Civ4 GOTM49 First Spoiler - 500AD

[jesusin]

GOTM 49 First Spoiler

Reading Requirements

Stop! If you are participating in GOTM 49, then you MUST NOT read this thread unless EITHER

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

Posting Restrictions

• Please do not disclose ANY events or information gained post 500 AD.
• Please do not reveal your final result if that happened after 500 AD.
• Please do not discuss the location of resources that may not show up before 500 AD (Iron is alright to discuss).

Did Tokugawa feel like a fish out of the water?
Don't you feel Immortal is a difficult level?
Did your initial plan work?

 

[Fluroscent]

Edit: fixed already

On to the game

Settled in place because no moves made sense. Research Hunting-AH-Mining-BW. Lots of discussion on this point in the pregame thread, but I gambled that the agg warriors would be enough even if copper was a bit out of place. Of course, copper turned out to be a bit far away, and not near the river. Thus it was a bit tight getting a settler and road there in time, but for once the RNG did not screw me over. And in the end the barbs did not cause major pain.

Lots of space, but immortal AI do fill up land quickly. Still, being able to REX at a pace that didnt strain the economy too much was nice, unlike other games where you have to grab land a bit too fast for comfort. Nice and friendly bunch of AI too, so I do not expect to be involved in wars I dont start.

I have 7 cities at 500AD, two FP cities up the river, one by the furs in the south, and two west of the copper city. One of them captured from barbs has pigs, deer, 2 sugar+gems, and will serve as globe city for drafting. Running cottages in all the riverside cities.

7 turns from liberalism, and will take nationalism. Plan is massive drafting/whipping a bunch of samurais to kill Cyrus. Then get drama+globe while doing that and draft a second army near Washington to continue the warring. Hopefully it can keep rolling and lead to domination before the AI get too advanced.

Did Tokugawa feel like a fish out of the water?

We will see how the samurais work out! Organized+Agressive are good traits for domination, so I cannot really complain about the leader being weak here.

Don't you feel Immortal is a difficult level?

Counting on the legendary vanilla AI incompetence when it comes to warfare to make it seem easy

Did your initial plan work?

So far so good.

 

[Markus5]

Settled in place. Research Mining, BW, Hunting, AW. Built a copper city. Build a third city to the south. Cyrus attacked very early with 10 units. I whipped more axes, but it wasn't enough. Copper city razed. Capital pillaged. I'm down to one axe and one warrior in the capital. My scouting warrior encountered Cyrus reinforcements while running home before he died. I'm boned, so I quit. No submission this time.

I'm not sure what got Cyrus riled up. And so many units!

 

[Fluroscent]

Condolences Markus5, that seems like a freak occurrence to me. Bad luck.

 

[toller pretzl]

Going for Conquest. (edit: or domination)
At 500 AD I am 4th in score. 7 self-built cities, 2 of which are still small, 1 captured city. Just started my first war, against Washington, using horse-archers and samurai against archers. 10 workers. Got the GA from music, and planning to culture bomb a foreign capital with it. Researching Guilds which I will reach in 8 turns. Two academies.

-by Tokupretzl

Initial strategy
As planned, I researched hunting-ah-archery-writing-alphabet (1280BC). It was a big success since I could then trade writing and keep alphabet to myself! I traded writing for Mining, Agriculture, Pottery and Bronze Working.

Tech wavering
After this I should have taken some pause and changed my plans a little. In the testgame the AI had researched much faster. In that game I had felt compelled to trade away alphabet right away, and then drama had been a good next tech. But in this GOTM it was possible to hold on to the alphabet-monopoly for a long time and in that situation drama cannot be used in trades. So after researching drama I had a desperate need for math, since it was excellent trading material as well as a useful tech. On the way to drama I had also wavered two turns to research mysticism, having a strange idea that I could go for Oracle - when it was already gone. Anyway, when I got math it fortunately was still good for trading : I eventually got Polytheism, Meditation, Iron Working, Masonry, Priesthood, Monotheism and Sailing for it. But obviously math before drama would have been better.

Back on target
I used drama to my advantage, solving the happiness problem. Then I researched Metal Casting which I traded for Code of Laws, Monarchy, Horseback Riding, Theology, Calendar, Currency and Construction. My alphabet-monopoly was only broken in 50AD by Mansa. The AI hadn't done much tech trading amongst themselves by 500AD, if any. I had to research Civil Service and Machinery myself. Feudalism I got in trade. Researched Music then because it was clear that I could get the bonus GA.

Mystery of lost trade contact
With horses from Cyrus, I built 4 chariots early on to keep my empire together. Then, just as I was 2 turns from my first horse-archer, Cyrus suddenly lost trade contact with me - losing me my ability fo finish the horse-archer. How could this be ? Everybody had open borders. The only thing I can think of is that Cyrus had a city on my river that got razed by barbs. In the end I only lost 4 hammers to rot, since Cyrus roaded to me.

Bad day at hill-city
Sometimes you get the feeling that the AI is having too much luck. Like in this case :

Spoiler :

The barbs had settled where I had planned to settle. I sent my troops there, and Cyrus did as well. The barb HILL-CITY had 3 archers, two healthy without promotions, one at 2.3 with CG2. Cyrus had :
- one horse-archer with C3. He would beat one archer
- one immortal at 1.84 and C2. He might possibly promote and beat another archer.
- two archers, one with C2 and one without promotions. Would they beat the remaining barb archer ? It's remotely possible.
I decided to spare my troops and delay my attack for another turn.
Next turn, Cyrus had not only taken the city, he had :
- the horse archer at 4.6, it had won
- the immortal was deceased, it had weakened the second barb archer
- Cyrus C2 archer was in the city at 0.2 - he had won the last battle
- Cyrus second archer hadn't moved and was unscathed - he must have killed a barb hill-city archer without getting wounded - YEAH RIGHT...
Either that or one of the barb archers stupidly decided on a suicide-attack... they do that sometimes. Oh well.

 

[toller pretzl]

I had a samurai in hostile territory that would take 6 turns to heal. I promoted a unit on the same tile to Medic I - and then the samurai took only 2 turns to heal. Now how does that relate to the info in Civilopedia : "units will heal an extra 10 percent" ? This is more like 300 percent. How do they get 10 percent ?

Edit : got the answer from here : http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/unit_healing.php

N = (100 - X) / (B + M)

B = 5 if in enemy territory
M = 10 (medic I)
5.68 / 8 ==> X = 71 hitpoints

N = 29 / 5 = 6
N = 29 / 15 = 2

The 10 percent in Civilopedia is extremely misleading. I bet I'm not the only one who hasn't realized before how powerful Medic I is.

 

[Holy Cheese]

Getting well and truly hammered in this one.

Planned for conquest or domination. My warrior got eaten by lions and pumas who combined to do him in early, then a scout managed to pop a hut and get me the useful tech of...sailing!!!

I managed to settle a second city by the copper, which was just as well, because at this point I got a huge influx of barb axemen. Have basically spent up till 500AD fighting off barbs, have managed to build a few more cities, and took one barb city by gems/sugar to the southeast.

But by this stage I am so far behind in the tech race. I had to put my slider back to 10% and am miles behind everyone else. None of the AI will give me any techs, although I'm at Pleased with all of them.

Up to now, nobody except barbs has attacked me, but I don't suppose this will last long as I'm so far down on the power graph it's not funny.

Don't expect to survive much past the middle ages.

Jack

 

[kcd_swede]

I settled in place and teched Hunting>AH>Mining>BW>Writing>Alphabet

It was a great error to not put Pottery before Writing. Economy crashed with 4 cities and barely enough barb defense units. But did get Alpha first so that at least was a good thing for backfilling.

Capitol in place.
I was able to figt off barbs with just warriors quite well, except when it came time to hook up the copper at my third city (second city I settled was east of capitol with overlap pigs... good site for chopping, but not much else).

When I finally had enough respite to fix the copper (it got pillaged once, and workers ran and hid several times before this was accomplished), I started taking barb cities with Axes.

At 500AD I have 7 cities (3 captured from barbs). My 4th settled city is flood plains north, then a second flood plains captured, fur city captured, and gems city captured.

Rooseveldt DOW'd me for some unknown reason... probably because he was/is most powerful and I am/was the weakest. But he has to go far... soI figure I'm safe. Except with him and barbs coming all at once I get my barb-gem city razed (hadn't invested much at the time so figured it would be ok -- anyhow had a couple settlers sitting around--couldn't use earlier due to economy - that I could resettle Satsuma there even while still at war). Ended up giving Satsuma to Roosie for peace because that's all he would take. Couldn't even bribe anyone to close borders to Roosi.

Missed GLib by 4 turns... the cash helped at the time, but now my only chance to win is to go on all out war-binge and hope to capture some of Washingtons cities (he's the only backwards civ like me). All my forests at the capitol site are gone now, too. Too bad I'm the only one without Longbows now.

On the bright side, there is still plenty of space left for settling at least 3 or 4 more good cities.


I'm making a "whopping" 91 beakers per turn (sustainable) at 60%, so its probably time to expand a little bit more and then make one futile all out insane attemp at conquest.

I went way too long without Monarchy and couldn't keep'em satisfied.

One weird thing... I had wine for pigs trade with Cyrus that got cancelled, and then I see that he is not connected to trade route. WTH? What happened? Did barb city get founded that cut off a river access??? (I had OB with all AI at the time). Must be.

I think the convenience of the BUFFY MOD in BtS games has made me so lazy I do not check vital informations enough on Vanilla games. That Roosi DOW was a total suprise as he was never less than Pleased with me that I noticed.

 

[orb]

Took the Emperor save. (Immortal is still too much of an ask.)

Settled in place and tech'd animal husbandry to develop the pigs/cow. - The plan being to run scientists in capital to try and minimise the gap between me and the AI, and ultimately use the captial city as an Oxford site.

After AH then Min/BW to locate the copper, and to allow Slavery.

Chopped my first settler for the northern ivory. (Could come in handy for an elephant stack.) - Plan to become a production city with the hills and plains.

Chop/whipped my second settler for the copper. - cottaged around this city for my second science city.

Was surprised when an immortal appeared outside my northern city...Cyrus has horses (and immortals) already. - This is a threat. - I respond by addopting Cyrus's religion and building spears. - Threat passes.

Settled city 4 in the northern floodplain hills to block Cyrus' southern expansion. Production/science city.

Tech'd Writing and Alphabet - By this point I'm well behind the AI in tech, but the Alpha trades bring me almost back to parity. Mansu is steaming ahead in tech.

Then settled city 5 SW of capital to prevent the Western AI from taking too much land. - Then disaster. - Barb Axe took city 5. Grrrr. - My army of 2 axe's dispatched to see off the aggressor.

I quickly whipped out 2 more settlers for SE and S of capital to fill the void with 2 more cities (1 production, 1 commerce/worker spammer) to remove the wandering Barb threat to my developed capital squares, and tech'd IW to chop the jungle.

By 500AD I have 6 cities and fog busted gaps E and SW of capital for additional expansion.

The plan. - Get Monarchy for MP happiness, tech to Education for Oxford.-Science cities to run as many specialists as possible, production cities to build cats and elephants for an attack on the Western AI. - Try to keep Cyrus and Ashoka pleased/friendly to avoid attack from the north so that my army only has to face West.

- The big decision...When to attack??? Do I wait for Samurai and run the risk of the AI getting too far ahead for my cat's and elephants to deal with?

- Longer term....Need to stop Mansu from being so far advanced that he runs off to space. - So I need to stir up some AI wars (but they are all ahead of me in tech so bribing will be tricky)...Or I keep Mansu as my best buddy, take his Religion and take out Cyrus and Ashoka in a backstabbing move...Option 2 sounds like more fun. - I'll try it.

 

[damnrunner]

Warrior find the hut just north of the start location. It pops a map showing another hut by the elephant and flood plains further north. Warrior goes to hut. Pops like 5-6 barbarians WTH!

I double down and build some warriors assuming the mapmaker is evil and made this some sort of barbarian hell map. But no barbarians form that group ever come down to attack and I ended up seeing very few of them.

Needless to say I got off to a slow and fairly haphazrad start. but I did manage to grab a fair amount of land.

 

[old_civver]

The steady supply of barbs upgraded my axmen enough for me to attack Cyrus. Some axes had 5 promotions so I managed to take both Pasagadae and Persepolis after destroying one other city. Then peace with a tech. Quite behind in techs but just got Great Library in capital so should help to catch up some. Have 11 cities; 6 self-built, 2 formerly Persian and 3 were "gifts" from the barbs. Once I get the samurais going I plan to take on Washington. Now that I have horses I will go for cavalry asap to avoid the slow catapults, since the map is so big. It will be interesting to see if anyone manages a space win, I know I couldn't do it.

 

[damnrunner]

It was a giant map. Yet somehow Mansua was the 1st AI to stop by and visit. I have no idea how he got over to my corner of the map so fast.

Well done on the warring civver. Persia could have destroyed me at any point with a small fraction of their mighty armies.

I fog busted pretty well but it was mainly an overreaction to the early popping of barbarians from a gooddie hut. But I really saw almost no barbarians and this cant be attributed to fog busting. The map was so large that there were very large coverage gaps where I should have faced more barbarians. It felt like a very a-typical game in many respects. Fun thus far though.

I fog busted pretty well with warriors due to a fear of massive barbarian uprisings - but I never saw much in the way of barbarians.

 

[adrianj]

GOTM49 - Contender Save

Immortal is pretty tough, I've only had a handful of victories on this level. So I'm not going to target a particular VC just yet, for now I'm just going to focus on the usual goal of expansion and claiming my part of the world.

I've heard an Oasis map can spawn a lot of barbs, so early military will be a priority for me. Normal game speed suggests than unless an AI is very close, I probably won't be rushing. We shall see.

*** Session 1: 4000 BC -> 2480 BC ***

Starting location has lots of , but I'd like a few more . I move the warrior N which shows no extra resources up there, so I settle 1S, losing the cow but gaining an extra forest + grassland hill. Mistake? Who knows.

I think that chopping forests will be a wuicker growth path than improving the pigs, so my tech path is Mining -> BW.

First build is a worker, which can mine a hill and road the pigs before BW comes in.

Tribal village gives me gold. Thanks guys.

Turns out I'm on the eastern edge of the map.

My warrior shows a nice new city location with ivory, corn and cows to the north.

Second build is a warrior, to let the city grow.

Warrior sees a bear, and fortifies on a forested hill to hopefully lure it and kill it. It works, and then a second bear turns up, killing my warrior

In 3000 BC I learn BW, and worker starts chopping. Chops go into another worker, while building a warrior.

Oh, also realised the different mechanic with forest chops going directly into current build - so one chop gets 'wasted' into a warrior build...

Washington is white coloured?

I get another goody hut with gold.

*** Session 2: 2480 BC -> 1600 BC ***

I have 2 workers, next priority is to settle the nice site I've spotted to the north, as well as the copper to the west. I think copper is a higher proirity right now.

Roosevelt is in the game as well - that explains Washington.

Osaka is founded in 2160 BC, claiming the copper, pigs and rice.

Techs after BW have gone Hunting -> AH -> Pottery -> Agriculture.

Tokyo is founded in 1760 BC, claiming the cows, ivory and corn.

Copper is connected to all the cities in 1600 BC, which certainly makes me feel safer.

Next tech is Writing, despite almost all the others already having it.

*** Session 3: 1600 BC -> 1 AD ***

Time to start massing some axes - for secrity and to claim a barb city to the west.

Writing comes in 1200 BC, next tech is Alphabet.

I capture a lovely barb city with pigs, gems, deer and sugar. In fact, I might even move the capital to this city.

In 1 AD I've just learnt Alphabet. I have 6 cities, and while I wouldn't say the economy is stuffed, it certainly isn't in great shape, losing 3 gpt at 0%. But I have some good land and more room to work with, so I'm feeling pretty good about things.

I'm dead last in score and tech, but whoe ever cared about that

*** Session 4: 1 AD -> 500 AD ***

Trading around alphabet gets me all of: Sailing, Archery, Mysticism, Meditation, Masonry, Iron Working and Maths. That's great value .

My first GS is born in 25 AD. normally I'd build an Academy, but in this case I'm not producing much science in the capital (0% slider), so I settle it instead.

Current research is Currency, so I can build wealth.

I settle another 2 cities in this session, and there is still room for a few more. Washington my neighbour the west isn't doing so well, and he is the only Christian. So I'm planning to tech to Samurai and try take some of Washington's lands.

I think my goal will be to snap up as much land as possible, and then a push for space, hopefully beating Mansa to it. Liberalism *might* still be possible from here - I'll take whatever I can get if I get there early enough.

 

[MacBalt]

At 500 AD I am 4th in score. 7 self-built cities, 2 of which are still small, 1 captured city. Just started my first war, against Washington, using horse-archers and samurai against archers.

You and the oldcivver sound like you got (okay... earned) great starts! At 500 AD I am last in score with 7 cities (3 self-built, 3 from barbs, and 1 from Washington). The capital was founded in place. 2nd city is by copper. 3rd is 2 South of corn (next to Ivory). Got barb cities 1 N of the same corn, West by sugar & gems, and South by fur. Just started a war with Washington and got Portland, West of the gem city.

I was able to figt off barbs with just warriors quite well

I too had no real problems with barbs because of the Aggressive fogbusters. Still, I'm glad I took Cactus Pete's advice and prioritized BW (at least a bit). I also avoided the economy problems by going Hunting>AH>Mining>Pottery>BW>Writing>Alphabet. Was 1st to Alphabet in 775 BC and managed to get Math, IW, & Monarchy in the trade rounds that followed over the next few turns. Tokyo's placement just outside of Kyoto's borders allowed me to work cottages inside Kyoto's fat cross while the capital itself grew by working the pigs and cow. At 500 AD I have just finished Paper and with six cities prepped for universities & Oxford will almost certainly get to Liberalism first... eventually.

7 turns from liberalism

Fantastic! I'd love to find out what you did to make such great tech progress. Can I convince you to share the wisdom?

Did Tokugawa feel like a fish out of the water?
I think the aggressive warriors (and later Samurais) were the most important part of Toku's special equipment.

Don't you feel Immortal is a difficult level?
Yes, but it's come to feel a lot more "real" to me than the lower-level sprints -- which makes it more fun too (at least, if and when I am finally able to squeeze out a win in the end!)

Did your initial plan work?
So far, so good. It is a huge map though... which could lead to trouble in the long run... Can't wait to see how it comes out...

Real life always seems to get in the way tho...
Oh well... maybe just one more turn...

 

[Fluroscent]

Fantastic! I'd love to find out what you did to make such great tech progress. Can I convince you to share the wisdom?

I tried very hard to not crash my economy this game. I basically ran a bunch of scientists that slowed REX, but allowed me to bulb philo+edu. Also whipped courthouses asap. Vanilla is different from BtS in that building wealth and research is bad, thus courthouses become more important. Trading also went well, as it should with Mansa in the game After alphabet, I only researched techs on the liberalism path and traded for everything else (Monarchy, Machinery, Aesthetics, Currency in particular)

 

[kcd_swede]

Thanks guys... I'm learning what I should have done. Basically, I messed up the trading when I got Alphabet (I already recognize that a detour to get pottery would have been well worth it).

My approach on tech trades is basically one of greed... get everything I can as fast as I can. I should be more patient and trade my way up the tech tree in the same fashion that I would tech up it if trading was turned off. Basically, I should have taken the line up to Monarchy over a period of thre turns rather than just grab as much crap tech as I can right away. I don't know why I fail to see this in the heat of the moment.

I also think BW before AH would have been an advantage, not for the axes but to speed up early development with the chops. Teching was so slow to BW after AH that my worker ran out of things to do before he could chop!

Not having Monarchy until late really limitited my city size, esp at Immortal level. No religions have spread to me yet despite open borders with all the founders.

I will likely lose this game, so haven't been that motivated to play beyond the spoiler point yet. I will, just for the war lessons I can learn, but don't have much hope. Thanks for the spoilers thus far which help me analyze my errors and hopefully corrrect them for future games, though.

 

[Conquistador 63]

Interesting and challenging setup, matching us with a bunch of peaceful good techers in a high level game. On the bright side, starting next to a corner made fogbusting somewhat easier.

I settled in place, and thanks to toller's enlightening posts in the pre-game thread, I researched Hunt/AH/Arch first. However, differently from him, I inserted pottery before proceeding to writing/alpha, which I also reached in 1280BC. Maybe a few earlier cottages and the decreased cost for writing paid off? From then on, path was Math/CoL (wasn't first to the religion)/CS/Paper/Edu (due in a few turns). All other stuff I got from trades.

GP generation was awful (always a weak spot in my gameplay), only 1 GS for academy, so no Philo/Edu bulbing, which might cost me being first to Lib. Mansa and Roosevelt are the tech leaders.

By 500AD I had settled 7 cities, and spammed cottages in 5 cities: in the Capital, in the 2 floodplain cities to the N, in the furs and copper cities. The pig/rice/deer was meant to be a GPfarm, and a resourceless river city S of copper was destined to be a (mediocre) barracks city. Oh, and my axes/cats also had taken 2 cities from Washington : the gems/silk (edit:sugar) city he had taken from barbs and another to its NE.

Oh, also realised the different mechanic with forest chops going directly into current build - so one chop gets 'wasted' into a warrior build...

I had an even worse glitch: with minimize pop-ups option selected, after a build was completed but nothing in the queue, when a chop was finished before I selected next build, the hammers were completely lost, at least I wasn't able to find them in any buildable item.

Very nice games by toller, civver and Fluroscent! I believe mine is winnable, I just hope I find time to finish it before leaving for holidays/vacations.

It will be interesting to see if anyone manages a space win, I know I couldn't do it.

I'll try my best.

 

[sockaka]

Contender Save
So much in the capital, I settled N to save the hill at starting place for
first calture expand get a scout from the Tribal village . Then 2nd city near fur, 3rd city near ivory.

Tech Path:
Hunting
Mining (from Tribal village)
Animal Husbandry
Writing (from Tribal village)
Archery
Pottery
Mysticism
Polytheism
Priesthood
Code of Laws Confucianism founded
Mathematics
Meditation
Philosophy (use GS) Taoism founded
BW
Alphabet
Trade: (Monarchy,Agriculture,Sailing,Masonry,Iron Working)
Drama
Music (didn't get GA)
Trade: (Literature, Monotheism,Feudalism,Calendar,Currency)
Turn 135 (500 AD) :Civil Service

1st City Built: Warrior -> Worker -> Settler -> Archer -> Settler -> Library .....
2nd City Built: Archer -> Obelisk -> Archer -> Settler -> Library -> Granary ....
3rd City Built: Obelisk -> Granary -> Aqueduct ...

By 500AD I had settled 7 cities and 1 gems city from Barbarian, and total 7 villages and 2 towns and some Hamlets in the 3 main cities. Planing for a culture victory, hope I can survive to the mordern age between the TWO America. the AIs' attitude is +1, +1, 0, +3(spead Confucianism to Washinton), -2(Mansa from from me), +1

Did Tokugawa feel like a fish out of the water?
The aggressive warriors can't survive from a lion after hit by wolf from somewhere? Barbarian is mad ... have to build Archers to protect the cities earlier.

Don't you feel Immortal is a difficult level?
It is OK, but never try the higher level

Did your initial plan work?
so far so good

 

[damnrunner]

get a scout from the Tribal village
Mining (from Tribal village)
Writing (from Tribal village)

Damn - I got a map followed by a bunch of angry barb warriors.

 

[kcd_swede]

Damn - I got a map followed by a bunch of angry barb warriors.

I got a map. That's it. AI tend to beat me to the huts at high levels. Huts should be turned off at high(ly competetive) levels, imo, just like random events in BtS.