Civ7 GOTM - 01 Completion of the Age of Antiquity Spoiler thread

[Dirk1302]

Goals:

- Try to get all the golden ages, it's Sovereign so this should be possible.
- Draw out this era as long as possible for more growth, wonders, whatever. Execpt for the modern age this is really not a game where finishing early is good.

Settled near the national wonder. Settling the capital on food is generally not such a great idea but in this case I am curious how it plays out if I settle all the 4 food tiles.
There's some specific advantages to this:

Cap will grow to 5 soon and with a bit of luck I can buy a settler right away between turn 10-15. We'd have 50-75 gold saved and we will get 50 gold from chiefdom.
So we only need 75 from huts wich can often be done. If not I will at least grow into some deserts and i'll buy the brickyard.

I will also get a headstart on culture. This is not so important for the pantheon, even with slower culture there's always a decent one left. But high early culture output
is going to help with the settlement limit.

The lack of fresh water will delay the first celebration and in a way that's a good thing. I'd rather have 3 settlements than one or 2 when the first celebration comes along.

The main drawback of this plan is taking tiles from what would otherwise have been a great spot for a feeding town for the capital.

Around turn 10 I'm at size 5 and I buy my first settler turn 14. Second settler is in queue and it doesn't even take that long to build.

Few turns later I meet Fred. I can imagine not greeting friendly if you meet a lot of independents early. Not so much for the 20 influence but if you'd want to befriend multiple camps you'll need a lot
of influence so you can't take any deals. This is not the case here so I greet everyone I meet friendly taking all the science and culture deals and then some.

Sure enough I get a research agreement from Fred some turns later. I also settle Capua towards him. Third town is Mediolanum right by the silver. 4th settlement is in my backyard,
an obvious town to feed the capital grabbing some good resources (gold,kaolin) in the process.

We're at T40 now and the 5th settler is done. I have already researched irrigation (skipping sailing). And I am currently researching Legatus Pro Praetore. This will be done in 7 turns
and the settlement limit will be 5. The next roman civic will bring the limit to 6. At this point not much is happening.

T40

Spoiler :

I settle Puteoli towards Asoka. It's a fair spot and it'll feed Mediolanum which is going to be a city. I took time out to research code of laws before returning to the roman civics branche. I had
hoped for some value from merchants but there's basically nothing there. Cap is building Stele having finished Hanging gardens already. Turn Capua into a city.

Spoiler :

Researched masonry, currency,bronze working engineering in that order and now it's 16 turns towards math. For civics I am doing tactics -> organized religion for the last settlement limit bonus.
No wars sofar. Fred hates me, he denounced me at some point and relations have deteriorated since. Settled Pompeii right on Asoka's doorstep. It's a great spot, the AI's are very bad at settling...
I actually didn't think I would get that spot, main reason to go wonder building and researching code of laws earlier instead of pushing for that 6th settlement.

Spoiler :

A lot of fighting near Ravenna meant some points for our commander there.

Pompeii is also a good city location and there's a prime spot on the coast for another town with 5 resources (also not settled by Asoka!). Camels are king in this game so my last settlement
Aquilela grabs them. It's a good location for a town.

I need 2 captures to get the military golden age. Looking at the screenshot it's clear which 2 settlements these'll be. Lafayette has been annoying all game proposing alliances every 10 turns or so while
scattering his cities all over the place. Chalkis will fall in 2-3 turns, Sparta'll need some more units. At this point it's clear that I'll get the science GA and the cultural GA.
I have 4 wonders already and I can certainly build 3 more later on. The economic GA can be tricky. I either need those 2 cities with their resources intact
or I need to settle a city near the hides/2 salt in the north.

Spoiler :

Declare on Lafayette and conquer Chalkis. Sparta is also easier than I thought. But I cannot take it yet because it would progress the age too quickly. So I keep it surrounded.

Spoiler :

Actually nothing super interesting happens. By mistake I took Sparta around turn 130, this was actually a misclick. Now I am in a hurry but in the end I don't have to put down
my 11th settlement because the pearls in Narbo Martius come online just in time. Got all the legacy golden ages and one point from researching a future civic.

Spoiler :

Conclusions:

I think the antiquity age is fun to play, despite the shallow ui and the atrocious ai settling this is still a good game and it'll be great once the mistakes are ironed out. Having said that, there's already notque's mod and i missed it dearly in this game. As of yet i know nothing of the exploration age so i'll see how it'll go. I'm inclined at this point to choose the mongolians since i've read they've several civics raising the settlement limit cap.

 

[SiCK_Boy]

Finished Antiquity on Turn 110.

Ashoka was wiped, as was another unknown player (probably on the other Continent).

I was able to cripple Friedrich, and Xerxes will probably be my main competitor in the coming age, with La Fayette in third (La Fayette is the AI I'm most likely to try and ally with).

The second half of the age didn't go well, with the crisis hitting as I was also going over the city limit. I had one town rebel back to Friedrich, but then the next turn one of his towns joined my empire before I needed to conquer it.

Overall, I'm master of the north, while tolerating two small encroachments (1 from La Fayette and 1 from Friedrich).

I ended up with 14/12 for Pax Imperatoria, 5 Wonders, and 8/20 for Silk Road, but only 1 codex (La Fayette had 3). Science will need to be prioritized in the coming age.

Although I had two legatus (3 and 6 levels respectively), I never even used their ability to create new towns, as they were always in the thick of combat.

I'm still aiming for a military victory in the end, and will probably try to cripple Xerxes and maybe eliminate La Fayette this time around. Also curious to see who we will meet on the other continent, and how balanced things will be between them (there should be 2 other civilisations there).

I hope to make good use of both Roma (on the east coast) and Pataliputra (on the west coast) to quickly reach distant lands from both sides. I'll be switching my capital to Pataliputra to save some gold, and since I start with 8 settlements right from the start, increasing the settlement limit will be a priority. I'll also try to get most of my new wonders in Pataliputra, as Rome was getting crowded already (one of the complications of having a long river near a city). I didn't want to raze any captured towns in the previous age, worried about the cumulative penalty over the long run, but may have to do so if AI are agressive and pull me into any early wars.

I considered maybe going for the mongols as my next civ, and trying to continue my war of conquest on the homeland, but my army is currently made up of infantry and ranged troops only, so I'll go for spain instead.

 

[enKage]

I am pretty dissapointed with 1 lacking resources I also thought that this difficulty level surprise war is OK, it turned out not, it drained me a lot. I should have settle towns earlier, so there would be chances for 12.
I ended up with 11 settlements 3 military goals, 1 scientific, 2 economic, 2 cultural. Ashoka was killed early, Fred has one inland settlement left. Turn 129.

Surprising Shawnee are unlocked, so hard choice between them and Songhai.

 

[MrRadar]

Well, I've finished Antiquity after turn 134 probably, that's my last manual save at least. I thought I made some screenshots, but there are considerably less of them in Steam than I thought, and none of them is the last position of the map, mhph. Anyway, meager 7 Leagcy points:

Spoiler :

Reloaded Anitiquity134 just to make the screenshot, and yes, that was the turn after which came the transition:

Spoiler :

In short, stole 2 techs and 2 civics, then stopped spying as transition was too close. Cleared all the civics tree with all the masteries(iirc), ended up with researching future civics, but not the tech tree. Incorporated Longcheng a turn before the transition, very much precision in guessing Missed Angkor Wat and a brickyard by not completing them in time by a turn before the transition, very much fail .

After some delaying I DoWed Friedrich, aiming to take Djedet. Goodness me! By the time I was finally done with grinding down his Egyptian warrior spam, and started with the siege proper, the Age was almost at an end. Not to mention Lafayette piling up in on me from a thumbs up stance. White peaced with him after a while but he definitely did his annoying distraction. Black marked for elimination in Exploration. At some time in-between, Friedrich's Djanet also wished to join me because of his Crisis, and I accepted. My Crisis was disintegration of the Empire/hapiness one, but I could manage just ok.

In the end, after Friedrich offered peace, I checked what was what, and made the peacedeal with him ceding Djedet, which was only 1/4 done in siege, 1 turn before the transition. I felt a bit dirty, but if the game allows it, who am I not to use it. Definitely will be wiping him out in Exp, because I'm so tilted!

 

[Justus II]

I described much of my early game in the Turn 75 Spoiler thread.

First game on Sovereign, so development seemed slow, and I really noticed the difference in combat.

Basically settled 1NW of the starting spot, then sent settlers N, W and S so I had 4 settlements by turn 50. Met Friedrich, Ashoka, Napoleon, and LaFayette, generally good terms with all four initially. The game was telling me I was behind in both Science and Culture. Fought a difficult battle w/Longcheng in the north, then took out LaVenta to the SW and used the Legatus ability to found my 5th city. That’s when the trouble started…

Apparently Friedrich had been befriending LaVenta, which I didn’t realize, and he turned hostile. I declared, took out a lone settler and started moving on his nearest town, when I started running into waves of Medjay. I fell back, and ended up specializing my second Legatus in Defense. I had some really tense turns fortifying around Pompeii, shuffling wounded units out of the front lines and upgrading (I got bronze working just as the war started). Commanders make for a good ‘Medevac’, pull a unit in the red into the army to heal, and deploy a fresh unit. Finally started to push out to Akhetaten, which was tough because he settled on a narrow peninsula, so again I had to rotate some units. Here’s the situation on turn 83:

The push for Waset was similar, but I was better able to take advantage of the terrain. I moved my units along the north bank of the navigable river, and wore down the first couple waves of attackers. However, then things got complicated – Galleys from Divodurum (IP on the southern tip of the continent) swarmed the area, firing at both of our units. At one point there were five of them. So I had to try to avoid being a target, used one Legatus to pack up some wounded, heal, and bring them around to Waset from the west. I was finally able to take Waset, and eliminate Friedrich, on turn 98.

I was starting to reposition to attack the galleys with my archers, but the next turn, LaFayette finished befriending them and they all went away! That pushed us to 74% of the age completion, so the crisis started the next turn (happiness/unrest). I took stock on where I was on the legacy tracks. I still needed 3 points to finish Military, and about 5 resources to get Economic. Culture was stuck at the first tier (Pyramids and Colosseum), it looked like I could get a couple more codices from mastery techs to hit Tier 2.

I used my other Legatus to settle W of Pompeii near camels and incense, and was able to get another resource from trade with a city state. I had good relations with the other three AI, the only one with a town close was Napoleon who had forward settled two near Capua. But he also had the Gate of all Nations, and war with him would have been high negative war support, which I couldn’t afford militarily or while dealing with the unhappiness crisis, so I decided to settle on falling short of my Military GA, and send a trader to get the last resource I needed to at least max out one track.

Then the funniest thing happened… Apparently Napoleon wasn’t managing the crisis very well himself!

Quirigua petitioned to join my empire, giving me the last 2 militaristic points, and the last resource for the economic track! And jumping the game from 92% to ending the age on turn 118.

Really exciting game, I felt like I was fighting from behind almost the whole time, but ended up in great shape overall – 2 GA, and 9 total Legacy points, Napoleon had 4 and Ashoka 3. I thought LaFayette was doing well all game, but he ended with zero legacy points.

 

[Justus II]

In short, stole 2 techs and 2 civics, then stopped spying as transition was too close

I never even thought about trying to spy. First game on Sovereign, in my first two games I have always been in the lead so I don't bother with espionage. Lesson learned!!

 

[paxis]

Continuing on:
T79: Pyramids are finished in Capua (4/7)
T81: Gate of all nations finished in Roma (5/7)
T88: Capture Pataliputra
T94: Finish Colloseum in Roma (6/7)
T95: Convert Patavium to City (mostly to speed up science and more resource spots)
T96: Capua finishes the Oracle (We achieve the 7/7 Wonders for cultural path)
Around T100 we declare war on Friedrich and rush for his capital
We start to think a bit where to get the science/resources to finish the paths. For science we beeline(d) Mathematics to accelerate codices acquisition. Late civics will prove useful here: 1 codex, a wonder with a codex 50% science building and +1 resource per city policy.
T114: We finish both the Mathematics 2 for 2 codices and capture Weset. We now grab the codices from elsewhere in the tree. We peace with Friedrich but with the goal of taking Djanet before the end of the age. We take the -6 for walls, start building ancient walls in cities and bought in settlements.
T116-118: We finish Nalanda and currency 2 for 2 codices. 2 more to go. For the end of the age, every town goes back to growth. Not much point in trying to grow the cities further here.
T120: We finish Pyramid of the Sun in Roma.
T122: We got the latest codices from Wheel 2 and Engineering 2. We also have enough resources to finish economy. I calculate finishing both would put us at 96% so we hold until we have completed Angkor.
T124: We finish Mundo Perdido in Patavium (10th wonder)
T127: We finish Angkor Wat in Capua
T128: Declare on Friedrich for last city
T132: Capture Djanet for the military path + Allocate all resources for economy path using the commerce policy (+1 slot in all cities). Age ends.

Finishing with all 12 points
=> Many wonders (11 in total)
=> Capua is probably a better city than Roma now because it has more space. Would switch on next age.
=> 10 settlements including 3 decent cities. AI capitals are sadly not very good

I have access to Ming, Mongolia, Norman, Shawnee, Songhai and Spain. A quick rating at a glance:

How did you increase settlement cap up to 8?

 

[Selezin]

Then the funniest thing happened… Apparently Napoleon wasn’t managing the crisis very well himself!

Umm, you're not playing on PC? Where on the first continent did Napoleon come from?

 

[pholtz]

Finished with 8 Legacy at turn 140 My goal for the game was to max out economic, and I managed to do so but it was surprisingly hard. The AI didn't have many resources in each city and it seemed like there were more Empire resources than normal which I don't think count for the Silk Roads.

My crisis was happiness. And to make things worse, Knosos didn't like how Xerxes was managing things and wanted to join my empire. No matter what I did I was going to take a happiness hit as I was at the settlement limit. I ended up accepting Knosos and barely managed the happiness by judicious use of the happiness resources and spending some gold to quickly build some villas.

With just a few more turns I would have gotten a few more points, but I started getting future culture. Never did get Mathematics which means no academies which will hurt.

My Civ choices will be Inca, Ming, Norman, Songhai, Spain, Shawnee

 

[Acken]

How did you increase settlement cap up to 8?

2 in civic tree, 1 in tech tree, 2 in roman civic tree.

 

[Justus II]

Umm, you're not playing on PC? Where on the first continent did Napoleon come from?

I am on PC. I saw several people mention meeting Xerxes, Xerxes wasn't on my continent, Napoleon was. He lead the Mayans and started in the southwest but settled toward the middle of the map. My guess would be that the seed included Napoleon, but if you didn't have the 2K perk of getting Napoleon's personna, you got Xerxes instead?

 

[Selezin]

I saw several people mention meeting Xerxes, Xerxes wasn't on my continent, Napoleon was. He lead the Mayans and started in the southwest but settled toward the middle of the map. My guess would be that the seed included Napoleon, but if you didn't have the 2K perk of getting Napoleon's personna, you got Xerxes instead?

I would rather assume that if you don't have deluxe/fondated, then appears Napoleon instead of Xerxes. And that's already interesting. They didn't make the new leaders supportable as NPCs?

 

[Uberfrog]

I would rather assume that if you don't have deluxe/fondated, then appears Napoleon instead of Xerxes. And that's already interesting. They didn't make the new leaders supportable as NPCs?

They’re only available as NPCs in multiplayer so long as at least one player owns the content. In single player you cannot play against leaders you don’t own.

 

[wenamon]

Ok i flamed out! I over conquered Egypt and had 13 settlements but then I didn't realize how harsh the punishment was going to be. 3 of my cities revolted.

I broke the number 1 rule and re rolled! I'm going to try again with GOTM2.

SORRY!!!

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks for letting us know! We are all learning.
Perhaps you should consider replaying your game and not conquering so many settlements and letting us know how that went?
We can all learn from each other.

 

[wenamon]

Thanks for letting us know! We are all learning.
Perhaps you should consider replaying your game and not conquering so many settlements and letting us know how that went?
We can all learn from each other.

Thanks. I did end up backing up to a state just before my last conquer and was able to stabilize it out. The raw power of the Roman towns made my capital huge and the 2nd city of Waset as well.

I ended up maximizing the military and economic pathways in the age

 

[Ranger-13]

114 turns

I was played in very relaxed mode about 10 days ago before 1.1.0

Just founded saves at \My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VII\Saves\Single\auto\prev

 

[lymond]

I think 9 LPs...forgot to get turns ..i'll come back for that...i'm sure not great.

I got full Pax and just made full Culture on the last turn by completing Emile Bell in Fred's old cap. (Wonders seem kinda underwhelming to me)

I'm not sure still if this game is continuing past 3/15 or just the Antiquity Age. I'll play around with Explo I guess.

I destroyed Fred and whoever civ he was playing, and took Ashoka cap. Both these guys were settling in my face. Honestly, the AI settling patterns are a bit disturbing IMO. Reminds me of vanilla Civ IV before they fixed it in later expansions.

Science was abysmal, but culture and happy were strong until the Crisis, and then it got pretty bad. It's just strange to me how an empire could be so happy and then a few turns later cities are revolting away to your old enemy in the distance that it never belong to. Granted. after I attacked Xerxes in the later stage, his city Argos revolted to me.

Comparing this to the Confucius game and I am not impressed with JC. Conf seems more balanced overall. My science was a fraction of that in the second game.

I have yet to figure out if the Legatus ability is of any use, but I kinda forgot about it. The production to Rome from the towns though was nice and helped me build several wonders.

I was far away from Mathematics. Resource slots were at a premium so Economic was not even close. Honestly, I do not like the Economic requirements. Just filling resource slots seems silly. I can see doing the 7, but then it is 14 and 20. I have achieved that in other games, but it is boooring. I don't feel like I have much control over it either unless I have camels. Resources themselves are easy but the slots are not.

I'm going to likely try out the Normans and just kill people.

 

[pkf]

Forgot to take save at age end (Exp turn 2 and last Ant save I took attached).

Age ended at T120:

Past T75 I built Weiyang Palace, Colosseum, Nalanda, Emile Bell, that Tropical Wonder, Angkor Wat and Pyramid of the Sun. 5 of 7 are probably skippable.
I took down the CS to the very W so I could put down another town close to the gold and because I needed a 3rd city.
Declared on Ashoka afterwards. Friedrich declared on me right away. (Had denounced me but never did anything)
Army of 3 Legatus and 16 Legions made quick work of all of Ashokas settlements. I razed everything besides Cap. Not sure that was the greatest idea since I suffered from happiness penalties (+crisis) and had to tediously repair every turn. Also the War support penalty seems terrible.
I interrupted my session and when I got back to it, I took Ashokas capital right away. Grave mistake as now the age progress jumped to 84%.
Rest of Antiquity was spent scrambling to get the Economic and Science paths. I should have managed towns' focus more diligently to grow into more resources quicklier.
I was far from finishing the tech tree (never had that much science) and focused everything on science to get Codices. Culture was way better and we had enough to get started on Colossus.
To get more resources for economic path and because the war weariness made me unhappy, I peaced with Friedrich at T112 after razing La Venta and getting 2 Legatus enough XP to settle.
T113 Friedrich finished Colossus Not sure how he managed to do that, seemed like a one-turn with no "competing wonder" warning either.
After getting Mathematics II quite quickly I was confident I could get enough Codices. However, at T119 I accidentally assigned the 20th resource and boom, 100%. I quickly settled 3 more towns (S of former La Venta; W of that next to lots of rough terrain; N of Ashoka capital) to end the age.

Overall 3/4 Legacy Paths finished. Rome was a lot of fun to play, but I will probably start GOTM02 rather than continue, just to try the new GOTM goals.
Also looking forward to higher difficulty GOTMs where I don't get distracted by a bunch of wonders I really don't need

 

[RaidandTrade]

Late, but played it anyway.

Finished on turn 136 with 10 legacy Points. Frederick was annoying but gave me some cities. Ashoka tried a forward settle and lost it to a my suzed city state so was on a single city near the end of the age. I couldn't let that stand so forward settled with my commander to have him turn hostile then DOWed and took him out. The last few turns were tight as I was trying to finish the pyramids and get my codices and military. Ended up popping another commander to finish military just as I got pyramids. Missed economic and scientific.

Moving into Exploration with Songhai.