BOTM 99 (Louis) First Spoiler - 1AD

[ikotomi]

You also found Cathy early on, which makes the GLH amazing for all your coastal cities. Quite a nice pickup! My work boat had not found her yet at 1 AD.

 

[Seraiel]

Thanks for the details and screenshots

I really wanted to join by uploading some screenshots myself, but Photobucket has gone completely crazy and has wrecked my ability to upload towards their site, after they already enforced me to disable certain security and privacy features last year, because I wasn't able to copy the links anymore. I've asked for a solution, I hope it won't be, that I'll need to forget about my 3k of pictures or use Internet Explorer.

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.

Even on higher difficulty, you should think about beelining Alpha, because it's an incredible strong strategy, especially when barbs are turned off. Being 1st to Alpha is even possible on Deity with little commerce, if you research nothing else than AH / Agri + Writing + Alpha (+ eventually Mining) .

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.

Yes, I got all the "jumbos" on the map for myself . I also bribed JC against Bismarck because I hoped it'd weaken him, in the end, none of each did anything in war and Bismarck simply built more units .

You also found Cathy early on, which makes the GLH amazing for all your coastal cities. Quite a nice pickup! My work boat had not found her yet at 1 AD.

(Almost) like me. Built an exploring WB very early from my coastally-settled capital, and send it first to the north, then to thw east . The way back was so long, that Cathy fortunately found me shortly before 1 AD, but also very late. Had mostly internal TRs aswell, which was one of the biggest problems towards my economy, therefore I founded an island city and prepare to found another one. The 2 TRs are simply worth it.

 

[lymond]

I suggest using Imgur, Cereal. Hassle free, sign up with yahoo or google account, you can resize images so we can actually see them without exiting to 3rd party site, and the provided "forum ready" BBcode allows for simply pasting that code directly into your thread.

 

[Seraiel]

I suggest using Imgur, Cereal. Hassle free, sign up with yahoo or google account, you can resize images so we can actually see them without exiting to 3rd party site, and the provided "forum ready" BBcode allows for simply pasting that code directly into your thread.

Why do you need to exit to Photobucket to see my pictures? Photobucket auto-resizes to 1024x768 and also offers links for forum, email, thumbnail etc.

I've asked Photobucket to solve this issue, I even got it with IE9! I've given them two weeks and asked them to transform my account into a free one again, should the issue not get resolved.

You know, changing the image-hoster is not easy. I need to preserve 3k of pictures, the only way I could change to Imgur would be, if they all stay on Photobucket and also stay accessable, so I could use Imgur only for my new screenshots.
I also think I had problems finding out if Imgur has any options for private pictures like Photobucket does, tell me if you know this.

 

[Pangaea]

I had a problem uploading to Photosuckit yesterday, but that aside, I still like them. They were much better before though, when you could use proper direct links and people would get to the actual picture, instead of a html-raped page. But as long as I post the picture in the forum it's fine. They have a good BB-code IMG tag ready, that I use all the time. It doesn't turn into a link either, which I dislike.

Could be imgur is equally good, of course. I've not used them much. But I do have 4000 pictures on Photobucket...

 

[Seraiel]

Imgur is the image-hoster that wins all of the awards @ Pangaea and Photobucket has become slow and overloaded with adds and useless features / buttons, but the dark design of Imgur somehow makes me think I'd go towards the evil side of the internet .

My question though is, does Imgur has an option for private albums like Photobucket does, and I think it doesn't, at least I didn't find anything when reading the FAQ, and if Imgur doesn't have such an option, it's only useful for all public photos, so there'd still be no way around Photobucket if wanting to store i. e. also all of ones Photos online and accessable as a Photo.

 

[Pangaea]

Just checked out imgur, and although finding information on that blasted site was almost like hunting for a needle in a haystack in a pitch black room, I did find out that they have private pictures too. Couldn't find jack on there about deletion policy or sizes or much else, but at least according to Wikipedia, imgur don't delete pictures any more. Not sure if you can do it yourself, like you easily can on Photobucket.

I've got no ads (spam) on Photobucket, but that's because I use spam blockers, and other tools to prevent naughty behaviour by websites. The site doesn't look right due to it, but as long as I can upload pictures and fetch the link to them, that's all I need.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Pangaea:

Was that upload issue you had yesterday solved for you? Because I got the same issue and believe it's also since the big maintenance yesterday that lasted several hours, and I still get upload-failures, but not every time! I was able to upload at least 3 pictures yesterday with simply trying very often, and after I allowed non-secure connections in https-everywhere, it sometimes worked, but I couldn't find any scheme.
Do me a favour, and try to upload 10 pictures towards Photobucket and check, if this works 100%. The only explanation I find possible is, that there's a problem on Photobucket, because I also got the issue in an unmodified IE9. If it works for you, a possible explanation for the failure could be Windows itself because you use Linux, and then, Photobucket support should get this info.

 

[Pangaea]

I just uploaded one picture and it worked, but more slowly than usual. Yesterday it looked to fail several times, though eventually all pictures got up there with copies of the one I tried to upload, so although I didn't think it succeeded, eventually they all got there. They obviously have some issues, though, because it's much slower than it should be -- even navigating on the site is pretty slow.

I reckon the problem is on their end, not ours. Hopefully they sort it soon, otherwise I'll probably have to sign up to imgur and learn to use their interface.

edit: I tried uploading 13 pictures to a new folder. 12 of them got up pretty fast, but it takes forever to finish the last one, and to update the page to show the pictures. Something is clearly wrong.

edit-again: Apparently I have an imgur account; signed up 2 years ago :shrug: Looks pretty decent to be fair, and without the thousand extra "functions" on Photobucket that problably few use, and is just there for them to try to make a buck. Pictures still not finished uploading to Photobucket either. Slower than watching paint dry. Unless they get their house in order quickly, maybe it's time for me too to jump ship, err, house.

 

[Jastrow]

Well, like everyone else, my economy is crashed...

10 cities, pop 45
a respectable 175 bpt at 100@, but ~50 at break even (~15%)

Techs: CS (oracle-sligned), Litterature, Constuction, monarch, and IW. Calender in 1 turn.

I have GLH, HG, and Oracle. Pyramid due in 10 turns, Great Lib in about 5 turns. Thebes (last hatty city on continent) should fall in about 7 turns.

 

[Pangaea]

That doesn't look terribly bad, Jastrow. I'm kind of envious of all the people getting the GLH, and even Oracling CS. That's pretty damn sweet! How many cities did you have when you went that deep with the Oracle?

 

[Seraiel]

Well, like everyone else, my economy is crashed...

10 cities, pop 45
a respectable 175 bpt at 100@, but ~50 at break even (~15%)

Techs: CS (oracle-sligned), Litterature, Constuction, monarch, and IW. Calender in 1 turn.

I have GLH, HG, and Oracle. Pyramid due in 10 turns, Great Lib in about 5 turns. Thebes (last hatty city on continent) should fall in about 7 turns.

I had to laugh about that one. Oracle CS slingshot with 0 . I'll mention this whenever someone will write something that doubts, that Deity is not atually more difficult, but that it's a completely different game.

 

[Jastrow]

Deity is a different game, but I have slung CS on deity as well, depending on the map...

How much gold we have is not the only consideration. I slung on the same date you did, and 900BC for an Oracle sling on emperor is a little bit risky, but not ridiculous.

Incidentally, in my case I knew it was fairly safe to wait this long... Hindu founded very late (2560), and Buddhism founded by Hatty. I could see Hatty, (and Biz and JC) did not have Priesthood until very near my completion date. It was therefore a pretty decent gamble to push to envelope a little bit with the 900 BC date.

 

[Seraiel]

Deity is a different game, but I have slung CS on deity as well, depending on the map...

How much gold we have is not the only consideration. I slung on the same date you did, and 900BC for an Oracle sling on emperor is a little bit risky, but not ridiculous.

Incidentally, in my case I knew it was fairly safe to wait this long... Hindu founded very late (2560), and Buddhism founded by Hatty. I could see Hatty, (and Biz and JC) did not have Priesthood until very near my completion date. It was therefore a pretty decent gamble to push to envelope a little bit with the 900 BC date.

I didn't laugh because I found it ridiculous, I laughed because it's so absurd for me on this map. 0 , all players struggling to research at all, Oracle basically the only chance to get any tech past Alpha early, and you get the most valuable economical tech that raises production greatly and provides a superb military unit which is available with the Iron nearby. I didn't even see anymore, that you actually got the GLH, the HGs and build the Mids aswell as you conquer Hatty. Seriously, I have no idea, how you can also have 10 cities, which is the same number that I had, but have 50% more population in them. Ok, Hatty is a much simpler target as Bismarck, the GLH and HGs are probably conquered because somewhere your game also has a limit on resources and Oracle + early war are already about all resources that are available without Workerstealing... I'm curious, what you will make out of this game. This is the best position by so far from its description, that I wonder how much time you'll need for Bismarck and Julius and maybe Cathy, depending on which victory condition you go for. Imo., anything but Space would be a waste, but you already (seem to have? ) won Space in the last GOTM, which is officially over, though results haven't been published yet, but I think it's ok to talk about it, as no further games may be submitted. Basically, your position is so good, that I'd expect a #1 in each possible victory condition if movement speed not often would be the limit in Domination and Conquest. So free Space & Diplo as it looks. Ofc., I don't wanna hold you off playing for Time, Culture or anything else, just really astonished how such a result is possible.
I btw. assume from your description, that you also had Alpha before oracling. I wouldn't even have known how to research CoL with my resources. Will be interesting to read in the writeup which you hopefully will make, which path you researched and how you were able to get so much tech while getting a city count that high aswell.

 

[Jastrow]

I wish some of the wonders were conquered, but no, I was not lucky enough to have my neighbors build any. I had to build them all myself.

It is not clear to me that I have the best position however... From what I can tell, BiC is ahead of my in most areas.

Part of the key to Oracling CS was realizing early how research poor this map is. I started (as I assume many others) with AH + hunting. by the time I had research those two techs, I had enough scouting to know there were no coin tiles in range. I also had met 3 neighbours, and I knew they all had BW (they revolted to slavery) fairly early, so they were teching half-decently.

Based on that, I decided to hard-beeline alphabet. I research only mining to keep the worker busy, and then went writing (built a cheap library, and began running specialist) and Alpha. Alpha came in to T51, and I traded for BW, pott, and fish, and a few turns later for IW and sailing.

From the information on the research screen, I could tell that Oracle would likely be going a bit late, so I decided to go for it. Researched math first for the chop enhancement, and then CoL on the way to CS. The research was helped along by 4 scientist specialist. This btw means I also have an Academy up, which I forgot to mention.


Not sure how many cities I had when Oracle came in. I will have to check that in the save.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Based on that, I decided to hard-beeline alphabet. I research only mining to keep the worker busy, and then went writing (built a cheap library, and began running specialist) and Alpha. Alpha came in to T51, and I traded for BW, pott, and fish, and a few turns later for IW and sailing.

From the information on the research screen, I could tell that Oracle would likely be going a bit late, so I decided to go for it. Researched math first for the chop enhancement, and then CoL on the way to CS. The research was helped along by 4 scientist specialist. This btw means I also have an Academy up, which I forgot to mention.

I like that a lot, well played, sir !
I bet you had 5 cities when the Oracle came in.

My position is probably more advanced than yours but not by a lot. I have a higher research potential but the gold drain is also huge. From 1 AD, I'll need at least some 20 turns to get to a decent-to-good research rate.
I guess you'll need less time to push the research up but it's not clear you'll be able to research faster overall.

I think the main differences that play in my favour came from how we took down Hattie :
- running 4 scientists to my 2 decreased your production and delayed your attack on Hattie ;
- I had an early Chariot scouting Hattie's 2 cities and it spotted only 3 units (2 Archers, 1 WC) when I could start chopping into Swords, committing only a single city to it. I suspect you could scout her only a little later than me ;
- Hattie improved some outer seafoods, had a galley, but no settler loaded when I attacked ;
- she didn't settle the islands : I did so in her stead and that gives me a better GLH. I think those last two points are crucial.

Which means that, at 1 AD, I've got 3 island cities for trade routes.
Also the 4 extra cities matter... Not sure where those come from. I guess I whipped settlers more agressively than you did, including in Paris (so as to ensure some Western grabs on Freddie's peninsula). This is another area where the lost production from running 4 scientists may matter. For Paris' management, I mostly focused on not popping the GP there (because Oracle) but instead secured the first two GPs with Orleans (pure scientist production).

EDIT : emphasizing research for so long (900 BC) has costs of its own (production), which I could evade from much earlier (1880 BC).

Advantages for your game mostly come from the earlier Bureaucracy, extra production and earlier wonders (I got a 675 BC GLH, btw). Earlier HG for you doesn't matter much but I'm still quite far from the Great Library. That does matter for later bulbs.

 

[Seraiel]

I didn't see, that BiC had 14 cities and 68 population .

Running 4 Scientists explains how you were able to reach CoL, I only ran 2 because I hardcore produced Settlers in the capital. If you also had 5 cities when you built Oracle, then I must be doing something wrong in the game, and I wouldn't know what, because I went the same Alpha-beeline that you did (only that I researched Fishing additionally because I founded the two seafood city in the NE) .
The additional Wonders are probably explained by the fact that I went for a big army while you built Wonders. If you now tell me, you got 15 Maces aswell, GOTM might turn out as a similar experience for me than GM-134, where WastinTime won 2000 and Kaitzilla 1000y earlier than me.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

To be fair with you, Seraiel, I don't think the spot you chose to settle played in your favour.
I don't think, either, that it helped you to attack Germany first, rather than Egypt.


I'll probably be off of this thread, now. I've played further into the game and my posts probably would get influenced.

 

[Jastrow]

No, no maces for me. Indeed, I dont even have the religious tech you need for them yet.

I will check how many cities I had next time I fire up the game. From my vague memory of the order of things, I suspect it was 4, but could easily be wrong.

 

[Pangaea]

The reason I asked is because I had 3 cities when going for the Oracle and didn't dare to settle another one (the un-jungled horse) because I didn't want to further hurt the tech rate. With 4 or 5, I've no idea how you managed to get so deep with the Oracle, though admittedly there was probably much less competition for it in this game than what is usual.

I've played further too now, and I'm dying to write about it, but shall have to postpone that until the final thread. Good luck to everybody, it will be interesting to see what people go for, and hopefully some educational writeups too.