COTM 21 - First Spoiler - Ancient Age, contacts

[Karasu]

Here we are with the first spoiler for the Iroquois game.

Got the horses? Did anyone go for a peaceful game?
Looking forward to reading your stories!

Ops, I was forgetting the criteria... Well, quite straightforward: in order to participate to this spoiler, you need to:
1. Have completed the Ancient Age, and
2. Have contacts with all the AI civilizations

 

[AutomatedTeller]

well, my start was rocky. I have developed bad habits from playing solo games (I tend to reload when I allow a city to riot, cause it just upsets me), and so my settler factory (down by the cow) rioted 4 or 5 times, which caused some problems.

My exploration was shaky, too - I didn't make a curragh for a long time, and my single warrior missed the turn south in egypt's lands and ended up on Rome's east coast. I had researched writing, but could not get *any* trading from anyone. Fortunately, I was able to make the GL, so went from no infrastructure and warriors to the middle ages in a heartbeat!! I spent a lot of time worrying about legions showing up on my doorstep, but I guess I was too far away.

Soon after, I started building the mounted warriors, then things got much more interesting - but that will wait for another time.

 

[klarius]

Open

Settled in place. Build order 2 warriors, granary (with two chops), settler.

Cities

4000BC Salamanca
2630BC Niagara Falls (cow)
2190BC Grand River (incense)
1830BC Allegheny (gems)
1275BC Cattaraugus (horses) and Oil Springs
1225BC Tonawanda (ivory)
1175BC Mauch Chunk
1150BC St. Regis
1000BC Centralia


QSC stats:
10 cities, 26 pop
2 granaries, 2 barracks
9 workers
1 warrior, 4 archers, 1 galley
All AA techs except monarchy and currency
5 contacts, 3 embassies

950BC Akwesasne


Foreign relations
2850 meet Romans
2310 meet Egypt
1750 meet Carthage
1625 meet Germans
1350 meet Dutch
1275 start of the roman "horse war". Roman settler beats mine by 1 turn.
Nice that the escort of the Romans was only an archer.
So I raze the city with warriors and then "secure" the region with all my armed forces. Something like 3 archers and 2 warriors .
1225 War with Egypt. They tried to extort - we can use the war happiness.
1150 Ally Carthage against Egypt.
1075 peace with Romans. Ally them against Egypt. My nearest neighbors should now all be set up for a nice early golden age.
875 meet Greeks and Vikings ( by a suicide galley ). They are at war with each other, so no action from me necessary.

Science
2390 writing researched
2230 BW, masonry, TW, WC traded
1675 CoL researched. CB, IW, mathematics, mysticism traded.
1475 HBR traded
1450 philosophy->republic->revolt (3 turn anarchy)
1425 MM traded
1200 literature researched. I set research to 0 to wait what the AI comes up with next.
1075 polytheism, construction traded. Keep research at 0. Several civs don't have construction, so there's hope for currency also.
710 Buy currency, monarchy and engineering (both sci civs). Enter MA.

 

[killercane]

Predator, Conquest.

4000 Open up, change preferences, move worker. We see gems on a mountain. Not enought to move. Settle. Work bg river, will road it, warrior, then chop a warrior after a worker.

3400 2nd warrior reveals a cow se and coast. Would have been nice to have a settler factory in the capital. oh well.

2950- meet barbs. there may be a big need for military.

2670 meet Rome. pottery for 60 gold.

2070 meet egypt warrior. no writing but no other trades available.

1910 grand river founded. barb horse in my borders.

1650 CoL with scientists. set to philo in 7. Im really retarding growth here but I need a to get ahead somehow. I doubt I will make the slingshot.

1600 meet germany. they have writing as well

1575 col for worker, masonry, wheel, and wc from egypt. math for col from caesar. bronze and 40 for math from germany.

1550- meet vikings. Col for MM and 150 gold. mm for cb and 70 gold from caesar. embassies with caesar and cleo. MM for IW and myst from cleo. no resources anywhere near. guess we didnt want an easy game huh.

1500- meet carthage. they are up construction wtih rome and egypt. philo in 2. proxy war with egypt, pay germany hbr and col to fight them. germany doesnt know carthage .

1475 the unknown dutch must have philo. it seems to have dropped. fire scientists.

1450 get philo and republic! i didnt have CA2 open so philo must not have dropped and I just picked up extra commerce as usual from turning the lux slider down. I was so surprised I didnt break into big picture and get less of an anarchy but 3 turns is darn good.

1425 an explorer finds horses relatively close in roman territory. the plan is set. Must figure out how to capture The Great Lighthouse.

1400- worker and 50 gold for philo and hbr from the newly met dutch.

1375 set carth vs egypt and greeks vs. vikings.

1175 construction for philo and lit from greeks.

1125 greece builds pyramids. they must be in ga.

950 hold off on MA ages until i can clear a barb camp.

925- enter MA, roading over for war with Caesar with a few archers and a couple of elite warriors. Should be there as soon as the Barb killers get down to help out.

My western warrior had at first gravitated towards the ivory/hills, and missed the horses at first which Caesar settled. This slowed down my MW buildup but only very slightly. Immediate plans are war with caesar and lots of galley buildup for this doughnut.

QSC

7 cities, 23 pop
1 settler
10 workers
3 archers
2 barracks, 2 granaries
3 galleys, 2 curraghs
2 warriors
1 catapult

 

[7Losses]

Predator, any win I can get!

This game was extremly difficult and felt like a deity game.
I thought my chances on getting the republic slingshot were pretty slim, so I went directly to philosophy with the intentions of getting a literature slingshot and the great library.

Well as it turns out, I couldn't even get to philosophy first, beaten by 1 turn I think.

I ended up building the great library and went from that almost all the way up to education in 1 turn (thats how fast they were researching)

I was scared at this point because I didn't have the western horses and because every was ahead of me (except carthage) technilogically.

I started a war with rome and allied egypt and carthage against them, taking about 3 cities. I had only started building troops at this point because my main focus was getting the GL.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Open

This is my first COTM. Just brought out the C3C disk after Civ4 wasn't too much to my liking...

I expanded pretty quickly after building two warriors followed by a granary. Built most cities 3 or 4 tiles away - I didn't have much space to expand, so I better use all of it!

Met Rome pretty quickly, and then the rest of the AIs soon followed. Vikings were the only ones that took awhile. It looks to be an interesting map.

However, when I got the The Wheel, I did spot the horses, and luckily, for some reason, Rome stopped expanding in my direction and I was able to get them for some MWs. I also grabbed the nearby ivory to gain 3 domestic luxuries: the gems, incense, and ivory. When I traded for some others, my happiness allowed me to stay low in luxury tax and run higher science.

I entered the Medieval Age in 775 BC after trading for Currency and Construction. I became a Republic in 670 BC. Back on the homefront, after building some libraries/markets, I started pumping out some MWs for war against the Romans to come shortly.

QSC Stats:
7 cities, 20 population
10 workers
6 warriors
2 settlers
2 spearmen
1 archer
1 catapult
1 galley
All AA techs except Poly, Currency, and Construction

1000 BC Screenshot:


Empire Zoomed Out:


Looking forward to the rest of the game!

 

[azzaman333]

I had a VERY slow AA (for the Iroquois only though). I wanted to kill offr the first person i met ASAP, with some beautiful ponies. It took waaay too long for my likin to meet someone, which happened to be rome. I was very slow in finding my opponents, and when i had met Carthage, Egypt and Rome, i was so far behind in tech it wasnt funny. It took me quite a while to connect the ponies, so as soon as i learnt Math i built up some catapults. By the time i had a good attack force, including 12 cats, 7 archers, 7 warriors and approx. 25 mounties, Rome was building pikes and Maces. I took the first city fairly easily, and with egypt attackin at the other end, i didnt have to face too many troops. Not long after the war started, Rome built the Great Wall in Veii, which was on the iron hill choke. I ended uptaking 4 cities from rome in the war, including veii. About 6 turns befoer the end of the war, veii flipped back to rome, so i razed it. My mounties had incredible luck against the roman Muskets, which came out to play while i was beseiging the second town i took. I entered the MA in about 500 AD, during my golden age. Having fun playing this game so far, and am extremely happy that karasu decided to keep the game on emp rather than move it to demigod.

 

[DBear]

QSC stats-----------
Score: 255 Firaxis, Carthage has 266, Egypt leads w/404. 3409 QSC.
Land: 87 squares, 8 towns.
People: 11 happy, 5 content, 5 sad.
Diplo: 6 contacts, 4 embassies.
Production: 91 food, 204 shields, 11 gold.
Buildings: 2 grain, 2 rax.
Units: 6 workers, 4 warriors, 1 archer, 3 spears, 2 curraghs.
Experience: all are regulars.
Tech: all ancients except currency, construct, repub, monarch, poly.

I found the tech pace VERY fast, and was struggling to trade my way to parity.
Carthage and Greece were nice enough to build embassies to me.
Was able to filch horses from Rome, also grabbed horses at "Yucutan Point" across the great bay.
My last contact was in 950BC.
Lost the race to the GL, took Mausoleum as consolation.
Entered the MA in 630BC.

 

[Twonky]

open class, going for UN or SS

QSC-stats:
11 towns with 29 citizens, 2 granaries, 1 barracks
11 workers, 5 warriors, 2 archers, 3 curraghs
7 contacts, no embassies
missing AA-techs: Construction, Literature, Polytheism and Monarchy
510 gold in the treasury, 112 tiles owned

My first priority was the Republic-slingshot, which I was glad to accomplish in 1350bc (Republic was established in 1225bc).
Unfortunately, my reconaissance was terrible at first: a lone scouting warrior met the Romans in 2710bc, but then stupidly turned W and N. The first 3 curraghs I tried to get across the ocean sunk. So it took quite some time and good luck to meet the other civs. By then, I even sold away Republic to get to tech parity - and eventually in the lead shortly after.

The accursed and apparently strong Romans got to the horses first, so I´m building archers and plan to attack them with Longbows.
In 950bc I could use Currency to trade for Cons (Greece) and Poly (Rome) and to enter the MA. Gifting resulted in Greece and Germany getting Feudalism for free, so I set research to Engineering.
My boats can see uprisings in southern Egypt and Scandinavia.

 

[PaperBeetle]

The River's Source
I settle one tile NW; when I am agricultural, I like to make as much room on my fresh water sources as possible. Research is set to Wheel, as the location of horses is the most important thing I can know right about now. I'm not too bothered about the slingshot, as I don't plan on using any of these fancy ancient age governments. It's feudalism all the way for me.

Just Like Civ 4
Chop chop chop; I get an early worker out, and use him to knock down some forests around the capital. The lumber goes towards a granary, and only when this is done do I spit out my first settler. In retrospect, I don't think that was correct, as the next town would be founded in an area with much better food prospects (i.e. the moo), but I had made my spreadsheet up already, and was flying on autopilot...

The Best of Neighbours
Exploration soon reveals horses and ivory to the west, and beyond them, the Romans are blocking the continent. Well, that's one guy I don't trust, but as long as I get those resources ahead of him I won't worry too much. The second town is perfect for a 4-turn settler factory, so I can expand west pretty quickly. In 1650bc I found a town overlooking the ivory, beating Rome to the vicinity by about one turn. Their settler combo heads south to the horse, but they settle Neapolis one tile removed from the resource. Crazy! I won't even have to rush a temple...

Getting Back Into the Tech Race
Rome is streaking ahead of me in tech; I am slow in getting out curraghs, so I don't have any other contacts until I meet the Greeks in 1300bc. I also send a ship north around Rome to meet Carthage (1250bc) and Germany (1225bc). The curragh that went east finds the Vikings in 1150bc, and I can start to play tech broker between the eastern and western groups of AI. I worry about speeding the tech pace past the life-span of my Braves, but I can't bear to fall behind so badly, so I trade merrily away. Maybe I'll regret it later.

QSC Stats
1 city and 10 towns, with 28 citizens and 112 tiles.
2 granaries, 2 barracks.
98 food in the bin, 273 shields in the box, 112g in the treasury
1 settler, 6 workers, 9 axes (1 vet), 2 archers (vet), 3 curraghs.
All first and second tier techs, Riding, 173 beakers of Currency.
5 contacts (no Holland or Egypt), no embassies.

The Sound Of Hoofbeats
Ears to the ground; I hear horses approaching! I hook up the horse in 975bc, and follow soon after with Zeus (925bc). When Rome demands some small change, it is tempting to let him dow, but I hold off as I am allergic to despotic golden ages. I need Feudalism quick! Luckily, the same turn (850bc) my full-steam research of Currency comes to fruition. I wouldn't normally concentrate so heavily on the top of the tech tree, but I'm glad I did. Trading Currency on the interturn brings me Construction, Polytheism, Philosophy, Laws, Mapping, a couple of slaves and much of the world's gold. I have entered the Medieval, although I suspect the Dutch got here first; I meet Egypt in 800bc and when I find the Dutch in 710bc, they are medieval and have both ancient government techs, which I do not.

 

[namliaM]

Tho one might not say so. I am going at a rate of about 5 turns per session, getting cut short allways.... for one reason or the other. CA says I spend only 4 hours on this game so far (allready deep into MA).... But I have been playing it since like the 2nd of feb... I know I did some loads just looking at the game trying to see what to build where to go etc. Just to shut it down again.

I am going on 20K, I desided that before hand. So build was warrior warrior Settler, Temple (2 chops to speed it along) and Oracle.

I did a little to much exploring I think, but did find the Horses (to far away for me anyway) and the Ivory (GREAT for my 20K )

My 20K offcourse lead me to CB and Myst, then Writing and Philo for the Lit sling.
My empire was small at the end of the AA, I had my 20K capital. The COW town of Niagara falls (which most everyone has I think). Then went long with alegegny for the Ivory grabing the most eastern one as the other two were allready claimed by Rome.

Contacts were slow to say the least. I pushed out an early Curragh from Niagara, met Egypt, Dutch and Greece only to have it be sunk by a barb galley off the coast of Niagara. Later (MA allready) I meet the others.
I did not encite war enough I think, but Culture is booming.
Offcourse I have the palace
to be followed by a temple in 2750 BC
The ORACLE 1625 BC
MOM 1375 BC
Great Lib 925 BC
a 1 Turn Lib (6 chops! timed to perfection) in 900 BC
HG was done in 590BC
SoZ is build in 410 BC

I only really enter the MA in 290bc when I turn back on research towards Mono and Theo, We now are a republic... after waiting for SoZ to finish, are building a Coloseum, going at 35cpt. At this point my 2nd curragh has made it as far as the Germans, they are currently Top dog, Everyone is on tech par (except for egypt missing Feud and Republic), but the germans have 400+ gold to spare.

It has been a surprising game so far, getting all them wonders and delaying my MA like I did. Possibly I wasted 200 shields on MoM, maybe that will come back to me in the MA, nothing to wait and see ...

P.S. I sure hope I dont hit any load limits with all the loading I am doing

 

[Abegweit]

Predator Domination

Much of the following is written from memory so I may be wrong in some details...

I founded Salamanca on the spot and started reseach on Writing @100%. It seemed to me that I had a decent shot to be first at Philosophy but that the Republic slingshot would be out of reach. My initial build order was warrior-granary-worker-warrior-settler and Niagara Falls was duly founded by the cow in 2630BC. Salamanca built settlers and MPs while NF, after chopping a granary, built almost nothing but workers until the very end of the game.

Exploration

An explorer warrior worked his way through Roman lines, meeting the Egyptians, the Carthaginians, the Germans and the Dutch. This brave solider eventually died to a Dutch archer. My third city was Grand River to the northeast of the capital. It started by sending out a couple a curraghs who noticed the crossing to Greece. The first died in the attempt to cross but the second got through and met Alex and, later, William. When I realised the the shape of the map, it turned back and came in contact with the Swedes. Between the two I had contact with the entire world by 1000BC. Another curragh explored the northwestern coast until dying to a Carthaginian galley but did not add any new contacts.

Research

I succeeded in getting Philo first and grabbed CoL as my free tech. At this point I had contact with, I believe, three AIs and used the two techs to gain parity with the AI. From this I learned the disappointing news that I had neither horses nor iron. I next chose to get Literature and traded it off to the AI for war. My objective was to slow down the research rate and thus extend the useful life of our UU. Next I went after Currency and was able to trade it for Construction, Polytheism and Republic, entering the MA around 875BC.

Conquest

Caesar had very quickly grabbed the ivory and the horses to the northwest. The ivory could be snatched by aggressive settlement but the horses would have to be conquered. In expection of an elephant grab, Grand River started a pre-build for the SoZ, my favourite wonder. The tusks were duly brought on line in 1025BC and the statue finished in 975. In the meantime my workers connected the horses circa 900BC. As this was Rome's second source I was able to trade and several core cities started building Mounted Warriors in anticipation of an attack for a GA and a secure supply of horses.

QSC stats

9 Cities. Pop 24.
16 workers. 10 warriors. 1 archer. 1 catapult. 1 curragh
194 shields towards the SoZ and 80 towards theFP.
All AE techs except Construction, Polytheism, Currency and the governments.
2 granaries. 2 barracks.