BOTM03 First Spoiler

[DynamicSpirit]

BOTM03 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in BOTM03, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

• You must have reached at least 500 AD in your game, OR
• You have submitted your entry

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not discuss anything post 500 AD.
• Please do not name any civs or discuss any events in any locations that are not reachable by galley.

So how was noble with an obviously poor start? Conquered the world yet? Did you start by going hunting for resources or did you put up with the miserable tiles I left you in the starting screenshot? Managed to build any Carracks yet? (Sorry, I know, if you did, you're not allowed to discuss whether they found anything off-continent in this spoiler. I shouldn't have asked...)

 

[OctavianFlu]

I moved my settler to the plains hill in the west, as my warrior started to scout the horrific land to the west (thanks DynamicSpirit), and finally made my way to the directly south where there was a good location for second city. I met Japan not soon after that, where I declared war because a helpless worker was improving a tile. I could see now why the advanced saves would have had 2 archers near by. I built 3rd city ontop of stone, and pretty much worked the tiles with either farms, or cottages, while trying to build my economy up, while I waiting for Ironworking (because there was no bronze nearby)....and then later found that there was no Iron either. Thanks *Again ... Eitherway I found copper by scopping out the land north across the water south of Elizabeth. Settled there, whil starting to settle on the small islands north west of where we settled. BY 500 AD I had 5 cities, and was starting to build Swords and catapults, while researching metal casting, preparing to take Japan's capital to unit my northern city .... Guess I'll have to wait till next spoiler to tell you what happened ...

 

[JungleIII]

This is one which if just a 'little' bit of information, would have drastically changed the way I started... a hint at the Japanese location nearby. Would have taken a different approach...

Settled in place, built my powerhouse city below and one more to the East before going up with my boats to settle N/E of the Japanese. They are too strong to tackle now with their uber defensive traits....

Lots of activity above my three cities to the N/E and have to have a strong defensive/agressive force here as I see the "stacks-of-doom" pass by and attack my neighbors. Boy - BtS sure has expanded the use of these stacks with 12-15 Montezuma bad boys in a stack... Luckily I haven't experienced any due to my defenses and diplomacy.

Built Great Library, and building forces nicely, but suprisingly, staying out of any wars until 490AD. Then... attack Montezuma while he is busy attacking Elizabeth and capture his city right above me... He is nearly double my size - Am I prepared for this war???

More when we move to Final Spoiler... as the rest is beyond 500A.D.

 

[PutCashIn]

I guess I got rather lucky with my settler move at the start, although I certainly doubt any move would have been 'uninteresting.'
And I think there is iron too, with a fish? yes/no? (and one without food, but in a place that is waaay better later on than it looks like it would be now, and no, not because of extra res's)
I moved 1NE, having seen river mouth, into the maws of Tokey, who lost 2 workers and his capital, razed, he had no two extra archers coz im a contender pussycat. I feel a bit guilty.
I remade tokeys city 1N, missing the opportunity of a land bridge, doh, but I wanted a better capital.
I met 3 civs, one appeared to be accross some water, another captured a barb city on the other side of the continent from its capital, next to some horsies, I had fun chasing the workers razing their roads, as my borders expanded rapidly towards their routes accross the wilderness.
My original city reached size 5 and sat there making settlers and workers, it was, lol, almost the worst start ever, maybe the worst, and I must have had a few thousand in all the years of civ.
I dont think I had attacked anyone by 500AD, but I did have a target.
My victory plan was Time/Score, but eventually I thought hell no thats 750 turns crikey.
Early on I got a religous quest, I was tao as I was appeasing one of the fanatical AI, to settle 10 landmasses, which I did, but in true Put style I changed to free religon 3 turns befor the last galley reached its island, cancelling the quest. damm.
Epic is still wierd.
I think carracks came after 500ad, but I must say, the seem to be ~40-45% the cost of a transport yet carry 50% the troops, so crappy citys can still build a useful 'little' transport in a reasonable amount of time, whilst a bigger city pumps out transports.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I settled the western PH, away from Toku and regret that. I did get a couple early free workers from him (too bad they can't keep that cute japanese hats as they get their new passports ) but did not finish him early enough which was a costly mistake, those damn protective archers on a hill are a pain. With no copper/horses I settled my 5th city (?) next to iron/banana/stone river site ca. 1100BC.

I then proceeded to take London (eliminating Liz 400BC) and other smaller japanese cities before finishing Toku ca.200AD. By then I had 11 cities and economy had tanked.

However, at that point I realized I had taken a holy city (London), along with a Gprophet from SH/Oracle (which also granted me Machinery) to bulb Theo. It seemed to me a nice opportunity to try the new religious victory, so I started to build the AP and beelined Optics for the missionary spam (although normal caravels would do just as fine as carracks for this task).

Too bad at that time I still hadn't read the AP/diplo bug reports from the previous BOTMs but that is a topic for the next spoiler.

 

[humbe]

I first played the challenger game, but I was playing too risky, lagging too behind montezuma and japan in military techs. I was concentrating on a lot of non-combat techs to get powerhouses going. Montezuma and japan suddenly gangbanged me with coordinated attacks which brought down my next biggest city and capitol being too close to react in time. These guys are really aggressive. And I have never seen a civ AI do an attack that looked so planned.. I felt safe enough with 3-4 archers in hill city with walls together with an axeman or two, but they trashed them up easy using catapults and elephants. So I restarted with contender save. (Just for fun of course) Going to go a much more military path. Sounds like a much safer route to go to not get surprised too bad. Used the same starting moves and city locations as first time around.

I went NE with warrior to look for ocean resources, but saw none. As I hate having 3 ocean squares in fat cross without being able to build improvements such as lighthouse, I moved SE and settled there, as the land seemed to continue south. Lots of rivers there, so figured late on, this could be a powerhouse city with fat cross filled with cottages on most tiles, and lots of them by rivers. That gave me 2 tundra squares in fat cross, but otherwise prime country, apart from the lack of resources. Went for BW first while building worker. Then chopped two settlers. By the time I got the first I had seen Japan as their cultural border came within sight of my city. I then scouted towards them and founded my first city on the coast just south of Kyoto, far enough north to avoid the tundra. Used my initial warrior to fogbust in front of settler. Chopped two more settlers out straight away.. With 50% settler bonus, early chopping and noble who can tolerate some cities, this seemed like a no brainer. 3rd city was sw of capitol, getting stone, fish, fur. And 4th city nw of capitol, where I guess many of you went west to found your capitol. My first galley from second city found copper location up west and I foudned 5th city there. Prime location, 2 clam, copper & cow and lots nice hills for extra production.

At 460 AD the copper city is my production powerhouse with 22 hammers at size 9, I've added another fish/iron city out in the ice, I'm currently building up an army of macemen and catapults for my coming war with Japan. Got 3 warriors, 4 axemen, 8 macemen, 3 spearmen and 6 catapults, so I'm ready to go. Currently tuned down my research rate to get money to upgrade axemen. Researching optics and can soon build my UU. Hoping to use it to get be first to go around the world, and be in position to broke techs between AIs that haven't met. It's noble though, so I guess I might end up outteching AIs instead.

I've built the colossus and the great lighthouse. Both looks nice as most my cities looks to become coastal. Colussus will probably help my research a lot here. I've ignored the rest of the wonders concentrating on pulling out my army. Aestethics/literacy wonders aren't built yet though. Maybe I still have a shot at those after my war.

Later in the game I'm planning for sushi corp and/or biology early to turn my original city into large powerhouses. Takes a bit of time to grow currently, but as there's little resources, health/happy caps are fairly low currently too..

 

[whb]

My first attempt at challenger (the hard one!).

The description on the download page might have said "I don't trust you not to sneak attack", but I stole Japan's worker anyway. Lost one warrior, but the second warrior (and the worker survived).

I managed to settle the whole rotten area south of Kyoto.

And that's about the best I can say for the game so far! Struggled on, sort of doing ok, and then made a stupid stupid mistake, but that's a story for the second spoiler thread.

By the way, is it just me or did anyone else get the feeling that the opponents also started with no techs?

 

[azzaman333]

Moved my settler 4W 1N to settle on a plains-hill/river/coast, and started building a warrior while wait for research on Bronze Working to finish. However, my plan changed to warrior rushing Tokugawa as soon as I realised not only would he never open his borders, but would be a real pain to kill later. So, amassing 4/5 warriors on his border, I waited for his second warrior to move 2 turns away from Kyoto and pounced. Naturally, his warrior was just on a road outside the city, and stupidly attacked my stack resulting in his warrior dying and one of my warriors having CR I to attack next turn. So, I attacked, and prayed to the RNG which toyed with me, killing off my first 3/4 warriors, leaving my last warrior with a 60-70% chance of victory. The RNG decided to be nice, and thus I was able to capture Kyoto. This eventually left me with the problem of fighting half the barbarians on the continent since Liz decided to steal the Great Wall 2 turns before I finished it, but fortunatley Monty ended up taking the brunt of the attacks from the barbarians. This allowed me to, as in the Ethiopia game, blitz my way through the tech tree. And I can't remember anymore that was definately before 500AD.

 

[Rashiminos]

I moved my starting warrior to the NE, which clarified the starting position immensely. From that point I moved the settler NE and then E, settling the right side of the river on the coast on turn 3. Attempted to rush Kyoto with two warriors and failed. Decided to go with 3 warriors, stole a worker, and captured the city in 2800 BC (contender save).

expanded to cow/sugar/silk/rice city Guimares, cow/banana/crab/2clams city Oporto, and iron banana/pig city Coimbra (later my capital)

I adopted Christianity from Elizabeth and made chummy with English/Aztecs/Incans


I was really glad that the (somewhat) early victory against Tokugawa allowed me access to the valuable land behind him. I was dismayed with the awful (#$%^ty) around the start position.

Around 500 AD I was planning to start a war with England who had founded Christianity and built some nice wonders. Itching to say more about my submission, but at a later time

 

[mabraham]

This is my first xOTM (and first forum post) I chose Contender for my first effort, having played through BOTM02 and posting a decent but boring 1856AD Culture win.

I settled in the start location, figuring on a quick Bronze Working, and then chopping out settlers or warriors according to the position. My warrior looped west and south through the useless land (I'll bung a National Park city out there later if the game goes that long!) before finally finding Tokugawa. Since I was looking hemmed in, and he never agrees to Open Borders unless you've been to war with him, and that capital on a hill was going to be ugly with protective archers, I needed to hit him right the hell now. So I declared and stole a worker, and chopped out seven warriors. That was overkill, especially as all he did was build a second warrior, and then chuck it away attacking my stack. So four of my warriors in the stack never even saw action on Kyoto. I sent the stack on exploration and defence duty. I quickly built two more cities NW and NE of Kyoto and planned to shift my palace to Kyoto ASAP - achieved in 1225BC. I did an Oracle-CoL slingshot in 1350BC.

In 700BC, my "army" of 8 warriors and 2 archers was more powerful than both Lizzy and Monty.

So how was noble with an obviously poor start? Conquered the world yet? Did you start by going hunting for resources or did you put up with the miserable tiles I left you in the starting screenshot? Managed to build any Carracks yet?

Sweet. No. Stayed put. Yes - 490AD

:snip: 3rd city was sw of capitol, getting stone, fish, fur. And 4th city nw of capitol, where I guess many of you went west to found your capitol. My first galley from second city found copper location up west and I foudned 5th city there. Prime location, 2 clam, copper & cow and lots nice hills for extra production.

We're playing different maps. My SW fish-fur city has stone. There's no copper anywhere out west. There's a 2*clam+copper+cow a fair way NE of the Japanese start position, though.

:snip: and thus I was able to capture Kyoto. This eventually left me with the problem of fighting half the barbarians on the continent since Liz decided to steal the Great Wall 2 turns before I finished it, but fortunatley Monty ended up taking the brunt of the attacks from the barbarians.

I did similarly, but really saw very few barbarians. Lizzie was a complete wimp. She had only one city at the time I had four, and when she had Nottingham on Stone east of her capital, with Iron in its fat cross, and I was lacking both, I crunched her out quickly. She popped a GS on the way, and left me an academy in London. Sweet. I'd just built my own in Kyoto, having made my religious building in Kyoto in 600BC

I researched Theology somewhere in there (got the religion), and started to build the AP and Pyramids (430AD and 250AD) while finishing Lizzy off (40AD). At 415AD I was the most powerful civ with 2 swords, 5 axes, 1 spear, 4 warriors, 5 archers and 2 catapults. WTH??? I must play too much Emperor :grin:

I got Optics in 460AD (would have been much earlier if I didn't want the AP), and got my first carrack out in 490AD for the gloat-value!

The plan from here is to finish CS, get some Macemen, roll Monty's 7 cities, build some carracks, pwn Huyana, and then roll the other island. There will be a solid religious block over there, because four of the five religions are in my neck of the woods. My pyramids city is running an Engineer for a late Mining Inc if I need it, and my city with the Temple of Artemis will switch to running merchants when the time comes to run at a GM for Sushi. I'm really expecting to roll to a domination victory long before then. Or I could do some cheesy religious job, or gun the tech-tree for space?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

By the way, is it just me or did anyone else get the feeling that the opponents also started with no techs?

That may be the impression given because the AI can be pretty slow at teching on noble difficulty. I only removed techs from the player, not the AIs, on the challenger map.

 

[humbe]

We're playing different maps. My SW fish-fur city has stone. There's no copper anywhere out west. There's a 2*clam+copper+cow a fair way NE of the Japanese start position, though.

Think you confused my numbering.. Added some screens.. I'm playing at high res though, so dunno how they come out on web.. I stuck out with the country that was available. Thinking not rushing early, I could expand faster. I didn't see japan before their borders popped as I was scouting west first. And when I did I was already well on the way for my 1st settler. I felt like Japan might have gotten archers before I was in a position to attack him with enough warriors anyways.

 

[Phatkarp]

This is my first XOTM as well. Since I'm a relative noob, I'm playing the easy save.

I settled 1E1S so I wouldn't have ocean tiles. Turns out I got tundra instead.

After getting boxed into this hell-hole by Tokugawa, I endeavored to kill him. After going all the way to iron-working, I found iron way out in the middle of the icebox. So I settled on it. With four cities (including ice-box) I built a "stack of doom" of 4 swords, 2 axes, and 2 archers (left over from before I had I.W.). Toku had 2 archers in his capital. Those 2 archers wiped out my swords, but my axes took them out. After rebuilding my sword stack, I finished off his core. He had one distant city he apparently took from the barbs, so he is not dead yet.

After smoking Toku, I settled back and rebuilt my economy. I was smacked, however, but unhappiness at size 5, which really put a damper on things. I had ZERO religions, which wasn't helping things. As things stood at 500 AD I was trying to polish up my economy so I could really begin specializing my cities and preparing for my next move.

 

[mabraham]

We're playing different maps. My SW fish-fur city has stone. There's no copper anywhere out west. There's a 2*clam+copper+cow a fair way NE of the Japanese start position, though.

Arrgh. There's a "not" missing in my second sentence. My SW fish-fur city does not have stone, it has marble. See my screenshots.

Think you confused my numbering.. Added some screens.. I'm playing at high res though, so dunno how they come out on web.. I stuck out with the country that was available. Thinking not rushing early, I could expand faster. I didn't see japan before their borders popped as I was scouting west first. And when I did I was already well on the way for my 1st settler. I felt like Japan might have gotten archers before I was in a position to attack him with enough warriors anyways.

Well I sounded confused, but not about numbering. Turning on the resource bubbles would have been useful for this discussion

 

[blackbird12]

First time posting for BOTM results. Actually, I'm doing really well this go round. Its 500AD, Japan and England are ancient memories, and Monty is on the ropes. He's only got 3 cities left to his name, and I've got a couple stacks of maces and cats ready to finish him off. Then I've got the whole mainland to myself.

My science is suffering a bit, but I just need to get optics ASAP so I can start launching attacks overseas. I dont plan to attack Huayna since we're bossom buddies and swapping techs. I've focused all spy points on him to see what he's researching.

I think the key early on was attacking Japan right away. Instead of chopping a settler like I normally would, I chopped 4 warriors and attacked. Turned out I only wasted one. From there, I stole an English worker and camped a couple warriors in Lizzies neighborhood. In hindsight, I should have CF'd her and came back later. She built a massive stack of archers behind walls that it took me a large stack of cats to get rid of. She still managed to get settlers out anyway.



Did a CS slingshot, which is normally pretty easy on noble level. Especially w/ marble nearby. Oracle is in capital. Built a forge, hanging gardens and pyramids in the city to the west of capital (getting stone to north really helped). That should spit out GEs. Built the great lighthouse in city to the east. Will try for colossus if I can get copper hooked up quick enuf. That will spit out GMs. I'm fighting GPs from the oracle by running scientists in the capital. Not easy though, since its such a crap starting position.

So now I need to focus on hopping the pond to spread some love overseas. Unfortunately, I'm always weakest in the mid to late game, so I never score in the top tier.

*EDIT* Ha, the very next turn, I traded CS for Currency, Monotheism and Aesthetics. Looks like my plan to keep Huayna happy is paying off.

 

[Cabledawg]

What a crappy start....I settled 1 off the coast on the plains hill...doh. No worries, I ended up moving the capitol anyways.

I stole an early worker from Toky. After finding no bronze, I chopped out 5 warriors, declared on Toky, took another worker, and razed the city.

Completed Oracle and took Metal Casting. I founded Guamareas near the double clam, copper, bannanas, and cows. It also had hills for days...it was gonna be my capitol and a production monster. That city built alot of wonders...too many to name.

In 80BC, I captured London, and at 5BC, the English were no more. London became my Natl Epic and Moai.

325AD saw me declaring on Monty. Took about 4 cities before getting peace for a few techs. By 500AD, I had about 8 cities and was looking at Tasty Cuzco...thats the next spoiler.

 

[humbe]

Arrgh. There's a "not" missing in my second sentence. My SW fish-fur city does not have stone, it has marble. See my screenshots.

Oh.. Right.: Yeah.. It's of course marble in my map too.. I just mixed in my writeup.. My fault

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Oh.. Right.: Yeah.. It's of course marble in my map too.. I just mixed in my writeup.. My fault

I think this is a big conspiracy. You're all working together trying fool me into thinking I've done something wrong and accidentally given different people different maps with different resources. Well it won't work!

 

[caeru71]

Settled on the plains hill 2 turns west. 2nd city SE of capital to get marble and sea resource. Killed Toku with warriors and archers and kept Kyoto, built Guimares between Lisbon and Kyoto. By 500ad had added three cities above Kyoto and building lots of cottages to head for a space race victory. At peace with neighbours, no carracks yet and founded no religions.

 

[DuncanIdaho v.1]

Settled on the plains hill 2 turns west. 2nd city SE of capital to get marble and sea resource. Killed Toku with warriors and archers and kept Kyoto, built Guimares between Lisbon and Kyoto. By 500ad had added three cities above Kyoto and building lots of cottages to head for a space race victory. At peace with neighbours, no carracks yet and founded no religions.

That's what I did, too, but seeing three uber-defensive archers on the hill Kyoto was on made me wait until I built stacks of swords and axes to take him down. Having read the other posts, I could have attacked earlier and done the same job with warriors. Oh, well.

Lizzy is friendly with me, and Monty is going down, but slowly. War weariness sure takes its toll in this game.