COTM 10 Spoiler 1: Entering middle ages

[solenoozerec]

Well, I just got spanked by Kuningas via Conquest victory in COTM9. I failed to note that Conquest was the only award he lacked to complete his eptathlon. So this time I decided to go a less travelled route: 20k.

Check out what Sirpleb is missing.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I know, I know!

I shall endeavor to look at it as a win/win situation. If/when he wins, I will be able to compare my game directly to his and thus get better. On the other hand, perhaps he will spill a beer onto his keyboard, and--in a frenzy to save the precious hardware--he will send all his settlers and workers into the midst of a barbarian horde.

Must keep hope alive!

 

[Dynamic]

Interesting!!!
Do you plan to go all the way to 100K without researching Education?

I had the same idea, but then accidently conquered The GL , experiencing my first ever tech elevator ride , and of course rendering ToA obsolete

I haven't experience with 100K but in this game our civ is not religious or scientific so building or rushing culture improvements will be hard. And our continent is big enough for using ToA effect. The GL problem may be resolved very simple: don't allow AI to research Education - kill them! I traded MA tech with Russia and Korea only so other civs are far behind.

 

[planetfall]

Predator.

For those of you who don't know this, the most effective way to disband a capital is (I think) to start building a settler and then turn off growth just before it's finished. If you don't have growth, you will get the option of abandoning. If you have growth, you will not get the option, the computer will wait for you to reach size 3 even though the shield box is full. This way I made a settler for New Karakorum at size 2.

So you did the palace jump by:
1. having new palace location closest to previous palace
2. abandoning old palace.

1- is this correct?
2- did you have to move any other cities, or deliberately built cities far apart until palace jump?

thanks

PF

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Predator, barbs fixed

the barbs are, of course fixed. If you haven't fixed your barbs yet, get on the stick!

Hear, hear! Those little creeps caused me quite a few problems, and I suspect if some people are playing with Polio’d barbs , it will have a noticeable effect on their games this month.

The Ancient Age, 4000bc—450bc

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to go for a high-scoring 20k this time. When I realized that Sir Pleb would likely be going 20k also (in order to get his third Eptathlon), I was already too far into the game. Ah well, on with the summary!

Initial Moves
At the start I moved the worker W and the Scout E. West looked a bit stronger, so my settler moved W to found Karkorum. I don’t care much for using the capitol as a 20k city, so I planned from the beginning to use my second city for 20k. That would give me the palace as a prebuild option, but that isn’t very important on Monarch level or below. More important was the ability to move my palace later by abandoning the capitol. The starting terrain didn’t look very promising, so a future palace jump looked like a strong possibility. If the capitol was my 20k city then abandoning it wouldn’t be an option. Also, I doubted I would be able to use a leader for a jump in a 20k game. The first few leaders are pretty much spoken for: #1—army, #2—rush heroic epic, #3—rush forbidden palace. Actually, I wasn’t quite right about the FP, but I am getting ahead of myself. I set research to BW and then turned it off, because I was hoping to pop a few techs from huts, and maybe pick up Alph from an AI so I could begin research on writing.

Exploration, Goody Huts and Barbs
My scout got a great deal of exploring done since he was fortunate in evading barbs. He also did moderately well in hut popping. I received the following from huts:

3850bc warrior
3550 warrior
3500 CB
3150 worker
2950 Myst
I also popped a map, but neglected to record the date.

I really like popping workers from huts rather than settlers. If you pop a worker close to home it can be quite helpful, but yet it isn’t game-breaking like popping a settler can be. I was assuming that the rules of hut popping work the same (ie: if you are building a settler you can’t pop one), so I set a city’s production to settler whenever I popped a hut far away from home in order to avoid getting a useless worker.

I made contact with the AIs in the following order:

3750bc Chinese (and spotted the very cool Great Wall of China!)
3500 Russia
3300 Korea
490 Japanese

With the extra warriors it didn’t take long to reveal most of our starting area. Around 3000bc, my plan to “possibly” plan for a palace jump changed to “definitely.” There simply wasn’t enough food in our immediate starting area, but the South was virtually the Land of Milk and Honey.

Barbs were quite troublesome in this game. IIRC, I lost 3 warriors, 2 archers (1 elite), and 2 horsemen (1 elite) in the ancient age. I also had to dance about quite a bit to protect my settlers and my workers, and that slowed me down. This barb problem had nothing to do with the “barb uprising” at the end of the age—at that time I had units canvassing the map, and there wasn’t a single camp in my area.

Expansion
I started a granary right off the bat and it was finished in 3000bc, the turn before growth to size three. My first settler was finished six turns later (five turns after the earliest possible date to pop a settler). This start sequence would not lead to the earliest possible 20k victory, of course, but I thought the granary would be more important in the long run for a high score.

My 20k city, Ta-Tu, was founded on the west coast in 2590bc—kind of late to be getting started on 20k. The terrain around Ta-Tu wasn’t ideal, having no hills, but I went with the coastal location in order to allow the colossus.

My third city was founded next to the FP wheat. It was a bit far away with high corruption, but such a high food surplus would make up for it, especially once my civ became a Republic. Speaking of Republic, the slingshot was successful, and I began the revolt in 1275bc, drawing a three-turn anarchy.

End of the QSC stats:
24 pop
1 city, 6 towns
1 settler
2 workers
1 scout
6 warriors
2 horsemen
1 granary
2 barracks
1 temple
1 library
Colossus
100 culture in Ta-Tu, making 8cpt
85g in treasury, making 35gpt. Currency due in 47 at 10% science.
Incense and horses connected
222 firaxis
All techs except MM, Cur, Const, Poly, Monarchy

In 850bc, a settler and horseman boarded a galley headed for the land south of Korea. My scout had uncovered ivory down there and I wanted to claim it: the Statue of Zeus is a great culture wonder. My boat was redlined during the journey, but I managed to get the Ivory in 670bc.

Other than that, after the quick start challenge most of my cities concentrated on workers, settlers, horsemen, and preparing for my palace jump.

Research/Trades
Didn’t start self research until 3300bc, but then Writing at max
3500bc Masonry (trade)
3300 Alph, TW, BW (trade)
2590 IW (trade)
2150 Writing
1525 CoL
1275 Phil, Republic (free)
1150 Math, HR (trade)
1075 Lit, research off
975 MM (trade)
670 begin researching currency (it had been off since Lit)
530 Currency
490 Poly (was researching but trade became available)
450bc Construction (trade)

On the same turn that I traded for construction, I was finally ready to make the palace jump to Dalandzadgad. 4 workers joined the city and 9 horsemen fortified. That gave the city a “jump value” just a bit higher than my 20k city. I will also have four luxuries (spice, ivory, incense, gems) connected to most of my empire in a few turns. It will take a bit longer to get the furs connected.

This may well be the most sprawled-out empire I have ever had. Hopefully I will fix that soon.

Culture Summary (and other notable events in 20k city)
2070bc Chinese slave joins city
1910 Temple
1910 Russian slave joins city
1625 Worker joins city
1300 Colossus
City shrinks 1 pop to 6 during anarchy period
1025 Library
1000 Korean slave joins city
950 (Galley)
775 Korean slave joins city
570 FP

I haven’t really gone all-out on my 20k city, and that may well sink me as far as the fastest-finish award goes. One noticeable departure from typical 20k strategy is that I hand-built my FP rather than using a leader to rush it. It probably would have been advisable for me to have built the Mausoleum instead (which I lost to the Chinese), and waited for a leader to rush the FP. I don’t think that would have led to a very good game as far as score though. I needed the FP built so that I could jump my palace without crippling my 20k city with corruption.

Future Plans
1) Build cities around my new palace asap
2) Ivory will be connected in a few turns and the Statue of Zeus will complete a few turns after. That will begin my GA. It’s going to hit a bit early but there isn’t anything I can do about it. It would have been nice to have about 6-8 more cities though.
3) I have about 12 horsemen ready to go, so I will attack Russia in the next turn or two. After that I may go ahead and trade Russia and Korea into the next age, or I may attack Korea or China—not sure.
4) Find the other AIs (I’ve already lost two galleys to barbs and one on a suicide run)

@Megalou: I like your city names!

 

[grahamiam]

i haven't had time to play a xotm since mid-Nov, but I'm going to try to fit this one in. To do it, I decided to pull a Charis Mongol-type game, ie no military. I will only build ships, workers, scouts, and settlers.

To start, I moved the settler 2T W, founding Karakorum in 3900BC.

Tech pace as follows:
CB: 3800BC (popped)
BW: 3450BC (from Russia for CB, WC, and 7g)
Alpha: 3350BC (from Korea for WC, Pott, CB, 2gpt, 6g)
Mas: 3300BC (from Russia for Pottery)
Wheel: 2670BC (popped from hut)
Writing: 1950BC (self research)
Math: 1600BC (from Korea for Writing, also get 186g)
IW: 1600BC (from Russia)
CoL: 1300BC (self research)
Philo & Republic: 1075BC (self research + slingshot)
MM, Currency: 1075BC (various trades)
Lit: 775BC (self research)
HBR: 690BC (self research)
Poly: 530BC (self research)

Became a Republic in 925BC. Gifted all the locals into the MA. They were also given Republic.

Have not met the others yet, only China, Japan, Russia, and Korea. Japan and China had a war, but all the others are playing nice.

Stats at 1000BC:
6 towns
5 workers
3 slaves
2 scouts
1 curragh

Going for Pyramids in the 2nd town (finished in 470BC, just after entering the MA).

I've made it to 10BC, hopefully I get to finish this game as it is kinda fun

No screenie from 530BC But here's my QSC:

 

[SirPleb]

(predator)

I'm going for a 20K culture victory.

Early Development

Like a number of people I moved my scout east, my worker west, then my settler west. I settled on the hills after just one step. I figured that this was an adequate location for a small capital. The land was so bad that moving further might just get a worse result by wasting a useful tile. I didn't plan to use my capital as my 20K city so the sooner I got something up and running the better, I could explore for a good 20K location while the capital grew.

I decided to start by building a granary in the capital. This would add a slight additional delay to the time before my 20K city got started but it would subsequently allow the capital to produce more workers to pump up the size of my 20k city.

My worker mined two BG tiles to speed the granary build. While my capital grew I explored a bit to the east then south and west of the capital looking for a good 20K location.

I decided to put my 20K city two tiles west of my capital. This wasn't an awesome location. It wasn't coastal and thus I wouldn't be able to start with Colossus. But it seemed like a good choice with its low corruption and a reasonably good selection of tiles around it. I settled Ta-tu there at 2710BC.

Expansion

I didn't expand quickly. Instead the early units produced by my capital went to help Ta-tu. I joined some workers and others improved the surrounding land.

In the meantime I met China, Russia, and Korea, and explored most of the land on my side of China's wall.

I did not make any plan to jump the Palace. Instead I'd just keep the Palace city small and expand carefully, claiming good sites and not packing towns into the bad lands - that would just increase corruption in the more distant towns with good land.

Research

I didn't do any research at the start. I set research to Ceremonial Burial to block popping that from a hut. In 3500BC I popped Bronze Working. In 2710BC I traded for Alphabet, Masonry, and Ceremonial Burial, and began my own research. In 1910BC I learned Writing, in 1475BC learned Code Of Laws, and in 1300BC learned Philosophy and Republic. I revolted immediately, drawing a four turn anarchy.

After becoming a Republic I learned Literature in 1050BC. I then turned off research while completing the Great Library. In 950BC I traded for The Wheel (included in a deal while getting some gold.) In 900BC the Great Library gave me Iron Working, Mathematics, Mysticism, and Map Making.

I was in no hurry to research. There are a lot of wonders in late Ancient Times and throughout the Middle Ages which are useful toward a 20K goal. It would be counter-productive to hurry forward in research - going slower and trying to get as many of those wonders as possible would be better. I could also put the gold saved this way to good use.

In 270BC two of my rivals knew the last Ancient tech I needed and the Great Library took me forward to the Middle Ages. At this date I still hadn't met anyone other than the three local rivals. I'd expanded my empire to have a few more towns, claiming luxuries and resources. My world map at this date:

QSC Status

At 1000BC I had:
5 towns, population 19
2 workers
1 temple, 1 granary
2 warriors, 3 archers

Goody Huts

I popped a warrior, Bronze Working, a worker, and 25g. The worker was about 10 steps from the home region and made the trip safely to become a productive Mongol.

I like the change to have huts pop workers!

Conflicts

Barbarians were a bit of a nuisance. I lost a warrior and a scout and did some dancing at times to avoid losing workers.

In 1425BC Russia demanded Code Of Laws. I refused rather than speed up the tech pace and she declared. Little happened in this war. I eventually sent two archers to raze a recently settled Russian town and then gave her peace for 100g.

20K Culture Progress

In Ancient Times Ta-tu built:
2270BC Temple
925BC Great Library
900BC Library
670BC Mausoleum of Mausollos

After the Mausoleum of Mausollos it began a prebuild for another wonder which I expected would become Hanging Gardens or Temple of Artemis. (I didn't go for the ivory for Statue of Zeus, I thought I didn't have a good chance of getting it.) Surprisingly no one has completed the Pyramids yet and at the end of Ancient Times Ta-tu is just two turns from building them.

 

[CKS]

PTW Open 20K

I started worker west, scout east, settler southwest, and then settled. I started on ceremonial burial at max and built a warrior, two scouts, and a settler.

I hit 2 goody huts in the first 10 turns, learning masonry and the wheel. I met Russia on turn 12 and Korea on turn 14, and traded for alphabet from the Koreans. Then I researched writing, philosophy, code of laws, and republic. I got to philosophy first, but wasn't willing to risk CoL before it, so I got CoL for free. After learning CoL, I traded writing for mysticism and money. I trade for math, horseback riding, and map making while working on republic. Then I research lit, poly, and monarchy. The great library brings me the rest of the techs and brings me to the middle ages in 310 AD.

Around 3200 BC a Russian warrior wanders close to my capital, and I worry a bit, but I use a scout to make him walk around and he goes away for a while.

My settler builds TaTu where SirPleb did, at basically the same time. Needless to say, even though we start our 20K cities at the same time, we don't end at the same time. It builds a temple, the mausoleum, the pyramids, a library, and the great library. But wait! This is more than SirPleb built! Amazing what I can do when my ancient ages last _600_ years longer.

After the settler is built but before he arrives, the Russians declare war. Luckily for me, their two warriors die attacking Karakorum and my one defending warrior promotes twice without losing any hit points. They don't attack again, but they won't make peace for a reasonable price for ages. Actually, they never do, but I eventually agree to their unreasonable demand of writing + 3 gpt. This was my only ancient war.

My expansion is typically slow. I built Kazan on the lake by the horses and built a temple to get the incense. Almarikh gets me gems, and I only build 2 more cities in the ancient age. Tatung flips to me, however, so I've got 7 cities. My 20K city is doing okay, but the rest of the empire isn't doing so well as we enter the middle ages.

 

[Megalou]

So you did the palace jump by:
1. having new palace location closest to previous palace
2. abandoning old palace.

1- is this correct?
2- did you have to move any other cities, or deliberately built cities far apart until palace jump?

thanks

PF

Sorry for not replying earlier. I haven't checked this thread.
1. That is not necessary. The main factor that decides which town is automatically chosen as your new capital (the target town) is the population of the target town. There are a few other factors too which matter:
* garrison in the target town
* if you have many towns around the target town
* If the target town has foregn citizens in it (they only count as 1/3 compared to your own citizens).

Since I built my target town by the flood plain wheat, it quickly became much bigger than the other towns, so there was no doubt where the new palace would appear.

If you want to take a closer look at the mechanics of palace flips this is the place to look.

2. When you have 30 shields for a settler in the box in a town smaller than size 3, but no extra food in the town (a yellow "1" or a yellow "2"), the computer will give you three options via a pop-up menu:
* Delay production. This is the same as if you do have extra food; the computer will wait for the town to reach size 3.
* Change production
* Abandon the town. If you choose this option the settler will be built even though the town has not reached size 3, and the town is abandoned. This is the option I chose because I wanted to place a "New Karakorum" at the site of Karakorum.

I find this to be the best way to abandon an old capital. You can even hurry the settler and build it at size 1. The downside is that you may be forced to delay the flip a bit until the settler is finished.

Remember that you must have zero growth (or starvation) in order to get access to the pop-up menu. Usually this means switching one citizen to specialist for the last one or two turns.

2- No. If your target town doesn't have a core of it's own it could affect things, however not in the way you suggested in "1.". If you want details about this see the article I recomended above. I did not want to build many cities around Karakorum before the flip because that would mean more corruption afterwards.

 

[RFHolloway]

I haven't experience with 100K but in this game our civ is not religious or scientific so building or rushing culture improvements will be hard. And our continent is big enough for using ToA effect. The GL problem may be resolved very simple: don't allow AI to research Education - kill them! I traded MA tech with Russia and Korea only so other civs are far behind.

There is another option of course - abandon/raze the city with the GL in it Continent was plenty big enough for the ToA route to 100k - don't forget with that option you can still get as far as military tradition if you need to fight.

 

[bed_head7]

CKS, do you have any comparison between your 20k city and SirPleb's? I am curious whether you are beating him in terms of fastest finish. I had considered going for fastest 20k in this game, just to show that even SirPleb cannot be in the medalling range and win fastest finish if there is real competition, but I ended up reading the spoilers so I couldn't participate.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

I had considered going for fastest 20k in this game, just to show that even SirPleb cannot be in the medalling range and win fastest finish if there is real competition, but I ended up reading the spoilers so I couldn't participate.

Hmmm. Interesting statement. I wonder if anyone can disprove it?

 

[bed_head7]

Well, someone PM me when they are going for fastest 20k for their eptathlon. That is the one victory condition where reaching the domination limit as fast as possible is almost never beneficial to the finish date. The only time would be at a high level, where putting the hurt on the AI could mean a free grab at middle age wonders, as seen in Aeson's game, though we both think the date could have been beaten with more focus on the 20k city and less on achieving domination.

Anyway, I'll be happy to score in the 5000 jason range and get the award if still no one believes me.

 

[solenoozerec]

@Bradleyfeanor&Bed_head7: I guess, guys, it is between you now. Bradleyfeanor is going for epthatlon, so he will need 20K (Unless he gets it in one of the current games. In fact it could be that he is going to steal 20K from SirPleb in this game, otherwise I am not sure what his means). I have just one request: please, inform us about it, it will be fun to watch. Though we already had a chance to see similar competition. SirPleb was going for fastest 20K and a score, while Kuningas was going for fastest 20K only. The margin was tiny, however we all know who has C3C ephatlon now.

 

[bradleyfeanor]

Bed_head, I agree with you in the vast majority of games. But once in a while a game comes along where agressive expansion goes along with the 20k goal. As you mentioned, at high levels sometimes by being aggressive you can snag a MA wonder that the AI would otherwise get.

An even stronger case is in a mid-level game (Monarch or Emperor) as follows: the AIs are strong enough to build a few ancient age and middle age wonders, but yet not militarily strong enough to defend themselves well, and not too far away to be conquered early. In such a game an aggressive domination strategy will allow the 20k city to get more AA and MA wonders than a typical strategy that concentrates on the 20k city alone. But, those types of games are the exception and not the rule. Most games I agree with you: concentrating on 20k alone will get the medal faster that a game that goes for score and 20k.

Edit: To Solenoozeric: I am indeed going for 20k, and am pretty happy with my progress. But my was more in reference to realizing that the above 20k strategy was possible--I used to agree 100% with Bed_head, but I played an epic game recently that made me realize that this is not always true.

As for beating Sir Pleb, I expect it will be close (or at least I hope so). With all the milking involved in a high scoring 20k, my biggest fear at the moment isn't losing to Sir Pleb, but finishing this monster by the deadline. Its gonna be a long, long weekend.

 

[Redbad]

For what it's worth:

I thought SirPleb might go for 20K in this one and thought he needed some competition. So I went full on 20K. I'm afraid I didn't come near his date

 

[solenoozerec]

@Bradleyfeanor: I never played 20K, but it is clear for me that agression is a good strategy. You did not mention great leaders for rushing wonders and simply faster research.
The question is: does going for 66% territory ASAP helps in any way?

 

[bed_head7]

Domination doesn't really help. Crippling competion can help, but I haven't ever really found it necessary. Up to Emperor, it is rare with a good 20k site to have any difficulty snagging Colossus, Oracle, MoM, Great Library and Hanging Gardens, the best cpt/spt wonders. If inland, which is sometimes better depending on map, I have been able to get all of the above except colossus, with Pyramids becoming possible. But then, I will leave one-three workers for my whole empire for awhile, joining workers until I hit size 12, usually between 1750BC and 1500BC depending on map.

I am glad to see that SirPleb does have some competition, though by the sound of it he might not have any trouble with the award. I haven't seen the same level of detail in 20k progress from the other players.

 

[Dynamic]

There is another option of course - abandon/raze the city with the GL in it Continent was plenty big enough for the ToA route to 100k - don't forget with that option you can still get as far as military tradition if you need to fight.

Thank you for advice! I'll have it in my mind.

 

[SirPleb]

I had considered going for fastest 20k in this game, just to show that even SirPleb cannot be in the medalling range and win fastest finish if there is real competition

I learned my lesson last time I tried that with kuningas This time I didn't even try to be in medalling range. I used gotm40 to keep my GPR ok and didn't worry much (can't help it a bit ) about Jason score in this one. I do hope bradleyfeanor doesn't spank me while going for Jason score too. Then again, if he does I'll learn from it.