Civ4 GOTM 53 First Spoiler

[jesusin]

GOTM 53 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 53, 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 alright to discuss).

Where did you settle?
Would you still do it again?
Did you get out of this island?
What victory condition are you after?

 

[adrianj]

GOTM53 - Contender Save

I thought about taking the Challenger save for this one, but I'm aiming for a fast Conquest of some kind. My warring is still my weakest skill I think, so it needs practice.

*** 4000 BC -> 2140 BC ***

I'm settling in place, because I figure the potential useful plains hill tile outweighs the 2 of being on the hill. Meh, we'll see. First build is a workboat. Funny that. First tech is BW, since pretty much all the production will come from whipping. I start off working a seafood tile = sooner BW = sooner slavery. It makes sense in my head at least.

Next tech is sailing. I really want to get off this island.

Build after first WB is a warrior. Odd choice I know, but he's there for the happy, and whipping workboats doesn't matter how much overflow I have.

After Sailing I research Mysticism -> Masonry. Great Lighthouse will be great on this map.

Once I have a galley I send a warrior to the west island. Awesome better capital site there with gold, wheat and spices. Of course, my warrior pops a hostile hut, but wins.

Antium is founded in 2140 BC.

*** 2140 BC -> 880 BC ***

So far I haven't met any AI. Maybe we're isolated. I actually tech iron working next, hoping for iron on my little island, just for a production bonus really. Sweet - it's on both. So the hill is a great tile to work. I'm pretty pleased with my decision to settle in the desert

Things are going pretty slowly. I'm in danger of missing the GLH altogether. Cumae is founded in 880 BC in the island to the NE with stone and corn. Poor organisation delays getting the worker there. Oracle still hasn't been built yet, so I'm slightly hopeful.

*** 880 BC -> 355 BC ***

Finally in 655 BC I meet Hatshepsut to the north. I should probably have more exploring boats out actually. I meet Mansa Musa a turn later. And the turn after that I complete the GLH. Genghis is actually quite close by. I have an overwhelming urge to remove him first.

I was really pushing my luck with the Oracle build. Attempting it in the island capital was silly really, and so late. In the end Hatty builds it in 355 BC. I was only 2 turns away from it, and ready to take Civil Service at that. Ok, time for me now to prepare for war.

I learn Alphabet in 160 BC, and Mansa trades Monarchy to me. Time to really grow my capital.

*** 355 BC -> 1 AD ***

Isabella is my first war target since she has some juicy religious shrines. I don't have a 1 AD save, so can't recall exactly what was happening here - but my log says that I'm about 1 turn away from circumnavigation at this point.

 

[kcd_swede]

Challenger Save: Goal, just win and have some fun (forget about rankings and medals and silly nonsense like that - hence the challenger save).

My plan was to get off the island as soon as possible

I settled the desert, since I wanted 50% extra hammer to get the first workboat(s) out (the desert give zero unless you settle on it). Its like starting with Bur bonus compared to settling the hill.

My first build was wb, and my citizen works the highest commerce seafood (coastal fish?) while I grow to size 2 and start working the 2h hill. After first seafood is improved I start jockeying things around in the queue to grow no faster than I would have to work more than 1 unimproved tile at a time. So worker came pretty fast after that, with parts of a warrior and another workboat, half of another, and part of a galley at size 4 or five and settler. I do not know if I actually did an optimum build path, but it felt like it worked pretty good and was well-timed with available technologies.

One workboat is exploring and I meet neighbors. I probably can name them within the spoiler rules -- Hatty and the Mongols (Ghenghis?).


I settled next to river on the coast of the landmass to the west closest to capitol, but really regretted that since it prevented building another city northeast of that since all those hills could not be worked without food and it could not share all the excess food in the capitol. I was a pretty good city none-the-less. I put 2 more cities on that landmass. The one in the north built all my wonders by this point (GLH, Collosus).

I had an intuition that when we found no copper after BW (which was a primary early tech to enable whipping), that we would find iron on our island. And I was vindicated, as we had two. Nice touch to prevent the setting choice from becoming a deciding factor in the game.

We're Roman, which means I now have an 8-strength unit available, and with two close neighbors its a no-brainer to make use of that advantage. I took two Mongol cities and one Egytian holy city.

Neighbors are so backwards I am worried I chose the Adventurer save by mistake. Barb cities defended by warriors??? I check the settings; no, it says this is Monarch level. I wonder if they are stuck with Prince level units??? Anyhow, 2 Praets can take down any barb city no matter how many (up to 5 in one city) warriors they defend with. Plenty of XP and some more expansion. There is no AI that can challenge me, the game is over before 1 ad (I didn't win it by 1AD, but all doubt about which civ will win is gone).

Just a question of how I choose to win. Undecided at 1 AD.

 

[Jbourne]

How sneaky. Two irons on on that tiny island. If I get time to finish this game, I will go to space or diplo. Thanks for 2 gold site.

 

[babybluepants]

I settled in place and did get off the island. I whipped like mad early in this game.
Somehow managed to circumnavigate (circa 1000 BC), without meeting a single AI.
Expanded to 8 cities before starting anything up.
Around 1AD, I've just started warring. Isabella is dead in a few turns. GK dow'd me the turn I attacked Izzy with 2 axes lol. Still, I damn near lost my corn/stone city, as I had moved all units and ships away.
Plan is: Elizabeth > Hattie > Genghis. I need to finish Construction at some point, as praets will run into something tougher than archers eventually. Haven't met MM and whoever else is in there. The ones I've met don't even have Monarchy yet, so longbows shouldn't appear before I circle around those three with my main stack. Mansa might be harder, though.
I think I'll be in razing mode here. Domination seems painful in this one without a functional economy to speak off.

 

[babybluepants]

Awesome better capital site there with gold, wheat and spices. Of course, my warrior pops a hostile hut, but wins.

Which site is that? I founded my second city there, too (1S of southern spices, IIRC). It was for lack of exploration, though. Not a particularly great city with all the brown and only one 4f tile for food.

 

[adrianj]

Which site is that? I founded my second city there, too (1S of southern spices, IIRC). It was for lack of exploration, though. Not a particularly great city with all the brown and only one 4f tile for food.

Yeah, you're right. It wasn't that great - not enough food. I guess I got over excited at getting off the starting island!

 

[da_Vinci]

Yeah, you're right. It wasn't that great - not enough food. I guess I got over excited at getting off the starting island!

Hmm ... My palace is planned for that site, since I see two gold, wheat and fish to be had there. Just made for Bureau ...

Do we have a conversion table somewhere that converts turns to years for the different speeds? I tend to put turns but not years in my notes ...

dV

 

[dalamb]

Adventurer save; I've started my first serious game at Prince but figure I need to stick with Noble for a GOTM (especially since I keep forgetting the differences between Vanilla and BtS). I don't have a 1AD save because for some reason I assumed the breakpoint would be 500 AD; the following stops at 25 BC for that reason.

Despite the advice of how valuable it was to settle the hill in the early game, I couldn't bring myself to sacrifice the long-term production, so settled in place and built a couple of workboats before building the worker to mine the hill.

Tech path was Bronze Working > Sailing (for exploration) > Hunting (for scouts, for hut-popping, which turned out to be very helpful technologically) > Wheel > Pottery > Animal Husbandry > Agriculture > Writing > Mysticism (for obelisks; this was about the time I founded Antium) > (Masonry from a hut) > Archery > Iron Working (and the great joy of finding iron on the hill 1N of Rome) > Math, and now working on Currency. I realize that people often advise going BW > IW > Wheel for Rome, but I figured that with all the difficulties of mounting overseas military expeditions I wanted to wait. There were also several nice trades with AIs.

Since I seem to have met a lot more AIs than most people (those who've posted so far), my chronology is in a spoiler. Basics: GLH built, Pyramids on the way, circumnavigation, aiming to take out some near neighbours with Praetorians.

Spoiler :

• 1570 BC: My galley meets Isabella
• 970 BC: Found Antium NE of the copper on the NW island.
• 940 BC: Hut pops Masonry
• 745 BC: An Egyptian galley shows up NW of Antium
• 610 BC: Meet Mansa Musa, having recently found the Egyptian homeland.
• 535 BC: A hut pops Horseback Riding. After alphabet I manage to shop this around for several techs.
• 475 BC: Found Cumae on the NE island SW of its stone.
• 310 BC: Finish Alphabet, getting Meditation and Polytheism from Hatty for HBR.
• 280 BC: Meet Ghengis
• 145 BC: Meet Elizabeth and Gandhi
• 70 BC: Circumnavigate

I expect to do some conquest of nearby territory, and Hatty is annoyingly close. However, her home territory is at the end of a fairly long supply line, which is a bit worrisome. The globe as I've discovered it so far (lots of black space because of focusing on circumnavigation):

• Near side.
  
  
• Far side.