Civ4 GOTM49 First Spoiler - 500AD

[Jbourne]

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.

Hear....hear.

I second that.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I got a map and then some gold. Wondering if tech from huts was disabled. If so, would have no great concern about huts in play.

 

[damnrunner]

I got a map and then some gold. Wondering if tech from huts was disabled. If so, would have no great concern about huts in play.

Apparently not as sockaka said he got mining AND writing from huts. I did not know you could turn off the ablity to pop tech from huts, but if so that should generally be turned off. Otherwise, I think they are generally good for game play. It encourages you to build scouts and gives a major incentive for early exploration. That said it seems huts are turned off in most GOTMs so I never expect to see any and therefore don't go out looking for them.

 

[Jbourne]

....... That said it seems huts are turned off in most GOTMs so I never expect to see any and therefore don't go out looking for them.

Actually if i recall correctly, unless noted in the thread, it is turned on for the benefit of the AI. All the near by huts are removed manually by the game designer. This is done to prevent potentially RNG helping one player over another without the lucky player not doing anything strategically superior to get ahead. I read that many top level players do not pop huts.....for the bragging rights I am sure .

 

[sockaka]

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

I didn't pop huts by warriors, first pop by culture expand of the capital, get scout and then use the scout to explore the map.

My cities are attacked by many angry warriors and archers and they destroy the implument done by worker.

So that my 3rd tech research was Archery and build archer to defend..

getting something good, the AI will do somethinng bad to balance the game

 

[Ronnie1]

Goal is Conquest or Domination...but I am probably over my head.

Well I am alive at 500AD!

I took the contender start, and didn't like the lack of hammers for the capitol so I moved the warrior N and saw the edge of what I thought was a floodplain and the hut. So I moved the settler NE>NW with the intention of settling 1 more NW on the riverside plains tile which I did on the second turn. Was very pleased to see the corn when I settled, because I was a bit concerned with giving up the pigs. Research then went AG>AH>Hunting>Archery>Mining>BW>Writing> Alphabet(1st) and then traded for a few missing techs, but still way behind.

I lost more f****** troops to barbs at favorable odds than I can ever remember. Lots of woody 1&2 warriors with the free C1 to animals and barb warriors. This was the ONLY reason I inserted Archery into the tech path. I thought with all the forests, C1+W1(2) would be fine for busting until I got axes, but it was not working out.

City 2 went to get copper, C3 NE on a desert hill with all the floodplains to cottage. C4 captured from the barbs in the SE corner with Furs and sugar. C5 back to get the pigs and run some scientists after writing.

Then there was C6....which turned out to be a total pain in the A**! The barbs had a great city SW of the copper site, Gems, Deer, other food, 2 sugars. I had some some C1 + Cover + CR1 axes now and was getting 85% odds attacking this city. I lost over and over....and now the barbs were CG2....Now I was Pis*******, so I built a stack of like 12 axes and finally got the city somewhere near 500AD.

Somewhere along the line, Hinduism spread to me, it was the only religion that was shared at the time, (by Cyrus and Asoka), so when Asoka "asked" me to switch, I did. Plan is to go after Washington 1st, as he is close, and hopefully my new found religious friends will be friendly and help me get up the tech tree a bit.

At the cutoff, I am researching Machinery, building some cats, and heading for CS next....I am next to last in score and power, but I just whipped a bunch of forges. Not sure how this one will turn out.

 

[Bugg123]

Well... I think I should get a prize for trying as hard as possible to lose this game!

Settled 1S and produced some fogbuster first before going to settle coppercity.

Small recap of how to handicap yourself:

Lose initial warrior to angry barbs from hut (the one north of pigs) - Check
Do not pay any attention when moving initial settler - Check
Lose said initial settler to barbs (I never do that, but whatever) - Check
Forget to move extra troops out to defend workers working on coppermine - Check
Proceed to lose BOTH initial workers when defending archer loses his battle while having extra troops in "coppercity" (Just wanted to finish hooking up that mine, and one archer was really no problem, I swear!) - Check

So basically I almost gave up

However all hope was not lost, it just kind of makes no sense to not focus while playing Immortal games and handicapping yourself that badly.

Anyway. Losing the first settler made me have to research Archery to be on the safe side. I also popped Writing from 2nd hut (N of capital)

Teching: Hu -> AH -> Mining -> BW -> Achery -> Alphabet
(No need for pottery since I had no workerturns to spare after losing my initial workers........ )

Founded my 2nd city at 1760BC (yay!) by copper, then also settled 1 city North by floodplains(Corn, Ivory, Cow), 1 city by fur, and 2 in the desert NW. Unfortunately I never really found the Gem site and Cyrus took over the barb settlement down there. I did not take over a single barb city.

Had no further barb issues (although one could consider losing a settler and 2 workers pretty bad, I guess, but that was not really a barb issue, just a "not paying any attention whatsoever issue" )

Even with the horrible start I was first to CS. At 500AD I'm researching Paper (6 turns off) while all the AI are busy researching the same stuff at the lower side of the techtree (mostly). Nice friendly bunch of AIs, and so far everyone has been busy REXing and taking over barb cities.

Due to butchering the start, I'm kinda playing Tokugawa the peaceful here with no hope of warring anytime soon. Probably the safe thing to do would be to go for Diplo, so barring a miracle that's the plan

 

[Htadus]

As I had planned during pregame discussion, I settled south when the warrior showed no commerce tiles to the north. Started a worker and learned Hunting followed by AH, mining, Archery, Myst, Meditation and Priesthood.

Founded a second city to North without the cow in the fat cross. After a archer it started on the Oracle. The capital could have built it faster but I wanted to use it for my first 2 GS's. Lost the Oracle race by 4 turns. So no free MC.

Meanwhile the original warrior popped gold, pottary and more gold from 3 huts and we were learning BW, Writing, Alphabet and started MCasting. Traded Meditation for Aggriculture. But did not trade Alph. Mansa Musa asked for a trade but I declined. A few turns later he came and gave IW as a gift. Now that is a nice AI. When MC came in in 75AD, Whole lot of tech trading took place. But was not to parity. this is when I realized, there were two American Civs in the game and I missed a trading opportunity. But no big deal.

By now we have 6 cities, including one Barb city with all that food and Gems. My third city claimed copper.

The race was on to Literature and Music. The turn Literature was learned, I pop rushed to complete a Forge in the capital and started the Great Library. This time I was able to rush the GLib with 4 pop since many AI were likely building it since they all teched it. But I will not know. Also got the free Artist but Roos also lerned it the same turn. That was close.

My fourth city should have been in the floodplains north of the second city but I needed the fur to the south. Bad call. Cyrus' settler team beat my team to it by 1 turn. Then I make another blunder by not claiming one of the two Iron's to the north with my 5th city.

At 500 AD I had two more cities to the west and I felt as if I was getting behind. So I used my first GS to learn Philosophy and on next turn traded in for all available techs including Theo, Machinary, CS and started on Drama for trades before heading to Liberalism.

I am not too sure how good of a chance I have but I will have another GS for Education and will not trade it until I am a turn or two from Lib. AI are not known for going after Education before Economics. So I have to wait.

The plan was to build a bunch of Samurai's to accompany the cats and elephants to Washington first and Cyrus next. I only want to cripple washing to and let him develop the jungles between us. So I will attack from west of washington from Egypt. Same plan for Cyrus. Attack from India. Only thing is I still do not have Iron. But I do have two settlers running around.

 

[Htadus]

Are the Samurai's that much better than Macemen?

 

[toller pretzl]

Are the Samurai's that much better than Macemen?

Absolutely. The two first strikes make a big difference.

 

[Htadus]

Absolutely. The two first strikes make a big difference.

Thank you. I will claim a iron site with all them desert tiles.