like mentioned I didn't dare to wait until I had Math (could have bulbed it, but bulbing such a cheap tech always feels a bit wasted to me), so took MC instead, in 1320BC. I suspect Oracle was safe for a bit longer than that, but no idea how long. Did check some other games with similar settings in the HoF, however, and it went around 1000BC in most games, but I would have got Math much later than that.

Getting Calendar so soon must have been very nice though. More happiness (a big problem for me) and also to get started on the MoM.

Found this screenshot from the first tech trade I conducted. Yay :sad:
Spoiler :

Was I last to Alpha? Probably.
 
tl;dr :
Stats :
14 cities, pop 13, 9, 7, 7
68 total pop
-205 gold for + 349 beakers at 100% research.
+54 gold and +7 beakers at 100% gold. About 75 bpt at equilibrium.

More stats :
7 swords, 6 workers (could use a couple more with a recent Calendar), 7 libraries, 8 cottages, 9 hamlets, 2 villages.
Oracle, GLH, soon to have Hanging Gardens.
32% land area.

1 GS produced. 2 cities with gpp > 150.

Banking gold into Paper.


Opener :
Spoiler :
Moved the settler 1NE on the PH, didn't like the spot,
Moved the settler again 2W to the coast (keeping pigs, rice & cows).
So I settled T2.

Research went : AH, Fishing (got an early workboat),
Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Writing.

Could settle 2 cities in the North, by Hattie's borders during that time.
Far away early cities didn't make for a lightning fast early development.

Oracle/Writing were done by 1880 BC and choosing the Oracle's target was a tough decision.
After weighting the options for a couple of days, and once an Astronomy bulb was definitely out of the question, I took Alphabet off the Oracle.
That's not an impressive Oracle grab but it unlocked trades from Hattie and Julius. Not immediately from Bismark, though, due to an early worker steal. Cathy found me some time later and that got me another trade partner.

Spoiler :


Trading for Iron Working unlocked swords and I tasked one of my northern cities with Hatshepsut's murder.
The lady had lost 3 archers and 4 War Chariots when her second and last city fell. Lost 2 swords and 1 axe in the process.

Spoiler :


Troops healed, moved down,
Paris got the Great Lighthouse, islands were settled, etc.
I missed on both marble tiles, when I was initially targetting the northern one (so as to block off the peninsula). Eventually, I've got only a couple of cities, there, securing stone & spices. Julius got the dyes.
Backfilled, still have 2 spots to settle (with a settler in transition).
Headed towards CS, revolted in 75 BC, iirc.
Produced only a single GS, in Orleans. City will produce the 2nd in 3 turns. Paris is just a little behind in gpp but has mostly priest points.

Maintenance from 14 cities makes the Empire heavy to move around.
Need courthouses to alleviate the gold drain.

The army isn't quite yet in position, I'm hoping to declare war on Bismark soonish.
He's got, hmm... archers and, hmm... archers.
 
Darling it's too late
For a phone call.


@ Pangaea :
Early Alphabet makes a huge difference.
Oracle --> Alpha is lousy compared with a beeline.
It would be better to beeline Alpha, settle an extra early city and Oracle something post Alpha. Fact that there are only 4 AIs means there's only little competition for wonders. However, one needs to recognize this early on. I didn't.
Oracle Alpha still secures Alpha trades and is better than self-researching every basic tech.
Even with standard number of AIs, one cannot expect to trade for Alphabet before some 600 BC on Emperor. You were quite unlucky to get it on 200 BC but, in general, on IMM- I think that you should aim to get Alphabet yourself (unlocking, at the very least, trades for IW, Maths and Monarchy).
It might be different if the start had more commerce specials. That might reduce the use of trades and/or make other beelines more attractive.

Also, on conquering, killing a neighbour is good BUT I think it should be subordinated to securing research. In general, again, one wants to get to the next level of techs when he is acquiring 5+ new cities.
You need the tech to support the city count.

In your case, I suppose settling inland (SIP) didn't help with the commerce situation.
Prolly Hattie's land that is all green could be all cottaged.
For me, settling 1NW paid off nicely, despite the slower start, since Paris could build the GLH. GLH contributes for a large chunk of those +350 :science: at full slider. Only one of my cities isn't coastal.


Capital and F1 screens :
Spoiler :



Cathy has Litterature. I hope to have Marble in 10-less turns.
Maybe I should research it before Paper. Great Library in Thebes would be great.
Also pondering the value of Banking on this map.
 
Thanks for the details and screenshots :)

I actually pondered Oracling Alpha myself, but not very seriously, and decided on MC instead. Also figured there might be more time to grab wonders and something good off Oracle here considering there were so few AIs, but not knowing the last AI meant it was tricky. But I did know none of them starting with Mysticism, given the time it took for religions to get founded. Perhaps Oracling Alpha would have been better in my game too, particularly as the others were so darn slow to it. That said, MC and early-ish cheap forges weren't bad either.

Looks like setting NW was a good call. Still lots of food, missing the southern green hills, but getting the GLH early on such a commerce-starved map must have been great -- highlighted by your very impressive beakers count at 1AD.

On Immortal, where I usually play, I tend to not self-tech Alpha either, and go for Math instead, then one way or another trade for Alpha (for instance: Math for IW, then Math+IW for Alpha). On this map I had to self-tech basically all cheap techs myself, which obviously isn't ideal.

Since you have such a good commerce base so early, are you going for Space?

Thinking about that myself, but since I was in such a lousy position in 1AD, I doubt I'd be competitive if anybody else does the same. But Conquest or Domination would hardly be early either.

Interesting to see how different the games have developed though. Sounds like Seraiel got the Jumbos for himself, while in my game JC aggressively settled that spot early, leading to border pressure with Bismarck, and war between them soon after. In my game Hatty was very weak, probably in great part because I managed to double workersteal from her twice. Even with the incredibly late chariot "rush" in 600-ish BC, I eventually managed to overturn her by 1AD (she was off the mainland by then, though).
 
It's not carved in stone but I think I'm going for Score.
I doubt that takes me as far as Space.


Yes, it's easy to underestimate trades from Alphabet.
That said, I wouldn't have chosen to Oracle Alpha if I'd thought about it before 1880 BC, when I stopped the game 1t before Writing/Oracle. 0 wonders had been built at that point.
If I had thought about it earlier and/or monitored wonders/religions progresses, I'd have self-teched Alpha and then Oracled something. At least, in hindsight, I think it would have been better.

Later Oracle saves 100H that can go into a 10+ turns earlier city 4. A triple-food city, in my case.
It can mean earlier Libraries and gpp, too.

That said, well, from the point I got to think about it, it was between Oracle Alpha / Aesth / CoL / Monarchy.
Marble was too far away and required Sailing (did not know of the southern one) ;
CoL had no immediate use ;
Monarchy could allow to grow Paris but I was still lacking basic worker techs to develop the city ;
Of those techs, Alpha was clearly the better choice, giving instant access to Pottery, Sailing and BW. Also removed any need for instant research and, thus, allowed to bank gold while waiting on the Academy and several Libraries.
Finally, revealing metals tips the balance pretty hard. Training 5 swords or 20 chariots ? hmm...
 
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