BOTM03 First Spoiler

blastoidstalker · Feb 24, 2008

The war with the Japanese tribe.

My settler moved west for two turns to start to settle on the plains hill, unfortunately there are no resources in sight but the hills river and forest make it a satisfactory place to start. I research BW first and work the 2 hammer forest to take advantage of the extra hammer bonus. Notice a nice secondary city site to the south with marble and fish. I swing my warrior back east where he finds Toku and a worker on his cow. He only has one warrior in the capital so I take his worker (declare war 3525BC). My first worker at home first builds a mine on the grasslands hill and starts chopping in tandem with the captured worker once he gets back to my capitol. Next thousand years is cutting down trees making warriors in pairs and sending them over to take on toku. Once I get a stack of six I moved onto his cow to launch the assault. At this point he has two warriors but thankfully did not have archery of BW. In 2975BC Nasty battle for Kyoto where I lose 4 warriors. I lost an 80% battle with my next to last battle and one a 97% with my last warrior. A lost there would have been devastating for the game. Toku is eliminated and task at hand turns to rapid expansion and some marble wonders to get ahead. I do not know if Japan ever got in contact with any other CIV.

Expansion

Next set of turns focus on rapid expansion. Placed city directly west of fur, then north of original starting spot, chopped the forest around this city to produce two more settlers to take sports NW of Kyoto on the coast near the gold and NE in a spot with five food resources for a great person city. During this time I find Elizabeth and Monty. I build Oracle to get COL for the courthouses and a religion (pick Islam). Start on great lighthouse and pray I get it.

Tech

Spoiler :

City placement and use

Spoiler :

The Trait of Jao’s that leveraged the most in the early game was the bonus to Settler Production. Unlike others in this thread I chose not to go the military route, taking the land available to me instead and pushing for a fast diplomatic in the future. I also have set up the city placement for trade routes 10-12 cities are coastal and Bee-lining to astronomy. This should help boost my economy even more to help me get to mass media ASAP.
I wonder if going for music (great artist) slowed me down in hindsight.

Future cities will fill out gaps closer to home and set up more domestic overseas trade routes

Researching astronomy at 505 AD

Rycheman · Feb 24, 2008

This is my first GOTM so i decided to take the Contender save, since we already knew from DS that we had a bad starting position.

I also decided to settle on the plains hill west of our starting position.My second city was built on the west bank of the river heading towards Kyoto.When i realised Tokugawa was our nearset neighbour i was not really close enough to plan a rush on his capital.Also those protective archers on a hill in a cultural city didn't seem too appealing.It was at this point i decided to attack him only when i had cats and some metal resource [wherever that was]

My third city was settled south of my capital on the coast to claim the fur,fish, and yes it was marble.Missed the Oracle by 3 turns.Built a forth city on one of the islands NW to claim stone,fish and clams.Currently building Moai in this city.By the time i finished IW i still had no copper or horses.

What a crappy site for iron ,right in the middle of the freezer.However,as i had no other resources i had to place a 5th city in the icebox to claim it.Then i began my military build up.I built mainly swords and cats with a few axes.At this point i had no idea what lay in Japanese lands as Toku never opened borders.My assault went well.I captured his capital first,defended by loads of protective archers fortified on a hill.Thank god for those cats.Next i razed a coastal city and captured two other nice cities.

It's currently 500ad and i have given Japan peace while i heal my troops to take out his last city.I have 8 cities, 5 of my own and 3 Japanese.I think i will move my capital to Kyoto shortly.My religion is Islam,same as everyone else apart from Liz who is Christian.I'm thinking kill Japan off,switch to Christianity then go after Monty before he decides to come after me.

Nice game with a nice map and good twist with the bad start.

bcool · Feb 24, 2008

I'm playing the gauntlet game, challenger save, going for conquest victory. I settled on the plains hill 4 west and 1 north of the starting location. After realizing how poor the starting location really was, I decided to try for the islands I could see to the northwest. I passed by the nearest island (again with no resources!), and put my city on the next island with the stone, the fish and the clam. I continued to settle the islands, grabbing the horses on the far island, and building the great lighthouse early 900 BC and the pyramids 395 BC with the stone on the 1st island I settled. I resisted, foolishly, settling on the iron in the ice waste land. Japan refused to open borders, and I didn't think I could get through the archers. My borders eventually expanded enough to get pass him and I settled a city North of Japan near the gold. I was getting ready to tackle England after finally settling on the iron.

In retrospect I really should have set up an early city south of Japan's capital near the crab, that would have opened up the east much earlier. And enabled some early rushes at the civilizations past Japan. A difficult start, but a nice challenge. I have limited experience with quick conquest victories and I can't image my start was the best way to go. I'd love to hear other people's early strategies, and of course open to advice for the future.

Here are a few screen shots of the situation at 500 AD.

AluminumKnight · Feb 24, 2008

In my second xOTM, and first Civ4 xOTM, I took on Contender.

Beginning Moves:
I moved my warrior 1W to check out the plains hill spot. I spied some tundra and got scared, and considering there's tundra over there, there's probably more S of my settler, so I moved NE to get a spot on the coast. As soon as I settle I meet Tokugawa. I'm still thinking rush, despite the fact that if he gets archers it will be near impossible. I, of course, beeline BW and start chopping, but manage to steal a worker from Tokugawa to make it go faster.

Ancient Era:
I guess I went much safer than a lot of the early rush people. By 3000 BC I had 9 warriors to Tokugawa's two. Needless to say, I easily take Kyoto in 2925 BC. This portion of the game is me trying to grab resources. I grab the horses NE of Kyoto and expand northwards towards Monty and Liz, knowing that I will have to deal with Monty at some point, and Liz's 3 holy cities and Great Wall are tempting. In the process, I claim the Iron south of Liz.

Classical Era:
I complete the Oracle (chopped in Lisbon) for a successful Feudalism slingshot in 305 BC.

Medieval Era:
England demands I give her Feudalism a few turns after I've slingshotted it. I'm leagues ahead of her in score and I was planning on attacking her, so no thanks, Liz. Why would the AI make such a ridiculous demand?

Suddenly, in 350AD, Monty declares on Liz (I was kind of waiting for this to happen). I declare a few turns later, and Monty takes York almost immediately. I raze Nottingham easily, as she just built it, and beat Monty to London, where Liz has ONE archer defending... how disappointing...

Since I wanted York as well, in 490AD I declare on Monty, as his army is currently holed up there. I figure it's a good chance to take out his standing army without having to go into his territory.

Note that I still have not settled ANYTHING west of Lisbon. That land is just so depressing...

Comments:
I'm happy with the spot I chose to settle in the beginning. It's coastal, so I can always work the sea for enough food and coin to sustain, and I had plenty of forest to chop to build settlers, the Oracle, and military to rush Toku. It's not a good site, but moving W would have been worse.

This was the first time I'd ever rushed this early, and I did it with a little overkill. Next time, I could stop production at probably 6 or 7 warriors, just to be safe. Nevertheless, chopping a warrior army at the start of a game can be very powerful on lower difficulties, now I know that.

I'm happy with how things went in the war against the English. I beat Monty to London, and since I think he took the brunt of Liz's army, I can pick off what's left and perhaps run a campaign against Tenochtitlan. If I could eliminate Monty from my continent, I would be happy to sit and consolidate for a bit, then pump settlers to take the whole continent on my way to a Domination win. I have like 40% of the population already, but only somewhere around 15% of land.

I've uploaded some screenshots of my empire at 10AD and 505AD.

Htadus · Feb 24, 2008

The Directive
Joao woke up with a head pounding ache after being sent back in time in a whirlwind storm of electricity by an alien civilization with the directive to find them in a place called Alpha Centauri. The year is 4000 BC and he was with his family and trusted bodyguard Van De Man. The land was strange yet he knew it was not very furtile for the DynamicSpirit of the Aliens had told him that land that are to be his shall be desolate. Furthermore he recalled being told of a nearby civiliation that may hold much better lands. Joao upon seeing a plains hill to northeast, moved there to found his Capitol Lisbon.

The Early Fortunes
Soon after founding Lisbon, Joao recieved the blessing of The Sid in the form of added commece and a food in a grasland forest two leagues west. Joao's family raised a worker to cultivate the land and learned the arts of the wheel, Pottary, Bronze Work and Agriculture, while Van De Man searched the lands to the west. What De Man found chilled Joao's vains. But then he saw Mable to the South and screamed Wonders. Eventually Van De Man came back to the capito and began exploring the land to east with a another Van brother, young Van Dam. Their explorations were rewarded with the meeting of the aggressive civilization of Tokugava. The city was on aformidble hill and the two warriors defending were qualified combatants. Joao Immidiately began raising an army of untrained Van De Kamp cousins. An Army of six Vans attacked and setroyed the uncivilized Toku's and raised the city to get much needed gold that will be needed to achive the possible art of Phillosophy Sling and captured a hiding Toku worker. During the attack, the second city was founded two leagues east of Marble and began the construction of a fables Stonehenge. The the surviving 3 warriors were highly promoted and sent to discover the land to the north. When one of the warriors met the Eli of the Eng, he stole a worker from the Engs. There capitol was guarded with one unpromoted warrior. But Joao wanted to keep the financial Eli around and the city had founded an early religion and had 60% cultural defense.

The Expansion
Four more cities were quickly founded; one to claim the Gems, 3 leagues north and one west of former Tocu capitol; another south of a mountain to claim the Stone near England; another 3 north and 1 west of Copper located in a peninsula; an final one to claim gold on the plains west of gold. Both of the cities near the Land of Eng will need high culture to claim all workable land. Another city was soon established near the Horses with two food sources. This will become a production city.

By this time Joao met the remaining two close neighbores; grumpy Monty and finicky Copac. When the philosophy sling was achieved in 825 BC The gold City got the much needed cultural boost desired by founding philosophical Buddhism in the city. Unfortunately Confusionism was founded in the Gem City which did not need the cultural boost.

Due to the distance between the Capitol and all but one citiy and poor selection of opting to chase literature instead of Currency the Joaon Economy plummited to 10% of it full capacity. However once the Capitol was reestablished in the Stone City Next to EngLand and Currency was learned the reasearch capacity gradually increase to half. Two more cities were founded; one north of New Capitol in the northen Amazons. and another between Gem and Copper City.

Building Craze
During these years several other wonders were built in the fledgeling civilization. The Pyramids and the Hanging Garden in the new Capitol, Parthonan was added to the Stonehenge and Temple of Artemes was built in the Gem City. The Copper City with 4 food sources built th Great Library of Joao which would yield a handfull of Great Scientists. All cities built a grainary, Library and available Monastaries. Joao led his people toward pacifism and cast sytem after embracing Buddhism as the national religion during a golden age spirited by a Great Priest. Christian England whom Joao declared very early in the jurney to steal a worker became furious, Taoist Capec was cautious and Taoist Monty was annoyed. However Spears, axesmen, chariots and swords are protecting the northern fronts.

Other Significant Events and the Future
The Sid again blesses Joao with the option of offering 28 gold for converting 4Joaon and 4 Aztec cities to Buddhism. Since the holy shrine was built joao excaimed .....no brainer...Soon Monty would convert to Buddhism on his own.

Due to collaps of the economy, Joao did not realized his hopes of learning Education by 300 AD. The University build fest began 21 turns after 505AD.

Yet to come. Liberalism....will it be Physics or Electricity or even better.....(I don't think so) Wars......who will back stab and get beaten......who else shall us poor Joaons will meet in the future. Who knows.........

humbe · Feb 25, 2008

I'm surprised so many warrior rushed Toku.. Personally I waited for catapults, and rather boated my troops past Toku until then. As I'm just playing this game to test things out, I tried starting over to see how easy warrior rushing was.. 3 warriors vs toku's one and he came on top all the times I tried. (Tried at some different times to see how likely this was to happen). With 5 warriors against 2 I lost 4 of 5 tries or so too.. As it's such a setback failing the rush having wasted a lot of production and not built any settlers, I find it strange that so many goes for this. Do you manage to promote your warriors before attacking? I'd reckon barracks take too much time, and as you're rushing you're not likely to have gotten promotions from animals, apart from maybe the first warrior you start with. Chopping for warriors also seemed to waste hammers as there seemed to be a limit to how much of it was transferred to next build. 5 warriors against two seemed far too risky for me, and if you're going much above this, I'd think you run the risk of Toku suddenly getting archery too, really spoiling the plans.

Of course it was a loss not to have Toku's excellent bridge city site before catapults, but alternative seems very risky to me.

redemption438 · Feb 25, 2008

Contender save

Ugh... I took my settler west looking for FOOD, and settled after 4 turns of not finding any... :cringe:

Realized too late that Tokugawa was just a few tiles away from the starting spot. I stole a worker from him but decided to wait to launch the real assault. That was a big mistake - looks like the best starts were all warrior rushes. I kept thinking I would find copper, or horses, or iron... or something. Finally added a city next to iron across the sea to the north, preferring this to the ice mountain iron. After that, I introduced Toku's archers to my crossbows...

Being boxed into the bad territory slowed my development. Got optics at 235AD (Oracle for Metal Casting, forge to get GE, GE bulbed Machinery, and I used a GS for Optics). Finished off Toku at about that time. At 500AD I'm exploring and preparing to wipe out Elizabeth. I was going to try conquest running only about 5-6 cities, but now I'm thinking I'll have to grow and expand to make up for a slow start.

I geared my game for an optics slingshot, but I don't think that is paying off because I haven't moved fast enough to be able to hit the overseas AIs right away. So I can say hello to them but not much else.

The comical moment was getting a random bonus of combat I to all triremes... after already starting to build carracks. Thanks, but no thanks...

mabraham · Feb 25, 2008

humbe said:
I'm surprised so many warrior rushed Toku.. Personally I waited for catapults, and rather boated my troops past Toku until then. As I'm just playing this game to test things out, I tried starting over to see how easy warrior rushing was.. 3 warriors vs toku's one and he came on top all the times I tried. (Tried at some different times to see how likely this was to happen). With 5 warriors against 2 I lost 4 of 5 tries or so too.. As it's such a setback failing the rush having wasted a lot of production and not built any settlers, I find it strange that so many goes for this. Do you manage to promote your warriors before attacking? I'd reckon barracks take too much time, and as you're rushing you're not likely to have gotten promotions from animals, apart from maybe the first warrior you start with. Chopping for warriors also seemed to waste hammers as there seemed to be a limit to how much of it was transferred to next build. 5 warriors against two seemed far too risky for me, and if you're going much above this, I'd think you run the risk of Toku suddenly getting archery too, really spoiling the plans.

Of course it was a loss not to have Toku's excellent bridge city site before catapults, but alternative seems very risky to me.

Well as I said in my post, I chopped out seven non-barracks warriors right away. I had my worker and the one I stole from him doing nothing but chopping. I got an easy time because Tokie chose to attack with one of his two defending warriors. I judged the opportunity cost of

not having the Kyoto city site,
the road-based trade connection to the presumably good land behind, and
the inhibited communication with the other AIs

were all much higher than

the risk of Tokugawa teching archery while I was chopping out my warrior army, or
out RNG-ing my warriors .

Sometimes you might see he researched BW as well from his conversion to slavery, and since he starts with Fishing and Wheel, and then he hasn't got a head start on Archery. On Noble level, he techs as fast as you. If he doesn't go for BW, then he won't have built more than one or maybe two archers from hammers, and that's if he bee-lined archery. A non-slavery Tokugawa is now a sitting duck on his nice shiny hill.

Also, you should be using your early warriors to sit on his hammer squares, after pillaging the gems mine, while you wait for the rest of the stack to arrive. You need some mutually-supporting pairs (just like real small-group combat!) so that if he does hack one of your warriors with his defending warriors, you can clean up the carcass. Any warrior you lose that way is a clear gain (provided you clean up) since you were going to get much worse odds on that warrior fortified in a city on a hill behind culture borders. This also suggests you should be trolling with a single warrior on non-road grassland/plains next to both your assembling army and his city. :lol:

It would have been a big difference if Tokugawa had started with a defensible hammer resource, and had defended it - e.g. a gems plains hill or something.

azzaman333 · Feb 25, 2008

humbe said:
I'm surprised so many warrior rushed Toku.. Personally I waited for catapults, and rather boated my troops past Toku until then. As I'm just playing this game to test things out, I tried starting over to see how easy warrior rushing was.. 3 warriors vs toku's one and he came on top all the times I tried. (Tried at some different times to see how likely this was to happen). With 5 warriors against 2 I lost 4 of 5 tries or so too.. As it's such a setback failing the rush having wasted a lot of production and not built any settlers, I find it strange that so many goes for this. Do you manage to promote your warriors before attacking? I'd reckon barracks take too much time, and as you're rushing you're not likely to have gotten promotions from animals, apart from maybe the first warrior you start with. Chopping for warriors also seemed to waste hammers as there seemed to be a limit to how much of it was transferred to next build. 5 warriors against two seemed far too risky for me, and if you're going much above this, I'd think you run the risk of Toku suddenly getting archery too, really spoiling the plans.

Of course it was a loss not to have Toku's excellent bridge city site before catapults, but alternative seems very risky to me.

2 key reasons why I attacked Toku with warriors.

1) Tokugawa doesn't open his borders, effectively cutting you off from the rest of the world until much later in the game.

2) He had Grassland/Gems. Big science boost, needed it for myself rather than an AI who doesn't trade.

3) Remembing BotM 1, the best games warrior-rushed London. Since this was a level lower, I figured I had a good chance of being able to pull it off despite being an average player. Plus, not taking Kyoto leaves you with basically nothing to work with so even if you fail you aren't really losing much compared to not even attempting a rush.

AluminumKnight · Feb 25, 2008

@humbe:

You didn't make enough warriors in your test. Remember that Toku gets free combat I. Combine this with Fortify and the warrior's 25% city defense, and you definitely need more than 3 warriors. It looks like you needed to chop about 6 or 7 warriors to be pretty safe (I personally chopped 8 + my original, but that seemed to be overkill).

Rashiminos · Feb 25, 2008

humbe said:
I'm surprised so many warrior rushed Toku..

I think DS made a strong hint about it with one of the Challenger handicaps. Something about what two archers given to the nearest rival can stop.

mabraham · Feb 25, 2008

azzaman333 said:
2 key reasons why I attacked Toku with warriors.

1) Tokugawa doesn't open his borders, effectively cutting you off from the rest of the world until much later in the game.

Actually, he will open borders, but only after you've been on the same side as him in a war. So that comes to much the same thing here.

BSmith1068 · Feb 25, 2008

azzaman333 said:
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.

I had a very similar start. I founded on the same tile as you, but regretted it as soon as I found Japan was so close to the starting tile. I went Bronze working, and built a worker first, then went for the warrior rush (with chopping) to get me some better land cuz I knew there wasn't much for me in the starting area.

My stack comprised of 6 warriors, one of which had CR1. I was up against 2 warriors in Kyoto. Unfortunately the RNG gods were not nice to me. I lost all 6 warriors, and didn't kill any of his. Now I am in trouble.

The rest of my early game was trying to expand as best I could in the bad space while building my military to eventually get Japan. I couldn't do it until construction with cats and swordsmen. Unfortunately by 500 AD (can't remember exactly when I was able to get Japan out of the equation) I was way behind in tech, having only been able to focus on military. I built exactly 0 wonders and founded 0 religions.

Even though this is Noble, the poor start and bad luck in the beginning is keeping me way down.

BSmith1068 · Feb 25, 2008

humbe said:
I'm surprised so many warrior rushed Toku..

Like others have said - the rewards of being able to remove him from the game were really high, while not doing so early would hamper development for the entire game.

I had 2 reasons for going after him quick:

1.) I had no good land. I needed his better land as early as possible if I was going to be able to get any kind of good victory out of the game.

2.) Toku is a pain in the you know what. if I don't take him out now, he will only be a thorn in my side. Also, due to being protective, If I wait until he has archers, my life will be double hell, especially because of reason number 1 above. With poor land and bad/non-existent resources, taking him out when he is much more powerful would be much, much harder.

My main mistake was to not consider the extra combat promotions his warriors have. I thought a 3-1 advantage in troops would be sufficient (two to weaken, one to take out). Unfortunately I lost some battles that were fairly high percentage chances for me.

In retrospect I should have taken at least 8 warriors, but I had to balance the time and resources needed to make a larger army with the chances of him getting archery and being in an overkill situation, where I wasted resources on un-needed warriors.

Phatkarp · Feb 25, 2008

I wish that I had warrior-rushed him. Instead, I settled 3 cities in the starting scrub-continent and waited for swords and axes. It worked, but now I'm burdened with some "iffy" cities.

I've never tried a warrior rush before. This game seems to beg for it.

humbe · Feb 25, 2008

Yeah.. Knowing that he wasn't teching for archery in time or that he wasn't chopping out warriors as fast as he could himself, such that you could get to 8 vs 2, it sounds sane. But I didn't know this in advance. As the warrior started on left side of settler I investigated left side first too, so didn't see Toku before his borders popped into range of my city when I was half way through producing worker. I've mostly played emperor games, so I expect AI to have archers very quickly

To me it feels like AIs prioritize military techs often.. Especially aggressive ones. As long as you manage it it's of course a big bonus to get him out early.

blastoidstalker · Feb 25, 2008

The fact that the game is on noble is key to making the rush on Toku a good gamble. He has two techs to go through to get archers, he also had a production poor city. Taking his worker prevents him from developing and I knew he had not adopted slavery. I would have abandoned the rush if i had seen an archer pop up in his capitol. I had never warrior rushed before but on this level with the huge advantages to taking him out, it was an obvious choice for me.

To me, when in war I look for a troop advantage I can leverage, in this case it was getting it done beofre the other side gained an advantage. Once Toku gets archery he gets a huge advantage over me, especialy with no copper nearby. This made it neccesary to get rid of him ASAP as it would be a long time until i would have as good of chance. Also With the land so poor in our starting position, it seemed to be the best use of the workers.

I went with six (I had a seventh warrior made, but he was 3 turns behind the rest so I just went for it) and would have failed with five.

Cabledawg · Feb 25, 2008

I think my warrior rush was a tad easier than most. After i stole the first worker, he built another. I stole it too. When i stole the second worker, he was still only size 1 with 1 warrior. I had brought 5 warriors....3 lost, and the city was autorazed.

jesusin · Feb 25, 2008

jesusin, challenger. Goal: fastest conquest.

Initial thoughts:

8 civs means land is scarce, cheap settlers so I will REX, not rush a 2 Arc neighbour. Be quick to a good unit and to Optics.

Initial turns:

We are in the S pole. Settled in not forest PH 2 turns West (and felt bad about it, at least it is coastal). Decided my capital would never reach pop2, it would be a settler and Worker pump.
Chose Mining. And Worker first. I pondered a lot about building Settler first, I discarded the idea because it would pop before proper exploration had happened and wouldn't know where to go.
Explored West throughtly. We had to get out of this hole. BW looked attractive, but so did Fishing-Sailing. I wanted to reach the islands NW thinking they were a continent soon to be completely settled, so I went for Fishing-Sailing. It combined nicely with Wor-Set-War, to immideately start a Galley, the only problem being a Worker with nothing to do.
Why Set before War? Just in case a good site appeared in the pole.
Find Toku the I-won't-OB. His two portective ARchers are in the capital, his War is continously accompaning his Worker, he is not exploring at all. No Wor steal for me, at least he won't find me and rush me.

The settler waits patiently in the capital for the Galley to be built. It is painful to have your first settler losing time like that, but I think it will be better longterm than settling a nauseabund site down here.

When the Galley is done, I consider emptying my capital and dowing Toku and the barbs, to see which of them takes the city sooner. That would give me a free palace jump and would free me from a city in the pole, far from my core. I decided against, since there were lots of trees to chop and I could build an exploring WB. I chose a second Wor next, to have both of them chopping. It paid off big time. A third one would have being even better.

New lands:

The brave Portuguese explored the world from their ships. The galley missed the connection to the N initially, but they troups were unloading-loading everyturn, they saw it and I decided that moving N was more important.

I met Eliz the turn I finished BW (t53). No copper anywhere. Go for Agg next, even if IW looks attractive. She has 1 single War in a 4pop capital. I wonder if a War rush works from the sea. Hey, this is an interesting question! Let's answer it, shall we? Worker steal her the next turn (the very same turn it had finished a chop, so it was a mistake; the way chopping works in BTS, she might have used the lumber for a settler; I should have waited 1 turn).
Worker helps the settler to explore, War pillages gold, Galley chases WB, so that she stays helpless. Settled in a place that had banana and gold in the first ring. It lloked stupid at the end of the game, with the location of iron known, etc, but I couldn't run more risks. It was very useful with the coind¡s from the gold and the couple of War it built.

The plan was to get 5 warriors at London doors in 15 turns. CF her. I missmanaged the chops, I am not used to this way of working, lost 4 worker turns waiting for overflows to disappear. Finished Agg and AH, no horses anywhere. Eliz has 3 War, two of them leave, I decide not to attack 2 on 1 from the ships, I enter with my 6 War, theirs are next to London, I should have waited one more turn for them to go further away, but I was anxious about Archery. 6 against 3, at least only one is fortified. London taken. I am out of the hole. I am on my way to a Conquest Award.

There is one thing though... a few turns before taking London, tin pops in the only hill my capital is working, giving me 6 hammers instead of 4. Why?! I hate Events. I don't need help to get out of the Pole against Noble AI, thank you, take the two hammers away and give me my game comparability back!

Just to compensate for it, I decided to work a farm in the capital and grow to pop3 in order to work two more mines. I think I would have done it anyway, but it made me feel a bit better.

The second session:

As usually happens in my games the second session was a complete disaster. I don't know how to handle war in BTS.

I settled the islands W, getting horses, settled N of London, getting Iron. Built 6 Swords, with others following and Went after Toku. If this had been Vanilla, 5 Swords would have been more than enough for the 2 Arc in Kyoto. Being BTS Toku started whipping like crazy, having 3 Arc against 6 Swo, then 4 when I gathered 8. I tried to attack once, but my first Sword died without causing any harm and I preferred to call off the attack. So there I was, losing time, my units travelling from one city to the next only to find it whipping yet another Archer. I really thought I was going to lose against Noble AI, even after my promising getting out of the Pole.

I also waited for pop4 before trying to whip a Granary which could have been had at pop2, since we are expansive...

I moved the Palace to London, which didn't result in a lot of benefit, since I had settled 3 cities in the islands W and another city in the ice for the Furs.

To complete the second session I moved a Worker next to a dark tile and the barbs ate it. Enough. I called it a day and shut down the computer.

Back on track:

1000BC stats: 6cities, 16pop. fhg=54, 26, 52. 28sust bpt, 173g. 6Wor, 6War, WB, 2Gal, 1Cha. 4Gra,Lib, Barr, 2Monu, 2Lh. 6cpt, 0GPPpt. 0WW,0NW,0GPP. 11techs: IW,sail,Wri. 0/0 cottages. 1civs killed.

- My explorers found Monte and HC, worker stole the first, then pillaged his gold mines, then signed CF when the first Jaguar appeared.
- Hire scientists in 2 cities.
- Whip units all around.
- Worker steal Monte again. Extort Masonry.
- Double worker steal on Monte.
- 9Swords plus 2 Chariots kill the 4 Kyoto defenders.
- 5Swords plis 2 chariots kill the 3 Tenoch defenders.

1AD stats: 11cities, 43pop. fhg=113,68,43. 15sust bpt, -4gpt at 0%. 9Wor,15Swo, 5Cha,4War,2Axe,3gall,1WB. All but Copper. 0cpt, 15GPPpt. 0WW,1NW,1GP,2GG. 19techs: Maths,MC, Monar,Alpha, almost Comp. No cottages. 2civs killed.

My success was killing my economy, but who cares. Just keep on taking cities to pay for the army.

I can't say no more about my exploring ships in this spoiler. I had bad luck with my GL, so I got 2 GS instead of 1GS+1GE. That delayed Carracks from 55AD to 310AD, cause I had to research Calendar and Aesthetics myself in order to bulb Machinery and Optics. I built the GreatLighthouse to give a great boost to my economy, the inter-island BTS internal traderoutes are always worth at least 2 commerce. Toku helped paying Maths for peace and HC traded Monarchy (for MC) to allow me to overcome my happiness problems.

An important question: the turn I discovered Optics I chose to build carracks, the next turn I whipped and the second turn I had 5 carracks on the water. Maybe there is a better way to do it: put some hammers into a Trirreme and when you discover Optics it is automatically transformed into a Carrack with some hammers in it, so you whip the same turn you discover Optics, saving 1 turn. Does this work? The Civilopedia says that Trirremes upgrade to Caravels and Frigates, the same as it says that warriors upgrade to Axes and Spears. But the hammers invested in a warrior are transformed only to Spear, not to Axe. How do you know if they will get transformed to Carracks or not?

BSmith1068 · Feb 25, 2008

jesusin said:
I wonder if a War rush works from the sea. Hey, this is an interesting question! Let's answer it, shall we?

Warrior rush Lizzie - now that's thinking outside the box! :goodjob:

BOTM03 First Spoiler

The Geographer

Attachments

Warlord

Deity

Conquistador

Attachments

A and L's dad

Warlord

Warlord

Deity

meh

Conquistador

Fool Prophet

Deity

Deity

Deity

Warlord

Warlord

The Geographer

King

Ant

Deity

Similar threads