COTM 24 - first spoiler (entering the middle ages)

[ainwood]

COTM 24 first spoiler

To qualify for this spoiler, you must:

1. Have reached the middle ages.
2. Have contact with all civs on the starting continent.
3. Know the locations of the capitals of all civs on the starting continent.
4. Have a map showing most of the coastline of the starting continent.

Please do not post screenshots of anything off from the starting continent. If you have contact with other civs, feel free to mention your dealings, but please refrain from posting anything about their location etc.

 

[azzaman333]

I am just before the MA, with the entire continent at war.
Hittites vs Mongolia & Rome
Iroquois vs Mongolia
Mongolia vs Hittites and Iroquois
Rome vs Hittites

Mongolia has been fighting Iroquois for a long time, and there are 2 civs (other than the Hittites) in the Middle ages, since a barbarian uprising has caused major problems. Building the GL in Veii, which was built NE on the coast, with both cows. Need Currency and Construction to advance to MA.

Screenshot.

 

[Nata]

COTM 24. Open. 20K.

4000BC - Worker W on Mountain, to look around. Sees more of the same.
Deside to move 2SW to get more BGs and river tiles.
Settler SW.
In other news: only Egypt has CB, and 4 Civs beside us have Alphabet.
It means we should work hard on a slingshot, and also the chances to trade for CB early and start on building culture are slim. But deside to go for slingshot anyway, and build 20K in the capital, Palace might be the only culture for a long time.

3950BC. Settler SW, Worker SE on BG.
3900BC. Rome founded. Palace. Silks come into Radius - woo-hoo!
Research: Writing. Build: W,W,W,Settler.

2950BC - W1 meets Mongol Scout. Nothing to trade.
2900BC - W1 meets Iroquese.
2850BC - Veji founded by the Cow.
2390BC - Contact Hitties. Nothing to trade.
2270BC - Writing learned. Start CoL. Buy CB (finally!)+Pottery+Wheel from Hitties for Writing, sell CB around. Veji switches to Granary, Rome to Temple.
1910BC - Temple in Rome.
1600BC - CoL discovered, traded to Hitties for Masonry, Mysticism &HBR+50g, HBR & Writing are traded to Mongols and Iroquese to net BW & IW.
Start Philosophy.

1375BC - Republic slingshot achieved. Start Literature.

900BC - Oracle. Revolt.
825BC - We are Republic.
750BC - Library.
490BC - MoM.
70BC - GLib. We got Construction & Monarchy out of it.

110AD - Contact Egypt. They have Currency, but not much else. Get Currency from them, enter MA.

Here we are at the 1st turn of MA:

 

[Redbad]

predator, 20K

You've got competition Nata.

I settled 1 NW. Didn't feel like doing a wargame, so I decided to do a more relaxing 20K. Thought it would be best to get a temple and granary asap. Of course chances of a rep slingshot would then be slim, so I went for philo after writing and took a free literature.

I was quite suprised to see 2 cows nearby, but I'm not complaining. I forced 2 settlers out of Rome to found cities by the cows. Both cities became 5 turn worker factories. Rome grow by itself to size 7. Growth from 7 to 12 was done by adding workers. At size 6 I sold the granary for the extra cash and the lower maintenance.

Research wasn't fast as I stayed at three cities for a long time, and had to self research republic. MA was reached in 30BC.

Culture improvements in Rome at that date:
3950- palaces
3050- temple
1500- library
1125- Mausoleum of Mausollos
610- Great Library
150- Hanging Gardens
70- colossuem

 

[Obormot]

I am going for 20K too.

I settled in place. I built 2 warriors to find a good 20K spot and then a granary. Usually i don't like to build a granary before first settler when there is a food bonus nearby (i saw one of the cows immidiately after setlling), but here we had decednt production because of 2 BGS and i needed to chop the forest to bring irrigation to cows, so i decided that it won't delay the settler too much. I then built 2 towns near both cows.

It was not easy to choose the culture city, but finally i decided to build culture in my 4th city which i founded 2SW,W of Rome. I also considered Rome and the coastal city near the second cow, but Rome had fewer shields and the coastal city didn't have fresh water. I also think that coastal 20K cities are a bit overrated. Colossus is nice of course, but inland cities have much bigger production after Shakespear's which i am going to build as early as possible.

After finaly settling the 20K city all 3 other cities built just workers for a while to max-out production in Cumae. I got it up to 23 spt without starvation in republic.

Here is how my empire looked at 1725BC:

I mined both BGs, chopped forest and irrigated both cows all without roading because i wanted to set up support cities near food bonuses ASAP. I only built roads by workers built in the cow cities on their way to the 20K town. That and researching pottery slowed me a lot, but i got away with it getting republic slingshot around 1200BC.

20K progress:
1725BC - temple (rushed by 4 forest chops)
975BC - Oracle
925BC - library (partially cash-rushed)
530BC - Great Library
510BC - colosseum (cash-rushed)

I entered MA in 510BC after getting polytheism from iroquois. Researched construction myself.

QSC stats: 6 towns, 21 citizens, 2 settlers, 9 workers, some warriors.

 

[Taxpayer'sMoney]

PTW, Predator going for...erm...nothing actually.

I settle, probably in place, I can't remember. Then I do some stuff. Yes, stuff certainly happened. I can't precisely recall the exact stuffiness of the stuff that happened but it was definitely of a stuffy nature.

Accidental pumping of settlers

My first priority was to get a settler out next to those two cows. I reckon that with a bit of jiggery pokery that spot should lead to a pretty decent settler pump. Unfortunately I don't really understand such concepts so setting one up was going to prove difficult. Anyway after a while I noticed that Veil was churning out settlers every five turns (every four once I was in Republic). So, more by luck than judgement I had my settler pump.

Land Grab

Most of my ancient age was spent grabbing that vast expanse of territory with my freshly pumped settlers. The rest of the towns built warriors and barracks (not necessarily in that order, infact in precisely the opposite order). I think at this stage I'd got vague ideas about upgrading my stacks of warriors to Legionaries and then splatting my entire home continent. Obviously things didn't happen this way since I was entirely lacking the necessary cash to upgrade.

Republic Slingshot

Research was proving surprisingly easy so I made the slingshot. In fact I was generally ahead of my closest rivals (geographically) in the tech race, a position so uncommon for me it rather knocked me out of my stride.

Future plans

So I haven't really made much progress to any victory condition. I shall probably go for 100k since there's plenty of land on this here home continent and I should be in a rather dominant position. And because I'm not a fan of military campaigns.

Here's my empire a turn after the QSC:

And at the MAs:

 

[F-86 Sabre]

Hi folks. I'll come back later on and post my story, but first I have a question.

As I mentioned in the pregame thread, I'm a relative newbie. Could one of you define "republic slingshot" for me?

 

[denyd]

If you research alphabet (one of Rome's starting tech) to Writing to Code of Laws and then Philosophy, if you are the first to Philosophy your next selected tech will be free. By selecting Republic you'll be able to move from Despotism much earlier than most of the AI. You'll also have at least 2 monopoly techs including a government and that combination should allow you to be able to trade for most of the rest (if not all) of the Ancient Age techs.

 

[denyd]

Unlike most of the other posters, I plan on slicing and dicing my way to victory. This would be my first ever win with a Roman Tribe (Rome or Byzantium) in all of the XOTMs so far.

The QSC period was played peacefully and I finished with 6 towns and 2 settlers in motion. I had claimed silks, wines and was about to secure iron and horses. In the late BC, the Mongols became extinct. Before Genghis Khan could perform his usual act of treason, Hiawatha and I removed hiim from the board. The Mausoleum & Oracle we both in the Mongol capital and now belong to Rome. Dyes and a 2nd Iron source were also acquired. Both Rome and the Iroquois UUs had victories so both have had their Golden Age.

Next up will be the well contained Hittites. They also have a source of Iron (but no horses), so I'll be facing pikes. The Hittites built the Great Library, so I've slowed down my research a bit to get a couple of techs from it.

 

[Killer_Klein]

Two words and several explanations: Bloody Iroquois!!!!

Planned on going military early, I love doing that with Rome. I have two settler factors and Rome built warriors and spears to protect against barbs.

Plan was to big Legionary army and crush Mongols. They are the civ that always gives me the most problems, everyone has one and for me it's the Mongols. I was ready and then came the Iroquois, they attack me with a wave of Archers, fought them off and allied with the Mongols against them.

Fighting a war through territory sucked, took three cities, one crappy one, one eventually flipped to the Mongols and I waited out side Iroq Capital until they finished the Great Libary and took it.

Now, me and Mongols have large masses of troops at each other's borders, I have a huge number of Legionaries on the other side of their border sitting in the former Cap (which I starved down, take that). And me and good ol'Kahn have a RofP still and were all buddy, buddy.

Have an army, got it in the most innocent of ways. I had a Legionary on patrol for barb camps and it went elite and the Iroq dropped off a single archer behind the lines and bam! I have a leader, no where near it will do any good.

Iroq: No iron
Hitties: Beatdown early by the Mongols
Mongols: Looking for my knife and when he turns .....

Goals from here on out:

1: Meet other civs
2: Research to zero and let GLib do it's thing
3: Build army and sneak attack Mongols.

 

[F-86 Sabre]

If you research alphabet (one of Rome's starting tech) to Writing to Code of Laws and then Philosophy, if you are the first to Philosophy your next selected tech will be free. By selecting Republic you'll be able to move from Despotism much earlier than most of the AI. You'll also have at least 2 monopoly techs including a government and that combination should allow you to be able to trade for most of the rest (if not all) of the Ancient Age techs.

Wow, I wonder why I've never noticed that before! Thanks, I'll definitely give that a try next time I start a game.

 

[F-86 Sabre]

Here’s how things went for me up to the MA:

Rome was founded on the east side of that opening mountain range, Veii on the west side. Both towns were put to work building warriors, with the workers mostly mining.

I took too much time to figure out what I was going to go for, but otherwise things have gone well for my first Monarch game. I’ve dominated the top “lobe” of the continent and haven’t seen a barbarian in many turns. I am not building any wonders for now.

I fought an early war with the Mongols (initiated by them) that gained nothing significant for either of us. They’ve been friendly since, and so were the Iroquois and Hittites.

I did some exploring and city planting off-continent, but I was overreaching, as you’ll see later.

Eventually I decided on some warmongering and since I prefer to do it with lots of artillery, that meant the Hittites needed to be the first victim. There was no way I’d be able to schlep 20 trebuchets through marsh and jungle to get the Mongols or Iroquois. I moved those 20 trebuchets and a mess of knights, medieval infantry and a couple of legionaries (to trigger my GA) over to a town I’d founded on a peninsula sticking out from the Hittite area of the continent. I divided the stack in two and went to work. I took most of their cities on this continent, losing Ugarit in a counterattack. They returned the favor by taking three of my off-continent cities and calling in three off-continent civs as allies. That wasn’t bothering me (I even gave the Hittites Byzantium as a gift so I wouldn’t have to defend it against three enemy civs half a world away) but when the Iroquois came in on the Hittite side the offensive ground to a halt. I made peace with everybody.

I’m now preparing for Round Two with the Hittites (DING!) and expect to clean them off the continent. I should be able to do it before the Iroquois get involved assuming they would choose to do so. Right now I’m second in points behind an off-continent civ with lots of happy citizens, and taking out the Hitties will get me 3 free dyes. Once I’ve dealt with the Hittites, I will have to decide what approach I want to take from here:

1. Switch to Republic and focus on making up my tech lag, while going for diplo or science victory.

2. Switch to Republic and focus on making up my tech lag, then go to Communism and whittle away at the Iroquois and the other big dog with a domination victory in mind.

3. Stay in Monarchy, keep fighting and switch to Communism when it comes along. Consider a switch to Democracy later.

 

[SpiffyKeen7744]

In this game I went directly for the Republic slingshot (Writing, Code of Laws, and then Philosophy). I achieved this around 1300BC and was in Republic by 1200BC. While I was researching to The Republic, I managed to get other technologies through force and trading. I managed to get Bronze Working, The Wheel, Pottery, and Ceremonial Burial along with a Worker and 2g from the Mongols in 2070BC. How did I do this? I sent my first Warrior south and found the Mongol city of Kazan unguarded. So I took it in 2230BC and kept the Warrior around to pester the Mongols until I could make peace.

I saved Writing until just before researching Code of Laws. In 1525BC, I traded Writing for 80g, a Worker, Horseback Riding, Masonry, and Iron Working (from Mongols, Hittites, and Iroquois). When I completed the slingshot and entered The Republic a few turns later, Veii became a 4-turn settler factory. I researched Literature, Math, Currency, and Construction on my own and in that order. Along the way I traded for Mysticism, Polythesim, and Map Making. I entered the Middle Ages in 610BC with 4 Libraries and one more due in 2 turns. I had not started my Golden Age yet, and I was ahead in culture compared to the Mongols, Hittites, and Iroquois. I had 7 workers with the intention to get many more. My city count was 8 with one Settler ready and 2 Marketplaces half way done.

 

[Più Freddo]

Predator, going big

I researched Pottery before the sling-shot but still got this in 1250 BC, Republic in 1175 BC. I then researched Literature (1025 BC), which netted me Map Making and Mysticism and Mathematics (900 BC), which I traded around for cash. After that the AI was pretty useless, I researched my way into the Middle Ages myself: Currency (710 BC), Construction (470 BC) and Polytheism (370 BC).

The reason for Pottery was of course to set up a Settler Factory, which was finished in 1425 BC in Veii, my first satellite by the nearest Cattle. Through Anarchy which soon followed I had quite a lot of Scientists in Veii, then back to four-turn Settlers using fewer food bonuses.

Rome was building ten-turn Settlers together with the troops, Warriors for the defense and Archers for the offense, needed for handling the Barbarians.

It was interesting to share BGs and irrigated Grassland between these two strong cities and also to manage a Settler factory outside the Capital. I especially founded the other inner-ring cities slightly further away than Veii so as to keep corruption there at a minimum (only one shield per turn). Other cities also built Workers and Settlers since military was no use with such large distances to go and areas to cover.

By 1000 BC/QSC I had 9 cities, by 370 BC/MA 24.

Mongols declared war on us over The Republic which was convenient in order for them to kill off the remaining Barbarians between us including a Massive Uprising happening a few turns before I also entered the Middle Ages.

The plan is to attack Mongols with Archers, Legionaries and Horsemen, reseach to Chivalry in the Golden Age and then take Mongolia and the whole home continent with Knights. I want to finish the Forbidden Palace in Veii before I trigger the Golden Age.

Knights should arrive after the birth of Christ. But when will I finish a road through all those Jungles and Marshes?

 

[PaperBeetle]

Looking For a New Home
Moonsinger says "If you can't decide which way to go with your settler, you should settle in place." Well, PaperBeetle says "If you can't decide which way to go with your settler, you should wander around in a circular fashion until all locations look the same, and then settle in the one spot you thought wasn't as good as all the others."
Well, I was expecting there to be some food bonuses just out of sight somewhere (and I was right of course), so I go looking for them. After a couple of turns of just seeing more grasses and mountains, however, I decide to cut my losses, and settle in the same place as Nata; 2SW from the start. Oh right, there's the food bonus (game) just out of reach of my capital . I will be wanting Republic from the slingshot, so research is straight down the line to Laws.

Glacial Expansion
With no food bonus in the first town, and no Pottery for a granary, my expansion is agonizingly slow. Veii is built in 2750bc by the game, and Rome does another settler before concentrating on archers to keep the barbs in line. The next two cities go to the east, getting one food bonus each; the northernmost moo goes unclaimed for some time. I want all these food bonus towns to get granaries though, so I will need to acquire Pots from somewhere. Handily, I run into some expansionists down south; I meet Temu in 2430bc. He is two techs up on me, so no trading occurs, but I will get Writing soon.

Sorting Out the Tech Hole
I get Writing in 2310bc, and still Temu won't do any good trades. He doesn't value Writing very highly, and his price for Pots is way more than its beaker cost, so I figure I might as well research it myself. In 2230bc I meet Mursi, who also has Pots, so now the price comes down. A round of trading brings in Wheel, Pots and Bronze, and I find that I have relatively easy access to horses. Veii can now start its granary, but it has wasted a couple of turns of production, as well as a chop, by not having any better prebuild than a settler.
I meet Watha in 1950bc, but he brings no new techs to the party, so we are all equal on tech until the AI get Ironwork.

To the Slingshot
I reach Laws in 1475bc and trade it around for Burial, Ironwork, Masonry and everyone's cash. My peninsula has iron, so war shouldn't be too much of a problem. With iron I can make swords, and with horses I can make, uh, horses. If only I could find some way of combining these two technologies to make some kind of sword-horse, I would really be unstoppable! I tell my wise men to make a note of that, but for now they have other matters to attend to. Philosophy arrives in 1250bc and is immediately traded for Riding and Mapping, and by 1475bc, Rome is a Republic. This will let my food factories step up a gear; until now they have mainly been doing their granaries, which should have been built with lumber, except that I don't have enough workers to do the chopping. Poor planning...

QSC Stats
6 towns with 15 citizens and 79 tiles.
1 barracks, 3 granaries.
76 food in the bin, 49 shields in the box, 163g in the treasury.
1 settler, 4 workers, 1 slave, 3 axes (1 vet), 7 archers (vet), 1 spear (vet).
All ancient techs except Construction, Literature, Polytheism, Monarchy and Currency (79 beakers gathered).
3 contacts, no embassies.

 

[PaperBeetle]

The Glacier Melts
Now that I am in Republic and have three towns with food bonuses and granaries, I can start pushing settlers out rather faster. Compared to the creeping expansion of my QSC period, the rest of the ancient age sees a relative torrent of settlement, with one new town going up every two turns, on average. First I went west to claim the iron, then east, putting a town between the wine and the horses. The rest of the new settlements are founded according to where there settlers came from; the capital and game town sent citizens to settle further down the Tiber, and in the grasslands north of the two rivers. The moo and wheat towns sent their settlers to found around the lake, and in the eastern hills.

On Foreign Matters
I haven't been paying too much attention to my neighbours recently. Apparently frustrated by my stand-offishness, Mursi sends an envoy over to Rome to demand Republic from me. Obviously I laugh in face, and when he dows, I use some of my tech lead to buy the Mongols and Quois on to my side. I don't see any action at all in this war as Hittitia lies beyond Mongolia. Although Temu gives Mursi peace quite quickly (10 turns), Watha just keeps on brawling. Actually, this is a bit annoying... I don't want to throw my per-turn rep away over this, but I want peace by 590bc. The reason is that Mursi discovers Polytheism, which I would like to take from him. So I wait until the full 20 turns are up before cancelling the war deal with Watha, and giving Mursi peace. I trade for Polytheism to enter the medieval in 350bc.

Looking Forward
My plan for the immediate future is to research my way to Chivalry and Invention. I want to try out knights for a change, as I normally just steam on through to cavalry. Invention is for Leonardo, which will allow me to use disconnect/reconnect to generate a lot of knights once I have shut down research. So far there has been no sign of the other civs, although I do have a galley exploring an apparently uninhabited coastline somewhere off-continent...

 

[denyd]

Don't know about the rest of you, but I miss the normal second spoiler (Middle & Industrial Ages). I'm past the Ancient Era but not finished yet and have no chance to post heroic feats (numerous MGLs) or blunders (by the AI, who settled on a game tile).

 

[PaperBeetle]

Um, I feel a bit confused too, but I think they have dropped the third spoiler, not the second. The hover text on the COTM24 Final Spoiler says "to qualify for this spoiler, you must have reached the industrial".
I guess the idea is to increase the post density per thread, although I find it a bit daunting; my Egyptian medieval-finish spoiler will be so vast and so painful that I'm having trouble summoning the courage to write it.