Conquests 01: First Spoiler. End of ancient age.

[al_thor]

Sir Clive:
Welcome to GOTM!
This is also my first participation in GOTM. However, I always play at Demigod level, sometimes Emporer, so even though this has been challenging because of the somewhat crappy start location, I am completely dominating all rival civs. It was good not to have Horse - I would not have used them anyway until being Monarchy or Republic.

Did you move your initial settler at all? It's always best to move your scout and worker FIRST, to get a wider view of surrounding area. I ended up moving only one space over (East) to be on the river. The Dyes showing up within my borders was actually a surprise (but very welcome).

I wish that I would have done more documentation of my progress. I have a fair number of saves, but I did not write down any key accomplishments or sequences - next time I will know better.

I do remember my first build - it was another Scout to take advantage of the goody huts, meet other civs, and expose the map. My next build was Granary, chopping forest to speed it up. Then I built Temple (more forest). Then my first Settler, then my first warrior.

I never go for the Great Library anymore - IMO it hampers your skill development - too much of a "crutch." In fact, I almost never build any of the Ancient Age wonders - maybe Statue of Zeuss for the Ancient Cavalry.

 

[Sir Clive]

Thanks for the welcome al-thor .

I did move my settler However I went the wrong way I went W then NW and settled on the hill by the river. A lousy spot as I missed out on the Dyes which the Arabs now control

The other mistake I made was not to build another scout - I missed out on a few goody huts early on I guess.

I did minimum research early on 0% and a single scientist - managed to trade my way to getting the GL but you are right about it hampering development. I always seem to screw up research once I have got the GL. Maybe i will give it a miss in the future !

Sir Clive:
Welcome to GOTM!

Did you move your initial settler at all? It's always best to move your scout and worker FIRST, to get a wider view of surrounding area. I ended up moving only one space over (East) to be on the river. The Dyes showing up within my borders was actually a surprise (but very welcome).

I do remember my first build - it was another Scout to take advantage of the goody huts, meet other civs, and expose the map. My next build was Granary, chopping forest to speed it up. Then I built Temple (more forest). Then my first Settler, then my first warrior.

I never go for the Great Library anymore - IMO it hampers your skill development - too much of a "crutch." In fact, I almost never build any of the Ancient Age wonders - maybe Statue of Zeuss for the Ancient Cavalry.

 

[dojoboy]

I never go for the Great Library anymore - IMO it hampers your skill development - too much of a "crutch."

A good point, but I like it for a couple reasons:

(1) switching governments when not a religious civ doesn't hurt research as much, can still get techs as they come available, if done before Education.

(2) accumulating gold for rushing infrastructure, such as marketplaces & courthouses.

 

[champain]

The GL has big advantages as dojoboy said. That gold could also be used to cover the cost of a mass warrior -> swordsman or horseman -> knight upgrade.

But in a game at this difficulty level the player should probably be the one leading the tech race so relying on the GL to get your techs from other nations might actually slow you down.

 

[SniperDevil]

Today is a sad day. I cannot say what has happened in the Middle Ages due to the fact that i have to wait for the next spoiler, but let me say this. I have been betrayed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (damn its so much harder on regent )

 

[ainwood]

The GL has big advantages as dojoboy said. That gold could also be used to cover the cost of a mass warrior -> swordsman or horseman -> knight upgrade.

But in a game at this difficulty level the player should probably be the one leading the tech race so relying on the GL to get your techs from other nations might actually slow you down.

The other good thing about NOT building the GL is that the AI then wastes resources by building it!

And you can still get the techs by capturing it.

 

[dojoboy]

The other good thing about NOT building the GL is that the AI then wastes resources by building it!

And you can still get the techs by capturing it.

Ja! Dieses ist eine sehr gute methode.

 

[Mauer]

Conquest (third attempt at GOTM, COTM, ABC, 123 aahhhh whatever)
Sorry guys for not keeping good records, but I started playing and got carried away. I initially settled N, NE from the starting spot. I really wish I had done like a couple of these other guys and gutted out untill I made it to the flood plains down south. I had a lot of luck with the goody huts. picked up 5 techs, a map, 25g, and a city Ugarit on the far Western coastline. I mainly started out by building a decent sized warrior force preparing for swordsmen. By 1000 BC I only had 6 cities, but about 25 warriors.
As soon as I discovered IW, I upgraded my swords. Just so happened about this time that Arabia became a little popmous and demanding. They declared war and captured a city. I destroyed them in 300AD and almost immediatley went to war with Sumeria. Then Babylon. By 1170AD the entire continent was mine.

Tech rate was horrible untill I hit my GA in300AD. Still slow compared to normal, but after the GA it pretty much leveled off to a tolerable rate. I wasted entirely too much production on the GL, because by the time I built it I was ahead in tech and just a few short turns later it was obsolete anyways.

One thing I figured out, and don't know if anybody else has tried, I razed a couple of cities and spread the workers out on tiles by themselves. Did this later on with a couple of other civs to be named later. Every single time, the AI would move right past my troops and capture the workers. Leaving a healthy army to attack the next city. It would even draw some units out of the city just to grab the worker, leaving the AI city with one less defender. Then I would just reclaim the worker with an injured unit. Maybe kind of an exploit, I don't know. Anyways, I entered the MA in about 370 AD (kind of late) with the arabs gone and poised to strike at the Sumerians.

Anyways, kind of a lousy start. But compared to a couple of months ago when I never won beyond regent, I think this is pretty good. All of the credit goes to the staff here, and the spoilers from all of the vet players. Learned things in here I never would have even thought about. And the Conquest training game by ainwood has really helped too. It is going EXTREMELY SLOW, but I learned alot about my opening moves in there. Thanks Alanh (the vampire)

This is the continent at 1000 BC

 

[Detlef Richter]

Ja! Dieses ist eine sehr gute methode.

Schön dass hier auch deutsch gesprochen wird.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

The only AA wonders i considered were the Colossus and Lighthouse. As it turned out, they were both built on the other continent along with ToZ. Every other AA wonder was built by the Sumerians except Arabia got the Great Wall.

Every time i got the message that another wonder had been built on my continent, i smiled and said "Thank YOU!!"

I also forgot in my timeline how my first war started. Arabia was sending 4 warriors to to my northern iron city with the obvious intention of attacking. I demanded the be removed or war and it was war I allied with both Sumeria and Babylon so i didn't have to worry about my southern borders. I think i gave sumeria a luxury and babylon agreed for a tech.

On the very next turn, my southern iron disappeared leaving me with only one source.

 

[ShaoKai]

Ja! Dieses ist eine sehr gute methode.

Schön dass hier auch deutsch gesprochen wird.

我看不明白

 

[Darkness]

我看不明白

It's German.

Translation:
Ja! Dieses ist eine sehr gute methode - Yes, that is a very good method
Schön dass hier auch deutsch gesprochen wird. - Nice, that there are people here that speak German

No idea why they felt the need to use German, but hey, who cares??

 

[dojoboy]

It's German.

Translation:
Ja! Dieses ist eine sehr gute methode - Yes, that is a very good method
Schön dass hier auch deutsch gesprochen wird. - Nice, that there are people here that speak German

No idea why they felt the need to use German, but hey, who cares??

First off, I'm a "poser." I must look everything up piecemeal, not fluent at all. But, easy enough to pull off in a forum. Honesty is the best policy.

Second, sometimes putting things in just the right language makes a stronger point. Kind of like using a nice rich, full cussword, rather than saying drats or shucks.

 

[sparrow]

Yes, yes, I feel your pain. The same happened to me. I shudder to think what could have been if this was emperor or higher.

Is it possible to replay this game at emperor level? I tried using Play Last World, but it gave me a different starting location. Is there a saved game editor for C3C?

I assume that a submitted game based on an edited save file would be disqualified, even if the edit made the game harder.

I don't have time to replay this game to a finish, though I would like to replay it to 1000 BC at emperor. If I did have time to finish, is there way to submit a non-qualifying game just to get the jason score?

I assume the GOTM staff has considered using difficulty level to distinguish Conquest/Open/Predator classes. Would this make the differences too great? Is there a thread that discusses this possiblity?

 

[Tech Step]

I never build the Great Library unless I am forced into cascading into it by one of the other civs. If you know how to trade etc you should be able to keep up with techs without too much trouble

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Well, I made it into the Middle Ages, but it wasn't pretty. First, a little background. I'm an OK Civ player -- I've been playing it off and on since Civ I, through Civ II, SMAC, Civ III, PTW, and C3C. I hadn't played in a long while until I picked up C3C this spring and got back into things. I had played CivIII on Chieftan level, mostly, and moved up to Warlord for PTW. With C3C, I took the plunge to Regent, and have probably played a dozen or so Epic games on Regent, so I do have the advantage of being fairly familiar with C3C. This is my first GOTM, and I'm playing Open Class. I didn't keep notes as I was playing, so I'm reconstructing from memory.

Things started off OK -- the starting position was bad, but could be worse. After scouting with my scout and worker, I took one step toward the river and popped my first city within reach of the dyes (after expansion). I did lots of tree-chopping and irrigating, and was doing pretty well expanding -- I think I was up to about 5 cities, counting the one I founded with a goody-hut settler. Then, calamity struck. The Arabs demanded Iron Working and I told them to buzz off. Bad idea -- they declared war. Unfortunately, while I had iron working, I didn't have any iron in my resource box. Many spearmen and bowmen later, I had lost and recaptured a city and wasted a bunch of turns to maintain the status quo. Meanwhile, the Sumemrians and Babylonians took advantage of the conflict on the east end of the continent to expand.

Well, it could be worse -- back to work growing my nation. I built a road network and expanded further. I now had iron in my resource box, as well as gems, incense, and dyes. No horses, but what are you going to do? I built my infrastructure, got the Great Library, and started building a swordsman/catapult army. Meanwhile, the Arabs and the Summerians decided to divvy up the Babylonians. Which is to say, the Summerians conquered the Babylonians while the Arabs captured a few outlying cities. The war ended with the Babylonians down but not out -- they have a few cities left, but they are not going to threaten anyone any time soon.

The Great Library has turned out to be relatively useless so far. I set my research to 0 after I built it, counting on the GL to keep me competitive, but no such luck -- though I shared my continent with three strong Civs when I started building it, the Babylonians were decimated before they could advance to the point where the GL would be useful, and the Arabs apparently have the tech slider set to 0. The Summerians are advanced, but my brave exploratory galleys have thus far been unable to make contact with anyone else who might have helpful knowledge. On the plus side, I was the first to discover Philosophy.

Then, in the late Ancient Age -- but before the discovery of Republic or Monarchy -- war broke out with the Arabs again. I don't remember who fired the first shot, but many a shot was fired. Those Arabs have amazing tenacity, and despite a massive outpouring of swordsmen, spearmen, and catapults, I only managed to take a few of their cities. The war lasted an excessively long time, and I was a afraid to lose production by slipping into anarchy. The end result, therefore, was that I picked up a little bit of land, lost a lot of time, and let the Summerians get even further ahead. More embarassing, the Arabs probably have half a dozen catapults they took from me on the field of battle.

So where do I stand? It's now the early Middle Ages -- I have Feudalism, the SUmmerians have that, plus Monotheism and Chivalry. The Arabs have a core of about half a dozen cities, but they are limping. It's about 1200 A.D. -- far too late a date given the technological picture! I've got a pile of Medieval Infantry, and I think that as soon as the 20-turn peace treaty is up with the Arabs, I'm going to finish them off. I hope. Then, I'll make a beeline for Cavalry, and hopefully use a Cavalry/Cannon force to cut back on Summeria's lead. The good news (if you can call it that) is that Summeria has the Pyramids and Sun Tzu's, so if my gambit is successful, I'll get a cash bonus by selling my granaries and barracks at the appropriate time -- and thanks to my Arabic misadventures, I've built lots of barracks. Meanwhile, hopefully one of my galleys will do the job and find me a civilization who can teach me some techs.

Thanks to the GOTM staff. As I mentioned, this is my first GOTM experience, and while I'm not exactly proud of the performance I put in so far, I am having fun.

No map, I'm afraid, but I'll try to post one tonight or tomorrow.

 

[Black_Hole]

I only build the Great Library when someone builds a wonder I was building and I don't want to waste alot of shields

edit: 200th Post

 

[Tone]

The Great Library is also useful for 20K (single city) cultural win.

I wonder if anyone will get that victory condition in this game though? No GL to rush wonders and low production cities do not make it very likely IMO.

 

[al_thor]

I might be able to do it, if I take out Civ X. I'm WAY ahead on the Entire Civ Cultural score, and just slightly behind on the single-city. I control most of the GW's, capturing only GP, GL, and HG. I am 1 turn away from completing Theory Of Evolution. I have begun the conquest of the other continent, taking out the weakest one and then will turn on the next, etc.
I will probably end up with a Conquest victory before I can accumulate the required culture though.

 

[dmanakho]

I might be able to do it, if I take out Civ X. I'm WAY ahead on the Entire Civ Cultural score, and just slightly behind on the single-city. I control most of the GW's, capturing only GP, GL, and HG. I am 1 turn away from completing Theory Of Evolution. I have begun the conquest of the other continent, taking out the weakest one and then will turn on the next, etc.
I will probably end up with a Conquest victory before I can accumulate the required culture though.

Oh, hurrying up with spoilers...